The Resisters (16 page)

“I need your help,” he said. “I want to fly back home. Can you get me there?”

The wasp remained still, the connection in Ethan’s mind silent.

He tried again, this time putting more feeling in his thoughts: how much he cared for his sister, and how he needed to protect her.

“We have to save Emma. Maybe grab the twins, too. Their lives are depending on us.”

The twins! Ethan had almost forgotten about them. They weren’t in imminent danger, but they would be years from now when they grew up.

The wasp didn’t respond to his pleas.

Maybe it couldn’t fly anymore. Maybe it was too injured. Maybe this whole plan wouldn’t work.

Ethan ran through it again: get the wasp into stealth mode, fly back low to the ground, and avoid all contact.

What if those rhinoceros beetles or locusts got in his way?

He’d blast them quick! Use the wasp’s lasers to disable them and slow them down. Hadn’t Madison said the Infiltrator model was designed to be best at running combat?

His blood raced at the thought of combat—flying, dodging, blasting, and ripping things.

Ethan was part terrified, part pulse-thumpingly excited.

The connection between him and the wasp strengthened.

It was thinking of fighting too. It
wanted
to fight.

The armor on the wasp’s cockpit slid aside. The interior lights winked on, welcoming him.

Ethan gulped. Sure, they might need to fight … but he’d engage the enemy only as a last option.

He kept that thought to himself, however, as he climbed into the I.C.E. suit.

The tiny breathing holes on the wall blasted cool air on him, and the cockpit closed. View screens lit, and status indicators rainbowed to life around him.

Ethan hardly noticed the fluid as it filled the suit’s limbs. The gel probably cushioned the jostling from sudden acceleration and combat.

There was one thing to take care of before he left, though.

Ethan licked his lips, took a deep breath, and tapped the same controls he’d seen Felix touch to set the suit to self-destruct. If the suit got too damaged or fell into the power of the Ch’zar, it’d blow itself up.

The wasp had no reaction to this, so it must’ve been okay with it too.

Ethan wished he understood a fraction of the controls before him. He didn’t like having to rely on the wasp.

“Let’s fly out of here,” Ethan said. “Take me to Santa Blanca. Go fast—but save some fuel for a quick getaway, in case we need one.”

The wasp pulled free of rigging lines and electrical hookups. It landed on the hangar floor with a thud.

Its carapace split, and wings unfolded and ruffled. They seemed stiff.

Maybe the beast needed to recover from its injuries. Maybe it couldn’t fly at all.

The wings beat faster, and the air resonated with their
buzz. Then they moved so fast, they blurred to near invisible.

The wasp’s jets sparked and roared to life—and they took off!

They zoomed through the dark to the far end of the hangar.

Ethan was positive they were going to fly straight into the wall, but at the last moment the wasp veered straight up, twisting Ethan’s stomach into a pretzel.

A tunnel wormed through the ceiling into the solid rock.

They twisted and dodged and kept climbing. Every twenty feet, tiny winking lights illuminated a patch of the perilous passage. Jagged rocks loomed from the walls. They looked like teeth that could slice the suit in half if they crashed.

Faint moonlight lit the rock walls. They were almost out!

Every view screen then went black.

“Hey!”

Ethan tapped the central monitor. “Turn these things back on.”

Had the wasp malfunctioned?

He tried to force the wasp’s eyes to open, but the connection between him and the insect was blank.

The words
SECURITY PROTOCOL 003
flashed across Ethan’s mind and remained there a moment, like a blurry afterimage left by a bright light.

What did that mean? “Security” for what?

Of course! Security to protect the biggest secret the Resisters had:
their location
.

Ethan guessed that pilots had to fly out blind on autopilot.

Once outside, he’d bet, the autopilot zigged and zagged them on some random course until they were far away—and only then could they look where they were going. Because if Resistance pilots knew where their base was and they ever got captured, it’d be just a matter of time before the Ch’zar would get the pilots’ memories and know the location of the base too.

It was a smart setup.

Acceleration slammed Ethan into the contoured support. Then he bounced from side to side as the wasp changed course.

The monitors popped on. Stars and the black outlines of mountains surrounded him. Green night-vision filters overlaid the screens. Targeting circles appeared, tracking deer and bears and even a bat fluttering far off.

Ethan was flying!

He imagined he felt the air rush over his body. He leaned forward and poured on the speed, skimming the treetops.

It was the best feeling in the world.

Then he remembered what he was doing … and his excitement died.

Hide
, Ethan thought.
Use that ‘stealth mode’ thing
.

Purple status lights illuminated. The hum of the wasp’s wings and jets became a whisper rumble.

One screen popped on showing a map with roads and bridges. There were also lines and shaded zones that grew and shrank as Ethan watched.

The wasp steered clear of those spaces.

Felix and Colonel Winter had talked about the Ch’zar satellite web. Those must be the areas the aliens could see from space.

Ethan and the wasp soared over a mountaintop and then down the other side into wasteland.

