You know about that?
Yah, mon. Much has been revealed to me. When you would not behave, you became its primary target. It knows it must eliminate you before it can destroy Earth. If it does not, you will undoubtedly use your incredibly creative mind to come up with a way to save this planet from certain annihilation in the looming black hole of its creation. Oh, yes. I know of this, too. How IT created the swirling vortex when you ended its amusement by eliminating Abbadon, the beast you called Number 2. So, Daniel, if you die, Mel and Dana and every other creature living on this planet will die soon after you. It will happen the instant this entire solar system is sucked off into the oblivion of its black hole.
It, I thought back. You keep calling Number 1 an “IT.”
Because that is the thing’s nature. It has no concept of right or wrong. No gender, no conscience, no soul. IT is nothing but pure negative energy and appetite. A predatory beast with a single-minded purpose: To hunt. To kill. To hunt and kill again.
So how do I defeat an IT?
By being true to who you are, Daniel X. By not becoming an IT, yourself. Remember, little brudda, you are much, much more than an alien hunter. You, my young friend, are now the earth’s final protector!
Chapter 28
I QUICKLY MADE a command decision.
Without the aid of The List, I needed a new source for in-depth intelligence on my final foe. The List is the portable supercomputer that used to be my primary tool for up-to-the-minute information on extraterrestrial evildoers.
Why couldn’t I just boot up The List again, do a few finger swipes, and check out Number 1?
Funny story.
My dad passed The List on to me after his death, but he didn’t know that the miracle microprocessor was given to Earth’s Alpar Nokian protectors by Number 1.
That’s right. The guy at the top of the list was in charge of the list.
When my father passed over to the other side, he learned the truth. Then, in one of our “imaginary” visits, he shared it with me:
“For eons,” he said, “this twisted creature we call Number 1 has been amused by the eternal struggle between good and evil; the never-ending battle of demons and angels, darkness and light.”
“Destroyers versus creators,” I added.
“Exactly. Number 1 has always favored the dark side, but more than anything, he enjoys watching a good fight between equally matched opponents. So, to keep things interesting, he pits the universe’s finest creators against its deadliest destroyers.”
So up to this point, all my adventures—and those of my father and mother who had started serving in the Alpar Nokian Protectorship long before I was born—had been extremely amusing to the giant freak we all called The Prayer.
Now, IT had grown tired of the game.
IT wanted our seemingly endless death match to come to an end.
Well, the feeling was mutual.
But first, I had to go back to the location of my first contact with the monstrous IT.
I needed to return to the scene of the crime. The setting that provided the fodder for my most hideous nightmares. The one place in the world I never wanted to visit again.
My childhood home in Kansas.
I needed to go there and find a clue, a hint, an answer—something (okay, anything) that could help me defeat Number 1.
Or at least survive.
Chapter 29
I REMEMBERED THE house being so much bigger.
Or maybe I had just been a whole lot smaller.
I had teleported without incident from Kentucky to what Number 1 once called my “pathetic little hovel in Kansas.” My first home on Earth. That is, before it was burned to ground by a murderous lunatic. The empty lot was too depressing to look at, so I recreated the place as I remembered it.
It was a simple two-story white clapboard farmhouse, where I had lived with my mom and dad more than a dozen years ago. It was no McMansion, that’s for sure. It had three bedrooms, upstairs and downstairs bathrooms, a wraparound porch, a detached garage, and a big basement. It was located in the middle of nowhere because “nowhere” is where Alien Hunters always need to live.
I walked around to the side of the house and studied the sheet of plywood nailed over what I remembered as the kitchen window. If you looked closely, you could see the scorch marks lining the perimeter of the plywood. This was where Number 1 had first exploded into my life with a wall-shaking detonation, taking my mother by surprise.
As I stood there, I heard her screams and sobs once again in my head.
And then my father’s voice. Wait, wait. Hold on. Lower the gun, my friend.
But The Prayer hadn’t lowered his weapon. Deafening, concussive blasts drowned out my father’s voice. Agonizing blasts from an Opus 24/24. When the shooting stopped, my father called out the last words he ever spoke to me in the real world: We love you, Daniel. Always.
And then nothing. Just the clanging echo of the Opus 24/24 hanging in the silence.
I moved around to the rear of the house. My backyard. The place where I built my first model of Khufu’s Great Pyramid out of sugar cubes instead of limestone blocks. I built it in HO scale (where 3.5 millimeters equals one real foot). I was only two-and-a-half years old at the time, but the pyramid was enormous and spectacular.
At least until it rained.
Now I saw the sloped cellar doors sitting like an aluminum wedge of cheese up against the house’s mildew-stained foundation. I knew I could pull up on the handles, squeak open the double doors, and descend a set of rickety wooden steps into the basement, the place where I first encountered The Prayer.
I remember I was trembling and pressing my small, vulnerable body up against an old water heater, petrified about what had just happened to my mom and dad, when a beam of violet-tinged light shone down the stairs into the basement. And then I saw it—a six-and-a-half-foot-tall praying mantis.
