The Fate of Ten
Page 62

“That’s nasty,” Daniela says.
“No kidding,” I reply. I look over at Agent Walker. She’s been watching this whole scene in silence. I know she probably sided with Sam and thinks I should’ve let Five die. That’s how I know I did the right thing. “Get me something to tie him up with,” I say to Walker.
Having just watched me scoop out hidden treasures from Five’s eye cavity, it takes Walker a moment to react to my request. She reaches behind her, unclips her handcuffs and tosses them to me.
I catch them and immediately toss them back. “You know that’s a terrible idea, right? He turns into whatever he touches, Walker. Go get me some rope or something.”
“I’m an FBI agent, John. I don’t carry rope around with me.”
“Check the boat,” I say, shaking my head.
Annoyed that I’m giving her orders in front of the other agents, Walker sends Agent Murray jogging off to check if there’s any rope on the coast guard boat.
“You’re soft, Johnny.”
I turn around to see that Nine’s regained consciousness. He’s sitting up with his forearms braced against his knees, his head hunched a bit like it’s still bothering him. He looks from me to Five and back, shaking his head.
“You know how hard it was to shove that signpost through him?” Nine sighs.
I walk over and crouch in front of him. “You mad?”
Nine shrugs his burly shoulders, seeming oddly zen. “Whatever, dude. I’ll just kill him again later.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
Nine rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. All right, man. I get that you’re against the death penalty and all that shit. Did he beg you to save his life, at least? I would’ve liked to have seen that.”
“He didn’t beg,” I tell Nine. “In fact, I think he wanted to die.”
“Sick,” Nine replies.
“I didn’t want to give him what he was after.”
“Uh-huh. I know we usually lose when the bad guys get their way, John. But, man, I think this one was a win-win.”
“I disagree.”
Nine rolls his eyes, then looks towards Five. “We can never trust him, though. You know that, right?”
“I know that.”
“And if it comes down to it, I’m not gonna hesitate to do it again. You won’t be able to stop me.”
“You must still be concussed,” I say to him with a smile, deflecting the bluster. I gesture to his chest and arms, still covered in scrapes and blaster burns, and his broken hand. “You want me to finish healing all that?”
Nine nods. “Unless you only do work on murderers now,” he replies.
While I heal Nine, Daniela comes over and introduces herself. She gets the usual Cheshire grin from the big idiot. We bring him up to speed on everything that happened while he was brawling across the city with Five. When I’m finished, Nine turns to look out at the water and the burning city beyond.
“We should’ve done better,” he says quietly, shaking out his arms and legs, stretching his muscles. “Should’ve gotten him when we had the chance.”
“I know,” I reply. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“We’ll have more chances,” Nine says, then claps his hands and turns to Agent Walker. “So, you bringing us to Mexico or what, lady?”
Walker raises an eyebrow at Nine. Just then, Agent Murray returns, jogging back with his arms full of thick rope he must’ve freed from the boat. He hands it over to me and I proceed to tie up the still-unconscious Five, binding his wrists and ankles as tightly as possible. The cuffs of his jeans hitch up as I’m yanking closed the knots and I catch a glimpse of his scars. So similar to mine, identifying us as part of the same nearly extinct people. How did Five ever get to this point? And what happens next?
“What’re we going to do with him?” Sam asks, reading my mind.
“Prison,” I respond, realizing this is what I want only when I say it. “Just because I saved his life doesn’t mean there won’t be justice. We need a padded room for him, one where he can’t touch anything remotely hard.”
“That can be arranged,” Walker says.
She makes this offer quickly. It makes me wonder if she and the government have already designed places like that for us, prisons capable of holding us in spite of our Legacies. Maybe that was something MogPro was working on.
“Arrange it after you figure out how to get us to Mexico,” I tell her. “We’re not waiting any longer, Walker.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if the president or those generals or whoever the hell’s in charge over there don’t get us on a jet in the next ten minutes, we’re just going to take one.”
Walker snorts at this. “You can’t fly a jet.”
“Bet you somebody’ll volunteer when I start breaking faces,” Nine says, stepping forward to back my play.
Agent Murray unclips his own walkie-talkie from his belt and offers it to Walker.
“Just make the call, Karen,” he sighs.
Walker gives Murray an icy look and produces her own satellite phone and walks a few steps away from us. Despite our history, I’m pretty convinced that Walker really does want to help us. It’s the rest of the government that isn’t convinced we’re a good bet to win this war. She’s doing everything she can in the face of that. Our window to be of any help to Six, Sarah and the others is getting smaller and smaller, though. I can’t stand around anymore hoping that these people will support us in our fight. We’re going to save them, whether they want us to or not. That’s all there is to it.