Renegades Read online

  Now I saw the fear on almost every face we passed. While we sat at a stoplight, I watched as a woman holding a toddler’s hand trembled when a policeman paused to look at her. We drove past another set of policemen who were rounding up homeless people and tossing them into the back of a truck.

  The other major difference was the blue cylinder of light that rose up from the Empire State Building in midtown. Dr. Roop had explained that Phandic colonial efforts required massive infusions of power, and these came via some sort of subspace link with the home systems—a kind of tunnel for energy instead of for transportation. I figured that’s what I had to be looking at.

  Mi Sun broke my train of thought by sending a message via my HUD. I’m worried about my family. There was no way we were going to discuss anything important out loud in this cab. Especially now that the Phands know we’re on Earth. I get where Alice is coming from. I need to make sure everyone’s okay.

  I’m worried about my parents too, I messaged her, but you heard what Dr. Roop said. The Phands will have nothing to gain by messing with our families once we’re off the planet. Besides, we can’t take them with us. Our best bet is to get rid of the Phands as quickly as possible.

  I’m just going to call them, she said.

  She didn’t need a phone to do it, and there was no way I could stop her if she really wanted to, but I felt sure it was a mistake.

  No! I grabbed her wrist. It’s too big a risk. Stick with the plan.

  She yanked her arm away from me. The plan to rescue your girlfriend? All your friends? You’re the one who is tight with Steve and Dr. Roop, not the rest of us. Why is it that you get to call the shots?

  Maybe I am closer to Dr. Roop than you, I told her, but he’s still the only adult good guy we’ve got, and he knows what he’s doing. He’s the one who says not to contact anyone. Come on, Mi Sun. I get that you want to check on your family, but it’s not the smart move.

  She snorted, but I could tell from her slackening expression that she was relenting.

  I told the cabdriver to drop us off about a block away, since we needed some time to discuss our strategies. In part, I wanted to make sure that the next time we were attacked, we had a system for who blocked and who counterattacked. Also, we needed to figure out what we were going to do once we escaped with our friends. Earth might be part of the Phandic Empire now, but there were relatively few Phands on the planet, and so far I hadn’t seen any other aliens. Our associates were going to draw a lot of attention.

  “Now what?” Mi Sun asked, crossing her arms and staring at me.

  “Did you two get into a silent quarrel in the cab?” Charles asked.

  “I would never think to argue with our great leader,” Mi Sun said. “He’s always right, after all.”

  “Okay, then,” Alice said in an effort to be diplomatic. “Moving on. While you guys took care of the important bickering, I was doing some wireless research on the way over. It looks like the Phands don’t want to mess with local economies, so they haven’t taken over the airport. Most of the space traffic is moving in and out of Central Park. It’s destroying the actual park, but they don’t care about that.”

  “Once we get everyone, we’ll have to steal a van or something in order to get there,” I said.

  “And who is going to drive it?” Mi Sun demanded. “You?”

  I grinned. “Steve.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Our plan was surgically precise. Mi Sun was still annoyed with me, but she got her head back in the game pretty quickly. We entered the precinct, and Alice went up to the policeman at the front desk to ask for help. She was probably best of all of us at appearing sympathetic, so while she told some story about a missing parent, the rest of us hung back like we were her friends there to support her. In fact we were all busy. Mi Sun hacked into the station’s records to get the layout of the prison. Charles checked on the security-camera feeds, getting a sense of what sort of opposition we could anticipate. I, meanwhile, used the sabotage branch of my skill tree—yeah, I really had one of those—to create a communication-dampening field over the precinct building. No one could call for help or report our infiltration until we were long gone.

  We all pinged Alice when we’d completed our tasks so she’d know when we were ready for the next stage. Then, in the middle of speaking to a bored and unsympathetic policeman, she stunned him. Charles, Mi Sun, and I took care of the rest of the room. We sealed the front door so no one could go in or out, and we moved on to where the prisoners were being held.

