My Friend is an Alien - Edlund Niklas. Страница 38

"Any ideas how to detox him?" asked Davy. "He keeps yapping there's no telling what he might say."

Keyro shook his head. "It just kind of has to wear off."

"What in the name of — " another burst of static from Jahv — "am I doing wearing clothes!?" Jahv started to tear at his uniform, ripping it in multiple places, several of them rather crucial.

"No no no no no!" yelped Keyro. "You don't want to be doing that right now, big brother!"

"Oh, great — now what do we do with him?" groaned Niklas. "We can't let him out of here looking like that!"

"Keyro, can you two — beam yourselves or whatever it is you do back to your headquarters?" asked Davy.

"Not indoors, we can't." said Keyro. "The transmat homing beacon and remote lock-on system has its limitations. It's just not powerful enough. We have to get outdoors."

"There's a door to the outside on the other side of the restrooms away from the gym." said Davy. "At least we won't have to haul him through the party again."

Niklas stuck his head out of the door and said to Martin and Keith, "Get ready to flank us. We've got a drunk alien here who's shredded his uniform. We need to get him outside."

"Thank you so much for including me on this, Niklas." said Keith. "Definitely a Halloween I won't forget — no matter how hard I try."

"Just be ready." said Niklas. Seconds later, Niklas and Davy half-carried and half-dragged Jahv out of the restroom. Keith, Martin, and Keyro did their best to cover the scene, even as Keyro primed the transmat units remotely to beam the two of them back to their headquarters.

Miraculously, they managed to get outside and into the open without being spotted. "Where we goin', Keyro?" muttered Jahv, still tugging at what was left of his uniform.

"Home." said Keyro. "You're drunk."

"I'm not so think as you drunk I am…" said Jahv, as Keyro activated the transmat device and the two faded from view in a coruscating beam of light.

"Yeesh." was all Keith could say. "Well, come on, there's still some party left."

"I agree." added Davy. "Besides, Arion and Morik are still in there."

"I don't think we have to worry too much about them." said Niklas, as the boys walked back to the gym. "Arion seems content to sit in a corner and watch everybody else, and nobody's taking anything Morik's yapping about all that seriously anyway."

That, however, proved not to be the case when the boys returned to the party. Toby and Arion were facing down each other, and although Toby had the clear size advantage, there was pure fury written on the face of Arion. Morik was about a third of the way across the room from the confrontation, but his attention was directed solely on the situation, specifically on two rough-looking specimens leaning up against a wall with some balloons attached to it, part of the party decorations. They seemed to be grinning at Toby's actions.

"Jeez, we can't take these guys anywhere!" complained Keith. "Guess we'd better break this one up."

"Hold it." said Niklas. "Let's see how it plays out. That big bully has had it coming for a long time, and I think Arion might be the one to give it to him."

"Would you repeat what you called me — peasant?!" roared Arion.

Toby bent down slightly to get right in Arion's face. "You heard me. I called you a feather-headed little f…

Whatever the final word was about to be, and apparently had been once already, Toby never got the chance to finish the sentence. Arion leapt into the air, not quite flying, and executed a series of martial arts kicks and chops the likes of which none of the boys had ever seen even in the most vicious video games. It was both unearthly and deadly-looking.

"Remind me never to play 'Mortal Kombat' with him." said Davy.

"Remind me to ask him who trained him and see if he's offering lessons." stated Keith.

Toby was now sprawled on the floor, a good ten feet from Arion, aching from a dozen nasty shots to his body. Arion apparently decided to add a certain less-than-graceful point to his martial arts exclamation by picking Toby up and throwing him across the buffet table, right through the punch bowl. The sopping swamp juice splattered the overstuffed, injured, and now nearly unconscious bully.

Arion turned his back on the whole mess and walked towards the same doors the boys had just entered. "Party is over." he said, and kept going.

"No kidding." said Keith. "Niklas, the next time these idiots want to go someplace, I say we drop him off at a wrestling match, Jahv at a juice bar, and let Keyro and Morik clean up after both of them!"

"I think I agree." said Niklas, not entirely stifling a grin. "Still, that one's had something like that coming to him for years."

"I think maybe we'd better get out of here before some of the adults remember who showed up with whom." suggested Davy.

That would've turned out to have been the least of their worries, as the two toughs Morik had been watching looked to move towards the departing Arion. Morik got as close as he could without being obvious, and made a small adjustment to his cybernetic eyepiece, whereupon a beam of laser light shot out of it and popped several of the balloons. The toughs turned and saw Morik's glowing eye. "Like my friend said, party's over, right?"

The two toughs grinned weakly and backed off.

"Gonna have to remember to thank Jahv for making me this thing." said Morik, catching up to the others.

The five boys quietly and quickly departed, with some of the others, including Sniv and Jonathan, behind them. Suddenly a voice called out. "Hey, wait up!"

If it had been an adult voice, there was no guarantee any of the kids would have maintained bladder control. But it hadn't been. It was Ricky, running to catch up. "I gotta ask you guys something. Those three weird friends of yours, and you with the eye thing — they — you — those weren't costumes, were they?"

The boys looked at each other. Could Ricky be trusted? Apparently Sniv decided he could be. He walked up to the boy and placed his hands on his shoulders. "No, they weren't. They are actually aliens. Tomorrow I'll show you where they live, if you like. But you must promise never to tell anybody — ever — that they're here. It could be dangerous for them, and us."

Ricky's face spread into a wide grin under the camouflage. He looked the happiest Sniv had ever seen him. "Don't worry, amigo! No one will know from me! Gracias! Thank you for trusting me!" He hugged Sniv quickly and ran back to the party.

"Now there goes a happy kid." said Davy.

"He deserves to be." said Sniv quietly.

The next day, Sniv kept his promise. Along with Davy and Niklas, Ricky was taken out to the aliens' new headquarters. Whatever sort of paint he had used to camouflage his face the night before apparently hadn't been designed for use on skin. Most of it had washed off, but the boy still looked slightly multi-colored. "But I don't see anything!" he protested, as they reached the site.

"Watch." said Niklas, finding the hidden door-flap to the dome-tent that you really had to sort of know was there to find. It took practice. Fortunately, Niklas had plenty.

The doorway opened, and Ricky's jaw hit the floor. The group entered. Ricky's eyes threatened to bulge out of his head. "I have never seen anything like this! It is so big! How do you hide it?"

"It's bigger on the inside than on the outside." said Davy. Ricky just scowled. "You told him?" The voice was Keyro's, who was at the main monitor station.

Sniv nodded. "This is Ricky. Ricky, this is Keyro."

Keyro stood, and Ricky raised an eyebrow. "Howcum you not wearing any clothes?"

Keyro shrugged. "We generally don't, at least not Jahv and myself. If it offends you, though…

Ricky shook his head. "No. S'okay. Just wondered, I guess."