Game On: Alien Space Adventure (The Adventures of Jayden Banks and the Jameson Twins Book 1)

by R.E. Rowe

  Chapter 8

  The day had ended and the pitch-black night had taken charge. The bus was chilly when Jayden awoke.

  “How long?” Jayden asked Parker, fighting off a yawn.

  “You’ve been sleeping for hours. We drove all over the Valley . . . twice,” Parker said.

  Jayden stared at him. He couldn't imagine how he’d feel if guys with guns took away his family. His friend’s eyes were bloodshot.

  “You didn’t miss anything, just insane traffic. The pick-ups took forever. It’s a good thing there’s a toilet in the back.” Parker rolled his neck back and forth trying to crack it. “Anyway, we’re almost to the parking lot.”

  “You mean—?”

  “Yep.” Parker nodded, pointing out the window. Santa Cruz Observatory glowed from the top of a mountain a few miles away.

  As the bus groaned up the steep hill and around sharp curves to the familiar observatory parking lot, Jayden rushed to take his turn in the bathroom. It was seriously bad timing. Just as he returned to his seat, the bus arrived at its destination and stopped near a group of a dozen teenage kids standing next to another bus.

  “Everyone out!” the driver shouted. “Wait with the others.” He pointed to the group in the parking lot. “Over there. Don’t wander around, or you’ll end up flat as a pancake. I’m seriously not joking.” The guy grabbed a newspaper from under his seat and opened it. “Move it!” he added, as he glanced up into the mirror above the windshield.

  Jayden thought about asking the driver a question or two, but decided against it as they followed the others off the bus. He’d have to wait until they were aboard the crazy looking helicopter to formulate a plan. He noticed that the mix of middle- and high-school kids came from just about every clique imaginable: there were the jocks, some geeks, a few cheerleaders, and a couple tough guys. And, of course, there were the ones who didn’t seem to fit into any group at all like the pixie-haired girl.

  Jayden glanced around again, questioning their crazy idea until Parker turned to him and gave a small fist pump. No turning back now. He’d always covered Parker’s back, and vice versa. They were clan mates. This situation was no different. Their mission was clear: Find Nora. Find the tablet. Make it back home in one piece.

  Parker took in a loud breath, wiped his face, and threw back his shoulders. “Let’s mingle. Follow me.” He strode right into the middle of the gathered teens with Jayden on his heels.

  “Hey,” Jayden said, nodding to the greasy-haired, leather-jacket kid from the bus.

  “Colder than hell tonight,” the kid replied.

  Jayden noticed a silver chain dangled from a pocket of the teen’s jacket. His jeans had a sort of dirty, haven’t washed them look, rather than a trendy designer look. The guy's small head and close-set eyes didn’t match his broad shouldered, six-foot-tall frame. He looked a little on the goofy side to Jayden, but the kid could probably kick his butt.

  “Well, actually,” Parker said, “most people think hell is hot—”

  Jayden kicked Parker in the shin and cleared his throat. “Totally agree, dude. The name is Jayden. He’s Parker. Truth man. It’s colder than hell.”

  “People call me Creep,” he said in a deep, raspy voice. His eyes shifted around as if he were watching for the police. “You got a smoke?”

  They looked at each other and shook their heads. “Sorry,” said Jayden.

  “Man. I’m in serious need. You feel me?” He flexed one bicep and pointed at it. “The patch is wearing off. My guns need more ammo.”

  Parker smirked and was about to make a comment, but Jayden grabbed his arm. “So, dude. Your name is really, um, Creep?” Jayden asked.

  Creep glared, and his thin lips tightened and disappeared.

  “Um, nice to meet you, Creep,” Parker said.

  Creep didn’t appear to be interested in talking to them anymore. That was fine with Jayden since the kid’s name actually fit his look. The kid wandered off, presumably to continue his hunt for a smoke.

  “Hey, check her out,” Parker said, pointing at a pretty girl, barely five feet tall, with thinly plucked eyebrows, a small nose, and amber eyes.

