Chapter 6: Negotiations
While Granger may have been old white man, he did dress in style. Being about the height of Garion, he walked the two inside his mansion, blazer on and looking sharp. He seemed like a typical corporate CEO, ready to pitch a business deal to anybody and everybody. Unfortunately for the two of them, they weren't meeting this very famous man in the best of conditions.
As Garion and Purstan entered inside the back door, they noticed the inside of the mansion was absolutely gorgeous with shiny white marble walls and matching marble floors. Purple curtains surrounded every window, greatly commenting the rest of the mansion. To the right of them was a shiny, white, giant marble staircase leading up a floor. The staircase, seeming to cover most of the back of the entire room (the main hall being about the size of an average house), stretched up and in two directions, left and right. Garion and Purstan noticed two small hallways on those two top floors on either side of the mansion, probably leading to bedrooms.
All Garion and Purstan could pay attention to though was Granger walking ahead of them, telling every other person near him that he had to quickly attend to other matters. Nirem felt like he was being taken to the principal's office after doing something awful. It was an agonizing feeling.
Granger led Garion and Purstan to a little room off to the left of the hallway that also had shiny marble walls and floors. The three of them sat down at a large solid oak table; the two boys sat on one side and Tom sat on the other. Tom folded his hands on top of the table and smiled again. Garion and Purstan looked at each other, puzzled.
“By now, I would have usually thrown you out and slap you with a fine, but I heard you mention Draktos."
Granger sat up in his chair, a serious look coming over his face.
"Now, for the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that you two aren't some childish teenagers trying to fight a mythical creature. This is mostly because I pay attention."
Garion and Purstan looked at each other, worried that their secret might have been revealed.
"That's right," Granger started again, "I figured it all out. But it didn't really hit me until I saw you two."
Granger looked into Nirem's eyes directly. He felt that principal feeling in his stomach again.
"You see, my limo was driving by Steven Park while it happened," Ganger continued, "so I got to see a little glimpse of the action. What I did manage to catch though was that spaceship. Along with you being sucked inside it, with a dark figure following after you."
"What's he talking about?" Purstan whispered.
"I grew up on the legend of Draktos,” Granger continued, “so you can probably imagine the look on my face. So when I found you sitting at my doorsteps, I knew you wanted to be some kind of hero and take revenge on your kidnapping. Though what still confuse me is what that blasted figure was shouting at you. With my old ears, I couldn't make out any of that gibberish."
Granger then looked at Nirem with a puzzled face.
"So tell me boy, what is your real role in all of this?"
Garion, still shocked from what Granger knew, managed to make out, "More than you need to know."
Ganger stared at him for a second, then laughed.
"Of course it is! Guess I was wrong about you two. You are just some crazed teens. Well, off you go then."
Granger stood up from his seat, and Purstan followed, leaving Garion in his state of confusion.
"Listen, we really need this land...."
Granger turned around, startled that they would even attempt to ask such a question to a man of his stature.
"You two honestly expect me too give up a plot of land worth more than your parents probably even make," Granger said, looking at their street clothes, "just to find the person that captured you? Now, since you helped shed a little light on a mystery that has been on my mind for the past couple of days, I will permit you to leave right now without me having to call security."
Purstan was about to retaliate, but Garion stood up and stopped him. They knew talking was no use. They knew what they had to do.
Purstan then tried to communicate to him with facial expressions, putting on a face that said, “We could find another plot of land.”
Garion then retaliated, with a face that said, “With a plot of land isolated from the rest of the city where we could plan for Draktos? That’s not going to happen anywhere else but here. Also, we don’t have the time to look for another land. Draktos could be on his way right now to Earth.”
Garion then closed his eyes and concentrated. He wasn't sure if it would work, but he had to try. Steadily, tentacles started creeping over his body. Nirem felt like he was back where he was first transformed, the "Purification Chamber," as he remembered Purstan calling it. The feeling was agonizing. All of those strings seeping out of his body again. Garion almost collapsed under the stress.
Once the strings had fully enveloped him, Garion looked over at Purstan, who took his shirt off, unearthing the spikes he hid in his skin.
Granger just stood there, in a state of shock. He managed to stumble back into the conference room, closing the door behind him.
"What...are you?" Granger asked in shock.
