I Am Number Four - Pittacus Lore Page 0,7

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