“Now what?” Mark asked anxiously. “Do I have the power?”
“Strange.” Why didn’t anything happen? “It usually drains your energy. Kind of puts you in a sleepy state.” Patrick took the orb back, the purple still pulsing. “Try to change into something, you really have to focus.”
“Alright, like what?” Mark looked at Patrick, confusion written across his face.
“Go for something simple, like a dog?”
“That, I can do!”
Silence hung in the air between them, the clock ticking the seconds away in the background. With each second that passed, Patrick grew more and more worried as nothing happened. The transformation process had been much quicker for everyone else.
“Well, you trying?”
“Yeah, I’m trying!” Mark slapped the ground with both hands. “Nothing is happening! It has to be broken.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong. It worked fine for me. Maybe it’s been used too much? Needs to recharge or something?”
“Or maybe this is just typical Patrick. Selfish as always. Whatever, man. Keep the powers all to yourself.”
“For real? Come on, Mark. That’s not it. Why wouldn’t I want to share this with you? I’ll talk to Flupotia, find out why it isn’t working.” Patrick was baffled, with no idea where this attitude was coming from.
“Go ahead, ask your new girlfriend. Clearly, she means more to you than I do.” Mark stared defiantly at Patrick. “You gave her the power.”
And there it was. Patrick had always felt Mark was a little jealous of him. Patrick was always doing at least a few points better on tests, ran faster, struck out less, had newer clothes, was going to an Ivy league school in the fall. But for some reason, Mark never noticed that Patrick was jealous of him. Of his carefree attitude and approach to life. But now, Patrick had been the one to find this power. Patrick had been the one to make contact with aliens, and Mark couldn’t contain his jealousy any longer.
“Mark, don’t be like that. I honestly don’t know what’s going on with the orb.”
“Whatever man. I’m leaving.”
Patrick went to reach out and stop Mark but was too slow. He was out the door, slamming it hard behind him before Patrick had even gotten off his bed. The whole interaction had left a bad taste in his mouth. Despite knowing that Mark felt overshadowed at times, he had never blown up like this. Patrick needed to know what was going on with the orb and try to fix his relationship with Mark.
He got dressed and made his way downstairs where he found Flupotia in the kitchen with his father, sharing stories about life on Pluto. He was staring in wonder, having always been something of a sci-fi fanatic. Not wanting to take the moment away from him, Patrick meandered around the kitchen, getting and serving himself breakfast as they talked. Finally, Hugo realized his son was in the room and his time was up. He left the kitchen, mussing Patrick's hair on the way out. Flupotia smiled and blushed.
“Good morning, Flupotia,” Patrick's voice cracked as he near screamed the words. Calming himself, he continued, “sleep well?”
“I ended up on the floor actually. That mattress was far too soft. But I appreciate the gesture, your Mother is a very nice person.” She smiled at Patrick. “You seem off. Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, I actually had some questions for you. I think we broke the orb.”
“Broke the orb?” She laughed at the absurdity of it. “Doubtful. While small in size, that orb was forged thousands of years ago by magic none of us could comprehend. There is no mention in history of it being broken, and I doubt there ever will be.”
“Okay, but it isn’t working. It’s like it’s run out of juice. I tried to give Mark the power, but it wouldn’t work for him.”
“I see.” Flupotia pushed the food in front of her around the plate, not sure how to continue. “If that’s the case, there is nothing wrong with the orb. You see, when you were able to steal the orb from King Flaca’s base, you became the new owner. Up until that point, his people had held it. When you arrived at the orb, it was able to see the great obstacles you had overcome to get there. Because of all of that, it recognized you as the new owner. Had the King just handed you the orb, as you did to Mark, it would never have given you the power. There is a sort of built-in defense system to protect its owner. It will only share its power with those it knows are going to aid its owner. Which is why it never would have worked for you had you simply been handed it. It’s ironic when you think about it. The King thought he was protecting his orb with all his guardians when he was really just putting tests in place for you to prove your worth.” She laughed silently, shaking her head. “I digress. If the King handed you the orb, it would have analyzed your soul and seen you as a threat to the King. The power would have been withheld from you. The same thing must have happened to Mark. It saw his as a threat to you for some reason. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Patrick sat there, mouth agape, staring at Flupotia. He could not accept that Mark was a threat to him.
“Mark would never hurt me! He wanted to help. None of this makes any sense.”
“I’m sorry to be the one to drop this on you, but it’s the way the orb works. It’s not up to you or me to make sense of all of this. Mark may have never intentionally hurt you, but in some way, he would have jeopardized your wellbeing. So the orb held back its power. The King used this to weed out dissension amongst his followers. I can’t even tell you how many infiltrations were stopped, or how many insurgency groups crushed because of this power. It was something of a test in the army. If the King felt he could no longer trust you, for any reason, you were handed the orb. If you didn’t get the power, well, you were good as dead. If you did get the power though, it strengthened your position in the army for sure.”
