Nineteen; Mobile Phone Coverage

We waited, but nothing happened.

The cave walls had stopped glowing, we were in complete and utter darkness.

Eventually Bocco spoke, “Zain?”

There was no answer.

“Zain?” he repeated.

“What’s going on?” I asked, but nobody answered me.

In the darkness I felt something tickle my ear and jumped in surprise. I flailed my arms in the direction of the tickle, thinking it was Ziggy creeping up on me, and trying to keep the creepy little freak away from me.

Something grabbed one of my hands, and pulled me off balance, so it couldn’t have been Ziggy. I yelled out in surprise, but something covered my mouth cutting the sound off.

“What was that?” demanded one of the homeland security officers.

Bocco whispered next to my ear, “Shush.” I felt his whiskers tickle my ear again.

I thought for a moment then decided to trust the giant talking bear.

“I tripped on something,” I called into the darkness to explain my outburst.

“It didn’t sound like you tripped,” came the reply.

I laughed nervously, “Well, you know us aliens, or rather you don’t, know us that is...” I told you I speak nonsense when I’m nervous, anyway to stop me from giving the game away Bocco put his hand back over my mouth.

“Yeah, right,” came the uncertain reply from the darkness.

Bocco led me through the darkness, I wasn’t sure where we were going or why, but as I said I had decided to trust him. Miraculously we didn’t walk into anything and made it outside our little cave.

Close to the entrance I could see the blue light of three mobile phones glowing in the darkness, the power failure had stopped the excited chatter momentarily, but as we left it was starting up again.

Bocco led me a short distance away before speaking again.

“Zain,” he said as though that explained something.

“Zain?” I asked, and then before he answered me, “What happened to Zain?”

“With Ziggy.”

“With Ziggy?” I asked and realised I had a tendency to repeat people back to themselves when I was confused. It also occurred to me this would be annoying to them, but a useful device for me to reach my daily word count.

“Yes,” said Bocco.

And, “Yes,” I repeated back to him, “Do you think Ziggy kidnapped him?” I was an only child, but knew sibling rivalry could be a bitch.

Bocco didn’t answer.

Keeping a firm grip on my wrist he led me through the darkness.

I wanted to ask him questions, like where were we going, and why? Why had we left the house and all those homeland security officers? And lastly, and most importantly, how come three Japanese exchange students could get mobile phone coverage in Zugar-Zipperat? Were the teleco’s now offering off-world coverage in a bid for market dominance?

I knew Bocco wouldn’t tell me, so I followed along quietly hoping he wouldn’t walk me into a cave wall by mistake.

Chapter Twenty