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ALIENATION

Thomas Nelson

Chapter One

The jet pack strapped to his back was an antique from the Second World War, and it shook his body from his toes to his teeth, but it didn't matter. The thrill of flying was like nothing else. Roller coasters. Bungee jumping. Cliff diving. Even surfing. None of it compared to roaring through the sky without a safety net.

The sun peeked out from behind the Superstition Mountains, casting the morning in a strange haze as an October wind blew across the desert. Colt could see his breath whenever he exhaled, but he ignored the cold and arched his shoulders, throwing his head back as he shot straight up. Lost in the moment, Colt let the world and all its worries fade away. Up there, problems had a way of disappearing. There were no thoughts of alien invasions, secret mind-control programs, or his parents, who had been murdered just a few short weeks ago.

At times he missed them so intensely that the simple act of breathing became impossible. He would go to his room, turn off the lights, and crawl into bed, wishing he could be with them again—even if it meant dying. In those empty moments, life felt meaningless. Hopeless.

"I'm just about set up." The voice that crackled through his earpiece belonged to Danielle Salazar, who was on the ground setting up the obstacle course. She was a video game expert, computer hacker, and one of Colt's best friends. They were born days apart, and even though they weren't related by blood, he thought of her as the sister he never had.

People who didn't know them just figured they were dating. After all, they didn't look anything like siblings. His mop of hair was so blond it looked white in the summer, and his eyes were the kind of blue that made people think he wore colored contacts. Everything about Danielle was dark. Her hair. Eyes. Skin. Colt could admit that she was beautiful, but date her? Not in this lifetime.

"I'll be right there." He pulled up and hovered in place, distracted by a pair of hawks flying in circles. Their dance was beautiful, effortless, and he could have watched them for hours, but the older model jet packs didn't have reliable fuel gauges. It read that he had less than seven minutes remaining, which was enough time to run the obstacle course at least once, but there was no way to know for sure. Still, he needed the practice. Yesterday's effort had been a disaster.

He turned and headed back to the ground where Danielle was waiting near his grandpa's 1946 Chevy pickup with the chrome grill and whitewall tires. The 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser that his parents bought for his sixteenth birthday was in storage back in San Diego.

The exhaust from his jet pack sent a swirl of dust and sand rolling across the desert as he touched down. Landing was still awkward, and he stumbled before he regained his footing, but at least he didn't roll his ankle or run into a cactus.

"All right," Danielle said. She was wearing a thick jacket wreathed in some kind of fake fur, and vapors from the cold escaped from between her lips as she entered a sequence of commands into her tablet computer. "The targets are all set up, so as soon as Oz gets here—if he gets here—we can start."

Oz Romero was perpetually late. It didn't matter if he was going to a class, doctor's appointment, church, or movie. Timeliness and Oz simply didn't mix. Most of the time it didn't matter, but this morning Colt had forced himself out of bed at five thirty. If he had to be on time, he expected the same from Oz.

Colt flipped his goggles up over his helmet as he watched the gravel road. He wanted to give Oz the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was having engine trouble, or he'd stopped to help someone change a flat tire. Or maybe he was just late, like always. "Where is he?"

"He won't answer his phone, which means he's probably still asleep."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know," Danielle said. "I mean, we're out here, and everything is set up. You might as well run the course. If he doesn't show up by the time you have to refuel, we can head back."

She was about to climb into the cab and sit next to the heater when a black Jeep crested a hill. Dust plumed and oversized tires crunched across the desert floor, leaving a massive trail in the Jeep's wake. At the last possible moment, Oz pulled off the road and parked between a saguaro cactus and Grandpa's pickup.

"You're late," Danielle said with a hand on her hip.

Oz shrugged and cut the engine before he gulped down the last of a protein shake and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "Sorry." It wasn't much of an apology. Usually he would have made some outlandish excuse and then laughed it off.

He hopped out of the Jeep, his eyes distant. He looked tired, or was it depressed? Either way, it wasn't normal. Oz was typically upbeat, whether the occasion called for it or not.

"What's wrong? Were you up all night hunting zombies again?" Colt asked, referring to Zombie Extermination Squad, a video game that the three of them played together more often than they cared to admit.

Oz looked at him and frowned, as though trying to gauge if he was serious. "You heard about the incident, right?"

Colt hadn't, but that wasn't unusual. Oz had access to information the rest of the world didn't know existed. His dad was the director of an organization called CHAOS—Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural. They were a bit like the CIA or the FBI, but instead of going after drug cartels or spying on the Russians, they protected the world from nightmares like bioengineered monsters, alien life forms, and sparkling vampires.

"Can you give us a hint?" Colt asked. The way things had been going lately, he half expected Oz to tell him that Godzilla had been spotted off the shores of Tokyo.

"Turn on the radio and you'll see." Oz slipped into a jumpsuit that he had pulled out of his duffel bag. It didn't look like it was going to fit his six-foot-four frame or his enormous shoulders, but he managed to squeeze in and zip it up before he slipped on a pair of size fifteen boots.

Danielle turned the key in the ignition of the pickup, and static blasted through the speakers as she tried to find a news station.

"... thousands are seeking refuge, shutting down roads and freeways leading from Cedar Rapids and surrounding communities despite the combined efforts of local law enforcement and the National Guard. Already airports in Des Moines, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City have been overrun with people looking to get as far away from the reactor core as possible."

"Reactor core?" Colt asked. "What happened?"

"They're telling everyone that there was a leak at a nuclear power plant, but that's just a cover," Oz said.

"For what?" Danielle asked. After all, a meltdown at a reactor could be catastrophic, but if that was just a story, the truth had to be devastating.

"They think someone released a virus."

"What, like...