Dangerous (39 page)

323

Shannon Hale

“He armored up and declared his intention to take both

my tokens. I actually thought about killing him and claiming

his instead. But the memory of pain was so fresh, I couldn’t go

through it again. I don’t know how you did it, Maisie.”

“I wanted to die,” I whispered, looking out. No movement

beyond the wall. The landscape was steeped in darkness. “Tak-

ing Jacques’s token, choosing to go through it a third time? Like

shoving a knife into my own chest.”

“It had become clear that Jacques was as lost to the team as

Ruth had been. But I couldn’t kill him. I mean, I
could
have.”

He smiled.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re so tough.”

“But Dad rightly became suspicious of me. He gave the

order to kill me, but I escaped, went into hiding. It’s funny that

doesn’t bother me anymore. Maybe it was inevitable, father

wanting to kill the usurper son.”

“It’s so Greco-Roman.”

“Am I Jupiter still?”

“You’ve always had a god complex.”

Something exploded in the courtyard. Smoke billowed

outward. Dragon and the security guys in gas masks ran into

the haze. The breeze shifted, and I made out figures fighting

Howell’s guys. I was in a perfect sniper position. No matter

Dragon’s orders, I had to attack.

Forming flat havoc pellets, I began to precision fire on

invaders as I saw them, like punching them from a distance.

Quickly I depleted the electrons stored in the shooter token

battery. Mi-sun could store more electrons than I could, my

shooter token tangled with four others. Yet another weakness.

I kept firing, pulling electrons from the gas molecules in

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the air around me. I could feel my hair rise, the hairs on my

arms standing, the air molecules pulling on anything to replace

the lost electrons I’d stolen.

“We’re maintaining the perimeter,” said Dragon on the

headset. “Stay back, Brown.”

“Careful,” said Wilder. “They’re trying to draw you out.”

I moved to steal electrons from a new patch of air. I aimed

at a guy just as he turned to aim at me. He must have fired first.

I heard that familiar whistling noise. Needles.

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C h a p t e r 5 0

I pushed Wilder down, hitting the roof beside him. There

was another explosion. This one bright—a light bomb maybe,

something to blind us.

We huddled flat to the roof, Wilder’s arm over me. I opened

and shut my eyes, but everything was orangey-white, my eyes

dazzled. I felt for Wilder’s head and traced my hand over his

skull and chest, giving him a havoc helmet and breastplate.

He whispered, “Does this mean that you don’t want me

dead?”

I almost laughed.

“I’m sorry, Maisie,” he said.

“You didn’t mean to be a complete douche bag to everyone

you knew,” I said flatly. “You were trying to accomplish some-

thing impossible, and you had to play tough in order to win.”

“It sounds absurd when you say it out loud.”

“It didn’t feel grand at the time either,” I said quietly. “You

should go back in.”

I heard him knock on his helmet. “Naw, I’m good.”

“You’re as stubborn as your dad.”

“It just feels good to explain. I don’t mean to excuse myself.

Maybe there’s no good reason for all I did. When I had the

thinker token, it seemed so clear. And now . . . nothing’s clear.

Almost nothing. Is your sight coming back?”

“Yeah.” I could make out shapes in the dark. The humming

and cracking started again. If the HAL forces had destroyed one

laser cannon, another had taken its place.

Dangerous

“So it’s . . .” Wilder rubbed his face harshly. “It’s been tor-

ture this past year trying not to care about you. Because I am—

was
the leader, and I couldn’t let what I felt get in the way of

what I would do. I meant what I said—falling for you wasn’t the

plan.” He didn’t seem the least bit shy declaring this. “I felt like

trash every time I lied to you. You were willing to leave your par-

ents because you were worried about Mi-sun. If you’d known

she was already dead, would you still have come? I believed

I would fail without you. But I was just straight up scared you

would hate me if you knew. That she was dead. That I had her

token. That I’d lost a second team member.

“When we confronted Jacques that first time, I was half

hoping he’d tell you he thought I’d killed Mi-sun. If you hated

me, it might make it easier to . . . to take your tokens too. But he

didn’t say it. And I couldn’t bear to. In Philly, in the
lair
, lying next to you, holding you . . .” His exhale was nearly a sigh. “Full

confession: after that night, I made sure we didn’t find GT and

Jacques too quickly.”

I gasped. That made him smile, though it faded quickly.

“For weeks I believed I would have to kill you. The techno

token was buried under the brute token. I would have to unite

them with my thinker token or the fireteam would fail. Here I

was trying so hard not to be my dad, and in order to be a hero, I

would have to be a murderer.”

I thought of his emails. He’d sweet-talked me into a death

trap.

“Then when you came to Philadelphia, this wall I’d been

bricking up just crumbled, and I knew I couldn’t . . . well,
kill

you. But the Purpose pressed and insisted that all the tokens be

together. I didn’t know how. My head hurt trying to find a way

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out, and I couldn’t and couldn’t until . . . you were beside me,

asleep, and I thought, she would be a better thinker than I am.

And like that I realized I could kill myself instead. It’s ludicrous

I didn’t realize that before, but maybe it was a safety function of

the thinker token—survival above all else. The moment I over-

rode that, everything changed.”

Another swarm of aerial drones buzzed over us, heading

for the night beyond the north wall. One of the turrets there

was gone. It must have been destroyed while we were blind. I sat

up, hugging my knees to my chest, too anxious to lie flat.

