The Resisters by Eric Nylund

Author:Eric Nylund [Nylund, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780375899263
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

But no students were here. The last class had let out ten minutes ago.

Ethan’s heart stopped.

The principal and three adults in suits turned down a side corridor and walked straight toward them.

ETHAN THOUGHT HE’D DIE. THE PRINCIPAL AND three adults in black suits and ties saw them. They had to.

He knew it’d attract attention, but Ethan couldn’t look away.

He wondered if he should run for it … or, as impossible as it sounded to him, try to walk nonchalantly like he was off to some after-school drama rehearsal.

The adults didn’t even glance at them and turned down another hallway.

“See?” Madison not-so-playfully bumped her shoulder into his (which sent him stumbling off balance). “When the Ch’zar makes up its collective mind—in this case that you’ve escaped—it takes a lot for them to change it.”

“You mean you guys were gambling that’s what they’d think?” Ethan whispered. “Couldn’t they have just as easily decided I’d come back to get the suit? Set some huge trap?”

“It’s a good gamble,” Felix replied. “The Ch’zar think logically, and what we’re doing … no one in their right mind would try it.”

Madison narrowed her eyes, and her tone changed to dead serious as she asked Ethan, “Now where’s the suit?”

Ethan led them past the new soccer field … which yesterday had been acres of smooth green titanium. Now it was crumpled metal ruins with an impact crease that looked like a meteor had struck.

“Whoa,” Felix whispered. “You did that?”

Ethan flushed. “I got the flying part down okay,” he said, “but I need help with my landings.”

He led them past the field, around the gym, and to the campus heat plant. Nestled in the shadow of the larger building was the gardener’s shed.

Ethan stopped, looked around, and made sure no one had followed them.

He opened the shed door, they all went in, and he closed it behind them.

The scent of weed killer was overwhelming.

“Here,” Ethan said, and marched to the corner. He pulled off the plastic tarp.

The giant wasp was there.

He sighed with relief.

He couldn’t believe that Coach had missed it in his search. Felix had to be right. He’d probably come here and taken a quick look, and that “blind spot” thing must’ve kicked in. Even though he had to have seen a huge lump covered with a tarp, he’d ignored it.

“Oh no!” Madison cried. She knelt by the insect.

The wasp was curled up on the floor and looked much like an insect you’d find on a windowsill … an insect long dead.

Ethan pressed his hand to his own chest, and he could almost feel the thing’s too-slow heartbeat.

Madison touched the golden armor here and there, but it remained unmoving. “Hibernation mode,” she told Felix.

Felix’s mouth set into a grim frown and he shook his head. “We have to abort, then. I’ll set the self-destruct for ten minutes. I want to be far out of town when it goes off.”

“What are you talking about?” Ethan asked.

“No.” Madison set her hand flat on the wasp’s thorax. “We were so close … and this is all I have left of him.

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