  Jayden realized she was the girl from the bus who’d looked as though she’d been crying all night. The one with the pixie haircut.

  “Would you chill?” Jayden said. “Stop flirting, Pop Star, and get serious.”

  “Shut up, Surfer Boy,” Parker jested. “I just meant she might be able to help us.”

  “Because she’s cute? Whatever.” Jayden shook his head as they approached the girl.

  “You okay?” Parker asked her.

  She sniffled and shrugged. “I guess.”

  “I’m Parker, and this is my friend, Jayden.”

  “I’m Cleo,” she said.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” Parker asked.

  “Guess some place for training and working. My mom said I’d be like a foreign exchange student or a Peace Corps worker,” she said. “Learning in a place totally international, like Canada or Mexico.”

  “What’d they tell you when you signed up?” Parker asked.

  “Nothing more than what’s on their flyer.” Cleo pulled out a rumpled recruiting paper.

  They had seen it before.

  “At least my family will be taken care of,” she continued. “My mom really needs the five hundred dollars per week.”

  “Where you from?” Jayden asked her.

  “We have a small apartment on the east side of San Jose. My parents have been out of work for a while now.” She shook her head. “I want to help them, that’s all.”

  “How’d you get recruited?” Parker asked.

  “Guys dressed in black knocked on all the doors in our neighborhood and handed out the flyers. Most of the people living around us are out of work.”

  “Was there writing on their hats?” Jayden asked.

  “I think so,” Cleo replied softly. “Something starting with S, I think. I’m not sure, really.”

  Parker softened his voice. “So you joined?”

  “We were getting kicked out of our place anyway. No way I want to be homeless during freshman year at Eastside High, so yeah, I volunteered. They told me the money I earned would go to my parents. I’ll be able to finish school when I get on-site.” Cleo pointed to another group of recruits. “There are lots of kids here from my neighborhood.”

  “Your parents were okay with you leaving?” Parker asked, shooting Jayden a wide-eyed stare.

  Jayden ignored him.

  Tears filled her eyes. “Not really. But with no jobs . . .” She looked down, her voice fading for a moment. “My mom signed their form, and the next thing I knew . . .” She pointed at the bus. “He picked me up. This all happened in the last twenty-four hours. I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye to my friends. But you know, life will be better for my mom, right?”

  “Look. You really need to get out of here,” Parker said.

  “What?” Cleo, muttered, shock written all over her face.

  “He’s right,” Jayden said. “None of this feels right. We think something else might be going on.”

  Cleo shook her head again. “Thanks for your concern, guys, but I don’t have a choice.”

  Jayden and Parker peered at each other, then at the group. World Corp was setting their sights on families with financial problems. But Jayden thought Cleo was probably right. She really didn’t have much of a choice.

  “Stick with us,” Parker said. “We’re forming a clan.”

  We are? Jayden thought.

  “A what?” Cleo asked.

  Parker took a fighting stance. “Ever played an online shooter game?”

  What is he doing? Jayden wondered, shaking his head.

  “A shooter game?” Cleo asked.

  “Yeah, multiple players, on-line shooter.” Parker paused. “Well, never mind. Just stick with us. We figure there’s safety in numbers.”

  Jayden noticed that a distant
light in the sky appeared as suddenly as it had the night before. Even the slight breeze returned. “It’s time,” he whispered.

  Parker moved closer to Cleo and gazed upward. “Get ready, Cleo. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  “Who will?” she asked.

  “We’ll all see soon enough," Parker said. “Just stay close.”

  The three of them huddled together and watched the small pinpoint of light grow.

  Jayden squinted as the dark, house-sized helicopter from the previous night came into view. The craft landed in the identical place as before. The door opened, and he watched the same small-framed, elderly, African-America lady with the large, black-rimmed glasses step outside. She gestured for the crowd of teens to follow her into the ship.

  “Who’s that?” Cleo asked.

