The Great Powers Outage

by William Boniface

  “Good heavens, it’s Ordinary Boy,” he said as a smile spread across his face. “I do hope you’re not here to disrupt the fabric of space and time again.”

  “Not today.” I returned his smile. “I’ve come to return something that belongs to you.”

  “Indeed?” he responded as I held out the knitting needle I had borrowed less than a week ago, my time, but over twenty-five years ago for him. “I was wondering what had happened to that.” Taking the needle from me he examined it briefly and then jammed it into the front of his thigh. My friends’ eyes went wide with alarm. Lord Pincushion caught their surprised reactions. “And who are these young heroes?”

  “These are my teammates, the Junior Leaguers,” I said. “Stench, Tadpole, Halogen Boy, and Plasma Girl.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” Lord Pincushion responded as he stuck out his hand to each of them. One at a time they maneuvered around an array of thumbtacks, needles, fishing hooks, and finishing nails to gingerly shake his hand.

  “And now I must insist on entertaining you all properly.” He smiled at us. “Follow me to the library, please. I believe we’ll find the Animator there.”

  The Animator had also been an original member of the League of Goodness and was now retired as well. As our host led the way, we fell in behind, staring at the magnificence of Pinprick Manor. It was hard to imagine that such a large mansion was home to only two people.

  “You’ll have to excuse us,” our host apologized as he led us down one of the long corridors and stopped in front of a large double door. “It’s cleaning day, so things could be a bit messy.”

  No sooner had he swung open the door than a swarm of books flew past us, flapping their covers and pages as if they were birds. Once inside, we saw there were literally thousands of them soaring and circling their away around the enormous room. In the process, clouds of dust were being shaken free and then sucked into a large, flat, spinning disk of debris floating midair in the center of the room. Within the rotating swirl, the particles were coalescing into one giant ball just like a miniature galaxy.

  Below the disk, dancing merrily around to his own internal music of the cosmos, was the Animator. As he sent one flock of aired-out books back to their shelves he immediately directed another bay of dusty tomes to burst from their bookcase. My friends and I all watched the marvelous sight with our mouths agape.

  “We’re dusting the books today,” Lord Pincushion observed rather dryly, not quite sharing our awe.

  Soon the number of books winging their way around the room began to thin, and as the last of the flapping volumes shook themselves clean, the elderly superhero focused his attention on the spinning galaxy of dust. It turned faster and faster, and the debris was pulled toward the center, where it formed into a solid, rotating orb of dirt. When no loose particles remained, the Animator raised his left hand toward the spinning sphere and it burst into flames like a sun flaring to life.

  “Whoa!” we all said as we turned our heads away. The brilliant light didn’t last long, however, as the fire quickly consumed the giant dust ball and then winked out of existence. My friends and I began to clap.

  “My goodness,” the Animator said in surprise, just noticing our presence. “Is that Ordinary Boy? What a pleasure to see you again, lad!”

  “And you,” I replied. “That’s quite a cleaning system you have.”

  “I do what I can to make it enjoyable,” the Animator admitted. “Dusting the books is so much more fun than say . . . cleaning the bathroom.”

  “He tried the same method there, once,” Lord Pincushion confided to me, “but it looked more like a giant flushing toilet, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, well, who wants to talk about cleaning when we have guests.” The Animator clapped his hands. “Let’s sit down and I’ll get us some refreshments.”

  Our hosts ushered us over to a corner of the library where a number of chairs were situated around a large coffee table. No sooner had we sat down than two empty suits of armor entered the library. One held a tray bearing seven empty glasses and two pitchers of lemonade. The other carried a tray with one large bowl filled with potato chips along with several empty smaller bowls.

  This wasn’t our first encounter with the silent servants of Pinprick Manor. I had met them on my first visit, and my friends had been introduced to them when they helped us in our battle with dinosaurs the previous week in Telomere Park.

