I stepped away from Knotcher. He slowly got to his feet. We stared at each other for a moment, and he looked as if he was about to say something when his gaze shot upward, focused on something in the sky behind me.
When I turned around, I saw a strange-looking aircraft approaching from the east, moving at an incredible speed. The closer it got, the more familiar it looked. My brain still refused to accept what my eyes were seeing—until a few seconds later, when the craft braked to a dead stop and hovered directly over us, close enough for me to make out the Earth Defense Alliance crest stenciled on the side of its armored hull.
“No way,” I heard someone whisper. A second later, I realized it was me.
It was an ATS-31 Aerospace Troop Shuttle, one of the ships used by the Earth Defense Alliance in both Armada and Terra Firma. And it was about to land in front of my high school.
I definitely wasn’t hallucinating this time: Dozens of other people were staring up at the shuttle in amazement, too. And I could hear the rumble of the shuttle’s fusion engines and feel the heat from their exhaust buffeting my face. It was really up there.
As the shuttle began to descend, everyone in my vicinity scattered like roaches, heading for the safety of the school.
I just stood there like a statue, unable to look away. The ship was identical to the troop shuttles I’d piloted while playing Armada, right down to the EDA crest and identification bar code stamped on the underside of its hull.
The Earth Defense Alliance can’t be real, Zack, I assured myself. And neither can that shuttle you think you’re looking at right now. You are hallucinating again, only it’s much worse this time. This time, you’re having a full-on psychotic break.
But I couldn’t make myself believe that. There was too much evidence to the contrary.
Okay, then you might be trapped inside a lucid dream, like Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky. Or maybe your reality is really just an incredibly convincing computer simulation, like in The Matrix. Or maybe you just died in a car accident, and this is all just an elaborate fantasy playing out in your brain during the last few seconds of your life—like in that one old Twilight Zone episode.
As I continued to watch the Earth Defense Alliance shuttle land, I told myself that I had no choice but to roll with the situation as best I could—at least until I woke up, ran into Agent Smith, or heard Rod Serling begin his closing voice-over.
The shuttle lowered its landing gear and touched down softly on the broad sidewalk leading up to the school’s main entrance. I glanced back at the school and saw faces filling the windows in every classroom while hundreds of students poured out of every school exit, eager to get a better look at the strange ship and find out what the hell was happening.
It was easy to tell which of them recognized the Earth Defense Alliance shuttle. They, like me, were the ones looking the most shocked right now. To everyone else, it probably looked like some new kind of military aircraft, a slightly futuristic cross between a helicopter and a Harrier jet, like the drop ships in Avatar or Edge of Tomorrow.
The shuttle’s automatic doors slid open, and three men wearing dark suits jumped out. They looked like Secret Service agents. Our principal, Mr. Wood, stood there frozen for a few seconds, then rushed forward to greet them, his hand outstretched. After he shook hands with all of them, the shortest of the three men removed his sunglasses, and I heard myself gasp. It was Ray Wierzbowski, my boss at Starbase Ace.
What the hell was Ray doing here, dressed like one of the Men in Black? And where the hell had he obtained a working Earth Defense Alliance tactical shuttle?
I watched in a daze as Ray flashed some form of ID at Principal Wood. They conferred briefly and shook hands again; then Ray raised a small bullhorn and used it to address the growing crowd.
“We apologize for interrupting your morning, everyone,” Ray said, in an uncharacteristically commanding voice that echoed across the school grounds. “But we desperately need to locate Zack Lightman. Does anyone know where he is right now? Zack Lightman? Please look around and point him out if you see him. We require his assistance with an urgent matter of national security. Zack! Zack Lightman!”
I realized Ray was saying my name about the same time I realized that everyone within my field of vision was now staring and pointing at me—including Knotcher and both Lennys. It was like that scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Eventually, my public school training took over and I raised my hand and shouted “Here!”
When he spotted me, Ray grinned and started running across the grass toward me like his life depended on it. It was the fastest I’d ever seen him move.
“Hey there, Zack!” he said when he reached me, only slightly out of breath. Then he rested a hand on my shoulder and nodded at the gleaming shuttle behind him. “Wanna go for a ride?”
It’s finally happening, Zack. The Call to Adventure you’ve been waiting for your whole life. It’s standing right in front of you.
And I was scared shitless.