The Battle Read online

  A microphone levitated up to me. Ms. Lisa’s voice boomed at me from the control booth. “Okay, Adam, morph into Quazar and issue your challenge to Vile. I will then slice in videos of some of your fights. Then we will put the challenge online and let it go viral. That will really eat away at Dr. Vile.”

  “Add a picture of an angry, yawning cat,” Zeke offered. “People love that stuff. I don’t cause cats are all furry and if you eat one you get a big fur ball in your mouth.”

  QUAZAR NOTE: ZOMBIE BFFS DON’T LIKE TO EAT CATS!

  I saw the rest of the booth turn towards Zeke. Zeke slumped back. “Oh, I see I’ve given TMI… Sorry….”

  Being a good friend, I decided to take the attention off Zeke. Starting my speech, I spun around at Q-speed and changed into my Quazar uniform. I hovered above the ground. I pointed to the camera and said in my biggest, boldest voice. “Doctor Eddie Vile! I have defeated three of your creations!” I laughed and brushed some pretend dust off of my shoulder. I put my hands on my hips. “I actually beat them quite easily. Really, Doctor Vile, is that the best you can do?”

  I paused for dramatic effect. I flexed my muscles. “I’m thinking we should end this once and for all. Send a new creation after me. Only this time you should come along with it. Yes, let’s battle…teenager to mad scientist and his creation.” I flexed my muscles again. “In your case, four strikes and you are out!” I laughed. “By out, I mean knocked out and thrown in jail.” I pointed at the camera. “Dude, when you attack my city and my friends, it’s like you’re attacking me but are too much of a big chicken to face me!”

  I made chicken wing motions with my arms and a clucking sound. I stopped. I composed myself. I leaned into the camera. I beckoned towards myself. “So, come on Vile. Let’s meet. You versus me! I will prove to you that I can shatter anything you can throw at me.” I paused and put my hands back on my hips. “I’ll name the place. Let's meet in the old junkyard outside of town. You name the time and I will be there!”

  “Cut!” Miss Lisa said.

  Zeke leaned into her microphone. “Dude, you were awesome. You did that in one take.” He smiled. “My best bud, super guy, super actor.”

  “Yes, he did a great job,” Ms. Lisa said. She looked at Zeke. “I thought you were going to take a breath mint or three.”

  Zeke threw his hands over his mouth. “Oops, my bad not covering up my bad breath.” He sniffed his breath. “Yikes!” His hair stood on end. “Sorry about that. But I really do hate to get this taste of squished robo-spider guts out of my mouth. They really are yummy.”

  I saw Ms. Lisa roll her eyes.

  “I admit they may be an acquired taste,” Zeke said.

  Ms. Lisa leaned into her microphone. “Adam, fly into the booth and you can see the video I’ve picked to add to your speech. I have your battle with the T-Rex and the spiders.”

  I began to fly towards the booth then paused. “Wait, how did you get footage of me and the T-Rex? That was in town.”

  “My boy, these days everybody has cameras in their pockets. Tons of people were recording your fight. I’ve just tapped into the cloud and grabbed the best video.”

  “Ah, okay…” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something in the left side corner of the observation window. My Q-vision locked in on it. It was another bubbly red blob of goo. I changed course and flew towards it.

  “Dude, what are you doing?” Zeke asked. “You missed the door to the control booth!”

  “I know, just checking something out,” I said, slowly flying towards the red slime goo. I didn’t want to tell the others in case I was just seeing things. After all, there is a lot that is different in my life now. Heck, just a few months ago, I was living in another town, in a disguise in a tree house. I had no family and no real friends. Well, until I met Lia Strong. So things were very different now. I had friends and a purpose. I didn’t want to scare them and tell them I saw red globs of goo until I was sure that I really did see it. And hopefully, I could figure out what this goo was.

  As I drew nearer, the red goo seemed to sense me. A bit of it stretched out towards me. The red gooey bit took the shape of a five-fingered hand. The hand made a fist and shook at me. The blob seeped into the wall.

