“Yeah,” Taylor said tiredly, “you told me about that.”
“You reminded me of him just now,” Kopano said.
Taylor snorted. “Of John Smith? Really? Your idol?”
“You are my new idol.”
Taylor squeezed his arm. “I’m glad that’s who you were thinking of, because the whole time I was talking I kept thinking about Einar.”
“Yuck. Why?”
“His whole speech about us sticking together. About liberating us. He’s an insane, murderous asshole, but some of that stuff made sense. He wanted to get it all out in the open.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” Kopano said. “I hope there’s a ‘but’ coming.”
As they neared the entrance to the dorms, Taylor’s eyes started to feel heavy. Her bed. So close. She took a long pause, getting her thoughts together.
“But,” she said at last, “he was wrong about one thing, especially. About us needing to be liberated. We don’t need that. We already have a place where we can be free.”
“We do?”
Taylor waved a hand in front of her, encompassing the grounds, the lights flickering on in the buildings, the Garde hanging around in small groups, probably discussing all the insane stuff she’d just told them.
“It’s here,” she said. “This is our place. And we’re going to fight for it.”
CHAPTER THREE
CALEB CRANE
ROME, ITALY
AS HE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF THE MASTER bedroom, which was roughly the size of the entire first floor of his house back in Nebraska, Caleb was struck by how every inch of the villa seemed to glitter. He’d read somewhere that all the gold ever mined in human history would fit into just three Olympic swimming pools. Caleb figured this place had to account for at least a bathtub’s worth. The marble floor tiles were flecked with gold. Veins of gold ran through the massive bed’s wooden posts. The bizarre painting on the wall—topless angels with flaming swords chasing after a grinning man in a sparkling race car—was housed in an ornate gold frame.
Caleb couldn’t quite wrap his head around the style. The guy who lived here was superrich. Got it. Understood. But why did he feel the need to constantly remind himself of the fact? Something was definitely wrong with anyone who needed to be so flashy.
Then again, the villa’s owner was a member of the Foundation, so bad taste was just the tip of the iceberg of his psychological problems.
The bedroom was empty, just like all the other rooms Caleb had checked so far. The top floor was clear. He was about to go in search of the others when something jabbed him in the small of the back.
“Stop looking at boobs,” commanded a voice behind him. “We’re trying to do an infiltration here.”
Caleb spun around to find Isabela smirking at him. She held a nectarine in one hand and a knife in the other, the handle still pointed at Caleb.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on me,” Caleb said, blushing as he realized how it must have looked to Isabela: like he was ogling that skeevy painting. “One of my duplicates could’ve attacked you.”
“Oh please, all your selves love me,” she replied, brushing past him. “Anyway. The place is empty. We’ve checked everywhere.”
“Just like the last one,” Caleb said sourly.
Two weeks had gone by since Switzerland. Two weeks since Caleb turned his back on Earth Garde and teamed up with Einar (a psychopath), Five (also a psychopath) and Duanphen (surprisingly normal by comparison). After a couple of days resting up on Einar’s cramped spaceship, they had tried to track down more of his former Foundation contacts. Even after the mess in Switzerland, they all agreed that bringing Foundation members to justice was the best use of their time. Well, Isabela thought they should be partying and enjoying the wealth they’d amassed, but the rest of them wanted to do something productive.
In Greece they found a conspirator’s estate deserted. They’d tried another name with another mansion, this time in Croatia. No one home. And then, they’d come here, to the villa of a former Formula One driver turned angel investor, apparently a big spender on the Human Garde black market. But he was gone, too.
“Rome seems like it’ll be more fun than Crete,” Isabela said cheerily. “But the other mansion was much nicer. This place is kinda trashy, don’t you think?”
“It hurts my eyes,” Caleb said, always happy to be able to agree with Isabela about something. He cleared his throat. “Also, I wasn’t looking at those boobs before. Just so you know.”
Isabela considered the painting like she was at a museum, tapping her knife on her chin. “Why not? Don’t you like them?”
Caleb opened his mouth but didn’t manage a response.
Random articles of clothing were pooled on the bedroom floor or sloppily hung from half-open drawers. The door to the walk-in closet was ajar, empty hangers piled in one corner. From the look of things, the race car driver must have packed in a hurry. Maybe he sensed the avenging angels from his painting were finally catching up to him.
Isabela plucked a lavender silk shirt from the ground and tossed it into Caleb’s face.
“Put that on and we can go clubbing,” Isabela said.
Caleb disentangled himself from the shirt and made a face. “You need to take this more seriously.”
“Oh, right, we’re on a mission.” Isabela dropped her voice to a whisper and wiggled her fingers at him. “Psh. I would’ve stayed at the Academy if I wanted lectures, Caleb.”
“It doesn’t bother you that none of Einar’s leads on the Foundation have panned out? That we haven’t accomplished anything? That we’re basically fugitives without a plan?”
“We have a spaceship filled with money. What do we need a plan for?” She grazed her knife against the bed frame. “Think this is real gold?”
“Isabela. Come on.”
“You should be happy we haven’t found any Foundation people,” Isabela said, her eyes darkening as she focused on Caleb. “Einar and Five would probably want to kill them, you and Ran would say no and I’d have to listen to all the arguing.”
“We said we wouldn’t kill anyone,” Caleb replied. “We aren’t murderers. We’re trying to bring these people to justice.”
Isabela scoffed. “You’re sweet.”
“You mean that as an insult.”
“Obviously.” Isabela waved her knife through the air as she spoke. “Who do you think will help with this ‘justice,’ hmm? Earth Garde wants to arrest us. Every government thinks we are terroristas. The Foundation buys its way out of any trouble. If you want justice, killing them is really the best we can do.”
“You don’t really believe that,” Caleb said quietly.
She popped the last slice of fruit into her mouth and tossed away the pit. “Look, I’m with you. Killing is a big waste of effort. We have a saying—se correr o bicho pega; se ficar o bicho come. If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you. Get it?”
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
“Exactly! So if there is nothing we can do without screwing ourselves, our best option is to go screw.”