Watch the Skies

Chapter 79

THE VAN SMASHED into the ground like a badly made toy-but, fortunately, one with state-of-the-art air bags, and a couple of pretty tough alien-fighters inside.

Still, we were pretty dazed as we crawled from the wreckage.

“Yeah, I think your sensors weren’t working quite right, Joe,” said Dana as she picked windshield glass from her hair and looked warily over toward Number 5. He was floating toward us, surrounded by a buzzing sphere of blue electricity.

“Um, right,” I said as the hairs on my head-wet as they were-stood up under the force of his static charge.

“You killed him,” he said, stopping about a dozen yards away.

“Number 21, you mean?” I said. “Well, he was trying to kill me, you know.”

“We’d worked together for nearly three decades,” Number 5 told me, scowling at me like I was an unwanted bug. “He was my right hand. And you destroyed that.”

As if to echo the point, he raised his left tentacle straight in the air. A dozen stadium-style floodlights lit up the farm, and we could see that hundreds of aliens, each holding an alien weapon, had formed an enormous circle around us.

Their ranks were tight and unbroken, except for a few rain-soaked, muddy humans pushing through here and there, staggering, zombie-like, back in the general direction of town. I guessed that with Number 5 off the air during the thunderstorm, they had been returning to their homes.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” yelled Number 5 in their general direction. “Back to work!”

Their cell phones and other handhelds began to ring and vibrate, and they predictably answered the devices and turned back to the fields from which they had come.

“I’m not done with any of you yet!” ranted Number 5. “And when I am, you’ll know it! I’m not the universe’s premiere producer of endertainment for letting my actors just fade away!”

Chapter 80

“PRETTY IMPRESSIVE, NUMBER 5,” I admitted, “but check this out.”

I proceeded to make a cell phone ringtone all my own, consisting of the first few bars of Blondie’s “Hanging on the Telephone.”

“Wow, I’m so impressed,” scoffed Number 5. “You have imaginary friends and you’re a mimic. I should take you to a party sometime.”

But then the humans’ cell phones began ringing all over the farm with the same tone.

And guess who was on the line?

“People of Holliswood,” I a

“This is why the fire department is missing. This is why your children have been rehearsing a massive, alien-inspired version of High School Musical. And this is why you periodically find yourself doing very silly dances and musical routines for no apparent reason.”

I glanced over at Number 5. He looked like he was about to explode with rage-which, I reminded myself, was just what I wanted.

Chapter 81

“I AM NOW going to ask you all to return to your homes and your normal lives,” I told the citizens of Holliswood authoritatively. “But, first, I’d like you to do one last dance to show our appreciation for our alien VIP. I call it ‘The Number 5,’ and it goes like this -”

And then, to the jangly beats of Sissy Bar’s “Space Klown,” everybody in broadcast range began puffing out their cheeks, wiggling their fingers at the sides of their mouths like catfish whiskers, and swishing their butts back and forth, just like Number 5 did when he hovered around.

My gang all thought it was hilarious, and I even saw a couple aliens snickering.

Number 5, meantime, was gathering so much anger-filled energy that every hair on my body was standing on end.

“You see,” I said to him in as confident a tone as I could muster, “although I never had any doubt you’d come into this universe as an electronically gifted fish, I was totally stumped about how it was you were able to so easily broadcast yourself into electronic devices.

“I mean, I knew you’d taken over the television studio, and the broadcast substation, and the cell phone towers… but that didn’t explain it. It was clear you were actually living inside the network, but how you were able to do that, well, that was the real mystery. At least until I noticed that you never blinked.

“Which led to me notice your impressive eye implants and all that crazy wiring that you must have had surgically placed inside you. I mean, that’s some high-tech stuff!”

The scowl on Number 5’s face was getting even uglier, if that’s possible.

“And then I remembered seeing all those junior-sized neural nets in your transport containers, and I already knew you were reproducing yourself at an alarming rate-with your ‘caviar’ project and the ponds and all-and that must have been so you could run this program on a truly massive, planetwide scale. I mean, you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d be into fatherhood for the pure joy of parenting.”

“Well, that’s all very clever,” he said, smiling suddenly. “But you’re still only seeing a small part of the puzzle. And the bigger piece contains the part that’s about to fry your ski

Chapter 82

TIME WAS DRAWING short, so I did another minibroadcast to the townspeople to stop their “Number 5” dance: “Thank you for that fine performance! Now, people of Holliswood, please return to your homes. A brand-new episode of The Simpsons is on tonight!”

“Shoot to kill any human attempting to leave the premises!” yelled Number 5 to his troops.

The humans within earshot all turned and looked at me apprehensively as hundreds of alien rifles aimed at their heads and chests.

“And bring me the McGillicutties!” their evil director commanded. “Now!”

I couldn’t help but gasp. How could he have known about Judy? I’d taken every precaution…

The circle of aliens parted on one side, and Judy and her parents were ushered through as Soul Hooligan’s “Stoop Kid” began playing on speakers all over the farm.

“Do the dance!” he yelled at them, and, sure enough, Judy and her parents began doing a Soul Train-style showcase. My stomach, heart, and every other organ in my body dropped like they’d just fallen off a bridge.

“Not only will they dance at a word from me,” said Number 5, laughing, “but they will die, too. So just give me a single reason, you little punk, and the next time you two want to go out for ice cream, this young woman will be numbered among your other imaginary friends.”

Chapter 83

IT PROBABLY WASN’T my brightest move ever, but what choice did I have?

“Let them go, Number 5,” I said, aiming my hand like a gun at Number 5’s flabby, slime-covered belly, just as I had with Number 21. “And I mean right now, or my friends and I will spend the next ten minutes wiping you and your minions off the face of the Earth.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, snorting even harder. “Are you guys getting all this?” he asked the circling film crews, rhetorically. “I just knew you were going to rise to the occasion, Alien Hunter. You’ve got a lot of substandard qualities I’m not going to miss, but nobody can fault your comic timing. I mean, here I am completely in control of the situation and you-what, are you going to shoot your fingernail at me?”

“Drop your cell phones, go home, and wait for us,” I said to the McGillicutties.

“Ah-ah-ah,” snickered Number 5, so amused that he didn’t even try to stop Judy and her parents as they nervously threaded their way through the alien hordes toward town. He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief and turned to regard me, my friends, and my family.