SAM
THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHWEST MONTANA
SAM LOOKED AT THE THREE TEENAGERS WAITING for his instructions. “You guys ready to get out of here?”
“Is Six going to be okay?” Nemo asked.
“Sure she is,” Sam said. “She’s faced way worse than Dennings. I’d be more worried about him than her.”
Nemo snorted. “I don’t care what happens to him,” she said. “I hope Six beats his ass from one end of Montana to the other.”
“She just might,” said Sam, stifling a laugh.
“Okay, kiddies.” Dennings’s voice crackled through the barn. “Time to go. Good luck.” He laughed loudly, and then there was silence.
“Okay,” Sam said. “Let’s move. Remember the plan—we get down the mountain. That’s it. If we run into trouble, you let me handle it. And if for some reason we get separated, just keep going down. Get somewhere warm and dry, if you can. I can find you using your implants.”
“What if something happens to you?” Yo-Yo said. “Those hunters out there mean business.”
“The dude took down a Mogadorian warship,” Nemo said. “I think he’s got this.” She looked at Sam, who was surprised that she knew about that. “Nine told me.”
“You said there was an ATV, right?” Sam asked.
Rena nodded. “Back at the lodge.”
“That would make things a lot easier,” Sam said. “You three could take it and get out of here. Let’s try that first.”
He opened the barn door again, ready to leave. Before he could, an arrow embedded itself in the wood beside his head. Sam slammed the door.
“They found us,” Yo-Yo cried. “Now what?”
“Stay away from the windows,” Sam ordered. “Get into the back.”
Nemo, Yo-Yo, and Rena did as he said, crouching down and moving into the rear of the barn. Sam stayed where he was, surveying the contents of the barn. Mostly it was just junk. But there were some tools—hoes, rakes, an axe—that could be used as weapons. Except that the people out there have a crossbow, he thought.
He risked a peek out one of the windows. The moonlight revealed nothing. But of course the people hunting them would stay hidden. Were they just going to wait out Sam and the others? Or were they planning something else?
He got down and retreated to the back of the barn, where he found Rena, Yo-Yo, and Nemo busily assembling something that looked vaguely like a large human figure made of boards, tools, and other things.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nemo had an idea,” Rena said.
“You know how Rena makes things come alive?” said Nemo as she used rope to affix a rusty sickle to the end of a broom handle. “Well, I thought we could make a kind of doll, and she could animate it.”
The figure had a scarecrow-like appearance, an assemblage of odds and ends. And Sam was doubtful that it would even stand up successfully, let alone move.
“I’ve never done it with something this big,” Rena said. “But I can try.”
A faint thwacking sound came from outside.
“Why are they shooting arrows into the side of the barn?” Nemo wondered.
“As a warning?” Rena suggested.
Yo-Yo pointed to the nearest window. “No,” he said. “To set it on fire.”
Flames reflected in the window glass crackled eerily, and smoke drifted across the panes. The fire caught quickly, licking around the window frames.
“This place is going to go up fast,” Sam said. “Especially if there really are explosives rigged. We need to get out.”
Nemo stood back, looking at the Frankenstein’s monster they’d created. “It needs a head,” she said.
Yo-Yo pointed to the mounted head of a black bear that sat atop a stack of wooden crates. “How about that?”
A window shattered as a flaming arrow pierced it and flew into a pile of cardboard boxes. The dry material burst into flame, which crawled hungrily up the sides.
“It’ll have to do,” said Rena, helping Yo-Yo drag the bear head down. They tied the head to the rake handle neck, where it hung heavily.
“All right,” Yo-Yo said to Rena. “Do your thing. It’s getting real smoky in here.”
Rena took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and held her hands out over their creation. Nothing happened. She wiggled her finger like Sam had seen her do in her videos, pretending to sprinkle magical dust over the lifeless form. Still nothing.
“I think it’s too big,” Rena said, frustration edging her voice.
“You can do it, Rena,” said Nemo. “Picture it getting up and breaking out of here.”
Rena tried again. Sam could see the strain in her face as she attempted to raise the creature. The heat and smoke were building up in the barn, and he knew they had only another minute or two before they would have to make a run for it. He was about to tell Rena to give up.
Then there was the scraping of metal on metal. One of the scarecrow’s arms moved, lifting off the ground and rubbing against its snow-shovel leg. Rena gasped, and the arm clattered back to the ground.
“It’s working!” Yo-Yo said. “Keep going!”
“It’s hard,” Rena said. “I can feel it draining the power out of me.” But again she concentrated, this time holding her hands out with the palms facing the creature.
It moved. Tried to sit up. With no knees, it was struggling. Nemo and Sam went to it and lifted it. The thing towered over them and wobbled as they tried to steady it. Then it suddenly seemed to find its feet. Sam and Nemo let go, and it stood on its own.
“Can you make it walk?” Sam asked Rena.
