‘That still doesn’t make up for the whole glove thing,’ I tell Nine as he effortlessly tosses the sofa back into the lobby.
‘Come on,’ Nine complains, grinning. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Are there any other alien gadgets I need to be aware of?’ Walker asks as we pile into the elevator and hit the button for the top floor.
‘Well, there’s this,’ Nine replies, and pulls a string of three emerald-green stones out of his pocket. I remember that thing from before – when Nine throws it, the string creates a miniature vacuum, sucks up whatever’s close and then spits it violently back out. He must have taken it out of his Chest before turning over the rest of his Inheritance to Marina and Six.
‘What does that do?’ Walker asks.
‘You’ll see,’ I reply, looking at Nine. ‘You know there will be more waiting for us outside the elevator, right?’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ he replies, grinning.
I pull Walker close so that we’re pressed against the side of the elevator, right up against the buttons. Nine takes cover against the opposite wall, lazily swinging his string of stones like a bolo.
‘You might need to hold on to me,’ I tell Walker. ‘You’ve seen how Nine does with gadgets.’
‘Hey,’ Nine says, wounded. ‘This one I actually know how to work.’
Seconds later, the elevator doors open and a barrage of blaster fire hammers the elevator’s back wall, the Mogs up here adopting a strategy of shoot first and ask questions later. Without poking his head out of cover, Nine tosses the strand of stones outside the elevator.
I imagine Nine’s weapon working like it did back at the cabin – the beads hovering in a perfect circle, spinning slowly forward, sucking up anything in their path. I can hear the whoosh of air, followed by Mogadorian screams, and a lot of futile shooting. Glass breaks as framed pictures are torn from the hallway walls, the pieces sucked into the miniature vacuum.
Nine snaps his fingers and everything the vacuum collected explodes outward. Violently expelled from the suction, one Mogadorian comes flying into the elevator. His head smashes hard against the back wall, his neck broken. Outside, everything is quiet.
When it’s over, I stick my head outside the doors. The air is filled with swirling dust particles that might be Mogadorian remains. A blaster that somehow became wedged against the ceiling clatters to the floor. Aside from that, the only thing in the hallway is a room-service cart that looks like it’s gone through a grinder, its legs bent and twisted. There’s only one door at the end of the short hallway, the one for the penthouse, and it’s now half broken off its hinges.
‘What the hell was that thing?’ Walker asks, incredulous.
‘The Mogs aren’t the only ones with kick-ass weaponry,’ Nine says, picking up the harmless-looking stone strand from where it landed on the floor.
‘Don’t get any ideas,’ I say to Walker when I catch her craning her neck to get a look at the stones. ‘Our technology isn’t for sale.’
Walker frowns at me. ‘Yeah, well, judging by that bullshit with the gloves, you don’t know how to work it anyway.’
From the broken doorway up ahead, I hear the droning of a television. It’s turned to cable news, I think, some talking head rambling on about stock prices. Other than that, the hallway is totally quiet. There isn’t any sign of more Mogadorians. Even so, we advance cautiously towards the penthouse door.
Wary of an ambush, I nudge the door with my telekinesis before we get too close. It comes off the hinges easily and falls into the penthouse with a thud. The living room inside is dark, all the curtains drawn, and lit only by the blue glow of the television.
‘Come on in,’ a gravelly voice calls from inside. ‘There’s no one in here who can hurt you.’
‘That’s Sanderson,’ Walker whispers.
I exchange a quick look with Nine. He shrugs and waves towards the door. I go first, Nine right behind me and Walker bringing up the rear.
The first thing I notice is a damp, moldy smell in the hotel room. It smells like rot with an undercurrent of minty, old-man joint cream. A map of New York City is spread across the table in the suite’s dining area, notes in Mogadorian scribbled at various locations. Next to the table is a knocked-over chair, as if someone got up in a hurry. There are also Mogadorian cannons propped up against one wall along with some dark canvas backpacks of gear – I notice a laptop, a few cell phones and a thick leather-bound book.
None of that interests me as much as the old man seated at the edge of the suite’s slept-in king-size bed. He watches the TV through the open bedroom doorway, maybe too weak to walk himself into the penthouse’s living room.
‘Goddamn, dude,’ Nine exclaims, upon seeing Sanderson. ‘What is wrong with you?’
I’ve seen a lot of pictures of Bud Sanderson over the last few days. The first was on They Walk Among Us, Sanderson as an old man with thinning white hair, jowls and a paunch. On the website, in a tabloid-style story I didn’t think too much about, Mark James accused Sanderson of using some kind of Mogadorian anti-aging treatment. The next time I saw Sanderson was in Agent Walker’s file, having lunch with a disguised Setrákus Ra, hale and hearty, silver hair full and slicked back, looking like he might jog a few miles after his Cobb salad.
The Sanderson in front of me doesn’t look like either of those pictures. Nine and I walk into the bedroom to get a closer look, Walker lingering behind. The secretary of defense is a frail old man, his hunched body wrapped up in a puffy hotel robe. The right side of his face looks saggy and collapsed – his eye socket droops, and his jawline disappears beneath folds of loose skin. His white hair is badly thinned, a comb-over barely managing to hide a smattering of age spots. He smiles at us – or maybe it’s a grimace – his teeth yellow, gums receding. In the open neck of his robe and along his forearms, I notice some prominent veins that are discolored black.