I stare back at him, trying to process what he’s saying. But in the end, I know there is only one answer to this question.
“I will do whatever Beloved Leader asks of me.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he says as he finishes bandaging my other hand. “I’ll begin the preparations at once. I’ll send for you when I’m ready. Go get some rest.” He grins. “Evolution can be a painful process.”
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER MEETING WITH ZAKOS, I HEAD TO MY OLD quarters at the mountain base. It holds none of my personal belongings other than a few old uniforms and a dog-eared copy of the Great Book. And yet it feels good to be back there after so many nights camped out in Mexico, wondering how the hell I was going to break through the Sanctuary’s force field. On the small bed in the room I sleep the deep, dreamless sleep of one who has been running on nothing but adrenaline for days.
I’ve barely woken the next morning when Dr. Zakos sends for me. It’s well past sunrise. I know my body needed the rest, but I still feel lazy, like I should have been awake at dawn and doing something, anything, to help the invasion move forward.
I catch myself in the mirror before heading to the lab. My eye isn’t as swollen as it was but has begun to bruise, turning one side of my face into a mixture of purples, yellows and deep blacks. My mind flashes with thoughts of being tied up in Mexico, beaten by Adamus and Six.
I promise myself that if I ever see them again, I will bleed them slowly, making them watch helplessly as their friends die in front of them before I even begin to consider gifting the two of them the release of death. Not for the disgrace they caused me by taking me as their prisoner, but for the injuries they inflicted on Beloved Leader. They will pay dearly.
Someone has cleaned up the blood in Dr. Zakos’s lab, but he’s not around. I loiter there for a few minutes, letting my eyes run over the various notes and documents littering his workstation: designs for new monsters, potential weapon upgrades, scrawlings about the humans who’ve developed Loric powers.
I’m interrupted by a ragged gasp behind me.
I turn on my toes and draw my blaster in one fluid motion. From the end of my weapon I see the red-haired girl on the metal slab. She looks different than she did yesterday. She’s paler, and her cheeks are sunken in. Her lips move, but no words come out, and unlike before, her eyes are open—big and green and bloodshot, staring off into space.
I step over to her side. There are all sorts of new contraptions around her bed, big pieces of machinery and computational equipment with needles, tubes and electrodes hanging from them. I crouch beside her.
“Lucky little human,” I say. “You have no idea what an honor it is to be in your position. Whatever Beloved Leader and Dr. Zakos have planned for you will surely make our armies stronger, speeding up Mogadorian Process and the invasion of your planet. Any pain you endure in this laboratory is for the greater good of my people. You should consider yourself fortunate: unlike most humans, your death will have meaning.”
When I finish, her eyes suddenly jerk towards me, wide and full of terror. I smile, knowing she’s heard me. That she understands.
She takes another gasping breath, and then her eyelids flutter and she falls unconscious again. That’s when I hear a voice filtering into the room from the vats. I go through the door and am immediately hit by the same sulfuric smell as yesterday, even stronger now.
“Dr. Zakos,” I say, and then I register what’s happening in front of me.
Zakos stands in his white lab coat over one of the dark pools. He’s got an electronic tablet in his hands. In the vat below him is Beloved Leader, submerged up to his shoulders in black ooze. His face is covered with a slick coat of the dense liquid.
“Beloved Leader,” I say, dropping to my knees with such force that for a second I think I may have cracked my kneecaps. “Forgive me; I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Rise, Phiri Dun-Ra,” he says, his voice a deep bellow filling the room.
“Ah, there you are,” Zakos says. He raises the tablet in his hands. “I was just updating our illustrious commander as to the state of his fleet and everything that’s happened in the last few hours. Including your flight from Mexico.”
“You took control of the Anubis when I was . . .” My leader pauses. “When I was indisposed.”
“I did . . .” I hesitate. “I acted as your voice. There was chaos where there should have been order, and I tried to rectify that and act in your interests. I know that I had no right to do this and offer my life as—”
“You have done well, Phiri,” he says, cutting me off. “In fact, I have plans for you. Call it a reward. By my design, Dr. Zakos has developed a new form of augmentation. I want you to be his first test subject.”
“Me?”
“Who better than one who has shown she will stop at nothing to prove her loyalty? The process will be painful. It may push you to the brink of death. I need someone with the will to survive, to endure—to serve as my voice while I mend myself here. My voice, and my fist. We’re going to make you stronger, unbeatable, and in doing so you will become the face of this world’s end. You’ll emerge from this process renewed, my most powerful weapon.”
My heart pumps in my chest. Something rushes through me, a feeling of contentment and joy unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
“All you have to do is make it through the process alive,” he says.
I try to speak without my voice shaking. For a moment, I remember the blood and flesh on the lab table yesterday. That could be me, the first to test this new augmentation.
But it is his will.
“It is my purpose to serve you, Beloved Leader. Thank you for honoring me in this way, despite my failure to capture the Loric fleeing the Sanctuary.”
He lets out a few short laughs.
“Don’t concern yourself with the Loric right now, Phiri Dun-Ra. Their fate is sealed. I’ve foreseen the end of the Garde and their allies. Their downfall will come from within.” His lips curl up into a smile, dripping black ooze over his sharp, gray teeth. “I haven’t just been healing down here in the dark. I’ve been dreaming.”
Before I can get any sort of explanation of what that means, he begins to sink back into the vat.
“A few more hours, I think,” he says to Zakos before the ooze rises above his lips. “Then I want to see how our new soldier has turned out.”
“Of course, Beloved Leader.”
And then he’s completely covered.
Once he’s disappeared, I can hardly contain myself. I realize that I’ve been holding my breath, and letting it out causes my vision to momentarily go hazy as a rush of adrenaline jolts through me.
I am the voice of Beloved Leader. I am the fist that will smash the Loric, and then the humans. I am fulfilling my purpose.
When I finally look up, Zakos is standing over me. He’s stowed the tablet in one of his big lab coat pockets and now holds what looks like a bone saw in one hand. He points to the door of his lab with it.
“Well then,” he says. “You heard Beloved Leader. He’s pleased with you and looks forward to seeing how I might be able to improve upon your abilities. So . . .” He grins. “Shall we begin?”