The Universal Mirror (33 page)

 The shuttle set them down on a dark stretch of road and disappeared into the night sky as soon as the U-haul and the little Pacer it pulled had cleared the unloading ramp. And so the Haynes were on Earth, sitting in the musty cab of an old rental truck full of antiquated junk, heading off into the greatest adventure of their lives without a clue as to what they were doing.

* * *

The Haynes set up shop quickly. They drove into town that very night and arrived at the house that was prepared by the ERA. The next day the neighbors awoke to find that they had a beautiful smiling young couple sharing the street with them.

 The cover story the ERA had provided had worked perfectly. The Haynes were supposedly from some distant city named Boston. Barbara was a lawyer, not the exciting kind though; she would simply sit in an office filling out wills and other various objects of boredom while Steven had managed to obtain a more exciting position, town doctor.

Since Steven had been educated at one of the most prestigious Galactic Universities he quickly cemented his name in medical excellence. Since Barbara had been educated at one of the most prestigious Galactic Universities in Intergalactic Law, she had no idea about Earth laws, and quickly cemented her name in Law ineptitude.

The couple also garnered attention for how they spoke. They had each taken multiple courses on the English language and had managed to obtain an impeccable accent. Unfortunately for them, the people of Pleasant Valley spoke American not English. The attention was not negative however and all in all they were lovingly embraced by the town and after several years the strange accents faded away to be replaced by the charming drawl of the south.

 Barbara and Steven lived by themselves in their warm little home for three years. The end of their solitude was foretold by the growing stomach of Barbara. As her pregnancy progressed the town grew anxious. After all a birth in a small town is quite a big deal. The gossiping women gathered together and threw her a shower. Steven had laughed when he first heard, thinking they were actually going to wash his nervous wife, but instead of a good bathing they had both received a wide gamete of gifts ranging from cradles to bottles, singing teddy bears to blankets.  It was not a tradition on Broglio but the Haynes decided that it should be.

 The arrival of their only child happened one stormy July night. As the rain haphazardly threw itself against the pane of glass that made up the Haynes bedroom window, Barbara lay on the bed covered in sweat. She screamed in pain as Steven held her hand tightly. Her screams of pain inundated the house and within an hour they were replaced by a higher pitched whine of their new son.

They wrapped him snugly in a warm blanket and held him between them. He looked at them dreamily with incredible eyes of the purest silver that gleamed up at them, sharp and intelligent. Steven smiled proudly at the newborn and was more than a little pleased to find the smile returned.

“What do you want to name him?” he asked his glistening wife softly so as not to arouse the screams that had temporarily abated.

“William,” she said gently, “after my grandfather.”

William cooed quietly as if accepting the name and the smile on Steven’s face managed to grow even wider before a new thought came across his mind. One which they had somehow never thought to discuss.

“Should we tell him about our past?” He questioned his wife, his own opinion already formed

“No,” she replied without looking away from the smiling baby, “There is no point in telling him, besides he wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret, you know how kids are.”

Steven agreed instantly since she had verbalized his own, unspoken, beliefs as if he had uttered them himself.

 A sizzling slice of lightning illuminated the room as they watched the new pride and joy of their life sleep and soon they were all fast asleep on the ludicrously old cast iron bed the ERA had provided.

Barbara and Steven never spoke about Broglio again after Will was born. He lived an average American childhood; filled with tee-ball, peewee football, pizza parties, and trips to Disney World. He never considered the fact that he was any different from any of the other children; to him he was just the son of Barbara and Steven Haynes, and a normal boy from Earth.

Prologue

Two moons, one blue and one green, glowed in the night sky. Surrounded by stars, they were a sight to behold, casting a soothing luminance to the lands.

Unfortunately, their tranquil light was nothing compared to the raging fires that covered the war zone below. Metallic rubble was scattered all over a 10-mile stretch where buildings once stood. The remains of edifices crumbled as the flames consumed them, quaking the ground. Despite the massive conflagrations, there was no smoke. In its stead was a fog of radiation that permeated the air. The battleground was fresh, but no battle had to be long to be devastating.

Several creatures hopped through the landscape. They were
Doodas
.

Take a round sphere the size of a bowling ball. Attach a long, spindly tube that acts as a neck. On top of it, put a round head that has a big, single eye in the center and no other visible organs. Beneath the bowling ball body, attach a leg that is bent backwards with 1 joint and has a small foot with 2 digits. Finally, add a short tail to the back of the body and 2 twig-like, 1-jointed arms with 3 fingers each to the front of the body, and your assembly is complete. You have a Dooda.

Bitbit, an orange-colored Dooda, made a series of tapping, clicking and popping sounds with the communication organ inside the top of his head.

“Advance,” he said.

He and his fellows took out laser sticks that were attached to their legs. The sticks were pencil-like instruments made of a highly resilient form of plastic that could withstand intense heat. They were very light, which made them suitable for use by most Doodas, who were generally around 3-foot tall and incapable of heavy lifting.

“What happened to all the other Doodas?!” asked another Dooda.

“What do you think? They’re dead,” replied Bitbit.

“Then there’s no way we can win. We have to abort.”

There was a huge tremor.

In the horizon, something awful appeared.

It was a
Grubbox
. A rather simple organism whose body was comprised of two massive, clawed, single-jointed legs connected to an eye in the center. They had no arms. They had no torsos. A fanged circular mouth opened beneath the eye, facing the ground. With its legs spread out to the sides, which was a normal standing posture, it was about 40 feet in length and 20 feet in height.

