The Fall of Five

“Geez, Sarah, you’re acting like he’s been chopped in half or something. He’ll probably pop awake in an hour and be mad they went on the mission without him.” I try to sound optimistic. Sarah is probably too tired to notice the uncertainty in my voice.



“If he was chopped in half, they could probably heal him,” she says. “This is something else. I can see the pain on his face. It’s like he’s being tortured in front of me and there’s nothing I can do about it.”



I pour Sarah a glass of water and take some leftover Chinese food out of the fridge. I don’t bother heating it up. We eat in silence, picking at cold fried rice and boneless spareribs straight from the cartons. I repeat the phrase he’ll be fine over and over in my head, like a mantra, until I’m confident that I can say it with conviction, even if I’m not entirely convinced it’s true.



“He’ll be fine,” I tell Sarah firmly.



While Sarah goes back to watch over John and Ella, I try to get some rest in the living room. I guess when you’ve just recently seen your best friend sucked into a state of perpetual sleep, naptime can be a little nerve-racking. Still, my body is more exhausted than my anxiety is strong, and I must fall asleep for at least a few hours.



The first thing I do upon waking up is check on John and Ella. There’s still no change.



I wander down to the Lecture Hall thinking that some kind of workout will do me good. Maybe if I pick out the noisiest guns in Nine’s arsenal to use in target practice, I’ll disrupt John and Ella’s slumber.



I stop through the workshop on my way. It’s empty. My dad must be in his room getting some rest.



The tablet is still plugged in and I can see that five blue dots have made it to Florida, currently moving slowly across the southern tip. That’s good. It means Six and the others didn’t have any problems using their new fake IDs at the airport and that there weren’t any Mogadorian scouts waiting to pick them off. Everything appears to be going just the way John planned. If only he was awake to see it.



I notice something blinking in the corner of one of the computer screens. It’s the translator program my dad set up. It must have been on autopilot this entire time. I restore the window, a dialogue box popping up.



TRANSLATION COMPLETE. PRINT NOW?



I swallow hard, not sure if it’s my place to be the first one viewing these Mogadorian translations, but clicking YES anyway. A printer beneath the desk hisses to life, spitting out the document. I grab the first page before the rest have even finished printing.



Some of the words are jumbled or mixed up, making it clear that the translation program is not 100 percent accurate. But even with the occasional misplaced word, I recognize the document immediately. I’ve seen it before.



I realize that I’m holding my breath, that my fingers have clenched the papers tight enough to wrinkle and bend them. I’m rooted in place, disbelief and fear shutting down my much-needed motor functions.



I’m holding in my hands a copy of the notes my father took on the Garde’s Inheritance. Tacked onto the end is the address of the John Hancock Center.



CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE



I BURST OUT OF THE WORKSHOP, THE DOOR sharply clanging behind me. My palms are sweating, almost like the documents I’m holding are radiating heat. My mind races.



What would the Mogadorians be doing with copies of my father’s notes? How would they even have gotten them?



I think back to dinner that first night when my dad laid out the details of his long Mogadorian imprisonment. I remember some of the Garde seeming suspicious, especially when my dad talked about the tinkering the Mogadorians did with his mind. Nine even came right out and said that it could be a trap.



But that wasn’t possible. He’s my father. We could trust him.



I race down the hallway to my dad’s room. I’m not even sure what I’m going to do when I find him. Confront him? Tell him we need to get the hell out of here?



His room is empty. I find myself taking a quick glance around, not even sure what I’m looking for. Some kind of Mogadorian communicator? A Mog-English dictionary? Nothing looks out of the ordinary.



There has to be a rational explanation for this, right?



Hadn’t I seen with my own eyes the kind of literal mind games the Mogadorians are capable of? I’d seen Adam use a Legacy that was apparently the side effect of the Mogs ripping out the memories from a dead Garde. Even now, John and Ella were comatose thanks to some telepathic assault perpetuated by Setrákus Ra. The Mogadorians held on to my dad for years and ran unspeakable experiments on his mind.



Was it really outside the realm of possibility that the Mogs could’ve brainwashed him?



My dad might not even be aware they’re controlling him. They might have done something to his brain and then let him escape on purpose, knowing that he’d be more valuable out in the world, gathering intelligence. The Mogs could’ve programmed him in a way that he’s secretly reporting to them while he sleeps—I remember reading something about how double agents could be hypnotized into forgetting their own subterfuge. Was that a real article or a comic book? I couldn’t remember.



Back in the hallway, I yell, “Dad? Where are you?” I try to keep my voice normal and steady. Because what if he is a Mogadorian spy? I don’t want to tip him off.



“In here,” my dad yells back from Ella and John’s room.



My dad the alien spy? Come on. Get a grip, Sam. That’s the kind of conspiracy theory I might’ve found in They Walk Among Us. It’s ridiculous. More importantly, I know in my heart that it isn’t true.



So why do I feel so nervous?



