Daniel X: Game Over (16 page)

“Danaus plexippus,”
it said simply.

“What the—?” I said, with my typical articulateness.

“Your species of butterfly, Alien Hunter,” it replied, its voice disarmingly rich and wise-sounding. “But why don’t you turn yourself back into your human form. Your insect voice is hard for me to discern with the wind blowing up here.”

Oh, yeah. I forgot I was a butterfly. I turned myself back
into my human form and looked down at the big-eyed, furry-skinned creature.

“Sorry for all the running,” it said.

“No big deal,” I replied, although I realized as I collapsed to the cool bronze floor that I was pretty darn sore from that little chase. “I’m thinking of taking up cross-country in the fall.”

“Cross-country?”

“Running for school. It’s a sport. You run outside.”

“Ah, well,” it said. “Now I have a sense for your ‘cross-country’ abilities. That was one reason why I had you chase me. To make sure that you were indeed the Alien Hunter. But also I needed to teach you something.”

“Teach me?”

“Yes, Alien Hunter, teach you. My time is short. And we must ensure that yours is not.”

“But you’re safe for now. Why can’t we just get you away from here, someplace where they can’t find you?”

“As should be quite obvious from the fact that I am the very last, we Pleionids don’t live forever. Now, give me your hand.”

I laid my hand in its hand, thinking this couldn’t possibly be a trap—and it wasn’t. But what happened next was the last possible thing I would have expected.

My mind was bathed in color, light, shapes, motions, incredible beauty, unbearable sadness, and—most of all—an amazing depth of
understanding
I’d never experienced before.

Suddenly, I saw how Pleionids had harnessed the
chemistry of pleiochromatech to change shape, to make themselves practically invisible, to squeeze through tiny crevices, to radiate color, to share thoughts
by touch.
Most stunning of all, it gave me a glimpse of the true beauty of our universe—and of the horror of the threats that face it.

In short, it gave me the biggest mojo download of my whole life.

“Wh-wha—”

“Don’t say a word,” it urged, smiling up at me faintly and pulling its hand away. “I have to go now. And this time, don’t follow, okay?”

My mind was still wading through a newfound sea of light and knowledge, and all I could do was nod and stutter my thanks.

“Don’t forget the good, Daniel,” the Pleionid said. “And now, if you would, please
duck!
”

I REFLEXIVELY DROPPED to my belly as an enormous inky black shape brushed past me.
What the heck?
I sprang to my feet just in time to see the black form widen. It happened too quickly to get a good look, but the creature seemed to resemble one of those bizarre-looking, huge-mouthed, predatory deep-sea fish—except that it could fly. It opened its enormous, long-toothed jaws, aiming for the Pleionid.

“No!” I shouted, diving into its path. In less than a second, I had turned myself into a stick of the hardest substance I could think of: diamond. And I was now wedged between the open jaws of the inky black shape. It shook its head and roared in frustration, and I felt my stick-shaped self start to tremble. Diamonds may be one of the hardest substances on Earth, but this guy was definitely from another planet.

“Thank you, Alien Hunter,” the Pleionid said sadly. “But it is now my time. You must not sacrifice yourself. The world needs you.”

“No! Don’t do it!” I screamed. But the Pleionid was already leaping toward me. He knocked me out from between the alien’s jaws, which came crashing down and
swallowed the Pleionid whole.

I will carry that image to my grave.

A wave of nausea came over me as the Pleionid’s killer somehow passed out of the statue’s ear and into the night. But there wasn’t time to react—more shapes were coming up behind me, and fast!

I was sure that as a diamond I’d end up in one of these goons’ pockets, so I changed myself back to human form and spun around. Climbing up the girders toward me were a half dozen of the hunters I’d seen in Number 7 and Number 8’s boardroom meeting.

“Double bonus,” hooted one of them.

“The Alien Hunter and the Pleionid on the same safari!” another yelled. “We’ll be famous!”

“Don’t let him out!” shouted one of the taller hunters as he did one of those two-finger Special Operations gestures where you tell your squadmates to fan out.

Wait a minute. They were supposed to be solo agents. So why were they working
together?
I could hear them racking and priming their weapons and in a moment the whole place stunk of ozone and molten metal as a half dozen plasma pulses arced through the darkness toward me.

Still reeling from the horrific vision of the black shadow
of death swallowing that beatific little creature, I somehow managed to leap over their heads, grab a lateral girder, and pivot myself down through the darkness to the interior roof of the viewing room, a few stories below. I can only imagine what the tourists inside thought when hearing all the thumps, weapon pulses, and shouting over their heads.

