She shot me a puzzled look. “It’s a fire in a mattress factory.”
I left her so she could go be super-heroic, and walked the short distance home, feeling wretched. She hadn’t finished her sentence. “You’re like my—” What? Dorky neighbor? Weirdo friend? As I hung up my coat in the hallway, unkind thoughts swirled in my head. She was so full of herself, but really, what a ridiculous superpower. The ability to talk to hedgehogs—ooh, how amazing. And listening to her go on about Zack, how he’s so understanding and wise. Resentment boiled over like a forgotten pot of spaghetti. There was only one thing to do: I needed to play Puny Earthlings! and blast them both out of the sky. Right now.
In the living room, my dad was Skyping his dad in Scotland. When I was little, my grandparents wanted to see me a lot, so every afternoon I’d be propped in front of an iPad while they made goo-goo noises and pulled faces. For years I thought they were an app.
My dad still talked to his dad when he needed advice. They were discussing Dad’s job situation. I knew he’d applied for a new one but hadn’t heard anything back yet, which meant he’d be at home the whole week. Usually, old Mrs. Wilson from next door looked after us during vacations. She’s deaf in one ear, only wears slippers, and has the vision of a mole. In other words, the perfect sitter. But based on yesterday’s epic gaming session, Dad was going to be much more fun.
“There’s my favorite grandson!” bellowed Grandpa Bernard from the screen as I entered the camera’s field of view.
“Dad,” said my dad. “You can’t have favorites.”
I didn’t care. I was glad to be someone’s favorite.
“Uh, I know that,” said Grandpa. “But look at the boy.” He beamed. “So how’s life with you, Zack?”
Zack? Zack?! Even he preferred my big brother.
Dad told Grandpa Bernard to adjust his glasses, and after that he mumbled an apology. We chatted for a while. He and Grandma were coming to visit soon for my cousin Jenny’s wedding. The reception was going to be held at the golf club, and I had to wear a suit and pinchy shoes. There was no getting out of it. It was the Van Kull Maximum Security Facility of weddings.
We said good-bye and put down the iPad. “How about a game of Puny Earthlings!?” I suggested to Dad.
“Ah,” he said.
That didn’t sound good. Concerned, I glanced under the TV. Instead of my Xbox there was now a console-shaped hole. “Where is it?”
“Ah,” repeated Dad. “You know how your mother never suspected a thing about our gaming session yesterday?”
My face fell. “Oh no . . .” She knew. She always knew. This was awful. “When did she say I could have it back?”
Dad squirmed. “You can’t.”
“Where is it? Where did you put it? In the hall cupboard? Your room?”
“On eBay.”
“No! You can’t. It’s mine. I—” I felt hot tears prick my eyes. This was so unfair.
“Luke, son, it’s not Mom’s fault; it’s mine. I shouldn’t have let you play with it. But I was feeling sorry for myself and . . . I’m not sure if video games are actually dangerous, but I do know that they’re a real time-suck. I lost some of the best years of my life to something called Half-Life.” He looked dazed. “One minute I’m battling Vortigaunts at Black Mesa, and the next thing I know I’m picking tableware with your mother for our wedding registry.”
I was too angry to hear him. All I knew was that he was selling my Xbox. “Is this because you need the money now that you’re unemployed?” It was a cruel thing to say, and I regretted it immediately.
Dad’s face crumpled. He looked like he’d been struck by a super-aging ray. I tried to say sorry, but the words stuck in my throat. I fled to my room.
I slammed the door and flung myself onto my bed, fuming at the injustice of the world. All of the people I trusted had let me down. No one in my life understood me or had any idea what I was going through. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. The ticking of my Green Arrow alarm clock filled the silence. Although that wasn’t entirely true.
There was one person.
The Wrath of Luke
“You want a what?” asked Christopher Talbot.
It was nine thirty the following morning, and I was standing on the doorstep of Crystal Comics. I’d been hammering to get in since nine, which, according to the sign, was when it was supposed to open.
“A job,” I repeated.