  QUAZAR NOTE: BLOB FISTS PROBABLY AREN’T A GOOD THING!

  I used my Q-X-vision to see through the wall; nothing there except more and more wall…

  “Now that was strange,” I said.

  “What was strange?” Mr. Lawrence asked over the speaker. “No security or strange alerts have gone off.”

  “Sorry,” I said turning course and heading towards the door to the control booth. “Just a weird spot on the wall. When you are super, you notice these things.”

  The question now was…was something weird going on here? Well, of course, something weird was going on here. This place was loaded with weird. But the question was…what was this weird something that had to do with Future Now? Could this be another Dr. Vile attack? It didn’t feel like it. So was this something else? Something entirely different? Or was I just going a little crazy and seeing things?

  I went up to the booth and watched Ms. Lisa add my battles to the background of my speech for Dr. Vile. While I was watching, I wasn’t really concentrating and Zeke noticed.

  “What’s going on, bud?” Zeke asked. He belched. He smiled. He rubbed his stomach. “Yum, spider guts taste great on the way down and also on the way back up.” He patted me on the back. “You look pensive.”

  “No just thinking,” I joked.

  “Ha! You made a funny!” Zeke said, pointing at me. He scratched his head. “You were making a joke. Right?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I know what pensive means. I didn’t get created in the lab just yesterday, ya know.”

  Zeke patted me on the back. “Then what’s up, bud? He sniffed me.” He paused. “Let me guess, you saw another one of those slimes.”

  “You can guess that from sniffing me?” I whispered.

  “Nah, I just sniffed you cause I like sniffy stinky things,” Zeke said.

  I sniffed myself. Yeah, I could use a shower.

  “I just guessed about the slime stuff!” Zeke said. He smiled. “So glad I hit the nail with my head on that one!” he said.

  “Okay, I don’t think you have that saying quite right,” I said.

  Zeke banged some ear wax out of ears. A lot of yellow goo oozed out. “Yeah sorry, I get that wrong sometimes. I meant to say, glad I hit my head with the hammer on that one.”

  I just let it go. After all, Zeke was a couple of hundred years old and his brain was mostly dead. I guess he couldn’t get some sayings right. No big deal. What was a big deal, was me seeing slime! I leaned into Zeke. “Do you think this could be Doctor Vile?” I whispered.

  Zeke smiled. “Wow, I can hear so much better without a pound of ear wax in my ears. From now on, I clean my ears every decade whether they need them or not.” He thought for a second then said, “Nope, slime is not Vile’s style…” He grinned. “Another rhyme. I’m getting good at this!”

  “What makes you so sure?” I asked.

  “I mean…I made two rhymes in like a day!” Zeke said.

  “I mean about this not being Vile’s work…” I said.

  “Oh,” Zeke said. An eye popped out of his head, literally. “I hate when that happens!” he said. He bent down and reached for his eye. He searched for it. “Man, having one eye really messes up the deep perception.”

  I bent down and picked up the eye for him. I placed the eye in his hand.

  “Thanks!” Zeke grinned. “Do you have any super glue?”

  “Not on me,” I said.

  “Any thread? I can sew it back in there too,” he said.

  “Ah, nope.”

  He licked the back of the eye then popped it back into the socket. He blinked a couple of times. “That should stick for now. Zombie spit is almost as good as super glue.”

  “So how can you be sure?” I asked.

 
; “Because I’ve popped my eye in a few times like this and it sticks for a good long time, unless I sneeze or get excited,” Zeke told me.

  “Dude, I mean how do you know Vile is not behind the slime?”

  “Oh right,” Zeke laughed. “Silly, mostly dead brain me. It’s because Vile is a high tech whiz kind of guy. He loves gadgets and devices. Slime is about as low gross tech as it gets. Plus, it’s slimy, hence the name.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

  “Well slime is named slime cause it is slimy; much like oranges are named oranges because they are orange,” Zeke said in a very scholarly voice. He burped. He hiccupped.

  “I mean,” I said slowly and then continued even slower, “why does slime being slimy rule out the idea that it was made by Dr. E Vile?”

