The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge Page A

whistle of wind over tumbled bricks. From horizon to horizon lay the demolished remains of a massive city, one that had been as big as New York or London.
    Staring at the destruction, I stood frozen with despair. Grief for my people and my ruined world filled me. Seth had gotten me yet again, I realized.
Hey, look, Daniel. Here’s your home planet. Oh, I forgot to mention, it’s been leveled.
    Chapter 64
    I CAUGHT HIM staring at me, a mirthful smile on his fetid alien face.
He’s fooled me twice,
I thought with a shake of my head.
Shame on me.
    Twenty feet below the rim of the elevated landing ramp was what looked like a derailed bullet train. Someone had scrawled DEATH TO ERGENT SETH in its dust-covered side.
    “
You
did this,” I said, turning to Seth. It wasn’t a question.
    Seth took a long cigar out of his pocket and lit it with a gold Zippo as he winked at me.
    “I know,” he said, blinking as he shook his head at the desolate vista. “Unreal, isn’t it? Sometimes even
I
can’t believe it. I mean, ever since I was little, I always dreamed of committing mass destruction. But on this kind of scale? It’s more than even I had a right to expect.”
    Seth raised a claw and saluted his handiwork. Half a mile away, a massive pit was being carved out of the rubble. Insectlike machines of the same green-gray metal as the spacecraft were moving around and around in slow circles. There were more pits in the distance beyond it, and more busy insectile machines.
    “They’re called World Harvesters, my race’s greatest invention,” Seth said proudly.
    “They’ll chew through anything—rock, garbage, dead bodies, you name it—and remove every atom of valuable minerals and elements. It took half a million years for your people to build the city of Bryn Spi, the shining jewel of your planet. It took me one and a half hours to blow it into a billion shiny pieces. And by this time next year—and this is my favorite part—it will look like nothing ever stood here at all.”
    My heart seemed to be unfastening inside my chest. “Where is everyone?” I asked.
    “Your fellow Alparians? The few who are still alive scurry through the ruins like rats. They have no powers, no hope, no reason to live, really. But still they stumble on. Pathetic.”
    Seth shook his head in disgust.
    “Protectors of the Universe?” he said, tapping the ash from his cigar with one of his talons. “Guess they should have worried more about protecting themselves.”
    Chapter 65
    “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, Protectors of the Universe?” I asked.
    “You
are
clueless, aren’t you?” Seth said. “I keep forgetting you had all this thrust on you at three years of age. Behold, Alpar Nok, the home of the Alien Hunters, the universe’s answer to injustice and evil! Your parents were sent to Earth to protect the oh-so-special humans from the Outer Ones, as they like to call us.
    “Because a few pathetic Alparians were born with some ability to manipulate the universal force, it was thought you could protect the good from the evil. As if good and evil aren’t just fairy tales made up for small children. There are the
strong
and then there are the
weak.
”
    I looked out at the ruined city again. Seth and his buddies had left just enough standing for me to see how amazing it must have been.
    Fragments of exotic spires, pyramids, domes, pagodas, minarets, columns, and obelisks peeked out in every direction. Right next to us was a giant sculpted building that looked like a hundred-story violin made of glass and metal. Now it leaned precariously because a huge hole had been blown in its base.
    Wait a second, I thought. It was leaning toward us.
    Maybe that was a good thing.
    Chapter 66
    IT COULD HAVE BEEN the air of my homeland, or maybe a coincidence, but ever since I’d stepped foot on Alpar Nok, power had been flowing into me. I could feel my energy surging as if I’d just downed about a dozen Red Bulls. Can you imagine it?
    There was no time to think