“What about Josef? And Hue?” asked Jo.
There was a fizzing noise, and a burst of emerald sparks, and Josef dropped from the sky in front of us, surrounded by a thin bubble shape, which shrank as we looked at it. It came toward me and settled in the craziness, bobbing like a balloon in a spring breeze.
“I’m here,” said Josef. “Let’s go home.”
Home? I had a pang, as I thought of my mom, my dad, my brother and sister. Places and people I’d probably never see again. I reached up my hand and touched the stone Mom had given me, on my last night there. You’re doing the right thing, she said in my memory.
Thanks, Mom, I thought, and the pang eased, even if it would never entirely go away.
Then I thought of my home. My new home.
{IW}:=O/8
would take us back there, wherever it was hiding.
I Walked, and the rest of my team followed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WE WERE ALL THERE in the Old Man’s outer office: Jai, Josef, Jo, Jakon, J/O and me. We’d been waiting there for almost an hour. The summons had arrived just before breakfast, and we’d come straight down. And then we’d waited.
And waited.
Finally, there was a buzz from the inner office. The Old Man’s assistant went inside, then came back out. She walked over to me.
“He wants to talk to you first,” she said. “You others wait out here.”
I grinned at my friends as I went in. If I didn’t feel ten feet tall it was probably because I felt fifteen feet tall. Make that twenty feet tall. I mean, I may not have been part of InterWorld for long, but I—we—had done something pretty amazing. Six of us had taken out a HEX invasion fleet. We’d destroyed the Malefic. A dozen worlds, at least, would retain their freedom, thanks to us.
I’m not one to brag, but that’s the kind of thing that gets medals.
I wondered what I’d say if he pinned a medal on me. Would I simply say “Thank you” or would I say something about it being an honor and how I had only done what anyone would have done? Would I babble embarrassingly like those actors who win Oscars . . . or would I say nothing at all?
I couldn’t wait to find out.
And what about promotion? Let’s face it—I’d make a great team leader. I raised my head slightly, sticking out my chin. True officer material.
Nothing had changed in the Old Man’s office. There was the big desk that filled most of the room, still papers, folders, disks, everywhere in piles and heaps. And sitting at the desk was the Old Man, making notes. He didn’t seem to notice me when I walked in, so I stood there.
I stood there for a couple of minutes. Finally he closed the file in front of him and looked up.
“Ah. Joey Harker.”
“Yes, sir.” I tried to sound humble. It wasn’t easy.
“I’ve read your debrief, Joey. There was one thing I was not clear on. Exactly what was the stimulus that returned your memory?”
“My memory?” His question caught me by surprise. “It was the soap bubble, sir. It reminded me of Hue, and with Hue it seemed like everything else just came back.”
He nodded and made a note on the report.
“We’ll need to take that into account for future amnesiac conditioning,” he said. “There’s a lot we don’t know about mudluffs. For now, you will be permitted to keep the creature with you in the base. This permission may be rescinded at any time.”
His LED eye glinted. He made another note.
I stood there. He carried on writing.
I wondered if he had forgotten I was there.