LANE was a term first coined by the US military, possibly by Lawson himself. Depending on who one asked, it meant either Legacy-Augmented Native Earthling or Legacy-Afflicted Native Earthling.
Daniela smirked. “That what they’re calling us now? Human Garde?”
Lawson sighed. “It’s simple and less . . . offensive than LANE, apparently. There are PR gurus involved. Not my area of expertise.”
“Oi,” Nigel broke in. “Did you say deploy? As in, like, stormtroopers?”
Lawson began again. His patience for being interrupted had grown exponentially since he started working with Garde. “Participating countries, which include England and Japan—” He looked in Ran’s direction. “Ah, damn. Forgot to get the interpreter in here for this.”
“Not necessary,” Ran said. “Please. Continue.”
Everyone stared at her except for Nigel, who belted out a laugh. General Lawson puffed out his cheeks and shook his head, taking Ran’s revelation in stride.
“As I was saying, the Earth Garde program has been agreed upon by most UN member nations. All Human Garde from participating nations will be required to register with Earth Garde and undergo training and observation at the Human Garde Academy, which is currently under construction in California.” Lawson slid packets across the table, filled with forms and dense contracts. “The legal details are in here. If you want, we can have your parents flown in before you sign anything.”
“Bollocks to that,” Nigel said with a snort, thumbing through the pages.
Caleb exchanged a look with his uncle, then shook his head. “That’s okay.”
Ran and Daniela said nothing, both their families unaccounted for since the invasion.
“Once you’ve undergone training at the Academy and proven you won’t be a danger to society, you’ll be deployed to an Earth Garde unit. Not as stormtroopers,” Lawson said, with a glance in Nigel’s direction. “No one faces a combat situation until they’re at least eighteen years old and hopefully by then the remaining Mogadorians are routed and the world’s a goddamn utopia.” The old military man smirked. “As outlined, your time with Earth Garde will be spent doing humanitarian work. Currently, Melanie Jackson is assisting with the cleanup efforts in New York. Daniela, I know you’re from there and you’ve already demonstrated excellent control of your powers. I’ve arranged for you to skip the Academy and go straight to Earth Garde. Help rebuild your city.”
Daniela’s eyes widened. Although she didn’t talk about it much, they all knew she was still holding out hope that her mom would be found somewhere in the rubble of Manhattan. The hospitals there were overwhelmed, many neighborhoods didn’t yet have power restored and survivors were still being found. It was possible.
She looked at the other three Garde. Back at Patience Creek, she had promised John Smith she would protect them. But the invasion was over. She’d kept her word. Nigel grinned at her, and Ran nodded once.
Daniela reached across the table for a pen. “Where do I sign?”
Nigel leaned back in his chair and studied Lawson. “Right, then. Who’s going to be in charge of this Academy thing? You?”
Lawson shook his head. “No. My job was the war, and the war is over. The UN has appointed someone better suited to training people of your unique abilities.”
“Yeah? Who’s that?”
The Americans lobbied hard to host the Academy. With everything the United States had done to coordinate the counterattack against the Mogadorian warships, none of the other world leaders were in a position to push back. The Academy would technically be on international soil, the entire thing UN-funded, with Peacekeepers handling the security.
Fifty miles north of San Francisco, the secluded Point Reyes was chosen as the location for the Academy, the people of California and the National Park Service generously gifting the land to the United Nations. With a promise to be as eco-friendly as possible, building began immediately on the coastal cliffs of the former nature preserve.
“Damn, dude. Place is going to be huge,” said the young man as he surveyed the construction, hundreds of workers already clearing earth and laying foundations, bulldozers and cranes rumbling across the landscape. “How many students we expecting?”
The older man standing next to him glanced up from his tablet. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Last count they’d registered more than one hundred Human Garde. Finding new ones every day.”
The young man whistled. His long black hair was tied back in a sloppy man-bun. It was windy here and he kept having to push rebellious strands of hair out of his eyes. He’d seen the blueprints and now, looking at the land, he tried to picture what the Academy would look like. Two dormitories each capable of housing five hundred students, a cul-de-sac of town houses erected for faculty housing, a school building equipped with state-of-the-art computers and laboratories, a recreation center, a training complex designed by the military, a sports fieldhouse, solar power and a tide-power generator. All that nestled between the fir trees of the valley and the rocky cliffs of Drake’s Bay. Not so unusual, a private school in the middle of nowhere, albeit this one would be surrounded by miles of electrified razor-wire fence, its perimeter patrolled by round-the-clock security.
“What are you thinking, Professor?” Dr. Malcolm Goode asked, emphasizing the title that his young friend had negotiated for, despite never actually finishing high school.
The young man rubbed the spot where his prosthetic arm joined his shoulder. The thing still itched him like crazy.
“It’s no penthouse,” Nine said. “But I guess it’ll do.”
CHAPTER THREE
TAYLOR COOK
TURNER COUNTY, SOUTH DAKOTA
THE CLOSEST THING TO ACTION TAYLOR COOK SAW during the invasion was when a pickup truck filled with local boys rumbled by her family’s farm and asked her father if he wanted to go to war.
“We’re headed to Chicago, see if the army needs our help,” announced the driver, Dale, the manager of the local grocery store. “Kill some of these goddamn aliens.”
“Uh-huh,” Taylor’s dad, Brian, replied. “That right?”
Brian stood on their porch, his arms crossed skeptically. He and Taylor had run this farm together ever since Taylor’s mom had run off. She knew what her dad’s stance meant—it was the same as when one of the farmhands did something stupid. Her dad had an abiding patience for foolishness that Taylor didn’t exactly share.
From a few steps behind her father, Taylor assessed the contents of the pickup truck. There were three men stuffed in the cab and another four perched in the bed, all of them carrying rifles and dressed in hunting fatigues. There was something almost comical about this bunch going off to fight aliens with bright orange reflectors glued to their shoulders. This whole day—warships, invaders, superpowers—it felt like a crazy dream to Taylor. She was scared, sure, have to be insane not to be. But that didn’t stop her from smirking at her neighbors’ makeshift posse.
One of the boys in the back of the truck caught Taylor’s eye. “See something funny?” he asked. She recognized Silas, her father’s main farmhand. He was in his early twenties, dark hair slicked back by a gloss of gel, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Taylor tossed her blond hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms, unintentionally copying her dad’s posture.