Attack of the Alien Horde

by Robert Venditti

  Let’s review: Josie Campobasso had used an adjective to describe Miles, and then she’d said she liked it. Flying a tornado apart was one thing, but this was a miracle. If Miles were forced to use an adjective to describe himself at that moment, it would’ve been “giddy.”

  Miles focused, bringing his head back down from the clouds. He’d dealt with the tornado, but a storm that size must have cut a wide swath through the city. There were going to be people who needed medical attention and emergency supplies. Homes and businesses that needed cleaning up.

  Miles settled the cape back onto his shoulders and readied himself for another long night.

  CHAPTER

  19

  “SHE ASKED ABOUT ME, HENRY. Josie was flying with a superhero, and she asked about me.”

  “And then you dumped her into a mud puddle,” Henry chided. “Not exactly the Pavlovian response you should be aiming for.”

  Miles blinked.

  “As in Ivan Pavlov? The Russian psychologist who pioneered the concept of conditioned reflex? Measured the rate of salivation in dogs coinciding with the ringing of a bell?”

  “He studied dog spit? Gross.”

  “My references are lost on you,” Henry replied. “Anyway, consider it a lesson learned. If you try to use the cape to impress girls, you’ll only do the opposite. Unless you can find a girl who really likes mud.”

  It was the day after the tornado. Miles had snuck out his bedroom window and helped clean up the destruction late into the night. No lives had been lost, but several homes had been carried off in pieces. Thanks to Gilded, the tornado dissipated before too much damage could be done, particularly to Chapman Middle. The school was missing only a handful of roof shingles, plus a single window in the band room, which mysteriously seemed to have been broken out from inside. Tornados were the strangest things.

  Now Miles and Henry were in Miles’s bedroom. For weeks, Miles had avoided bringing Henry to Cedar Lake Apartments, but Henry wouldn’t take no for an answer any longer. Something about the importance of observing Miles in his natural habitat.

  Miles still didn’t like being in apartment 2H, but over the past months he’d at least become used to it. Seeing Henry standing in the middle of his room threw all the imperfections into sharp relief. The chipped paint. The cracked baseboard. The small water stain on the ceiling from a roof leak waiting to be repaired. Had Henry ever seen a place so meager?

  “Happy now?” Miles grumbled. He surreptitiously stepped on an ancient carpet spot, hiding it underfoot.

  Henry paced with his hands clasped behind his back, taking in every detail like a biologist unlocking the secrets of a newly discovered species. He opened the closet and poked his head inside. “Fascinating,” he said, nodding.

  Miles couldn’t imagine what was so fascinating about his dirty socks, but apparently they held great scientific significance.

  Henry shut the closet and moved over to the desk. His eyes settled on the handmade Gilded action figure, and he stopped short. “Decent job on the costume,” he muttered to himself. He picked up the toy and began turning it over in his hands. “Details are a little sketchy, but that’s to be expected. Its presence does suggest a burgeoning narcissism, though. I’ll need to keep an eye on that.”

  Miles snatched the toy from Henry. “Are you just about finished dissecting my private life?” he scowled. “For your information, my dad bought this for me. I’m too old to collect Gilded toys. Unlike some people, whose names I won’t mention.”

  If Henry detected the insult aimed at him, he didn’t let on. He crossed his arms and nodded at his surroundings approvingly. “Fairly secluded. A window for coming and going undetected. As far as hideouts go, it isn’t the Batcave, but it could be a lot worse.”

  Henry plopped down onto Miles’s bed and appraised the tidy stack of Gilded Age comics on the nightstand. “Looks like you’ve been doing your homework.” He reached for his shoulder bag. “I brought more reference material for you. You’re doing good, but this isn’t the time to rest on your laurels. Not until you stop, you know, dropping helpless schoolgirls from the sky.”

  boom

  Henry’s ears perked up like a guard dog after hearing the rattle of a chain-link fence. “That’s strange. I don’t remember seeing a forecast for more storms.” He glanced out the window, scanning the sky for gray clouds. “I’d better see if there’s another tornado watch in effect.”

