Inheritance

assembly hall. “We Imria first came to this planet millions of years ago. We were a younger people then, and we thought we had all the power of science at our disposal, and we exercised that power by creating you in our own image. That is why we are so similar. Because we made you to look like us.”

The hairs on Reese’s arms rose at the sensation of utter astonishment that swept through the General Assembly Hall.

“Our belief in our own power, however, was arrogant,” Deyir continued. “We brought your species into existence, but we did not succeed in the most important way. As we told you a month ago, the foundation stone of Imrian society is our ability to share consciousness with one another: susum’urda. It makes us who we are. From the day we are born, we are connected intimately with our loved ones, and this is the reason that we have survived for so many millions of years. But we failed to give you this ability, and because of that, you grew into a very different kind of people. Because you cannot share consciousness with one another, you have had to create societies different from ours. We thought your lack of susum’urda made you a violent people, prone to attack rather than to love, and we wanted to correct this. In many ways, we saw you as our greatest mistake.”

A murmur rose in the hall, accompanied by waves of stunned disbelief and the beginnings of indignation. Akiya Deyir raised his voice.

“That is why we returned to your planet in the early nineteen hundreds: To find a way to right this wrong; to bring you the most wondrous aspect of our civilization. We thought of this as the next stage in humanity’s evolution. We called it an adaptation. Our research encountered many roadblocks. We had been absent from your planet for too long, and human beings have changed since the last time we intervened in your evolution. But we were overjoyed this past summer when our adaptation procedure was successfully implemented in two of your children. We thought this meant that the time had finally come for us to share this ability with the rest of you: to adapt all of humanity. We wanted to bring you into the Imrian family; to make you, finally, the people you were meant to be.

“Two days ago, I learned that Reese and David have adapted far beyond what we initially intended. They are now capable of susum’urda, but they are capable of more than that. They can not only share consciousness; they have true telepathic abilities. We do not know if all human beings who undergo the adaptation procedure will develop these same abilities, but we do know one thing: It is time for us to stop intervening without your full cooperation. We Imria are not the future of your species. We may be where you came from, but David and Reese are where you’re going. They are the future of both our peoples. I come here today on behalf of all the Imria to ask your forgiveness for what we have done and what we have left undone. I hope that we can move forward into a new age. Together.”

CHAPTER 34

“Reese, wait!”

Amber’s voice made Reese turn around halfway into the elevator to the parking garage. Amber was running across the landing outside the General Assembly Hall. The elevator door began to close and Reese put her hand out to stop it.

“Amber’s coming,” she said over her shoulder. Her mom, David, his dad, and Nura Halba were already inside. They were heading to the Waldorf for a special luncheon and had to take a car to get there. The elevator operator pressed his finger on a button to hold the doors.

“She’s supposed to go with Evelyn and the others,” Halba said, poking his head out to look.

Amber arrived a few seconds later. “Thanks. They told me I should go with you. They were held up by the press.”

“Do you know how long they’ll be delayed?” Halba asked.

Amber stepped inside. “No. There were a lot of reporters, though.”

“Are you ready, sir?” the elevator operator asked.

“Yes, thanks,” Halba replied, and the doors slid shut. Reese was glad she hadn’t been required to stay for the press conference. The response to Akiya Deyir’s speech had been chaos, with half the audience frozen by shock and the other half shouting a hundred questions at once. She had no idea how the Imria were going to deal with this, and though she knew she would have a part to play for the rest of her life, she was grateful for the temporary reprieve.

When the elevator came to a stop, they trooped out into the garage. It smelled faintly of gasoline fumes, and the fluorescent bulbs overhead gave the space a garish cast. As Halba went to request their vehicle from the valet, Reese asked Amber, “Why can’t we take the lander?”

“There’s nowhere to park it at the hotel,” Amber said. “We couldn’t get a permit.”

“You have to get a permit to park a spaceship?” David asked.

Amber shrugged lightly. “We’re trying to play by the rules.”

I wouldn’t have picked parking in New York as the right time to start, David thought to Reese.

Me neither.

David’s fingers worked at the knot of his tie, loosening it. “So what happens after lunch?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Meetings with diplomats, receptions, that sort of thing,” Amber said.

“Are we supposed to go to them?” Reese asked.

“Some, I think,” Amber said.

A limousine pulled up to the valet booth, and the driver jumped out to open the door. Nura Halba called them toward the vehicle, and Reese, David, and Amber turned to follow Reese’s mom and David’s dad into the limo. In the distance Reese heard a screeching noise, like brakes slammed on too sharply. She stopped, looking in the direction of the sound.

An explosion split the air like a whip crack through the stillness. The ground rocked.

Amber stumbled on her heels, falling against Reese as Reese banged into David. He grabbed her arm, saying, “What the hell?”

Sirens began to wail as emergency strobe lights flashed to life, sending bursts of white through the garage. Reese spun around, but she couldn’t see where the explosion had come from.

Her mom scrambled out of the limo, screaming, “Reese!” David’s dad was right behind her as a black-and- white police van careened through the parking garage straight at the limo.

“Mom!” she cried, starting toward the car.

David’s hand was still on her arm and he jerked her to a stop. “Get back!” he shouted, pulling Reese with him toward the elevator. She grabbed Amber, dragging her with them as David cried, “Dad, get away from the car!”

The van turned at the last possible second, barely grazing the limo’s front fender as Nura Halba, Reese’s mom, and David’s dad dived for the ground. The back of the van opened and several men in SWAT uniforms swarmed out. Relieved, Reese moved toward them. One of the men came directly for her and grasped her arm.

That was when she knew.

Inside the man was a cold, hard void, and she froze as she realized who he was—who they all were. They were from Blue Base, just like Lovick’s bodyguards. The man who had grabbed her bent her arms behind her back as easily as she might break a toothpick. With a ratcheting sound, her wrists were bound with a plastic strip, and the man half carried, half pushed her toward the van. To her left she saw David trying to struggle, but it was useless. He was shoved inside the van too, and deposited onto the bench across from her. A soldier inside the van covered her mouth with a strip of tape, then patted her down and pulled out her cell phone and handed it off to another soldier. It happened so fast that she hadn’t even had time to scream.

The soldiers began to climb back into the van, falling into place silently and efficiently. Reese heard Amber cry out in pain, and a moment later she was pushed into the van too. She had a red welt across her face, and her eyes were bright and angry. The soldier who had thrust her inside pulled the door shut while another bound and