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  The coach moved on to celebrate with the other players as Andre moved in to do anything but celebrate with Farrell. “I’m not going to forget this,” he said. He was serious. Andre was the kind of guy who would remember being wronged until the day he died.

  “Neither am I,” Farrell told him. “And I’m sure we’ll have lots of time in the future to relive our glory but right now I gotta go.” Farrell shook Andre’s limp hand and ran off the court, leaving the victory party behind him, and headed towards the girl’s locker room and hopefully towards Izzy.

  Watching him go, as she had watched Shana go, was Nora Evans. Despite the mayhem of pure elation raging around her, she was unmoved. Unsmiling. Emotionless.

  * * *

  Rom ran down a Lexham hallway, slipping in spots on the linoleum floor, his penguin backpack bouncing up and down and threatening to take flight. He rounded a corner at full speed and almost crashed into the lockers that lined the walls. He straightened himself out at the last moment, just in time to see Mrs. O’Brien coming his way. Rom slid along the floor, his tennis shoes squealing and the rubber from the soles leaving a mark on the floor like a drag racing car burning rubber down a racetrack. He stopped mere inches from the old teacher.

  Mrs. O’Brien held her purse firmly under one arm and a pile of papers to be graded under the other. She was headed home after another long, thankless day of trying to enrich the minds of spoiled teenagers and was in no mood to deal with Rom Halifax. Wasn’t it enough that she had to see him in class? Looking at him after hours, in her free time, her me time, was almost more than she could take.

  “Hello, Mrs. O’Brien,” Rom said. He was trying to look friendly and innocent.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in detention?” she asked him.

  “I’m finished with detention.”

  “Really?” Mrs. O’Brien asked. “So did you learn anything from this experience?”

  “Yes,” Rom replied. Because he had. And Rom being Rom, he thought nothing of telling her exactly what he thought. “I learned that even if I am smarter than you I should pretend that I’m not.”

  The math teacher looked down at Rom and let out a little sigh of exhaustion. She then looked down the hallway towards the door, towards salvation, and simply stepped around Rom and made her way towards that door and away from him. Away from school. Towards home and freedom.

  Rom watched her until she had left the building. He seemed surprised that it was that easy. He was too young to know he hadn’t really gotten away with anything. He just wasn’t worth the trouble. Rom took off running again.

  * * *

  “Why won’t she change?” Shana Rowen asked as she paced back and forth in front of the now barely conscious Izzy. She bent down close to Izzy, furious and frustrated, demanding, as the three other cheerleading recruits looked on. “Why won’t you change?”

  “Because she’s not human.”

  Shana’s head whip-lashed around to find Farrell standing in the locker room. She stood up and studied him. He was calm. His usual calm. He may not have been the smoothest when it came to talking to normal girls, but aliens? No problem.

  “She’s Orlian and Doroan,” Farrell said, naming off two places in the universe that would mean nothing to someone from Earth but sounded as common and familiar as Miami and Boston to Shana. “Mixed blood is so hard to mutate. Must be very frustrating for you.”

  Farrell moved past the other cheerleaders and towards Shana. They didn’t flinch at all. Didn’t find Farrell threatening. If he found them threatening he wasn’t showing it either. He looked Shana up and down, from her glossy-haired head to her sneaker clad toes. Now, though, it was like he was finally, really, seeing her.

  “You…are a Cambian,” Farrell told her. He was pleased with himself. “That’s why Izzy couldn’t get a read on you. Why there seemed to be two of you. Because, I guess, there are two of you. Or at least one person --- in this case, our unfortunate head cheerleader --- and one parasitical virus that’s taken over her body.”

  “That is so discriminatory of you,” Shana said to him. “Virus’ are people too, you know? Sometimes.”

  Farrell looked down and quickly determined that Izzy was fine but rather useless at this point. He was on his own with Shana, this Cambian Virus. “You took over the body of some poor defenseless prisoner on the barge and made your way across time and space to get to Earth so you could --- infect a cheerleader? I always thought Cambian’s were warriors. I didn’t know it was really all about the hair.”

