After a long moment of being nose-to-nose, Lexi said, “You’re invading my personal space.”
“I thought you said you could control them all,” Jack huffed.
Jill looked frazzled. “I—I can control her. I can control them all. I don’t understand.” Jill lurched forward and cocked an eyebrow. Her nose was now touching Lexi’s as she stared painfully into Lexi’s eyes.
Lexi could barely move her mouth because Jill was so close. “Do you have a breath mint?”
“How are you doing this? I could feel me taking over your mind earlier in the auditorium and now nothing,” Jill said, backing away. She started pacing nervously.
“You have put the entire mission in jeopardy. If she can resist you, that means others can resist you, and if others can resist, that means they will fight back.” Jack looked as if he was enjoying Jill’s frustration.
“Maybe us humans and you giant insects got off on the wrong foot,” Lexi offered.
“She can see us! She can see us for what we are. Their weapons are too advanced to take lightly, Jill!” Jack yelled.
Jill threw her Gucci headband across the control room. “Go check on engine three. Make sure it isn’t leaking.”
“I did that this morning. It’s fine,” Jack answered.
“Do it again,” she ordered.
Jack snorted and angrily marched out of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hypnotic
“In life you need either inspiration or desperation.”
-Tony Robbins
Jill waited until the door shut. She pointed a finger at Lexi. “How are you doing this?”
“How am I doing what?” Lexi answered innocently.
“Do not play games with me. I’ve been on this wretched planet for nearly fifty years, and I have been able to control each and every one of you. Now, all of a sudden, I can’t control you. How?”
Lexi thought for a second before responding. “Maybe you’re getting old? It happens to everyone. Even the best ball players lose. What’s the saying? Time waits for no man. I bet that’s true of aliens too. No one can be the best forever.”
“How!” Jill screamed. “How are you blocking me?” She pulled at her hair.
Lexi grinned at Jill’s frustration. It was beautiful to her. Just as in a game when an opponent commits a stupid foul, it usually meant Lexi was in her opponent’s head. I’m in your head and not the other way around.
“I don’t know,” Lexi said with a shrug. “Maybe you are just tired. Sometimes I take naps before big games.”
Jill shook her head. “No, I had you this morning. I could feel it. And last night, I would have had you at Cambree’s house.”
A chill shot up Lexi’s back.
“That’s right. Did you really think you could call all those places without tipping us off? You’ve been lucky, Lexi, but your luck has run out. Something has changed. Tell me what it is?”
Lexi watched as Jill paced the room. She finally asked, “So, what’s going to happen when you go back home and Jack tells everyone that you cannot control us all.”
A look of horror crept across Jill’s face. She clearly had not considered this. “He won’t do that.” Jill’s voice trembled.
“We both know he will. You will be punished, just like Petr.”
Now, Jill was terrified. Quivering lips. Shaking hands. Sweaty palms. Lexi loved it.
“You’ve got to help me, Lexi,” Jill pleaded.
“Me, help you?” Lexi scoffed at the notion. She looked down at her bound hands. “I’m in no position to help anyone.”
Jill petted Lexi’s face. “Sure you are. Listen, I will make you a deal. If you join me and pretend that I can control you, when our armies return, I will make you Supreme Overlord of Earth. I will teach you our language. You will have everything you’ve ever wanted in life, Lexi.”
With a skeptical curl of her lip, Lexi asked, “How do I know I can trust you?”
“It will be placed in the records that you are the strongest of your species and have been deemed a future leader. You will only answer to me. Others will bow in your presence. Everyone will do as you command, even my species. Jack is wrong. We have spent too much time here just to throw it away on a tiny and insignificant resistance. We are going to invade Earth whether I control you or not, but if we do it my way, you can save lives and more importantly, whomever you want. What do you say? Will you join us?” Jill looked optimistic, with a nervous and forced smile.
No one has ever labeled me a ‘tiny and insignificant resistance,’ she thought. Lexi considered the offer. “That’s a pretty good deal,” she said. “Before I agree, you have to do me a favor.”
“Anything, Lexi, anything at all. After all, we’re friends, right?”
“Well, if I’m going to travel across the galaxy, I need my lucky basketball—”
“I can replicate you one right here.”
“Nope, I want my ball, my special ball. It is under my bed. If you get it, I will join you.”
Jill studied Lexi for a long moment. “This had better not be a trick,” Jill warned.
Lexi again looked down at her bound hands and said, “How could I possibly be playing a trick against you? I’m the prisoner, remember?”
“Okay,” Jill said with a smile. “It’s a deal.”
As Jill was about to leave, Lexi asked, “What are you going to do about Jack?”
Grinning an evil smirk, Jill replied, “Don’t worry about him. I can control him the way I can control your kind.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“A” vs. “B” = “C” Grinning Widely
“I am Jack’s smirking revenge.”
