Bugged Out!

by Matthew Porter

  The elevator doors opened and we stepped out into the lobby, which was completely empty.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Kelly, looking around.

  There was a ruckus outside. We ran to the front of the lobby and looked outside. A bunch of people were huddled together on the streets, all of them staring up at the sky.

  “What’s going on out there?” I said. “Let’s go check it out, guys.” I ran outside and the others followed.

  “Wait, we aren’t exactly done here!” Kristy called out to us.

  Everything outside was cast in a blue glow. The full moon was super-bright and as blue as the ocean on a clear, sunny day. Everyone in the city was looking up at it. Cars were parked in the middle of the street; the city was at a standstill. People were standing on balconies and rooftops, too, all looking up at the beauty of the moon.

  Kristy walked up next to us. “It’s called a Sapphire Moon,” she said, admiring the moon’s blue glow. “An extremely rare occurrence that only happens in this region. It looks like a simple lunar eclipse if you were to sail even thirty miles away from the Force-Pointe Islands. It gets its blue color and its bright appearance above these islands because the atmosphere above us is rich with a substance called Segolite, which is similar to Edaniite. This is one of four Sapphire Moons that are scheduled over the next few years. It must have…slipped my mind that it was tonight.”

  None of us answered her; we were too busy looking up at the moon.

  “Alright, that’s enough gawking up at the sky. Please pay attention,” said Kristy. When we didn’t answer a second time, she whistled loudly.

  I cringed at the sound. “Geez, give us a warning before you do that next time.”

  Kristy’s lips tightened. “We’re not done here. Please follow me back into the building, away from any prying ears.”

  Before going through the front doors, I took one more look at the moon’s blue glow.

  Back inside, she led us to a couch and motioned us to take a seat.

  “So, what is your plan for acquiring the Ark?” Kristy asked casually, like we’d had plenty of time to think it up.

  The four of us looked at each other and then back at her.

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, let me make it a little simpler for you. Remember that you must get the Ark before they do—that is of the utmost importance. Finding the Ark may seem difficult, but it’ll be easier than you think.”

  “How?” said Abbs. “Is it going to just pop out from behind a corner with a sign on it that says, ‘I’m the Ark, please handle with care’?”

  Kristy gave Abbs the side eye. “Not exactly,” she said, a little tartly. “You see, the Arks emit an unusual energy when they’re active that those with Segols can sense. You’ll feel its pull when you get close enough to it. Unfortunately, the same is true for the Corrupted.”

  “Which may explain why the insects are only at the school,” whispered J-Man.

  “What was that?” Kristy asked, looking at J-Man with interest.

  He stood up. “Something occurred to me the other day. Those insects have only been sighted around the high school, and nowhere else that we know of. If they are indeed tools of these Corrupted, then they must think that the Ark is somewhere around campus.”

  Kristy smiled, like she was happy with what J-Man had said. “Well, then, you must look around the school and its grounds.”

  “You want us to look for it between classes or what?” asked Abbs, arms crossed.

  “Whenever you can,” Kristy answered. “But I cannot stress this enough: be careful, be wary of your surroundings, and keep your emotions under control so you don’t accidentally use your abilities. We don’t want you blowing up your classmates or sending them flying out a window or freezing them in time. And you must do your best to keep your abilities a secret, for obvious reasons. That’s all for tonight.” She nodded toward the door. “I will be checking on your progress soon. For now, farewell.” She led us out of the lobby and to the garage elevator.

  “What did we get ourselves into?” said Abbs, rubbing her forehead later as we were cruising down Main Street. “This was a bad idea. Good thing tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m going to have trouble sleeping tonight.”

  I chuckled. “I’m gonna sleep like a baby.” That was a lie. To tell you the truth, I knew I wouldn’t sleep much that night. I knew that, just like every night since we had to leave home, I would be haunted by nightmares of what happened the day that pretty much ruined my life.

  “You never worry about anything,” said Abbs with annoyance. “It’s so aggravating. This is stressful. I’m going to break out at this rate.”

