Birthright: Book I of the Temujin Saga (8 page)

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, both Mo and Mrs. Walker stepped through the doorway. Mo gave Alex a knowing wink and leaned against the wall beside Samrai, who by now had taken the outer shell off the game system and was prodding the motherboard with his finger.

“Alex, you’re awake!” Janice wrapped him up in her arms. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Alex hugged her back carefully, wincing as she squeezed his ribs. “These guys saved me.”

“Yes, I know.” Janice smiled. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done, Dr. Lamont.”

Alex looked up at Lomaant. “Doctor?”

Lomaant smiled. “He’s going to be just fine, Mrs. Walker. All of his wounds are superficial. He just needs rest.”

Janice ran her fingers over her son’s buzzed hair, careful to avoid a bandage on the left side of his head. “Do you need anything, sweetheart?”

“I could use a drink of water. My throat’s a little dry.”

“Sure thing, sweetie.” Janice turned to the others in the room. “Can I get you boys anything?”

“Water would be fine, Mrs. Walker,” said Lomaant.

Mo nodded. “Same.”

Samrai looked up from his work. “Got any beer?”

Mo scowled at his brother and stomped on his foot.

Samrai winced. “Water would be just
lovely
, ma’am.”

She smiled and went downstairs.

Alex waited until her footsteps faded away to ask the question that had been weighing heavily since he regained consciousness. “Who
are
you guys?”

“I told you,” said Lomaant. “We’re your support.”

“Support for
what
?”

Mo and Lomaant exchanged glances for a moment before the latter answered. “We’re not entirely sure, to be honest.”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” said Mo.

“I have
no
idea what you’re talking about.” Alex shook his head. “Where did you guys come from?”

“Replodia.” Samrai replaced the top of the game system and plugged it back in.

“Rep— R—” Alex shook his head. “What?”

“Replodia,” said Lomaant. “A planet located in what you would call the Sirius star system.”

“Planet?” asked Alex. “
Star
system?”

Samrai switched on the reassembled Xbox and began to play a game of
Halo
. “We’re aliens, kid.”

“Wait…” Alex pointed at the television. “That was—”

Sam cut him off with a dismissive wave. “Yeah, yeah. You’re welcome. Stay on task, kid. Aliens in your bedroom, remember?”

“But you look just like humans,” said Alex.

Lomaant was confused. “What else should we look like? Did we choose the wrong forms?”

Choose? They
chose
their bodies? Then that meant….

Alex pointed at Lomaant. “You
stole
those bodies! You killed humans for their bodies and took them over.”

The visitors all stared at each other in stunned silence and then burst into raucous laughter.

“Look, kid,” said Samrai, “if I wanted to steal someone’s body, I’d have found myself a smokin’ hot chick so that I could touch my own—”

“Samrai!” Mo snapped, cutting his brother off.

Samrai shrugged. “Well I
would
.”

Lomaant walked toward Alex with his palms facing outward in a non-threatening gesture. “We haven’t stolen
anything
. These are our own bodies. We’re able to change our forms to best suit whatever environment we’re in… to blend in. That’s all. Look, Alex, all we know is that we’re here to back you up and will receive further instructions.”

“From who?”

“We don't know,” said Mo. “Our programming indicates there’s an underground facility somewhere nearby. Some kind of command center. We should find our answers there.”

“Programming?” Alex finally left the safety of the covers to sit on the edge of the bed. “So, you’re, like, robots or something?”

Samrai grimaced. “Don’t insult me, kid.”

Lomaant sat on the bed. “Typically, Replodian operatives are purchased or leased by governments that require the use of our special ‘talents.’ We can be programmed to be medics, spies, scientists, assassins, soldiers, bounty hunters. The possibilities are practically limitless.”

“So what does all of this have to do with me?” asked Alex.

“If the government in question elects to purchase a Replodian in its larval stage, then the larvae require a host organism in which to grow until they reach maturity,” Lomaant explained. “This ensures that the larva will be able to adapt to the host’s environment properly. Apparently whoever purchased the three of us saw fit to implant us inside your body before you were born.”

Alex’s stomach was doing somersaults. Inside his body?

