Chapter 7

GUIDED BY THE sound of explosions, falling shelves, and screams, I made a mad dash to the source of the chaos, leaping over people, dodging carts, somersaulting over cardboard display stands.

The cause of the commotion was a makeshift film set “manned” by ten henchbeasts that were melting terrorized shoppers with their weapons. And heading the group was an alien that made my jaw hit the floor-a big-nosed ape that was none other than number twenty-one on The List.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have taken even a nanosecond to think about it. Because as soon as he saw me-and clearly he’d been waiting in ambush-he fired this rifle kind of thing with a round dish on its front end.

At me.

I’ve got some pretty good reflexes, if I do say so myself, and I managed to leap up into the air before he got the shot off-like high enough so that I could grab one of the exposed I beams in the thirty-foot ceiling-but I wasn’t fast enough.

A massive shockwave slammed into me, compressing all the air in the warehouse-sized store and smacking me down like I was a fly and it was a rolled-up newspaper. I crunched onto the floor, my ears ringing, my vision blurry, the room spinning.

“This is gold,” Number 21 cackled.

It would’ve been a great time to conjure up my friends or some weapons to help me kick some alien butt, but right now I could barely remember the word for ouch. I was on my own.

“We’ve found a lot of talented extras here in S-Mart,” Number 21 said darkly. “But you’re our best talent of the day, Daniel.”

My legs were like rubber as I staggered to my feet and forced myself into a jujitsu stance, instinctively realizing that since I couldn’t think clearly enough to create a peashooter, I was going to have to resort to old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat.

Unfortunately, I was still so unsteady, I think I ended up looking more like a drunk clown than a highly trained martial artist.

Number 21 was busting a gut. He mopped his sweaty brow and slung his shockwave cannon over his shoulder. “Are you guys getting this?” he asked the henchbeasts that were filming the shopping nightmare.

One of the crew asked, “Should we melt him too?”

“Nah,” Number 21 replied. “This was just his screen test. Boss says he’s still got some real important parts to play.”

And then everything went black as I fell back against a tower of mac-and-cheese boxes.