Chapter 23
AS WE ENTERED Washington from the west, a crazed swarm of people, numbering in the thousands, came charging across the arched bridge, headed for Virginia.
Our driver slammed on the brakes. The mob parted and swept around the ATV, surrounding us like a raging river ready to overrun its banks.
“There’s a Metro station on the other side of the bridge, back in Arlington!” said Agent Judge. “That’s where they’re all headed.”
As the crowd swarmed around our vehicle, I checked out the video monitors. Some showed terrified residents of D.C. trampling one another like there was a day-after-Thanksgiving door-buster sale going on down in the subway stations. Others showed Number 2’s wing-backed goons pillaging and plundering across the wasteland that had once been the capital city of the most powerful nation on Earth.
One of the locust-like creatures had found himself a Ferrari and was cutting tire-screeching, rubber-burning doughnuts inside the drained concrete basin of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.
Some other beasts were outside the Library of Congress, burning all the books.
A trio of thugs standing on the broken steps of the crumpled Capitol tucked in their scorpion tails and smiled so they could satellite-beam souvenir images of themselves back to friends on their home planets.
Just then, an air horn blared a warning.
A battery of red LEDs flashed across Joe’s control board.
“We’ve got aliens,” he said. “Sensors are picking them up at less than one hundred meters away.”
“Get ready to rumble,” said Willy.
“I see them!” Mel said, pointing toward the windshield.
In the distance, swinging down the line of cast-iron lampposts lining both sides of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, I could see four of Number 2’s locust-winged, scorpion-tailed alien enforcers.
“There’s no exit!” shouted Agent Judge from up front. “We can’t leave the truck until this crowd thins out. All doors and points of egress are currently blocked.”
I thought about making the van disappear—that’d be one way to get outside, where the action was. But without the vehicle’s protective armored shell, we’d be trampled. And Mel, her dad, and the driver couldn’t turn themselves into a patch of asphalt and lie down till the stampede passed us over, like I could.
“Joe?” I said. “We need to be outside.”
“No problem.” He flipped a switch and jabbed his thumb up toward the ceiling. “Roof hatch.”
I was on top of the truck first. Willy, my trusted wingman, hauled himself out of the hatch right behind me. Dana, Emma, and Joe piled out after Willy.
“She wants to come out to play, too,” reported Dana, nodding down at Mel, who was halfway up the ladder rungs.
“Stay back on this one, Mel,” I shouted down into the hole.
“No way. I told you, Daniel: I am not a wimp.”
I didn’t have time to discuss the matter.
Using simple telekinesis, I slammed down the hatch lid and spun its wheel lock tight. Then, sparks flying, I imagined the cap being sealed with a thin bead of iron made molten under the blinding arc of an acetylene torch.
“Nice spot welding,” said Joe.
“Thanks.”
“Now,” said Willy, “can we finally go take care of this plague of scorpion-tailed locust losers?”