“It can’t be true. How can you possibly know all of this? Maybe it just doesn’t work for some people, doesn’t mean they’re against the orbs master? Maybe there’s another reason behind it all that your king didn’t understand.” Patrick was racking his brain for an explanation. “I was hesitant to share the power! After what happened with Flee, maybe that’s it?”
“I don’t think so, Patrick. And I’m sorry, but you have to believe me. I don’t know why it wouldn’t give him the power, but there had to be a good reason behind it. It has nothing to do with your hesitation. And now, if he’s truly gone then you don’t have to worry about whatever harm he was going to cause you.”
“Well then, how about I try it on someone else now? Someone like my Dad, he would never be against my cause!”
“If you think that’s wise, I won’t stop you. But your father is still incredibly shaken up and weak. He’s been through a lot, and so has your mother.”
“Fine, but I need someone. I just can’t believe what you’re saying.”
“What about your brother? Your father mentioned him, is he around?”
Patrick’s heart panged with sadness. “He’s on a mission with the military. We have no idea where he is, or when he’s coming home. None of us do.”
“Well, then.” Flupotia struggled to recover. “We’ll just have to think of someone else.”
Patrick could think of no one else he trusted enough to share this power with. But he also couldn’t accept what the Orb and Flupotia were telling him. Flupotia, looking to get away from the awkward silence, made her way to the den where Gin-us and Hugo were now watching TV. Well, Gin-us was watching TV, Hugo appeared more interested in watching Gin-us. As they entered, Gin-us waved them over and turned the TV volume up a few notches. On the TV stood a newscaster, outside the local police department.
“There have been no updates from the Police Department at this time. Now, we have confirmed eight missing persons so far, with no discernable connection. The first is Johnny Puzito, the Manager at the local donut shop was noted as missing yesterday morning when he did not open for business. The second confirmed is Scarlett Bertran, she went missing sometime overnight from the Nursing Home off Ginger L
ane. The Mayor noted his assistant, Lucas Durand, has not shown up today for work. There are four middle school students, Jacob McNally, Anna Ragnar, Bruce Hill, and Emily Carne.” The reporter paused to catch his breath. “Finally, the Elementary School Librarian, Brenda White and a teacher at the High School, Mr. Rev. We will continue to report out as Police…”
Everyone in the room stopped hearing the story as Mr. Rev’s face flashed up on the screen. Gin-us pulled the stack of photos from his pocket and began flipping through them. He made two piles on the table in front of him. The pile on the left were faces he recognized from the news story, and by the time he finished going through the photos, they were all accounted for. The pile on the right contained about a dozen more photos, revealing the aliens still left in hiding. Gin-us, Flupotia, and Patrick were all stuck, unsure of how to leverage this information.
“Hey,” Hugo interrupted their brainstorming, “look at this!”
He pointed to the TV, where the news had transitioned back to the anchor in the newsroom. He was reporting a story about the zoo two towns over, which had apparently come under fire recently for misplacing a few animals. The story, however, was not what had grabbed Hugo’s attention. Sitting on the coffee table in front of them was a picture of the very same newscaster.
“Well then,” Flupotia said with a sly smirk, “that is something we can work with.”
The team quickly set about formulating a plan. Flupotia confirmed that the ‘humans’ must be missing because the aliens were slowly losing their power. With this in mind, there was no time to waste. There was no telling what lengths any of the aliens would go to in order to keep their identities hidden.
The best the team could come up with was sending Gin-us to the newsroom to keep an eye on that reporter. He was the key to exposing everything. Patrick and Flupotia were going to head back to the alien base and retrieve all the prisoners. Showing up on live TV with all the missing persons was sure to grab attention.
“This has to work, right?” the doubt in Patrick’s voice was hard to mask.
“They’ll have a hard time disputing the evidence. You got this son.”
“Alright then, let’s get this done.”
Gin-us borrowed one of Hugo’s hoodies, pulling the hood strings tight. If nobody looked hard enough, you couldn’t even tell he wasn’t human. Gin-us was well aware that at some point he would have to transform again and sneak inside the newsroom, but wanted to hold out as long as possible.
As Gin-us made his exit, Patrick ran upstairs to change out of his pajamas. Flupotia waited downstairs, watching the news with great interest. Patrick hardly stopped as he came down the stairs, giving Flupotia just enough time to holler a goodbye to his parents as they ran out the door.
◆◆◆
Mark kicked the back of his door after slamming it shut. Patrick. That was all he could think about. He made his way over to his desk, stepping over piles of clean and dirty clothes. With the anger bubbling inside of him he looked at his desk and the shelf above, filled with dozens of hardened clay objects. The one thing I actually like doing and I’m still not even that good.
Without another thought, Mark picked up a mug with a misshaped handle and tossed it across the room. With a satisfying crash, shattered bits of clay flew from the impact littering his room.