“Did you ever read the book by that guy who was hiking

alone when a boulder fell on his arm?” Wilder whispered. “For

three days he was pinned, trying to get the boulder off, believ-

ing he was going to die. Then it occurred to him—he could cut

off his own arm. He said when he realized that, he felt profound

relief. That’s how I felt. It was the night after we kissed—you

remember? —and you slept next to me, and I watched you sleep

for hours—is that creepy? —but I watched and thought and re-

alized I could cut off my own arm—I could kill myself—and

give you all the tokens. I woke up unafraid for the first time in

months.”

“I remember that morning,” I said.

“Yeah, me too.” His smile was more real now. “For what-

ever reason, you and I handled the tokens better than the oth-

ers. Our brains took the changes without imploding. And you

were a better candidate for the thinker. After you learned about

Mi-sun and took off, I had to figure out how to get you to take

my tokens. I knew you’d try to save me if you could, but if you

believed I was evil—”

Another light bomb. I shut my eyes just as Wilder pulled

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me down, piercing shrills passing over our heads. Those weren’t

numbing needles, I was pretty sure. Those would kill us if they

could.

We flat-crawled across the roof, away from the attack.

Above us the south turret’s searching eye was still, staring mo-

tionless in one direction. I glanced around—the other search-

lights were twitching, human hands moving them, looking for

and finding targets.

I called Dragon. “I think no one’s in the south turret. We’ve

got a blind spot.”

“Sending someone,” he said. “Stay put.”

I crept to the edge of the roof. Below, the south courtyard

was blacked out. I heard scraping, a mumbling drill, and then

from a hole beneath the wall a figure dressed in black crawled

free. All that on the north wall was a distraction. Here was the

real danger.

I formed a hollow havoc ball and shot it, knocking the

figure flat. A second came through the hole. I went to shoot

this one too but the first—injured but conscious—shot at me, a

swarm of needles. I dropped.

“Dragon, tunnelers under the south wall,” I called on Lady.

“They’re packing needles.”

“Don’t—” Wilder started.

I leaped down. I wasn’t wearing impact boots, but a few

stories didn’t bother my brute body. I landed near the tunneler

and havoc-banded his wrists and ankles. Then I covered the

hole with havoc armor, bonded to the cement around it. Fast.

I had to find the other ninja dude before he found Dad and

Luther.

I ran around the side of HAL, armoring myself as I went.

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Shannon Hale

A high whistle. I dove to the ground, the needles going over my

head. A black shape disappeared around the corner. He was

hunting me. I knew that. I should have been running away.

There was a small explosion. I rounded the corner to find

the door blown off its hinges. Inside the corridor was empty.

I looked up. The ninja dude was clinging high to the wall.

I shot a fist-sized havoc shield just as he shot needles. They met

in the middle. My needles-studded shield crashed to the floor.

I ducked behind a wall, breathing hard. The dozen poi-

soned needles had nailed straight through my impenetrable

havoc shield. My armor wouldn’t protect me. He was waiting

for me around the corner. And now I heard soft footsteps from

behind.

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C h a p t e r 5 1

I couldn’t let myself get trapped between two bad guys. I

leaned out to shoot at the ninja dude again but he was gone. I hur-

ried out, looking. Around the corner. Up on the wall. Nothing.

Come on, Maisie, if you need to take down an entire hos-

tile ship you should be able to stop a couple of regular creepos.

I heard a
zap
and startled back.

Around the other side of the wall, the ninja was still stand-

ing, his needle gun aimed at where I’d been. He fell to the floor.

Dragon came from behind me, a fancy Taser gun in his hand.

“Those needles can go through walls,” Dragon said.

Of course they could go through walls if they could pierce

my armor, but I hadn’t thought fast enough.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t try to soften me up,” he said, kicking the needle gun

away from the unconscious guy. “You put yourself at risk against

my express orders, and I intend to stay grumpy with you.”

“Understood.” I felt pretty grumpy with myself.

“No other breaches,” Dragon said. “Threat on the north

wall contained for now. Keep your precious hide inside.”

He glared so hard I didn’t go up to the roof for Wilder. I

was on my way to check on Luther and Dad when I ran into

Wilder in the corridor. It was as dark as outside. He stood alone,

hands in his pockets.

“I just checked on them,” he said. “They were asleep. The

bunkers are soundproof.”

“Thanks.” I looked at my hands. I was holding Dragon’s

Shannon Hale

Taser gun, a little thing that had proved more effective than my

whole fireteam self.

Wilder reached up to rub his hair, forgetting he was wear-

ing a havoc helmet. I went closer to crack the armor and ease it

off his head and chest.

His face was expectant. I took a step back.

“Growing up, whenever faced with a problem, I would

ask myself what would my dad do,” he said, turning the havoc

helmet over in his hands. “But these past few months, that’s

changed to you. I wish I knew—right now—what you would do.”

His smile was so sad, but I didn’t know how to sum up the

whirling and thumping and knotting inside me. The shouts of

command from outside dimmed, the dark numbing everything

outside of us. I lifted my hand to my chest, so aware of the five

tokens I could practically feel their weight, their heat. Now that

they were joined, I couldn’t imagine losing a single one.

“Does it feel hollow there?” I asked.

“A little . . .”

I let my hand drop. “I understand why you did all you did.”

I wouldn’t have done it the way he had, but I understood. “You

could have told me days ago.”

“I tried. But you wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you

before you asked.”

“Took me a long time to ask, didn’t it?”

He groaned in agreement.

I felt suddenly shy and turned away to go into the lab. Fin-

ishing the jet pack felt more urgent now than ever.

My techno-token-inspired brain came up with an idea for

a battery that would store electrons for me and have a higher

capacity than my swamped shooter token. It would take a few

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days to build. After tonight’s attack, I doubted I had the time to