A moment later, Mrs. Walker reappeared with four tall glasses of ice water on a tray. The Replodians took their glasses and thanked her in turn; Samrai expressed his gratitude with a mere grunt.

“It’s the least I can do for the men who rescued my baby boy,” she said.

“Mom!”
Alex whined. He was tired of being fussed over like an infant. “I’m
thirteen
. Just because some sweaty mouth breather and his trolls ganged up on me doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”

“Alex Walker!” exclaimed Janice. “Show a little appreciation.”

“No, no, Mrs. Walker,” said Lomaant. “It’s fine. He’s right. The odds were simply stacked against him, that’s all. Mo only helped out a little.”

Mo grinned. “You should have seen him. He knocked out the punk’s front tooth.”

“Well…” Janice turned toward the door. “We’ll just see how tough Baxter Franklin is when the police come to his house and charge him with assault.”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered. “
That’ll
help.”

“I’ll be downstairs if you boys need anything else,” said Janice.

The men listened for her footsteps to fade and — satisfied that she would not return — simultaneously plucked the ice cubes from their glasses and tossed them into the wastebasket. This simple unified act unnerved Alex enough that he jumped out of bed and started pacing.

“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You guys are aliens?”

“
Sí
,” said Samrai, returning to his game. “Yea-ah! Suck it, Red!”

“And you’ve been sent here to help me fulfill some great purpose?”

“Well…” Mo took a moment to down his drink in one long gulp and set down the glass. “We think so, at least.”

“Our services don’t come cheap,” said Lomaant. “So it must be important.”

“Why can I hear you in my head?”

“We’ve been gestating inside your body since before you were born,” explained Lomaant. “We are all linked to you telepathically.”

“So you can also hear me?”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” said Alex. “Prove it. What number am I thinking of?”

Alex stretched out with his mind. ::Sixty-nine.::

Samrai smirked. “Pervert.”

Alex jumped and stared wide-eyed at the blond Replodian.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Samrai turned to fully face him and met his gaze. ::Pervert.::

Alex took a step back and stumbled onto his bed.

“Proof enough for you, kid?” asked Samrai.

Alex nodded slowly. “You’re really telling the truth.”

Mo and Lomaant nodded. Alex opened his mouth to say something but was cut short by his mother calling from the bottom of the stairs, “Alex, honey? Crystal’s here.”

“Oh, no,” Alex hissed. “What am I going to do? What am I going to
tell
her?”

Mo shrugged. “The truth?”

Alex threw up his hands. “Oh, yeah, right! That’ll go over real well. ‘Hi, Crystal, these are my new friends from the planet Replodia. I only freaked out on you when you kissed me because they were talking to me from inside my head.’ You expect me to tell her
that
?”

“Okay…” Samrai turned and pointed at Alex. “When
you
say it, it just sounds weird.”

Mo shrugged again. “Hey, I never said exactly
how much
of the truth to tell her.”

Lomaant slapped Alex on the back on his way to the door. “You’ll be fine. We’ll see you in the morning. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us, so get some rest.”

Alex sat on the bed. “Right.”

Mo grabbed Samrai by the collar and jerked him out of the beanbag chair. “Come on, dipstick. We’re leaving.”

Samrai’s arms flailed as Mo dragged him from the room. “All right! All right! I’m coming!”

Alex found himself alone with the ominous sound of Crystal’s soft footsteps ascending. He quickly wadded up his comforter so she wouldn’t see the design. Three raps on the doorframe signaled her arrival.

“Knock knock.”

“Hey! Come on in.”

Crystal walked around the bed and winced as her eyes fell on his face.

Alex’s shoulders slumped. “That bad, huh?”

“Your eye looks like it
really
hurts.”

He reached up and touched the flesh around his left eye. It was indeed bruised and swollen.

“They kind of failed to mention that,” Alex grumbled.

::Sorry,:: said Lomaant’s voice in his mind. ::It’s really not as bad as she’s making it out to be.::

::Shut up,:: Alex hissed mentally. ::Just shut up!::

Crystal sat on the bed next to him. “You really had me worried back there.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that. Look, Crystal, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for why I ran off.”