  Zeke answered me slower still, “Be-cause Doc-tor E Vi-Le ha-tes get-ting dir-ty…”

  “Oh,” I said.

  QUAZAR NOTE: NOT GREAT WHEN A ZOMBIE THINKS U R SLOW.

  “Dr. E Vile is an uptight neat freak. He makes Dr. K look like a messy slob. To put it in the way they used to talk in the old days…the guy is a square.” He made a square with his thumbs and index fingers. “The guy is really straight about everything he does. He even takes three showers a day. His water bill must be way high!”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said. “So the slime is either in my mind or being created by someone or something else.”

  “Correct,” Zeke told me. “You catch on FAST, bro.” He paused. “I hope you’re not going crazy, cause I really like you. I mean, you’re the first friend I’ve had since I became a zombie, like a LONG time ago. It would be a real bummer if it turned out that you were whacko.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Zeke put an arm around me. “I would still stay your bud though. I mean, buds stick together even if one or both of them are crazy and seeing slime or talking to the mirror.”

  “I’m not talking to the mirror,” I told him.

  “Dude, you’re my best, bud, but it’s not always about you!” Zeke said.

  I decided to leave well enough alone.

  Chapter 6

  Not A Normal Concern

  That night, I sat around the dinner table with my amazing foster family. We talked about the events of the day as always. Sure, we all worked and went to school in the same complex, but it was still nice to get together at home and discuss things in a relaxed atmosphere.

  Although, I had to admit I had mixed emotions. I was happy to have defeated those renegade spider drone things. And I enjoyed issuing a challenge to Dr. E Vile. The man had come after my family, I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. But the fact that I was seeing slime was a problem. Slime that not even my best friend, the zombie, could see or smell worried me. I mean, Zeke could smell a cookie being eaten in the next county. Of course slimes weren’t cookies, but still.

  “It was amazing how you took out those spider drones today!” Don told me.

  “Man, I should have teleported over to help!” Ellie Mae said.

  Jeanie shot her a look. “No, young lady, remember your power is mostly defensive.”

  “But I can grow super big!” Ellie Mae said. “I could have stomped on them.”

  “Yes, honey, even though you can get super big, you still don’t get super strong. You have the extra mass that comes from being so large. But those spiders were covered with a thick but invisible exoskeleton. Your foot would have just bounced off them.”

  “Oh…” Ellie Mae said. “In that case, I’m glad you blasted them away, foster bro!” she added.

  I nibbled on an ear of corn. “Yeah…” I said.

  “Dude, what’s going on with you? You’ve only eaten like five pieces of fried chicken and three ears of corn,” Ellie Mae stated.

  Jeanie stood up and put her hand on my forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

  “He shouldn’t,” Don said. “The nano-bots that make him a super clone also make him a super healthy clone by supercharging his immune system.”

  “I feel fine,” I said, picking up a chicken drumstick.

  I bit into it. I chomped and swallowed, bone and all.

  “Bro, you just ate the bone,” Ellie Mae told me.

  “Good source of protein,” I told her.

  “Honey, what’s going on?” Jeanie asked.

  My heart melted just a little with those words. I don’t think anybody had ever called me honey before. Her words sounded so warm. I looked her in the eyes. Her eyes seemed so sincere.

  QUAZAR NOTE: BEING CALLED HONEY IS GREAT!

  “I’m seeing slime,” I said slowly.

  “Right now?” Don asked.

  I scanned the room with my Q-vision. I shook my head. “Nope, just a nice normal house.”

  “So you are only seeing it at Future Now HQ?” Don said.

  I nodded my head. “So it seems. That’s when they appear.”

  “What do they look like?” Ellie Mae asked.

  “Red globes of slime…” I said.

  “Do they show any signs of life or intelligence?” Don asked.

  This was something I hadn’t expected. My foster family didn’t think I was crazy. Who knows, maybe I wasn’t crazy? Man, having a family can be great.

  “Ah, nobody else saw the slime. Not even Zeke or Mookie. Those two have enhanced senses.”

