Read The Rise of Nine for Free Online

X-ray vision. Or they could be thermal detectors, good for seeing at night. There’s only one way to find out, you know.’
    I place the glasses on my face and look out the window. Aside from dulling the brightness of the sun, nothing else seems to happen. I check my hands but they’re just as solid as before, and when I look up at Crayton’s face, there aren’t any thermal hot spots.
    ‘So?’ asks Six. ‘What do they do?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I say, checking the barren landscape out the window again. ‘Maybe they’re just ordinary sunglasses.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ Crayton says. ‘They have a use that you will discover, just like everything else in there.’
    ‘Can I see them?’ Ella asks. I hand them over.
    She slides the glasses up her nose, then twists around and looks out the back window.
    I turn back to my Chest.
    ‘Wait – everything looks a little different somehow but I  can’t figure out why. It’s almost like seeing everything a  little delayed  . . . or maybe sped up  . . . I can’t decide.’ Suddenly Ella gasps, then shouts, ‘Rocket! Rocket!’
    We follow her line of vision, but I don’t see anything but crystal-blue sky.
    ‘Where?’ Crayton yells. Ella points up at the sky. ‘Get out of the truck! We have to get out right now!’
    ‘There’s nothing there.’ Six squints into the horizon. ‘Ella, I think those glasses are messing with you, because I don’t see anything.’
    Ella doesn’t listen. She scrambles over me with the glasses still on and opens the door. The shoulder of the road is lined with sharp rocks and dead shrubs. ‘Jump! Now!’
    Finally we hear it, a faint whistling in the air, and a black  speck suddenly comes into view, right where Ella was pointing.
    ‘Get out!’ Crayton yells.
    I grab my open Chest, and jump. My feet hit the hard dirt road and sweep underneath me, and the world instantly becomes a swirl of browns and blues and sharp pains. The back tire of our truck grazes my arm, and I barely change direction in time to roll out of the way of the next speeding truck. My head hits a sharp stone and I flip over one last time, landing on my Chest. The impact knocks the wind out of me, and the contents of my Chest have scattered in the dirt. I hear Ella and Six coughing somewhere nearby but I can’t see them in the haze of dust that surrounds us. A second later the rocket smashes into the ground just behind the speeding truck we dove from. The explosion is deafening, and with Commander Sharma still inside, the truck flips forward onto its roof in a cloud of smoke. The careening jeep behind it is unable to swerve. It hits the edge of the chasm caused by the rocket, and dives right into the tremendous hole. Two more rockets hit the convoy. The air is so thick with dust that we cannot see the helicopters overhead, but we can hear them.
    I blindly grope the area around me, trying to gather everything that spilled out of my Chest. I know I’m probably collecting just as many stones and twigs as pieces of my Inheritance, but I can sort through it later.
    I’ve just grabbed the red crystal when I hear the sound of gunfire tear through the air. ‘Six! You okay?’ I shout. Then I hear Ella scream.

6.
    I’m frantic, pulling open closet doors, looking under what little furniture there is, when I hear someone come noisily into the house. I assume it’s Nine because Bernie isn’t growling.
    ‘Nine,’ I yell. ‘Where’d you hide my Chest?’
    ‘Look under the kitchen sink,’ he calls back.
    I walk into the kitchen. The curling linoleum floor looks like a decrepit chessboard someone’s spilled coffee all over. The handles to the cupboard under the sink are loose, and when I pull on them I hear a click.
    ‘Wait, Four!’ Nine yells from the other room. ‘I made a –’ The cupboard doors blow open and I fly backwards. ‘Trap!’ Nine finishes.
    A dozen sharpened sticks are shooting straight at me.
    They’re inches away when my instincts kick in and