The girl nodded, clearly already worn-out. The bear-headed thing moved, its makeshift limbs animated by her Legacy. It ambled towards the barn doors, passing through the smoke without stopping. Sam and the others followed, with Nemo and Yo-Yo helping Rena walk while focusing her attention on the giant figure.
Sam unblocked the barn door. “Stand away,” he told the others. “Once this opens, all hell will break loose out there.”
The others did as he said. Only the cobbled-together beast remained next to Sam. “When I open the door, send it out,” Sam told Rena. “And whatever you can make it do, do it.”
He opened the door using his telekinesis. Then Rena worked her magic, and the thing went striding out of the barn. Sam motioned for the others to come with him.
Outside, the two hunters had emerged from hiding, thinking that they were going to pick off their quarry easily. Instead, they found themselves confronted by something out of a horror film. Confused, they just stood there, looking at the thing coming towards them.
A spark flew from the burning barn and lit on the handle of the scythe that formed one of the arms. It started to burn. As if feeling it, the creature lifted its arm in the air and began to swing it from side to side.
“Come on,” Sam said to the others, using the distraction as cover to make an escape.
Yo-Yo and Nemo followed him as he ran for the cover of the woods. But Rena remained standing behind the monster. Sam stopped and turned to go back for her, then paused. Backlit by the burning barn, Rena looked like some kind of sorcerer commanding her creation to do her bidding. She raised her hands, and the scarecrow moved with her. It was burning now, too, and probably wouldn’t last much longer.
Rena pushed her hands out, as if shoving the giant thing, and it took a step towards the hunters. Startled out of their initial shock, they began shooting wildly, the arrows cutting through string and wood. One of the creature’s legs buckled, and for a moment it seemed about to come apart. But it held, and took another step.
“What the hell is this thing?” the man shouted to the woman beside him.
She didn’t answer. But the bear-headed thing did. It swung its scythe arm again. This time it connected with the man’s neck, slicing through it as if cutting down a stalk of corn. His body slumped to the ground while his head rolled away across the snow, leaving a bloody trail.
Rena sank to her knees. The creature listed. Sam ran to Rena and picked her up, dragging her away as the thing she had been commanding fell apart, its rope tendons shredding as the fire destroyed them. It toppled onto the woman, who screamed as she fell to the ground under the rain of farm implements and wood.
“Can you walk?” Sam asked Rena.
The girl nodded but didn’t speak. She and Sam rejoined Nemo and Yo-Yo.
“That was amazing,” Nemo told Rena as the four of them began to move towards the lodge and the waiting ATV.
“I could feel it,” Rena said weakly. “It wanted to fight. It did exactly what we built it to do.”
“Talk later,” Sam said. “We need to find that four-wheeler.”
When they got to the lodge, Sam looked for the ATV. He found it right where Nemo and Rena had told him it would be. Staying under cover of the trees, he connected with the machine and started it, directing it to drive over to where they were hiding.
“Who knows how to drive one of these?” Sam asked.
“I do,” said Yo-Yo. “My cousin has one we drive around out in the country.”
“Get on,” Sam said.
Yo-Yo swung his leg over the seat of the four-wheeler. Sam instructed the engine to start, and it revved to life. “Rena and Nemo, you’re riding shotgun,” he said.
Rena was seated, and Nemo was about to get on when Sam felt a stabbing pain in his leg and his knee buckled. Looking down, he saw the fletched end of an arrow protruding from his thigh.
“Go!” Sam yelled at Yo-Yo, who wasted no time taking off. Sam grabbed Nemo’s wrist and hobbled away, pulling her with him into the darkness. Ignoring the burning sensation radiating through his leg, he limped on, but every step was torture.
“We need to stop,” Nemo said.
“We can’t,” Sam said. “She’ll know we didn’t all get away, and she’ll be coming for us.”
“Well, we can’t move fast enough with you hurt,” Nemo said. “We’re going to have to figure something out.”
Sam thought. He tried to remember what he knew about the lodge and the surrounding area from the aerial photographs McKenna had sent them.
“There’s a lake,” he said. “On the other side of the lodge. They use it for fishing.”
“How far?” Nemo asked.
“Not close,” said Sam. “But I think I can make it.”
“And what do we do when we get there?”
“There might be a small cabin,” said Sam. “Someplace to hide.”
Nemo nodded. She put her arm around Sam’s waist, and he threw his arm around her shoulders. Moving as quickly as he could, they headed in the direction of the lake. It was slow going, and at any moment Sam expected the remaining hunter to show up, but for some reason, she didn’t. This worried Sam almost more than if she had, but he pressed on, hoping their luck would hold out.
When they came to the lake, they were disappointed. There was no cabin. However, out on the frozen surface of the water was a fishing hut. It would have to do.
Carefully, Sam and Nemo stepped out onto the ice. Using a sliding technique, they edged farther out, shuffling across the snow-dusted surface.
“Is it going to hold?” Nemo asked.
“It should,” Sam said. “Otherwise the fishing hut wouldn’t be there.”