  There were several layers of locked doors, which we blasted through until we reached the holding cells. Prisoners on either side shouted at us, and much of what they had to say wasn’t very nice. Clearly these were garden-variety criminals—people hadn’t stopped breaking the law just because there had been an alien invasion—so there was no way I was going to let them go free.

  Beyond these cells we came to the maximum-security holding pen. I accessed the panel that controlled the electronic lock and broke through in a matter of seconds. The door swung open to reveal a room with no chairs or beds—no furnishings of any kind except a single metal toilet and sink. Sitting on the floor were Steve, Dr. Roop, and Villainic. They wore the same clothes as when we’d last seen them, and they didn’t look like they’d been hurt.

  “Where’s Tamret?” I said.

  “Finally, you are here,” Villainic answered. “There is no private toilet, and I had to use the facilities in front of them. It was humiliating.”

  Steve was kind enough not to make me ask a second time. “They’ve kept her separate, mate—they said because she’s female. She should be fine. They haven’t bothered us since they threw us in here. Just a lot of sitting about. And watching him use the loo was no fun for the rest of us, let me tell you.”

  I heard something in his voice that I didn’t like. “What happened before they threw you in here?”

  “There were some unkind words,” Dr. Roop said regretfully. “Some disparaging comments on our being nonhuman. The words were spoken with malicious intent, but I could not let them trouble me, and I hardly think Tamret would be vulnerable to that sort of thing.”

  “Let’s find her,” I said.

  “One moment,” Villainic said, his expression showing some obvious feline fear. “Most of us are now safe. Is it really advisable to go further into the enemy’s compound to rescue just one more?”

  “Are you serious?” I asked him. “I’d keep going even if you were the only one we hadn’t rescued. You expect me to leave Tamret behind?”

  “I merely point out that it may not be wise,” he said. “We mustn’t be reckless.”

  “Yeah, we must.” Steve put a hand on Villainic’s shoulder and pushed him forward.

  We made our way farther into the facility, looking in cells and kicking down doors, but there was no sign of her. I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. It made sense that they might separate out the only female, but why keep her so far away? I tried to tell myself that I was anxious because I wanted to see her, because I wanted to know for a fact that she was safe, but something didn’t seem right.

  We came to another steel door protected by a keypad. I quickly hacked the encryption and the door swung open, revealing an antechamber—a dusty little room with a few filing cabinets, a table with a coffeemaker, and a metal desk at which sat a balding, middle-aged policeman.

  “Where is she?” I demanded.

  His eyes bulged as he looked at the aliens with us, so he had no doubt who I was talking about. “In there,” he said. “But you can’t get inside without the combination, and—”

  That was as far as he got. I stepped over his unconscious body and quickly bypassed the security system—this was probably faster than entering the correct code. The metal door clicked open.

  We were instantly met by PPB fire. Charles and Alice set up the defensive shielding, as we’d planned. Mi Sun and I were to go on offense, and I had no doubt Steve would
join us without a second thought.

  There were two Phands in the room and one human. The Phands were the ones firing at us. The human was farther back. The room itself was large—a lab, not a cell—filled with computers, glass bottles and beakers, and shelves full of various equipment I couldn’t identify. On a gurney toward the back of the room lay Tamret, eyes open but immobile. She was in the clothes she’d been wearing when she was captured, but her sleeves had been rolled up so IVs could be inserted. A tangle of plastic tubes pumped chemicals into her arms, and several thick straps held her bound tight to the gurney.

  Standing behind her, a syringe in her hand, was Nora Price, the supreme viceroy herself.

  This woman was now running a world, but here she was, taking the time out of her busy schedule to mess with Tamret. Could this be about our history? The fact that she’d been unable to deliver me to the Phands had made her look bad, but I doubted that whatever was going on here was about me or my friends and the things we’d done. Ms. Price was probably as evil as they come, but I didn’t think she would be vindictive unless there was a payoff for her in the end.

