High School Terrans

Despite his father’s warnings Kyle, Sarah, and Alan decided to go to the Santa Monica Pier for one evening of fun. The whole length of the pier was truly a carnival atmosphere filled with rides, hot food vendors, and various games of chance. They walked along amongst the crowd seeing Anna trying to throw basketballs through a hoop as Jaden stood behind helping to guide her hands.

“All you have to do is keep your eyes on the target,” he said.

She threw it up where it almost landed in the hoop but not quite getting it in.

“Good try, let’s go again.”

“You teaching her how to play basketball, Chris?” Sarah asked smiling.

“She’s getting there,” he replied, giving the booth runner more bills. “Just takes some practice.” Jaden watched her try again but saw the ball still bumping off the rim.

“I think they purposefully make the hoops smaller so you can’t shoot any baskets,” Anna replied pouting.

Jaden laughed wrapping his arm around her waist. “So let’s try another game?” Jaden and Anna walked ahead where the rest of them followed behind.

“I’m sorry for what happened with Dan,” Sarah said, holding Kyle’s hand.

“Did he really almost kill a guy?” Alan asked.

“Yeah, it looks that way. I don’t know if we can repair our friendship after what he tried to do.”

Jaden could overhear every word that was being said feeling his anger well up inside of him. It appeared his plan had worked but it still didn’t stop him from the resentment he felt towards Kyle knowing now who his father was and the effect he had on his family. His Uncle Thomas was in many ways a second father to him but instead, he was vilified for his beliefs for in his eyes was a better Terran future. They began playing at the next booth attempting to win a prize.

As they walked by Kyle and Sarah stopped in front of the Ferris wheel. “Care to go for a ride?”

“With pleasure,” Sarah replied.

“I’ll go find some games to play while you two have your fun.”

Kyle and Sarah got on board lowering the safety bar in front of them as the Ferris wheel started to climb up moving around and around.

“You remember the Merry Go Round?”

“Of course, how could I forget? That was our first kiss.”

Sarah leaned in giving Kyle another one cupping his face just as the Ferris wheel started moving faster. Alan, in the middle of throwing balls at a group of milk jugs to try and knock them down, looked back noticing how much faster the Ferris wheel was spinning.

“What the....?” he said, staring. “That’s not right.” The ride manager quickly tried to control the lever but it wouldn’t budge like it was stuck in place.

“What’s going on?” Sarah exclaimed. “Why are we going faster?”

“I don’t know,” Kyle said, wrapping his arm around Sarah’s waist.

The two of them were going at twice the normal speed seeing people down on the ground whizzing by them where a couple of onlookers were starting to stop and watch. Alan looked at the commotion when his eyes turned back to Jaden and Anna a couple of booths down from where he was. He watched Jaden staring at the wheel intently with his fist held tight in a ball.

“I wanna get off now!” Sarah said, tearing up.

“Hold tight to me. I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”

Kyle hugged her close afraid himself of how fast the Ferris wheel was spinning.

“Christian!” Anna shouted, squeezing his arm. “Look what I did! I won a big stuffed teddy bear!”

Alan watched the two of them seeing Jaden blink his eyes turning his head back to Anna as the carnival vendor gave her the prize she had won.

“See I told you could do it!” he said smiling.

Alan looked back at the Ferris wheel seeing it automatically slow down to its normal speed coming to a stop where the ride operator quickly pulled the lever. Kyle held Sarah’s hand slowly stepping off the ride and down the steps to the ground.

“What the hell happened?” Alan said, having weaved himself through the ground to the front.

“I wanna go home,” Sarah said.

“Kyle, is it okay if I talk to you alone for a minute?” he said, looking serious.

“Sarah, you think you will be okay?” Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Kyle guided Sarah to a bench where she sat down and relaxed. One of the food vendors walked by handing her a bottle of water which she thanked him for. Kyle and Alan stepped away walking towards the end of the pier disappearing into the crowd of tourists looking out and admiring the Pacific Ocean.

“So what is going on?”

“I think I saw Christian mess with the Ferris wheel.”

“What?” Kyle asked bewildered, “You mean he manipulated it to make it speed up like it did?”

“Yes, I saw him looking directly at it with his fist balled up but Anna broke his concentration.”

“I felt the Ferris wheel suddenly slowed down and came to a stop. Did he see you watching?”

“No, thankfully but you realize what this could mean?” Alan said. “He could be one of us, a Terran.”

“But why hide it and what would his motive be to target me?”

“If he is and he has it out for you you can’t let him know at all.”

“I know, I know. Thanks for telling me,” he said, shaking Alan’s hand. “I have to get Sarah home. She looked pretty shaken up.”

“You know I always have your back.”

It wasn’t enough that there was a real potential threat out there somewhere for everyone alike but now he was faced with the possibility that one of the few human friends he has made had been lying to him the whole time.