-Narrator (Fight Club)
Once she was gone, Lexi had to figure out a way to get Jack’s attention. She had less than an hour before Jill returned to Old Man Drysdale’s cornfield. She looked around. Although her hands were bound, her feet were not. She spun in the chair and kicked at the multi-colored control panel behind her chair. Her feet barely spanned the distance, but she managed to press a button of unknown importance. The button turned from white-to-red. Hopefully, that will do something, she thought.
Less than a minute later, the door to the control room opened and in rushed Jack.
“Did you open the exhaust ports?” Jack huffed angrily. He moved quickly to the control panel and pressed several buttons.
Lexi shrugged. “I’m just sitting here. I can’t move.”
Jack looked around the room. “Where is Jill?”
“She said she was going to pick up something.”
“What could she possibly be going to get?”
Lexi shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me, but she said she would not be made to look a fool.”
Jack laughed. “It is too late for her.”
“That’s funny. She said the same thing about you.”
Jack was no longer laughing. He looked quite serious. “What do you mean? Tell me. What did she say?”
Lexi looked around the room as if Jill could be spying on them. Then, she leaned forward and whispered, “She knows you are going to take me back to your planet and show them that she cannot control me, so she went to get something to prove you wrong. I don’t know what it is she went to get.”
“And what will she do with you?”
With a shrug, Lexi said, “I don’t know. She said she wanted to kill me, but since I’m already onboard she couldn’t and she couldn’t just let me go. She told me if I pretended that she could control me, she would make me...what did she call it?” Lexi waited for the dramatic pause to build. “Supreme Overlord of Earth? Is that a thing?”
Jack nearly exploded. “What? She can’t do that. That would violate our mission, pretending to control you. What else did she say?”
“She said something about, ‘not letting you or I ruin her fifty years’ of hard work.’“
Jack grinned. “She is indeed desperate, just as I figured. No, I will put her under arrest
and take you back. I will show the Overlord Council that her methods do not work and have been a waste of precious time. They will make me a commander for this.”
Lexi smiled. “Congratulations.”
Jack scoffed at her comment. “You won’t be saying that when I rule your puny planet. You will be a slave.”
“Well, you are definitely the superior species, so it is only natural. But I do have one question.”
He seemed annoyed. “What is it?”
“Well, Jill said something about how if worst comes to worst she would control you the way she controlled my friends.” Lexi hoped Jack would take the bait.
“Impossible,” Jack replied. “Our covenants prohibit mind control by our own species. She would be stripped of her rank and sent to the mines.”
“You are probably correct, but then again…”
“Then again what?”
“Ah, its nothing.”
Jack’s curiosity could have killed a dozen cats. “Tell me,” he snapped. “I must know.”
“Well, it just occurred to me that if you and Jill had spent fifty years on earth and she realizes that it may have all been for nothing, she might be pretty desperate, and you know what they say about desperate people?” Lexi had to slowly reel in her fish. She had Jack on the line; she could not let it break now.
“What do they say?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
The words were like water sinking into Jack’s sponge of a brain. “Indeed, these are desperate times for Jill. You may be correct. She very well may attempt something drastic. I cannot look at her. I must avoid her stare. She is very powerful.”
A tiny grin crept across Lexi’s face. The fish had taken the bait. She need but reel him in. “I could help you. I could show you how to block Jill’s mind control.”
“Yes, you must show me how to do that.”
“What’s in it for me?”
Jack rubbed his head. “If—if—if you do this for me, I will make you Supreme Overlord of this planet. If you join with me, none of your family or friends will be harmed. Deal?”
Lexi considered the offer. “I guess I don’t have too many options.”
“No, you don’t,” Jack retorted. “Unless you wish to become a slave in the mines, you must join me. Now, please, show me how you block her mind control.”
“Very well,” Lexi responded. “First, you must remove my restraints.”
Jack did as she commanded.
“Okay,” she said as she stood up. “You need to sit here.”
Immediately, Jack hopped into the seat. Lexi removed the gentleman’s pocket watch. She dangled it by the chain and slowly waved it back and forth. Jack’s eyes were fixated on the watch.
“You feel relaxed. You are calm. You are slowly slipping into a deep slumber. There is a cool stream in the middle of a lush valley. The bubbling from the brook is relaxing. You can feel serenity bathing you. You are slowly slipping, slipping, slipping into a deep slumber…”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Good vs. Evil
“Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict;
Those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.”
-William S. Burroughs
When Jill returned, she was sweaty and breathing heavily. “Got it,” she said to Lexi, who was still sitting in the chair, her hands restrained.
“You need to hurry. Jack has been looking for you. He came in here pressing a bunch of buttons. He said he was testing the exhaust. He said we are leaving tonight because he wants to show everyone your failure.” Lexi was speaking very fast, panicked. “He started laughing and said the Council, whatever that is, would strip you of your rank because you’re not as powerful as you claim. He said we will be slaves in the mines. What do we do, Jill?”
Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. “I’ll show him true power.” She was so enraged that she was unable to conceal her true identity. Gone was the long blond hair, the California tan, and the petite figure; in their place was a brown insectoid that stood almost as tall as Lexi.
