Chapter 53
I’D NOTICED THAT every time Number 7 and Number 8’s cloud attacked me, it first had oriented its four eyes at me. Its eyes! In other words, it was finding me by sight. If the cloud couldn’t find me by sight, I might just gain some sort of advantage or, at least, a chance to live.
The next step was effortless. I filled the entire GC Tower lobby with something relatively easy to understand and create: mirrored glass. With a quick sweep of my arms, I converted the sleek obsidian ground floor of the building into a giant carnival fun house.
The fun part was that Number 7 and Number 8 didn’t see just me; they saw thousands of me.
The not-so-fun part was that, judging from the angry, droning roar that went up, they weren’t very happy about it.
“You think you’re clever?!” the cloud’s polyphonic voice challenged me, spinning its gray mass around and around as it—or they?—tried to figure which image was the real Daniel X.
This was no time for chitchat. I had to take advantage of their momentary confusion to strike back or get away.
The cloud’s eyes were up against one of the mirrors now, examining the surface closely, very closely. Then it lifted a glossy black appendage—an arm? a leg? a tentacle? a pseudopod?—and carefully tapped the glass.
There was a small ping and then the pane shattered into gravel-sized bits and collapsed on the hard floor.
“Not so clever,” the droning voices yelled triumphantly. The cloud flickered and launched a swarm of tiny, glossy black spheres. In a moment, they had all fanned out and had shattered every single mirror in the room, resulting in a sound like, well, a Niagara-sized waterfall of breaking glass.
All of them, that is, except for the one that was obstinately flying into my forehead, over and over again, wondering why on earth I wouldn’t shatter.
I grabbed it in my fist, and it made a disgusting popping sound as I crushed the life out of it.
“Ouch,” pouted the cloud’s voices as it turned its four baleful black eyes toward me.
“You started it,” I reminded them, as a wall of darkness roared near. I almost got out of the way, but it hit me in the leg—hard.
And then I began to fall, and my entire being exploded in pain, and, well, I don’t remember much after that…
Game Over
James Patterson's books
- Bad Games
- Parlor Games A Novel
- The Game (Tom Wood)
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy