“Step on it!” hollered Agent S. “We’ll be there any moment.”
“Cool, we’ve outflown a helicopter,” Grandad said, trying not to sound too impressed. “Well, you have. I didn’t do much, except wave.”
“Yes, it looked like you really wanted help – thanks for that. They think I’ve kidnapped you now. Let’s land – I’m getting tired,” Harry said as they came to a stop outside the mysterious warehouse near the comic shop. “Watch out for a cat,” Harry added. “I blame him for this whole thing.”
“So this is where you got zapped?” Grandad asked. “I always wondered what this place was. I thought it was a bingo hall.”
Harry raised his eyebrows and pointed at the razor-sharp fence and security cameras. He took one breath and blew the cameras off their posts. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Come on, this way.”
Harry ran round the side of the building to the back. The door was still partly open from where he’d crawled in and out. This time, though, Harry lifted the metal shutter like it was made of paper.
“In here,” Harry said.
“It’s so dark. Let me find a light switch,” Grandad said.
“No!” Harry snapped. “That’s how this whole thing got started.” He squinted into the dark. “Hang on…” Just as he thought about seeing in the dark, everything suddenly came into focus. Harry left his grandad surrounded in gloomy shadows.
“Harry!” Grandad called.
“There we go!” Harry said, flicking a switch on the desk lamp in the corner. He picked up some papers marked TOP SECRET on the desk. “Hey!” he said.
“What is it?” Grandad asked.
“Operation Mongoose, apparently.” Harry quickly scanned the files. “It looks like these are plans to use a human in an experiment – to turn him or her into a superhero who would, quote, ‘help do the agency’s work’.” Harry paused. “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good,” Grandad said, taking out his glasses for a closer look.
“It says here that ‘the subject of the testing’ – that’s me, I presume – will ‘spend the rest of their life working for the agency, obeying orders and making the agency the most powerful organization in the world’.” Harry gulped. “These are master criminals, Grandad. I’ve been zapped and now they want to own me for ever.”
9 p.m.
“What do we do?” Grandad asked.
“There’s only one thing for it,” Harry said, twirling his cape. “If I’m not a superhero, they can’t make me work for them. You’ll have to reverse the process – unzap me, if you will.”
“What? How?”
“With the laser!” Harry nodded towards to the lever.
“You want me to unzap you with a laser? Wouldn’t that just give you an extra zap?!” Grandad said, trying to keep up.
“Do you have a better idea? It must be the only way to cancel it all out. Come on! You need to fire it at my bottom.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this, Harry.”
“You’ve got plenty of experience at this sort of thing,” Harry said, running over and pulling the lever. A familiar rumble and whine started as the huge laser powered up.
“What are you talking about?” Grandad said. “I have no experience of firing lasers at anyone, let alone precise parts of their body.”
“Come on,” Harry said. “You used to work with lasers.”
“I used to scan barcodes when I was a delivery driver. I didn’t work for NASA.”
“Oh, it’s the same thing. Just think of my bottom as a giant barcode!” Harry yelled encouragingly.
“That’s a really weird sentence!” Grandad yelled back, running over to the machine. “How do we make it reverse the powers?” Grandad asked, looking at it nervously. “This all looks very complicated. Remember, it took me two years to get my Sky Box to work properly.”
“Well, I was hoping for a giant dial that you could switch to reverse … if this was a comic that’s what would happen.” Harry peered at the screen next to the laser as it bleeped and flashed various percentages:
Strength 100%
Flying Ability 100%…
“What if this doesn’t work and I fry you to toast?” Grandad said.
“Well, that’s why it’s very important that it does work! Look, it says here that all my powers are on a hundred per cent. Now, if we turn each of these dials down to zero, then that will reverse it, right?”
“That sort of makes sense. I suppose,” Grandad agreed as Harry set about twiddling the dials. “But on the other hand…”
“What?” Harry said.
