Rise of the Elgen Page 11

  “We’ll call,” he said. “There’s a lot of preparation that needs to happen first.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. Could be a few days, could be a few weeks.”

  “A few weeks?”

  “This will take some planning. We need to get you as close as possible without them knowing. Be ready and wait for our call.”

  He put the hard drive in his bag and locked it. Jack returned the man’s guns. He put them back in their holsters, then walked to the door. “Be ready.”

  He saluted me, opened the door, then walked out to his van.

  The days we spent waiting for the phone call felt like an eternity. Ian, Zeus, McKenna, Abigail, and Grace didn’t have to worry about being recognized in public, but we were pretty sure the Elgen were still lurking about, so they hid out as well. For the next week we mostly sat around the house playing cards and video games or watching television.

  We also practiced our powers. My electricity had, as Ostin theorized, continued to increase. So had my magnetism. I was doing things that surprised me. After my first full day of practice, I pulled a bicycle over to me in Mitchell’s garage from more than twenty feet away and, even more difficult, opened the refrigerator door from the kitchen table. I have to admit that magnetism was way more fun than shocking people, because it looked like magic and no one got hurt. By carefully varying my power I was even able to levitate objects. I started moving everything I could and quickly learned my own limitations. Magnetism is not like in the superhero movies. I couldn’t pull a car toward myself, because a car weighs more than I do. I just ended up pulling myself to the car.

  I wasn’t the only one practicing my powers. One day McKenna got hot enough that she burned through some carpet and got a lecture from Mitchell, who was certain his parents would think he was smoking.

  Taylor was practicing too. We were sitting around the pool when she showed me one of her new tricks.

  “Are you still going to kiss me?” she asked.

  I looked around, feeling a little confused. I couldn’t remember what we were talking about or even offering her a kiss. “Sorry.” I leaned forward and kissed her.

  She laughed as she pulled away. “I’m sorry, but you said you wanted a demonstration.”

  “I wanted a demonstration of what?”

  She cocked her head to one side.

  “Did you just reboot me?”

  She nodded. “You asked me to. I’ll remind you of what we were talking about. Watch.” She turned to Wade, who was standing a few yards from us holding a piece of pizza in his hand. She put one hand to her temple. Wade paused midbite, then looked up with a dazed expression.

  “Well?” Taylor said to him.

  He looked at her with a blank gaze. “What?”

  “Are you still going to give me that piece of pizza?”

  He glanced around. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He walked over and held out the piece to Taylor.

  “You can keep it,” she said. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “Thanks,” he said, looking even more confused than before.

  She turned to me and grinned. “See? That’s the second time I’ve made him do that. You just don’t remember the first time. And that’s how I got you to kiss me. I’ve discovered that people are especially vulnerable to suggestion after I reboot them. The more confused they are, the more willing they are to believe others.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Like, if you’re lost, you’ll trust a complete stranger to tell you where to go.”

  “Exactly. I’m also getting better at rebooting too. Watch this.”

  She focused on Mitchell, who was standing next to Jack on the opposite side of the pool. Suddenly he put his hands to his temples and groaned. “Ow.”

  “I can fill their heads so they can’t think at all. It gives them a little headache. I think if I did it really hard, I could make someone faint.”

  “That could come in handy,” I said.

  “I’m going to keep working on it.”

  “I’ve been working on something too,” I said. “Want to see?”

  “Yeah.”

  I held my hand out toward Mitchell. My hand began shaking. Mitchell started to walk sideways toward the edge of the pool, as if he was being dragged, which, incidentally, he was.

  “Hey, what the . . .”

  Then he fell into the water. He popped up to the surface, sputtering and flailing. “Who pushed me?” he shouted. “Who pushed me?”

  Jack was laughing. “No one, you idiot.”

  Taylor burst out laughing. “You really just did that?”

  I was grinning. “I locked onto his belt buckle. Cool, right?”

  “Way cool.”

  “Kylee can do that,” Zeus said.

  I looked back, unaware that Zeus had been watching.

  “She can climb metal walls too.”

  “Climb walls?”

  “It’s just timing. Like using suction cups. Lock onto the wall with magnets, then release one hand and the opposite leg at the same time and move them up, lock on and repeat.”

  “That would be cool,” I said. “If I could find some metal walls.”

  * * *

  While we practiced our powers, the nonelectrics did too. Jack did like a thousand push-ups a day, went on a strict diet of raw-egg-and-protein drinks, and practiced hand-to-hand combat and ultimate fighting techniques with Wade and Mitchell, who seemed more like punching bags than opponents and every day sported fresh bruises.

  Ostin researched. He dug through Grace’s information like a gold miner at the mother lode. Within days he had pulled up everything the mainframe had on the Peruvian compound, including an early architectural drawing of the facility.

  He spent most of his time looking for a way in. What made breaking into the compound especially difficult was that it was surrounded by a lot of land and ringed by tall electric fences. It was clear that the Elgen had built a large buffer around the facility to prevent unwanted guests.

