The Battle Read online

  Still, I loved hanging out at the training faculty. It felt like being in a big open field despite the fact it was inside a building. Plus, they had all sorts of cool training devices. Today was a big day. Mr. Lawrence, the founder and funder of Future Now was there to watch my performance. His wife, Ms. Lisa was also with him as she was in charge of both marketing and martial arts training.

  My foster dad, Don was there along with two other top scientists, Dr. J and Dr. K. Doc J was a young, tall woman with bright eyes. Doc K was a tall man who was very serious. He said that today we would be killing two birds with one stone. A strange saying to be sure. Dr. J explained this meant they would not only be testing my abilities but they would be testing their new electronic spider drones as well.

  Ms. Lisa gave me some last minute fighting tips. I may have super strength and massive amounts of energy in my body, but I am not really a trained fighter.

  Ms. Lisa took a karate stance and motioned for me to charge at her. “Come on Adam, let’s see what you got!”

  I stepped towards her. “Ms. Lisa, I understand you have like a billion black belts…”

  “I only have four,” she said. “Well, in martial arts. I do have several others. After all, I love my belts, but those don’t matter right now.”

  “Okay, I understand you are trained fighter. But I am a super being. “I have the strength of a hundred men; a hundred very strong men.”

  “Plus, you can probably increase your strength even more,” Dr. J said. “Especially if you channel your energy into your muscles!”

  “My point is, I am way stronger than you,” I said. “No disrespect, but I could fart in your general direction and you would be comatose for a day.”

  Ms. Lisa slid towards me. “That’s what I like about you, Adam. You can turn any of your body functions into a weapon!”

  “Thanks. I learned from watching Super Teen!” I said proudly. “She’s my good friend.”

  “And she’s pretty darn cute,” Zeke said as he sat in a lawn chair watching.

  Despite my warning, Ms. Lisa kept coming towards me. She closed to within striking distance but I figured she was a normal human. Even a well-trained normal human couldn’t hurt me. I figured I might as well allow her the first punch to make her feel good about herself.

  Ms. Lisa threw a left fist at my face. I flinched. She pulled her punch back. She hit me with an open palm to my midsection. Instantly, all the air raced from my lungs. Not only that, the blow sent me flying a good forty yards backward. I hit the ground and skidded a few more yards before I came to a stop.

  QUAZAR NOTE: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!

  I looked up and gasped for breath. Ms. Lisa jumped across the room at me. I gasped frantically for breath. “Come on lungs, fill, fill,” I panted to myself. I rolled to the side a split second before Ms. Lisa came crashing down where I’d been laying. I jumped to my feet, holding my stomach.

  “How the…” I asked.

  “Dude, she is using the Future Now strength enhancing formula,” Zeke shouted to me. “My brain is mostly dead, dude, and even I figured it out. Dr. Don sent us an email about it….”

  “Right!” I said lifting a finger. “I must have skimmed that email…”

  Ms. Lisa moved towards a beam of wood that was resting on two supports. I watched her karate chop it in two.

  She turned towards me, “A good warrior never assumes…or skims a briefing!” she said.

  “I had a lot of homework that night,” I insisted. “I won’t make that mistake again,” I promised her. I had hoped that would get her to stop attacking. She would figure out I’d learned my lesson and that would be it. But I wasn’t so lucky.

  Ms. Lisa threw a right round-house kick at me. Now that I knew she had been enhanced, I lifted my left arm to block her kick. Ms. Lisa countered my block with a spin kick to my head. Luckily, I managed to duck under it. Yeah, she was faster than a normal human, way faster. But she still wasn’t as fast as me.

  I turned my legs into energy and flew up into the air.

  Ms. Lisa smiled at me. “Smart boy,” she said. “I can’t reach you up there.”

  “But I can reach you!” I told her. I sent a ball of concussion energy from my hand into Miss Lisa’s stomach. The force of my concussion blow knocked her to the ground.

  I heard Zeke clapping from his lawn chair. “Man, this is a great fight!”

  “It is quite exhilarating,” Dr. J said.

  “I wish we had popcorn!” Zeke added.

  Ms. Lisa stood up and dropped into a karate stance. “Not bad!” she said. “It’s one fall to one fall!”