  More surprising than an animated suit of armor, however, was the large bowl of potato chips they carried. These were genuine, honest-to-goodness Dr. Telomere’s potato chips. As Lord Pincushion and the Animator took their seats, I eagerly took one of the smaller bowls and filled it up with chips from the larger. A moment later I realized how rude I must have seemed, but that was nothing compared to my friends’ behavior.

  “Um . . .” Stench started to say, as he spoke for the others, “would you mind if we ate our own chips?”

  Tadpole opened his backpack and retrieved a can of Amazing Indestructo’s Pseudo-Chips. Plasma Girl reached for four of the smaller bowls as Tadpole opened the canister. He then poured a portion of the chips into each bowl.

  “Good heavens, what are those?” Lord Pincushion said with surprise. To my relief, he had obviously not seen any of the Red Menace’s ads.

  “This is why we’re here,” I admitted. “It’s these chips. They’ve completely pushed Dr. Telomere’s chips off the market. That’s why I was so excited to see you still had some.”

  “Of course we do. We have several weeks’ supply at any given time,” explained Lord Pincushion as both he and his partner took one of the Pseudo-Chips.

  “How could these have replaced Dr. Telomere’s?” asked the Animator as he took a bite. “They taste like baked napkins.”

  “It’s not the chips,” I explained. “It’s AI’s new spokesman. He’s on the air constantly.”

  “Is he now.” Lord Pincushion bristled with irritation. “Well let’s just get a look at him.”

  Before I could stop him, our host pressed a button on the arm of his chair. Directly across from us a wall cabinet swung open revealing an old-fashioned television set, which immediately burst to life. Lord Pincushion’s timing couldn’t have been worse, for there on the screen was the Red Menace extolling the benefits of AI’s Pseudo-Chips.

  “. . . that’s right. Reach for an Amazing Indestructo’s Amazing Pseudo-Chip right this very minute. Go ahead, you know you want—”

  I jumped up and shut off the TV, but as I turned and saw the blank stares on the faces of the Animator and Lord Pincushion, I feared the damage had already been done.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Rise of the Red Menace

  As Lord Pincushion reached for another Pseudo-Chip, I was certain that he, too, had fallen under the sway of the Red Menace. But then to my surprise, he crushed the chip in his hand.

  “So he’s back,” he stated grimly. “Fifty years after we put the Red Menace away, society has decided to let him out. It’s an error they will come to regret.”

  “I know he’s up to something,” I agreed, “but no one believes me. Not even my friends.”

  My teammates looked at one another guiltily.

  “It’s not their fault,” said the Animator. “The Red Menace has a powerful ability. But he isn’t infallible.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Lord Pincushion. “Whatever he’s up to, he can be beaten. We proved it ourselves fifty years ago.”

  “What exactly happened then?” I asked eagerly.

  “It’s quite a story,” the Animator said and then tipped his head to his partner to do the telling.

  “It was a simpler time,” Lord Pincushion began. “The modern age was dawning, yet people’s lives had not yet been consumed by technology. Things that now seem mundane to you children were the scientific marvels of the day. And chief among these wonders was the miracle of radio.”

  “Radio?!” Tadpole snorted. “But it doesn’t even have pictures.”

  “Th
e pictures were here, boy,” Lord Pincushion bristled. He was pointing to a corncob spear stuck in his temple, but I presume he meant his head.

  “Our imaginations provided the images. There was a hero then who was master of this new technology and he towered above the rest. His name was Captain Radio.”

  I sat up, keenly interested. I remembered the Inkblot once described Captain Radio as the Amazing Indestructo of his day.

  “Captain Radio had complete control over the radio waves,” the Animator interjected. “That was his power.”

  “That’s correct.” Lord Pincushion nodded. “Not only was he able to ride the radio waves through the air, he was also able to transport himself instantaneously from one end of Superopolis to the other across those waves.”

  “Wow!” Stench said in awe. “So he could be anywhere at any time! That had to be a huge plus for a superhero.”