Patrick. He picked up another piece, this time an oblong plate crash. Stupid powers. This time it was a bowl that leaked crash. Alien girlfriend, a vase he had meant to give a girl at school crash. Ivy league school another mug crash. Mark continued until his desk and the shelf above it was emptied of his art projects.
He isn’t going to get away with treating me like this.
◆◆◆
XIV: Reinforcements
Flupotia and Patrick headed into the woods to the alien base watching the sun disappear on the horizon. Dark clouds were starting to roll in as a storm began to brew, racing them to their destination. Normally, Patrick wasn’t disturbed by thunderstorms, he actually found them relaxing. He would sit with his father by the window, watching the lightning strike, trying to predict where the next would hit. But with everything going on, the storm seemed to carry bad omens with it.
The first raindrops began to fall as they reached the aliens base, the ominousness of the storm confirmed. The clearing was no longer home to just two spaceships. There was now a small fleet of them, five to be exact, waiting to greet them.
Somehow, a distress signal had been sent. With no idea of how long they had been there, or how many of them there were, Patrick and Flupotia slowed their pace. Moments before they had been filled with feelings of determination and hope. That feeling had since dissipated, replaced with fear and dread.
“I thought they weren’t going to call for reinforcements?” Patrick turned to Flupotia, crouched in the bushes next to him.
“I honestly didn’t think they would.” Flupotia almost looked offended. “Apparently they swallowed their pride and proved me wrong.”
“Any idea what we’ll be walking into?”
“No real way to tell. But we can’t waste any more time, we have to get in there and figure this out.”
“Ladies first?” Patrick tried sarcastically.
“I insist, after you.” She motioned with one hand while pulling the branches back with the other.
Patrick left their cover and made his way to the tunnel entrance, no longer hidden, but fully exposed. As they made their way down the staircase, they could hear whisperings in the room ahead. There was still no way to tell how many voices there were, or what they were talking about, so they pushed forward. The two crept forward slowly until they were finally in earshot. Patrick mustered his courage and peered around a corner, finding a small group of aliens arguing. Imprisoned around them were all the captured humans and Patrick’s army. But at least, Patrick thought, everyone is still alive.
“Who has the orb?!” One of the aliens was shouting at the rest. “I am done playing games with you. If I don’t bring that orb back with me, I am as good as dead! Almost none of us can transform anymore! The King is absolutely furious; he demands an answer as to why the magic is leaving his army so quickly. And I know one of you has the orb!” He paused to look at the crowd around him, consisting of both prisoners and aliens. “Now, I would like for someone to tell me where it is before I have to start making a mess in here, killing one of you at a time until I get answers!”
Whoever this guy was, he was clearly furious with the aliens on Earth. Flupotia tapped Patrick on the shoulder, and they both started to back away, needing a better plan of attack. Running in, powers blazing was not going to work this time. The aliens and all the innocent prisoners were too close to each other. They found an empty cell at the end of a dark hallway and began to form a plan.
“Good news is, they can’t transform anymore,” Flupotia started. “Appears the power is wearing off faster than I thought it would.”
“I just hope that news reporter can hold his transformation long enough for us to get back. I’d hate for Gin-us to have to…”
Patrick didn’t get to finish his sentence as something hard and blunt connected with the back of his head. He saw the ground rush up to meet him as stars flew around his head. Flupotia received a similar blow to the head, a trickle of blood already flowing from the wound. Patrick groaned and tried to stand up, but another blow came flying from the dark.
◆◆◆
Gin-us had managed to get inside the newsroom without great difficulty. He had transformed into a small bug and entered through some heating ducts. Once inside, he found the staff lounge, which thankfully had some clothes that fit, albeit very loosely.
Once dressed, Gin-us began making his way around the studio. It didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for, the newscasters dressing room. Hiding in a closet, he again transformed into a small bug, leaving his clothes in a pile.
It wasn’t until late afternoon that the newscaster came stumbling into the dressing room. If Gin-us
didn’t know any better, he would have thought the alien was drunk. But as he watched, he saw that the alien was struggling to keep his human form. His skin color was fluctuating rapidly, his hair was sprouting and shrinking in different spots, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the chair.
“No, no, no.” The alien was sweating profusely as he lost what little hold he had left over the power. “This is not good.”
Gin-us knew the time for action was upon him. He flew from the closet and transformed in the air as he slammed into the alien.
◆◆◆
The following moments were a blur for Patrick and Flupotia. A small group of aliens dragged them both from the room, separating them into individual cells. They were both restrained and left to come back around.
Patrick's head cleared first, and he found himself sitting in a room very similar to the one he had spent his first days underground in. There was someone in the room with him, still just a blurry figure on the edge of his vision.
“You finally coming back around?” Patrick recognized the deep voice as the alien who had been yelling in the hallway earlier. “Well, it’s about time. I was starting to get worried we might have gone a little hard on you. I want you to know, we are going to question the girl as well. If your stories don’t line up, well you can use your imagination to finish that sentence. Now, I want to know, where is the orb?”
The Birth of a Rebellion Page 19