Daniel X: Game Over (18 page)

The driver quickly locked the doors and hit a button that started blowing knockout gas through the vents. Fortunately, Kildare hadn’t quite closed his door and we leaped back out to the sidewalk as the cab accelerated away.

“Close one,” gasped Kildare.

“We could have taken him,” I said, “I
think.
”

“Well, something tells me my parents have a few more agents in reserve.”

“I think you’re right. And I also think, judging by how they had the JR station covered and now this cab, that they’re expecting us to try to get out of town.”

“So?”

“So, we’re doing exactly what they expect us to do, which must mean we’re making things easy on them.”

“So we should do the opposite of what they’re expecting, like—”

My mind raced as I spotted two more alien thugs making their way toward us down the crowded sidewalk.

“Let’s not go out of town; let’s go
down
town.”

“Downtown where?”

“Know anyplace to play video games?”

IT WAS A fairly long walk, but at least it proved to be one free from alien harassment.

“Looks like they really weren’t expecting us to go this way,” I remarked as we crossed the pedestrian bridge over a rail yard a few blocks from the looming GC Tower.

“That,” said Kildare, “or they
wanted
us to do this and decided to make it easy.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “For a minute there I’d actually forgotten to feel paranoid.”

“I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel paranoid,” Kildare said, gesturing at a bench. “Is it okay if we rest here?”

I nodded as he took a seat. I was about to sit down myself when I caught a whiff of something so delicious I couldn’t think straight.

“What
is
that?” I asked Kildare, inhaling deeply.

“Krispy Kreme,” Kildare’s voice caught, and he nodded somberly at the far end of the overpass where I spotted a Krispy Kreme donut shop sign.

I looked at his furrowed brow. “Um,” I said, trying not to drown in my own saliva, but realizing something was troubling my friend. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. They used to be his favorite.”

“Krispy Kremes? Whose?”

“The Pleionid. After school he used to disguise himself and ride in on my backpack. We’d stand in line and then we’d buy like three dozen glazed and sneak off to an alley and scarf them down together.”

“You miss him, huh?”

“You know what it’s like to lose somebody close to totally senseless violence, don’t you, Daniel?”

I nodded. “Why did your parents do it, Kildare? Why did they kill the Pleionid? Why do they hunt creatures to extinction?”

Kildare shook his head. “I wish I knew. They weren’t always like this. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were ever kind to me, but at least they used to look after me. Lately, it’s like I’m just another alien employee.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter now, does it? They’re murderers. Mass murderers.”

“But they’re your parents,” I said. “So you want to give them one last chance. I get it. Do you want to fill me in on your plan? Maybe I can help.”

“You’re helping already. You’re giving me hope, Daniel.” He got up from the bench. “Now let’s go get some donuts, and then we can head over to the GC Tower.”

“No need for the donuts,” said a familiar voice behind us.

Number 7 was standing there holding an open box of Krispy Kremes.

WHAT CHOICE DID we have? Out of deference to Kildare’s plan—if not to the thousands of innocent humans around us in crowded downtown Tokyo—we fell into step with Kildare’s father and let him lead us the remaining three blocks to the GC Tower.

Number 8 and a ghoulishly grinning gaggle of security guards met us on the sidewalk and escorted us through the mob of frustrated teenage boys who had gathered outside the flagship store, which was, the sign said,
CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT.

“We’re so glad you decided to join us,” said Number 8 as two guards unlocked the doors and escorted us into the lobby. “We’ve been wanting to beta test some new games, and you two are smack in the middle of our target demographic.”

“Yes,” said Number 7, “for instance, we have a new 3-D simulator called Teenage Geek Squad, in which two unpopular boys get caught up in circumstances far beyond their control.”

“Yes,” said Number 8. “And we want you to try out another new title called NTAC, which stands for ‘No-Talent Alien Clowns.’ You get to play two delusional characters who think they’re going to save the world but who inevitably end up getting their butts kicked all over the place.”

“And after that,” said Number 7, “we have a prototype for a high-concept strategy game along the lines of World of Warcraft but involving competing groups of aliens who’ve invaded a planet populated by a species of complete losers and mean to make the most of its abundant resources.”

“Or, if you’d like,” said Number 8, “we have another title based on a superhero-comic concept called Alien Hunter: The Dim Knave. It’s about a kid who goes out thinking he has amazing superpowers only to gradually realize they’re all in his head and that while he thinks he’s been fighting evil, he’s really only been fighting progress. And he has a laugh-riot sidekick, a kid so delusional he thinks that his own parents are his worst enemies.”

