THE TRAFFIC STOPPED.
The pedestrians froze.
The WALK sign never lit up.
All the giant billboards surrounding Times Square quit flickering, some with bulbs stuck in midblink.
Number 1, the all-powerful alien, the one my father warned me was a “godlike” creature, had somehow made time stand still in Times Square so he could send me a text message.
I glanced down at the screen on my Extremely Smart Phone (Apple will probably sell something similar in the year 2525). A glowing green message was waiting for me.
As I went to open the text, I noticed my hand was bathed in an eerie green glow.
I looked up.
I wouldn’t need my phone.
The Prayer’s message was boldly scrolled in bright green script on every conceivable electronic receptor in Times Square. The jumbo-screen TVs. The flashing billboards. The chaser lights zipping electronic headlines around massive buildings. Even the illuminated advertisements on top of the stalled taxicabs proclaimed Number 1’s message to me:
CONGRATULATIONS, DANNY BOY!
YOU HAVE MOVED UP TO THE TOP OF MY LIST.
YOU ARE MY NEW NUMBER 1.
I spent a few time-suspended seconds soaking it in.
I guess turnabout is fair play, as they say.
I’ve had The Prayer at the top of my list my whole life. Now it was his turn to make me his number-one draft pick, the prime target of his anger and wrath.
For a moment, I wondered who used to be The Prayer’s Number 1. Why hadn’t he focused on me in the past? Had he counted on some of his outlaw cronies in the Top Ten to take me down?
If he had, it didn’t work out so well. I’d already erased numbers 2 through 9 before any of them could erase me.
So now it was just us.
Two number ones. Two Alien Hunters locked in what would be, for one of us, our final battle.
I was in for the fight of my life and I knew it.
And if I had any doubts about The Prayer’s powers, they quickly evaporated when a pair of white-hot lightning bolts slammed into Times Square, blasting new potholes into Seventh Avenue and jolting time back into play.
The cratered asphalt steamed and sizzled. Sparks crackled like fireworks and spewed out of every sign and TV screen hanging over the crossroads of the world.
But the seen-everything New Yorkers around me just shrugged as the shower of electrical embers rained down on their heads. Some popped open umbrellas. Most probably figured a fuse must’ve blown somewhere. They just kept going to wherever it was they needed to be.
I stared at the smoldering holes in the street and shook my head.
Lightning bolts.
Apparently The Prayer had a serious Zeus complex.