He peered down at me with a wary expression. “If this was Victorian England and I had a blocked chimney, well then, a short, wiry boy like yourself? I’d hire you in a flash. But you’re what—six? Seven?”
“Eleven,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Eleven. Really? Makes no difference. There are things called employment laws. Good-bye.” He pushed the door shut.
I shoved a foot in the narrowing gap. “Uh, you launched a rocket-powered super suit from a volcano in the middle of town and used a superpower-sucking machine on my brother, so don’t tell me you care about laws.”
Christopher Talbot pursed his thin lips in displeasure. I sensed he was wavering. “And what’s more, according to that”—I pointed to the sign—“this place should have been open long before now. Your nephew quit. You don’t have anyone else. You need me.”
His face was a mask. Not a supervillain mask—the other kind, that doesn’t give anything away. But I knew he was thinking seriously about what I’d said. I decided to sweeten the deal. “You wouldn’t even have to pay me,” I added. “So technically I wouldn’t be employed, which means you wouldn’t be breaking any laws.”
I had to get this job. I needed it more than I’d ever thought possible.
“I know that look,” said Christopher Talbot, fixing me with his TARDIS-blue eyes. “Seen it in the mirror a hundred times. You’re plotting something.”
“You’ve found me out,” I said, holding up my hands in mock surrender. I leaned toward him and whispered, “I want to take over the world.”
He was suitably startled. Taking advantage of his surprise, I pushed past him into the store. He stood in the open doorway, tracking me like an automatic sentry gun. “This is some kind of trick, isn’t it?” He stabbed a finger at my Deadpool backpack. “You’ve got some sort of surveillance device in there, don’t you? This is entrapment, that’s what it is. Not that I’m planning anything villainous. Whatsoever. Got that, whoever’s listening to this?” He glanced out onto busy Main Street, scanning the passersby. “That annoying brother of yours sent you, didn’t he?”
“My annoying brother has nothing to do with me being here,” I said. “Well, he does, but not in the way you mean.” I’d found what I came for. Dumped on a shelf behind the counter was the chunky, oh-so-touchable shape of a video game console.
I gazed into the black depths of the precision-molded plastic and saw my own face staring back. At least it looked like me, but I could swear there was something about the face gazing back that was different. Something fluttered behind my reflection’s head. It seemed to be . . . a cape. Had to be some trick of the light. Before I could look again, another face swam out of the gloom. Christopher Talbot stood at my shoulder, enveloping me in a cloud of minty toothpaste and salami sandwich breath.
“Can’t stand these things,” he said, gesturing to the console. “Wouldn’t even have one in the store, except your generation can’t get enough of them. Video games.” He shook his head with displeasure. “Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned game of Red Rover?” He had a misty look in his eye. “Two dozen taunting schoolkids trying to drag down a small child on a concrete playground.” He sighed. “All right then.”
“All right what?” I asked uncertainly.
“You’ve got the job,” he said. “No overtime, no 401(k), and you have to provide your own sandwiches.”
“I already brought them,” I said, indicating my backpack.
“Course you did. Right. I’m off for a nap.” He threw a salute. “Commander, the bridge is yours.” With that he leaned on his cane and hobbled off toward the back of the store.
As soon as I heard the soft thud of his door shutting, I locked the front door and turned the sign to Closed. I didn’t want to be disturbed (and it wasn’t as if people were lining up to get in). I hurried over to the counter, removed the Xbox from its shelf, set it up in front of the screen, and reached for the game disc. The overhead lights shone through its layers to reveal a gorgeous spiderweb of circuitry under the surface. I’d never seen anything like it. Lab Rat Games must have spent a fortune on the design. I slotted the disc into the machine, and as I waited for the game to load, I unzipped my backpack. In addition to my sandwiches, I’d brought a pair of headphones. The console whirred to life, and I felt myself relax. I slipped on the headphones, and the outside world faded away. This was what I needed. The sure touch of the controller, the instant feedback, the pinpoint control I had over my alien fleet. This is what I could rely on—not Serge, not Lara, not Mom or Dad, and especially not my big brother. As I played I sensed I was not alone. All across town, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were doing the same thing, focused on blasting the dratted Star Guy and his annoying sidekick out of the sky.