  Mr. Lawrence came rushing in between us, waving his arms. He was a slim, bald man with big muscles in his arms. He always had a smile on his face. As Zeke would say…of course, he smiles, he’s a billionaire.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Lisa, honey, let’s leave it as a tie! Okay?”

  “Ah, but this fun…” Ms. Lisa sighed.

  “Yes, but the booster potion that you’ve taken still only works for fifteen minutes.” Mr. Lawrence told her.

  “Good point…” Ms. Lisa agreed.

  “Plus, we want to test the mechanical spider hybrid containment units,” the big boss added. We heard a mechanical clicking sound.

  Mr. Lawrence pointed towards the sound. “See!”

  Turning, I saw three giant spider things scampering towards us. Each of the spiders had eight mechanical legs, yet their bodies appeared to be flesh. And their flesh was covered with electronic circuits.

  “This looks like something Dr. E. Vile would cook up,” I said from the air.

  “Very good!” Mr. Lawrence said. “I hate wasting research money. You don’t become one of the world’s richest men by wasting research money. I had my team here reprogram the MSHCUs, so they just capture but don’t harm.”

  He paused for a second. “Darn, MSHCU’s doesn’t roll off the tongue. I need to think up a better name for them.” Mr. Lawrence stood there in deep thought, “Maybe…spider catch you drones… or mech spider snatchers…. Or…”

  Ms. Lisa nudged her husband. She pointed at the three mechanical spider creatures. “Honey, to the point.”

  “Right!!” Mr. Lawrence said, snapping to attention. “The point is, Adam or Quazar if that’s what you prefer to be called, your goal is to avoid being captured by their high tensile webbing.”

  “Right!” I said. I studied the spiders. None of them were heading towards me. In fact, they were closing in on my foster dad, Don, Dr. K, and Dr. J.

  “Ah, is this part of their attack plan?” I asked. “Making me think I am not their main target?”

  “Ah, no…” Mr. Lawrence said. “This isn’t right at all!”

  QUAZAR NOTE: PLANNED ATTACKS HARDLY GO AS PLANNED!

  Don, Dr. K, and Dr. J stood motionless as the three spiders closed in on them.

  Zeke leaped from his chair and lumbered up to them as fast as he could. (Zombies’ knees don’t bend very well so it’s hard for them to actually run). Zeke shook his arms at the three scientists. “Run!” he shouted.

  Of course, being dedicated scientists they were more interested in the turn of events than worried about being harmed. They all stood there analyzing.

  “This is fascinating,” Dr. J said.

  “The spiders are ignoring our pre-programmed orders,” Dr. K said.

  “I’m guessing Dr. E Vile is still somehow controlling them…” Don said.

  Dr. J turned to him and smiled. “Eddie may be deranged but he is brilliant.”

  Dr. K shook his head. “Now, we can’t be certain Edward is behind this!”

  One of the spider bot things lifted opened its mouth and sprayed Dr. K, Dr. J, and Don with sticky, gross, green web. The green goo web soaked down from their heads covering their entire bodies.

  “This a present from our creator, Dr. Vile!” the three spiders said at once. They spoke in a weird and chilling mechanical voice that sounded like a chalkboard being scraped in the wrong way.


  “Okay,” Dr. K admitted. “Maybe Edward is behind this.”

  “Now that you have been contained, you will be eaten!” the three spiders said in their strange voices.

  Zeke lumbered over and put himself between the spiders and the scientists. “I w a n t y o u r b r a i n s!!” Zeke moaned, arms extended, green tongue wagging.

  The three spider creatures stopped. They looked at him with their many, many eyes.

  “We do not believe you are fast enough to be a threat to us,” the three spider things said. “You are slow and clumsy and lumbering.” They paused then added, “Although your breath is quite putrid and you did force us to turn up our air filter systems, but that is it.”

  Zeke dropped his head. He held his hands over his heart. “Mean, nasty, spider things, if my heart was still beating it would be broken now…”

  “I don’t believe a heart needs to beat to be broken,” one of the spider things said.

  “Actually, the fact that it’s not beating means it already is broken,” another spider thing said.

