Blaze

By Brett Cooper

When aliens-obsessed sixteen-year-old Blaise Davis is abducted by his birth family, he learns that he is not a twin but a triplet, that his adoption was not interstate but interstellar, and that his birth father may or may not be the greatest villain in the universe.

After severely injuring his twin brother Wimpy in a fit of rage four years ago, Blaise is the “normal” one nobody notices, the one who can’t stop the neighbor bully or get the girl. But destiny awaits. Blaise and Wimpy were born in a distant galaxy. Their enigmatic birth father, Goby, has big plans. When they are snatched from Earth and then lost in space, Blaise’s anger becomes a superpower and Blaise becomes BLAZE – and must find out who he really is, follow his heart and control his rage before Goby can control his mind… and the fate of the universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365181245

Book preview

Blaze

BLAZE

Copyright © 2016 by Brett Cooper

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-365-18124-5

acknowledgements

Neverending thank-yous to: Julie, always my inspiration and my first, best editor in writing as in life; Baye, Will, Sam and Mickey, who’ve taught me much more than I’ve learned; Alexis Kotsakis, for repeated, much-needed encouragement; Sean McHale, for the willingness and ability to teach the mentor a thing or two; Betsy D’Angelo, for invaluable twinsights; Mike Krizman, for reminding me of the big picture; my 2014-15 Literacy classes, for listening with expert ears; and Dick Cooper, Bob DeLucas, Bud Zwierlein and Bill Bolek, Jr. and Sr., for your examples of devoted, loving fatherhood and friendship; and God, for everything.

prologue: shh… it begins

The boy, who is four, clambers up the stairs, teddy bear in tow, and hesitates. This is his second time playing cops and robbers; he has no preconceived notions about where he should hide. He thinks of his room, then of his closet with its dark spaces.

Once he’s inside, he closes the accordion doors, leaving a crack through which to peer. You live here now, he whispers to the bear, propping it in the corner. He sits breathing quietly as he waits. He listens to the soft thud of feet on the move. He is confident no one will find him.

When the boy hears his name spoken by a voice so near he no longer believes he is alone in the closet, he gasps and shrinks deeper into the shadows.

Joachim, the voice says.

In the darkness a luminous image appears. It is the image of a man: the man with the voice, the boy realizes. The image is about a foot tall. The boy does not know that this is a holographic image. He knows only that he is amazed and scared — too scared to cry or run.

Again: Joachim. All is well. You need not be afraid.

The boy watches as the image speaks. He understands that the man appears friendly and strange. He does not understand the strangeness.

I am not truly here with you. I am talking to you by telephone. It is a different kind of telephone. Do you understand?

Joachim nods.

Come closer, please, the image says.

Joachim settles onto his elbows so that his face is nearer to and level with the image. Physically, he dwarfs the image, yet he does not feel larger; he feels smaller.

Where are you? Joachim says.

I am at my house, just as you are at yours. What are you doing right now, Joachim? Why are you in your closet?

I’m playing cops and robbers.

Are your friends looking for you?

Yes.

That sounds like fun. I need you to do something for me. It is very important, and it is secret. Will you?

What? Joachim says.

I need you to come back here later, to talk to me. I do not want to spoil your game. Come back here when nobody is looking for you or waiting for you or expecting your company. I want to talk to you, but I do not want anyone to interrupt us. When is your bedtime?

Seven.

Seven o’clock at night?

Yeah.

Okay. I want you to go to bed at seven. Then pretend to be asleep. Do you know how to pretend to be asleep in case your mother or your father come to check on you?

Yeah.

Do that. Pretend to be asleep. Wait for as long as you can, but do not fall asleep. Then, when you are sure that you hear no noises nearby, sneak out of bed and wait for me right here in the closet. Will you do that for me, Joachim?

Yes! Joachim says. For the first time in his life, he wishes it were bedtime. He wants to be sneaky in this new way, and he thinks he will do a good job.

PART 1 - DENIAL

chapter one: show and tell

On a certain Tuesday morning in Miss Volz's third grade class, Blaise Davis was squirming behind his desk and breathing through his teeth. Today was Cassie Woodrow’s turn for show and tell. She had brought a small statue of a person with a wide, flat empty-looking face, whose arms were close beside his thick body. Blaise knew Cassie was about to taunt him. He knew exactly what the statue was.

This is a souvenir my mom got for me when she went to Easter Island, Cassie said. "There are a lot of super big real ones that were carved out of the rock walls by people like six hundred years ago. Everybody knows that. Except for some crazy people, she said, glaring at Blaise, who think the statues were made by aliens."