  That got her. Or it. Shana was becoming agitated. Threatened. “I was sent here,” she said. “I’m important. I am a warrior. I’m on a mission.”

  “What kind of mission?” Farrell asked. If she was giving out information he was going to ask questions.

  “I’m here to pick up a package,” Shana said. “Oh yeah --- and to end the world.”

  Before Farrell could even come up with a response, before he could even begin to think of one, Shana Rowen grabbed him and lifted him up off the ground. She pushed him up against the wall. He struggled to break free from her grip, but she was, not surprisingly, inhumanly strong. If Farrell hadn’t known she was infected by an alien virus he would have been really embarrassed to have this girl man-handling him that way.

  “This is an innocent planet,” Farrell told her, even as her hands moved towards his throat and she began to strangle him. His voice wavered. “There are rules…to follow….here…”

  “Do I look like the kind of girl who follows rules?” Shana asked him. Farrell could see his own reflection in her blackening eyes even as his own vision began to falter. Shana’s body began to tremble and waves of light ran across her skin. She was preparing her tentacles.

  Farrell tried to pry Shana’s hands off of him. He pulled at them but he couldn’t get even a finger to budge. His feet, though, were free and dangling above the floor. He finally summoned enough strength to kick the cheerleader’s legs out from under her with tough blows the creature was unable to withstand. In this human body it was not immune to the natural failings of human anatomy. In this case, to having weak kneecaps.

  Shana and Farrell collapsed to the floor, Farrell falling on top of the girl and finally having the upper hand. “I’m going to give you a chance to leave this planet peacefully,” Farrell told her. His voice was gaining strength again along with his body.

  “Or what?” Shana asked. She was limp now. Not trying to escape. Making no effort at all.

  “Or I’ll have to kill you,” Farrell declared.

  Shana just smiled. She was smiling because she could see what Farrell could not. She could see the long metal lacrosse stick headed for the side of Farrell’s head. It slammed into his skull and sent him rolling off of Shana. Blood began dripping from a gash in his scalp.

  Nora Evans stood over Farrell, the lacrosse stick resting on her shoulder. She looked invincible but was breathing heavily. Farrell looked up at her. The girl he liked was one of them. Or was she? He looked at her eyes. The other cheerleaders in the room had eyes like Shana’s. Dark ovals. Emptiness. But Nora’s eyes were still blue, blue but frantic, and widened by a rush of adrenalin.

  “Thanks,” Shana told Nora as she got up. “What would I have done without you?”

  Nora turned and looked at Shana for the first time. Saw her eyes for the first time. She quickly looked and saw the other cheerleaders with the same eyes, then turned again to see more cheerleaders coming into the locker room, one after another, all with the same eyes, like zombies gathering for a pep rally.

  “Oh my God,” Nora said. “What are…?”

  “What am I?” Shana asked. “I’m here to save you. Save you from this boring planet. Go team!”

  With that, every cheerleader smiled the same creepy smile. Nora suddenly looked far less invincible. She looked rather terrified. She moved the lacrosse stick from her shoulder to a defensive position. She held it in front of her, ready to ward off evil cheerleaders, like a medieval villager wield
ing a torch to ward off vampires. She slowly backed away towards the door, all black eyes on her --- then ran!

  No one moved.

  The head cheerleader stepped towards Farrell then pulled her sneaker-clad foot back and kicked him hard in the ribs. Farrell curled up in pain and gasped for breath. “Despite everything that’s gone on between us,” she said with a smile. “I hope I can still count on your vote for Homecoming Queen.”

  Shana looked at the other cheerleaders. They all turned at once and faced her. “Finish this!” she commanded. She then ran out the door, leaving her passel of cheerleaders behind, leaderless but still menacing.

  Farrell scrambled off the floor, holding his side, catching his breath, and made his way around the cheerleaders towards Izzy. He helped her sit up and she shook off the pounding ache that was building in her head.

  “You got this, right?” Farrell asked her. Just as he did all the cheerleaders suddenly turned at once to stare at them.

