Game Over - By James Patterson Page 0,2

throw a goon every time.

I heaved a box that had partially split open. Something metal was poking out, and I shifted the box so I could peer inside.

“No!” The clerk suddenly sounded more anxious than hostile. “I’ve got it. Pleassse, go back upstairsss. Thisss isss a ssservice corridor only.”

“Sorry!” I said with forced cheer. “Have a good day, sssir!”

I was feeling a lot less cheerful than I sounded. What I’d seen inside that box was something no video-game store should need: guns—dozens of them.

And they were definitely not garden-variety man-made handguns that I could easily change into something else. In fact, their Andromedan trinitanium alloy suggested they were imported from a galaxy far, far away—specifically for the purpose of eliminating hard-to-eliminate beings from other planets.

And I just happened to be one of those beings.

I pretended to walk back the way I’d come, then when the clerk wasn’t looking I quickly turned myself into a replica of one of the many light fixtures on the walls. The hench alien hastily got his boxes back in order and rushed the cart farther down the hall, where he swiped his ID card at a door bearing a sign that read .

I hoped to heck that meant “Employees Only” and not “Alien Hunter Execution Chamber.”

Chapter 4

I HADN’T YET downloaded all the Japanese language characters to my brain, but at least I’d been studying radio frequency security-lock protocols. By adjusting my eyes down to the RF spectrum and intercepting the ID reader’s brief interaction with the clerk’s pass, I was able to figure out and memorize his security code.

The next step in my plan would require help, which meant it was time to morph back to human form and summon my best friends Willy, Dana, Joe, and Emma.

Brief interjection here: when I say “summon,” I don’t mean the way a rich guy might summon his servants. I mean that my best friends are now 100 percent pure products of my imagination. It’s not like I spend time talking to empty space or cracking up at things that only I can hear. When Joe, Emma, Willy, and Dana are around, everyone can see them, hear them, even shake hands with them if they want to. They’re absolutely real. And they’re manufactured by the power of my mind.

You might have difficulty understanding what I’m talking about—the power to create and manipulate the atomic structure of things around me is completely “alien” to you earthlings, but it’s just part of who I am. It’s one of the gifts an alien hunter gets early on and uses pretty frequently. In fact, it’s the same power I used to turn myself into that light fixture when the clerk wasn’t looking. I also use it to re-create my family, specifically my mom, dad, and sister. Because otherwise I’d be totally alone.

And being alone wasn’t an option, at least not then.

“Is this a recon op?” asked Willy, the natural born leader of my gang.

“Yes,” I replied, passing them Bluetooth earpieces and phones so we could communicate. “You and Dana, come with me. Joe, you watch this door and give the signal if anybody comes through. Emma, you go up to the main floor and keep an eye on things. If you spot anything that looks like a trap, we want to know about it.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n!” Joe saluted.

I released the lock with a micro-RF broadcast from the palm of my hand. “Let’s go.”

Willy, Dana, and I hustled down a hall where we found three doors, a small, narrow window in each. We spread out and each peered through one. Mine was dark.

“Over here,” Willy whispered, a dim, bluish glow visible through the glass. “One… two… three!”

Defenses ready, we swept into a space that appeared to be a projection booth of some kind.

We were looking down into a theater. Rows and rows of teenagers wearing headphones and holding video-game controllers sat transfixed, eyes glued to monitors built into the backs of the seats in front of them. A stage at the front was filled with riot police and soldiers, and—

Wait a minute! The figures onstage weren’t moving. They were just mannequins. But from here, they looked as lifelike as any you’d find at Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Even weirder: intermingled with the police was an assortment of what I’d technically define as thugs, monsters, and all-around bad guys. It looked like the GC might’ve hired the best special-effects team in Hollywood to put this production together. It was an eerie scene, and it was