Game Over - By James Patterson Page 0,5

friends.

“Drop. The. Knives,” I said in a voice that, for a second or two, actually made them stop grinning like jackals.

“Kill them,” the leader commanded.

“But the boss said no taking humans yet.”

“These aren’t humans,” he replied. “They’re gnats.”

“They’re what?” asked his thickheaded henchman, apparently not knowing what a gnat was and taking him at his word.

“Just get them!” ordered the boss.

They sprang toward us, knives flashing. But they didn’t realize who they were dealing with. While they were arguing about bugs, I had already decided exactly how I wanted to handle these guys. Having recently played one of the GC’s rated-M-for-mature games, Extreme Cage Fighter VI, I morphed myself into one of the most legendary thugs in all video-game lore—Vito the Home Wrecker. Have I mentioned my ability to transform myself into any person or creature that my mind can adequately visualize?

My arms and legs grew long, muscles I didn’t normally have rippled all over my body, my neck became massive, my jaw as square as a cinder block, and the next thing I knew I was nearly seven feet tall and over two hundred pounds. The alien thugs instantly recognized me—and my weapon of choice, an oversized baseball bat wrapped in razor wire.

“Vito?!” asked one of them, standing stock-still with the rest of his friends.

“Get off this bus,” I growled, smashing my club against the floor and causing the bus to rock like we’d just driven over a land mine. “And go tell your superiors that the Alien Hunter is here.”

“Only if I got your severed head in my hands to prove it!” one of the more dimwitted henchmen yelled. He sprang for me, but I was too quick. The bat smashed into him in midair, and he dropped like a stone.

“Who’s next?” I roared. “I’ve been dying for some batting practice.”

The jaws of their pathetic human-costume faces all fell open as I flexed my biceps, covered—as was most of my body—in tattoo portraits of Roman Catholic saints.

“GET OFF!!!” I yelled, and, even before I could cock my club for a second swing, they were clambering over each other to exit the narrow bus door, tails tucked firmly between their legs.

Chapter 7

“CHECK THE DRIVER, Em,” I said, assuming my regular form. Emma’s got the best medical training of any of us. A few days ago I’d downloaded the entire medical school curricula from Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt Universities into her consciousness.

Meantime, the rest of us checked on the family. I helped the weary-looking father to his feet and instantly recognized something about him, something about his touch, his energy.

“Wait a second,” I said. “You’re—”

“Alpar Nokian,” he said back to me. “All four of us are. Just like you.” In an interesting twist of fate, Alpar Nokians like me are physically identical to you human folks.

“What on earth?”

“Precisely. We were abducted by Number 7 and Number 8’s minions two months ago and brought here.”

“But why?”

“Best I can figure is we were supposed to be target practice. A training exercise before they went after you.”

“You know who I am?”

“Didn’t you just tell us? You’re the Alien Hunter,” he said, bowing respectfully.

I had just announced that to the entire bus, hadn’t I? My friends had been nagging me to get more rest—it felt like it had been a month since I’d had a full night’s sleep—and maybe it was time I started listening to them. I was losing track of what I’d said only minutes ago.

“But if you were captured by Number 7 and Number 8, then why are you on this bus, and why did those fake Yakuza just refind you?”

“We were held in isolation for weeks, but then one day our cell door was just, well, it was open. Somebody must have let us out for some reason.”

He shrugged and helped his wife and then his kids to their feet. “As to how they found us again just now, I have no idea. Maybe bad luck?”

I nodded. I was getting pretty familiar with what bad luck looked like.

“Thank you for saving us, but we should get going,” he said.

“Where will you go?” asked Dana.

“We don’t know, but we’ll rely on alien ingenuity, yes? We just need to keep moving.”

“That’s fine, except for one thing,” I said, and turned and yelled to Emma. “How’s the driver?”

“He’ll be fine. Going to have a nice goose egg on the back of his head, but he’ll be okay.”

“Good. Come here and take a look at this man’s shoulder. Those thugs were talking about ‘acquiring