Bugged Out!

by Matthew Porter

  “Whope’s im da sahauce?” Nick asked with a full mouth.

  “I don’t know, to be honest,” he answered like he could actually understand what Nick had said. “She won’t even tell my father what’s in it. In fact, she hasn’t passed it down to either of my sisters, or my sister-in-law.”

  “Vatsh ah fame,” Nick said.

  Nick’s phone alarm suddenly went off and made us all jump. He leaped off the couch. “That’s my cue to get ready for some b-ball!” He grabbed his bag and ran up the stairs.

  I got up. “I’ll read the booklet next, if that’s okay with you, Abby?”

  “Sure. I mean, I’m not ready to read it yet,” said Abby. “And I know for a fact that Nick isn’t going to read it at all.”

  James handed the booklet to me, I put it in my bag, and we walked upstairs.

  Nick was walking around the house aimlessly. “Hey, J-Man. Where’s your bathroom?”

  “Down the hall and to your left.”

  “Thanks, bro.” He opened the door. “Um, this is the pantry.”

  “Whoops, I meant your right,” said James, turning a little red. “Sorry, I am not good at giving directions.”

  Nick chuckled as he walked into the bathroom.

  “Has he always played basketball?” I asked Abby. “From what I saw at the arcade, he’s pretty good at it.”

  Abby nodded. “It’s always been his favorite sport. Hey, why don’t you guys come watch him play?”

  Nick walked out of the bathroom with his jersey and gym shorts on, which complimented his muscular physique perfectly. “Yeah, you guys should come watch King Nick play some b-ball.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I, for one, want to see what you’re made of.”

  “Oh, you’ll see, Ms. Kelly,” Nick said with a cocky grin.

  “I’ll accompany you as well,” James said, obviously trying to sound excited.

  “Let’s go, then. Don’t wanna be late for my first practice,” said Nick.

  “I swear, Nick, if you even speed the whole way there…” Abby said as we walked out the door.

  Nick’s basketball practice was being held at the rec center half a block from Force-Pointe High because of some kind of incident in the gym at school. They didn’t give a reason, exactly, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the insects.

  We walked to the basketball court, and all but two players were there. Chris Fellowmen was there. He was one of the jerks who bullied James. I had no idea how he could be on the basketball team. He was a good player, from what I’d heard, but his grades had to be awful from all of the times he skipped class, and the rule at Force-Pointe High was that you needed a B average to play any sport.

  “Welcome to your first practice, Nick,” said Mr. Isely cheerfully. He looked at James, Abby, and me. “I’m afraid your cheering squad will have to sit on the bleachers.”

  Nick turned to us. “You heard the man, cheering squad,” he said with a goofy smile.

  I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. “So, we’re just your groupies?”

  “No, of course not,” he said, his grin widening. “But cheering’s an important job, you know?”

  “Shut up and show us what you’re made of,” I said, trying not to smile.

  “You got it.” Nick ran to the middle of the court.

  Abby, James, and I sat in the bottom row of bleachers, and James looked out on the court with a less than enthused look on his face.

  “Is this going to bore you, James? You could have brought a book to read or something,” I asked.

  “No, it’s all right,” James said. “I suppose I can delve into this anthropologically and observe the culture.”

  “It’s always about science with you, isn’t it?” asked Abby.

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Do you really have to ask?”

  After the warm-ups, Mr. Isely had the team split into two groups, and Nick and Chris were the opposing team captains.

  The practice game began, and it wasn’t hard at all to believe that this was Nick’s sport as I watched him play. When he had the ball, he would move around the other team almost on instinct, and he seemed to know exactly which way to pass without even looking. He moved with a kind of grace I wouldn’t expect to see in a game like basketball as he sidestepped the opposing team members, or when he would leap to score a basket.

  Before I knew it, the practice was over. Nick shook everyone’s hand on the opposing team and complimented them on their hard work. He even attempted to shake Chris’s hand, but Chris just glared at him and walked away.

  Nick ran to the bleachers and slid into the seat right between James and me. “So, how did you like seeing King Nick in action?” he asked.

  I shrugged and tried to hide my smile. “Eh, it was okay.”

  “Watch it, Ms. Kelly,” he said, playfully messing up my hair.

  “Watch the hair, buster,” I said, glaring at him.

  “Are you done here?” asked Abby.

  He nodded. “Sure thing. Let’s head out.”

  It had been so nice to get my mind off those bugs and the Edania Organization, if only for an hour or so. But when I went to bed that night, I had the same nightmare about those disgusting monsters stabbing me with their sharp, needle-like tongues and draining my energy.

  I woke up once again in a cold sweat. I looked at my phone. It was 2:30 in the morning. Looking up at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but think that Abby was right. This was crazy. We only had two days left before we had to give Kristiana our answer. What would happen to us if we said yes? What would happen if we said no?

  CHAPTER 6:

  the Edania organization—abby

  The day came so much faster than I could have imagined. Three days had passed in a flash, and it was time to give our answer. But everything seemed like a bad dream that morning. The disgusting bugs were nowhere to be found. The school had called a professional exterminator who had come in the night before, and that seemed to take care of the problem. Word on the street was, though, that the exterminators didn’t find any evidence of infestation. They apparently thought it was all a practical joke at first, but the principal and the school nurse told them otherwise.

