His nose was stubby and bat-like, with wide nostrils that opened and closed as he breathed in and out. Combined with his snow-white skin, it made him look like a vampire from an old horror film, and scored him a very respectable 8 out of 10 on the creepiness scale.
The creature's eyes were thin slits in his face—the pupils black, the irises a deep crimson red—and as they fixed on him, Daryl found himself unable to tear his gaze away.
"I am Hath," the creature said. He stopped then as if expecting some sort of response, but Daryl was way too stunned to give him one. "Do you understand my words, Daryl Elliot?"
Dary Elliot. The voice was a little different, but the way he said Daryl's name sounded exactly the same.
"M-my dad," Daryl said. "You're the one I heard speaking through my dad. And that guy in the van."
"It was the most direct way to warn you," Hath said.
"Warn me?" Daryl said. "You've kidnapped me."
"Come on," said Riley, leaning in. "Do we look like kidnappers?" She glanced up and sideways at Hath, then back to Daryl. "OK, but do I look like a kidnapper?"
"I did not kidnap you, Daryl Elliot," said Hath. "I saved you. We saved you."
"But—"
"All of your questions will be answered, but we have more urgent matters to attend to. Riley, the restraints."
Riley shuffled from foot to foot. "What?" Her eyes went wide and she jumped as if she'd been given an electric shock. "Oh, yeah, right!"
She darted to Daryl's side and unfastened the metal buckles of the leather straps.
As soon as he was free, Daryl rolled off the bed and backed away toward the edge of the platform, to where it dropped down toward the tracks. "Stay away from me," he said. "Both of you. I'm warning you. I can… do things. You've got no idea."
"On the contrary, Daryl Elliot. I know all there is to know about your abilities," Hath said. "I am the one who gave them to you."
"Walked into that one," said Riley. "Am I right?" She held up a hand for a high five. Hath stared at it blankly until she lowered it again.
Riley cleared her throat. "Hath's OK. I mean, yeah, he looks a bit..." She raised her arms, gnashed her teeth, and mimed something monstrous. "But I've been here for days and he hasn't tried to eat me or anything."
She shot Hath a worried look. "You haven't, have you?"
Hath shook his head.
"See?" Riley said. "He's alright."
"And that's how you judge if someone's alright, is it?" Daryl asked. "Whether they try to eat you or not?"
Riley shrugged. "Good a place as any to start." She held out her hand. "Now come on," she said. "You can carry on freaking out like a big girly girl later. There's something you'll want to see first."
Daryl stared. He wasn't sure how long he stared for, exactly, but it felt like quite a long time.
It took him a while to realize that his jaw was hanging open. When he did, he licked his dry lips, cleared his throat and tried to speak, but the words weren't quite ready to come out.
He could feel Riley staring at him, her eyes boring expectantly into the side of his head.
"It's a… It's a…" He shook his head and tried a different approach. "Is that… Is that what I think it is?"
"That depends," Riley replied. "You might think it's, I don't know, a big dog or something."
Daryl frowned. "A big dog?"
"Or something," Riley added. "Which it isn't, by the way. A big dog, I mean."
"Of course I don't think it's a big dog! Why would I think it's a big dog?"
"You tell me," said Riley, slightly accusingly Daryl thought. "It's a spaceship."
"It's a spaceship," agreed Daryl.
"Is that what you thought it was?"
Daryl nodded slowly. "That's what I thought it was."
She patted him lightly on the back. "Then, well done, you."
There could be no mistaking that it was a spaceship. It was long and sleek, with a smoked-glass canopy at the front that looked like a big bulbous bug-eye. It was either silver or black, depending on which angle you looked at it from, and it was roughly the height and width of the mouth of the subway tunnel just a few feet ahead of it.
It had no wings or tailfin or anything like that, and Daryl could almost have believed it was a high-tech bus or boat, were it not for the fact that it was floating.
The whole thing—all fifteen or so feet of it—hovered above the tracks. On the Top Trumps scale, it was definitely a 10 out of 10 for coolness.
