Sam looks at me. “Can you fight?”
I grimace and manage to create a weak ball of fire with my Lumen. As soon as I do, my healing Legacy stops working, and my torso is pure agony. I extinguish the flame and focus on healing, shaking my head at Sam.
“Not yet,” I say.
“Then we better move,” he replies. “Unless you want to try that lasso trick again.”
“No thanks,” I say. “This one doesn’t teleport. He knocks down walls.”
Sam gets his arms under me and gently helps me to my feet. I fling my good arm over his shoulders, the other clutched against my stomach, and we shuffle quickly down the hall. Sam’s got one arm around my waist, and the other points a blaster straight ahead. Behind us, the heavy footsteps and grunting of the Piken-Mog echo, slowly becoming more distant.
“You know what I thought the first day I met you in school?” Sam asks me, his voice low, breathing heavily.
I raise an eyebrow at the question. “Uh, no. What?”
“I thought, here’s a guy who’s going to make me carry him halfway across New York City and then later through a top secret underground military base while he bleeds all over the place. I hope we can be best friends.”
I actually laugh at that, even though it hurts my punctured ribs. “You’ve gotten really good at it,” I say.
“Yeah, thanks,” Sam replies with a grim smile.
We edge around a corner, and a gunshot rings out. I feel the bullet whiz right past my cheek.
“Hold your fire!” yells Agent Walker. “Goddamn it, they’re ours!”
Agent Walker stands with an assault rifle at the ready, her face smeared with ash, a nasty-looking blaster burn on one of her legs. In front of her, one of them still aiming a pistol in our direction, are the twins, Caleb and Christian. It was the dead-eyed one, Christian, who took a shot at us. Caleb punches him in the arm to get him to finally lower his gun.
“Sorry,” Caleb says, nodding towards Sam’s blaster. “We saw the blaster coming around the corner and . . .”
“Don’t sweat it,” Sam says. “I’ve been getting shot at for a long time.”
“Good God, if you’re here, how are we losing?”
That comment, directed at me, comes from General Lawson. He’s sandwiched between Walker and the twins, like they’re his bodyguards. The whole unflappable-grandfather act is out the window. Lawson looks like crap. His uniform is torn and bloodstained, he’s got an open gash over his eyebrow and he looks about ten years older than I remember.
“They got the drop on me,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m out of the fight for now.”
“They got the drop on all of us,” Walker says with a glare in Lawson’s direction. She walks over to my side and helps Sam support my weight. “You . . . you’re going to heal, right?”
“Mostly,” I reply. The punctures are only now beginning to close up, oily black residue leaking out of them.
“Is there anywhere safe?” Sam asks.
“We tried to break through their ranks at the garage,” Lawson says, his expression darkening. “Took heavy losses while they kept bringing in reinforcements. They’ve got a teleporter.”
“Not anymore,” Sam says.
“Did you know about that?” Lawson asks, looking at me. “That they have Legacies?”
“Those aren’t Legacies. They’re sick copies. Augmentations,” I say. “But no, they’re a new thing.”
“They stole that from you,” Lawson says, putting two and two together. “That’s what you were talking about at the meeting the other day.”
“We should keep moving,” Walker puts in.
Lawson shakes his head, still looking at me. “I was not fully informed just how fubared we are.”
“We were doubling back towards the elevators,” Walker says, taking over. “We hoped there would be less resistance.”
“Might be,” I say. “Five just took out a squadron that came down with me. Not sure how many more, but . . .”
We all hear it at the same time. Heavy footfalls bounding down a hallway. Too close.
“There’s a big one,” I tell them. “It’s hunting. It’s—”
“Tearing people apart,” Lawson says. “We saw the bodies.”
Sam glances at Christian. “It probably heard your shot.”
“We need to go,” Walker says. “Now.”
We push on, hustling through one hallway, then zagging down another. The Piken-Mog has our scent, though. I can hear it behind us, getting closer, wailing excitedly.
I realize that I’m the one slowing us down. I glance over my shoulder and see its mammoth shadow moving down the hallway we just left.
“Go,” I tell the others. “Get to the elevator. I’ll hold it off.”
I have no idea how I’m going to do that, but they don’t need to know that.
“John, don’t be stupid,” Sam says. He drags me along, and I’m powerless to stop him.
“You’re a brave kid,” Lawson grumbles. “But you’re our biggest asset. If we get out of this, we’re going to need you.”
The Piken-Mog comes into view about fifty yards down the hall. It roars, excited to finally have us in its sights. The thing, barely more than an animal, beats its thick fists against the scarred flesh of its bulging pectorals.
Lawson turns to Caleb and Christian. “You’re up.”
The twins nod in unison. Christian immediately turns around and starts walking right towards the Piken-Mog.
“Stop!” I yell at him, then turn on Lawson. “Are you crazy? You can’t just send him to die!”
At first, the Piken-Mog seems confused by this development, some remnant of its trueborn brain registering that this solitary human must be insane. But then, with a line of drool dangling from his under bite, the Piken-Mog charges, bearing down on Christian.
“It’s okay,” Caleb interrupts. “Watch.”
Of course I watch. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to, even as we back down the hallway. Christian unloads his gun into the Piken-Mog, but the bullets are either absorbed or deflected by its thick hide.
Lawson grimaces. “Was hoping bullets might do it.”
“That’s your plan?” Sam shouts, wide-eyed.
The gorilla-sized Mog reaches Christian in seconds and claps his hand over the kid’s head. He hoists him up like that and smashes him first against the wall, then against the floor. Christian doesn’t make a sound. He even keeps on shooting.
And then, after a particularly sickening slam against the floor, Christian evaporates in a burst of blue energy. The Piken-Mog looks stunned.
“What the—?” Sam exclaims.
Next to me, Caleb begins to glow. His whole body begins to vibrate, blurring, splitting apart.
A second later, there are two more of him. Two brand-new twin versions of Caleb. They blink their eyes, getting their bearings, then look at the original. Caleb nods towards the Piken-Mog, and they sprint into a hopeless battle.
He never had a twin brother. It’s a Legacy. He can duplicate himself.
“Two at a time,” Lawson says. “Getting better, son.”
“Thanks,” Caleb replies as we retreat. He looks a little wobbly. Behind us, I hear the Piken-Mog thrashing these newest twins. A glance over my shoulder reveals that they’re playing it smarter than Christian did, using hit-and-run to distract the brute. They won’t last long, but they should at least slow him down.
“I have questions for you,” I say to Caleb.
“I figured you would,” he says, not meeting my eyes.
“But all of them can wait, except one,” I continue. “How many duplicates can you create?”
“Not enough,” he replies, swallowing hard. “It’s hard. I’m . . . I’m only learning.”
“That beast is shrugging off bullets like they’re mosquitoes,” Sam adds. “We need to lose this thing until one of us, uh, until one of us with every Legacy can take him down.”
I glance down at myself, looking at my wounds. Closer now. I can feel my power slowly returning. I also feel light-headed on account of all the blood lost.
Our group takes a few sharp turns through the twisty subterranean hallways. I think we’ve doubled back at this point. We pass bodies, places where battles took place, but no one is alive. There’s a good chance we’re the only ones left.