But how to conquer Earth’s last line of defense?
I ran through precisely what I was up against. Star Guy could fly, breathe in outer space; he had the powers of telekinesis and telepathy, a Star Screen radar, and a force field. He needed starlight to power up, but he could go for days without needing to recharge. And Dark Flutter had . . . pigeons. She wasn’t a threat. No, he was the obstacle.
My mother ship went down in flames. Star Guy’s victory theme blared in my headphones. No matter. I had time. All day, in fact. Mom was at work, and Dad thought I was at Serge’s house. Dad had barely noticed when I slipped out that morning, and he hadn’t questioned my cover story. He was too busy watching endless YouTube clips of old TV shows from his childhood. He does this when he’s feeling old and sad. When Dad got like this he was not easily distracted.
I restarted the game from the last checkpoint.
Not easily distracted. An idea tickled the back of my brain. Perhaps Zack’s greatest power was not one that Zorbon had given him. I thought it through. Zack could sit in the library and study for hours and hours. Not only could he leap tall buildings in a single bound, he could also read a math textbook from cover to cover without moving a muscle. Forget about telekinesis and Star Screens; his greatest powers were his powers of concentration. The tickle became an itch. I felt the stirrings of an actual plan. I’d studied him in the heat of battle; I knew that he had to concentrate in order to use his powers. The solution to my problem rose up like a fin in the water.
Break his concentration and you break Star Guy.
Unable to focus, he would drop his force field, and without it he’d be vulnerable to a blast directed from my mother ship’s weapon systems. I did a quick calculation. My alien-targeting computers were lightning fast, so it would take just two seconds to lock on and fire. Two seconds without his protective shield, and victory would be mine.
One part of the puzzle remained. How to distract him? What I needed was a tactical shepherd’s pie. Not an actual shepherd’s pie, but something that would work the same way on Zack.
I was so close. I could feel the answer just beyond my fingertips. But just as I reached for it, there was a dull knocking in my headphones. I slipped them off and the knocking grew louder. Someone was at the front door. Grumbling, I paused the game. I opened the door to a motorbike courier delivering a package for Christopher Talbot.
“Ine ear id,” said the courier.
“Pardon me?”
The courier removed her helmet. Long hair spilled over leather-jacketed shoulders. She peeled off a glove, and as she thrust the handheld signing device at me and tapped a stylus against the screen, I noticed her fingernails were painted blue. “Sign here, kid,” she repeated.
I was frozen to the spot.
“You OK?” asked the courier.
The answer to the puzzle was standing in front of me (in a manner of speaking). I signed for the package and rushed back to the game. I didn’t have to distract Star Guy; I had to distract Zack. Swiftly, I navigated to the Overlord menu, accessed the R & D laboratory, selected the nanomachine replicator, and set to work designing the device that I knew would stop him in his tracks. I labored for minutes. And then it was done. The very last part of the process was to give the weapon a suitably awesome name. I thought for a moment and then began to enter my choice, using the controller. I meant to call it the “Doomsday Machine,” but I made a typo, and seeing as it took ages to select the letters, I didn’t bother to go back to fix it. So it ended up being called the “Doofsday Machine.”
I restarted the game. My device primed, I launched another invasion of Earth. I swept aside the tanks and planes as usual, and waited. Two streaks appeared on the horizon: Star Guy and Dark Flutter were coming. But this time I was ready for them.
I gently pressed the FIRE button and unleashed my secret weapon. It worked just as I’d planned. The force field flickered and dropped. Two seconds later my weapon systems boomed, and I was rewarded with the glorious sight of Star Guy and Dark Flutter tumbling out of the sky to their doom.