There were towering robots that chewed through canyons, countless rolling factories, and millions of mechanical creatures tearing apart the earth.

It made Ethan sad to see them destroying his world … and he felt powerless to stop them.

They flew like this for hours, and then the lands greened and sloped up, and the wasp glided over a forested mountainside and over its peaks.

In the distant valley were the winking lights of his neighborhood.

Instead of feeling relief, Ethan dreaded coming back. There were new dangers all around him.

And if he got past the beetles, locusts, drones, and ant lions? More danger. Adults would be everywhere—each a part of the Ch’zar Collective intelligence. If a single one of
them spotted him … they’d
all
know. They could swarm over him and grab him before he could blink.

Be careful
, he urged the wasp.

Reluctance pushed back from the insect’s mind … but after a split-second hesitation, it throttled back its engines and wings and became
completely
silent.

Ethan held his breath, waiting to get blasted out of the air.

They glided over the roofs of the school, the buildings of Main Street, and houses.

He made it all the way to his house.

Ethan landed better this time, setting down in his backyard, maneuvering the wasp under the large maple tree, and scattering a pile of raked leaves.

The cockpit opened and Ethan clambered out.

In the shadows, the wasp’s black-and-gold pattern was excellent camouflage.

He listened. No doors opened. There were no sirens. No cries of alarm.

Good.

Now the hard part. Ethan had to find Emma and explain all this to her … without alerting any adults.

But what about his mom and dad? Ethan desperately wanted to believe they were different. He couldn’t afford to believe that, though. He had to save Emma and the twins first—then he could risk finding out more about his parents.

He crept up the back porch and into the kitchen.

His stomach rumbled. By habit, Ethan opened the refrigerator door and looked for something to eat.

What was he
doing
? He shut the refrigerator and padded upstairs.

The house had a weird, still feeling that he couldn’t put his finger on.

He eased into the twins’ room. Their bunk beds were empty. It looked like a tornado had passed through the room (which was normal), but this time the dressers had been opened and their clothes were gone.

It was like they’d left … or been taken away in a hurry.

Ethan didn’t like this.

He snuck into Emma’s room next.

It was empty too. But
really
empty. The blankets and sheets on her bed had been stripped off. Her stuff had been packed into boxes labeled:
VASSAR
PREP
H.S./BLACKWOOD
,
E. K./EARLY HONORS
ADM
.

He felt numb and stood staring a moment.

Had the zeppelins come early? Had they already taken her?

There was one last place to check … his parents’ room. Ethan wasn’t ready for that, but he couldn’t
not
check, either.

He crept toward their room. The door was open, which was wrong, because they always slept with it shut. He peeked around the corner.

The room was as messy as the twins’.

Franklin and Melinda Blackwood weren’t there.

Ethan’s hand went to his throat. What if his parents
had been
different … and because of all the trouble he’d caused, they’d been found out?

There had to be
some
clue here about what happened.

It looked, though, like someone had already searched for clues. Their clothes had been pulled from the dressers and scattered, the hamper had been overturned, and all the contents of their closet had been tossed onto the floor.

Ethan’s breath caught in his throat.

There was a door in the back of the closet … only visible because it was partially open. Otherwise, it would have blended with the wall perfectly.

Ethan touched that door—metal and heavy to push. Lead?

The tiny room was lined with lead as well, and a single lightbulb hung from the ceiling. There were two combination safes. Both were open and empty.

Ethan was more confused than ever. He had to keep searching. He had to find something.

He went to his room. The covers on his bed were still neatly pulled aside from when he’d gotten up. The white Blanca Dairy parka lay on the floor where he’d dropped it.

One member of the Blackwood family was still here. Mr. Bubbles. Ethan went to feed his pet betta fish.

A folded piece of paper lay under his fish-food container.

Ethan opened it. In his mom’s curlicue handwriting, it read:

The letter in his hands blurred. Tears fell on the paper.

Why? Why couldn’t they have told him any of this stuff?

Why—when he needed them the most—had they left Emma and him?

He crumpled the note in frustration, but stopped … and smoothed it.

Of course his parents couldn’t say anything. If somehow they had found a way to beat the Ch’zar mind control and were working against the aliens, he and Emma would be the most dangerous people in the world to them.

Emma was on the cusp of becoming an adult, Ethan soon after that … and then they’d be absorbed into the Collective.

He folded the note with care and slid it into his pocket.

Ethan hoped that wherever they were, his parents were safe.

Maybe one day, like they said, they’d all be together again.

But until then, there was still time to save Emma.

Ethan tromped downstairs. He had to get back to the wasp, fly to the school—and blast through any guards and obstacles to get inside. He had to get Emma and take her to a safe place, no matter what.

He banged out the back door …

 … and stood face to face with a dozen police, guns leveled at him, and a dozen more adults surrounding them—all staring at him with unblinking eyes, all moving closer.

There was no chance of escape.

ETHAN HAD BEEN DUCT-TAPED TO A METAL
folding chair. The chair was in the middle of the school’s gym. Bright spotlights shone down on him.