Out of this World

by Katrina Kahler

  Zeekee smiled. “You are prettier than any body of water!”

  “Thanks,” I said. I felt my cheeks blush. I turned away from him so he couldn’t see.

  Zeekee took my hand. I let him. “You know Lia, I like you. You are special to me.”

  I giggled. Yeah, not the most mature response, but this guy was getting to me. I turned to look him in the eyes. “I like you too. But we’re just getting to know each other.”

  “Yes, but I can sense we will have a great relationship,” Zeekee said. “Do you feel it too?”

  I nodded. “I think so. But it’s like I said…we only just met.”

  Zeekee smiled. “We will have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

  Okay, a part of my brain started yelling…Alert, Alert! Something is not right here. But a bigger, dumber part of my brain said, Be quiet, this is fun. OMG, a very cute alien boy likes me!

  “So you like it here on Earth?” I asked, my gaze still locked on his.

  He shook his head. “Oh no. Not at all.”

  My body started to tingle. Like each separate cell had come to life and wanted to leap up. My body became engulfed in a blue orb. I felt an even bigger tingle. Everything blurred.

  The next thing I knew, I found myself in the middle of a spaceship. I was standing on a round platform and trapped in by bars of yellow energy. I knew I was in space because looking out through the ship's transparent walls, I saw Earth below me.

  Oh, this was bad. There were five pale skinned people around me. Four of them were short and stocky bald men wearing green uniforms. They growled at me. The four men stood in front of a tall, commanding woman with bright green hair. She wore an elegant purple dress.

  Zeekee ran over to the tall woman. “I have done it, Mother. I have brought you Lia of Earth.”

  The woman smiled and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Very good, my son!”

  “I’ve learned there are others like her on Earth,” Zeekee said. “But she is the most special, their leader.”

  “Yes, we will start with her.” the tall woman stated firmly. “We can always come back for the others, in time. Once we learn what we need to learn.”

  “Zeekee, how could you do this to me?” I gasped.

  Zeekee stared back at me. “Lia, I do like you and I find you interesting. But I love my planet and will do whatever it takes to protect it.”

  “Huh?” was all I could say.

  The tall woman walked past Zeekee and the other men. She stood between us. “I will explain it, son.” Looking directly at me, she spoke, “I am High Leader, Zela.” She pointed to the stocky bald guys, “These are my personal guards, Alpha, Beta, Omega, and Harold. You, Lia Strong, have been deemed an enemy of our planet ZZZ-333.”

  “Ah, lady, I didn’t even know about your planet until your son here came to me.”

  “Ignorance is no excuse!” she shouted. “Your powers threaten us! That is why we had to prepare for you, make you let your defenses down!”

  Wow, it had worked! Man, I had let them sucker me in. I still couldn’t believe that Zeekee would do this to me.

  Zeekee walked up to the enclosed space that had become my prison. “Don’t worry, you will like our planet. You will have plenty of time to get to know me and appreciate me.”

  I curled my hands into a fist. “So, I get no say in this?”

  “Of course not,” Zela laughed. “You may be super, but your brain is unable to handle such power. That is why we will drain you of your power. At least most of it. Once I have your power in me, if you act civilized, we will return you to your planet.”

  I pleaded with Zeekee. “Zeekee, how could you take me away from my family and friends?”

  He shrugged. “Well, your mom works a lot, she will get used to life without you. Your father left you for many Earth years, I doubt he will miss you much. Your friends, Jason, Lori, Marie, and Steve will miss you a bit, but they will find others to replace the time they spent with you. Human teens leave for college all the time. Think of this as a way to get your education.”

  Ouch! That stung a bit. Some of it hit home, especially the part about Dad. But I knew they wanted to play mind games with me.

  “College is a choice. This is not my choice,” I stated slowly.

  Zeekee nodded. “I guess, but the stuff you will learn on our planet is far greater than anything you will learn in college. Believe me, you will thank me later.”

  I thought about what he had said for a second. Could this be a good thing? I’d get to experience something no other person on Earth could. I took a deep breath to clear my head.