“What if you just disappear? That’d be turning everything down to zero, too. Literally!” Grandad called over the noise of the machine as it revved up, growing louder and louder. “We need more time to think,” Grandad said. “Maybe there are some instructions in those drawers? People always have a drawer stuffed with instructions.”
“This isn’t a toaster from Currys PC World, you know. It doesn’t come with a helpline. This stuff is from another planet … probably!” Harry said pointedly.
“OK, let’s just stop this thing. It sounds angry!” Grandad shouted. “I’ll press the red button. Red always means ‘stop’, right?”
Before Harry could answer, Grandad had hit the button.
“Thirty seconds until firing,” came a robotic voice.
“OR sometimes it means ‘fire’, too!” Harry yelled. “Especially on big evil machines. You must never, ever press the big red button!”
“Twenty-nine … twenty-eight…”
“OK, so that’s my bad,” Grandad said. “How do we turn it off?”
“Certainly not by pressing random buttons! This is why your Sky Box only ever records stuff with subtitles,” Harry said.
“Twenty-five … twenty-four…”
“Are the dials turned down to zero?” Grandad shouted.
“Yes! Just point it at my bottom,” Harry hollered back.
“But what if you’re wrong?!” Grandad screamed.
“But what if I’m right?”
“But what if you’re not?”
“BUT WHAT IF I AM?!”
“That’s not really a sound argument,” Grandad said. “It’s a false dichot—”
“GRANDAD, ENOUGH WITH THE BIG WORDS! I’M DOING THIS! FIRE IT AT MY BOTTOM! DOOOOO IIIIIT!” Harry cried.
Grandad took aim and zapped. Harry jumped a metre into the air and then…
SHHHHHHHHHRMMMMM
The machine ground to a halt and shut down.
“I don’t think so…!” Agent G said, his hand on the lever. Harry and Grandad looked round at the two agents.
“Grandad, run!” Harry screamed. “Thiiiiis way!”
They bolted up some nearby steps which led to a metal platform high above the floor of the laboratory. A series of stairs and corridors zigzagged beneath the platform weaving like a snake towards the ground below.
“Lock all the doors, Agent S!” Agent G said.
“Already done,” she responded, pressing a button on her phone.
Harry reached the end of the corridor but it was a dead end. They were trapped! He turned around and saw what looked like a fire escape on the platform below. “C’mon, Grandad! It’s our only chance.” With that, he took a giant leap and landed. He turned round to see Grandad vaulting the handrail…
“WAAAH!”
Grandad yelled as he missed the platform. He hung on by his fingernails to the railing. “Leave me, son. You go – it’s you they’re after.”
“No!” Harry said. “I still have my powers. I’m not going to let you go!” Harry reached over and grabbed Grandad by the hand. “Oh no…” Harry said, struggling to pull his grandad up.
“What?” Grandad asked.
“My powers, they’re draining away,” Harry said. “Must doooo it!” Harry pulled with all his might. “MUST DO IT!” Harry gritted his teeth and lifted Grandad high enough to heave him to safety.
“You saved my life!” Grandad whimpered. “I love you, Harry.”
“I love you, too, Grandad… Now, let’s get out of here before these two kill us.”
“I’m sorry … what?” Agent G said.
“You heard!” Harry said, opening the door to make his escape.
“They know that’s where we keep the tea and biscuits, right?” Agent S said, watching as Harry and Grandad ran into the store cupboard. A second later, Harry and Grandad casually strolled back out.
“Sorry, could you tell us how to escape? We’re lost,” Harry said, smiling awkwardly.
“Listen, no one is going to kill you. We’ve been trying to help you,” Agent S said.
“Gavin, why don’t you put the kettle on.”
“Good idea, Sue,” the other agent said. “I’m parched and I think we’ve got some explaining to do.”
“Gavin and Sue?” Harry said.
10 p.m.
“You mean, you’re not baddies?” Grandad asked.