  “It was,” Lord Pincushion agreed. “But even that aspect of Captain Radio’s power paled in comparison to another facet of his talent—the ability to promote himself.”

  “Captain Radio could trumpet his accomplishments across the same radio waves he traveled upon,” the Animator explained.

  “Indeed,” added Lord Pincushion. “He was the first hero to have the means to communicate directly with the general population. And in broadcasting his own adventures, he was able to give the public only the version of his exploits that he wanted them to hear.”

  “I never missed an episode of his show,” the Animator added fondly.

  “Of course we were only hearing the good things, and we bought into all of it.” Lord Pincushion sighed. “We weren’t as savvy as you children are today, and Captain Radio attained a celebrity that no other hero before him had ever come close to achieving. His ubiquitous presence and his self-broadcasted exploits made him a household name. It was a new concept in the hero business that no one else matched—until the arrival of that unfortunate Indestructo.”

  I knew that any talk of AI could put Lord Pincushion in a cranky mood, so I attempted to redirect the story.

  “But what about the Red Menace?” I asked. “How does this relate to him?”

  “Ah, this is but a mere prelude, son.” Lord Pincushion’s expression softened again. “I needed to give you a sense of the world in which the Red Menace first made his appearance.

  “As you are all too well aware, the Red Menace possesses the ability to manipulate people to obey his every command. This is a dangerous power in anyone’s hands, but in the case of the Red Menace it was a catastrophe.”

  “Why so?” Plasma Girl asked.

  “Because the Red Menace hated capitalism. He thought that no one should have to work and that everything should be shared equally. He even believed that there should be no laws in society and that everyone should be allowed to do exactly as he pleased.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Tadpole interjected.

  “Many people think so.” Lord Pincushion sniffed dismissively. “At least until one person’s freedom to do as he pleases interferes with another’s. Of course in the end the Red Menace instituted his own laws and forced everyone to live by his rules, and his rules only.”

  “Yet in the beginning his message—backed by his power—had appeal,” added the Animator.

  “There was just one problem,” Lord Pincushion continued. “The Red Menace couldn’t get his ideas out. Converting people one at a time or even in small groups was ineffective.”

  “Right,” I piped in. “The people he converted didn’t possess his power, so they couldn’t pass his commands along to others. His message had no way of spreading on its own.”

  “Correct.” The Animator beamed. “You’re a bright boy!”

  I blushed as my friends smirked at me.

  “Exactly,” added Lord Pincushion pointedly. “But then he met Captain Radio and everything changed. The Red Menace used his power to gain control of Captain Radio, and then used the captain’s ability to broadcast his commands. The power in his voice was just as effective over the airwaves as it was in person, and the majority of the populace quickly fell under his sway.”

  “Just as they have now, thanks to his TV commercials,” I added.

  “Wait a minute,” Tadpole interrupted. “Are you saying I’ve fallen in love with these new potato chips just because some guy is using his power on me? That’s despicable! I can make my own decisions.”

  What Lord Pincushion said had hit at the heart of Tadpole’s ego—the belief that he was the only one responsible for his actions. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he got more and more steamed.

  “And there you have the simple secret to thwarting the Red Menace’s power,” concluded Lord Pincushion. “Thinking for yourself can overcome anyone’s attempt to manipulate you—even if it is his power. Some people are intelligent enough to never let themselves be taken in,” he said, looking at me, “while others merely need to be shown the light.”

  My teammates considered the Pseudo-Chips in front of them. Then Halogen Boy pushed his bowl to the far end of the coffee table.

  “They really do taste like sawdust,” Stench added, pushing his bowl away as well. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “No, son,” said the Animator kindly, “an idiot is a person who is shown the truth but refuses to believe it.”

  “Yes,” agreed Lord Pincushion. “There will always be people who are more concerned with stubbornly holding on to a failed belief than admitting an error. There are no greater fools. Happily, you children are not among them.”

