Chapter VI

Brrring! Slam!

"God I hate mornings!" thought R.J. In fact, it was not so much mornings that annoyed R.J. but having to wake up. Dreams were her haven, and sometimes they felt realer than real life. And last night it felt particularly real.

She reached over to her nightstand to get her notebook and pen. R.J. always wrote down her dreams when she woke up. Her best inspirations came from her dreams. Later, she would work it into a story.

She dreamt that her friend, Gyro, in the form of a vacuum, was talking to an Indian vacuum cleaner salesman. "He only seems to visit in my dreams nowadays," thought R.J. sadly. She missed seeing Gyro around, whenever she thought back to the first time she met him. She was six years old. It was the first Christmas after her mother died. He talked to her for the first time in the form of her battered, wind-up toy doggie. It was the only thing that got her through that Christmas. She never saw him when she was awake anymore. Now she wondered if he ever really existed outside of her own mind.

"Honey, are you up? You’ll be late for school."

"Yes, Mimi," R.J. shouted back. She got up and dragged herself into the bathroom. The face that stared back at her from the bathroom mirror belied her actual age. Already at the young age of 16, her dark eyes held the look of experience.

Staring at her hair made her think of Mr. Cavendish, her freshman biology teacher. He tried one day to pique her interest in his class by explaining the genetic reasons why the shock of white ran through her auburn hair; something about women inheriting it through both parents and men only through the mother. It didn’t matter. He failed.

You see, R.J. was absolutely brilliant. Thus, she was a very poor student. All of her classes bored the hell out of her, all of them except English, that is. Her English teacher, Mrs. Farris, praised and pitied R.J., and she was the only teacher R.J. liked.

"Have a good day at school, Raindrop," chirped Mimi as she walked out the door. R.J. hated it when Mimi used her real name. She always wondered what her parents were thinking when they named her. Little did R.J. know that she would not make it to school today.

Yolanda Win woke up in a top secret government lab. By the look of it, she assumed it was the new A.R.T. (Alien Research and Technology) Labs® that were all the buzz in the spy world. "Good, you’re awake," said a deep male voice. When Yolanda sat up, she realized the voice was coming from Dr. Anderson. "Well doc, care to tell me what’s going on?" replied Yolanda.

"Well, Miss Win, it all started when we traced an alien package delivery to a Mr. Clyde Millers. He never realized the importance of the package. Inside it was an organic matter transmitter mechanism. We immediately took the package here to have it analyzed. When we discovered that the cockroaches were mounting an attack against the military instillation you were located at, we were forced to test the device prematurely. I’m afraid you were the only one we recovered. Admiral Lymon gave his life while trying to slow down the invasion, and the transference proved itself to be fatal to insects. Mr. Millers and his feline friend were lost. We are still trying to track them down. We have not seen the child nor Mr. Lind. Dr. DeGana theorizes that they were outside the area of the matter transference ray."

As soon as Igmar stopped telling Yolanda what happened, Dr. DeGana walked into the room. "Igmar, you have to take a look at this data! It’s amazing! It’s incredible! It seems that the component breakdown of carbon-carbon sigma bonds in the procedure causes a disruption in the balance of atmospheric hydrogen hydroxide isotopes. Do you know what this means?!"

"Well, I know I don’t," replied Yolanda irritatedly.

"In other words, Miss Win," explained Igmar, "The transporter beam causes it to rain."

Zigmund Frye sat in his office watching a small television set. On it were three people; his secretary, a female nurse, and a young boy named Jonathan. Dr. Frye liked to watch his patients via the security camera before seeing them. You see, the doctor was absolutely convinced that people thought you were a much more important person if you kept them waiting. Besides, it allowed him time to study them.

On the other side of the camera, the two women were cooing over the child. "You know, Jonny," the secretary said, "God must think you are a very special little boy, to give you such a pretty birthmark." Jonathan, however, did not agree. The streak of white in the front of his hair was just a nuisance to him. He hated having to explain it to everyone he met. There was nothing special about him at all. Before he could say anything, however, the intercom buzzed. "Mary. you can send Jonathan in now," spoke a German-sounding voice over the intercom.

"Sure thing, Ziggy," replied Mary.

When Jonathan met Dr. Frye, he was very surprised at what he saw. The voice that came over the intercom sounded like the Nazis he remembered from the Indiana Jones movies, but he looked nothing like them. His features resembled a combination of Black and Japanese. His skin was a golden-brown, his eyes were dark and slanted, and his hair was wavy and black.

"Please, have a seat, Jonathan," said the doctor. "He’s a ‘receiver’," thought the doctor, "and a powerful one at that." He knew this because, as well as being a famous child psychologist, Dr. Frye was psionic. Through careful prodding, he got Jonathan to open up to him. From what Jonathan told him, earth was facing a new threat. A race of pure mathematicians had set up a base on Pluto. From there they were planning to make a raid on Neptune and crush the giant cockroaches. Then they would move the invasion to Earth. Their plan was to first find Earth’s scientific leaders and destroy them. They discovered who these individuals were by intercepting communication signals, which the humans call television. After that, the Earth’s defenses would crumble. Suddenly, Ziggy froze up. His danger sense was kicking in, but it had never come on this fast or this strong before. He knew he would have to act fast. He reached under his desk and pressed a button.