  These thoughts went through my mind as I saw two Phands, who had been raising their weapons, go down. Mi Sun and Alice had zapped them, maybe leaving Ms. Price for me. I aimed at her, but Dr. Roop put a hand on my forearm.

  “We may need to know what she’s done to Tamret,” he said.

  “I found something a bit more refined than just blasting her with electricity,” Mi Sun said. She jerked out her hand, and a wave of blue energy hit the lower part of Ms. Price’s body. She fell heavily to the floor but was still conscious, though now gasping for air like a freshly caught fish.

  “She’s temporarily immobilized from the waist down,” Mi Sun explained.

  I ran over to Tamret, who was lying completely still, but her eyes were darting back and forth. I could see the fury in them, but she seemed unable to speak, let alone struggle against her restraints.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” I said. I looked down at Nora Price. “What did you do to Tamret?”

  “Hello to you too, Zeke,” she said through gritted teeth. I didn’t know if the paralyzing effect somehow hurt or if she was just frustrated. I didn’t much care.

  “Answer the question,” I demanded.

  “Or what?” She laughed. “You’re pretty tough when it comes to ship-to-ship combat, but I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to actually kill another person face-to-face.”

  Dr. Roop stepped forward, maybe worried about what exactly I had planned next. Nora Price had betrayed humanity in general and me in particular. She had sided with the Phands out of a desire for power, and now she had hurt Tamret. I didn’t know what I was prepared to do to help Tamret, but I wasn’t going to rule anything out just yet.

  “Whatever they’re giving Tamret must be some sort of suppressant for her upgrades,” he said quietly. “Otherwise I’m not sure they would be able to hold her against her will. She should be able to repair herself once the upgrades are allowed to do their work. I think if we disconnect her, she’ll be fine.”

  “And what if you’re wrong?”

  “We have just overtaken a law-enforcement station in which the supreme viceroy was conducting experiments. It is only a matter of time before our enemies notice something is amiss and they come at us with overwhelming force. I believe it is time to take a chance.”

  I looked at Tamret, and there was something in her eyes that told me she agreed with Dr. Roop. It was like she was telling me that his plan was the way to go. I nodded and began to remove the IV needles from her arm.

  The effect was almost instantaneous. Before I’d even finished unfastening her restraints, Tamret gasped for breath like she’d been held underwater. She raised her head to watch me, and as soon as the restraints were off, she sat up.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Tamret, are you—”

  “Forget it,” she snapped. “I’ll be fine, and I don’t want to stand around and wait for whatever they’re going to throw at us.”

  I glanced back at Nora Price, who flashed me a humorless smile. There was nothing I could do about her. We couldn’t take her with us, and it wasn’t as though I was prepared to execute her. Besides, she was only a lickspittle, if I may use that word, working for more powerful, if not more evil, beings. If she weren’t around, the Phands wouldn’t have any problem finding someone else to stand in as their head human. I told myself she was unimportant.

  “You can’t keep doing this forever, Zeke,” she called out to me. “You’re going to make a mistake.”

  I wanted to make some kind of snappy comeback, to tell her that she would be the one running from us, but I didn’t want to say anything that even hinted at our plans, so I walked away, saying nothing.

  I put a hand on Tamret’s shoulder, but she shrugged me off. “I’m fine,” she said. “You don’t have to keep checking on me.”

  She wasn’t fine—I could see that—but I couldn’t make her talk to me.

  We hurried past the prisoners and then through the precinct full of unconscious policemen. Other than the two who had been in the lab with Nora Price, we hadn’t seen a single Phand, but I told myself that didn’t mean anything. I was sure they didn’t hang out, drinking coffee and playing darts, with the local humans. When they finally decided to show up in force, we’d be facing some real opposition.