I stand in the doorway to Ella’s room clutching the translated documents. Sarah has gone to her own room to get some sleep, so it’s just him and Bernie Kosar standing watch over John and Ella. BK is curled up, asleep, my dad idly scratching behind his ears.



“What is it, Sam?” he asks.



My dad must know by my wide-eyed look that something’s wrong. He leaves BK and walks towards me, but I find myself stepping instinctively backwards into the hallway. I’m keeping a safe distance from the loving father who rescued me from a prison cell. Great.



I thrust the documents at him. “Why would the Mogadorians have these?”



He flips through the papers, turning the pages more rapidly as he realizes what they are. “These—these are my notes.”



“I know. How did the Mogadorians get their hands on them?”



He must realize the implication of my question because a hurt expression briefly clouds his face.



“Sam, I did not do this,” he says, trying to sound convincing, but there’s a note of uncertainty in his voice.



“Can you be sure? What if—what if they did something to you, Dad? Something that you don’t remember?”



“No. Impossible,” he says, shaking his head, almost as if he’s trying to convince himself. I can tell by his tone that he doesn’t truly believe it’s impossible. In fact, I think he’s frightened by the thought. “Are the originals still in my room?”



Together, we run back to his room. The notebook is on his bureau, right where it’s supposed to be. My dad flips through it, like he’s looking for some sign it’s been tampered with. His features tighten like they do when he’s trying to remember something. I think he’s realizing that he can’t trust himself, that the Mogadorians could’ve done something to him.



He turns to me with a grim look on his face. “If my notes have gotten into Mogadorian hands, we have to assume this place is compromised. You should arm yourself, Sam. Sarah too.”



“What about you?” I ask, my stomach turning over.



“I—I can’t be trusted,” he stammers. “You should lock me in here, until the Garde return.”



“There has to be another explanation,” I say, my voice cracking. I’m not sure if I really believe that or if I just want it to be true.



“I don’t remember leaving,” he says. “But I suppose my memory isn’t worth much, at this point.”



He drops heavily onto the bed in his room. He folds his hands in his lap and stares down at them. He looks defeated somehow, undermined by both his mind and his son.



I start towards the door. “Look, I’m going to go get Sarah and some guns. But I’m not going to lock you in here. Just stay here, okay?”



“Wait.” He stops me, holding up a hand. “What is that?”



I hear it too. A low rumbling sound, coming from the drawer of his nightstand. I get there first, flinging open the drawer.



It’s the phone he was using to communicate with Adam. The screen is lit up, a phone call coming in from a blocked number. In the corner of the screen, I see that the phone has nineteen missed calls. I hold it up to my father. His face lights up, but I feel increasingly nervous. Too much is happening all at once. It feels like the walls are closing in on me.



I hit the button and press the phone to my ear, my voice shaky. “Hello?”



“Malcolm!” the breathless voice on the phone shouts. “Where have you been?!”



“This is Sam,” I correct, a feeling of dread rising in my stomach as I recognize the voice. “Adam, is that you?”



My dad jumps up and squeezes my shoulders, excited that Adam is still alive. I wish I could feel relieved, but the way he sounds on the phone, it’s like more bad news is on the way.



“Sam? Sam! Where’s your father?”



“He’s—”



“Never mind! It doesn’t matter!” he shouts. “Listen to me, Sam. You’re in Chicago, right? The John Hancock Center?”



“How—how did you know that?”



“They know, Sam!” Adam yells. “They know and they’re coming for you!”



CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO



“HOLD ON!”



We all lurch to one side as Nine haphazardly steers our fan boat—exactly what it sounds like, a small boat propelled by a giant fan on the back—around an overturned log floating in the murky brown swamp water. Eight nearly loses his balance and has to grab on to my arm to steady himself. He flashes me a sheepish smile as he lets me go to swat a mosquito. The air is thick and humid, buzzing with insects that can be heard even above the roar of our boat’s propeller. This place smells of rich soil, of nature overgrown.



“Look at that!” Eight shouts to be heard over the boat. I peer over the side to where a massing of lily pads is disturbed by something drifting through the water. At first I think it’s another log, but then I notice the rough scales of a tail swaying across the water and know it’s an alligator. “Keep your hands inside the ride,” Eight yells.



I watch as the alligator disappears into an outgrowth of trees to our left. I can see why Five thought the Everglades would be a safe place to hide his Inheritance; it’s a maze of tall grasses and muddy water, deserted except for the bugs and the lurking animals.



We’re traveling down what is basically a road in the water, a place where the dense saw grass and trees that sprout up on either side of us part to allow boat traffic. Not that there’s anyone else out here—we haven’t seen a single human being since picking up our boat from the rental place an hour ago. Even that was just a ramshackle cabin stuck between the end of a country road and the edge of the swamp. We had our pick of three rusted fan boats lashed to the rickety dock. The solitary man living out there, sunburned and smelling like a combination of alcohol and jet fuel, hiccupped his way through a tutorial on boat operation before accepting some cash in exchange for a dog-eared map of the area and the keys to the boat. He didn’t ask any questions, which we were all thankful for.