Chapter 1: The stakeout

So my dad thinks I ran away from college early and my best friend was getting very nervous. We were in a drastic situation and it was kind of my fault. Morty was holding a parcel like his life depended on it but I would not trust him if the Klozars (who are homicidal aliens by the way) tortured Morty to give up the parcel. It's fine, I would not trust myself either. You might probably be wondering what this dude is talking about, but don't worry, I'll fill you in on the whole story. So where did it all start? I remember it like it was yesterday...oh, it was.

***

"Zack!"

That's my name, I'm Zack Trevor. I'm twenty years old and I'm in my second year in college. I have blonde hair and I'm about 1.78cm tall.

ZACK!!!

"Oh jeez." I said to myself taking one ear of my headset up. If anyone had told me that my dad was a T-Rex , I'd have believed them. He screamed so loudly.

"Ketchup?! Ketchup, there's ketchup everywhere!"

I raised my hands. "Hold up_" This is Dexter, my father, sadly for me, he was not such a stick in the mud.

"I don't know what you're talking about, dad." I told him and commandeered my stuff. "Oh come on!"

I had enough of my siblings' antics. I know I'm supposed to be responsible and stuff but I'm not that type of guy. "This is ridiculous!" I followed Dexter down the stairs while he gave me another lecture about not taking responsibility. Like he always did.

I'm twenty_yeah, it's that time of my life and I felt like I was not living up to my dad's expectations. I'm almost at the brink of getting thrown out of the house.

The avocado walls were covered up in ketchup, including the TV, the carpet, and the table. Red blots everywhere. It felt like my mom's redecorating gone wrong like the inside of a bloody, giant cube-shaped avocado. I swallowed hard.

"Lois!" My sister was couped up on our ratty beige couch, she tried to watch nursery rhymes on my dad's tablet. I fumed at her, she was spotless in her red and orange striped shirt and denim overalls. She had blonde-ish hair in ponytails, blue eyes, and a pudgy face. She glanced at me cluelessly. "What?"

'This one's on you, big bro.' In the end I cleaned up.

Ding dong! I opened the door after he knocked. "MORTAY!" We high-hived and did a sort of secret handshake unique to us. Morty Gonzalez had olive skin, a curly undercut, a slightly angular face, hazel eyes, a Greek nose, he was taller than me reaching on 1.80cm.

"I heard you're coming over to my house." He tapped his fingers together like some conspiracy theorist and I clamped his mouth shut.

"We're in the same situation but I just came to make sure you're serious about coming," His eyes widened. He had this suspicious look on his face.

"Yeah, sure."

"Bueno," He pointed.

"So why are you here?" I asked him holding the door.

"I'm fine. I have something interesting to show you."

...

Hours later I was all set for the sleepover at his place and for once I would want to pretend that my cellphone did not exist because Morty was calling. I grabbed a big physics handout and rushed downstairs to the living room where my dad was seated on a couch with Lois. She bypassed her playdate tonight. I hurried past Dad to the doorway.

"Love you, Lois, bye dad."

"Hold on a second. Where are you going?" Dad asked me sitting up. I raised the textbook for good measure. Then I realized a flaw in my plan, my dad was a big math nerd. I pulled up the strap of my bag nervously. "Oof, uh, Morty's slipping so_" I drew in a breath and shrugged. "I've decided to go and help."

"Liar." My eyes narrowed at Lois to back off. She just covered half of her face in her blue snuggie.

"We'll split, you take Seymour with you tonight,"

Seymour's head turned, he had grey fur and black stripes, he was getting exhausted from staying indoors. He joined me and so I made my way out of the house to Morty's house. I was running west of a road junction where a dump truck zoomed passed us and someone called.

"Pssst. Zack, Zack, Zack!"

I looked around the place and gasped at the bush. Seymour's back arched at the talking bush hissing and Morty stood upright and took off the camouflage. He was in all black with bushes around him. The good news was I didn't have to run five blocks from my house to his anymore.

"Dude, thanks for coming." He said at the corner of his lip.

"Can we get this over with? And why are you dressed like a robber?" I pointed out and he rolled his eyes.

"Physics gets by anything," He pointed.

I blew my hair out of my face. It was getting windy. "Are you on a voyage to look for your own house?" I asked with a smug look on my face.

"No," He licked his lip. "We're goin' on a stakeout,"

He brought me an extra ski mask, good idea because it was getting colder.

"I can't," And he made that funny face where he messed up biting his lip. I touched my forehead.

"Morty_"

"I said I was having a sleepover at your house too,"

And so foretold the endless calls.

"What!?"

"That's nothing to worry about, bro, I have something more serious to show you,"

I'm sure my dad would hear me too so I ran after him past the stores, past a few open shops and I was edgy about the place he was heading to.

"Dude." It was getting darker, and I'm not big on dark places. We stopped by an old private hangar. Morty laid low in the shadows. The towering shadow from the entrance door put me on edge, someone was coming.

"I saw Mister Wigglesworth walk in there," He pointed into the entrance where the door was ajar, lights flooded the walkway and the crickets were chirping.

"Who?" I spoke out with a tremor that I hoped didn't show.

"Mister Wigglesworth,"

"Umm...I don't see anyone," Even if I did, Mister Wigglesworth was the last person I would expect to be in there.

"Someone's coming," I whispered. He ran and Seymour shrieked when I grabbed him to run along. I wouldn't take chances at this time of night. He stopped by the entry and I bumped into him, The stranger was coming forth, I dropped beside Morty and we inched faster and faster around the crates around the open space. The strangers were approaching fast.

Morty focused on the centre of the room and we saw 'them'. Two others speaking in an unintelligible language. I reckoned Morty wanted a piece of this convention too and boy did he look serious. "Stay low," He warned.

I hunkered down glaring at the entities dressed in brown camouflage armour, little wonder Morty was afraid of them. Their helmets had three filters, left, right and the centre with visors. There had to be some colossal people in those costumes.

An old man arrived with two more entourages. He had a scrunched up face, a bald spot, white hair on each side of his head, he had big ears, and his eyes looked distrustingly from one person to the other. He wore a blue leathery jacket, brown combat pants, and brown sneakers with lemon-green tops. His back was hunched and he had a bit of a swagger in his gait and he was holding on to a parcel.

I focused intently on the scene trying to put two and two together. "Damn."