Game Over - By James Patterson Page 0,18

parade of elephants, listening to the orchestra.

Had that entire weird scene with Number 1 been just a Gathering Day vision?

I grabbed Dana’s hand to make sure she was real. She was.

I never wanted to let go.

Chapter 23

THE GATHERING DAY party went on later than it should have—especially on a weeknight—but there wasn’t really anybody to blame but myself. After all, no one was forcing me to wake up at 6 a.m. to try on Japanese school uniforms.

Staring at myself in the bedroom mirror, I decided that—except for the bags under my eyes—I basically looked like Little Lord Fancypants. Almost every school in Japan requires kids to wear seifuku, and like most uniforms, they aren’t exactly, um, hip. I understood the purpose behind them—I’m sure they helped to keep students from getting distracted with superficial concerns—but the one I was wearing right then made me look like a cross between an admiral and a theme-park greeter.

It was a good thing I’d gotten the Murkamis their own room and that my friends and family weren’t around right then, or I’m sure I’d have never heard the end of it. Of course, they probably wouldn’t have approved of my plan, either. I confess. I knew it wasn’t the safest thing in the world to be interfering in the hunt of the last living Pleionid in the universe.

Using my List computer, I’d done some refresher research on the legendary species. Pleionids had been unique in all the universe for their unsurpassed ability to change shape and color (kind of like me, but with way more options). Their gift was enabled by a compound called pleiochromatech that was so chemically complicated and unstable that it had never been successfully duplicated in any laboratory.

And that was what had caused the species’ downfall. Ever notice how the rarer a thing is, the more valuable it becomes? Well, pleiochromatech—despite the fact that nobody ever even figured out how it worked—at one point was worth more per milligram than pure lawrencium, and that meant that every unscrupulous merchant in the cosmos was paying top dollar for the stuff. So it wasn’t long after the Pleionid’s home planet was discovered that entire armies of poachers descended and all but wiped them out.

A handful had been rescued by well-meaning agents of the Federation of Outer Ones and sequestered in “safe houses” around the universe, but, one by one, the few survivors had died of natural causes or had been hunted down. Speaking as a member of another decimated species, I had some sense for how hard it is to persevere under such circumstances.

But I also knew other things about the mind-set of a survivor. And I wondered if this last Pleionid might be willing to help prevent the same fate from befalling another innocent species—aka you humans. Plus, The Prayer had ordered Number 7 and Number 8 to keep the Pleionid away from me at all costs, so there must be something we could do to help each other.

I slung my book bag over my shoulder, adjusted my uniform’s crisp lapels, and headed outside to join the similarly dressed schoolchildren of Japan. My mission? To befriend the son of Number 7 and Number 8.

I had a sneaking suspicion we had at least one enemy in common.

Chapter 24

WHEN IT COMES to schools and children, Japanese culture is pretty serious. We’re talking proper terms of respect for teachers (sensei), loudspeaker announcements alerting the public to use caution when students are headed to and from school, and meticulous attention to students’ safety while they’re at school too.

Which meant that even with a perfectly tailored uniform and the universe’s most pleasant demeanor, I wasn’t going to be able to just march into Kildare’s school and sit at the desk next to him.

It was a little exhausting, but I basically had to brainwash my way into Kildare’s class. From the first group of kids I bumped into on the sidewalk to the crossing guard to the homeroom teacher—I mentally created for each of them the impression that I was somebody they knew, somebody they shouldn’t be suspicious of or throw off the premises.

It’s easier done than explained in this case—human psychology isn’t the easiest thing to understand, much less manipulate—but Mom had given me a smattering of psychological operations training, and somehow I managed to pull it off.

Just being let into the school wasn’t enough; I still had to find Kildare. I’d hacked into the school server and swiped his class schedule, but he wasn’t in