Authors: John Luke Robertson
Si in Space (6 page)
LISTEN, JACK.
Waitin’s usually for wussies, but sometimes you gotta be smart. Or sometimes you gotta pretend to be smart, at least. So for now, you wait in the hallway right next to the spaceship hangar, just like you were told. You can hear people banging on the door that Commander Noble programmed. They’re even taking some shots at it.
You’re watching the commander to see if you can tell when he wants you to go over to the
DC Enterprise
. But then two things happen.
Two not-so-good things.
Hey, when it rains, it pours, even in the dark armpits of outer space.
First, the
DC Enterprise
explodes! Or at least a portion of it does.
“Aw, man, I liked that ship!” you say. Then you wonder if
anyone was nearby or still on it.
Oh no
—Commander Noble! Is he okay?
You turn and see the gold helmet of Mr. D. walking toward you.
“How’d you get here?” you ask.
He’s holding something in his hands. It’s a sword.
You hear his heavy breathing.
Hang on a minute.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Silas,” he says.
The voice sounds different from before.
Then you hear
—
Is he laughing?
“The circle is now complete.” D. continues to approach with the sword.
You don’t see any circles.
“You’re weak, old man,” D. says as he breathes heavily.
Like he’s just trying to sound ridiculous.
You stand your ground, holding up your fists. Suddenly a voice calls from the hangar.
“Uncle Si!”
It’s John Luke.
You look through the window at John Luke and wonder if you’ll have to sacrifice yourself . . .
Hold on, Jack. I’m not sacrificing anything! I’m running like a squirrel.
Then D. does something crazy.
He takes off his helmet.
It’s Jase. Your nephew. Your crazy, cuckoo nephew. Unless they’ve cloned him.
“Man, you got the funniest look on your face, Si.”
“Hey
—you were about to be attacked.”
“Funny, ’cause I’m holding the sword. Couldn’t find a lightsaber on this ship.”
You point through the window at John Luke, and Jase quickly pulls him through the door Commander Noble used.
“How’d you get here?” John Luke asks.
“Long story,” Jase says. “Well, actually, it’s pretty short, to be honest.”
You hear pounding on the door. “Okay, tell us later. We can act out childhood movies on your own time, Jack. Let’s get out of here.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Jase says. “Not that way.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll show you. Come with me.”
YOU START PUSHING BUTTONS,
hoping to find the right combination to get this ship moving. John Luke hits some too and manages to engage the cyclone thrusters.
The good news is you figure out how to steer the ship into open space. And yeah, you really
can
steer this ship.
The bad news is this part of space isn’t so open after all. You steer the ship straight into an asteroid field.
“Uh, Uncle Si?” John Luke asks.
“Houston, we have a problem. A big problem.”
These asteroids sure are big. And rolling around in all sorts of ways. Makes your brain a bit dizzy, Jack.
But, hey
—you’ve played the video games before. You’ve seen the movies. It’s not that difficult to avoid getting hit by
—
GAME OVER
YOU DECIDE TO GO LEFT,
so you ditch the three-wheeler and head down the hallway for a few minutes before reaching another intersection. Your hallway connects with a larger one, and this new passage has lots of people walking in it. And the weirdest thing is that they all look . . .
Normal. Like the men working in the hangar, but even more normal than that.
You see a man in a business suit carrying a briefcase. Another man right behind him wearing khaki pants and a button-down shirt. You pass a woman dressed in a hat and uniform, who appears to work at some kind of fast-food chain. There’s a girl in sparkly jeans and the kind of tennis shoes that light up.
It’s sorta the way malls used to be when they were actually full of people. Or maybe even more than that, it’s the way a big-city sidewalk looks.
A woman passes who looks like a librarian. A mechanic guy passes next, dressed in a grease-stained T-shirt and jeans.
“What is this?” John Luke whispers.
“Something weird’s going on. I know that.”
“I feel like we’re back home and not on a spaceship.”
You nod. For a few minutes you continue walking in silence. Just passing by normal people.
You pull John Luke aside so nobody can hear you.
“Here’s my thinking,” you begin. “These are all androids that are supposed to look like people. Or maybe they’re aliens wearing human costumes.”
“Those would be some good costumes.”
“Or they’re cones.”
“Cones?” John Luke asks. “I think you mean clones.”
“No, I think it’s cones.”
“A cone is like an ice cream cone. A conehead.”