  “This is indeed a difficult pill to swallow, as the saying goes,” said J-Man, who was squirming around uncomfortably in the back seat.

  “Aw, c’mon, guys. This’ll be awesome,” I said, the feeling of excitement rising out of the gloom.

  “Your enthusiasm’s making my migraine worse,” said Abbs as she rubbed her forehead harder.

  “Come on, sis,” I said. “This is the coolest thing ever. We’re superheroes!”

  “I’m glad one of us is so chipper about this,” Kelly said. She sighed. “I hope we made the right decision.”

  Abbs sat up in her seat. “See? Kelly gets it. We’re probably going to be killed by those nasty bugs.”

  “Nah, we’re gonna smash them all into mush,” I said, banging my fist on the steering wheel, making it honk.

  “Our main goal is to find the Ark, remember?” said J-Man.

  “Well, my goal is to find an Aspirin,” said Abby.

  “It won’t be so bad, Abbs,” I said.

  She glared at me. “Nick, we just got turned into freaks. It already is that bad.”

  “I think we should just see how it all turns out,” Kelly said, her tone much calmer than Abbs’s.

  “We do have our work cut out for us,” said J-Man glumly. “This Ark is most certainly somewhere on the school grounds, but we must figure out where. We also need to make sure we get it before Doren’s minions do, and then we need to figure a way to get rid of those mutant insects. All this, and we still need to study for the biology test next week.”

  “Man, don’t remind me,” I muttered. I mean, heroes shouldn’t have to take tests… shouldn’t we get an excuse or something?

  “Tests are the least of our problems right now, James,” Kelly said.

  “Bite your tongue,” he snapped. “I will not let these insects get in the way of my perfect G.P.A.”

  “Good to see you have your priorities in order,” she said.

  We reached Kelly’s house. Her dad was outside, and he looked angry. I got out of the car and lifted the seat so Kelly could get out.

  Kelly’s dad marched up to the car. “Where have you been, young lady?” her dad said angrily.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Kelly answered. “We had some things to get done.”

  “Like what? And who is this?” He was pointing at me.

  I offered him a handshake. “Hi, sir. I’m Nick. My sister and I are new here, and Kelly and James have helped us get used to things around here and—”

  “Yeah, nice to meet you, son.” He looked down at my hand and crossed his arms. “Next time, just make sure my daughter is home at a reasonable hour.”

  “Sorry, sir,” I said as pleasantly as I could, but I could tell he didn’t like me.

  He glared at me for a moment and then turned back toward the house. “Kelly will see you Monday. It’s late. You should all head home.”

  “Okay,” I said as calmly and cheerfully as I could. “’Bye, Kelly. Nice to meet you, sir.”

  Kelly looked back at me apologetically and waved goodbye before following her dad into the house.

  “Well, Kelly’s dad seems…nice,” I said as I got back in the car.

  “He is, once you get to know him,” said J-Man. “He’s just very protective of Kelly.”

  “I get that,” I said. “Heck, if I had a daughter like her, I’d be protec
tive, too.”

  After I dropped J-Man off, Abbs and I went home. I got ready for bed and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. A nagging voice in the back of my head kept me up.

  Do you really think you can keep ignoring what you did? it said. Do you have any shame? You’re nothing but a no-good troublemaker. You aren’t cut out to be the leader of anyone. Heck, you can’t even control yourself.

  When I finally did doze off, I lived it all over again…what happened that day, the day that I’d always regret. It was always haunting me, ready to come out when I laid my head down to sleep, when I was all alone.

  I heard myself shouting, “I’ll kill you, you creep!”

  “Back off of him, son!” a man yelled.

  “Let me go! I’ll kill you for doin’ this!” I yelled at the kid in the alleyway.

  “Cuff this delinquent and put him in the car.”

  “No, let me go! You don’t understand—”

  The ghostly echo of police sirens blared in my head as I tossed and turned, trying to make the sounds stop.