  Don nodded. “That may be true, but you have super enhanced senses that are keener than what they have.”

  “I like the word, keen,” Ellie Mae said. “And yeah, Zeke and Mookie might have advanced senses but Zeke literally has like half a brain. And Mookie…I’ve seen him drinking out of the toilet bowl more than once. I’m not even sure it was a clean toilet,” she added.

  QUAZAR NOTE: MOOKIE IS WEIRD!!

  We all went yuck.

  “My point is,” Don said. “We do a lot of weird stuff at Future Now. And it’s possible that somebody in some department opened up a gateway to another world or dimension that we might not want opened up.”

  “Or worse, somebody purposely opened up a gateway to a slime world,” Jeanie said. “You don’t think it was Eddie, do you?”

  “No, not his style,” Don and I both said at the same time.

  Don pointed to me. “How did you know that?”

  “Zeke told me,” I said. “He said Dr. Vile is a neat freak.”

  “Yeah, Zeke may only have half a brain but his memory is still good. No way, Eddie would mess with something as messy as slime,” Don said.

  “Well, that’s good, I guess,” Jeanie said.

  I wasn’t so sure. To me, that meant I possibly now had two problems to deal with…Dr. E Vile and where the heck this slime was coming from.

  “You never answered my question,” Don said to me. “Did the slime seem intelligent?”

  I thought about it for a second. “At first no, it just sort of bubbled there on the ceiling. But the second time, I saw it take the shape of a hand and it kind of waved to me. Or at me. Or something.”

  Don took a pen from his shirt pocket (he always kept a pencil and pen there), and drew something on a napkin. He showed me what he had drawn. It was a picture of slime with a hand, just like I had seen. “Did it look like this?”

  I leaped out of my seat and pointed. “Yes, that’s it! How did you know?”

  Don’s face became serious. “We used to have a scientist called Doctor Bob Tony. He was trying to open up a gateway to another dimension. He said he could see slime creatures in that dimension. He drew pictures of them for us. He said they were calling to him.”

  “How come I never heard of this Bob Tony?” Jeanie asked.

  “His work was very hush-hush. Only people with the highest security clearance were aware of him.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “Dr. Bob disappeared about eighteen years ago, without a trace,” Don said.

  “Okay, now that’s creepy,” Ellie Mae said.

  “Agreed,” Mom said.

&nb
sp; “We decided not to further pursue Dr. Bob’s research because it was deemed too dangerous.”

  “Smart,” Mom said.

  “Here’s the kicker, though,” Don said. “Doctor Bob’s son, Doctor Bobby came to work for us a couple of months ago. The guy is brilliant; first in his class at MIT. Got his Ph.D. at age 17. He’s now working on the teleporting project.”

  “Do you think he’s working secretly on his father’s project as well?” I asked.

  Don looked more serious than I had ever seen him. “I think tomorrow we will find out.”

  Chapter 7

  Not A Normal Night’s Sleep

  That night, I laid awake in my bedroom thinking how absolutely subzero cool my life was. I was actually a superhero. But not only that, for the first time in my life I had a family. A very cool family! And I realized the great thing about family is that they have your back, no matter what. Sure, I had a super genius mad scientist trying to hurt my family.

  Sure, I’d publicly challenged him to a one-on-one battle. Sure, I was seeing red slime that may or may not be from another dimension. Okay, I had some challenges in front of me and I didn’t know how I would tackle them. What I did know was that I looked forward to tackling them. Plus, I knew my family would be there to support me. I smiled.

  QUAZAR NOTE: LIFE IS NEVER PERFECT, BUT THAT’S FINE.

  Suddenly, I heard a rumbling sound from the backyard. The entire house started to shake. I leaped out of bed and shot to my window. There, burrowing up from the backyard, was a strange, red-metal, hotdog-shaped vehicle with a big diamond drill on its end.

  The door to the red-metal hotdog popped open. Out came three short slouched humanoids wearing thick black glasses. They were dressed in black and were rippling with raw muscle. They each carried long metal rods, which I had to assume were weapons.