As Blaise returned Cassie’s glare, Miss Volz said, Wouldn’t you say, Cassie, that that’s because the Moai statues are so impressive — with their great stone faces gazing hopefully to the sky; and so enormous: taller than most houses, I believe, and heavier than most dinosaurs — that it is difficult to imagine that a primitive island people could have created them?

"Some people think that, Cassie said, but they’re wrong."

How do you know? Blaise blurted. A few drops of spit flew out with the sudden words. His face was hot, and his thoughts were on fire. All you have is a stupid souvenir. That doesn’t make you an expert.

Enough, Blaise, warned Miss Volz.

Cassie said, What about the pyramids, Blaise, and the Great Wall of China and the Statue of Liberty? Did aliens make those?

I’m just saying, Cassie. You don’t know.

I’m just saying, Blaise. DUH.

Cassie, return to your seat. Thank you for your presentation.

A few students clapped hesitantly. All of them looked on as Cassie sauntered by Blaise’s desk, tapped it with one fingertip and declared, You need to do your homework. There’s no such thing as aliens.

Blaise growled. He swatted Cassie’s hand away. That is bull crap!

Young man! Miss Volz cried over a chorus of gasps. That is unacceptable language!

But Blaise was indignant. "There are aliens. She’s not an expert. You let her talk. Now you have to let me." And to make his point he stood and pierced the stuffy classroom air with a stab of his pointer finger, aiming it right at Miss Volz.

She approached slowly. Like a Moai statue, she towered over Blaise. Then, in the deepest voice the students of Room 3B had ever heard issue forth from a woman, Miss Volz said, You may talk to the principal.

Blaise, Principal Milton intoned from the other side of his enormous desk, "free speech has its limits. For example, you can’t yell fire in a movie theater. And you can’t yell bomb at an airport."

"I didn’t yell anything. All I said was bull crap. It’s not like I said bullshit."

You said what?! Mr. Davis stood in Blaise's bedroom doorway and glared at his son stretched out upon his bed. Judging by the angry veins in his father's neck and the thick sound of prejudice in his voice, Blaise wouldn't be passing back through that doorway anytime soon.

No, Dad, he said. I was telling him what I didn’t say.

Which means you said it.

You’re not listening, Blaise protested.

Did the word come out of your mouth or did the word come out of your mouth?

Well, technically…

That’s what I thought, his dad said. Technically, Blaise, you are grounded for life.

For life turned out to be a week. But that was the day Blaise began to suspect that pretty much everyone in the world had somehow been brainwashed. But not him. He would never let that happen.

chapter two: can the hero die already?

The hearse smelled funny. Like old people potpourri. And the darkness was suffocating. Blaise couldn’t breathe. He clicked his phone’s home button. The lock screen illuminated the coffin interior. Lying on his back bathed by this otherworldly bluish glow, Blaise, sixteen now, felt like a fugitive alien in an escape pod.

There were at least four things wrong with this plan:

It was too complicated.

It would never work.

It would get them arrested.

It was Keemo’s idea.

This might be a setup, another one of Keemo’s twisted pranks. But Blaise believed in aliens, and he was dying to see what he believed.

Late on Tuesday, Keemo had texted Blaise five pics of supposedly Highly Classified documents that stated:

Aliens have invaded Earth.

They use advanced tech to assume human form.

They have infiltrated local police departments.

Their tech can be glitched up by triggering their heart rate alarms.

And this can be done by scaring the hell out of them.

Keemo probably Photoshopped the documents, but what if they were real? Blaise had to know.

How long will my oxygen last? he wondered. Ask.com had said 4 hours, but you couldn’t trust those answers. Random people could give random answers that could be wrong yet voted right. You could ask, What’s the meaning of life? and get one guy say love, one say nothing, and one say Minecraft, and just because only three voted for Minecraft didn’t make it not true.

Blaise called to his fraternal twin brother, Wimpy, who was driving the hearse: What time is it?

A muffled reply: Hammer time.

Stop, Blaise said. Idiot.

Duh, my phone. Blaise took another look. 3:16. It had been 31 minutes since the end of the school day, 20 since the meet-up behind the funeral parlor, 14 inside the coffin. It had seemed like months.

Blaise felt the familiar fuse of anger sizzling up his throat, and as usual he didn’t know why. Lack of oxygen? Claustrophobia? Darkness? The coffin itself?

All of the above, probably.

Plus Wimpy.

Though Blaise and Wimpy looked nearly identical, especially when people bought them ridiculous matching outfits, since The Accident their personalities were worlds apart. It was not long after that fateful day that Blaise trashed his half of all their matching outfits, doused them with gasoline and watched them burn.

