“Yeah, maybe we just freed him up so he can call the shots from cyberspace,” I said.
“That would be bad,” said Dana, and I did the only thing there was left to do.
I continued to bang my forehead on the steering wheel.
Chapter 87
TURNS OUT RACING along the highway with your buddies isn’t nearly as fun in stinky old municipal dump trucks with grease-smeared windows as it is on high-performance motorcycles.
Still, we were pretty happy to be doing it. We had finally managed to confiscate every single electronic device in town and had loaded them into these garbage haulers.
How, you may ask? Sometimes, alien powers can’t solve problems in an instant. Occasionally, there’s absolutely no replacement for good old-fashioned elbow grease and determination. And in this case, a little high-tech hypnosis.
When we got to the Wiggers’ farm, we took the garbage haulers out across the abandoned fields until we reached the alien breeding ponds.
Then we turned and dumped every Macintosh, Think-Pad, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba, Sony, LG, Motorola, Samsung, NEC, JVC, Magnavox, Westinghouse, GE, RCA, Sylvania, Nextel, Nintendo, Microsoft, AT &T, IBM, Lenovo, and a dozen other branded electronic devices-from walkietalkies to microwave ovens to TiVos to Wiis to network routers-into the water.
It was pretty impressive-the sound of tons of twisting metal, breaking glass, and snapping plastic cascading down the hillside into a pond.
But the best part was when Number 5-who’d been silent till now, no doubt trying to figure out yet another escape plan-screamed like the Wicked Witch of the West when the stuff started splashing into the water.
The moment the first of those batteries, silicon chips, and transformers began sizzling and fizzling and shorting out, everything with a screen or a speaker began broadcasting his shrill, urgent-sounding plea:
“Stop! Please stop it! I’ll make you famous. You can have a credit on my next show-I’ll put your name right up there with mine-I’ll even move the pilot episode to another planet if these stupid humans mean so much to you. St-oooo-op! Puh-uh-lease. My my-ind… I fe-eeel… di-zzzzzzzzz-eeee… D-d-d-ah-nnnn… yu-uhl?”
“Yes, Number 5?”
“I’m… gu… guh… gunna get you… for this.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” I said. And I opened up The List computer-on which I’d just run a very thorough virus scan-and deleted Number 5’s entry.
The pond was soon bubbling and steaming with all the battery chemicals and electronic waste, and we watched as literally tons of stinky, finless, alien catfish began to float, belly-up, dead, to the surface of the pond.
Then I turned to the video camera that Joe was using to record the proceedings and did my best Ryan Seacrest impersonation: “We here at American Alien Hunter hope you’ve enjoyed Season Two. Please stay tuned for previews of our next adventure-right after this brief word from our sponsors.”
Chapter 88
THEY SAY EVERYONE loves a parade, and I guess that’s one more way I’m different. I guess I just think there’s something unsettling about people putting on uniforms, walking together in a line, and having everybody come out to stare at them. Still, if only out of being gracious, I let the people of Holliswood put me atop their homecoming day float and rode along with the mayor through the middle of town and out to the civic auditorium where all of the children of Holliswood had assembled to stage their own version of High School Musical.
It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I will say one thing for Number 5’s legacy-he left those kids with some darn good dance moves.
And then, since the whole town-minus those who were melted by Number 5 and his goons-was there, I used some of what I’d learned of Number 5’s mind-control broadcasting techniques and erased all memory of myself and the aliens from every single person… except Judy.
Chapter 89
I DROVE JUDY home on my motorcycle while everybody else was getting their bearings and wondering what the heck they were all doing at the civic auditorium in the middle of the day.
“You study hard with your folks, okay, Judy?”
We were standing on her porch exchanging goodbyes. It was a beautiful June day. The birds were chirping, the clouds were scudding, the flowers were doing their fragrance-emitting thing.
“I just can’t believe you’re leaving. Can’t you take me with you? I’m losing my mind here with my parents and this homeschooling business.”
“I know it seems like a drag, but they’re good people. I can tell. And there will be life after Holliswood, I promise.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said.
“Well, I have been around the block a few times -”
She interrupted me with a kiss. And, as the world spun and I saw the brilliant promise of summer in her eyes, I erased her memory of me.
Chapter 90
THE GANG AND the family and I had our final council meeting at the KHAW transmission station that we had trashed in that early skirmish with Number 5’s goons.
“Checklist,” I said.
Emma began. “Caviar: one hundred percent confiscated and all female residents checked to ensure no alien inhabitation. Also, all dogs from the Holliswood pound safely adopted.”
“Good. Willy?”
“All incubation ponds drained and all larval Number 5s converted to crop fertilizer. All battery chemicals removed from groundwater, and all electronics fully rehabilitated. Wiggers’ farm restored to its pre-Number 5 condition.”
“Dana?”
“All aliens imported or bred by Number 5 have been exterminated… except for the ant-lion, which is on an interstellar freighter on its way back to its home planet.”
“Mom?”
“All essential civic functions restored. Remainder of town police currently investigating multiple missing-person claims, including loss of entire fire department.”
“Pork Chop?”
“Holliswood area schools back in session. New curriculum featuring effective math and science courses. English classes now including such pillars of modern literature as Stranger in a Strange Land.”
“Excellent. Dad?”
Dad threw a circuit breaker on the recently repaired broadcast shack’s wall. “Holliswood is now officially reconnected to the wider world, and the government authorities will doubtless be showing up to assist in putting the town back on its feet.”
“Joe?”
“Video scrapbook has just undergone postproduction. Screening ready to commence.”
I nodded, and he fired up the projector.
We watched Number 5’s landing party. The attack on the fire department. The takeover of the TV station and the Wiggers’ farm. Screen tests of human families being forced to dance. The High School Musical practice sessions at the civic auditorium, the caviar distribution, the alien nurseries, the incubation ponds… and then the scene at S-Mart where Number 21 kicked my butt, which once again got a good laugh out of everybody.
“That’s why we watch these things,” I tried to explain. “It’s like a football team reviewing the highlight reels at practice.”
“Yeah, but that scene’s hilarious!” said Willy.
“That’s nothing,” said Joe, and that’s when the real laughter began. Because somehow Joe had gotten the grainy black-and-white feed of me cutting my own hair in the bathroom.
“I was trying to look like Billy Joe Armstrong!” I protested as they all rolled with laughter. “You know, the lead singer of Green Day?”
“Yeah, there’s plenty to learn there,” said Dana, winking at me.