Game Over - By James Patterson Page 0,4
bus pulled up. “We’ve got a bit of a ride ahead of us.”
“If I lose my mind from hunger,” said Joe, “I’m blaming you.”
“You lost your mind a long time ago,” Dana quipped.
“I hope it’s a scenic route,” said Emma. “Apart from Number 7 and Number 8 being here, I’m loving what I’ve seen of this country so far. It’s so… foreign.”
I knew just what she meant, I thought, settling down by a window near the back of the mostly empty bus. Although, technically speaking, everything is foreign to me. I am, after all, quite possibly the universe’s most displaced orphan. I clutched my arm to my chest as a wave of homesickness washed over me. I call it homesickness; yet I barely have any memory of what my home was like.
I turned and looked behind us out the bus window, hoping to hide my stupid emotions from my friends. The sinister GC Tower still loomed above us, and I again wondered if Number 7 and Number 8 were in there. Probably, I figured. The only things that have been constants in my life are the monsters I’m fated to kill—or die trying.
That and feeling sorry for myself, apparently. I needed to get a grip. What was that lesson I had I learned in my last martial arts training session? Something about how if your emotions are getting in the way, you need to tie them to what’s going on around you. You need to link them to something practical and immediate.
Like the problem of six aliens masquerading as tattooed young thugs who got on the bus at the next stop.
Chapter 6
IT MUST HAVE been Bad Human Disguise Day here in Tokyo, because those dirtbags wouldn’t even have passed for human in a Halloween parade for blind space rangers.
Never mind forked tongues. These guys apparently didn’t know that human knees bend forward, not backward—and that most folks don’t have long, hairy tails. Most of them had tucked their tails up their shirts, but the biggest one left his hanging out the top of his leather pants. They clambered aboard like so many overgrown insect-Labrador hybrids and gathered around a tired-looking family of four seated at the front of the bus.
I turned up my hearing (it’s a shame you earthlings can’t do that), so I could listen in on what they were saying. They were joking among themselves in a horrible attempt at Japanese.
“Nice haul tonight,” said one of the shorter ones.
“Not bad,” said the tallest and strongest looking of the thugs, the one with the tail hanging out. He also seemed to be the one with the most tattoos—dragons and shogun swords were all up and down his arms and neck. I suddenly realized what they were going for with their gangster exercise clothes and slicked-back hair: they were pretending to be Yakuza, the ruthless Japanese version of America’s mafia.
“But remember, we’re not just supposed to be collecting revenue; we’re supposed to be acquiring targets for the next hunt.”
“You mean like these guys?” said the one wearing the gold-brimmed New York Yankees cap, elbowing the father of the unfortunate family next to him.
The big one leaned over and snuffled at the side of the father’s head as the rest of the family sank into their seats in terror.
“Ah, what luck!” he shouted, suddenly wide-eyed and excited. “These are the ones that got away!”
The five of us watched in shock as one of the aliens proceeded to knock out the bus driver with a blow to the back of the head, while another removed what looked like a high-tech staple gun and fired it into the father’s shoulder. The poor man screamed in pain and fell to the floor.
I didn’t need to say a word to Dana, Emma, Willy, and Joe—we all stormed to the front of the rapidly decelerating bus.
The man wasn’t dead—he wasn’t even bleeding—but whatever they had just done to him sure didn’t tickle.
“All right, tough guys,” said Willy, standing up to his full five foot two inches and throwing out his not-exactly-intimidating chest. “Get off this bus, or I’m going to pour a fifty-five-gallon drum of hurt all over your heads.”
The big goon turned and for a moment looked at Willy like he’d lost his mind. Then he joined his friends in raucous laughter.
“Maybe we can paralyze them with humor?” suggested Joe as the thugs jumped up on the seats around us and simultaneously drew out the biggest Ginsu knives I’d ever seen.
I leaped ahead of my