“Well, whatever. Clone, cone. These regular-looking people are anything but.”
You realize you’re speaking in a very loud whisper, so you look around to make sure nobody’s listening.
“So what do we do?”
“I say we pick someone who looks like us and follow them.”
“A guy in camo with a big beard and glasses who’s walking around with a teenager?”
You think for a minute. “Okay, let’s just find another teen boy. Clean-cut. Good-looking like you. Likable.”
“And what?”
“Follow him.”
That’s exactly what you end up doing. The boy you see is wearing jeans and a New Orleans Saints jersey, so he has to be a good guy, right? He’s from New Orleans. He’s practically family.
Which may be exactly what they want you to think right before they decide to
eat you
. . . well, right before something happens. You and John Luke just need to find out what that something will be.
The teenager walks by himself in a crowd full of these regular-looking people heading toward an elevator while the two of you follow a dozen yards behind. He puts a hand up to push a white square panel on the wall, and a door slides open to his left.
You stop and pull John Luke back.
“Shouldn’t we go in?” he asks.
A part of you says no. Another part says yes. And another part wonders how Rocky beat Mr. T in
Rocky III
. Because, really, there’s no way that could have happened.
“I pity the fool.”
“Uncle Si?”
“Maybe we should split up.”
Do you both go inside?
Go here
.
Do you tell John Luke to go inside alone, while you take the elevator to another floor to look for the crew?
Go here
.
“I DON’T THINK GOING BACK
out there’s gonna help us any,” you tell John Luke.
You realize this room has started glowing.
Suddenly you feel a bit light-headed. Sorta strange. Hey
—you’ve been a little off ever since coming to space, but now you’re feeling really wacky.
“You feel that, John Luke?”
“Yeah. Kinda seems like I’m floating.”
“Well, we
are
in space, you know.”
“Yeah. But this is different.”
The door opens.
“Quick, let’s go!” you tell John Luke.
But as you start to run, something happens to you.
You find yourself in the driver’s seat of a car. Wait, Jack
—a hologram of a car, not a real one. It’s half-there and half-not.
You’re no longer running. Now you’re racing.
“John Luke?”
He blows by you in a Jeep. A 3-D hologram-like Jeep.
“Look at this, Uncle Si!” he shouts. “I think we just morphed into a video game.”
You’re moving at breathtaking speed on some kind of grid. You try to keep up with John Luke but can’t.
Then you turn around and see more glowing cars following you.
You wonder if the others can hear the awesome techno music accompanying this race.
A nice little drive in the middle of the 3-D video game funky dunky solar system.
That’s a fact, Jack.
You ride around for a few minutes, sending the chasing cars in circles and causing some of them to crash and explode. But they blow up just like something might in a video game or a book that has twenty-some endings. You don’t take it to heart.
“I see an exit, Uncle Si!”
You keep leaning forward. That’s what’s propelling this game.
John Luke’s glowing Jeep Wrangler takes a jump and goes flying.
“You okay, John Luke?”
He’s hooting and hollering.
Soon you’ve evaded all the cars following you.
The song is coming to an end.
The Exit sign is approaching.
You aim your car straight at it and then . . .
You’re out.
You’re floating, flying, rushing
—hey, wait a minute. Now you’re falling, fumbling, tumbling, turning over and over.
Then your head hits something and you black out.
When you wake up, you call out for John Luke, but he’s nowhere to be found. You’re in a large, empty warehouse, and it’s glowing, but not blue like the racing room
—more like a metallic gray. You notice several doors along the walls.
“Hello?” you call out. “Anybody there? Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?”
But nobody’s looking for you, Jack.
When you open the first door and peer in, you get this weird sensation inside. ’Cause you hear a familiar sound
—a
waka-waka-waka-waka
. Reminds you of Pac-Man. So you shut
that
door.
Feeling braver, you open the second door, and now you’re on a street covered with massive dudes fighting. You get out of there.
By the third door, when Donkey Kong starts chasing you, you realize you’re stuck in some kind of arcade game nightmare and you can’t get out.
John Luke must’ve escaped, but as for you? Well, it’s game
never
over for you, Jack.
You’re gonna have to blast asteroids and defeat space invaders and try to slay the dragon in its lair.
You’re not sure how this happened or how you got here, but you’re pretty sure it’s gonna take you a
lot
longer to get out of this.
If you can get out.
High Score: 0000000000000000
THE END