  We found the stairs leading to the parking garage and selected a van. No keys required when you are fully loaded, as we were. Steve uploaded some basic instructions on how to operate the vehicle, and he played tentatively with the gas and brake pedals while we all nervously buckled up.

  “Seems pretty basic,” he said thoughtfully, while he examined the gearshift and tried to get comfortable with a standard driver’s seat. He couldn’t sit all the way down, and his tail was pressed against the back of the seat and dangling over his own shoulder. “Using my feet will take some getting used to, but I’ll learn as we go.” So saying, we lurched out of the parking spot and onto the main street.

  “Turn on the flashing lights and siren,” Charles suggested. “It will be very exciting.”

  “No, don’t,” Alice corrected him. “We don’t want to draw any attention. We keep a low profile.”

  “Focus on caution,” said Villainic, “not excitement.”

  I sat between him and Tamret. She wouldn’t meet my eye, and though I wanted to take her hand, I got the feeling she wanted to be left alone. Being drugged and nearly experimented on seemed pretty traumatic, and I wanted to help her, not be locked out.

  To take my mind off all of that, I turned to my Former upgrades and began searching for new skills we might use, things that could help us right now. After looking through a bunch of things I didn’t understand or couldn’t use, I stumbled on something possibly very useful.

  “You know, I’m pretty sure I can get this van to fly,” I said. “Using, you know, my brain.”

  “Oi!” Steve shouted. “I’m driving here.”

  “I’m just saying. I think I can create a localized gravity- dampening field, which I should be able to keep stabilized while someone else generates propulsion. Obviously, we don’t want to go zooming around the city in a flying police van, but if things get hairy, it’s good to have choices.”

  “I cannot help but think it is a mistake to run too freely with these newly obtained powers,” Dr. Roop warned.

  “If the Phands try to recapture us,” Tamret said, her voice dark, “then the mistake would be not to use everything at our disposal.”

  “That is certainly true,” Dr. Roop said. “However, unless there is real need, I do not think we should meddle with abilities we do not yet understand. Unless . . .” He looked at Tamret. “Did they discover anything about your capabilities? Is that what they were doing to you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s what they were trying to do. They were definitely probing and experimenting, trying to learn what I could do and h
ow they could stop me if they had to. But they didn’t get anywhere. I figured out there was a way to use my nanites to shut them out. They didn’t learn anything from me.”

  That was pure Tamret, I thought. She might have saved us all—maybe the entire galaxy—by making sure Nora Price didn’t learn what we now had within us and what we could do.

  “How can we hope to understand our abilities if we don’t use them?” Charles asked.

  Dr. Roop nodded. “It is a good question, but I think study and experiment, under safe and controlled conditions, is the best approach. As I told you back at the Hidden Fortress, there is something about the code in your upgrades that does not seem right to me. I would hate for anything to go wrong unexpectedly in a life-or-death situation.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about that anymore,” I told him, “We’ve already used the new abilities under fire. We show up, and we pretty much eliminate any threats we come across.”

  “That’s the sort of thinking that will lead to sloppiness and disaster,” Dr. Roop warned.

  “Normally, I’d agree with you,” Mi Sun said, “but Zeke may be right this time. I’m not saying we should let our guard down, but so far we haven’t faced anything we couldn’t handle, including Phands. We’ve got overwhelming force to use against them.”

  From the seat in front of me, Alice turned around. “So we get the ship and that’s it, right?”

  I nodded. I knew Alice wanted to stay and look after her father, but I was still hoping that when the time came, she might change her mind.

  As we approached Central Park, I told Steve to pull over. I accessed my high-range scanning ability to take stock of what lay ahead, and I saw that the fields the Phands were using as a temporary spaceport were well defended and heavily patrolled. There was no way we were going to be able to drive up to a spaceship and take it.

  I explained all of this and told the others we were going to have to go the rest of the way on foot.

  “I hate to point this out,” Steve said, “but we’re not exactly going to blend in.”