Game Over

Chapter 58





FORTUNATELY, THE WINGED alien sentries (which, I assumed, Number 7 and Number 8 must have planted here to guard the transmitter) weren’t quite ready to get airborne. Like any insect just emerging from its pupal stage, they had to extend their wings to dry before they could fly.

Nevertheless, they weren’t exactly less than agile in moving each of their six feet. They came skittering forward, claws, fangs, stingers, and other shiny metal bits poised to poke some serious holes in the two of us.

“Daniel,” Dana said in a steely voice.

“Yeah, I’m listening to you this time,” I whispered nervously as I took in all of the clicking joints and clanking spikes. They moved terrifyingly fast, but in a mesmerizing sort of way.

“How about you forget your antigun bias this time and just materialize us some deadly weapons?”

She didn’t have to say another word. In a few seconds we were holding two of Dad’s favorite Fly Daddy transformers.

“Fire!” I commanded, and we let loose a stream of blasts from the weapons.

But the creatures—with reflexes the likes of which I’d seldom seen—turned away so that their metal-hardened upper carapaces reflected the fire harmlessly up into the air. Then, like turkey-sized bionic scorpions, they sprinted the remaining distance toward us.

Stunned, we both leaped to the next platform up the tower’s mast.

“Holy moly, are they fast,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Holy moly, are they creepy,” Dana echoed.

We were on the second-highest platform in the tower’s tip and in another moment had hopped up to the very highest level. Glittering, nighttime Tokyo was sprawled about us like some vast, twinkling circuit board. The view was spectacular, but there wasn’t a moment to appreciate it.

I looked down the mast to gauge how much time we had until our attackers reached us, but just then the light at the top of the tower blinked on. My vision became a sea of eye-clenching red, and my ears filled with the thrum of the discharging capacitors that powered the light.

“Bright enough for ya?” asked Dana, rubbing her eyes as the lights went back out.

“They’re to warn low-flying aircraft,” I explained. “They have to be bright. Which also means they have to use a lot of electricity.”

As the capacitors recharged, I examined the electrical conduits running into the lights and did some quick calculations.

“Okay,” I announced. “On the count of three, we jump up again.”

Dana pointed at the sky above us. “Don’t know if you noticed, but… there are no more platforms to jump to.”

“Just do it, ’kay? Straight up and as high as you can go.”

She shrugged as I tried to tune out the ringing metallic sounds of our pursuers, concentrating instead on the increasingly higher pitch of the charging capacitors.

“One, two, three,” I counted. “Jump!”

As soon as I’d delivered a swift kick to the conduit, Dana and I leaped up into the air. The high-tension wires spilled free and exposed the copper leads to the tower’s structural steel.

I was only a couple feet in the air when the coordinated pulse emerged from the capacitors. It tore a new path swiftly through the tower’s girders, then up the legs and through the bodies of the giant alien insects.

“Nice!” yelled Dana as we landed back on the platform and eyed the sizzling corpses of the guard bugs. Then I quickly repaired the wiring so we wouldn’t get shocked ourselves and so that low-flying aircraft wouldn’t have any trouble seeing the tower.

We scrambled back down to Number 7 and Number 8’s transmitter. “All set?” asked Dana, as I unplugged my handset from the device.

“All set. I just entered some new coordinates.”

“New coordinates?”

“The transmitter—and the hunters—will now think I reside on a rocky island just south of the Comoros Islands off the coast of Africa.”

“But won’t that be dangerous for the people who live there?”

“It’s uninhabited,” I reassured her. “With any luck, the aliens will get frustrated and start hunting each other. Now, let’s get moving.”