IN A DISTANT GALAXY, THE PEACEFUL PLANET LORIEN WAS DECIMATED BY THE BRUTAL MOGADORIANS.
The last survivors of Lorien—the Garde—were sent to Earth as children. Scattered across the continents, they developed their Legacies and readied themselves to defend their adopted home world.
The Garde thwarted the Mogadorian invasion of Earth.
In the process, the Garde changed the very nature of Earth. Legacies, the extraordinary powers from the planet Lorien, began to manifest in human beings.
These new Legacies frighten some humans, while others look for ways to manipulate the new Garde to their benefit.
And while the Legacies are meant to protect Earth, not every Garde will use their powers for good.
I AM PITTACUS LORE. RECORDER OF THE FATES, CHRONICLER OF THE LEGACIES.
I TELL THE TALES OF THOSE WHO WOULD SHAPE WORLDS.
CHAPTER ONE
DANIELA MORALES
EARTH GARDE COMMAND—WASHINGTON, DC
DANIELA GAZED UP AT THE HOLOGRAM OF THE globe as it did a slow rotation above the polished mahogany conference table. The lights in the briefing room’s domed ceiling automatically dimmed whenever the operations map was active, so she stood there bathed in the projection’s vivid blue glow. She traced her fingers across the back of one of the twenty vinyl chairs that surrounded the table. She’d been sitting right there, months ago, when she was assigned to Melanie Jackson’s “good works and public relations” team. Daniela still remembered the positive vibes in the air that day, how everyone was smiling, even her. Earth Garde was going to let her help rebuild New York City. Her home.
Now, the room was empty. There was no briefing scheduled today and the mood around headquarters was decidedly uncheerful.
Daniela shook her head and reminded herself that, despite recent craziness, life was pretty good. She cracked a disbelieving smile, the way she did whenever she considered how far she’d gotten from Harlem. Not like physically far, at least not at the moment. NYC was three hours away on the train, faster if Earth Garde assigned her a helicopter. And they often did. How baller was that? She should put in a request to go visit her mom once she wasn’t confined to headquarters anymore. It had been too long and her mom was probably worried. Especially if she’d been watching the news.
Thinking about her mom, it was hard to believe the gulf between this life and her old one. Where had she been two years ago? Hooking up with boys in Harlem River Park? Getting fired from her job for being rude to customers? She certainly hadn’t been hanging around any high-tech military briefing rooms in state-of-the-art buildings just down the block from the Pentagon.
The invasion changed everything, of course. She developed Legacies. She may or may not have robbed a bank. She met John Smith. She helped save humanity.
And now? She’d been all over the world. Seen some crap straight out of those dorky sci-fi movies her stepdad—rest his soul—used to watch all the time. She’d made friends that weren’t even human. She’d helped rebuild what the Mogadorians had broken.
Daniela liked to think she was making a difference. Even if sometimes all she did was sit on a beach and babysit Melanie. She frowned at the holographic globe. All the places she could go, all the good she could be doing. Instead, she was stuck at headquarters. Grounded. At least until the fallout from Switzerland blew over.
It had seemed like a cake assignment at the time. Hang out at the mansion of the billionaire tech guru Wade Sydal, who, of course, was a family friend of the well-connected Melanie. Ride around on his new spaceship that he’d reverse-engineered from Mogadorian tech. Eat lobster.
Daniela still hadn’t wrapped her head around how it all went to hell. Apparently, Sydal was involved with some shady people who helped him acquire black-market alien technology. Without telling them what he was up to, Sydal brought Daniela and her Earth Garde teammates Melanie and Caleb to Switzerland so that they could watch his back. The British lady selling him Mogadorian ooze had some mercenaries and Garde of her own—Nigel and Taylor—although they were actually double agents. Before the deal could even be completed, freaking Number Five and that maniac Einar showed up to do, like, a citizen’s arrest on all the adults. It all popped off. They fought, even more Garde showed up and they fought some more.
“Bananas,” Daniela muttered.
Sydal had been killed in the process of bailing on his Earth Garde escort like a scared little bitch. There were a ton of soft-focus tributes to him on TV. The official story was that Einar killed him, even though she was pretty sure one of the Brit’s mercenaries took out Sydal with a rocket. But no one around headquarters was interested in Daniela’s version of the events, especially not with video of Einar’s unhinged speech playing on cable news 24/7.
Daniela surprised herself with how often she thought about Einar’s screed. He’d definitely come off like the type of dude who sent mail bombs from his basement, but some of what he said actually made sense, especially in light of the whole Sydal-being-corrupt-as-hell thing. Daniela didn’t know anything about cabals and conspiracies. No one filled her in on that stuff while she was acting as a glorified sidekick to the pretty face fronting Earth Garde. But it sure sounded like Einar and his people had some legitimate beef with how the Human Garde were being treated. He’d convinced some to run away with him, including Caleb, who Daniela didn’t think had ever broken a rule in his life, much less disobeyed the UN.
Ultimately, Number Nine had let Einar and his followers escape. After one ugly battle, none of them had wanted to fight each other again. At the time, Daniela never considered rolling with Einar. Her gut told her to stick with Nine and his people. He wouldn’t steer her wrong.
But Nine was back at the Academy with his students and Daniela was stuck here at Earth Garde headquarters with a bunch of adults who gave her the hairy eyeball and wouldn’t let her leave.
Daniela breathed out a sigh through her nose. When would things get less complicated?
When would they let her out of here?
The globe rotated so Europe was facing Daniela. With the press of a button, she called up the operations overlay. A dot pulsed over Switzerland. Daniela poked her finger into the hologram and a text pop-up appeared:
CLEANUP OPERATION UNDER WAY. UNKNOWN EXTRATERRESTRIAL SUBSTANCE BELIEVED AT LARGE.
On the hologram, Daniela could check on the progress of all of Earth Garde’s operations. Sometimes the details were vague due to the limits of her security clearance, but she could still get a pretty good idea about what Earth Garde was working on. Right now, there were hardly any glowing dots on the map. There were only a few dozen trained Human Garde to begin with and operations had been scaled way back since Switzerland. Garde like Daniela could rebuild all the world’s exploded landmarks and Melanie could smile all pretty for the cameras, but all it took was one unhinged Icelandic kid rambling about taking over the planet to shake the public’s confidence in their fledgling organization.
“Didn’t hear them complaining when I was busting my ass laying down stonework for them,” Daniela muttered, thinking about all the foundations she’d supplemented using her stone-vision. She tapped a few buttons on a tablet computer mounted on the conference table. “Let’s see who still wants our help . . .”
The glowing dots on the projection increased tenfold. Here were the open requests from countries for Earth Garde assistance. Waving her fingers through the map, Daniela accessed a few of them at random. Sickness in Kenya, an oil field under threat in Egypt, drug cartels in Mexico—all potential jobs for Earth Garde. More requests than they had personnel to handle.