  “Oh, sure,” Izzy said. “No problem.” She really wasn’t sure. They both knew that, but they also both knew it didn’t really matter how either of them felt or what the dangers were. There was work to do.

  “Hey, look, I’m going to get away,” Izzy said with little urgency, feigning a move to escape. All the cheerleaders made a collective step towards her, giving Farrell a chance to move around the lockers behind them and take off after Shana Rowen. They made no move to follow Farrell. They just watched Izzy.

  “Why couldn’t the Cambian have targeted the debate team?” Izzy asked. “At least then we would have had something to talk about.” She leaned back as they surrounded her. Death by cheerleaders. For Izzy, there couldn’t have been a worse way to go.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There was no sign of Shana Rowen as Farrell raced down the corridor at Lexham. The only person he encountered was his brother Rom, who almost ran right past Farrell without noticing him. Rom’s feet came out from under him as he turned back to look at Farrell and slid across the floor to a stop.

  “Girl’s locker room!” Farrell yelled back as he continued to run. He jammed his shoulder into the double doors that led outside, pushing them open, and ran into the darkness of the night.

  “Girl’s locker room. Got it,” Rom said to himself as he got up and ran off in the opposite direction.

  Outside, Farrell stopped and looked around the campus. There were no more students or teachers. Everyone had gone home from the game. The campus was deserted. Farrell listened for any sounds, anything that could give him a clue as to where the infected cheerleader had gone.

  A noise suddenly drew Farrell’s attention behind him. Farrell swung around towards the noise only to see the soda machine at the edge of the quad. He slowly moved towards it, looking and listening, his heart pounding faster and faster. Half the lights on the machine’s panel were broken and it glowed dimly, casting a yellow hue across the walkway. The same sound happened again and Farrell stopped in his tracks. The sound was coming from the machine. It was something mechanical and innocuous. Nothing alien or menacing.

  Farrell turned away and was about to move on when Shana Rowen suddenly jumped on top of him from the roof of the walkway. She instantly began to pummel him with blows, her fists smashing into his face and body. She stopped just long enough to tease him. “You’re starting to become a pest. If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to have to report you to the principal.”

  Shana raised her arm up again. She clenched her fist into a battering ram and was about to bring it down on Farrell, one last blow, when she was mowed over by another figure. The cheerleader and this other person tumbled off of Farrell and rolled together a few feet away. Shana scrambled up off the ground and ran off before Farrell could wipe the blood from his eyes and take off after her.

  Farrell sat up and the mysterious stranger who had saved him sat up as well. They looked at one another. “Who are you?” Farrell asked.

  It was Bobby Ramirez. “I’m the head of the West Coast Division of the Committee and I’m hunting aliens,” he told Farrell, trying to sound as official as possible.

  “That’s impossible,” Farrell replied. “Because I’m the head of the West Coast Division of the Committee and I’m hunting aliens.”

  Bobby looked surprised but thrilled. He stood up and offered his hand to Farrell, helping him up off the ground. “You mean there really is a Committee?”

  “Yes,” Farrell said.

  “And there really are aliens?” Bobby asked, excited. “It’s true. Oh my God! I was right. There are aliens!”

  “Yep, you were right,” Farrell said as he looked off in the direction Shana had run. “And right now one’s getting away and I need to stop it before it destroys the world.”

  “Okay,” said Bobby.

  Without another word of explanation Farrell took off after Shana Rowen. Bobby stood in the quad for a moment, taking it all in. But, really, how do you take all that in? He’d finally heard some information that confirmed what he had always believed but could never prove. There were aliens --- and he had actually touched one! There was only one thing left to do. Follow Farrell.

  * * *

  Izzy was surrounded by cheerleaders. It was her own personal version of Hell.