  When a week had passed, I began to worry again about the voice, particularly because of all the information we had handed over. Could the man we had interrogated somehow have tricked Taylor? They knew about her powers; maybe they had been prepared to deceive us. Maybe they had technology we didn’t know about. Eight days from the man’s visit, my phone finally rang.

  “I understand you gave my man some grief,” the voice said.

  “We were being careful,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “You should be. You leave for Peru tomorrow morning at six. Drive to the same place you picked up the Hummers. Do you remember the place?”

  “Yes.”

  “There will be two black Ford Excursions waiting for you. They will drive you to the airport. What did Grace decide?”

  “She’s decided to stay behind with you. Keep her safe.”

  “We will.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll let everybody know. Anything we need to take with us?”

  There was a short pause. “Courage,” he said. “Lots of courage.”

  * * *

  I gathered everyone together to tell them about the call. Afterward, Ostin took a moment and briefed us on what he’d learned about the compound. Things got quiet fast. For the first time, the reality of what we were attempting set in.

  I asked if anyone had questions, and no one did—at least none they wanted to share. I had no doubt there would be plenty to come—more than I had answers for. At the end of the briefing I said, “If you’ve changed your mind, it’s not too late to back out.”

  “We’re not backing out,” Jack said. “Semper Fi.”

  “What does that mean?” Taylor asked.

  “Always faithful,” Ostin said. “It’s the Marine Corps motto.”

  “We’re all in,” Ian said. Everyone else nodded their heads in agreement.

  “Thanks, guys. Get some sleep. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  As everyone got ready for bed, I slipped out
alone by the pool, settling into one of the vinyl lounge chairs. The pool area was dark, lit only by the solar lights in the corner of the yard and the blue, shimmering luminescence of the pool’s light. The only sound was a symphony of crickets.

  I needed to get away and think. Or maybe to not think. I had too many thoughts to effectively corral and too many fears to accompany them. I had been gulping all day, and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself.

  I cupped my hands together, like I was making a snowball, and pulsed. To my surprise a ball of electricity formed, almost like a soap bubble, except with more weight, like a Ping-Pong ball. Out of curiosity, I tossed it away from me. It hit the ground and popped loudly with a crisp electric snap.

  I made another and threw it into the pool. It exploded in the water, lighting the entire pool. “That is so cool,” I said.

  I made another and threw it across the pool. I hadn’t noticed there was a cat on the other side, and although the bubble didn’t hit it, the cat screeched and ran off.

  The glass door slid open and Ostin walked out. “There you are,” he said. “I was wondering where you went.”

  “Come here,” I said. “I want to show you something.”

  I pulsed as I had before, and a glowing orb about the size of a golf ball rose from my hand. I threw it into the pool. This time the pop was as loud as a firecracker. I thought Ostin’s jaw was going to fall off.

  “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

  “Do you know what that is?” he said.

  “A ball of lightning,” I said.

  “That’s exactly what it is! Scientists have been arguing for centuries about whether or not ball lightning exists. You just solved a centuries-old debate. Do it again.”

  I was about to make another when Taylor walked out of the house. “Michael?”

  “I’m over here,” I said.

  She walked over to my side. “I was wondering where you’d gone. What are you guys doing?”

  “You gotta see this,” Ostin said.

  Taylor sat down in the lounge chair next to me. “See what?”

  “Do it, Michael.”

  I pulsed, forming another ball. This one was larger than my first, about the size of a baseball.

  Taylor leaned forward to look at it. “It’s kind of beautiful. Can I touch it?”

  “It will definitely shock you,” Ostin said. “It’s lightning. Just in a different package.”

  Taylor pulled back.

  “Watch this,” I said. I threw it at the pool. It came off my hand like a softball and exploded in the water, briefly illuminating the entire surface.

  “That’s so cool,” Taylor said.

  “I wonder how I could measure the amps of one of those,” Ostin said, settling into the lounge chair to my left.

  I made a few more while Taylor and Ostin watched.

  Taylor said to Ostin, “Hey, Tex. Would you mind going inside for a moment? I need to talk to Michael.”

  “You can talk to him,” he said.

  “Alone,” she said.

  He looked at her, then me. “Okay,” he said. He stood up. “For how long?”

  “I don’t know,” Taylor said. “Until we’re done.”

  He walked inside, sliding the glass door shut behind him. I looked at Taylor. Her eyes were soft.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It’s you I’m worried about. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Why? Was I ticking a lot?”

  “Some,” she said. “How can you be just fine? Your mother’s gone, the Elgen are hunting us, we’re about to fly to a strange country, and everyone’s depending on you for answers. I don’t know how you handle all the pressure. I know I couldn’t do it.”

  I exhaled. “I don’t know. What else am I going to do?” Suddenly my eyes began to tear up. I looked away so she wouldn’t see.

  Taylor got up and pushed her chair next to mine. “Come here,” she said.

  I looked back at her and she smiled. “Come closer,” she said.

  I leaned in to her and she put her arms around me. She put her chin against my forehead and gently stroked the back of my head. It felt so good.

  “You don’t have to be strong all the time,” she said. “Even heroes need to be taken care of.”