“Sounds hilarious,” said Kildare, deadpan.

“It
is,
” said Number 7. “Although, if you start to feel overstimulated, we can try some off-line games too. Things like this—”

And, with that, steel shutters dropped across the store windows, and the two security guards pulled out their sidearms and began blasting away. At me.

“MOM, DAD! DON’T!” screamed Kildare. “He’s not going to hurt you!”

If this was all part of Kildare’s plan, he sure was a good actor. I leaped over a console of driving simulators and tried to find some cover, which wasn’t easy since their weapons were making short work of the video-game consoles. If they kept this up, their entire store would soon be reduced to a circuit-board scrap heap.

I know I’d told Kildare I’d give him a day before I went after his parents; but I didn’t recall making a similar pledge about their security goons. I grabbed the turret-mounted gun off the first-person-shooter console next to me and quickly transformed the thing’s guts into those of an Embulsorator 2300—a weapon my father favored and whose popular nickname was the Fly Daddy, so called
because it turned your opponent into a harmless species of insect.

I leaped back over a bank of consoles with my seemingly plastic gun. No doubt assuming it was a harmless video-game accessory, the security goons promptly burst into laughter.

“Anybody know how to turn this thing on?” I asked, taking advantage of their overconfident amusement and gradually leveling the gun at them. They laughed even harder until I depressed the trigger, and, voilà, their suddenly not-smiling selves turned into tiny little flies that—unlike when I turned myself into an insect—didn’t include their brains. They were, for
all
intents and purposes, plain-old flies forevermore.

“He’s harmless, is he, Kildare?” asked Number 7. A sharp smell was wafting through the room. I immediately realized it was the same odor I’d detected in the crawl spaces upstairs in the Tower when I’d found Kildare’s secret room.

“He won’t hurt you,” repeated Kildare, with little spirit. My friend had become very pale and was shaking. He looked like he was getting sick, but not with the common cold.

“I promised him I wouldn’t harm you,” I told his parents. “Now let us out of here.”

“Won’t hurt us, huh?” asked Number 7. “The great Alien Hunter is taking an early retirement?”

“Or,” suggested Number 8, “perhaps the reason you’re not going to harm us is that you’ve discovered you couldn’t if you tried?”

“At any rate,” said Number 7, “the relevant fact here is that
we
haven’t made any such promises about not harming
you.
”

And, with that, he shot out his arms and sprayed a stream of white liquid at me, which I’m glad I didn’t assume to be nondairy creamer. I did a backward flip and landed ten yards away as the liquid hit the tile floor and melted through to the level below us.

Next time I had a chance, I guess I’d have to add that to their entry on the List computer: can shoot ultraconcentrated acid.

Now Number 8 had joined the action, easily mimicking my flip—despite the fact that she was wearing a woman’s business suit and heels—and landing right next to me. I smiled sheepishly as she looked down at my surprised expression.

“My home world has stronger gravity than yours,” she explained. And then her arms turned gray and became wicked-sharp-looking swords that she swung together toward my neck like a giant pair of scissors.

I ducked and sprang to Kildare’s side in the middle of the showroom floor.

“You okay?” I asked. Number 7 was looking at Kildare intently, and for some weird reason his cheeks were puffed out and he was
blowing
.

“He’s… making… pheromo—”

“Pheromones!” I blurted. Of course! That was the sharp odor I’d been smelling. And that must be why Kildare looked so sick. If the “cells” of his body and his parents’
bodies worked the same way those of the ants in his terrarium did, Number 7 was disrupting the very function of Kildare’s bodily systems.

“Here you go,” I said, materializing a gas mask and quickly putting it over Kildare’s face.

He nodded and put his hand on my shoulder as he breathed deeply through the mask. Already he was straightening back up, and color was returning to his skin. But we couldn’t exactly savor the moment because Ellie Scissor-Arms was sprinting toward us, her razor arms whistling through the air as she came. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Number 7 had produced a shoulder-firing microwave cannon from someplace and was in the process of drawing a bead on us. Before I could grab Kildare and drag him to safety, he pulled off his mask and did one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

He pulled in his feet and hands and for a moment hovered there off the floor in a curled-up ball. Then Kildare flickered gray and—BLAM!—exploded into a dim gray cloud that entirely filled the room.