  Boom

  Miles’s blood turned to ice, the memory of a recent day at a parking garage rushing into his head. “Henry,” he breathed. “That isn’t a storm.”

  They locked eyes, and everything that needed to be said was communicated without a word between them.

  “TV,” Henry said.

  They raced to the living room. Miles snatched up the remote control. He turned on the TV, trying to convince himself that what he knew was happening wasn’t happening. That the truth was a lie. Maybe it really was just a storm.

  BOOOMBLLL!

  The windows rattled, and Miles heard the dishes jump in the kitchen cupboard. Nope. Definitely not a storm.

  “Too loud,” Miles moaned. “If it’s happening in the city again, we should barely be able to hear it all the way out here. You think they’re closer to where we are?”

  “Either that, or this time . . .” An emergency news broadcast filled the TV screen, and Henry caught his breath. “There’s more of them.”

  Miles’s heart dropped through his stomach and into the downstairs apartment. “More” was the understatement of the year. The live news feed showed a spaceship—a ginormous, hulking spaceship—engines booming in fiery bursts as it lowered itself over downtown. People stood on the sidewalk or stopped their cars in the street, gazing upward in terror.

  “It’s difficult to describe what we’re looking at,” the reporter said. “The aliens have returned, seemingly in full force. But why are they here? What do they want from us?”

  The spaceship was the kind of thing Miles had imagined when he was little, dreaming how cool it’d be if things like it actually existed. Well, guess what? Apparently, they do exist. Miles was staring at one right now, and it was extremely not cool. It wasn’t bulbous and smooth, like the ships good aliens always use in movies to tool around the universe. It was angled and jagged, like a dagger designed for stabbing entire planets in the gut. It was a bad-alien ship. No doubt about it.

  As if to prove him right, massive doors in the ship’s side slid open, releasing a swarm of aliens on flying sleds.

  “Not again,” the reporter whined. Poor guy had probably leaped eagerly from the news van, excited about landing the story of a lifetime. Now he realized that his lifetime was most likely going to be cut extremely short.

  The aliens opened fire. A building exploded, raining rubble on the street below. Another blast chewed a hole in the ground, sending massive chunks of asphalt into the air. People screamed and ran, but there was nowhere to run to. The aliens were everywhere.

  Miles suddenly had a terrifying thought: Where was his dad? He tried to remember if his dad was back to working at the downtown parking garage. That project had to be finished by now, didn’t it? He desperately hoped so.

  “Ready for anything,” Henry stated.

  Miles didn’t know whether to be flabbergasted by Henry’s matter-of-factness, or hopeful that it meant he had a plan. He chose the latter. “You know what to do about this, right?”

  A man in a business suit ran screaming past the camera. Henry frowned. “Not a chance. I mean, are you watching? We’re being colonized by an apex species. I have no earthly idea what to do about it.” He looked at Miles gravely. “But this is what I’ve been training you for, and you’re going to find a way to stop them.”

  “Training?” Miles was confused. “I tipped over a water tower. I lugged a stray bear up to the mountains. How exactly does any of that classify as training?”

  “Granted, it’d be better if you had more experience with less . . . typical cris
es. But all the missions I’ve sent you on—battling car wrecks and fires and, yes, even stray bears—it wasn’t just to see how exhausted I could make you. It was to prove that you’re up to the challenge. The challenge of being Gilded.”

  Miles watched pandemonium unfold on the TV. He’d never felt so inadequate in his life. “I don’t blame you for doubting me.”

  Henry placed a firm hand on Miles’s shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to prove it to me. I was trying to prove it to you. You needed to believe that you’re capable of so much more than you ever imagined.”

  “But this . . .” Miles trailed off. All at once he understood why the old man had given up the cape. He’d surmised he wasn’t strong enough to face a challenge of this magnitude. And if he wasn’t, how could Miles possibly be? “I can’t, Henry. I’m just not good enough.”

