The Dangerous Days of Daniel X Read Free Page B

the next one. Ergent Seth has to go. Now. He’s on a terrible rampage in California.”
    Then I closed my eyes. I took a breath and let it out slowly, and when I opened my eyes again, my mom and dad were gone.
    They were gone because I was the one who created them in the first place. I fashioned them into existence out of my memory—just to run interference with the cops. Like I said, a charade. And a pretty good one too.
    Now you know a little more about me.
    Freaky, huh?
    You have no idea.
    Chapter 7
    HERE’S THE THING that I have to share with you.
    I have these powers, and I don’t know exactly how I got them. I can create things, for example. Like my parents. Of course, technically they’re not my parents. My real parents are dead. My imagined parents are probably just mental projections that I make real.
    And when I say
real,
I mean it. When I manifest my mom and dad, they’re as real as you or me. Right down to their DNA.
    How do I do it? Good question.
    I don’t know the specifics, but what I do know is that at its most microscopic, most subatomic level, everything in the universe—matter, people, the air, all the elements, and even energy—is made up of the same basic materials.
And I was born with a strange ability to rearrange the material at will.
    I know what you might be thinking. I can just snap my fingers and what I want is there, but it’s not really like that. Not at all.
    There’s only so much I can create, for a limited period. I have to be really calm, and concentrate like you wouldn’t believe. If I’m tired or cranky, forget it—it won’t work. Plus there seems to be a mass limit. Or sometimes I seem to run up against a mental block of some kind. One time I tried to create a really cool, flaming red Ferrari, but nothing happened.
    Some things are easy to create. My mom and dad, for one. I do them a lot. When I’m afraid or lonely. They’re like a recipe you’ve done over and over again until you can do it in your sleep.
    I’m pretty fast too. I’m talking about movement now. One time a New Jersey state trooper tried to arrest me for hitchhiking, and as he started to close the cuff on my wrist, I reached out, grabbed his hand, and pulled it forward so fast he actually cuffed himself.
    Oh, and I’ve caught birds. Not slowpokes like chickens either. I plucked a passing sparrow out of the air—gently—just to see if I could. I could.
    I’m strong, especially for someone who’s five ten, 140 pounds. Not strong enough to lift a car, but I could probably flip one in a pinch. I can influence people. Sort of an instant hypnosis type of thing. And I can sometimes tell what’s going to happen before it happens. Like knowing that there were cops at the door.
    But this is the most important part. Life-and-death stuff. Don’t let anybody tell you any different: there
are
aliens on this planet. They’ve been here millions, maybe hundreds of millions of years. They were on the earth before man, even. And most of these creepy-crawlers are seriously homicidal lunatics.
    Number 19 was a horror show and a half—but Number 6, my next target, was actually plotting to change everything about life on Earth. And I don’t mean he was going to bring in universal health care and solve global warming. I’m not talking homicidal, I’m talking
genocidal.
Number 6 wanted to take over Earth and destroy every life-form, then recolonize with freaks from his own planet. That’s why I had to go after Number 6 now, before he got on a roll . . .
    One more thing I need to cover. There might be some good aliens here. I’ve never met one, but hey, never say never, right? The one thing I know to be true, there are definitely bad ones. I don’t think I can stress that part enough.
    But wait a second.
    This is going to blow your mind. It did mine.
    Actually, I have met a good alien.
    In the mirror. In every mirror I look at.
    I’m pretty sure I’m an alien too.
    Chapter 8
    I LEFT PORTLAND, heading south on a