As I stood on the only building not controlled by aliens, I felt a sudden rush of fear. This was 3092 and it was the first time the aliens had ever tried to take over. I feared that humans would be completely unprepared and that we would be destroyed without a fight.

“Sydney…”I heard my name called.
With my short, brown, layered hair whipping across my face, I looked around to see who called me and when I looked behind me, I saw a screen with a floating television that held the familiar face of my best friend, Bella. I wanted to feel sympathetic, but I knew that she was taken over by aliens last July. She survived longer than most; most only made it to May.

She laughed and I knew that I must have looked shocked, but she looked so much better than the last time I’d seen her. I scanned her face through my purple glasses; she looked the same with her brown eyes, blonde hair, and polka-dot glasses; the only thing different was the look of extreme authority on her face. I knew better than to raise my hopes, but I still had to ask.

“Are you still controlled by the aliens?” I asked cautiously.

“Obviously,” she said almost cheerfully. “I was sent here to ask you to join peacefully before we destroy your city.”

“My city? My city?” I demanded angrily. “It used to be our city and as for destroying it, they’ve already done that.

“No, by destroying it, I mean nothing will survive,” she replied in a way that made me imagine that she cared about me even though I knew she didn’t.
“We will climb aboard our spaceship, fly away, hit the detonate button, fly back, and start to build our new city. Once it’s built, we will then take off and pick a new city until we have conquered the entire Earth. Anyone who stands in our way will be annihilated.”

I looked back at Bella trying as hard as I could to keep my face neutral. Apparently, I did a fantastic job because her face contorted into rage and she yelled, “Aren’t you afraid? Don’t you even care what happens to you?”

“No. Not really. I’d rather die than be one of you!” I screamed at her showing my true emotions. I started to run in the opposite direction of Bella; the beginning of a plan forming in my mind.

“You’re creating a world disaster,” she yelled after me almost tauntingly.

I didn’t realize how fast I was running until I reached the New York border. I stopped. “Cool! I have super sonic speed,” I yelled out loud. Looking back now I can remember feeling strange like nobody could harm me or even touch me. Now I know that’s how I feel when I’m running like that. If I try really hard I can run like any normal person but if I don’t think about it then I just run in super sonic speed mode.
After I realized that, I walked to a gas station about a block away. Luckily, I still had my allowance in my pocket. I bought a map of the United States and a Twelve Hour Get-Up-And-Go Powder (apparently it is like “Five Hour Energy :). I would need it where I was going.

I decided I was going to Orlando. Hopefully I could find a couple of people to believe me and I could make an army to capture Bella back.

I arrived in Orlando about ten hours later. I was about to collapse from exhaustion. Obviously I needed to rest. As soon as I walked into the small, quaint town, I tripped and stumbled into a guy who looked about my age with blonde hair, and green eyes. His face had a light sprinkling of freckles and he looked like he had just gotten a haircut based on the way his head bounced around almost uncomfortably. He could tell I was exhausted and steered me toward a little, green cottage. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. When I woke up, he was sitting across the room. “I’m Luke,” he told me.

“Sydney,” I replied.

“Why were you so tired? You’ve been sleeping for like 29 hours straight,” he questioned me sounding curious not suspicious.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” I told him honestly.

“Try me,” he said like I had challenged him.

So I told him about New York City, the destruction that Bella had pretty much promised me, and finally about my super sonic speed power.

“Wow!” he exclaimed sounding extremely excited and slightly scared.

“So will you join me in traveling the country and collecting people for my army?” I asked him.
“Absolutely,” he replied with a slight ‘Duh!’ to his tone. “And I have the perfect tool for you to use.”

“What?” I asked curiously.

“I invented a machine that tells you exactly what to say to persuade people,” he told me like he truly believed it worked.

“Does it work?’ I asked skeptically trying to be gentle and not hurt his feelings but still not wanting to crash and burn.

“Ninety-five percent of your audience will be persuaded to join your cause,” he told me confidently.

“That’s it; I’ve decided you’re going to be the second in command for my army!” I told him excitedly.

Luke looked so surprised that I almost laughed our loud. “Now take your alleged machine and meet me in the town square in five minutes.”

“Okay,” Luke said still sounding flabbergasted not even caring that at that point I didn’t believe him about his machine.

Five minutes later, I was standing in the town square and Luke was already there setting up his machine.

“Move it!” he rushed me along sounding like he had gotten over the shock of being second in command.

I got up on the stage and started reading from the machine. One minute it seemed like no one was listening, the next it seemed like everyone in Orlando was listening to me talk. After I finished talking, everyone rushed up to the stage to sign up for the army.

“Wow! That really works!” I exclaimed excitedly.
“Yea well…” he started to say modestly.

“Okay next we are going to Chicago. Hopefully we can receive the same amount of people,” I told him sounding worried.

“Okay! Are we leaving now?” Luke asked excitedly.

“No way! I’ll have to sleep another night in a real bed before we leave,” I replied in a tone that implied I thought he was insane.