I sensed Number 1 was a shape-shifter, able to assume any guise he chose. I could do the same, although I wasn’t great at it just yet, being so young.
As I reminisced, there was something about that awful night that seemed more vivid, more enhanced than I had ever remembered it before. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
But it was something seemingly insignificant that I had seen in the basement as I hid behind that old water heater. It was some small detail that could be hugely important now.
Relax your mind, Daniel, Xanthos’s thoughts reached out to me across the miles. You can see more clearly when you let the visions come to you.
There’s something here, I thought back. Something that will help me take down Number 1. I can sense it.
It will come to you if you let it. Just as a revelation suddenly came to me.
What?
After you left, I drifted off into a very deep, very meditative trance, mon.
And?
I remembered something from the time long ago: I was not your father’s only spiritual advisor, Daniel. The man, he loved to have a backup for everything he did; a Plan B to go with his Plan A.
Okay. So who was this “backup” spiritual advisor?
This he never did tell me. But, I remember, he called her “his angel.” She was your father’s backup for me!
Chapter 30
XANTHOS GOT ME thinking: If my father had a backup spiritual advisor, what else might he have had a backup for?
How about the most important tool in his possession: The List? The computer that acted like an ultrasecret wiki about the superpowered psychopathic aliens that were plaguing Terra Firma. I’d lost it when I ended up in Number 1’s hospital of horrors, and my chances of finding it now were less than zero. But if there was any way of learning Numero Uno’s weakness—if he had one—it would be in The List.
Maybe some part of my father’s extremely sharp mind realized that there was a remote possibility that the information he gleaned from the high tech computer might be compromised. That there could be a mole or a double
agent working inside the highest levels of the Alpar Nokian Protectorship, feeding The List information for his (or its) own purposes.
No matter how far-fetched such a conspiracy, it would still be—for my father anyway—what he called “a potential possibility.”
And, therefore, he would have a backup. A computer he knew he could trust.
I walked across the yard and sat down in my old tire swing to think.
Focus, Daniel, I heard my spiritual advisor say. Clear your mind. Concentrate only on what is important.
I did as Xanthos advised. I blocked out everything except my internal search engine. It’s like my own personal Google and it can find anything, no matter how obscure, that has made even the faintest impression on my long-or short-term memories.
“Search for computers,” I said. “Alpar Nokian models and makes.”
Knowing my dad, I figured he would have brought along his own personal computer when he went on the mission to Terra Firma. Maybe the trusty laptop he had used when he was studying at the Academy.
I added more layers of filtering for the search. “Portable. Extremely reliable. Made at least fifteen years ago. Able to communicate seamlessly across planetary broadband platforms.”
And then I remembered my dad’s favorite color.
“Orange.”
In my mind’s eye, I immediately saw a rotating image of a small prism tinted orange. It was made up of twelve five-sided glass panes. One pentagon served as the top, another as the bottom. There were two rows of five similar pentagon panels making up the sides of what looked like a miniature version of a Death Star.
It was the Tusk 5-12, a clever Alpar Nokian computer that linked communications, computation, and home entertainment into a single device the size of a paperweight.
According to my internal database, its primary component was a mineral called flervoniumide, which can only be found in the deep pit mines of Alpar Nok.
I extended my right arm straight out in front of me. I flipped up my hand and flexed open my fingers. I was transforming my palm into the high-precision search coil of a VLF metal detector. The kind of minesweeper you see being used by those dorks on the beach, searching for buried treasure.
Hand open and arm fully extended, I marched across the hardscrabble remnants of our backyard and into the woods behind our farmhouse.
The pings in my ears grew louder and closer together.
Soon I was hiking through the lush green grass at the edge of the salt marsh.
The pings became a steady beep.
I knelt down.
Pulled out a rooty plant. Scraped away six inches of muck.
And there it was. My father’s emergency backup computer. Made of noncorrosive flervoniumide, with a battery that constantly recharged itself whenever it was within three feet of salty water. The Alpar Nokian Tusk 5-12.
I picked up the Tusk and studied the twelve animated screens.
One gave me the current weather conditions for Earth and several other planets. Another was running an old Charlie Chaplin movie. In a third, a text message scrolled across the screen. It was from my father:
“Hello, Daniel. I hope you are well. Remember, son, you must always have a backup. It isn’t a weakness. It is a strength.”
Chapter 31
HUNGRY FROM ALL my teleporting and tromping around in the woods, I returned with the Tusk computer to the backyard of my old home and quickly materialized a picnic blanket and a basket filled with food.
Nothing too fancy. Just all the foods I used to love to eat when we lived in Kansas: panfried chicken, Czech sausage, candied sweet potatoes, squash cobbler, German baked beans, Sunflower State wheat bread, and black walnut pie.
If there were any leftovers I’d save them for Joe.
When my stomach finally stopped growling after my second drumstick, I held the Tusk 5-12 in my hand as if it were a Magic 8 Ball and said, “What can you tell me about The Prayer?”
