HOW THE WAR BEGINS
ENGELBERG, SWITZERLAND
LATER ON, MOST PEOPLE WILL POINT TO THE MAYHEM in California as the start of the war between the Garde and humanity.
They’re wrong.
It really started in Engelberg.
“Ma’am, we can’t let you and your . . . kids up there,” the soldier said, with a skeptical glance into the car. “There’s an avalanche advisory. Whole town has been evacuated.”
Agent Walker fumed. She sat behind the wheel of the SUV they had hurriedly rented in Zurich, fresh after teleporting in. Well, not so fresh. The Loralite stone was located in a small cave adjacent to the Rhine Falls—another rock outcropping unknown to the world except to Rabiya. Ran wondered how much Loralite there was blossoming ever upward from the earth.
They’d gotten soaked by freezing spray on the hike from the waterfalls to Zurich and their clothes were still stiff, despite running the heat nonstop for the ninety-minute drive south to Engelberg. That whole episode had earned Rabiya a cussing out from Walker. Ran enjoyed that; she liked seeing the older woman miserable.
Of course, Kopano had called the waterfall “refreshing.” Always so positive. It made Ran grind her teeth, except when his cheer also annoyed Walker.
It struck Ran that Walker thought this whole Rabiya thing was just a wild-goose chase, that the girl was simply using them to get away from her controlling father. Ran wasn’t entirely convinced of the girl’s intentions either. But she certainly didn’t mind seeing Walker made to sweat a little.
When they hit the roadblock heading to Engelberg, though, that’s when Walker started to believe. What kind of public-safety patrol wore body armor?
“By whose authority are you keeping us from passing?” Walker asked the guy manning the barricade.
He squinted at her. “Lady, by whose authority are you asking me questions? Get outta here.”
“Why does he sound American?” Kopano, sitting in the passenger seat, murmured so only the people in the car could hear.
“These men are Blackstone,” Rabiya whispered. “We must get through them if you want to get to Einar.”
The guards suddenly jerked away from their car. There were loud noises coming from up the road. Ran knew that sound.
Gunfire.
“Seriously, lady,” the guard said, turning back to Walker even as he unbuckled a buzzing walkie-talkie from his belt. “Turn around before something bad happens to you.”
“Okay, okay,” Walker said meekly. She rolled up her window and put the car in reverse. “Ran?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to need you to blow up that barricade.”
Ran picked up a stone from a small pile that she’d collected at the waterfall. She charged it with her Legacy, the crimson glow lighting the interior of the car and reflecting in her eyes.
“As you wish.”
Nigel’s first reaction when Einar’s artificial calm broke was to cackle. The bloody ponce. Delivering his addled revolutionary speech into a cell phone camera like some John Smith knockoff and then he goes and gets his lights turned out by Caleb.
It was the most wonderful thing Nigel had ever seen.
There wasn’t enough time to savor the moment. Einar’s henchwoman—he’d called her Duanphen—was nearly back to their busted-ass ship, dragging Bea by her arm.
“Oi, world’s least-chill Buddhist!” Nigel shouted, his words carrying sharply into Duanphen’s ears so that her shoulders bunched and she flinched. “Bring back my evil mother!”
Duanphen spun to face him. Nigel lashed out with his telekinesis, mustering as much force as he could. He shoved her to the ground and Bea with her.
He saved their lives. Because that’s when the cross fire started.
Sydal’s men shot first, covering their boss’s retreat into his idiotic flying saucer. A pair of bullets struck the mercenary nearest to Nigel, thudding into his body armor and knocking him off his feet. Too close.
The mercenaries fired back, their blasters sending sizzling bolts of energy towards Sydal’s men. One dropped, his black suit scorched through. The rest were protected by a sudden flash of silver light that manifested a waist-high wall of rock. That would be Daniela, using her Legacy.
With the advantage of cover, Sydal’s men returned fire and sent the Blackstone mercenaries scrambling for the nearby fountain. Nigel felt something like a beesting on his shoulder and glanced down. He’d been grazed.
Taylor tackled him to the ground. Only seconds had passed since he knocked down Duanphen and Bea, but that seemed like an eternity when guns were blazing.
“This is a damn shit show,” he said to Taylor.
“I’ve been in way too many shoot-outs lately,” Taylor replied. “What do we do?”
Nigel glanced across the field. Duanphen and Bea were still down. The Garde had her head perked up, waiting for a break in the shooting to move. Bea lay there cowering with her hands over her head.