  The bad news was that a few more students had been hospitalized the day before because of the grody monster bugs. Seeing the damage they caused before vanishing pushed the four of us to make a unanimous decision, but inwardly I was still on the fence.

  We arrived at the Edania Organization building and parked in the garage. The other three seemed 100% sure about this as we walked toward the elevator. They walked as though we were just heading to class or something. But I was dragging behind, and felt sick to my stomach.

  “Wait,” I called to them. They turned around and looked at me. I took a deep breath. I had to get this off my chest. “Are we sure we want to do this? I mean, there won’t be any turning back after tonight. I-I’m a little scared.”

  Kelly came over to me and gently placed her hand on my shoulder and gave me a warm smile. “I know. I think we’re all a little scared.”

  I looked at her, but didn’t return her smile. “It’s just… We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “That’s life, isn’t it?” she said. “We never know what to expect.”

  I sighed. “Good pep talk. Now I feel better. Where’d you get that material, some after-school special?” I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but laugh when Kelly rolled her eyes back at me.

  I did some breathing exercises as we waited for the elevator. They always seemed to help with nerves right before my gymnastics routines. I’ll admit, a small part of me was excited about what we were doing, though. I mean, how many people can say they have honest-to-goodness superpowers? The anxiety and excitement I felt was kind of like the feeling you get right before you ride a roller coaster for the first time, only much more intense.

  Kristiana was waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase when we walked into the lobby, like she just knew we weren’t going to
ditch. Creepy.

  “Excellent,” she said as we met her. “You’re right on time… Now, if you would follow me.” She turned and started walking briskly up the stairs.

  As we followed, James looked up at the ceiling, and part of me expected him to trip and fall on his face, he didn’t seem to be the most coordinated person in the world. “Excuse me, Mrs. Vice President?” he said politely.

  She turned to him. “Yes, James?”

  James pointed at the ceiling. “If I may ask, what is the significance of the image above us, and why does it and the one at Joel’s seem to have the same girl in two very different depictions?”

  Kristiana looked up intensely at the picture, then back down at James. “Those two scenes tell two very different sides of the same story.” She paused for a moment; her expression was almost melancholy. But she seemed to snap out of it quickly. She cleared her throat, then said, “We must be going, or we will fall behind schedule. Have you made your decision?”

  Nick nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We’d like to be members of the Odeena Organization,” he said with such a serious face that I really had to fight the urge to laugh that he said the name wrong.

  Kristiana looked at him for a second, her mouth almost resembling a smile. “Excellent,” she said. “Let’s move along.”

  We followed her into the elevator and shot up to the twelfth floor, which had that giant room with all the scifi-ish machines. This time the room was empty, and the machines didn’t seem to be on. We continued past the little hallway to get to the red room where Kristiana had showed us her power and stopped near a staircase that led into thick darkness.

  “Watch your step, and hold on to the rail,” said Kristiana. She walked down into the darkness below, and I lost sight of her by the third or fourth step.

  Um. Okay…this isn’t a good idea, I thought, looking into the dark staircase. Like, what if these people were really responsible for making those bugs, and she was leading us down into their nest or something? The thought made me cringe.

  “You coming?” Kristiana called.

  The four of us looked at each other, each looking as uncertain as I felt. After a brief hesitation, Nick started running down the stairs. James and Kelly followed him a second or two later. I just stood there, looking down into the dark. I couldn’t see them at all, and their footsteps were quickly fading.

  I looked around me, thinking about how crazy this decision was. I took a deep breath and started down the stairs into the dark.

  My palms were sweaty and clammy as I made my way down. My heart was pounding like I had just run a marathon. I could actually hear my pulse. I was getting so worked up that I started to feel dizzy. I’d say the room was spinning but I couldn’t see a freaking thing. I grabbed on to the rail to keep from falling, who knew how far down these stairs went?

  After what seemed to be an eternity, I reached the bottom. The room was as dark as the staircase. Then I heard Kristiana clap her hands and I had to cover my eyes from the sudden bright light.

  Once my eyes adjusted, I saw just how odd this room was. A bronze table stood right in front of us. Four eagle statues were perched on top of the table, one at each corner. The birds were facing the middle, and their wings were curled upward as if they were trying to cover their faces.

  Kristiana led us to the table, and I saw that there was an LED screen in the center. She placed her hand on the screen, and the eagles rotated 180 degrees. Their wings opened up, revealing an LED screen under each pair.

  Kristiana stepped back. “Take your place at each corner and put your hand on the screen. It will scan your hands, identifying you, and you will be put into the system.”

  Part of me still wanted to run. What kind of place was this? Stairs leading to utter darkness; metal tables that scan your hands… What was next? Tinfoil hats?

  Everyone else immediately did what she asked. I hesitated as I stood in my corner, my hand hovering just over the screen. Would this bind us to our decision? Was this my last chance to bow out? I took a deep breath. I couldn’t second-guess our decision now. Kelly was right: we were in this together, and I didn’t want to be the one to run from the responsibility. I placed my hand on the screen, and my palm stung a little as the screen scanned my hand.