"Aliens," Purstan answered. "And we need this land."
"Unless you want your ‘childhood legend’ to take over this planet,” Garion sarcastically remarked, “That's the most we can tell you, so you will have to base your decision off that knowledge only."
Granger slumped back into his chair.
"What happened Granger? The puzzle pieces to big for a CEO like you to handle?"
Granger thought for a second, and then responded, “Sorry, guys, but no. I need this land to build my new mansion and use it as a tax shelter. Even if I could give you this land, there's no way this would go unnoticed. 'Granger gives tax shelter to random teenagers.' The press would eat this story up.”
The hopeful boys frowned as Tom tried to lighten the mood, “Unless you have $500 million to offer for it?”
This wasn't going to be as easy as Garion and Purstan first thought.
“Can you give us a minute?” Garion asked. Tom, still dumbfounded why two aliens wanted a tax shelter, obliged. They excused themselves and went outside to talk.
“What do we do now?” Garion asked. “I mean, he is right. There is no way he can just give two people, especially teenagers, a tax shelter just because they asked nicely. Also, he probably wouldn’t give it up anyway.”
“We don’t need to worry about him giving the mansion up,” Purstan said calmly, “we’re aliens. He’ll give us his fortune if we phrase the question right. What we do need to worry about though is what you said: how can he just give us his mansion?”
Purstan and Garion thought for what seemed like hours, wondering how this could be done, until the idea flew over his foot. Literally.
“Okay,” Garion said. “If we can't negotiate with him, we’re going to have to fool him into wanting to give us the mansion.”
“So how are we going to do that?” Purstan asked, totally confused.
“By finding the creepiest animals and putting them in the mansion, scaring everyone, including Granger, away,” Garion smiled.
Still puzzled, but not finding much point in arguing about it, Purstan sighed, “Okay.”
Garion and Purstan snuck back inside the mansion into one of the partially completed bathrooms so they could plot out which creatures they were going to put in the mansion.
“What animal should we even put in the mansion that would scare away a billionaire?” Purstan questioned.
“Don’t worry,” replied Garion. “I already found an idea.” He picked up the rat that flew over his foot as it tried to again, and held it up like a prize. Purstan smiled.
They went back inside the conference room, but then they saw it. Granger was gone.
Garion and Purstan knew they didn’t have time. Granger would tell everyone who they really were. And Gari
on knew they couldn’t afford to be seen.
Garion was about to run inside to the main lobby of the mansion until Purstan stopped him.
“Change back,” Purstan whispered with force, “now!”
Garion started the transformation process again, feeling like a master at it. He ripped off each strand of tentacle, one by one, until he was human again. He then watched the tentacles sink into the ground, pondering where they were headed. Garion suddenly started to realized that when Purstan showed Granger his true alien from, he ripped off his clothes as well.
“Purstan!” Garion exclaimed. “Your clothes!”
Purstan looked down and realized it, knowing he would have to stay behind.
“We’ve wasted enough time already, go!”
Garion ran into the main hallway, looking out for Granger. The main hallway, filled with construction workers with plans, hammers, etc., flooded the hallway in orange suits, so it wasn’t hard to notice the old man running through the back door as fast as his little legs could carry him.
Garion started pushing his way past all the construction workers, but it got harder as people realized he was just a teenager.
“What the hell?”
“Hey, this is no place for hide and seek!”
“We have work to do!”
Some people even tried to grab Garion and shove him out of the way, pushing towards the door. Garion kept pushing along, until three construction workers stopped him.
“Hey,” one of the workers yelled over all the noise in the room, “this is no place for kids.”
“Get out now and we won’t bring you to the guards,” another construction worker said.
Garion, surrounded by guards didn’t know what to do. He had to get to Granger and fast. He couldn’t afford to waste time like this. On the other hand though, the construction workers surrounded him. He didn’t know what to do. So, without really thinking, Garion threw the first punch.
The entire mansion erupted like a roar of fire, as one punch led to the other like a Rube Goldberg, and the entire mansion was in a fight. Punches led to lamps being thrown, lamps being thrown led to guards being pushed into a marble wall. It was like a bar fight in a mansion.