He sighed. “Gotta save my bloody mum. She’s probably Satan herself, but I can’t let these muppets take her.”
“You don’t need to explain,” Taylor replied. “I’ll take down the shooters.”
“You get that tracker in your arm working?”
“Yeah,” Taylor replied. “Help is on the way, hopefully.”
“Good on ya,” Nigel said. He squeezed her arm. “Right, then. Don’t die, love.”
“You neither.”
As the shooting started, Isabela grabbed Caleb around the neck and pulled him off the unconscious Einar. They fell backwards and Isabela wrapped her legs around Caleb’s torso, squeezing him tight. She was choking him.
“Look what you did, babaca!” she yelled. “We had them. We had them!”
Caleb’s duplicates reached down and pried Isabela’s arm out from under his chin. Then, a dagger of blaster fire created a hole in one of their chests, the clone vanishing into thin air. Caleb and Isabela both ended up scrambling for cover behind Daniela’s newly formed wall. Isabela used her telekinesis to pull Einar’s limp body with them.
“I can’t believe you’re on his side,” Caleb said to her.
“I’m not! I mean—” Isabela punched the ground. “I don’t know!”
“You were just choking me.”
“I’m sorry,” Isabela replied. She reached out and touched Caleb’s cheek. “I thought you were going to kill him.”
“I’m not the killer,” Caleb snapped. “He’s—he almost murdered Nigel.”
“He thought Nigel worked for the Foundation,” Isabela replied. “You don’t know how deep their corruption goes. That little slug you’re here protecting, he doesn’t care about us, Caleb. At least Einar, at least he’s one of us—”
Caleb looked around. Their wall was getting pelted by blaster fire by the Blackstone mercenaries, but it was holding. Sydal’s guards were returning fire. Melanie crouched nearby still holding that briefcase, her eyes panicked. Daniela was next to her.
Sydal was gone. He had fled back into the ship.
“We can’t let them kill each other,” Caleb said.
“Why not?” Isabela replied.
Before Caleb could respond, a loud roar pierced the air.
Five was back.
He landed feetfirst on one of Sydal’s guards, crunching him up against Daniela’s wall. The burly Loric looked down, saw that Einar was beat-up and unconscious, and his face curled. Two blaster beams fired by the mercenaries struck Five in the chest but did nothing except leave scorch marks on his steel-plated skin.
The last of Sydal’s guards tried to get his gun pointed at Five, but was far too slow. Five used his telekinesis to bend the gun into a pretzel around the man’s hand, then punched him with enough force to knock three of his teeth out.
Five looked at Isabela.
“Where’s Sydal?”
She pointed inside the saucer.
“Good.” He pointed at Einar. “Watch him.”
Five stalked towards the entrance ramp.
Three Calebs stood in his way.
Taylor scrambled on her belly from her exposed position to where the rest of the mercenaries were taking cover. While these guys were obviously used to being under fire, they had less experience operating without a commanding officer. Taylor thought the XO was still alive after Five landed on him, but he was in no shape to lead.
“Jesus Christ!” one of them shouted. “Someone secure the asset!”
One of the soldiers leaped out of cover, firing wildly at Sydal’s guards, and then grabbed Taylor by her coat and hustled them both behind the fountain. Bullets whizzed by overhead, chipping away at the granite basin. A few of them returned fire while the others bickered.
“We need to get the XO! Check if he’s still alive!”
“No! He would want us to protect Barnaby. If she gets taken . . .”
“Hell with her, I’m not fighting that goddamn Lori—”
With her telekinesis, Taylor pulled the trigger on one of the blasters, firing it into the legs of the men shooting at Sydal’s guards. They screamed and collapsed as their body armor melted into their knees.
Taylor felt a pang of guilt. She’d fought alongside these guys, maybe even saved their lives before.
But they were on the wrong side.
“What the hell?” One of the standing mercenaries shouted at the one who’d done the shooting. The shooter stared down at his weapon, looking completely baffled. Before he could respond, the first soldier smashed him across the face with the butt of his rifle.
Another, standing nearby, stared at Taylor. He pointed.
“Wait! It’s her! It’s her!”
Taylor telekinetically yanked his weapon away as far as she could with the tether, pulled it taut, and used it to clothesline the nearest soldier.
The last one standing lunged at her. Taylor had to resort to more physical tactics. She kicked him in the groin, then swept out his legs. A move that Isabela had taught her. Before he hit the ground, Taylor telekinetically grabbed his rifle and smashed it into his face.