The Grubbox stomped in. its colossal legs swerved as it moved, crushing metal and stone beneath it. It passed through fire with the same ease as it passed through air, shredding up everything in its path. Even though almost everything in sight appeared destroyed, it continued smashing and romping anything that remotely emulated something that was not destroyed. One might have assumed it was mindless – but they would have assumed wrong.

The Doodas hopped into the battlefield. Their thin, stem-like legs did not evolve to travel on jagged terrain, but they tried their best. As they came nearer, they pointed their laser sticks at the monster and took aim. The creature’s breathing nearly knocked them over.

“Fire!” shouted Bitbit.

They squeezed their sticks. White-colored lasers fired out from them, streaking through the air. Thirty beams that were powerful enough to penetrate metal struck the creature’s rough, gray skin. But there was no effect. It simply closed its eyelid and waited for them to stop.

“This isn’t working!” Bitbit noticed.

“You think?!”

He took a disk-shaped piece of metal off the back of his neck. This was a communicator.

“Fire the fusion missiles!” he suggested.

Fusion missiles dropped from the sky almost instantly. They were pointed, rod-like, and had tail vanes attached to their backs and dorsal fins on their tops. They were powerful enough to flatten large tracts of land and create lakes, and were primarily used for terraforming. Few life forms, it seemed, could survive them.

However, the Grubbox was one of those few life forms. Squatting for a moment, it looked like it was trying to touch the ground with its mouth. Then it thrust itself into the air with a mighty jump. Horrifically, it soared thousands of feet into the air, practically flying without wings or fuel. The missiles changed their direction, but their downward momentum was too great. Instead of catching their target in midair, they rocketed to the ground a few miles away, harmlessly hitting ruins.

For a moment, the creature disappeared behind some clouds. Then, it came into visibility again, descending from the sky. To those not accustomed to the fact that freely falling objects descend at the same speed regardless of mass or size, its fall looked slow for a creature as big as it was. Frighteningly slow. But slow or not, it eventually landed, slamming onto a half-destroyed pyramidal building a mile away from the Doodas.

“I don’t believe it!” Bitbit blurted.

Virtually unharmed for the entire battle, the Grubbox turned around. Its slit-shaped black pupil contracted, focusing on its prey that was visible to it even from this distance. The Doodas could also see it, but not quite as well. Nonetheless, they knew what was going to happen next.

“What do we do now?!”

“Retreat!” screamed Bitbit.

The Doodas sprint-hopped. They were moving as fast as a Dooda could. However, the debris all over the ground was not conveniently flat, but full of bumps and pointy things like on most battlefields. On their single legs, they easily tripped and fell, only to get up, keep fleeing and then trip and fall again. Their bodies had no bones, luckily. Unluckily, they had exoskeletons that when struck by something particularly sharp got pierced. Hopping on this terrain made it easy for them to break their legs, their arms and their necks, causing them to spill white blood. By the time they moved a hundred feet, a quarter of them were staggering or lying on the ground squirming.

The Grubbox charged. It sure looked like it was far away until one considered that it was a huge creature and its steps were correspondingly huge. The closer it came, the more the floor trembled. The farther the Doodas went, the fewer of them there were. It did not take long for the monster to catch up to them, and without mercy, it stomped. Half of the Doodas were crushed, and the rest of them were toppled by the shuddering ground.

Bitbit scrambled to stand. Instead of fighting to the death that was undoubtedly coming, he continued fleeing. What few Doodas remained did the same.

“Retreat! Retreat!” he yelled as if it made a difference.

The Grubbox observed them for a moment. It was hard to tell whether it was studying them or if it was just watching them suffer. Perhaps it was doing both, or perhaps it was doing more. It was hard to tell, being that the creature had no physical expressions that Doodas could interpret.

After taking its time, it rushed in again. A few booms sounded as it stomped on them. A few steps were all it took to kill them all, like sequoia trees falling on paper machete sculptures. When all was done, Bitbit and the others were but white-colored smears on the fiery wreckage. There were a lot of smears.

The monster surveyed the carnage. In a language that was composed of grotesque grumbled, it spoke. It could be heard for miles, but it did not care.

“Send more hunters. This species will be crushed,” it said.

A spaceship shaped like an isosceles triangle approached from the distance. Made of metal and crystal, it flew over the battlefield. The Grubbox made another tremendous leap, soaring high into the air. Latching its claws onto the bottom of the craft, it climbed inside.

PROLOGUE

April 5, 1982

The only thing Bruce Fowler loved more than having sex with Darleen was smoking weed. Most of his friends would say his priorities were all screwed up, but, of course, none of them were getting laid on a regular basis. Being perpetually horny, it was only natural for those guys to prefer sex over . . . well, just about everything. Not so with Bruce. True, Darleen was a tiger in the sack—by far the best sex he ever had—but as terrific as she was, she simply couldn’t compare to smoking pot. It wasn’t even a close call.

Bruce took his first toke seven years ago, when he was twelve. His older brother, Daryl, was smoking a joint in his room when Bruce barged in unannounced. Daryl asked his kid brother if he wanted to take a hit. Bruce refused. That changed when Daryl called Bruce a chicken. No one called Bruce Fowler a chicken, because Bruce wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything, not even his older brother, who had a reputation for being a tough guy. He grabbed the joint from Daryl’s hand, and before Daryl had time to show him the proper way to smoke marijuana, Bruce took a long, deep hit. The impact was immediate. His throat and lungs burned, he felt slightly dizzy, and his eyes watered, but . . . there was something else happening as well. Something positive, nice, and calming. He had the strangest sensation that he was floating like an angel high above the scene below, looking down at Daryl, who was sitting on the bed laughing at the boldness of his younger brother.