Wimpy was far from normal. There are those who are Special, which is fine. Wimpy, though, was Extra Special. When God was manning the conveyor belts that move babies along from Heaven to Earth, dispensing Extra Special Sauce on a chosen few, for some reason he emptied a whole heavenly bottle on Wimpy.

The kid was goofy. He was way too happy. He was always saying weird crap at the wrong time. And people loved him. They loved Wimpy almost as if because of his bad timing and weird crap.

But at first he was normal. Maybe God uses different kinds of Special Sauces: some that are fast-acting and some that work on a delay. Wimpy’s delay was seven years.

It happened on a perfect summer night. The Joneses had invited a few neighbor families, including the Davises, for a Friday night barbecue.

Seven-year old Blaise had been checking the mailbox all week. It’d been sixteen days since he and Wimpy had taken their first IQ test. Blaise was dying to know the results. He felt really good about his performance. He was aiming for 160: official genius level. Anything less would be a catastrophe.

Maybe because he’d been anxious about the backyard barbecue (there was something wrong with that kid Keemo), Blaise had forgotten to check the mail. Not until it was getting dark and the kids had gathered around the fire pit and Wimpy had browned a marshmallow too long and it melted and slid off the stick and dropped into the flames, did Blaise say, Stupid, and this reminded him of the IQ test.

Claiming he had to go pee, Blaise rounded the corner into the side yard and made a beeline for the mailbox at the end of his driveway.

Score!

There it was: the envelope with the results. Blaise held the parcel with reverence. He could almost hear angels singing.

Slowly, he opened the envelope.

He scanned past the jargon and fluff until he came to the only thing that mattered, the first number.

160.

160, baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But… wait, that can’t be right. He looked again. There were two numbers, one for him, one for Wimpy.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, no.

In all things brotherly, Blaise thought of his name as coming first. Blaise and Wimpy. B before W. But Wimpy wasn’t a birth name, of course, it was a nickname. Most people assumed it had something to do with Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They were wrong. It was because he never would eat his spinach.

Be like Popeye, Dad had once said, when Blaise and Wimpy were about three years old. Popeye is strong. He eats his spinach.

I hate spinach.

You don’t want to be wimpy, do you? Or Wimpy from Popeye. Remember? No, you wouldn’t. His name was Wimpy because he ate too many burgers. Burgers were all he cared about. He never ate spinach. Wimpy was the anti-Popeye, who would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. He was fat and in debt because why? Because burgers.

I like burgers.

"I do too, but I eat my spinach. Don’t be the anti-Popeye, Augie. Eat burgers and spinach. Be strong."

I don’t want to.

You will one day. When the girls start noticing muscles.

I don’t care about girls, and I hate spinach. He closed his mouth tight.

If that’s how it is, Dad said, you’ll always be wimpy.

He never did eat his spinach.

And Wimpy he was.

His real name, however, was Augustine. Augustine and Blaise. So: A before B (not B before W).

Blaise looked again at the letter from the testing company. This time he read the jargon and fluff.

The first number, 160, was Wimpy’s IQ.

Blaise’s was 157.

Wimpy was a certified genius.

Blaise was not.

When he returned to the barbecue, with the fire pit and the marshmallows, the grownups drinking on the deck, the little kids chasing fireflies, Wimpy and Keemo on stump stools, poking at the fire, Blaise could not stop thinking about the envelope, the letter and the numbers 160 and 157. They were burning a hole in his pocket.

He stared deep into the fire.

Eventually, Keemo said, What’s wrong?

Blaise snapped out of his reverie. Nothing.

I bet you thought you were smarter, didn’t you?

After watching a swarm of red, orange and yellow embers fly to the heavens and blink out, Blaise turned to Keemo and looked him in the eyes.

Wimpy told me about your IQ test, Keemo said. So, what’d you get? How dumb are you?

Blaise turned to his brother. What the heck, Wimpy?!

I just told him we took it, is all, Wimpy said.

Why? He doesn’t need to know. It’s private.

Not if I find out, Keemo said.

Blaise slipped out of his back pocket the envelope with the letter. He was about to crumple it and toss it into the fire when Keemo saw what he was doing — and he snatched it. Blaise lunged and grasped for the envelope. But Keemo, a few inches taller and much thicker than Blaise, held it high, out of reach.

Oo-h-h, Keemo said.

And Blaise cried, Hey!

Blaise swatted and strained and jumped. Keemo dodged and smiled.

"I bet this is the letter with your