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in trouble. Remember, we’re the good guys.”
    “I want you all to pack,” the Professor said to them, “and to be ready to leave the country.”
    Maria looked at Xavier with a questioning look.
    “Leave the country?” Rapha repeated.
    “Yes,” the Professor replied. “After dinner tonight, you will all leave here—under the radar, of course.”
    Xavier nodded. Looking around at his last 13 companions assembled in the Professor’s office, he knew Maria was anxious. She’d been having bad dreams all week, just like he had. Cody seemed calm. Rapha was nodding, thinking about what was ahead. Issey still seemed half-asleep. Zara looked nervously at the other faces in the room. Poh was smiling and gave Xavier a thumbs-up as he caught his eye. Xavier grinned in return.
    He looked out the windows. The view was familiar now—the UN security cordon remained, circling the perimeter of the campus. There’d been no further security breaches at the Academy and it almost seemed like the UN guards were there mainly to keep the world’s media at a distance. The interest in the last 13, and the fate of the world, had unsurprisingly not diminished in the slightest. If anything, it had only grown in intensity. More news choppers circled the sky, skirting the no-fly zone established over the campus grounds.
    “You will be leaving with Phoebe,” the Professor explained further. “Under the cover of darkness, you’ll slip through the cordon outside.”
    “But I thought we needed to stay here, together, for the race?” Xavier asked.
    The Professor nodded his head. “Yes, that is true. But I have decided, in consultation with Lora and the Director of course, that the Academy might not be the best place for you at this point.” The Professor gazed out the window at the helicopters and media camps set up in the distance. “There are only two Gears left to find. It won’t be long before we will have to leave—to go with Sam to find the Dream Gate. I fear if we wait till the very last moment to make our move, we will find it impossible to make the journey alone.”
    “So where will we go?” Zara asked, still looking nervous.
    “Everyone in the world knows who we are,” Rapha added.
    “Don’t worry, there is someplace safe,” the Professor replied. “I know, after everything you have witnessed, especially in these last few days, it may seem as if we have no one left to trust. But we still have friends on our side. The most important thing, above all else, is that we must make sure the last 13 are prepared for when the time comes to assemble the Bakhu machine.”
    “Prepared?” Xavier asked.
    “Yes,” the Professor said, “I know that all of you must be there and ready, right at the end.”
    “Are you talking about the prophecy?” Xavier said. On the wall, next to where he stood by the windows, was a printout of the Dream Stele hieroglyphs. A translation was written underneath:
Dreaming of their destiny, Minds entwined, thirteen will be. Falter not, the last cannot fall, Or Solaris shall rule over all. One by one each shall unveil, A Gear they need so to prevail. Dream a path through time and space, There to find the sacred place
.

    Something about it bugged him. But what? He remembered the night at the museum, when he’d seen Sam and Lora in police uniforms, before he knew about all this, how his father’s sponsored exhibition of antiquities found by Dr. Kader had been attacked by Egyptian Guardians. He stared absently at the words.
    “You mean the prophecy, saying that the last 13 will come together,” Maria said.
    “That’s right,” the Professor said, standing next to her and Xavier. “All of you—and the two we don’t yet know the identity of—will be there at the end.”
    Xavier stared at the English translation words of the prophecy. Then the hieroglyphs.
    “Xavier?”
    “Professor—you said, ‘I know that all of you must be there’ …” He looked up to the old man. “What makes you so