First Date (Minimum Wage Sidekick Book 2)

by Lucas Flint

  I rubbed the back of my head. “This doesn’t feel real. Charlotte and Greta …”

  “It’s true, whether you believe it or not,” said Cyberkid. He scowled. “I’ve always known that ZZZ was a mad man who didn’t care about anyone’s life, but to see him hold those two innocent girls hostage … especially Charlotte …” His hands balled into fists. “Let’s just say that if ZZZ was here, I’d do to him what you tried to do to me a few minutes ago.”

  “This is all very distressing news indeed,” said Adams, shaking his head. “But what about Mr. Simpson? You still haven’t told us where he is or what he is doing.”

  “He’s fine, but I told him not to go after ZZZ just yet,” said Cyberkid. “Remember, ZZZ threatened to kill both girls if anyone other than Beams showed up. That includes Myster. Myster wasn’t very happy about that, but I know he’s not going to do anything to put Charlotte’s life into danger. He sent me to tell you about the situation.” His scowl deepened. “I had hoped that Rubberman would be here, but if he’s out for now, then that means that it’s just you, me, and Myster against ZZZ. Not good, if you ask me.”

  I found it hard to comprehend everything that Cyberkid had just told me. Out of all of the people that ZZZ could have kidnapped to try to get at me, he chose Greta. Not my parents, not my older brother, but Greta. I knew that ZZZ knew my identity, but I didn’t realize that he also knew that I had been dating Greta. What else did he know about me? And how would he use that knowledge to take me out?

  It didn’t matter. ZZZ’s threat was serious. That much I knew. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting here in the Elastic Cave and waiting for someone else to save Greta and Charlotte. I would have to go out and confront ZZZ myself, whether I wanted to or not.

  “This is obviously a trap to draw out Beams so ZZZ can easily kill him,” said Adams. “I can’t say I am surprised that he would go to such lengths, but all it does is reveal the true depths of his depravity.”

  “I doubt he cares about that, because it will probably work,” said Cyberkid. “Not that I think we shouldn’t go. I’m actually more than ready to drag Beams with me to ZZZ’s location myself if he tries to chicken out.”

  “Why would I chicken out?” I said indignantly. “I don’t want Greta or Charlotte to die, either, but—”

  “But you don’t want to die, of course,” said Cyberkid. “Always thinking about number one, huh? Real hero in the making here.”

  I stepped forward, ignoring Adams’ hand on my shoulder. “Big words coming from the guy who I beat in a fight.”

  “A practice fight,” Cyberkid corrected. “In a real, no-holds-barred beat down, I would beat you flat.”

  “Boys,” said Adams in a reproachful tone, “now is not the time to bicker like little children. You two are nearly adults. Act like it, for god’s sake.”

  I ignored Adams. As far as I was concerned, Adams had nothing to do with this situation or with the conflict between me and Cyberkid.

  “What is your deal, Cyberkid?” I said. “Ever since we met, you’ve treated me like I’m something you’d find under a rock, even though I’ve done nothing to you. You’re acting like a jerk.”

  “I don’t care,” said Cyberkid. “I just can’t stand sidekicks who’ve had a few small victories early in their career and then strut around like they’re Prime Man himself. They need to be taken down a few notches. Know their place.”

  “No, I don’t think that’s it,” I said. “What’s your actual reason for hating me? You’re not fooling anyone with your tough guy act.”

  This may have seemed like a strange time for such a confrontation, but I was just getting so fed up with Cyberkid’s constant jabs at me for no reason that I wanted to settle this here and now.

  Cyberkid looked away from me, like he couldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m just … I’m sick of Charlotte always talking about you.” He said that last part in a low voice, almost in a whisper, like he was ashamed to admit it.

  I tilted my head to the side. “Charlotte is always talking about me?”

  “Yeah, she is,” said Cyberkid. He looked at me again, anger in his exposed eye. “Always going on and on about the brave Beams and how amazing he is and how he’s probably a really handsome high school quarterback with a great career ahead of him. Even though she’s only met you once, she just can’t stop talking about all of the awesome things you’ve done, like beat Fro-Zen or rescued her from that Lord Mechanika guy.”

  “I—”

  “And how can I forget how much she loves recounting the story of you rescuing her from Lord Mechanika?” Cyberkid continued, like I hadn’t said a thing. “The way she tells it, no sidekick has ever saved her from danger in her whole life before. It’s like all of the times I saved her back in North Wood just don’t count. After all, I’m not the handsome and amazing Beams. I’m just Cyberkid, her dad’s employee, and nothing more. It’s not like I can control machines with my mind or anything; who cares about that? After all, you can shoot pretty lights from your eyes. That’s much cooler than my power, that’s for sure.”

  I shifted uncomfortably where I stood. “Well—”

  “Who cares that I’ve known Charlotte longer than you?” Cyberkid said. “Who cares that I’ve liked her even before I started working for Myster and that one of my main motivations for becoming Myster’s sidekick was to get closer to Charlotte? Not like any of that matters, right? Of course it doesn’t. I got the wrong power. Maybe if I could shoot pretty warm lights from my eyes, Charlotte would be bragging about how I’m a quarterback, too.”

  “Young Cyberkid,” said Adams in shock. “That tone is—”

  “I don’t care,” said Cyberkid. “Judge me all you like, old man, but it’s the truth. As far as Charlotte is concerned, I don’t even exist.”

  Cyberkid was breathing hard now. His hands were balled into fists. While I didn’t think he was about to attack me, I had to admit that I was a bit worried that he might lose control if he kept ranting like this. I wondered how long he had kept all of this bottled up inside and what he would have done if he hadn’t told me all about this.