They were about twenty yards from shore, and the fishing hut was still impossibly far off, when a voice called to them.
“Not the smartest place to go,” the woman called out.
Sam and Nemo stopped. They turned and looked at the shadowy figure watching them from the shore.
“That was some trick you pulled back at the barn,” the woman said. “Impressive. But I don’t see any—whatever that was—to help you here.”
Sam’s heart sank. She was right. He had made a choice, and it was the wrong one.
“Let her go,” he shouted. “She’s just a girl.”
“How noble of you,” the woman said. “But I paid for her, and I’m going to take her. If nothing else, it’s payback for what you did to William.”
“I wish I had a different Legacy,” Nemo muttered. “If I could make fireballs like Yo-Yo, I’d toast her ass.”
Sam, looking down, had an idea. “You’ve got exactly the Legacy we need,” he said. He concentrated on the ice, focusing his telekinetic ability and envisioning tiny cracks forming underneath them. He couldn’t break the ice itself—it was too thick—but he could manipulate it a little bit. He heard the ice creak and groan. It was working.
Next, he focused on the water, drawing it up into the tiny fissures he’d made. The ice cracked loudly.
“What are you doing?” Nemo whispered. “We’re going to fall through!”
“Exactly,” Sam said. “And when that happens, you do your thing and swim for the fishing hut. There should be a hole in the ice.”
“What about you? You can’t breathe underwater.”
“Well, you’d better swim fast,” Sam said. Then, shouting for the benefit of the woman on the shore, he said, “The ice is giving way!”
The ice splintered. A hole appeared, and Sam and Nemo fell through it into the frigid waters of the lake. Sam had taken a breath before plunging in, but the shock of the cold almost forced it out of his lungs. His fingers clung tightly to Nemo’s sleeve as they sank deeper into the dark water.
He forced himself to kick his legs. The pain was excruciating, but the icy water dulled it somewhat. Together, they swam up until their heads bumped against the ice. The full moon penetrated the inches of frozen water, but just barely, and Nemo and Sam moved through a twilight world of hazy shapes and bubbles as he took them towards what he hoped was the fishing hut.
More quickly than he had expected, his air began to run out. His lungs ached, and he found himself instinctively trying to breathe. His mouth flooded with water. He choked and panicked, pushing a hand against the ice in desperation. Then Nemo pulled him to herself. Her mouth found his, and she blew air into his lungs. He gasped, choked again, pushed down the feeling of drowning. He had air.
Now that he was able to think, he reached out with his technopathy, searching the fishing hut. To his relief, he sensed a battery-operated light inside. He turned it on. Not far away, a small spot of light appeared in the water. He and Nemo swam for it. Then Sam’s head pushed up and through a hole in the ice.
Sam pulled himself out, flopping onto the floor of the fishing hut. Nemo’s head popped up a moment later. Sam knelt and helped pull her through.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Nemo said.
“It almost didn’t,” said Sam. “Thanks for the air. Now let’s hope that woman believes we drowned.”
“I guess we can always go back down and swim the other way if she does,” Nemo said. She looked around. “Think there are any blankets in this thing?”
Sam indicated two thick wool sweaters and two pairs of overalls that were hanging on pegs beside the hut’s door. “How about those?” he said.
Nemo took one of the sweaters down and started taking off her wet clothes.
Sam shut his eyes. When he opened them again a minute later, Nemo was dressed in the sweater and overalls. She had also found a pair of boots to put on. All of it was too big for her, and she looked like a kid playing dress-up as a fisherman.
“Now you,” Nemo said.
“I can’t get my pants off with this thing there,” Sam objected, pointing to the arrow that still protruded from his calf.
“That’s what this is for,” Nemo said, holding up a fishing knife she’d found.
She cut Sam’s pants around the arrow. She removed his boot and sock and slid the severed portion of his pants off.
“Now for the fun part,” she said. “I saw this in a movie once. It might hurt a little.”
It hurt a lot. Sam ground his teeth together to keep from screaming as Nemo sawed with the knife on the arrow’s shaft. Then she used her hands to break off the barbed tip. Finally, she yanked the arrow backwards through his leg. But it came out cleanly, and there was very little blood. Nemo took a piece of cloth she found in a bucket and inspected it. “Not too many fish guts on here,” she said, wrapping it tightly around Sam’s leg and knotting it.
She helped him take off the rest of his clothes, until he was down to his boxers. Then she discreetly turned around while he took those off, too, and wrestled himself into the overalls and sweater. He smelled like a pile of trout, but he was dry and warm.
“Now what?” Nemo asked.
Sam eased aside a curtain and carefully peered out the window. There was still no sign that the woman was coming after them. Next, he checked the pockets of his wet pants. His phone was gone, probably lost during the fall into the lake. But McKenna knew where they were. He would send help. What was important was that Yo-Yo and Rena had (he hoped) gotten away and that he and Nemo were safe for the moment.
He sat down on a wooden box. “Now, we wait,” he said.