“You—you’re supposed to be on our side,” one of the wounded mercenaries mumbled.
Before they could regain any footing, Taylor focused on their weapons and bent the barrels down so they weren’t usable.
“Stay down,” she said. “And maybe I’ll heal you when this is over.”
Five plodded forward, two of Caleb’s duplicates clinging to his legs. He stomped down on one, crushing its head and causing it to vanish. He snarled and picked up the other one just as Daniela unleashed a torrent of stone-vision in his direction. Five used the clone as a shield, then slung the chunk of rock back in Daniela’s direction.
“Get out of my way,” he growled.
“I can’t do that,” Caleb responded. He stood on the ramp to Sydal’s saucer, the last line of defense.
Five moved closer. In response, Caleb unleashed a trio of new duplicates to tangle him up. Five yanked at him with his telekinesis; Caleb pushed back and remained unmoved. He was drenched with sweat from the exertion of churning out the copies. Five dispatched them easily.
“You think that man cowering in there would protect you?” Five yelled as he smashed his steel-plated fist down on a Caleb’s head.
Caleb kept his mouth shut. Focused.
He knew the answer to Five’s question was no, just like he knew that Five would eventually break through the duplicates and reach him. But still, he had to fight.
Behind them, against the wall, Isabela was trying to wake up Einar. Caleb couldn’t wrap his head around that girl’s motivations. He wasn’t sure she even knew herself.
Five broke a duplicate over his knee. Caleb replaced it.
To his left, Daniela got woozily back to her feet. She was bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Five had clipped her with the rock he’d thrown at her. Melanie was there to help her up.
“Daniela,” she said, eyes wide, this whole thing too surreal for her. She’d done nothing but take cover since the fighting started. “You’re bleeding.”
Daniela slapped her across the face. Hard.
“Bitch, you have superstrength!” Daniela shouted at Melanie. “Help us fight him!”
Caleb heard a clanking noise behind him, but didn’t have time to react before the ramp was pulled out from under him. He fell to the ground and rolled as the entryway was retracted back into Sydal’s saucer. The magnate had sealed himself up in there.
And he’d caused Caleb to land right at Five’s feet.
Five pulled him up with his telekinesis before Caleb could stop him, and he grabbed him around the throat. Caleb’s team of duplicates tried to pull him free to no avail.
“You should’ve listened,” Five said almost sadly before clubbing Caleb across the face with his metal hand.
Caleb saw a flash of light and tasted blood. He lost control of his duplicates and fell face-first to the ground, his jawbone snapped in two places.
With the shooting stopped, Nigel was free to run full speed at the girl dragging away his mother. She was nearly to their ramshackle Skimmer. Duanphen’s stride was purposeful, her grip tight on Bea’s upper arm.
His intention was to take her by surprise. He aimed his shoulder for the space between her shoulder blades, an old-fashioned rugby tackle.
But Duanphen had worked security for years. She knew when a threat was bearing down on her.
At the last second, she ducked and let Nigel stumble by her. She reached out and brushed her fingers against his neck, sending a mild electric charge through him.
“Gah!” Nigel yelped, arching his back. He put himself between Duanphen and the ship. “What’ve you got? Legacies of an eel?”
“Mm,” Duanphen replied, stone-faced. She shoved Nigel’s mother to the ground and took up her Muay Thai stance. “I am not here to fight you.”
“Then don’t,” Nigel replied. “But I can’t let you take my mom.”
“I know your mother. I knew your father,” Duanphen said. “Perhaps better than you do, I think.”
“You a therapist, too?”
“They are not worth fighting for,” Duanphen said. “Let justice be done.”
Nigel took in a huge breath of air, readying a scream.
That’s when Sydal’s ship lifted off.
Einar came awake slowly. His face hurt. It felt like his nose was broken, his lip split, and one of his eyes was swollen half-shut. He’d never been beaten up before.
“Unacceptable,” he said, the word coming out garbled.
The first thing he noticed was Caleb, sprawled out in the grass just a few yards from him. Like Einar, Caleb’s face was a bloody mess. Einar couldn’t exactly remember the last few minutes, but maybe he’d done that in some kind of adrenaline surge. Given back to Caleb a beating just as hearty as the one he’d endured.
No. Unlikely.