While everything (and everyone) was exploding in anger, Garion took this chance to sneak through under one of the men’s legs, darting through the back door, through all the chaos. He ran outside to the area where he and Purstan swam in and saw Granger, ready to jump.
“What are you doing?!” Garion exclaimed.
“A..A..aliens...they’re not real...none of it...,” Granger mumbled as he stumbled toward the water.
Garion knew what was going to happen so he didn’t move, and tried to calm Granger down.
“It’s O.K.,” Garion calmly whispered, “we’re not going to hurt you. We’ll just...walk away from your life. Yeah. We’ll just walk away, and pretend this never happened.”
“Impossible...you...can’t be...I’m dreaming.”
With that, he jumped.
Purstan jumped out from the bushes he was concealed in and leapt like a panther on Granger, as they both collapsed on the ground.
“I’m not staying out of this fight,” Purstan panted, “not after that riot you caused inside.”
They sat Granger on the edge of the moat, holding him down as they talked.
“Listen,” Garion sternly said, “we don’t have much time so this is how it’s going to work. You don’t even need to shun your image by giving us the land, just leave. Purstan and I will start a rat infestation and you will get out due to this. We will deal with the unoccupied mansion.”
“But...my mansion....”
Purstan realizing that Garion was right on their time restraints, continued with the sternness, “You will give it to us, or do we have you use our powers on you?”
Granger tried to back away, but Purstan and Garion held him down firmly.
“No! Please! It’s yours! It’s yours!”
“That’s what I thought,” Garion smiled, “now, here’s the plan. Go inside to your mansion, and just act normal. We will work on the rats.”
“O...Ok.”
As Tom went inside, Garion turned around and saw the boats.
Five of them, headed straight for them. Garion managed to make out, from a distance, that they were the same security boats from when they “entered” this facility. Each one with guards, looking very worried. That’s when he then realized that they hadn’t seen him yet, and were still looking for them. He pulled Purstan into the bushes as they passed. Garion did manage to hear some crosstalk though.
“We can’t keep doing this,” one of the guards said, “they’re just not here.”
“Well, what else are we going to do?” another guard asked. “Go tell the public two kids drowned trying to play hero?”
“I say we just make one more round, and then we give up. There’s no point in looking for something that’s not there.”
As the boats passed, Nirem thought for a second. One round. Nirem, with his high school and college math education, did some calculations.
“We have 7 minutes,” he said grimly.
“So how are we going to get the rats inside in time?” Purstan asked.
“With a little ‘pet’ I picked up before the mob.”
Garion pulled out the rat from his pocket, still breathing and scurrying. He then, also feeling like a master at this, changed back into an alien, growing back each string one by one. When they all grew back, Garion stuffed the rat inside his string.
He then held out his arms, closed his eyes, and concentrated.
Persistently, rats started to fly out of Garion’s hands as they scurried across the island, most of them aiming for the open back door with the still-rioting construction workers.
Before they knew it, Garion and Purstan heard screaming from the hallway. Tom’s voice echoed through the hallways.
“Rats! Filthy rats! In my mansion?! Who knows how many more rodents there could be in here!?”
Garion and Purstan quickly ran back inside.
Granger came storming out the front door shortly after, as Garion and Purstan silently followed. His face was beet-red.
“Listen,” Granger whispered, “just make sure no one knows you’re here. If you get caught, it’s my butt they’re frying, so try to avoid any detection at all.”
“You better remember not to expose us,” Garion whispered back, “or else.” He did manage to mumble a thanks though before Granger left.
Granger walked away with some guards steaming mad, but looked back and managed a wink at Garion.
All the construction workers, forgetting their past, ran away from the rabies-infested animals, completely forgetting about Garion and Purstan.
Before they knew it, the construction workers started to run off to the lifeboats, leaving their supplies for the rats as they quickly made their escape from the island.
“We did it!” Garion smiled.
“Okay, but remember that that is only half of the job,” Purstan reminded him. “Now we should start making our team and actually building our base.”
“Now all we have to do is just lay low and make sure it doesn’t get out to the public that we are staying here,” Garion told Purstan.
“Then we build...I mean finish building our team,” Purstan smiled.
He then walked inside the mansion and stood in the center of the hallway and stretched out his hands, palms up. Within seconds, he sucked the rats back into his hands. They were now really ready to build their team.