I leaped to my feet and punched the air. I’d done it—crushed them both! My victory cry lodged in my throat. A high-pitched whine was rising from the console. I barely had time to turn my head toward it before a flash of green light exploded from the machine, and my world went dark.
A Big Tentacle for Our Winner
I opened my eyes and winced as a sliver of light poked me like a bony finger.
“The Thucwex Gsuphlon has arrived,” boomed a voice that seemed to come from everywhere. There was a sound like someone clapping wet hands. “Bring the nourishment.”
As my vision adjusted, I began to make out my surroundings. I was lying on some kind of raised platform in the center of a large, rectangular room with two doors. A single column of light shone down on me from the ceiling far above. Markings crisscrossed the floor, multicolored straight lines and curves I felt sure I’d seen somewhere before. A movement caught my eye. High up one wall was a viewing window, behind which huddled shadowy figures, observing me. I felt like a specimen on a microscope slide. I sat up. My head throbbed, and I had an overwhelming desire for—
“Grilled cheese, oh great and terrible Thucwex?”
There was a faint buzzing next to my ear. I turned to find some kind of hovering drone with a bulbous electronic eye that swiveled at the end of a stalk. The weird thing was that the drone looked familiar. It held out a silver plate on which lay a slice of toast with a slab of melted white cheese.
“Halloumi,” said the voice. “Not only the squeakiest cheese in the universe, but one of the saltiest. Your biology requires such replenishment after your journey.”
Journey? What was the voice talking about? I examined the grilled cheese greedily. It might have been poisoned, but I didn’t care. I wolfed it down, and slipped off the podium. “Where am I? Who are you?” I addressed the figures behind the high window.
“One question at a time,” said the voice. “Lower the blast shields,” it commanded.
With a rumble, a section of wall parted, leaving an unobstructed view out. I’d seen this view a hundred times, but only in photos with a NASA logo in one corner.
Before me lay the spinning green and blue marble of planet Earth.
“We are in geostationary orbit above the oblate ellipsoid known to you as Earth,” explained the voice calmly. “In your standard measure, twenty-three thousand miles above coordinates fifty-one degrees, twenty-two minutes, thirty-nine-point-nine seconds latitude; zero degrees, two minutes, thirty-six-point-five-one seconds longitude. Or, as I am sure you have already cal
culated, directly above Route 95 at the corner of Brewery Road.”
Suddenly, I remembered where I had seen the drone before. “I’m on the mother ship from Puny Earthlings!” I breathed.
“Such insight, such reckoning,” said the voice, impressed. “Truly he is the Thucwex Gsuphlon.”
“A new season brings a new Thucwex,” chanted more voices.
I reeled about the room in shock, legs wobbling beneath me. I stumbled and threw out a hand to steady myself. It brushed against a rope hanging from the ceiling. Curious. The jumble of thoughts in my head arranged themselves in some sort of order. The green flash from the Xbox just after I’d defeated Star Guy in the game must have been a teleportation beam. I’d been beamed up. And yet this place didn’t look like any transporter room I’d seen in comics or on TV. Where were the beaming bays? The control panels with dozens of sliders? I pushed the questions from my mind—I had other things to worry about. If this was the mother ship, then the shadowy figures in the viewing window were aliens. Actual extraterrestrials. And if they were anything like the ones in the video game, they didn’t come in peace.
“I know you’re planning to take over the world,” I said. “But you won’t succeed.”
“Yes, we thought so too,” said the voice smugly. “Until you came along, oh dreadful Thucwex.”
“What are you talking about? And why do you keep calling me that? What’s a Thucwex?”
“How shall I explain?” There was a sound I can only describe as a polite cough into a clenched tentacle. “Who knows the earthlings better than themselves? Who better to plot their downfall than one of their own? That video game you are so obsessed with? The key to our plan. It was the maze and you the laboratory rats. In your language, we ‘crowdsourced’ our invasion plan.”
The game. The game was a trick.
The voice let out a laugh at its own cleverness, one that sounded like a mouthful of slapping tongues.
My Gym Teacher Is an Alien Overlord Page 6