Isabela knelt over Caleb, stroking his hair, shielding him from the battle still going on. Einar’s head swam. He needed to rejoin the fray, but couldn’t focus yet. For the moment, he watched, playing possum.
There was Five. He must’ve been the one to take down Caleb.
A good friend, that one.
A shadow fell across Einar. Sydal’s ship was taking off, the saucer wobbling into the air with a burst of thruster power.
Damn it. They’d failed.
Five didn’t give up easily. He roared in frustration as the ship lifted off, and attempted to fly after it, but a beam of silver energy crackled forth and hit his feet. In the blink of an eye, Five was connected to the ground by a stalagmite of stone, courtesy of Daniela.
So Earth Garde was still in the fight. Not good.
Five bellowed—half floating and half suspended by Daniela’s rock. He was forced to double over and pound away at the craggy snare, trying to break his legs free.
That’s when Melanie sprang into action. Of course Einar had noticed the so-called face of Earth Garde when his squad first showed up. As expected, she shrank away from actual conflict. And yet, there she was, charging towards Five with a scream. She swung the briefcase that Sydal had collected from Barnaby like a wrestler would wield a steel chair.
Melanie might not have been much of a fighter, but she was strong. Really strong. And apparently motivated. Even with his metal-plated skin, the blow sent Five’s head jerking hard backwards. The reinforced case broke open from the impact, spilling some strange vials onto the ground. Five slumped, hanging from Daniela’s stone growth by his ankles. He groaned, not quite unconscious, but close.
Melanie reared back for another swing, but stopped before connecting. She turned around slowly. She had been so focused on psyching herself up to attack Five that she’d completely missed the fact that Sydal was leaving without her.
“Wade? Wade—wait!” As Einar watched, Melanie’s face crumpled in a mixture of shock and dejection. “Where—where is he going?” She put both of her hands in her hair, pulling it, and looked imploringly at an equally surprised Daniela. “He’s—he’s just leaving us?”
Einar snorted. Their plan might’ve failed, but at least he got to see the figurehead of Earth Garde realize just how little humanity cared about her
Isabela looked in his direction, realizing that he was awake. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it. She didn’t alert the others that he was conscious.
She was giving him a chance to retreat. Einar intended to take it.
Einar stumbled unsteadily to his feet. He looked at Five, still trapped in rock, only semi-awake. There was nothing Einar could do for him. He needed to save himself.
With Daniela and Melanie still distracted by Sydal’s departure, he scrambled towards his Skimmer.
Duanphen was too fast for Nigel. As he was about to scream at her, she lunged forward and clamped a hand tightly over his mouth.
“Please don’t,” she said. “My ears are still ringing from the last time.”
She hooked her arm through his, bending it at the elbow. Nigel grunted in pain, felt the electric tickle of her palm against his lips.
Nigel’s eyes darted around. His mom was on her hands and knees, breathing hard. No help there.
But here was Taylor, running across the battlefield towards them. Duanphen hadn’t seen her yet.
Suddenly, Taylor flipped up in the air and came crashing down on her shoulder. It was like someone had chopped her legs right out from under her.
Einar. Great.
The Icelandic psycho staggered towards them. Blood coated the lower half of his face, the skin above pale, making him look like a zombie.
“Duanphen!” he shouted. “Get Mrs. Barnaby and let’s—”
He was cut off by a high-pitched whistle.
A missile. Its smoky tail leaving a trail that led back to the cable car.
Nigel knew his mom had posted someone up there. Someone with a bloody rocket.
They all stopped to watch the impending destruction.
It wasn’t heading for their battlefield, though.
The rocket made a fiery red-and-orange blossom when it struck Sydal’s saucer. The silver disk teetered, wobbled back and forth, black smoke snaking up from its engine. Then, with a burst of crimson light from the thrusters, a second explosion split the craft in two, the glittering chunks crashing down into the Alps.
“We . . . ,” Einar breathed. “We are going to be blamed for this.”
Nigel turned to look at his mother in horror. This was her plan.
She had arranged to make this deal with Sydal—a powerful man, a public figure, a supposed ally of Earth Garde.
And at the same time, she’d been dropping breadcrumbs for Einar, luring him here.
She had engineered this whole confrontation to kill Sydal. But why?
What had she said before?
There were fortunes to be made through chaos.
Bea wasn’t on the ground anymore. She wasn’t cowering. In fact, while all the others had been distracted by the missile strike, she had drawn a small pistol from inside her coat.
The pistol she used to shoot Einar in the throat.