James Patterson, Ned Rust


Watch the Skies

The second book in the Daniel X series, 2009

For Jack, who completes me

– JP

For Ruth, for being proud of me

– NR


Prologue

NIGHT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR SIDE OF THE PLANET IS POINTED AT OUTER SPACE

Part One. ACTUALLY, ALIENS SHOULD FEAR THE REAPER

Chapter 1

YOU KNOW THE second-coolest of all my superpowers? It’s the one that lets me hear any song I’ve ever heard as loud as I want, as often as I want, and anytime I want. It’s like I have an iPod implanted in my head. Only it holds, like, terabytes more songs, and the sound quality’s better. And it never needs to be docked or recharged.

The song I was playing over and over again right then, as I motorcycled down I-80, was “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. I know it kinda puts the K in Klassic Rock, but it’s a good one. And it was going along real well with my thoughts and plans-wherein I am the Grim Reaper… of very, very bad aliens.

I leave the good ones alone, of course. But, honestly-not to bum you out-I’ve only bumped into a couple other “good” aliens here on your Big Blue Marble.

So what’s the coolest of my superpowers, you ask? The way I can smell alien sweat from ten miles away even while speeding along a highway with my helmet on? The way I’ve recently learned to make high-performance, hybrid-engine racing bikes that can travel three thousand miles at seventy-five miles per hour on a tank of gas? The way I can pop a wheelie… on my front tire?

Well, that’s almost untopable, but, no, the coolest of my superpowers is the one with which I can create my best friends-Willy, Joe, Emma, and Dana-out of my imagination.



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