  CHAPTER 8:

  strange days at force-pointe high—james

  That weekend was frustrating, to say the least. Saturday and Sunday, the four of us met in an open field near my house to practice our abilities. The others hid in the surrounding woods, and I tried to use my Scan Segol to find them, but I didn’t even get static, and I felt rather foolish aimlessly walking around.

  I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get their Segol to work, either. Nick had set up a line of empty bottles and cans and other things he’d found lying around in the field for him and Kelly to use for target practice. But, Nick didn’t get so much as an ember, and Kelly’s hands didn’t glow.

  After they gave up, Nick threw the bottles in the air, and Abby would try to Freeze-Frame them. After more than twenty attempts, she stomped away from us, muttering under her breath. I was starting to think we’d been...what’s the word? Punctured? No, punked. I was starting to think we’d been punked.

  So the whole weekend was a waste of time. We were so preoccupied with trying to get our powers to work, we had zero time to study.

  Even with the uneventful weekend, I had trouble sleeping Sunday night. I awoke Monday morning to the sound of a car horn. That’s not the ringtone I set my alarm to, I thought sleepily. The car horn blasted again, and I noticed that sunlight was peering in through the windows. I lunged from my pillow and looked to see what time it was—already seven o’clock! My alarm must not have gone off—or, worse, I’d slept right through it! I quickly got ready and ran out the door.

  The car’s convertible top was down, and Nick was standing up in the car. “Hurry up, man,” he hollered. “We still have to pick Kelly up!”

  “I apologize. I just woke up,” I said in a panic.

  “Yeah, we did, too,” said Abby, sounding annoyed.

  I hopped in the back of the car and barely got the chance to buckle up before Nick sped out of the driveway so fast that the tires left skid marks on the blacktop.

  We made it to Kelly’s in record time. She marched to the car and joined me in the back.

  “What took you guys so long?” she asked, a little irritably. “We’re going to be late again.”

  “Sorry, it was my fault. I overslept,” I said with my head down in shame.

  Kelly looked at me, her eyes wide with shock. “You overslept?”

  Nick scratched his head. “I overslept too, and I should have called him when we were on our way.”

  “Well, it’s sort of my fault, too,” Abby said. “I was too preoccupied panicking about this whole ‘now we’re freaks of nature’ thing.”

  “It’s not like we don’t have a reasonable excuse,” Kelly said. “But I guess telling Mrs. Snider that we couldn’t sleep because we were given superpowers is a little silly.”

  Nick chuckled. “Yeah, about that. We’ve been trying to get our powers to work all weekend, even when Abbs and I were at home. Just last night, I scared the crap out of her a few times, trying to get her power to happen, but I got nada.”

  “That’s not true,” Abby said testily. “You did get a slap in the face the third time you tried.”

  “Hey, I just wanted to see if you could do it.”

  “I guess I can’t,” she said, bobbing her head.

  He glanced at her with a wicked smile. “Maybe you need to get more scared.”

  She punched his arm. “Don’t you even try it.”

  He flinched. “I was kidding, mostly. But the fact is, we couldn’t get these superpowers we’re supposed to have to work. I think maybe we’re getting played after all.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said, but I pondered the idea for another moment. “It would be a cruel and very convoluted prank if that’s the case, though. I think we should give it a bit more time before making such an accusation. Kristiana did say that our abilities would be weaker when we left the Edania building.”

  “Weaker and nonexistent are two different things,” Kelly said, sitting back in her seat.

  We pulled into the school parking lot, and the four of us jumped out and ran as if our lives depended on it. We had technically missed homeroom, but we managed to make it to biology two minutes after the first-period bell rang. Mrs. Snider looked up at us from her notes.

  “Why are the four of you late again?” she asked impatiently. “You missed homeroom. I marked you absent.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. S. I’m their ride, and I overslept. It won’t happen again, ma’am,” said Nick.