“No, like I said, we’ve been trying to help you,” Agent G said. “We knew you’d been accidentally shot with the laser and we wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Well, you dress like baddies and you act like baddies!” Harry said suspiciously.
“Another biscuit?” Agent S asked.
“Lovely. Thank you.” Harry smiled.
“The black suits and grim expressions – it’s just expected in our line of work,” Agent G said, dunking his biscuit in his tea.
“What is your line of work?” Grandad asked.
“We work for MI10,” he replied.
“Hang on. I’ve heard of MI6 and MI5 – but what do MI10 do?”
“We’re a super-secret organization that fights crime using experimental techniques.”
“Like lasers from outer space?” Harry asked.
“Outer space? No, I built this – it took me ages!” Agent S said. “Who said it was from outer space?”
“A guy who read it on the Internet…” Harry said.
“Of course. No, this is all human-made,” Gavin added. “Our plan was to create a superhuman to fight crime by blasting a volunteer with a laser, boosting their cellular structure and giving them superpowers. That’s why we wanted to talk to you – to make sure you were OK and to see what you could do.”
“By locking me up in a cage and carrying out tests on me day and night, no doubt?!” Harry exclaimed.
“No, we were going to use a questionnaire,” Sue said, holding out a clipboard and biro.
“Oh … but it says in there that the superhero would have to obey orders!” Harry pointed to the paperwork he’d found.
“Well, yes, that’s how MI10 works. There are orders, like, ‘Can you stop that bus crashing into a fireworks factory?’ or ‘Stop that armed robber!’ The idea was that our hero would carry them out, the world would be safer, then we could have some tea and biscuits.”
“What about the rest of MI10? Would they offer me tea and biscuits?” Harry asked. “Or would they lock me away like a superhero freak for the rest of my life?!”
“There’s only Sue and myself,” Gavin said.
“I told you we were secretive,” Sue said. “We would have paid you, obviously. You would have had holidays. And we’d have come up with a better costume and name for you, too.”
“Name? I don’t have a name. Do I?” Harry asked, taking his mask off.
“Smoky the Curtain Boy, according to social media,” Gavin said, breaking the news.
Harry scrunched up his face like he’d been sucking on a lime and shook his head.
Gavin gave him a sympathetic look and carried on. “If you agree to come and work for us, then we’d need to laser you again and make sure your powers are permanent. Will you, Harry?”
“Permanent, you say?” Harry asked.
“Yes, you got a mini-zap. That laser is just a tester, really – to check the tech worked. We’ve been trying to find the perfect specimen to test, and, well, I guess you found us. If you come and join MI10, we’d use the proper laser,” Gavin said, pressing a button on the desk. A laser, maybe thirty times the size of the first one, appeared from the ceiling.
“WHAAAAT?!
That’s huge!”
“So, Harry, what do you say?” Agent S asked. “Do you fancy changing your life for ever?”
Several months later…
“Listen to me, you birdbrained nincompoop! If you take another step, I’ll swat you like a fly from here to Japan, do you understand?”
“You’re just a kid! How are you going to stop me from stealing this gold?”
“Don’t push me, Evil Dr No Good. You’re really starting to annoy me now. Today was supposed to be my birthday. I was going to spend it with my grandad.”
“Birthday? You should have said! Here, let me give you some cake – oh, and it wouldn’t be a birthday without candles…” Evil Dr No Good pulled a huge red bomb from his bag and lit the fuse. “Now what are you going to do? Let this bomb go off with all those innocent people upstairs? Or fly away and defuse the bomb far from here … meaning I am free to escape with the gold? MWAHAHA!”
“Neither,” Danger Boy said, blowing out the fuse on the bomb. “You’re not going to escape with that bag of gold, either.”
“What?”
“Because it isn’t gold in there!”
Evil Dr No Good opened up the bag. “No way. It’s Silver Shadow!”
