Chapter 5

            Jessie led Will into the living room, motioning for him to take the recliner while she sat on the couch.  She turned on a lamp that conveniently shone in Will's eyes like an interrogation room light.  "What was that thing?" she asked.

            "I'm not really sure," he said.

            "Her name is Heather Catt," Ricky said.  He hopped from the arm of the recliner onto the coffee table. 

            Jessie put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.  She picked up a newspaper to swat at the stuffed raccoon.  "There's another one of them!"

            Will reached out to grab her wrist.  "He's all right.  He's a friend."

            "What is it?"

            "His name is Ricky Raccoon.  He's an avatar."

            "What?"

            "The physical representation of a spirit," Ricky said.

            "I know what it means," Jessie snapped.  "What's it an avatar of?"

            Will cleared his throat.  "You remember when we were kids and we used to play in your backyard?"  Jessie nodded.  He continued, "I had a stuffed raccoon named Ricky.  And, um, I guess now he's become real."

            "Uh huh.  Can one of you make sense of this and tell me why that thing tried to kill us?"

            Will turned to Ricky.  "I think we both deserve to know what's going on here."

            Ricky nodded his head slightly.  "Very well.  I will try to explain.  There is much not even I fully understand, though."

            With that the raccoon touched a button on his belt.  A holographic projection of a galaxy floated in the center of the living room.

#

            "This is our galaxy," Ricky said.

            "It looks like the Milky Way," Jessie said.

            "Yes, it is very similar.  Our galaxy is what you would call a parallel universe.  It is in many ways identical to yours.  And in other ways it is not."  The image zoomed in from the galaxy to one of its arms.  Using his sword as a pointer, Ricky motioned to the end of the arm.  "Each of these stars represents a system belonging to the Bloc of Planetary States."

            "Wait," Jessie said.  "The Bloc of Planetary States?  That was that silly thing you and Tom made up, wasn't it?"

            "Yes," Will said.

            "And that's where you're from?" she asked Ricky.

            "Correct."

            "How did you get here?"

            "We are not really here," Ricky said.  "Our bodies are still in the Bloc, in the Dog's Head Nebula to be exact.  The way it was explained to me is that our spirits—our souls if you prefer—are inhabiting these bodies."

            "So that's what you mean by an avatar."

            "Yes, exactly."

            "And that thing that attacked us is one too?"

            "Yes.  Her name is Lieutenant Heather Catt.  We were assigned to make contact with the Creators."

            "You mentioned the Creators before," Will said.  "I still don't understand what that means."

            "You created our universe and everything in it.  You, Jessica McCormick, and Thomas Denton.  We were dispatched here to make contact with you and plead for you to accompany us back to the Bloc."

            "Accompany you?  Why?" Jessie asked.

            "Because we need your help.  Our universe is dying."

#

            Ricky touched another button on his belt.  The footage Will had seen on his television that morning at his father's house appeared on the screen again.  The black ships again pounded the silver one into submission and then destroyed its escape pods.  To Will's shock, the black ships then turned their weapons on the planet's surface.  Bursts of red light pounded the brown surface, leaving angry black scars across the land.

            "As I tried to explain to you, our planets are being destroyed one-by-one.  It started with our outermost colonies.  This footage was obtained from a sensor probe in the F19 system approximately two weeks ago.  We fear the Black Ships will next begin targeting our core planets."

            "Black Ships?" Jessie asked.

            "That is what we call them because we have no idea who or what they are.  No one has ever seen one of them without their armor.  At least no one has survived to tell us about it."      "My God," Will said.  "But what can we do?"

            "You are the Creators," Ricky said simply.

            "We didn't create those," Jessie said.  "Where'd they come from?"

            "We don't know.  But Dr. Ruff feels you have the power to destroy them.  That is why he dispatched us here, to retrieve you."

            Just then, lights flashed in the living room.  Will turned to the window to see a car pulling into the driveway.  "Who's that?" he asked.

            "Mom and Roger," Jessie said.  She sprang off the couch, plucking Ricky off the coffee table and snagging Will by the elbow in one motion.  She hustled both down the hallway, into her bedroom.  She roughly shoved them inside.  Before Will could say anything, the wicker basket was pressed into his chest.  "Stay here and don't make a sound."

            Will looked down into the basket at the white cat inside.  The little cat glared up at him.  Ricky dropped next to her, leveling his sword at Heather's neck.  "Stand down, Lieutenant.  That's an order," he said.

            "Fine," Heather hissed.  Her tiny body sagged to the bottom of the basket.  Something fell from the top shelf to hit Will on the head.  Reaching up, he found another stuffed cat, this one larger than Heather.  It was Heather's mother, Whiskers Catt.  It was this cat who had begun Jessie's involvement with the Bloc of Planetary States.