Game Over

Chapter 39





THE PLEIONID!

The creature had been waiting for Kildare cleverly disguised as a layer of moss and lichen on the surface of the ancient lantern.

Despite its being maybe the cutest creature I’d ever seen—those big puppy eyes, those adorable little hands and feet—it tore into Kildare’s bag of Mister Donut donuts with ravenous savagery. Then it collapsed to the ground in a fit of satisfied groans and bubbly giggles.

But Kildare wasn’t smiling as I landed on a nearby stalk of bamboo.

“You can’t stay here,” said Kildare. “They’re coming for you in less than an hour. You need to leave this planet. Now.”

“I need to talk to the boy,” it replied.

The boy? Did it mean me?

“He was at my school today,” replied Kildare.

My little butterfly mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour. Did Kildare know who I was? I guessed that would make sense given that his parents had mug shots of me floating around their information network.

“Take me to him,” said the Pleionid.

“There’s no time,” Kildare told him. “And I don’t think you can help him anyhow.”

“Faith,” the Pleionid responded simply.

“I have faith,” said Kildare, glancing at his not-yet-activated hunting tracking unit. “I have faith their gamers will hunt you down, and then my parents will probably eat your carcass if you don’t get very, very far away from here right now.”

Should I have revealed myself then and there? It seemed an obvious thing to do. But was it too obvious? How was I supposed to be certain this wasn’t a trap?

The answer, of course, was that I couldn’t be certain of anything. I bit my butterfly tongue and stayed right there, looking to all the world just like one of its billions of innocuous insects.