Free Remnants 14 - Begin Again by Katherine Alice Applegate Page B

vengeance, 2Face’s spirit sagged. She slunk from the ship, determined to destroy Billy — and despairing of ever being able to do so.
    Violet looked closely at the group gathered around her behind the ruined ship. Her adrenaline was high.
    “Sanchez is making progress,” she said. “We’re getting closer to knowing what Billy needs from us. The stakes are higher now than ever.”
    “We should be on constant alert,” Olga said.
    Noyze nodded. “We can’t afford to let anyone screw up Billy’s plan. Or to hurt Sanchez.”
    Violet felt a rush of anger at the thought of anyone harming the storyteller. “We need to enlist you, Edward,” she said, nodding at the little boy.
    “I’m on it,” he answered solemnly. “I’m the Chameleon.”
    “I’ll help, too,” Roger Dodger said eagerly.
    Violet nodded. “Good. You boys keep an eye on the main suspects and report back.”
    “Right.” Noyze frowned. “And the main suspects are? Newton, for sure.”
    “Yeah,” Olga said. “He’s prime. But that doesn’t mean we should let anyone off the hook. I don’t mean to sound so suspicious, but… I think there’s a possibility of any one of the Alphas or Marauders panicking and ruining our future.”
    “I agree,” Violet said. “Okay, from this moment on. Operation Look Alert is in effect.”

CHAPTER 14
    “IT MAKES NO SENSE UNLESS YOU BELIEVE IT DOES.”
    “Edward and Roger Dodger are out scouting,” Violet reported to the group gathered at the base of a petrified staircase to nowhere. “Edward’s gone Chameleon and Roger Dodger’s hanging with the Marauder children. One of them might have overheard an adult say something incriminating. And you know how kids talk.”
    “And the Alphas?” D-Caf asked.
    “Echo and Lumina are with Aga,” Olga said, “With Aga’s care, the baby is really beginning to grow strong.”
    “I put Mattock and Badger on guard outside the ship.” Mo’Steel winced and shifted his bad leg into a more comfortable position. “I’d bet my last ounce of water we can trust both of them completely.”
    “Maybe,” Violet said. “I saw Lyric with Yorka. And Sanchez is with Billy, of course. Have we accounted for everyone else?”
    Jobs sighed. “Let’s stop roll call and get down to business. We’ve got to figure out the final element of the regreening ritual! We’re supposed to be smart, right?”
    Mo’Steel laughed. “Well, at least our parents were. We were just along for the ride on the Mayflower.”
    Violet smirked. “Speak for yourself. Come on, everyone. We can solve this mystery. We have to!”
    “Yes, Nancy Drew,” Noyze said primly.
    “First question,” Olga said. “What does Billy mean by the Five embodied in him? Maybe if we understood that…”
    Jobs’s brain began to fire. What ever happened to the Missing Five? The five people from the Mayflower who were never accounted for in the end. Chances were they were long dead.
    Dead and buried in the ruins of Mother somewhere. Where else could they be?
    Unless…
    Tate’s recorded message. She said that she’d incorporated — literally — Yago, Amelia, and Charlie. That made Tate an “aggregate person,” of sorts.
    “The Troika,” Jobs mumbled, thinking aloud.
    Mo’Steel nodded. “The Trinity. Three people in one. It makes no sense unless you believe it does.”
    “I think,” Jobs said slowly, “that the Missing Five from the Mayflower were incorporated in Billy.”
    “How?” Noyze wondered.
    “Maybe Mother did it,” Jobs said. “We’ll never know. Remember how Billy was sort of in everybody’s head during the five hundred years on the Mayflower. It was part of what drove him crazy. Maybe the five — got in then — somehow. And never got out.”
    “Having only five strangers in his head can’t be as bad as having eighty,” D-Caf quipped. “I hope.”
    “Maybe they’re not even separate people anymore. Maybe they’ve all merged and Billy is one in many, and many in