  A computerized voice spoke from the table. “Subjects identified as James Levi Stump, Kelly Alison Azusa, Abigail Deborah Scott, and Nicklaus Cameron Scott. Registration complete. Please proceed to the L.O.E. room.”

  Kristiana nodded once. “Good. Now that you are in the system, we may proceed.”

  She led us through a narrow bridge with a bronzy sheen. Under the bridge was a crystal-clear pool with a mirrored bottom.

  The bridge led to a dim room with crimson walls and a vivid purple curtain covering the ceiling. A beautifully patterned mural with deep shades of blue, red, and purple covered the back wall. A small but lustrous golden knob was set the very center. On either side of the mural, two golden eagle statues reached toward each other with their wings, in the exact same position as the ones on the staircase in the building’s lobby.

  Kristiana walked up to the mural wall and turned the knob. She backed up, and the wall began to open like a double door. Kristiana bade us to follow her as she stepped through the doorway.

  The room behind the wall was blinding white. When my eyes adjusted, I saw how spacious it was. It looked like the room could fit an entire football stadium inside of it. In the center of the room stood two giant golden eagle statues in the same position as the ones we had just passed. Between the two eagles’ wings, about 120 feet in the air, hovered an intense ball of light that illuminated the whole room.

  Kristiana walked to the center of the room, between the two eagles. “This is the L.O.E. room, or the Light of Edania room,” she said, her voice echoing. “If you hadn’t guessed—'' she pointed upward “—it gets its name from the light you see hovering above us. That light is made of a substance called Edaniite in its purest form. Edaniite is the only substance on Earth that can awaken uncorrupted Segols.” She walked a little past the statues and turned back toward us. “If you would please make your way to the center of the room and stand between the eagles under the Edaniite sphere, and hold your hands up high. The Light of Edania will react to your presence and the process will begin.”

  Nick looked up at the ball of light and took a step back. “Are you sure it won’t give us cancer or something? Make us grow extra limbs? Make us unable to have kids?”

  “It’s very stable in this state,” Kristiana said confidently. “No harm will come to you.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” he said nervously. But his courage seemed to be restored, because he started toward the eagle statues.

  James followed Nick, talking to himself, wondering what the chemical makeup of Edaniite was and what it would look like as a molecular model.

  I was halfway out the door, clenching the golden doorknob like it would save me from getting sucked into the room. Kelly held her hand out and smiled. “Come on. We’ll go together.”

  A big part of me had literally zero desire to step foot in that room. Something in the back of my mind told me this was a bad idea, that this would more than complicate our lives. But there was a small part of me that wanted to know what would happen if I walked into the light. I took Kelly’s hand and we made our way to Nick and James.

  The closer I got to the eagle statues, the more I wondered if we had made the right decision. I knew at this point it was too late to turn back, but that just made my anxiety about the situation even worse.

  When Kelly and I had reached the eagle statues, Kristiana said, “Now lift your hands up as high as you can. This should activate the L.O.E.’s sensory program.”

  The four of us lifted our hands toward the ball of blinding light. Nothing happened at first; we just stood there raising the roof, looking like a bunch of idiots. But after a moment, the light started to expand and pulsate, getting brighter and brighter every second.

  Four be
ams of light shot out of the Light of Edania at the same time. They danced around the room like giant, graceful fireflies as they made their descent. They twirled and looped and spiraled around us, getting lower and lower until they were at eye level, when they suddenly stopped between the four of us and hovered there.

  With a blast of speed, one of them shot into James, and he collapsed to the floor.

  “James!” Kelly screamed as she started to run to him, but another ball of the light shot into her body, and she collapsed.

  “What’s going on?” Nick yelled at Kristiana. He started toward Kelly and James, but the ball of light closest to him shot into his chest and he fell to the ground.

  I was the only one left. I looked down at all the others collapsed on the floor, and I couldn’t tell if they were even still alive. I wanted to run to them, to see if they were okay, but my body didn’t want to work.

  The remaining ball of light hovered before me, and I had to squint to keep from going blind. I knew this was a bad idea! I thought as I tried to move, but my legs felt as heavy as lead.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the light zoomed into my body. I closed my eyes just before it struck me, expecting to feel excruciating pain as the light melted my insides. Instead, I felt an incredible warmth as my body gave out.

  ***

  I woke up with a start. I sat up, looking around, half expecting to be in my room. But it wasn’t a dream… I was in the L.O.E. room, on the floor.

  Nick hopped to his feet. “Hoo, buddy, what a rush,” he said, rubbing his head. “What just happened?”

  “That was pure Edaniite entering your body, awakening the Segol that rests deep within you,” said Kristiana, who was simply standing there, apparently waiting for the rest of us to get up.

  Kelly tried to stand but slipped back to the ground. Nick helped her up.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Guess these aren’t the shoes to pass out in.”

  James picked his glasses up off the floor and put them back on. As he stood up, he cringed. “I do hope this floor is as clean as it appears to be…”