We walked back to his house and I crashed in the same bed he had led me to before. The next day I woke up and asked Luke, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, I got the machine ready and I picked out the best way to arrive there on your map,” he said in a tone of authority.

“Great, thanks!” I replied appreciatively.

I started stretching and when Luke brought out the machine, I grabbed Luke’s arm and the machine and started running.

We reached Chicago in about sixteen hours. It might have taken less time if we didn’t have the machine but I needed it.

When we reached Chicago, I remember seeing the beautiful skyline before Luke rushed me off to sleep before I had to give my speech.

When I woke up, I asked Luke, “How long did I sleep this time?’

“Ummmmmm,” he sat there thinking. “Probably about sixteen hours.”

“Okay, while I was running I was thinking that I should give the speech in front of the Sears Tower. That’s probably where the most people are,” I told him slowly to see his reaction.

“Okay. The machine is ready when you are,” Luke replied confidently.

That afternoon I met up with Luke after a day of shopping. I started reading what the machine was telling to say and I had the same effect on people here as I did in Orlando.

“Okay, I hereby grant you the title of best inventor ever,” I congratulated him. “Except for the guys who invented indoor plumbing and electricity.”

“Thanks! Okay boss where next?” he asked enthusiastically.

“To Dallas, Texas!” I said trying to sound enthusiastic even though I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Back to the hotel for you. We’re leaving tomorrow as soon as you’re ready,” he commanded me.

The next morning I woke up grabbed Luke’s arm and the machine and started running. It took us about fifteen and a half hours to arrive in Dallas. I don’t remember seeing anything pretty except the clear blue sky. Mostly it was just desert and cacti. However, I had become so accustomed to seeing the incredibly polluted sky in New York and the overcast sky in Orlando that I just stood there and stared at it for a few seconds.
“While you’ve been falling in love with the scenery, I’ve been scouting around for a perfect spot for your speech and I learned the Cowboys have a home game tonight. You could give it outside the stadium then you would convince people from Texas and Michigan,” Luke told me comfortably.

“Why Michigan?” I asked thoroughly confused.

“The Cowboys are playing the Lions,” he said slightly condescendingly.

“Okay works for me,” I replied.

At 7:30pm I walked up to the stadium an hour before kickoff. Luke walked up behind me set up a stage and the machine and motioned for me to start talking.

I started but this time it seemed like the machine wasn’t working having any effect.

I jumped off the stage and ran over to Luke. “It’s not working!” I yelled at him almost hysterically.

“Okay, okay relax. I’ll restart it and then you can see if it works.”

After that I thought I heard him mumble, “Crazy.”
Luke restarted it and I hopped back on stage. I could tell it was working because right away about twenty people came up and crowded around the stage. I flashed Luke a thumbs up and kept talking.

About five minutes before kickoff, my speech ended and the random hundred or so people signed my sheet and walked into the crowded stadium.

“Well that went well. Now we have about three hundred people for our army,” I informed Luke.

“Cool! Now you go rest. Tomorrow we are leaving for Los Angeles,” he told me still using the commanding tone. I ignored it simply because I needed him and his machine so much.

We went back to the hotel and I crashed in a bed. When I woke up in the morning, Luke was pacing around the room. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

He turned around and looked relieved, “Oh nothing I just thought that you always wanted to leave before ten o’clock so we could arrive at the next location in an acceptable amount of time.”

“You’re right. What time is it?” I looked around panicked.

“11:15 in the morning,” he told me after I asked.

“Oh my gosh! Let’s go! Now!” I said when I realized how slow Luke was moving.

He rushed around the room packing up the machine and packing up his stuff. When he was ready, we walked outside. Once outside, I grabbed Luke’s arm and the machine. Then I started running.

We made great time to Los Angeles. We made it in about twenty hours. When we got there I saw how sparkling the Pacific Ocean was and then I expected to collapse from exhaustion but I didn’t. Luke tried to steer me toward our hotel me but I shrugged him off. “I’m not the least bit tired. Isn’t that weird?” I asked him.

“Yes! Especially since you just ran the most you ever have. Are you sure you’re not tired?” he asked sounding concerned.

“I’m positive,” I replied confidently.

“Okay let’s go scouting for a place to give your speech for the last time. It is the last time right?” he asked me.

“Yes I’m tired of talking to strangers. Oh and by the way I told the rest of our army to meet here in Los Angeles in two days at around noon. Then we are going to travel to Seattle where I have a feeling that we are going to kick some alien butt,” I said confidently.

At noon the next day I gave my final speech. I persuaded about three times as many people to join as I normally do. Luke added that I was adding my own persuasiveness to the machine.At noon the day after my speech, about six hundred people arrived at my stage where I was standing ready to tell them what was going to happen in the next couple of days.