  “I’m not a hero,” I said. “I’m a fifteen-year-old who has no idea what he’s doing.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then she kissed the top of my head and said, “You’re my hero.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to be said. I just closed my eyes and felt her warm face against mine and, for the first time in weeks, felt peace.

  “I hate boats,” Hatch said, wiping his forehead with a gold-monogrammed handkerchief. The boat he was hating was a superyacht with all the luxuries befitting a $450 million vessel: a helipad, two current-jetted swimming pools, and an art gallery that included two van Goghs, three Escher lithographs, and a Rembrandt (the chairman had a penchant for Dutch artists). There were luxury suites for eighteen and an exclusive dining room with crystal chandeliers and scarlet wool carpet interwoven with twenty-four-karat gold thread. The yacht also featured some less luxuriant but interesting add-ons, including radar, sonar, and surface-to-air missiles.

  Hatch was prone to seasickness, and although he understood the necessity of moving the Elgen corporate headquarters to international waters, he would have preferred the ship to remain docked in some obscure bay off the coast of Africa or the Philippines. The two electric teens seated next to him in the waiting room looked at him sympathetically.

  “Would you like me to help?” Tara said, tapping her temple. “I could make you feel better.”

  Hatch shook his head. “No. I’ve got to keep my wits about me. I’m sensing trouble.”

  Tara had traveled with Hatch and the rest of the kids from Pasadena to Rome, where they left the others behind, helicoptering to the Elgen’s yacht a hundred miles north of Sicily—in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The other teen, Torstyn, had joined them in Rome. Torstyn had spent the last nineteen months on assignment in Peru and, at Hatch’s command, had flown directly to Italy.

  Tara knew Torstyn—all the Elgen teens were familiar with one another—but she hadn’t seen him in a long time and he had changed. His skin was darker from the South American sun, and his hair was long and wild. His personality had changed as well. Something about him frightened her.

  “How long will we be here?” Torstyn asked, his hand extended toward the hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium built into the wall in front of them.

  “Only as long as we need to be,” Hatch said.

  “Stop it!” Tara said.

  “Stop what?” Torstyn asked, grinning.

  “You know what. You killed the fish.”

  Torstyn had boiled the water in the aquarium from fifteen feet away. Two exotic angelfish were now floating on top of the water.

  “They’re just fish,” Torstyn said. “Same thing you ate last night.”

  “Actually,” Hatch said. “They were rare peppermint angelfish, found only in the waters of Rarotonga, in the South Pacific. I gave them to the chairman as a gift last year. They run about twenty-five thousand dollars apiece.”

  Torstyn frowned. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Ask next time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hatch looked at him coolly, then asked, “How long did it take you?”

  “About forty seconds.”

  “Good. I want you to get it down to twenty.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then ten.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hatch nodded. “At ten you’ll be unstoppable.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Hatch went back to his e-reader. He’d been reading a book on mind control written in the late fifties by William Sargant, a British psychiatrist. He had already read the book several times. He was fascinated with the subject and had studied all aspects of mind control from hypnosis to suici
de cults.

  A slender, well-dressed woman in her midthirties walked into the waiting room. “Excuse me, Dr. Hatch?”

  Hatch looked up.

  “The board is ready to see you now.”

  Hatch stood, tossing his reader on the sofa cushion next to Tara. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “Do you want us to come with you?” Torstyn asked.

  “No, you’re not invited.” He walked to the conference room door, then turned back. “But stay alert.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said, almost in unison.

  Hatch straightened his tie, then walked into the conference room. An Elgen guard stood on each side of the door. Neither of them saluted him. The guards on the boat were the only ones in the company who never saluted Hatch. He walked past them into the room.

  The boardroom was bright and the walls were covered with stainless steel tiles. Recessed directional lighting illuminated the art on the wall—large, black pictures with red, abstract silhouettes, images that looked more like inkblot tests than art. The shape of the room was trapezoidal; one entered in at the smaller end and broadening out in the rear. The outer wall, to Hatch’s right, was made of thick, protective glass, forming an eight-foot-tall window looking out over the crested waves sixty feet below.

  The table in the middle of the room was twenty-seven feet long and made of rare Brazilian rosewood, with brushed stainless steel trim around the edge. The table was surrounded by twelve high-backed chairs upholstered in black Italian leather and spaced every few feet. All of the chairs were filled except for two, one next to the chairman and one at the opposite end of the table, which was usually reserved for visitors.

  The board was split evenly between men and women—all over fifty, a few gray with years. Anonymity was essential to the Elgen, and board members used numbers instead of names, the numbers corresponding to their term of service and place at the table. The chairman, Giacomo Schema, was Number One and the only member of the board who used his name.

  Every eye was on Hatch as he entered the room. Although he had, at one time, served as CEO of Elgen Inc., the company had been reorganized after the original MEI machine was discovered to be dangerous. Hatch had been removed from the board, but had served ever since as the executive director, overseeing the daily affairs of the company. His relationship with the board had been volatile, and more than once there had been motions to remove him as director. But the company’s growing profitability and status had, at least to that moment, ensured his longevity.