"It's a spaceship," Daryl said again. "It's a spaceship."
"Alright, don't milk it," Riley told him. "I said 'well done' what more do you want?"
"It's just… I've never seen a spaceship before."
Excitement blazed behind Riley's eyes. "Actually, you have," she began.
"Not now, Riley," said Hath, stepping between them.
"What do you mean I have?" Daryl asked. "When?"
"All in good time," Hath said.
"No, not all in good time," snapped Daryl. "Now! Now's a good time. I want to know what's going on. What's happening to me? Who were those men? Who… what are you?"
Hath pivoted sharply so he was looming over Daryl. "You have a choice, Daryl Elliot," he said. He hadn't raised his voice, but there was a bite to it that stopped Daryl dead. "I can answer all of your questions later, as I have promised, or I can answer them now.
"But understand this," he continued. "If you choose now, then we will be too late to prevent your seas from being boiled and your lands being blackened and your people being slaughtered in the streets like cattle. Act now, and we may be able to save them. Delay, and we cannot."
He paused, letting his words settle into the silence that followed. "So choose, Daryl Elliot. Choose."
"First one, probably," suggested Riley. She shot Daryl a nervous glance. "You think? First one? I'd say first one, definitely."
"I don't want anyone to die," said Daryl at last.
"Good. And you can save them," Hath said. "You can save everyone. Starting with him."
The alien held up a photograph that had been torn from a magazine. It was a black and white image of a topless teenage boy with stupid spiked-up hair and an irritatingly-smug face that had won the hearts and corrupted the minds of a million young girls around the world. It was a face Daryl didn't think he'd ever tire of punching.
Daryl groaned. "Yeah… you know I said I didn't want anyone to die? He's the exception."
"You have no choice. He is the key," said Hath. "In order to save the world, you must first save Ash Stone."
Seven
"Welcome back, Riley Harper."
The voice chimed from somewhere within the ship, warm and comforting like a friendly aunt. Riley waved enthusiastically at nothing in particular, then turned back toward the door. Daryl stood on the platform beyond it, craning his neck to peer into the dimly-lit ship interior.
"Who said that?" he asked
"That's Yufo," Riley said, as if that explained everything.
"Right. So who's Yufo?"
"The ship. She's sort of alive."
"It isn't alive," said Hath, appearing behind Riley.
"She's sort of alive," Riley insisted.
"No. It isn't. The systems are installed with a rudimentary artificial intelligence interface."
"She didn't have a name, so I called her Yufo," Riley said, ignoring him. "Get it?"
"UFO," Daryl said. "Very good."
"Oh yeah," said Riley. She made gun-shapes with her fingers, pointed them at Daryl, then blushed and shoved her hands in her pockets.
"Come," said Hath. "We do not have much time."
He and Riley moved back. Daryl took a deep breath then stepped inside the ship. He half-expected it to bob up and down as it took his weight, but it didn't give so much as a wobble.
"Welcome back, Daryl Elliot," said Yufo.
Daryl looked up in the direction the voice had come from. "Back?"
"Later," said Hath. He spread his hands wide and
a curve of green light appeared before him. His fingers danced across it like a concert pianist. "We leave at once. Sit down."
The section of the ship they were in was more or less empty, with a thin rubber-like coating on the floor and walls. Other than Hath's holographic keyboard, there was no light source that Daryl could see. Instead, a glow seemed to seep from the fabric of the ship itself, casting a clinically white sheen across the faces of Riley and Hath.
"Sit where?" Daryl asked.
"Anywhere," said Riley. She flopped backward, as if throwing herself onto a bean bag. The floor beneath her bloomed, spreading upward and outward like a flower blossoming in the sun.
She landed in something that looked half like a chair and half like a cupped hand. It shifted like jelly around her as she got comfortable. When she had stopped wriggling, two snakes of the gloopy fabric crossed over her shoulders like a harness, securing her in place.
"See?" Riley said. She raised her feet and the chair extended like a footstool beneath them. "Sit where you like."