“It is, indeed. Drop your weapons! Nothing comes between Danger Boy and Silver Shadow and their birthday pie!”
“Not the old switcheroo… But how did they do it?” someone called.
An engrossed crowd stared up at the podium in the crammed comic shop.
“Well, I’ll have to tell you in the next issue…” Harry had just finished reading aloud at the launch party of his bestselling comic series.
“Wow, he’s so good!” one audience member said to Frankie the owner.
“He’s been coming here since he was tiny,” Frankie said proudly. “Now look at him – he creates total comic hits! I don’t know where he gets his ideas from.”
“Who wants their comics signed?” Harry yelled to the excited crowd.
A couple of hours later, Harry was on his way home. He chuckled to himself, remembering how his first comic – the story of a boy who accidentally got zapped with superpowers – had been a massive hit. Every so often he thought about whether he’d made the right choice, giving it all up… Who wouldn’t want to be a superhero? It was pretty exciting for a day, he admitted, but could he have done it for ever? No. It just wasn’t him. It was like watching nature documentaries about lions – he loved them but would never want to actually be in one.
That’s really how Harry felt about becoming a superhero – too much responsibility. All he had ever wanted was to be a writer and all he had needed was an idea – and now he had one. It all started when he wrote down what had happened to him and Grandad, changing some details so that MI10 wouldn’t be discovered. And he found that although he’d lost his powers, he had somehow kept the confidence to write the words down on the page – and it didn’t even matter about his spelling. It turns out you don’t have to be a perfect speller to be an amazing writer! There’d been a few rumours initially that maybe he was the real Smoky the Curtain Boy superhero, who came and saved the town for one night before disappearing for ever. But, after a while, the whole evening’s events became fuzzy, as if the whole thing had been a dream, and the world moved on.
MI10 managed to find their guinea pig in the end, someone willing to be shot by the real laser. The superhero works in secret these days, no costume made out of curtains. More like a shadow who quietly goes around stopping crime whenever and wherever he can.
“Hi, Grandad, I’m home,” Harry said, walking through the door.
“Hey, Hal, how’d the new comic go down?”
“Brilliant, lots of copies sold. I think this one is going to do really well.” Harry smiled, s
hutting the front door behind him. He took a deep breath. “Hmmmm, minced beef?”
“You knows it!” Grandad grinned. “Lay the table – it’s almost ready.”
A few minutes later, they sat down together in their new house. It was bigger than the last, with no dodgy guttering. It was nearer town, too – just a five-minute walk from the comic shop.
“Pass the gravy,” Grandad said. But before Harry could hand it over, the phone rang. “Now, who’s this…?” Grandad said, getting up and answering the phone. “OK … OK … be there in ten.”
“What is it?” Harry asked.
“Put my pie in the oven, would you? There’s work to be done!” Grandad said, putting on his mask. “The Silver Shadow is needed once more. Evil Dr No Good has escaped from prison.”
“Don’t forget – remember every detail, Grandad! I may need ideas for my next book. Oh, and say hello to Sue and Gavin for me.” Harry waved his grandad goodbye.
“Affirmative. That means yes, by the way.” Grandad winked before opening the window and jumping out into the night sky.
Harry watched as his grandad zoomed off into the distance, ready to save the day once again. Oh, yeah, MI10 found the right guy in the end. That was for sure.
Tom McLaughlin
My name’s Tom, I'm the fella who wrote and illustrated the book (illustrated is just a posh way of saying I drew the pictures). I’m here to tell you a little bit about myself. I used to be a cartoonist for a newspaper, it was my job to draw cartoons of prime ministers and presidents. After that I started writing and illustrating my own books. I like football, fizzy sour sweets, laughing lots, sausages, staring out of the window and writing books. I have silly children, three wives and a lovely dog … no hang on, I mean I have a silly dog, three children and a lovely wife.
The Day I Got Zapped with Super Powers Page 4