  “The point is, none of this is relevant to our current situation,” the third spider said.

  Zeke looked up at them. “Can you refresh my memory?” he asked.

  “We told you this is revenge from our maker, Dr. E. Vile; the greatest mind on Earth. You really should remember that!” the third spider thing lectured.

  Zeke pointed to his head, “Remember, I have a bad case of zombie brain. I think that’s why zombies need to eat brains because they are high in protein, taste great and are literally brain food.”

  The three spider creatures kept their twenty-four eyes on Zeke. They shook their heads. “Look, we really don’t need to eat you. You don’t look tasty and we have no desire to seek revenge on you,” the third spider thing said.

  “Thanks. I think,” Zeke said.

  The third spider thing flicked a mechanical leg at Zeke. “But we would greatly appreciate you moving out of our way so we can enjoy these scientists. They are both tender and tasty. Plus, eating them will be great revenge for our true creator, Dr. Edward Vile!”

  Zeke nodded to them slowly. “Yeah, I wish I could. This has all been just a nice delaying tactic until my buddy over there could recharge his energy….” He told the spider things. “AND THEN BLAST YOU!”

  Ms. Lisa glanced up at me. “I think he’s talking about you.”

  “Oh right!” I said. Actually, I had been so fascinated by the situation, I had kind of forgotten that I was a high-powered superhero.

  QUAZAR NOTE: YOU REALLY SHOULD CATCH ON TO THINGS B4 YOUR ZOMBIE BUD DOES.

  Mr. Lawrence had a calculator in his hand. He looked at me. “While I do hate to lose three such fascinating and expensive MSHCUs, I do value our scientists’ lives more. Plus, I’m still not sold on the name, MSHCU.” He waved to me. “So blast away.” He thought for a second. “Just to make it a bit more challenging for you, lad, how about you take out the three of them with one blast.”

  Meanwhile, the three spider things had their attention locked on Zeke. They seemed just as fascinated with Zeke’s tactics as I was.

  “So, you…a zombie, put yourself in harm's way, just to slow us down?” the third spider thing said.

  Zeke nodded. “Yes.”

  “That was quite brave of you….” the spider thing said.

  Zeke shrugged. “Well, since I’m pretty much mostly dead anyhow, I’m pretty sure there isn’t much you can do to me.”

  The spiders opened their mouths revealing lots of big sharp pointy teeth. “These teeth can really rip things apart!” they said proudly.

  I hovered in the air. I turned my arms into red-hot energy. I held my fists out.

  “Thanks for letting me learn all I could about these creatures,” Mr. Lawrence said, “but you can take them out at any time.”

  “Gotcha!” I said. I really hadn’t been delaying so Mr. L could learn more. I needed to line up my shot so I could take out the three spider creatures in one blast, without hurting Zeke, my foster dad or Dr. K and J.

  Locking my Q-vision on the spiders, I saw them raise their mechanical arms. Apparently, they had grown anxious with Zeke and were getting ready to slice him.

  I locked my fingers together, extended my arms and thought of really hot things…a chili pepper, a slice of pizza right out of the oven, a marshmallow over a campfire, a campfire, the sun. The sun! Yeah, you couldn’t get much hotter than the sun!

  BLAM!

  Energy rippled from my fists, shot across the room and splatted the spiders into broken up spider legs, innards, chips, and goo.

  The torn up spiders rained down on Zeke, my foster Dad, Dr. K and Dr. J. The spider parts stuck to them because of the webbing. That couldn’t have been comfortable.

  I flew over to them. The quicker I melted off the web and goo the better.

  “Yummy, spider brain bits!” Zeke said, licking his lips and moving his green thick tongue towards more goop.

  Since Zeke seemed to be really enjoying the spider goop, I concentrated on my foster dad, Dr. K and Dr. J. “I’ll get you guys out of that goop asap!” I said.

  “Oh, this is so gross, I will have to bathe for a week,” Dr. K moaned.

  Dr. J laughed. “Well, it is certainly a unique experience….”

  “Thanks for your help, Adam,” Don said. “Now, please gently melt off this gross but interesting web.”