Cautiously, Daryl lowered himself into something resembling a sitting position. He waited, crouched, for something to happen.
"You look like you're laying an egg," Riley said. "You might want to come all the way inside. You know, so the door doesn't cut you in half."
Daryl straightened up and walked closer to Riley just as the door swished closed behind him. He crouched again, and this time felt a soft bump as a chair formed beneath him. He sunk down into it and it squidged around his legs like warm sand as it adjusted to the contours of his body.
"Pretty amazing, huh?"
Daryl looked over at Riley, just as his harness wrapped around him like a hug. "Pretty amazing," he agreed.
"And that's nothing. It gets better."
"Better?"
"Or, you know, worse," Riley replied. "Better or worse. Depends on how you feel, really."
Daryl frowned. "How I feel about what?"
Riley slipped her thumbs beneath her harness and held on. "About roller coasters."
There was a lurch. It felt, Daryl thought, like falling in a dream and being jolted awake. His body instinctively kicked out in panic as the sudden acceleration forced him backward into the putty-like grip of the chair.
"I hate roller coaaaasters!" he cried, but his voice came from behind him, as if the ship had already overtaken the words, leaving them trailing in its wake.
Hath stood upright, perfectly balanced, his hands continuing their complex dance across the controls. He gestured to the left and the ship turned sharply. A high-pitched scream emerged from the back of the ship. It took Daryl a moment to realize it was coming from him.
He snapped his mouth shut and shot Riley an embarrassed glance, but she had her hat pulled down over her eyes, and if she'd heard anything she wasn't letting on.
With another motion from Hath the ship banked to the right, squashing Daryl deeper into the chair.
"S-slow down!" he urged.
"Impossible," said Hath, not looking up from his controls. "We would hit a train."
"Train? What do you mean? Don't tell me we're—"
The ship swung left at Hath's command. "We are traveling through almost twenty-five miles of underground tunnel. I have calculated the necessary timing and velocity to avoid collision."
Daryl squirmed nervously. "How do you know where all the trains are?"
"I have studied the timetable."
"What?" Daryl yelped, almost bursting a blood vessel in his head. "But what if the timetable's wrong? What if they're running late?"
Hath looked up, but didn't turn around. "That," he said, "had not occurred to me."
Daryl's face went pale. "Oh God, I'm going to die."
"Hey, look on the bright side," said Riley, her voice muffled. "If we do crash we'll take a whole subway train out with us!"
"How is that a bright side?"
Riley pulled her hat up to show her face. "It isn't. I just thought it might make you feel better. Did it?"
"Of course it didn't!"
"Well, that's good. If it had you'd be a terrible person."
The ship rolled suddenly to the left, and both Daryl and Riley grabbed for their straps. Even Hath was forced to adjust his stance as Yufo hurtled around another bend then raced into a straightaway.
"Exiting tunnel in seventeen seconds," the ship's voice chimed.
"Oh, thank God," Daryl sighed, letting his head slump onto the back of the chair.
"Unexpected train impact in thirteen seconds."
"What?!" Riley spluttered.
"Tell me I didn't hear that!" Daryl cried.
"Visuals," Hath barked, and the whole ship shimmered.
Daryl looked over at the closest wall. He could make out faint shadows beyond it, almost like the ship was made of smoky glass that let him—
The ship vanished. It took a split-second for Daryl to realize he could now see the walls of the subway tunnel racing by just a couple of feet away.
He looked down. There was the track, hurtling by beneath them in a furious blur of metal and concrete.
Up ahead, past Hath—who now looked to be floating in mid-air—he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and a narrow semi-circle of the London skyline.
And just beyond the exit, he could see a train charging toward them, the sunlight glinting off its silver shell.
"Reverse!" he bellowed. "Hath! Train! Reverse!"
Daryl glanced at Riley. Her hat was pulled all the way down to her chin now, one hand holding it in place while the other held onto her harness for dear life.
And up ahead the train clacked and clanged and rumbled toward them.
"Hath! Stop!"
