Battleship (Movie Tie-in Edition) Read Online Free Page A

“What’s your name?”
    “Hopper,” he said eagerly.
    With overstated, weary patience, she informed him, “I don’t want a drink, Hopper. I don’t want a cupcake. I want a chicken burrito. That’s
all
I want. A chicken burrito, and this jackass won’t give me one. You want to buy me a drink? Get me some food.”
    It was obvious that she wasn’t expecting him to do anything of the kind. It was just the simplest and most expedient means of getting rid of him. That, however, did not deter Hopper. If anything, it only provided him with incentive. “Done. I give you my word. Two minutes. Will you give me two minutes?”
    In spite of herself, she smiled ever so slightly. He was amusing to her. “You’re on the clock,” she warned.
    Hopper quickly headed out, his total focus on his quest burning away some of the haze that had settled in his brain. As he passed Stone he said hurriedly, by way of explanation, “Girl’s hungry.”
    His brother moaned when he heard that, shaking his head. “It’s like a factory fire. You know you’re witnessing a disaster, but you can’t look away.”
    Hopper wasn’t listening. Instead his mind was racing and his body was hurrying to catch up.
    The fortunate thing was that Hopper knew the area very well. He’d hung out around there enough that at this point he could be leaning against a lamppost, going nowhere and doing nothing. If the cops should happen to cruise past—instead of rousting him and telling him to move along—they’d wave, greet him by name and keep going.
    Best of all, he knew that there was a convenience store less than thirty seconds away. He would be able to beat the two-minute deadline with time to spare.
    He sprinted out the back of the hotel, across the block, toward the convenience store. But as he approached, he was dismayed to see the proprietor, an Asian woman of indeterminate age—somewhere between forty and a hundred and forty, as near as he could tell—was pulling a rattling gate across the door. There was a heavy padlock on it. Before she could reach for it, he ran up to her. The world was spinning around him as he tried to shake away the buzzing in his head. “Excuse me, ma’am …”
    “Closed,” she said brusquely. She reached for the padlock.
    “No, wait!” He gestured toward the padlock desperately, trying his best to sound charming … or at least as charming as he could considering he was fighting to remain conscious. “Don’t lock it. You’re not closed until you lock it.”
    This seemed to him to be irrefutable logic. Unfortunately she managed to refute it through the simple means of snapping the padlock shut. “Closed.”
    “Yeah, yeah, but this is important. I need a chicken burrito.”
    “No chicken burrito.” The woman couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and yet she loomed like a colossus in the path of true happiness.
    “Yes, chicken burrito. I see them right there.” He pointed toward the darkened window.
    “Chicken burrito, 9 a.m.”
    There seemed to be no arguing with her. Yet that didn’t deter him from doing so all the same. “That sign in there says chicken burrito, $2.99. I’ll give you …” He shoved his hands into his pockets and yanked out the first bill he found. It was a ten, all wadded up, and he smoothed it as best he could. “Ten dollars if you let me in.”
    She maintained her indifferent attitude. “Closed. Go away.”
    “Twenty.” He was pulling more money out of his pockets, trying to figure out how much he had on him. All the bills were crumpled. It was like carrying an assortment of spitballs in his pockets. He pulled them apart frantically.
    The Asian woman started moving toward her car, an ancient Toyota with rust spots on the roof. Hopper paced her, counting the money he had on him, hoping that it would be enough.
    “Fifty.
Fifty dollars
for a chicken burrito.” He waved the money in her face. “That’s my spending money for the
month
and I’m going to give it to