and play round two, only with Mel on my team this time.
My father, of course, could read all my thoughts, including the ones I’d rather keep to myself. He put his steady hand on my shoulder.
There is no turning back now, son. You must finally finish what we were sent here to do.
His words were strong.
His eyes were not.
My father was fading. And fast.
Chapter 68
THE MORE WE walked, the worse my father looked. I slowed down so he could keep pace with me.
“Everything okay, Daniel?” asked Dana.
“Yeah.” I glanced over at her. The scar still marred her cheek. Now my father was barely able to keep up with me. What was going on with my powers to create?
Both Dana and my dad were products of my imagination. Was my father’s deteriorating condition the result of my own deteriorating ability to generate his presence in the same way that Dana’s scar hinted at some serious flaw in my imagineering operating system?
“We need to move a little faster, sir,” Lieutenant Russell whispered to me.
Willy had finally spotted a patch of lush green foliage on the horizon. Some sort of oasis loomed one mile dead ahead.
“We need to get these men into the shade of those trees ASAP.”
I nodded. “Roger that.”
I turned to my father, whom only I could see.
Dad? We need to pick up the pace. Double-time it to those trees.
My father looked drawn and haggard. His eyelids kept drooping shut, like he was sleepwalking. I swear he had aged fifty years in the last fifty minutes.
Well, if you’re in such a dag-blasted hurry, go on without me, he snapped. I’ll catch up later.
He sounded crankier than the crabby old man on Alpar Nok who used to sit on a park bench and yell at me for squealing too loud in my zero-gravity crib. This wasn’t the real Dad I’d known, and it wasn’t the imaginary Dad I usually created. Something was seriously wrong.
“Willy?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Lead everybody into that grove. I’ll catch up with you in a few.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Get moving.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Willy called out, “if we push ourselves for one more mile, I guarantee we can peel off our boots in a beautiful oasis and tickle our toes in a cool, refreshing stream!”
“Hoo-ah!” the troops shouted as strongly as they could after climbing a mountain and crossing a desert. Chanting a running cadence, they trotted off after Willy, Joe, Dana, and Emma.
My father and I were all alone at the rear of the march.
“When we get to the oasis,” I said, “I’ll rest. Recharge my batteries. If I feel better, you’ll feel better.”
“It’s not an oasis,” my father grumbled. “It’s a jungle.”
“Well, it looks cooler than this desert plane.”
“It’s full of insects, Daniel. Bugs. I hate bugs.”
Of course he did.
When Number 1 killed my father and mother, he came at them in the guise of a giant praying mantis.
Was it any wonder my father had a thing about insects?
Chapter 69
WHEN WE FINALLY reached the jungle (yes, my father had been correct), the strike force had already pitched tents under the dense canopy of trees and set up camp for the night.
I was about to drop my backpack to the ground and machete my way through a tangle of vines to do the same when my father shook his head.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“About what?”
“Everything.” He looked around, most likely surveying the average number of bugs per square inch in our current surroundings. “But not here. Follow me. And bring your backpack.”
I followed my father through the dense underbrush. He led me to a sun-dappled clearing situated between four mammoth banyan trees with thick, woody trunks strangled by snaking air roots. My father sat cross-legged in front of me and gestured for me to sit down.
“You see the four trees to the north, south, east, and west?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“They say Buddha achieved enlightenment while meditating under a banyan tree. So, too, shall you.”
“What do you mean?”
“As much as I’d like to stay with you, son, I can’t journey at your side forever. In the hours we have left, I need to tell you everything you must know.”
“Okay…” This was weird; it meant that Dad knew a lot he’d never told me before. Why would he keep secrets from his only son?
“Let’s start with the deity we know as Number 1,” he began. “For eons, this twisted god has been amused by the eternal struggle between good and evil, the never-ending battle of demons and angels, darkness and light.”
“Destroyers versus