“Thank you so much for joining my cause. As you know I lost my best friend to the aliens and I intend to transform her back to normal. Over the next couple of days I will be running back and forth from here to Seattle several times. I will be exhausted but we cannot stop. I received notification that the aliens will be in Seattle in one week. I don’t know whether they will be in television form or there in person. We are going there to fight them and remove the innocent humans from their grasp. My second in command, Luke, is now passing out vaporizers.
If you shoot an alien with a vaporizer then they will explode into glitter and leave the human body behind. The human will be perfect in two to three days. If the aliens are in television form and you shoot them with a vaporizer then they will still explode into glitter and leave the human body behind. Unfortunately, if that happens, we will have no idea where the human bodies would be. They could be in a spaceship plummeting down to Earth at two hundred miles an hour or they could be down the street. Now I need the first fifty people who signed up to step forward. These people should have been signed up in Orlando. You will be the first people in Seattle. I need you to make sure that the tents are set up for the rest of the people coming. There will be three people a tent so you will need to set up about two hundred tents. Everybody ready? Grab onto an arm from the person next to you and hold on tight.” I finished my speech, grabbed the first person’s arm, and started running.

I ran as hard as I could and reached Seattle in about five hours. When I arrived there, I was exhausted but I turned around and ran straight back to Los Angeles. Luckily, while I had been in Seattle, Luke had organized the rest of the people into groups of fifty and I had to grab the first person’s arm and start running in the direction that I had come from. I kept this up until the people had made it to Seattle. I told Luke that he needed to stay in Los Angeles and travel with the last group so I would know when I was almost done.

After the last group went, I fell asleep for twenty-four hours and when I woke up, Luke looked so relieved I thought he was about to start crying.

“About two hours ago the aliens sent up a hologram to the entire city saying that if they didn’t give you up peacefully they were going to call a full fledged war,” he told me.

“There was always to be a full fledged war. Bella should’ve told them that,” I yelled at no one in particular.

“I know but it really freaked out some of our army and now they’re on the brink of leaving,” he said like he was afraid of how I would react.

“What!” I exploded. “How could they do that? When I told them in Los Angeles that we were going to fight the aliens, none of them seemed concerned.”

“I know but now they’re ready to leave.”

I went out of my tent and confronted the people that were ready to leave. They told me that they just didn’t want to tear apart their family. I told them that I understood but they couldn’t just abandon us when we were on the brink of war. I know that I broke through because they finally understood the reality of what they were about to do.

The next day I was looking at a map of Seattle, when battle horns went off. I ran out of the tent and looked out across the horizon. There just barely visible on the horizon was Bella; real Bella not in a television. I saw she was holding something and realized it was a flag of truce. She obviously wanted to talk to me. When she arrived in the camp, I waited in my tent like she didn’t concern me.

“Sydney, Bella’s here,” Luke told me as he popped his head into my tent.

“Send her in,” I replied with the authority of a princess.

When she walked in she looked surprised to see how much different I looked then the last time I’d seen her. Then she asked me the most infuriating question any one had ever asked me.

“Are you controlled by aliens?”

“No! Why on Earth or wherever you’re from would I be fighting you if I was one of you?” I asked like it should’ve been obvious.

“Well I’ve only seen some one look that in command if they were controlled by aliens,” she replied comfortably.

I took one look at her and knew I couldn’t stand it. I grabbed my vaporizer and shot her right in the head. I caught the real Bella, the one without an alien controlling her, right before she hit the pile of glitter that had formed at her feet.

Luke ran in holding his vaporizer like he was about to shoot it. “Are you okay?” he asked sounding concerned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, I heard some one shoot the vaporizer and I thought she had shot you with it,” he replied sounding relieved.

“No, but now we have our Bella back,” I said with a grin from ear to ear.

I walked out of my tent and grabbed a microphone that Luke had held out to me. “Ladies and gentlemen please grab you vaporizers and…”
That’s when I realized why I was so cold; it was snowing on the day that we were going to fight the aliens.
“So as I was saying grab your vaporizers and run that way until you find the aliens,” I pointed north, the direction of Seattle. “Shoot any aliens that you come across. Hopefully in a couple hours the snow will be thick enough that you can shoot them and run off. But for right now shoot them, catch them, and then run so that we don’t hurt any one. Everybody got it? Okay! Let’s Go!”

We ran north for about five minutes before we came across any aliens. Once we had found them, we shot any that we saw. Soon the ground was littered with multi-colored glitter piles and human bodies, some snoring softly. As soon as it was only the “sleeping” humans and my army, I told them to stop. Slowly as if the pressure had just been released, I walked back to my tent expecting to find an extremely confused Bella. I didn’t.

Two months later I was sitting in a hospital waiting room as nervous as I’d ever been. Bella still hadn’t woken up from when I’d vaporized her alien. Finally as a last resort I’d brought her to a specialist who deals with comas to see if maybe I had when I shot her she received a concussion that hadn’t been treated. For the last month and a half I’d been keeping her in my finished basement hoping against hope that she would wake up without a doctor but no such luck. Then the doctor came and told me news that I would never forget.