  The girls --- and former point guard turned yell leader Jon Roberts --- slowly advanced on Izzy. They pushed her farther and farther into the bathroom of the locker room and cut her off from the exits. They were a strange bunch and it wasn’t just the fact that they had been infected by an alien virus and had black holes for eyes. Although they appeared to work with one mind, that singular mind appeared to be confused. As if they were awaiting additional orders. They kept looking at each other, one to the next, looking for answers or instructions. Then they would look back at Izzy, at first as if they were seeking answers from her, but then in a more familiar way, reassuring themselves that at the very least Izzy was the enemy and would have to be dealt with.

  Izzy searched around the sink area near the stalls for a weapon, for anything, to use to protect herself. There were a few bottles of deodorant, a well used toothbrush, some scrunchies and old bottles of hair spray. Izzy grabbed the only thing there that looked like a weapon. A hair dryer.

  “Back off!” she yelled at the cheerleaders, pointing the hair dryer at them like a gun. “Back off or I’ll…I’ll mess up your hair!”

  Jon Roberts reached up and touched his perfectly combed head of hair, like he was actually considering the threat for a moment, then turned his attention back to Izzy and began moving in on her. Izzy grabbed the hair dryer by the cord and began swinging it around, a Japanese kung fu master wielding nun chucks, but still they moved closer.

  There was nowhere left to go, no doors she could reach, no windows at all. Izzy was trapped and outnumbered. Suddenly, though, rescue came in the form of a freshman. Rom came running into the locker room, charging ahead, until he saw all the cheerleaders. He came to a dead stop on the other side of the locker room.

  “Where have you been?” Izzy asked, still swinging the hair dryer around by the cord.

  “Detention,” Rom said.

  “That’s a lame excuse.”

  Rom surveyed the situation. “I’m guessing by the look in their eyes --- or the lack of it --- that they’ve been infected by something. They’re a viral strain.”

  “A Cambian virus,” Izzy told him as she lunged forward, keeping Jon Roberts at bay for the moment.

  “Of course!” Rom said. “That explains everything.”

  “Oh, I know, doesn’t it?” Izzy said. “I really hope we have time to stand here and go over all the clues we missed before they tear me to shreds!”

  Rom swung his backpack down off his shoulders and began rifling through it as the cheerleaders exchanged glances again. Half of them then turned their attention to Rom. “Let’s not be rash. We don’t know that they mean us harm.” Rom looked at the Tall Girl, his locker buddy. “That girl is actually a friend of mind. She’s really nice. She’d
never hurt you.”

  The Tall Girl suddenly lashed out at Izzy, grabbing for her, forcing Izzy to smash her in the side of the head with the hair dryer. The girl backed away, but Izzy’s actions only agitated them all. They began to whip their heads back and forth, looking at one another, communicating without words, and one by one began to make a nasty moaning sound, almost a growling sound.

  “Rom!” Izzy exclaimed. She was now really getting freaked out.

  “Okay, okay, I’ve got it,” Rom said as he pulled a small toy robot out of his backpack. It looked like it was from an old sci-fi movie and had a square head and accordion arms and a chest full of blinking lights. There was also a wind-up key on its back, which Rom proceeded to turn, causing the robot’s arms to start swinging back and forth and its legs to start moving.

  Rom set the robot down on the ground in front of him and it began to walk towards the cheerleaders. Walk very slowly towards the cheerleaders. They all turned and looked down at the tiny invader as it teetered towards them, beeping and blinking and looking anything other than threatening.

  “Any time, Rom,” Izzy said, the cheerleaders momentarily distracted but still surrounding her.

  “I need to work on its speed,” Rom remarked as he watched his robot continue on its long journey. “Remind me about that later.”

  Jon Roberts grew tired of the robot and suddenly turned his attention back to Izzy.

  “Come on!” Izzy yelled, pleading with Rom.

  Rom calmly looked at her. “I would duck if I were you,” he said as he hit the floor. Izzy quickly did the same and dove to the floor right before rays of light began to shoot out of the head of the little robot, spraying the room with a barrage of electric pulses. One by one the cheerleaders were hit by the beams of light. Each convulsed for a moment, something short circuiting in their brains, and collapsed to the floor. Their eyes returned to normal, then closed, as they fell unconscious. The robot came to a stop, mid-step.