  I used my hand to brush some blown up spider parts off my foster dad. I heated the palm of my hand then slowly ran my hand down from Don’s head to his toes. As my hand passed over him the web goo melted away.

  “Thanks,” Don said shaking off the remaining bits of goo.

  I turned towards Dr. K and Dr. J and removed the gross goo web from them.

  “Yuck!” Dr. K said, holding out his tongue. That was mega gross… I need to bathe, shower, brush my teeth, gargle, throw away this lab coat and shave my head.

  He started spitting. “Yuck! I don’t believe I’ve ever spat before.”

  “Ah, what about when you brush your teeth?” I asked.

  “I swallow it,” he said.

  Okay. I moved over to Dr. J and started getting the web goo off her. Despite being encased in brown, sticky web goo, Dr. J was all smiles. “This truly is a different experience,” she told me. “This webbing is both gooey, sticky and slimy at the same time. Somehow, Dr. Vile not only managed to reprogram our spiders but he also managed to change their webbing to make it nastier.”

  “Eddie has always been a brilliant scientist,” Don said.

  “I could remove it slower if you want?” I offered.

  She shook her head and smiled. “Nah, that’s okay. This stuff is kind of itchy.”

  “Brilliant but dangerous!” Mr. Lawrence said.

  “Agreed,” Dr. K said.

  “I do not like these attacks on our people,” Ms. Lisa said.

  “Agreed,” Dr. K said.

  I walked over to Zeke who was still quite happy to be covered in spider guts. He had a few spider eyes in his hands and was popping them in his mouth like candy. “Yummy, gooey and crunchy!” he said with a smile.

  I tapped him on the shoulder. “You okay, buddy?”

  He held his arms out and clapped. He tried to jump up in the air. He got maybe an inch off the ground. “Never better!” he said.

  QUAZAR NOTE: ZOMBIES THINK DIFFERENTLY.

  Yep, Zeke was a little different, but I liked that about him.

  “So, how do we stop Dr. E. Vile from attacking again?” Mr. Lawrence asked.

  “Not sure,” Don said. “The man is as smart as they come.”

  “He also has an ego even bigger than mine!” Dr. K said.

  I turned to Ms. Lisa. “I have an idea.”

  “That’s cool, Adam but why tell me?” she said.

  “You are in charge of martial arts and marketing. Right?”

  “Yes, I have many skills,” she said.

  “Well then, I will issue a public viral video challenge to
Dr. E Vile. I will challenge him to come at me. Any time. Any place. And I will take him and his creations down!”

  Don stepped forward. “Adam, that’s an amazing idea. Eddie never could resist a challenge, but are you sure you want to make yourself the target of a mad evil genius?”

  “Better me than my family or friends!” I said.

  “I so agree!” Dr. K said.

  “Adam makes a great point!” Dr. J said. “I am sure he can handle anything Eddie tosses at him.”

  Zeke slurped down a couple more spider eyes and what I believe was a spider tongue. “You betcha! My best buddy can handle anything…” He held his stomach. The green on his face turned white. Not a good sign. He bent over, dropped to his knees and started barfing…. BLAHHHH…. The barfing stopped. He turned to us. “Don’t worry, it was worth it for a feast like that…” He continued with his barfing. A brief pause, “Man I don’t remember eating that tongue! Sure hope it’s not mine!”

  Miss Lisa touched me on the shoulder. “Come, let’s get to the recording studio and make that challenge.”

  Mr. Lawrence agreed. “Yes, we’ll leave this to the cleaning bots.”

  As we walked away, Zeke called to us. “Don’t worry, bud, a little more barfing and a breath mint or two and I’ll be there for you!” He laughed. “Hey, I made a rhyme. I love making rhymes. Rhymes are pretty cool and non-zombie like.”

  Chapter 5

  Viral Video Challenge

  Ms. Lisa’s video studio had to be the equal of any in Hollywood or Bollywood or anywhere else. Okay, I had never been to a Hollywood or Bollywood studio but from what I saw, it had to be. There were computer controlled cameras, drone controlled cameras, digital backgrounds, holographic backgrounds, you name it. I stood in the middle of the recording studio while Ms. Lisa, Mr. Lawrence, and a few others sat back in a control booth.