  Henry smiled encouragingly. “You’ve given everything to keep this city safe. Now you’re going to do it again.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Look. If I say I know you’ll come home, I’ll be lying. But you’ve got to try. Heroes aren’t heroic because they fight when they know they’re going to win. They’re heroic because they fight even when they know they’re going to lose.”

  The front door burst open. Mr. Taylor stood breathless in the doorway with Dawn a step behind him. “Miles! Thank the Lord, you’re home!”

  “Dad!” Miles rushed over and hugged him. “I was scared you were downtown.” He was scared about so much more, too. Scared in a way that not even holding on to his dad could help.

  “I took a long lunch. I had a, uh, hankering for Biscuit Barrel.” He glanced at Dawn, who, Miles noticed, was wearing her waitress apron. She looked frazzled, which was understandable considering she couldn’t have known when she left for work that morning that her shift would end with an alien invasion. She walked slowly toward the TV, fear written all over her face.

  “The cook heard it on his radio,” she said. “Oh God. It’s really happening.”

  “Pack your stuff, Miles,” Mr. Taylor ordered. He turned to Dawn. “You do the same. The three of us are heading north, toot sweet.”

  Dawn nodded. “Be right back.”

  Dawn rushed from the apartment, and Mr. Taylor turned back to Miles. “You’re standing, son. Why are aren’t you moving?” Then he noticed Henry for the first time. “Who’s this watching my TV?”

  Henry stuck out his hand. “Pardon my rudeness, sir. Henry Matte. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Mr. Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re the infamous Henry, the man with the many cell phones. I wouldn’t mind chewing the fat with you, but this hardly seems the time. I’m sure your parents are beside themselves right now.”

  “I don’t doubt it, sir.”

  Mr. Taylor pressed his lips together in a tight frown. “Tell me where you live. I’ll drop you home on our way out of town.”

  “I’m not going home, sir. And Miles can’t leave with you.”

  “The heck?” Mr. Taylor was getting mad now.

  Miles swallowed hard. “He’s right, Dad. I have to stay.”

  Mr. Taylor fumed. “I’m on the verge of being real angry here!” There was nothing on-the-verge about it.

  Miles knew what he had to do. There was no longer any choice. He’d worked so hard to keep the secret, but the only way to go on keeping it would be for him to get in his dad’s work truck and head away from danger. Leave behind Atlanta and its millions of helpless, terrified citizens. Trade his life for all of theirs. It was tempting—boy, was it ever tempting—but it’d also be wrong.

  “Dad, I have to tell you something.”

  Henry clamped a hand over Miles’s arm. “Miles . . . are you sure?”

  Miles had to fight. He had to try. But first, he had to convince his dad to let him. “If I don’t tell him, he won’t let me stay.”

  “Somebody better tell me something,” Mr. Taylor growled. “Fast. Like why I got two twelve-year-olds in front of me, both of them acting like I’m not the only adult in the room.”

  “Wait here, Dad.”

  Miles left Henry alone with his dad and hurried to his bedroom. As he yanked back the zipper on his backpack, he could feel the entire bag vibrating. Gold light spilled out of the open pocket, bathing Miles in its glow.

  “You and me, cape,” Miles breathed. “Try not to get me killed.”

  Miles rushed back to the living room, where his dad stood with puffed cheeks and flexed hands. He looked like a rocket about to blast off.

  “Maybe you’d prefer to sit, sir,” Henry offered genially.

  “All right.” Mr. Taylor lowered himself to the sofa, then leaped back to his feet. “Now, just hold on. Don’t tell me what I’d prefer to do in my own living room. I want to see some feet marching toward the front door, or I’m going to start carrying folks.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.” Miles held the cape forward. It shone brighter than it ever had before, as though it sensed the army of lizard-monsters close at hand. “Henry is only trying to prepare you for the shock.”

  Mr. Taylor looked at Miles, and then the cape, and then back at Miles again. “You’ve got a glow-in-the-dark blankie?” he said, frowning.

  Miles stepped closer, showing Mr. Taylor the clasp. “Not a blankie. It’s a cape. The cape. Gilded’s cape.”

  Mr. Taylor’s face tightened, and he spoke through clenched teeth. “What kind of foolishness has gotten into you, boy? It’s the end times outside, and you’re playing games?”