Every screen on the Tusk flashed to life with images and background information. I saw movies, heard audio clips, read classified documents, and then received what the computer called its “executive summary”:
“The creature known as The Prayer, currently operating on Terra Firma in the guise of an oversized praying mantis, is the most evil alien outlaw of the current millennium. It has been responsible for countless deaths and untold destruction. Its planet of origin is unknown. Its powers have been recorded as ‘unlimited.’ It has no conscience, no emotions. It is pure evil incarnate. As such, it acts like a magnet, attracting lesser evil beings into its orbit of influence.”
That’s why The Prayer was at the top of The List. He was the godfather of the mutant mafia. The thing was bad to the bone, worse than all the other alien outlaws drawn to serve its overwhelming negative energy.
The Tusk computer kept downloading its executive summary. Things didn’t get much better.
“Its area of infestation includes much of the galaxy known by earthlings as the Milky Way. It has also, in the past, orchestrated assaults on your home planet, Alpar Nok. Number 1’s current danger rating is at the highest level. In numeric terms, it is listed as 99.99999. The creature intends to eradicate a large section of the known universe. Special abilities include telepathy, time-warping, Level 9 speed, Level 11 strength…”
Level 11? I thought. There is no 11.
“… shape-shifting, severe pain infliction, extreme cunning, overwhelming maliciousness, depraved indifference to life…”
I’d heard enough.
“Okay, okay. I get the picture. So how do I defeat an evil this intense?”
“Answer is unknown at this time.”
“Well, do you have any suggestions?”
“Perhaps. Please be advised, this is an untested hypothesis.…”
“What?”
“Perhaps you could counteract Number 1’s negative force with slightly more than an equal measure of positive energy.”
“Really? Fight evil with good? That’s all you’ve got?”
“It is a notion worthy of your thoughtful consideration. By tipping the balance in the universal duality between good and evil, you may be able to overwhelm Number 1 and eliminate his threat to this galaxy.”
Duality.
There was that word again.
The same one the strange girl on the train had called a fascinating concept. One that might be good for you to remember.
Chapter 32
NOW THE TUSK computer’s panels glowed an orange red.
“This is the color of the Legions of the Light,” the computer reported. “The color of confidence and creative power. Your color.”
“Who are the Legions of the Light?” I asked.
“Those who bravely battle against Zeboul, the forces of darkness. The Legions of the Light are bathed in the warmth of the sun.”
“Okay,” I said, eager for a little backup of my own, “where exactly are these warm and glowing legions? I could definitely use an army right about now.”
“Wherever you find negative energy you will also find its positive opposite. The two must always be in balance for the universe to maintain its equilibrium. This duality explains how you could come from Alpar Nok to protect the universe while others could come from the same planet to destroy it.”
“And Number 1 is trying to tip the scales, once and for all, toward Zeboul and darkness?”
“Such is the hypothesis.”
In other words, the computer didn’t really know.
“But,” the mechanical voice continued, “The Light is powerful. For centuries, it has inspired the Alien Hunters of the Alpar Nokian Protectorship. It has moved earthlings, such as Bahā’ Allāh, Mahatma Gandhi, and Abraham Lincoln to seek out the better sides of human nature. It is the force that will communicate to you through Xanthos and Mikaela, your spiritual advisors.”
Wait, Mikaela was my spiritual advisor, too? I nodded, soaking it all in.
“May I help you with anything else at this time,
Graff?” asked the computer.
“No,” I said, without telling the thing I wasn’t my dad. “Thanks.”
I sat there for a moment, staring at the Tusk computer, which, having answered my questions, had flipped back to televising twelve different kinds of soccer being played on planets scattered across the universe.
“You remind me so much of your father,” said a gentle female voice behind me.
I turned around.
It was Mikaela. The girl from the train. And the one who would help me save the world.
Chapter 33
MIKAELA LOOKED COMPLETELY different.
For one thing, she wasn’t wearing glasses or a short skirt. Instead, she had on a loose-fitting karategi tied with a bright red belt, which, by the way, is even higher than a black belt in many martial arts. I noticed that the pants and top of her white karate uniform were done in the kata cut-style, the design choice for elite competitors. She was also bathed in a warm incandescent glow that followed her every move as if she were being tracked by a sunbeam.
Mikaela was definitely playing for the Legions of the Light, just like Xanthos, who carried the same kind of golden aura when he galloped across that open pasture back at the Judges’ ranch.
“So, Mikaela,” I said, folding down the Tusk and tucking it my pocket, “I take it you’re not really a teenager?”
She smiled. “Only when I need to be.”
I couldn’t tell you exactly how old she was, but even though her face was as smooth and creamy as an infant’s, I had a feeling her soul was as old as that meteorite back at the American Museum of Natural History.
“Just out of curiosity,” I said, “did you get off the train in Philly or Baltimore?”
She grinned. “Somewhere in between.”
“And you were my father’s backup spiritual advisor?”
“I like to think that Xanthos and I worked together as a team to aid Graff in his work as a torchbearer and protector of all that is good. In the same way, I would like to assist you, Daniel. Your reactions in fight-or-flight situations intrigue me. They intrigue all those who dwell in the light.”