Game Over

Chapter 15





THE SQUEEGEE IN my hand was shaking so much that every window I tried to clean ended up looking like a chalk-covered snake had slithered across it. The reason for my nerves was that I was standing in a window-washing gondola six hundred and sixty-three feet above the street. I was attempting to pose as a window washer, but I don’t think I was exuding the necessary degree of confidence or indifference to heights. The street below me—at least the one time I stupidly looked down—was spinning like I was in one of those tilt-a-hurl rides at the state fair. And the way the wind was buffeting and rocking the narrow, low-railed platform… let’s just say I was seriously regretting that third helping of tempura Joe had convinced me to eat.

Coming up here had seemed like a good idea when I’d been safely down on the ground. The Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower—among the coolest skyscrapers on earth—is a fifty-story teardrop-shaped structure encased in a latticework of curving dark glass and white aluminum. And it happens to be located just across the street from the GC Tower, where Number 7 and Number 8 keep both their official business and their residence.

Unfortunately, the Mode Gakuen’s unconventional shape means it doesn’t have much in the way of a flat roof on which to sit. When you’re trying to spy on two evil penthouse-dwelling aliens across the street, that can be a bit of a problem. Especially when you’re not so keen on heights to begin with.

Of course, two hours into my reconnaissance mission, it was all seeming like a big, fat, needlessly-high-up-in-the-air waste of time. Boy, can aliens be boring. The only thing I’d discovered about Number 7 and Number 8 so far was that they were Internet junkies. They hadn’t done anything but surf the Web on their laptops. And their surfings weren’t exactly the stuff of legend. Other than reading some news stories about the big refinery explosion last night, they mostly seemed to be interested in landmark Tokyo buildings and—get this—parenting websites. Weird. Boring, but weird.

I was just about to call it a night when I suffered the worst bout of vertigo ever. And it had nothing to do with the height or the unsteadiness of the horrible window-cleaning gondola.

Someone had just emerged from the private penthouse elevator and entered their suite. Someone with a striking resemblance to an overgrown mantis with wild dreadlocks and the most evil-looking eyes you could imagine.

It was Number 1—The Prayer!

My parents’ killer… my ultimate nemesis… the darkest stain in all my nightmares.