Dangerous Days of Daniel X

AS I TURNED to my right, I saw that the desert sky was filled with stars in every direction. Except one. Above the eastern mountains, there was a… hole in the sky. A hole that was moving closer and getting larger and larger by the second.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at full, parade-ground attention.

The object hovering about fifty feet above me was black as the night itself, and about the size of a football stadium. I don’t know who started that UFO saucer nonsense, but they must have been nearsighted. This ship was undoubtedly rectangular, like a Dumpster. Or a giant coffin.

It just hung there above us, ominously floating. There was a disturbance in the air as some kind of energy field pulsated loudly across its massive length.

Then a telescopic column, possibly an elevator, dropped from its belly into the ground.

Some of the kids started crying, and I called out, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing. It’s probably just E.T.”

The elevator thingy landed less than thirty feet from where I stood. A hydraulic hum followed. Then a doorway opened.

Inside, a particularly huge and ugly horse-head in a black uniform was smiling, showing cobralike teeth.

“Hey there, kiddies. Want to go for a ride, huh-huh-huh?” he said in a pretty good imitation of SpongeBob SquarePants.

All of us abductees stared at the alien in the doorway. Then we stared at each other. And then, as if we’d finally reached a silent consensus, we started to scream at the top of our lungs.

Chapter 56

THE RIDE UP in the crowded alien elevator made all of the smaller kids scream again. It was like an upward free fall, or bungee jumping in reverse. I can tell you this-the open wound that was my stomach really appreciated the ride.

The back of the elevator opened, and we were hauled out into the mother ship.

Somehow the hot, cramped inside managed to be more horrible and despair-inducing than the grim exterior had promised. Those Star Trek writers were bugging when they dreamed up the dentist’s office-like Enterprise , I thought, as I looked around. Water and steam dripped from tangles of overhead ducts. The floors were slick with what appeared to be oil and discarded garbage. The place looked like a boiler room and a landfill combined.

A blast of hot air from somewhere swept across my face, and I caught the stink. Think the world’s hugest bus station bathroom.

We were pushed through a metal detector-like apparatus. Seth came over to me as it beeped. He ripped my List computer out of my backpack.

“You won’t be needing this,” he said, tucking it under his arm, “ever, ever again.”

We were sprayed with some type of stinging gas, stuffed into gray jumpsuits, and shackled together with leg chains. Very neighborly.

I turned toward one of the portholes when I heard a low rumble coming from somewhere inside the ship. Down below, the desert mountains were getting smaller and smaller at a mind-blowing speed. What was crazy was that, unlike in the elevator, there wasn’t the slightest sense of motion.

About three seconds later, there was Terra Firma, my beloved planet Earth. Even under the circumstances, its grandeur took my breath away.

The astronauts had never communicated how completely lonely it looks, though. Sad, blue, and sort of helpless against the endless void of space. I watched it get smaller and smaller, and then-with what felt like a pinch in my heart-Earth was gone.

Chapter 57

A COUPLE MORE black uniforms smacked and kicked us down a corridor toward a scary grinding sound that made me think of a transformer eating scrap metal. The hall opened into a tremendous chamber, and I had to wipe my eyes to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

Down here were tiers upon tiers of cages and machines. At the machines, humans-mostly kids-were hard at work. They were hand rolling cigarettes, putting what looked like torture devices together, sewing animal skins into coats.

There were a few older humans too. The floor managers of hell, I thought. One of them was shaking a tiny Chinese kid back and forth against an industrial sewing machine. The kid was so dead- eyed, he wasn’t even crying.

The ship was some kind of flying child slavery sweatshop, I understood. A prison, a slave ship, and a sweatshop all rolled into one.

It really was hell, I thought. We’d actually arrived.

“Home sweet home,” one of the aliens said as he doled out the manacled kids to floor managers waiting by escalators. “No iPods or PlayStation 3’s here, you spoiled, hairless monkeys. Prepare to learn the true meaning of the expression ‘working your fingers to the bone.’ You’ve heard of tough love? Welcome to tough hate.”

“We have different accommodations for you, Daniel,” Seth said in my ear as he personally dragged me over another catwalk and down a filthy gray corridor. “You actually get your own room. Just in case you’re more dangerous than you seem to be.”

A door zipped open in a wall, and I flew through the air into a pitch-black cell. “Anything you need, scream.”

Chapter 58

FOR A WHILE, I did my best to stay upbeat. The night is darkest before the dawn, I reminded myself. Every cloud has a silver lining. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I will live to fight another day.

Yeah, right, I thought as the bullet in my abdomen continued to send out unrelenting pulses of agony.

Makes you stronger; cripples you forever. Flip a coin.

I couldn’t believe how overly confident I’d been. I’d actually thought I could defeat Ergent Seth. But I was a loser, complete and utter. I guess it was a family tradition.

“You are not a loser!” said a voice. “Not always, anyway.”

It must have been my fever. I was hearing voices now. Was it Glenda, the good witch? Or maybe Pinocchio’s friend the Blue Fairy?

“I’ve been brave, truthful, and unselfish,” I slurred. “Now make me a real boy.”

I guess several hours held captive by Seth was my mental limit. E.T. ready for funny farm.

I opened my eyes and saw that it was Dana. Well, sort of.

She was coming in hazily, kind of two-dimensional. I could actually see through her. How weird was that? She seemed like a ghost. Or an angel. Maybe I was dead and had gone to heaven?

“You are not a loser, Daniel,” Dana insisted again, her matchless blue eyes on the verge of tears. Then a second later, she was past the verge.