  “I’m embarrassed that I fell for it at all,” Plasma Girl admitted.

  “Don’t be,” Lord Pincushion reassured her. “The Red Menace has a formidable power.”

  “And now you all know how he is able to do what he does,” added the Animator.

  “Yet the bigger question remains unanswered,” Lord Pincushion said with concern. “Exactly why is he doing it?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  A Parade of Lies

  What was the Red Menace up to? The question that Lord Pincushion had left us with yesterday had been gnawing at me ever since. Near the end of class on Wednesday, I still hadn’t come up with an answer. On the bright side, at least things hadn’t gotten any worse in my race for treasurer. Transparent Girl had been unusually quiet all day. I should have known it wouldn’t last. . . .

  Ten minutes before the final bell the Banshee let out a piercing wail.

  “Miss Marble!!” she shrieked as we all cringed and covered our ears. “Fingold is dead!”

  Fingold was one of the two dozen or so fish in our aquarium. This watery tragedy wasn’t exactly a unique occurrence. Our fish routinely took that one-way float to the top of the tank. In fact, part of our fish food fund often went toward buying replacements. Only now the fund was empty, and I knew that if I didn’t speak first, Transparent Girl—

  “Miss Marble!” she hollered before I could beat her to it. “Tragedy is upon us. But far be it for me to cast any blame.”

  As she said it, her form took on enough solidity so that everyone in the class could see her arm outstretched, her finger pointing directly at me.

  Everyone turned and looked at me as if I had used my own hands to strangle the life out of poor Fingold. As I sputtered to defend myself, the Spore got up from his seat and walked somberly back to the aquarium. He retrieved the body with a small net and laid it out in an empty pencil case.

  “Fingold—” he huffed as he practiced for his role as coroner “—is . . . dead.”

  Somnia lowered her head in respect and quickly fell asleep. The sound of her forehead clunking against her desk distracted me just enough for my opponent to pounce.

  “But he won’t be forgotten,” Transparent Girl announced. “Which is why I’m proud to announce, in honor of our fallen fishy friend, the formation of the Fingold Memorial Fish Fund for the financing of fishes forever.” She paused for dramatic effect. “And I will make the first donation myself.”

&nb
sp; Even as she said it, she made her way back to the empty jelly jar, into which she proceeded to deposit the same twenty-three cents and two pencil stubs that she had taken on Monday.

  “So while my opponent favors the death of fish,” Transparent Girl concluded, “I am starting this fund to help save them.”

  Things only got worse from there. No matter what I said to defend myself, Transparent Girl found a way to turn it against me. By the time the bell finally rang, I wasn’t sure that I would have voted for myself.

  “Man, we don’t stand a chance,” Tadpole grumped as we all filed out of the school. “Nobody is going to vote for us.”

  “I’m sorry, guys,” I said with a sigh. “Maybe it would be best if I just dropped out of the race so I don’t sink our entire ticket.”

  “It’s not your fault, O Boy,” Plasma Girl said, just as Tadpole was looking like he was about to accept my offer. “People will eventually see through Transparent Girl.”

  “Don’t they already?” Halogen Boy cocked his head in confusion.

  “See through what she’s saying,” Plasma Girl corrected.

  “I hope so,” I said as we left the school grounds and headed north. “But that issue is really pretty minor compared to the Red Menace. How are we ever going to convince people to see through what he’s saying?”

  “Yeah, what exactly is our plan to bring down that crazy old nutcase?” Tadpole asked as we approached Colossal Way, the main road connecting the western part of the city to downtown.

  “Lord Pincushion said it’s important for us to find out what he’s up to,” Stench reminded us.

  It was a relief to know that at least my friends no longer thought I was nuts. They were now equally convinced that the Red Menace was somehow living up to his name.

  “But how do we do that?” Plasma Girl asked just as we reached Colossal Way. “We don’t even know where to find him.”