Chapter 31
AROUND MIDNIGHT I was at the wheel of the ATV, driving us back to Agent Judge’s horse ranch. Agent Williams and Mel’s dad were grabbing some much-needed shut-eye in the back of the truck. Mel was up front with me, trying her best to stay awake and keep me company as we rolled through the George Washington National Forest on the Appalachian border between Virginia and West Virginia.
Welcome to a typical day in my life: one minute you’re chatting with George Washington, the next you’re driving a high-tech Alien Tracking Vehicle through a forest named after him.
I had taken over steering-wheel duties from Agent Williams because, even though I’m not sixteen, I’m quite skilled at piloting all sorts of vehicles, many of which can travel faster than the speed of light. If necessary, I could also instantaneously generate an official, government-issued, hologram-stamped driver’s license for whatever state an overzealous trooper might happen to pull us over in. Also, FYI, Alpar Nokians make excellent long-haul drivers because we need very little sleep. Especially after we chug a couple of Red Bulls.
“You okay, Daniel?” Mel asked through a mouth-stretching yawn.
“I’m fine. Get some sleep.”
“No thanks. I’d rather stay up and keep you company.”
“We still have another four or five hours till we reach Kentucky.”
“Really?” Mel leaned over to check out the speedometer. “Even though you’re doing, like, ninety in a fifty-five zone?”
“Don’t worry. The highway patrol has other things to worry about tonight besides writing me a speeding ticket.” It was true that the roads were completely empty—no cops, cars, even truckers.
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Daniel.” Mel’s brow furrowed with concern. “I’m worried about you.”
She reached over and placed a very warm, very comforting hand on my knee.
“It seems like this Number 2 is dead-set on destroying you,” she continued. “For whatever twisted reason, he seems to be doing all… this… just to get at you.”
“Not gonna happen,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure.
“Promise?” said Mel.
It was only one word, but I hadn’t heard that much care and concern in a voice since the time I was two years old and my mother thought I had vanished from my crib. (That was the day I accidentally discovered I could turn myself into inanimate objects and had become a stuffed monkey so I could chat with Schnozzy, my stuffed elephant.)
I raised my right hand to make a pledge: “Cross my heart and hope to have a water buffalo squat on my face.”
“Huh?”
“It’s something people used to say up on Alpar Nok. It’s like a solemn vow.”
“Well, I’m going to hold you to it.”
“Hey, other aliens have tried to take me down before. They didn’t have much luck. Neither will Number 2.”
“Good,” Mel said, settling back into her seat, resting her head against the pillow she’d made out of her jean jacket. “Because if that thing destroys you, well, that would totally destroy me.”
Wow.
If I may be allowed to paraphrase a famous Oscar winner: She liked me. She really, really liked me.
I guess that’s why, in the middle of the night, on a winding mountain road, I was loving this planet more than I had ever loved it.
Mel had her own amazing superpower: the uncanny ability to stir up emotions that had never been stirred before. For years, no living creature (except the ones I had cooked up in my imagination) had cared so much about me. Daniel X. The alien orphan kid with no last name, no real friends, no one to lose sleep worrying about him.
Until I met Mel.
Then again, I’d also have no future if Number 2 and his army of alien thugs had their way.
So, as much as I wished I could morph into a typical teenager and have my biggest burden be how to ask Mel to go horseback riding with me again, saving the planet was what I needed to focus on.
And with good reason.