  Nope, this was not a good thing. Time for me to end this now! I reached out at the yellow beams that acted as bars. They pushed my hand back, sending a shock that jolted through my body. It didn’t really hurt but my hand could not pass through the bars.

  “Our prisons adapt to the strength of the being they are holding,” Zela told me with a laugh. “There is no way you can escape.”

  Okay, time to evaluate my options. I had my holographic earring and MAC communicator, but no uniform. I didn’t dare look at my watch to see if MAC had alerted my friends, but I felt pretty sure he had. Of course, I had no idea how they’d get to outer space. That meant, even if my friends knew what had happened to me, I’d still be on my own. But wait, no uniform meant no nano deodorant bots. These aliens needed to breathe oxygen just like regular people.

  I lifted my arms up over my head to yawn. I placed my hands on my forehead, keeping my underarms exposed and pointing out at the aliens. Zeekee staggered back, holding his throat. He fell forward.

  “Serves you right!” I said.

  “Ah, that stench…” one of the bald men frowned with disgust.

  His face turned green to match the color of his uniform. He dropped to the ground. In fact, all the guards around him fell over.

  I pointed my armpit at Zela, giving her a good blast. She staggered then fell over.

  “You are lucky the ship is on autopilot,” MAC told me. “This has kept the ship in Earth’s orbit.”

  “Yeah, crashing a spaceship to Earth would be bad,” I admitted.

  I noticed Zela starting to move. She pushed herself up from the ground. “Impressive, girl!” she said. “But my system is stronger than my people! I am their leader, after all.” She pointed at my wrist. “I see my silly son forgot that you have a computer on your wrist. It can’t help you while you are trapped in my cage! You cannot break the energy beams! They have no physical form!”

  I drew a deep breath. Some situations call for jumping into action. Some call for thinking, then jumping. Jumping! That was the key. Sure, the bars were made of energy, but the pad at the bottom of the cell seemed to be made of some sort of metal. Being metal, I bet I could smash it.

  I jumped up and slammed my feet down on the pad, leaving a dent in it. The energy bars started to fizzle and fade.

  “Stop that!” Zela ordered. “That’s a really expensive piece of equipment!”

  “Not for long!” I told her.

  I slammed my right foot down.

  BAM! The crack grew.

  I slammed my left foot down.

  POW! The pad split into two.

  The energy bars fizzled out. I leaped out of the cage at Zela.

  “Okay, Zela, it’s you and me now!” I told her.

  Zela faded away.

  “Silly, Earthling fool. That was a hologram!” I heard from behind me.

  I turned. Zela punched me in the jaw. She pulled her fist back. I could see it throbbing red.

  “Now who’s silly?” I asked.

  I lifted her off the ground with a finger. “If I were you, I’d give up!” I told her.

  “I’m a leader! I do not give up!” She said, her green eyes almost turning red. “You will surrender to me!”

  “Ah, lady, I have the upper hand here. I’ve knocked out all your people. I’m about to clobber you. There’s not much you can do to hurt me!”

  “Not y
ou, but the people you love!” she said. “SHIP! I ORDER YOU TO CRASH INTO STARLIGHT CITY!” she shouted.

  “Order acknowledged!” The ship said.

  I felt the ship start to move.

  “Surrender to me, Lia Strong of Earth or all your loved ones are doomed!”

  Dear Diary: Yikes! Yikes!! Yikes!!! I let my guard down because of a handsome face. Man, my mistake big time. That got me captured aboard a spaceship. Okay, nobody can say I don’t have an exciting life! But this was too much excitement. Now, the crazy alien lady wants me to surrender to her or she will crash her ship into Earth. You know, right now I could certainly use a little boring

  End this Mess

  I had to do something and fast. The problem was I had no idea how to stop a spaceship (that I was in), from colliding with Earth. My only hope was to reason with the crazy alien lady who wanted to crash that spaceship.

  “Ah, Zela, crashing your ship and killing yourself isn’t the best way to get me to work with you!”