  “See that it doesn’t. This is the last time I’ll accept a tardy. Next time I will write you up. Now take your seats, and we’ll get started.” She waited for us to sit down before she addressed the class. “I have your quizzes back, and I must say I’m a little disappointed. The average grade was a seventy-one.”

  She began to pass the quizzes back. I got 104% because of the extra credit. When Nick got his quiz back, he slammed his fist on his desk.

  He whispered to me. “We need to study more. I got 52%.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “This was only a quiz. We’ll make sure you do better on the test.”

  Jeremy seemed to be listening in on our conversation. He smirked, and whispered something to Adam. They looked back at us and snickered.

  “What’re they laughing at?” asked Nick, cracking his knuckles.

  “I don’t know, but that’s why I call them the Hyena Gang,” I said.

  I reached down to get my binder from my bookbag when I realized something even more horrid than a mutated insect infestation: I had forgotten it at home! I was in such a hurry that I’d left it there. Panic rose from my stomach, and I could feel my throat tighten.

  “Dude, what’s wrong?” Nick asked, looking concerned.

  “I left my bookbag at home. What will I do?” I started to hyperventilate. How could this have happened to me? I had never forgotten my bookbag before, ever!

  “It’s okay. It happens sometimes,” Nick said, trying to calm me down.

  “Not to me,” I said as my heart started to pound even harder in my chest.

  He tried to hand me his textbook. “You can use my book if you want.”

  “It’s not the same,” I said, shaking my head. “I want my book.”

  After five minutes of whispering back and forth, I finally calmed down. But the blemish of forgetting all my books and supplies still ruined my perfect record. What was next, forgetting my essay for history? Losing my conversion charts? Getting—heaven forbid—an A minus?

  I could hardly pay attention in any of my other morning classes. In English literature, Mr. Arens collected our homework...which I didn’t have. That almost sent me into another panic attack, even after he told me I could hand it in tomorrow for full credit.

  At lunch, it was just me, Kelly, and Nick, because Abby wanted to go practice for the gymnastics tryouts that were being held later in the week. As Jeremy and his hyenas passed by our lunch table, he whispered something to Max, and th
ey laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Nick said, glaring at them.

  Jeremy just sneered and walked away, and the other hyenas started cracking up.

  “Ignore them,” I said. “You’ll find that they laugh at nothing on a pretty regular basis. Now let’s get back to the study worksheet.”

  Nick sighed as he continued writing the answer for the question he was on.

  About five minutes into reviewing the principles of parasitism with Nick and Kelly, I started to feel light-headed. I clasped the palm of my hand to my forehead as the disorienting feeling quickly worsened.

  “Are you okay?” asked Kelly.

  “Just feeling a bit odd,” I said, but I could barely hear the sound of my voice. My ears had started to ring so loudly, I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts. I tried to take a drink of water, but everything started to go dark. I closed my eyes for a moment to see if that would help. When I opened them, I wasn’t at the lunch table anymore.

  I was in a dark room, and I could hear high-pitched, heavy breathing right behind me. Whoever it was sounded more panicked than I did when I realized I forgot my bookbag at home. I couldn’t turn around to see who it was or why they were so upset.

  A bright light flashed on, but something about it was weird. It was like the light was coming from my own eyes. I couldn’t make anything out at first, but my eyes seemed to adjust much quicker than it would usually take.

  I was in some kind of basement or boiler room, but it was difficult to tell exactly where. Something was going on with my eyesight. It would go from crystal clear to blurry to almost pixelated every few seconds, and it seemed as though I were shaking uncontrollably, because everything around me looked like it was rumbling in an earthquake. I heard quickened breathing and panicked footsteps as I moved through the darkness, but it wasn’t me that was breathing, and they weren’t my footsteps, even though they were coming from almost directly below me.

  “H-hello?” the person behind me squeaked, and her voice echoed down the dark room. “Someone, please...help!” She sounded so scared as she ran, but I couldn’t do anything to help her. I couldn’t move at all. In fact, I couldn’t even feel. It was like I wasn’t in my body.