And then there was an awful whine, a whine I knew from dreams as well as I did from real life—one of those conscienceless alien poachers was priming an
Opus 24/24!

Great. This was just great. Human civilians under my feet, a sacred metal statue all around me, a half dozen aliens working together to blow my brains out, and I was so tired and disoriented and scared I could barely see straight. Some superhero I was turning out to be. If the cards continued to fall like this, I would be responsible for the untimely deaths of more than a hundred innocent souls.

Then in a flash, I realized the Opus 24/24 was no longer charging, which meant it would soon be
firing.

I leaped up as a pulse of pure pain arced from a saw-toothed muzzle, and evil yellow tendrils blossomed across the interior metalwork of the statue.

Normally I would have stood my ground, normally I would have been happy to go down swinging, but normally I wasn’t living with the burden of just having witnessed the death of the last member of a legendary—and irreplaceable—alien species. I couldn’t even think straight. Heck, I probably would have had trouble tying my shoelaces right then, I was so freaked out.

And then it came to me—pleiochromatech. I’d just been shown how to make it and how it worked. I didn’t need to fight; I could
hide
.

I dove down into the wealth of knowledge the Pleoinid had just given me… and through an act of sheer will that I don’t know how to explain, I flattened myself into a slick of invisible flesh, and slid down into the darkness while my pursuers raged with frustration.

THEY SAY THE best way to recover from a tragedy is to throw yourself back into regular life. And since the only regular thing I know to do in this life is hunt bad aliens, that’s exactly what I did.

At 8:20 a.m. I was on my way back to school to have one last meeting with Kildare. I couldn’t shake my hunch that he was part of the solution, not the problem. And the alternative—waving the white flag and leaving Japan like my father wanted me to—just wasn’t in the cards. Especially not after I’d learned that Number 7 and Number 8 weren’t a couple steps away from having the human race destroy itself; they were
one
step away. And not after I’d just let the last living Pleionid get eaten by some nameless, faceless, game-obsessed alien beast.

As it turned out, though, I didn’t have to get all the way
back to school to find Kildare. Three blocks away from the main entrance, I just about collided with him as he rounded a corner on his bicycle.

“Hey,” I said as he skidded to a stop. His eyes were red and puffy.

“Oh, Daniel, hey.”

“Want to give me a lift the rest of the way?” I asked. “I could sit on the rack.”

“I’m not going to school,” he blurted. “My father won’t let me go anymore.”

“Your dad is actually
forbidding
you to go to school? What is he—like, the
Anti
-Dad?”

He started to say something but clamped his mouth shut before it could get out. The pain in his eyes said it all.

“Well, small world,” I quipped, trying to cheer him up. “I’m having a crapalicious day, too.”

He nodded and tried to smile, but the poor guy was starting to shake.

“Hey,” I said, “I know just the thing.”

“You’re going to go make my father change his mind?”

“Better than that. You and I are going to take one of the most important courses of study that school offers.”

“But I told you, my dad’s not letting me go.”

“This is an off-campus course.”

He looked at me skeptically. “Oh yeah? What’s it called?”

“Introduction to…
hooky
.”

WE HEADED STRAIGHT to Harajuku, the hippest district in the entire city of Tokyo. From Burton Snowboards to Harley-Davidson to Under Armour to North Face to Adidas—name your favorite company and they have a store in Harajuku. And, chances are, it’s mobbed with teenagers.

Oh, and it’s also got some pretty hip cafés, clubs, and fancy Japanese restaurants. But I wasn’t in the mood for noodles or sushi for lunch, so, instead, we hit a Shakey’s Pizza, where I can’t recommend the dessert pizza enough. That’s right—a pizza crust with such toppings as pineapple chunks, hot fudge sauce, and whipped cream.

“I feel a little sick,” said Kildare with only a mild smile of regret. After eating an entire teriyaki chicken pizza, he’d somehow managed to down an entire 1800 cc Grande
Parfait (read: a half gallon of ice cream floating in a syrupy maelstrom of flavored toppings), and apparently his alien digestive system wasn’t any more robust than mine. We went outside and attempted to recover from our respective food overdoses on a pedestrian overpass, looking down at the sea of people coursing up and down the sidewalks like ants at an overstocked picnic.

“I guess they must call this the Shakey’s shakes,” Kildare joked weakly, looking down at his rumbling belly.

“Let’s walk it off,” I said, hoping the taste of pineapple and maraschino cherries would one day fade from my mouth. “Isn’t Ueno Park right up the street?”