  Zela thrust a finger in my face. “I have no interest in working WITH you. I want you to do as I order.” She started tapping her foot. “Ship, how long until you crash into Earth?”

  “Two earth minutes,” the ship replied.

  Zela laughed. “You don’t have much time to cooperate. You can’t win. You either come with me or I destroy all you love!”

  “Including yourself and your people,” I pointed out.

  Zela laughed louder. “Just a small price to pay for stopping the threat you pose to us.”

  “I repeat! This crash won’t stop me!”

  Zela stopped laughing, she leaned into me, her breath smelled like sour lemons. “You are a hero. You know you can’t let your friends and your city be destroyed. You will give in to me. I will win!”

  At least a million thoughts raced through my brain. And I didn’t like any of them. I couldn’t let this mad lady destroy my town. I WAS a hero, and heroes have to be willing to make sacrifices.

  I took a deep breath. “Stop, your ship.” I put my hand over my heart. “I will go back to your planet with you so you can drain my powers.”

  Zela sneered. “I so love….”

  She froze in place.

  “Not so fast, strange, nasty, alien lady!” I heard from behind me.

  Tanya, Jason, Jessie and little Ellie Mae Opal appeared on the ship. Ellie Mae wore a ruby red costume and mask.

  She smiled. “Wow, I’ve never teleported into space before.”

  “And I’ve never frozen an alien space ship in time before,” Tanya said.

  “How’d you find me?” I asked.

  Jason pointed to MAC on my wrist. “GPS locator, of course. It works in space. As long as you are close enough to Earth.” Jason looked at Zeekee laying there out cold on the floor. “I see his intentions were less than honorable.” That was as close as Jason ever came to saying, ‘I told you so.’

  I sighed. “Yes.” I took a deep breath. “His planet fears my power, so they want to drain me of that power. Zeekee’s mom, Zela, wants me to surrender to them or she will crash her ship into Earth. So we need to figure out how to turn this spaceship around!”

  Jason nodded. “That is so uncool! But yeah, we tracked the ship and figured out that they want to crash it.” He turned to Jessie. “That’s why Jessie is here.”

  Jessie grinned. “I can banish this spaceship into another dimension!”

  “No, you can’t!” I exclaimed.

  Jessie nodded. “Pretty sure I can!”

  I shook my head. “I mean, let’s try to find another way first. I want to show them they have nothing to fear from me. Or from any other super teens!” I glanced at the still sleeping Zeekee. Sure, he had used me. Sure, he had hurt me. But it couldn’t have been all fake! Could it? I pointed to Zeekee. “Let’s see if we can get him to turn this around.”

  Tanya shrugged. “The creepy alien kid?”

  “Yes,” I said, walking over to him. “And he’s cute in a different way, not creepy.”

  “I vote creepy and sort of cute,” Jessie said.

  “He’s different looking,” Ellie added.

  I bent down and gave Zeekee a shake. “Wake up, dude,” I ordered.

  He laid there like a log.

  I shook him. “Hey, Zeekee! Rise and shine!” I shouted.

  His eyelids squeaked open. “Ah, did you get the ID number of the space bus that crashed on me?”

  “That’s not important,” I said. “What’s important is that your mom wants to crash your ship into my planet, which will destroy my city and all of you.”

  Zeekee’s eyes crept open a little more. “Oh, that is not good.” He sat up. “My mom really likes to get her way….” His eyes popped open. “Why aren’t we moving?” he asked.

  “Trade secret,” Tanya told him. “But we can’t keep this up for long. Manipulating time and space for too long can be more dangerous than crashing a spaceship into Earth.”

  I helped Zeekee to his feet. “Can you override the computer?” I asked.

  He patted himself on the chest. “I am a computer genius!” he said.

  I sighed. Suddenly I found it hard to believe that I had actually liked this guy. And not just because he space nabbed me and wanted to drain me of my powers. Okay, that was a big reason.

  “Computer, show me the controls!” Zeekee ordered.

  “Passcode,” the computer asked.

  “One, two, three,” Zeekee said.

  “Confirmed!” the computer beamed.