  “Come on,” Jayden said as he started towards the ramp.

  Parker and Cleo joined him and strolled with the crowd up a metal ramp and through the door of the giant, bladeless craft.

  Jayden jumped when the heavy door closed in a blast of air once everyone was aboard, sending a windy echo through the large, circular room.

  An instant later, the older lady disappeared in a flash of white light.

  Jayden scanned the circular room that looked twice as large as his garage back home. Metallic spiral stairwells reached up to a second level metal walkway. On the second floor, he noticed colorful blinking lights, displays with changing red digits, and projections of sensor gauges and fluctuating numbers. Hundreds of holograms beamed from panels surrounding the second level that reminded him of pop-up windows from a World Corp game.

  They were in! Step one—accomplished, Jayden thought. He was about to give Parker a fist bump, but noticed his best friend had the same wide-eyed and confused expression as the other hundred teens from the observatory’s parking lot. “Look for Nora,” he whispered to Parker.

  Parker nodded and searched the crowd while Jayden did the same.

  Suddenly, the lights went out, and a few of the other recruits screamed. Jayden felt Cleo grab his arm when a flickering image, resembling a funhouse mirror, appeared over their heads. He watched as the image stretched into a ribbon that shifted and moved like a strip of a Mylar balloon in a light breeze.

  When Jayden peered again at the second level, he made out other shifting shapes. Each one sort of resembled a person, but he couldn’t focus on any of their faces. His eyes went wide when the image overhead morphed into a slim man well over six feet tall.

  The man wore a tight black jumpsuit like the bus driver, but Jayden thought this guy looked seriously scary. His smooth bald head, boney jaw, and tiny nose appeared to stretch long, then contract.

  The mysterious guy flickered and buzzed on a floating platform above them.

  Jayden’s stomach sank as he peered at the man's eyes. Amber reptilian pupils with unnatural vertical slits shimmered gold. He was willing to bet the dude on the platform was no human being at all.

  An avatar hologram? Jayden wondered. Maybe the creature was part of World Corp’s elaborate marketing hype for the new game. He watched in amazement as the hologram creature floated above the crowd. Now and then, the image buzzed and flickered, confirming that it was a high-tech projection.

  “Welcome!” the large hologram thundered. The floating dude’s lips puffed on a stick the size of a long carrot as though it were a cigar. Several of the recruits around Jayden and Parker pointed at the hovering hologram and began shouting questions: “Who are you? What is this place? Where are we going?”

  “Silence!” the hologram roared.

  Jayden froze, as did Parker. The perimeter of the circular room lit up and more long, flickering holograms fluttered around the room. Jayden could tell they were shifting images of creatures, but he couldn’t make out their details. He was seriously impressed. World Corp’s new 3-D tech was amazingly immersive.

  The whispers around the room turned to shouts, and a couple of kids laughed. Jayden noticed one of them was Creep. “Laughing is seriously a bad idea,” he muttered.

  “I said ‘silence!’” This time, the hologram’s booming voice made Jayden’s ears ring, vibrating through his entire body.

  The room went silent, but Creep continued to snicker. “Screw you!” the kid shouted.

  The creature overhead ignored the hecklers. “My name is Nuk’ana. I am ruler of the Space Expeditionary Combat Command, known to us as Space Command. You will call me Leader from this point forward.”

  Jayden tapped Parker. “Nuk’ana? Stupid name.” He shook his head. “Pretty cool tech though.”

  Parker made a jerky nod and continued searching the room. “Feels like we’re really inside a game.”

  Jayden watched carefully as Nuk’ana paused and relit his smoking stick. The creature puffed on it as though he were a locomotive, then cleared his throat with a gurgle. “If you fail to obey the—”

  “This is all a big World Corp trick,” Creep said. “Someone’s playing a lame joke on us. Way lame.” He raised his voice. “I need a smoke. Yo, Leader, can you pass me whatever you’re smoking?”