Hath adjusted his stance, like a boxer getting ready to fight. He thrust both hands in front of him, fingers fanned wide. The ship shot toward the light. Daryl felt his stomach hit his spine and gasped as the g-force pressed like thumbs against his eyeballs.
He heard Hath mutter something about timetables, but the words came as snatches of sound that whistled past his ears. The tunnel walls blurred by like liquid. Riley was singing beneath her hat. And the train was almost on them, right ahead, dead ahead, too close, too close!
Hath raised one arm and the ship climbed steeply and spun at the same time. Metal ground against stone and Daryl ducked as sparks sprayed all around him, before realizing the sparks were on the outside of the transparent ship.
Sunlight flooded the interior as, below them, the train thundered into the tunnel. With a complex series of gestures, Hath slowed the ship and put it on an even keel.
Daryl looked down at the floor and wished immediately that he hadn't. The whole of London was spread out below them like a living map, and with the entire ship invisible his every instinct told him he was about to fall to a messy death.
"The floor," he spluttered. "P-put the floor back."
"End visuals," said Hath. The sky rippled then vanished as the walls returned.
Riley lifted her hat just enough for one eye to peek out. It swiveled up, down, left, right, then fixed on Daryl.
"Did we die?"
Daryl swallowed. "Let me get back to you on that."
"Engage autopilot," said Hath.
"Autopilot engaged, Commander. Arrival in twenty-six minutes."
Hath strode across to where Riley and Daryl sat.
"You nearly killed us!" Daryl snapped.
"We were never in danger," Hath said. "This ship would have cut through that train like it was made of butter. We would have been quite unharmed."
"But everyone on the train would have been dead!"
"Which is why you'll notice I avoided hitting it," Hath said, impatiently. "Now, we don't have much time. You must get dressed."
"Dressed?"
"Yes," said Hath. He looked down at Daryl's gym shorts and torn T-Shirt. "You'll require something a little more… bulletproof."
Eight
Daryl and Riley stood side-by-side, staring at the matching outfits ha
nging in front of them. They were bright red, with a pattern of black stripes that crisscrossed all over the fabric.
The material itself reminded Daryl of drawings he'd seen in Biology of people without their skin. Fibers stood out across the surface, giving the outfit the appearance of exposed muscle.
"Subtle," said Riley. She gave her costume an experimental prod. "What is that? Meat?"
"It is an organic biopolymer harvested upon the moon of Tarn," Hath said.
Riley nodded. She touched the outfit again. "I'm pretty sure it's meat."
"Well it isn't," Hath snapped.
"Will they fit?" Daryl asked.
"Yes. I visited you both recently and took your measurements while you slept."
"OK," Daryl muttered, "well that's not creepy at all."
"Put them on," Hath told them. "We shall be arriving in a few minutes."
Daryl took the outfit off the hook and looked around. They were in a smaller room at the back of the ship, but it was just as bare as the one they'd come from.
"Is there a changing room or…?"
Hath's bat-like nostrils flared wider.
"You're standing in it," he said. He marched to the door. "Two minutes. Be ready."
The door swished closed behind him, leaving Daryl and Riley alone. They shot one another an uncomfortable look.
"So," Daryl said.
"So," said Riley. "So, so, so." She clicked her fingers several times, then stopped abruptly. "This is awkward."
"We'll just turn around," Daryl suggested. "You look that way, I'll look this way, and we won't turn round until we're ready."
"That could work," Riley agreed.
Daryl nodded. He realized he hadn't actually stopped nodding since Hath had left the room. He forced his head to stay still. "OK, then."
"OK," said Riley.
They turned back to back and walked a couple of paces forward, as if they were taking part in some pistols-at-dawn type duel to the death. The room was small, though, and they were still much closer than Daryl would have liked when they started to get undressed.
He heard the zip of Riley's jeans and the rustle of the denim as she slid them off. He was dimly aware of his heart beating faster as he hurriedly kicked off his trainers, then pushed down his gym shorts and stepped out of them.
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