Young Alex helped his older self pull the beanbag-shaped boulder out of the hole in the wall. They swung it over to a wedge that held it in place. Alex stepped aside and gestured toward the cave exit.

“Age before beauty.” He smiled. They were both wearing their blue and silver Mexican wrestling masks that their Uncle Davey had brought back for them from Guadalupe.

Old Man Alex took a step toward the hole, then pulled back. “I—I can’t.”

Young Alex looked at his older self’s pear-shaped belly. “C’mon, you didn’t eat that many SuperCheezyFranksOnnaStick,” he said. “Suck in that gut. You’ll fit through.”

“No, I mean, I can’t. I can’t slay aliens, I can’t go back to Earth, I can’t step outside the dark side of the moon, I can’t leave my cave. I can’t.”

“Of course you can! And besides that, you have to. I’m not gonna save the world all by myself!”

“I’m sorry,” the old man said. “There was a time, years ago, when I probably should’ve put down the Virtua-Goggles, stopped eating SuperCheezyFranksOnnaStick, and rejoined the world. But now it’s too late. I’m just fat. And lazy. And I can’t do it.”

“Okay. I understand. I guess I’ll just—whoopsie!” The younger Alex suddenly stumbled backward, tripped on a moon rock, and fell through the hole into the darkness outside.

“Alex!”

The older El Solo Libre rushed to the hole and leaned out. Two small, silver-sleeved arms reached up and grabbed him.

“HUMMMPH!”

Alex yanked his older self out through the hole with all his might. As the old man somersaulted in the moon dust, the younger Alex reached inside the cave and pulled the peg. The boulder corked the entrance hole with a CRUNCH!

“What are you doing?!”

Older Alex scrambled to his feet and rushed to the boulder. He pushed at it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Well,” Alex said. “Looks like we’re locked out. And—oh, no! I forgot my spare keystone.” He burst out laughing. “Get it?! ‘Keystone?!’ C’mon. That’s funny stuff. You need to chillax.”

Old Man Alex wasn’t laughing. Or chillaxing. He was freaking out.

“Why did you do that? Everything I own is in there!”

“Everything you own is made of rocks, dude,” Alex said. “Except two things. You said you’ve gotten fat and lazy. Well, I think someone sent you the SuperCheezyFrankOnnaStick 3000 to keep you fat and the AlienSlayer:43 game to keep you lazy.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?”

“To make sure you stayed in your cave and never came out. Because I may be a boring, normal kid, and you may be a fat, old, freaky, dim-witted hermit dude—”

“Hey—”

“—but I have a hunch that together we can do anything. Together, we can defeat any alien that dares poke their ugly snouts in our neck of the galaxy. Together, we are EL SOLO LIBRE!”

Old Man Alex smiled at Alex as he jumped up on a boulder and began cheering and waving his arms.

“LEE-BRAY! LEE-BRAY! LEE-BR—”

FLOOOMPH!

A black shadow swooped down and snatched Alex off the boulder and disappeared into the darkness.

“Alex? ALEX!!!”

Old Man Alex leaped into action, jumping from boulder to boulder as he chased the flicker of silver sailing away in the cold, dark sky.

“NOOO! ALEX! COME BACK!!”

“AHHHHHHH!!!”

Alex screamed at the top of his lungs as the giant MoonBat carried him over the craggy gray craters and valleys. Looking down, he spotted a tiny, pear-shaped figure taking giant steps in the low lunar gravity, trying to keep up.

“I’ll save you, Alex! Just hold on!”

Old Man Alex suddenly skidded through the moon dust and stopped short at the edge of a very steep cliff. He looked up. He could only watch helplessly as the MoonBat carried his younger self away from him.

Soaring high above the canyon, Alex looked back at his older self stranded at the edge of the cliff, getting smaller and smaller in the darkness. He noticed the tiny figure lifting a large white object over his head. He was yelling something to Alex, but it was hard to understand. It sounded like…

“Alex! Clock its gears!”

“What?!”

“Flock its beers!”

“WHAT?!”

“BLOCK ITS EARS!”

This made only slightly more sense than flocking its beers, but Alex obeyed. He swung his body back and forth, gaining momentum until—

CLAMP! Like a real Mexican wrestler, Alex leg-locked the MoonBat’s head. Then, like a kung fu master, he side-kicked his heels into the bat’s huge ears. Alex squeezed his legs as tight as he could, plugging the creature’s earholes.

SHRIIIEEEEEEK!!

The giant bat dove and spun, trying to shake Alex’s feet out of its ears. It let go of Alex as it cut back toward the ridge where Old Man Alex stood. Alex hung upside-down, holding on by his heels. He spotted Old Man Alex spinning around with the large white object.

The next second, Alex noticed an enormous moon boulder soaring directly toward him. At the last moment, he popped his feet out of the MoonBat’s ears. The animal’s sensitive hearing picked up the ripples in the air as the boulder approached—but it was too late.

POOOOMPH!

The boulder slammed into the MoonBat and carried it over the far ridge of the canyon, leaving Alex to drop straight down toward the lunar surface.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaahhhh…?” Surprised that he hadn’t hit the ground yet, Alex opened his eyes. Thanks to the low gravity of the moon, he was still falling—just veeerrrrrrrrrry sloooowwwly.

As Alex gently floated toward the bottom of the valley, Old Man Alex calmly walked up and waited beneath him.

Alex drifted into his arms like a feather, and the Older El Solo Libre set him down on his feet.

 

Alex stepped out of the darkness and onto the shiny-stoned, pickety-fenced, flower-lined path that led off toward LunaPark.

He looked back. Old Man Alex stood in the darkness. He dipped his toe in the light. Then his foot. He lifted his leg in preparation and took a big breath.

“This is one small step for me, one gia—whoopsies!”

He lost his balance and fell into the light side of the moon. Alex looked down at him.