  Miles understood his dad’s reaction. It was ridiculous. Utterly and completely preposterous. That didn’t change the fact that it was true. “No games. It’s the real deal. Swear on Grandma’s grave.”

  Mr. Taylor jolted like a bucket of ice water had been introduced to his face. Miles had invoked the one and only phrase that guaranteed what followed was the 100 percent, God’s honest truth. Taylors might tell a tall tale once in a while. Sometimes they might even outright fib. You best believe they didn’t do it in the presence of a grandmother’s grave, though. Not ever. That Grandma Taylor was still very much alive and probably baking a pie at that very moment was irrelevant. The gravity of using “Grandma” and “grave” in the same sentence spoke for itself.

  “Grandma’s grave . . .?” Mr. Taylor reached out tentatively, allowing his hand to brush against the cape. He pulled it back as if he’d been shocked. “It’s . . . humming.”

  Miles nodded. “It knows when it’s needed. Don’t ask me how, but it knows.”

  Mr. Taylor tried to process what he was hearing. “So you’re Gilded’s, what, sidekick or something? You look after his cape when he’s not using it?”

  “It’s interesting you went there,” Henry chimed in. “My first reaction was shape-shifter, but I can see why you’d think—”

  “You’re not helping,” Miles interrupted.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  “Dad, remember the old man in the parking garage? He was Gilded. At least, he was the Gilded you read about in those comics when you were a kid. Before he died that day, he gave me this cape and said I had to be the new Gilded. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks. With Henry’s help.”

  “You might say I’m the brains of this world-saving operation,” Henry said, beaming.

  “That’s the reason I have the cell phone. Henry lets me know where and when there’s an emergency, which is pretty much all the time. Being a superhero isn’t exactly a nine-to-five job.” Miles took a deep breath, knowing that once he said the next words, there’d be no turning back. “And that’s why I won’t leave with you. The city needs me.”

  “You’re telling me the hero who’s been flying all over town—the guy fighting robbers and tornadoes—is you?” Mr. Taylor shook his head in disbelief. “That’s not possible.”

  On the TV, a line of military vehicles stormed into downtown, soldiers leaping to the ground. Through the shaky video feed, Miles glimpsed the man with the bottle-brush mustache who�
��d taken charge at the parking garage. Only now did Miles remember that the news had called him General Breckenridge—the same General Breckenridge who planned to get a statement from Miles’s dad about the alien in the garage. Well, if the general wanted to learn about aliens, he was about to get a firsthand lesson. The hard way.

  “There’s only one way I can think to convince you,” Miles said, taking a step back from his dad. “Keep your distance. I’m about to get bigger.”

  He placed the cape over his shoulders, thinking how he needed to prove he was Gilded, so his dad would let him try to save the world from annihilation. Emphasis on “try.”

  The last sound Miles heard was a woman’s scream coming from the TV. Power poured into him, and the clasp halves leaped from his hands.

  CHAPTER

  20

  IMAGINE LYING OUT AT THE lake until you have a blistering sunburn, then ironing your dress shirt—while you’re wearing it. That’s what it felt like to get shot by an Unnd weapon.

  The cape’s power fled from Miles, and in its place was nothing but searing agony. Waves of it pulsed over him from head to toe and back again. When the giant alien with the doubled-bladed doohickey had blasted him, it felt like nothing in the world. Which made sense because it wasn’t.

  He rubbed a hand across his burning chest, and all he could think of was home. Not Cedar Lake Apartments, but some other home he and his father could start far away from Atlanta and the swarm of aliens who wanted to wipe the city off the map. If only the cape would take him away. He’d grab his dad and go someplace safe. Henry could join them, if he wanted.

  Just one last flight, and he’d never wear the cape again. He promised.

  The cape wasn’t responding, though. Miles’s impulse to run away was most certainly the reason it’d stopped working in the first place. Fleeing to save yourself was a thought entertained by cowards. It was everything the cape could never be. Hadn’t the old man fought to his last dying breath?