She examined the control panel behind Lexi. “He was going to leave me, wasn’t he?” When she spoke, it was a garbled form of English that Lexi could hardly understand and insect hissing sounds.
“Yes,” Lexi answered. “You must control him, Jill, or all will be lost.”
No sooner had the words exited her mouth than the door slid open and in walked Jack.
“Jill, why have your returned to your given form?”
A grin, evil and crooked, crept over her face. “Oh, do not mind her, Jack. She can see the true us, just as I can see the true you.”
Jack looked confused. He turned his head to ask Lexi what Jill meant. That was a mistake.
Despite her smaller size, Jill’s determination made her a mighty force. She struck. Her hands moved swiftly. She landed shot after shot. Jack swung, found air. Jill swung and found her target. In no time, Jack was stumbling. His facade faded. The oversized man transformed into a teetering, punch-drunk, gargantuan insectoid.
Jack collapsed. The devastatingly efficient attack forced him into the corner. Jill lodged her knee against his throat. Her grin was even wider. Denial, failure, these were not for her. Jill’s ambition demanded nothing but absolute victory. Her spoils would not be lost on the ship’s mechanic.
His will would be bent and she would do the bending. Her golden yellow stare burned into Jack’s beady red eyes. Jack did not move. He did not blink. He did not speak. He froze.
Just when Lexi feared her plan had failed, Jack’s mighty hand shot forth and latched onto Jill’s neck. He rose. Jill gasped for air. She kicked and flailed. “You cannot control me,” he said through gritted teeth and threw her. Jill landed with a sickening thud.
When Jill didn’t move, Lexi let out a deep breath. It worked. She knew she had won. “Jack, would you be kind enough to remove my restraints.” Without a second thought, Jack did as Lexi requested. As she stood up, Lexi calmly commanded, “Jack, would you be kind enough to take Jill to the holding cell and release Petr?”
Lexi followed, a huge smile now present.
A moment later, Petr was free of his cell. He looked at her with disbelief. “How did you do it?” he asked, staring at Jack, who was securing Jill in the holding cell Lexi previously occupied.
Lexi said, “Well, I hypnotized him. When you told me that your species is naturally distrusting of each other, all I had to do was figure out a way to get them to be suspicious of each other. While Jill was gone, I told Jack that Jill would try to use her power on him, but if he promised to let me live, I would show him how to resist her.”
“I’m still confused.”
“I hypnotized him to act completely normal until Jill attempted her mind control. Once this happened, he was to resist at all costs, but he was also required to follow only mine and your commands.”
Petr chuckled. “Really?”
Lexi nodded. “Give it a try.”
“Okay, Jack, prepare for take off.”
Jack did not move.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Lexi said. “He will not move unless you start the command with, ‘Jack, would you be kind enough to…’”
“That is incredible. Your species never ceases to amaze me. Where did you learn this?”
“I saw it in a video game once. When you get close to your home planet, tell him to be kind enough to act normal and he will be released from the hypnotic state until you give him another command.”
Petr shook his head in disbelief. “Jack, would you be kind enough to erase the last mission log entry?”
Lexi and Petr watched as Jack sat at a computer and carried out the command.
“So, do we still have a deal?”
“Absolutely,” Petr answered. “Your planet will never hear from us again.” He paused. “Lexi, are you sure you don’t want to visit my planet. You would make a great ambassador for your people.”
“Than
k you, but I’m still in junior high. I’ve got some pretty important things I need to do here.”
“Goodbye, Lexi.”
“Goodbye, Petr.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dream Big
“Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lexi barged through the front door, full of excitement.
Dinner was waiting when she got home. “Where have you been?” her grandmother asked. “I was just about to go buy a bloodhound and come looking for you.”
Lexi smiled and studied her grandmother.
“Well, speak, child. What have you got to say for yourself?”
“I did it,” Lexi said and pecked a kiss on her grandmother’s forehead.
“Well, that’s great. What did you do?”
Lexi shrugged as she shoved a roll in her mouth. “Ah, nothing, just saved the world.”
Lexi’s grandmother chuckled. “Well, good. Later you can save my hands from those dishes.”
Lexi laughed as she continued shoveling food into her overcrowded mouth.
Lexi’s grandmother put away the butter and dressing. With her head in the refrigerator, she asked, “Did Cambree Meyers ever find you?”
Lexi stopped eating.
“She came by here and said you guys were supposed to do something this morning, but you didn’t show up. She was very rude. I don’t like her.”
Nodding in agreement, Lexi felt a little more relaxed knowing that Cambree had returned to her normal rude self. That’s two-for-two, she thought. A second later the phone rang. Lexi looked up at the clock: quarter after seven. Jumping out of her chair, Lexi blurted out, “I got it. Let’s try for three-out-of-three.”
“Three-out-of-three, what?” her grandmother asked from the kitchen.
“Hello,” Lexi eagerly said.
“Hello,” Tyler answered on the other end. “How have you been?”
“Good. You?”
“Okay, I guess. It feels like forever since we’ve talked.”
Grinning, Lexi agreed, “It does feel like it’s been a while.”