  “Shut up,” Cleo murmured. “Do you want to get us all killed?”

  Creep smirked at Cleo. “Oh, please. This corporate Muppet doesn’t scare me.” Creep yelled louder. “Eat this!” He waved his middle finger at the hovering creature. “Yo, pasty-face, down here!”

  What an idiot, Jayden thought.

  Suddenly, a flash of bright white light hit Creep full-on with an ear-piercing pop. The unruly kid vaporized into a black dust cloud about a foot away from Jayden.

  Jayden nearly fell over. He grabbed his ears when Cleo screamed bloody murder and noticed Parker had gone white as a sheet. A disgusting smell hung in the air. It reminded Jayden of Fourth of July fireworks with a touch of barbecue.

  He felt queasy and he saw Parker gag. At least half of the teens around the room started crying. One even threw up. Game promotion? No way.

  When Jayden removed his hands from his ears, he heard a deep, clicking purr and a hiss coming from Nuk’ana. The creature’s distinct jawline stretched and extended as if it was made from rubber. “Silence!” Nuk’ana screamed with extra bass.

  The entire room went silent.

  “Good,” Nuk’ana said, and then took a long drag from his smoking stick.

  Jayden struggled to get enough air as he watched Nuk’ana’s jawline transform into something alien then back to a natural, human-like shape.

  Nuk’ana grinned. “I have your attention now, yes?” Nuk’ana raised his voice and twisted his face, making his golden eyes shimmer like a snake about to strike. “Fail to obey my rules, or to listen when I speak, and you’ll become well acquainted with the vacuum of space or vaporized like your disrespectful friend, Johnny McFeay, aptly known as Creep.”

  Jayden rubbed his face. “Space?” he wondered.

  Nuk’ana cracked his jaw without moving his head, then continued. “Poor Creep. He won’t be missed. Now, I shall begin once more, yes?” A gurgling sound escaped the creature's throat.

  Leader’s voice changed. This time it was full of excitement as if Jayden was listening to a science fiction infomercial. “Welcome, Space Fighters! I am pleased to tell you that your international assignment was . . .” The creature paused, lowering its voice, its words drawn out. “All . . . a . . . lie. You are now traveling in space, deep into your solar system.”

  Whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire.

  Cleo leaned over to Jayden. “What’s going on? I mean, we’re not really in space, are we?”

  “Silence!” Nuk’ana sucked harder on his smoking stick and exhaled a cloud of smoke. A hiss followed every few words. “You are our newest group of Earthling space fighter recruits. Today is the first day of your new life. From this point forward, you will be told what to do, what to say, and where to go. You will be told when to eat and sleep. If any of you disagree, you shall meet the same fate as your late friend, Creep, yes? If you didn’
t know him, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” Nuk’ana’s laugh sounded hideous with deep vibrato, originating from his core.

  This is so not good, Jayden thought. He refocused on their mission and shifted into planning mode. Find Nora. Find the tablet. He repeated this over and over to himself.

  Nuk’ana's laughing faded with a snort. Muffled cries came from two husky boys next to Jayden. Both of them looked like they could easily kick Jayden and Parker’s butts, but they were crying like kindergartners.

  The smell of BBQ lingered in Jayden's nose. For a second he thought it smelled of hickory, just like the popular BBQ rib place in downtown Los Gatos. Then he remembered it was Creep and nearly puked again. No doubt they needed to work out an escape plan, but first they had to find Nora.

  “If you little Earthlings haven’t noticed, we are on a spacecraft. Our allies, known as the Ga3si, donated this technology to our cause.”

  Jayden tried to absorb the bizarre facts that Nuk’ana was spewing.

  “They go by the name, Ga.” Nuk’ana took a long, deep inhale from his smoking stick. Smoke exited from slits below the creature’s chin.

  Well, that’s a cool party trick.

  “The Ga provide us with technology to travel the vast distances between the stars,” Nuk’ana continued. “Their tech is . . . out of this world.”

  Nuk’ana laughed and opened his arms wide. “The place where you stand, you feel no movement, yes? Again, Ga technology. But know this for certain: we are indeed flying.”

  Jayden didn’t get what was so funny. He nudged Parker.

  Parker’s lips tightened, and he frowned. He waved off Jayden and continued searching the room.

  “We call the craft you are on a UFO, mostly because you Earth children call them UFOs when you see one flying in your sky. On this craft, you’re in an atmospheric gravity bubble, isolated and stabilized. The bubble is configured to simulate Earth’s gravity and oxygen levels.”

  Nuk’ana paused for a long moment and leaned down as if his hologram was talking with someone that they couldn't see. He stood straight and cleared his throat. “We will be at the space base on Saturn’s moon, Dione, in ten minutes.”

  Dione? Like the password? He took stock. One, they were in space. Two, they were nearly to Saturn, as in planet Saturn!

  “That’s right,” Nuk’ana said. “We’re already orbiting Saturn. Fast, huh?”

  Everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath.

  “Now you’re starting to understand,” Nuk’ana said.

  A white light lit up a nearby wall, where at least two hundred phones, tablets, and laptops rose from the floor. The mobile devices had been stacked high near two open doors spaced about ten feet apart.

  Jayden’s eyes went wide. He searched for his dad’s tablet in the pile.

  Nuk’ana pointed. “Stack your mobile devices along the wall. They won’t work where you’re going. Girls proceed through the left exit door, and boys take the right.” The creature’s voice lowered. “You will be given what you know as earplugs. Push them into your fleshy ears. They are universal translators with a few million languages configured to help your tiny baby brains.”

  Leader sucked on his smoking stick and blew out puffs, waiting for his recruits to move.

  No one did, including Jayden.

  “Move, Earth children!” he thundered, forcing smoke out of his tiny nose and chin slits.

  Cleo took off toward the left exit door. Jayden and Parker caught up with her.

  Jayden stepped in close and whispered, “If you meet a girl who goes by the name Nora, or Zeekmo, tell her Jayden and Parker are coming to rescue her.”

  Cleo stopped and turned to Jayden. “Who—?” she whispered with a puckered brow. “Rescue?”

  “A girl named Nora or Zeekmo,” Jayden repeated. “Just tell her we’re coming for her.”

  Parker lowered his voice. “She has a birthmark that looks like a wasp tat on her lower back.”

  Cleo’s eyes shifted out of focus, her breathing short and rapid. She was coming apart at the seams.

  “Breathe, Cleo. We’ll figure out a way to help you too,” Parker said.

  They walked together, joining the enlistees around the mobile devices.

  Cleo nodded, then placed her mobile phone on the stack and followed the other girls through the door.

  Jayden scanned the stacks closer. Jackpot! The unique mini-tablet was near the bottom of the girls’ pile. Cherry red. The red gloss paint with gold specks was one of a kind. “Nora had been here!” he thought, and tapped Parker’s shoulder, then pointed in the tablet’s direction.

  Parker didn’t hesitate. He stumbled on purpose into the neatly arranged piles near the left door, pushing over three stacks of mobile phones and tablets. The devices crashed on the floor causing everyone near them to scatter.

  In one quick motion, Jayden snatched the red tablet, lifted his sweatshirt, and secured the tablet into his t-shirt’s hidden rear pocket. “Thank you, Rosa,” he muttered.

  Parker jumped to his feet, dusted himself off, and glanced at Jayden.

  Jayden jerked his head upwards as aliens morphed from fluctuating silver ribbons into real-life physical forms with smooth white faces, boney jaws, and tiny noses. Some were tall, some short, but they all had Nuk’ana’s steely, amber snake eyes and scaley skin. Each one began shouting commands and directing traffic. One creature pushed Jayden and Parker behind the boys rushing to get through the open door.

  Jayden grabbed Parker’s arm and whispered, “We have some serios problemas, amigo.”