  A holographic control panel appeared next to Zeekee.

  “Wait…one two three?” Jason asked, frowning and shaking his head, “That’s a terrible passcode.”

  “Big picture here, Jason,” I said.

  Zeekee shrugged. “My mom has a really bad memory.” Zeekee ran his hands up and down the control panel. “I’ve programmed the ship to return to ZZZ-333.”

  “Great!” I said.

  Jason stepped forward. “Yeah, but what prevents you from coming back to Earth and trying this all over again?” Jason always had my back.

  Zeekee looked Jason in the eyes. “My word.”

  Jason shook his head. “Dude, your word doesn’t mean a whole lot to us anymore.”

  Zeekee lowered his head. “Yes, I understand. I lied to you all. I misled Lia.” His eyes found mine, even though his head was still lowered. “But I do truly care about you, Lia. I would not let my mom harm you, by harming people you love.”

  “But you’d let her drain my powers?” I asked.

  “Draining would allow you to live your life as a normal person. I thought you might find that to be acceptable…”

  Jason made a fist and walked up to Zeekee. “That wasn’t your decision to make!” he frowned angrily.

  He lifted Zeekee off the ground with one hand. A pleased grin appeared on his face. “Okay, this exoskeleton is so cool!”

  Zeekee nodded. “You are correct on both terms.” He pointed to the floor. “Please put me down. I am cooperating. I will open up a wormhole to our planet. And we will leave and never come back to bother you.”

  “I still don’t think we can trust you!” Jason glared at Zeekee and lifted him higher in the air.

  “You have my word. When my mother, our leader, Zela sees how easily you defeated us, yet you let us go, she will understand you are no longer a threat.”

  “I trust him,” I said.

  “If Lia trusts him, I do too,” Ellie said.

  Tanya shrugged. “Whatever. If they attack Earth again, I’ll just reverse them through time until they don’t exist.”

  “Or I can turn them all into toilet paper,” Jessie said. “Now that would be fun.”

  Jess may be cool but she certainly had “issues”.

  Zeekee gulped. “I understand!”

  I nodded to Jason. He let Zeekee drop to the ground. “Finish your calculations,” Jason ordered. He turned to Ellie, “We need you to port us out.”

  Ellie nodded. “Got it!”
/>   Jason eyed Zeekee carefully.

  Two of Zela’s guards started to stir awake. I cracked my arm up, aiming my underarm at them. They both dropped back down to the ground, face first. I lowered my arm and sniffed myself. Whoa, that packed quite the wallop.

  “Zokay,” Zeekee said. “The course is laid in. I can get us back to our planet now.” He gazed at me. “I promise that if we ever return, it will be in peace.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Not falling for that twice!”

  Zeekee nodded. “I understand.”

  Jason pointed to Ellie. She brought her hands together, then opened them wide. A large glowing sphere appeared. It was quickly increasing in size. Looking into the sphere we could see Star Pond.

  “Okay, everybody in!” Ellie said.

  Tanya snapped her fingers. Zela started to move.

  “What’s going on….”

  She never got to finish as I waved my foot under her nose. Even with my shoes on, the odor still dropped her. “Now that’s power!” I told her unconscious body.

  Tanya and Jessie disappeared into the sphere.

  Jason took my hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  I walked into the sphere without even looking back at Zeekee.

  We arrived at Star Pond, Ellie by our side. “Phew, that took a lot out of me,” she said. “I am just a kid, after all.”

  “Are they leaving?” I asked.

  Jason pointed up to the sky. We saw a bright ball of energy. The energy whisked off. “Yep.”

  “So, do we have to take them at their word that they will never come back?” Ellie asked. “I know I’m just a kid, but gee, I don’t trust ‘em.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes Ellie, we have to trust the other side.”

  Jessie snickered. “Trust is all fine and good and all that jazz, but I zapped their minds.”

  “You did what?” I asked.

  “I magically removed all thoughts of our planet from their alien minds. You might not have wanted me to banish them, but I banished the thoughts from them. I hope that’s okay,” Jessie said.