If only he could think of one that didn’t involve alien kung fu masters from the planet Replodia in the Cereal system.

::Sirius,:: Samrai corrected him.

“I know,” said Crystal. “Your mom told me everything.”

“She did?” said Alex, suddenly very nervous. “What did she say?”

Crystal scooted a few inches closer to him. “She said that Baxter and his idiot friends were teasing you from the bushes and were saying all kinds of nasty things to you about us and that you went to chase them off.”

“Oh,” said Alex. “Right. That’s exactly what I did. Those guys were driving me crazy.”

Crystal took another not-so-subtle scoot in his direction. “She also said that when Baxter told you he was going to ‘do things’ to me that you knocked out one of his teeth.”

Alex puffed up his chest at the mention of the one accomplishment he could actually take full credit for. “I sure did. I nailed him good.”

Crystal closed the distance between them and whispered, “Thank you.”

Alex felt his ears getting warm again. “Oh, it was noth—”

Suddenly Crystal’s lips were on his, and he ignored the stinging pain in his split bottom lip as he returned the kiss awkwardly. Crystal pulled away after a few moments and got to her feet. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She placed it in Alex’s hand and closed his fingers around it.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “My mom’s downstairs.”

“Yeah. Mine too,” Alex replied automatically, then winced at the stupidity of the remark.

::Smooth,:: said Samrai.

But Crystal just smiled and bent down to give him one last peck on the lips.

“Call me when you’re feeling better, ‘kay?”

Alex nodded. “Okay.”

Once she was gone, Alex opened his hand and stared at the piece of paper. He unfolded it and, inside of an ornately drawn heart, was a ten-digit phone number; a number he had wanted to dial many times, but never had the nerve.

::Score?:: Mo’s voice whispered from the back of Alex’s mind.

Alex smiled. ::Score!::

Chapter Nine

July 5th

Alex stared at the ceiling, listening to his father snore next door while his brain swam with thoughts of Crystal and the three aliens sleeping downstairs. While he’d been unconscious, the Replodians told the Walkers that they’d come to town to see the fireworks display and check out the local shops, but had missed their bus out of town when they stopped to help Alex. With Bonaparte being an historical tourist town, the Walkers had accepted this explanation without question. So when Lomaant asked for lodging, Mrs. Walker graciously provided blankets and sleeping bags and offered them the pullout couch for the night.

Between his father’s snores, Alex was able to discern three hushed voices below him. Quietly, he snuck downstairs and entered the dimly lit living room. Lomaant and Mo sat on opposite ends of the couch, facing each other and conversing softly while Samrai knelt at the coffee table with various pieces of the Walker family’s DVD player strewn across the table’s surface.

“Hey,” Alex hissed. “That’s my dad’s DVD player!”

Samrai glanced up at him, and then surveyed the pieces on the table. “Yup. Looks like it.”

“Well, what are you doing to it?”

Samrai rolled his eyes. “Fixing it.
Duh.
”

“It’s not broken!”

“Don’t worry,” said Mo. “He’ll put it back together just the way it was. Won’t you, Samrai?”

“Better,” said Samrai without looking up from his work.

Alex found a section of table clear of electronic bits and sat. “So what’s the plan?”

“As soon as there’s sufficient light, we’ll go out and search searching for that command center,” said Lomaant.

Alex shook his head. “This farm is over five hundred acres, and a good chunk of that is timber. We don’t even know what we’re looking for. It could take days to find the entrance.”

“We don’t have days,” said Mo.

“Why not?”

“Exactly how long do you think your parents are going to let us sleep on your couch before they realize something’s up?” said Mo. “We need to get out of here. And fast.”

“Besides,” said Lomaant, “we don’t know how urgent our mission is. We may have a truncated time table.”

“A what?” asked Alex.

“No time,” Samrai translated. He was scrutinizing a small white gear.

Alex sighed, but then his face brightened. “There’s an old capped well out in the timber!”

“A
whatnow
?” asked Samrai.

“A well,” repeated Alex, gesturing with his hands. “It’s a hole in the ground about three or four feet across and really, really deep. In the old days, people would drop buckets into the hole to draw up water.”