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Udo scowled, then snorted in Kopano’s direction “You see? Noth—” His father’s face suddenly contorted in anguish Udo clutched at his chest, feet kicking out in front of him in spasms His eyes ide in panic “My insides!” he screa!”
Kopano’s mother screamed
Kopano and his brothers all rushed to their father’s side Their uncle took a frightened step back Kopano grabbed his father’s arm
“Father, I’m sorry! I don’t knohat—”
His father slapped hirinned Just like that, he wasback to the television A practical joke
“You stupid boy, I’reater than yours, hmm?” He waved Kopano away “Go on See to your mother You scared her bad”
Kopano slunk away Had it really all been a dreaacies, anyway? A boy fro off to save the world? Even Nollywood didn’t make movies with premises so far-fetched
Little Dubem clasped his hand
“I believe you, Kopano,” his youngest brother whispered “You will show them all”
At least, for a few days after his elued to the news to mock him But then the invasion ended, suddenly and brutally, with the nations of Earth coadorian warship Meanwhile, the Garde, the ones who had invaded Kopano’s dreaadorians’ secret base in West Virginia and killed Setrákus Ra Kopano i Setrákus Ra with his fire-breath
Fire-breath, Kopano had decided, would be his Legacy
When the news broke that Earth was saved, they celebrated in the streets His father hugged hi off overhead Kopano couldn’t reed him like that Not since he was a boy
But the next day, it started
Alien son, go down to theabout right now! Use your telepathy!
Alien son, did you finish your homework?
Alien son, use your telekinesis to get me a beer, eh?
Kopano grinned through it all, but inside he seethed His une better to do than sit home all day and think up ways to humiliate him
Worse still, his bigmouthed brother, Obi, had spread the word around school Soon, Kopano’s class hi rubber Mogadorian s with eroup of his older class these ht him, they used rolls of duct tape to bind hi balls at him
Until one day, when Kopano stopped a football in
“Finally,” Kopano whispered to hi free “Finally”
It had been three months since the invasion Kopano, it turned out, was a late bloomer
That evening, he strode into his fa on the couch With his little brothers watching, Kopano used his telekinesis to levitate the couch high above the floor Then he screaet up!”
His father sprung upright, swung his legs off the couch, and fell five feet to the floor As he groaned and picked hi above hirinned at his father, squaring his shoulders in the sao
“You see, old man? What did I tell you?”
Udo stu on his face He grabbed Kopano’s cheeks and pinched “My beautiful alien son, you are the answer to all of our problems”
Many months later, when Kopano finally ist Linda Matheson would ask hios, before he came to the Human Garde Academy
Kopano would think about his answer for a long
“Well,” he said, “I guess for a little while I was a criminal”
CHAPTER TWO
THE PATIENCE CREEK SURVIVORS
AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
FOR THOSE FIRST HUMAN GARDE WHO DID ANSWER John Sht after their visions, the invasion wasn’t as glorious as Kopano had enviously iined
The story of Patience Creek wasn’t reported on the news networks The battle there didn’t make it into any of the retrospectives made after the invasi
on It was kept secret Remembered by only the survivors
Patience Creek was a secret governan where the Loric hid out after the invasion, plotting their counterattack on the Mogadorians They were joined by a host of military personnel and a handful of Human Garde, those who had answered John Smith’s telepathic plea or who had otherwise crossed his path
Daniela Morales Stone-vision
Nigel Barnaby Sonic manipulation
Caleb Crane Duplication
Ran Takeda Kinetic detonation
There were others, but they didn’t survive the assault when the Mogadorians discovered Patience Creek Most of the military didn’t make it out alive either John Smith himself was nearly killed It was bloody and brutal and not at all heroic The ordeal showed John Smith that maybe the humans he’d recruited weren’t ready for a full-scale war They needed training that the Loric didn’t have tiive the
So, John Smith sent them away
“Bloody Guantanaroused
Daniela rolled her eyes “This isn’t Cuba, man”
Nigel bent down and gathered a handful of bright white sand He opened his fingers and let the grains blow across the crystalline blue ocean The sun beat down on hi around his bleached mohawk, his cheeks pocked by persistent splotches of acne He wore a black Misfits tank top in defiance of the heat He gestured from the waves to the austere military base two hundred yards away—their accommodations for the last few days—and looked back at Daniela
“Oel countered “Where do you think we are?”
“It isn’t that ominous,” Caleb said He brushed a hand across his buzz cut and skipped a stone into the ocean Biscuit, Daniela’s Chi Loric aniolden retriever, bounded into the water after the rock “There’s a snack bar”
“Not orew up in one of these places, didn’t ya? And besides, your uncle’s running the show”
“Guantanael “We aren’t prisoners This is just a stopover” She looked at Caleb “Right?”