  So I said, “Cyberkid, I’m sorry to hear that Charlotte’s ignored you, but I don’t see how that’s my fault. I don’t think I’m better than you or any other sidekick. I’m just, well, me. And if it helps, I can tell you I’m not a high school quarterback with a great career ahead of me or anything like that.”

  Cyberkid did not respond. He just continued to glare at me, like he was trying to vaporize me on the spot through sheer force of will alone.

  “I know what it’s like to be ignored by a girl you really like in favor of some other guy,” I continued. “I was in a similar position for a while, but then I asked that girl out. It didn’t work out quite the way I planned, but it was better than being afraid of her or stewing in jealousy over other guys she paid attention to. I think you should do the same thing.”

  “What?” said Cyberkid. “Why should I take your advice? You don’t know me. You don’t understand me. You just—”

  “I don’t care,” I interrupted. “Listen, Cyberkid, I have no interest in Charlotte whatsoever. Yes, she’s pretty, but I don’t care about her. I have another girl I care about, another girl I would do anything for. But if you don’t believe me … if you still think I’m some arrogant upstart who needs to be taken down a notch or whatever … then let’s settle our differences here and now like men, instead of just bottling up our emotions and acting like a couple of girls who hate each other.”

  Cyberkid’s eye widened, while Adams muttered something about foolish boys nearby. Even I was surprised. I’d never said anything like that to anyone before. It was my own bottled up emotions, I realized. Like Cyberkid, I’d been so angry about how he treated me that I was ready to blow up. Not quite as badly as Cyberkid, mind you, but I was definitely not in any mood to play around or treat Cyberkid’s jealousy issues like real problems. Not when Greta and Charlotte’s lives were in danger.

  Finally, C
yberkid took a step back. “All right. I get it. I don’t want to fight you.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope,” said Cyberkid, shaking his head. “If I fight you, that’s time that could be better spent saving Charlotte. I got your point. No need to beat it into me.”

  My eyes narrowed, because I didn’t think Cyberkid really understood the point I was trying to make, but before I could say anything, Adams clapped his hands together and said, “Well, now that you two have hashed out your feelings, I think we should focus on making a plan to rescue the girls. That would be a far more productive use of our time than talking about your teenage angst.”

  “Adams’ got a point,” I said. “For now, we need to put aside our differences to save Greta and Charlotte. We can deal with our personal conflicts some other time.”

  “Right,” said Cyberkid, though I noticed how reluctantly he said that, as if he didn’t like the way I dismissed everything he’d just ranted about. “Let’s get started, then.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  About an hour later, I stood in the driveway of Greta’s house, looking at its dark, curtained windows that looked more like the dead eyes of a corpse than the windows of a house. The house seemed as ominous as a graveyard, as if it was the very last place I would ever step foot into. It almost seemed more like a haunted house than an average two-story suburban house; but then, I suppose any house would seem that way if it was being used as the current base of a mad assassin holding two helpless teenage girls hostage.

  Of course, I did not actually see ZZZ standing in the windows or on the front porch of the house with Charlotte and Greta, but Cyberkid had told me that ZZZ had taken over that house and was holding both of the girls hostage in there. It seemed like a strange place to do it, given how it was in the middle of an inhabited suburb, but I guess ZZZ wanted to pick a place for our showdown that I would be able to easily find. It helped that Mr. Hammond was out of town. Something told me that Mr. Hammond would probably have already taken care of ZZZ himself by now if he was still in town.

  But I couldn’t depend on Mr. Hammond showing up. I would have to enter the house and confront ZZZ by myself. I had my costume on and I was ready to use my eye beams, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread, if only because I thought that ZZZ would not pull off such a risky move unless he had a plan in place that would ensure his success.

  And yes, I really was by myself; at least, to anyone who happened to look outside their window, they would see me standing all by my lonesome in the driveway of Greta’s house. In truth, however, Myster and Cyberkid were both nearby, hiding in one of the neighboring houses. While ZZZ had threatened to kill Greta and Charlotte if anyone other than me showed up, we knew that I might not be able to beat ZZZ on my own. The plan, then, was for me to enter the house and distract ZZZ long enough for Myster and Cyberkid to enter and take him out before he even knew what happened. It was, of course, a risky plan, mostly because it was possible that ZZZ had already anticipated it, but it was the only plan we had.

  As for the police, they had been informed of the situation, but Myster had managed to convince them not to show up in case ZZZ saw them and decided to kill Greta and Charlotte. The police were, however, on stand-by in the adjacent neighborhood, ready to step in at a moment’s notice, either to help me or haul ZZZ off to jail if Myster, Cyberkid, and I managed to defeat him. Knowing I had the police on my side made me feel a little braver, but at the same time, if things went south—as they probably would—then I could not count on the police to save me right away. I would need to be careful, because ZZZ was not the kind of villain you dealt with casually.

  Static suddenly crackled in my ears and Adams’ voice blared in my helmet. “Beams, this is Adams. What is your current position?”

  Cringing slightly at the loudness of Adams’ voice, I tapped the side of my helmet to lower the speaker’s volume as I said, “I’m standing in the driveway to Greta’s house. I don’t see ZZZ or either of the hostages. All of the windows are closed and curtained; there don’t seem to be any lights on inside the house itself.”

  Another crackling, from the other side of my helmet, and I suddenly heard Myster’s voice. “Cyberkid and I see the same thing from the backyard. ZZZ is probably still inside the house. He clearly does not want us to get a glimpse of what he may be doing in there. Proceed with caution, Beams.”

  “I know,” I said, nodding. “Are you two in position to intervene if things go to hell?”

  “Yes,” said Myster. “We’ve got the backyard covered. As soon as you make contact with ZZZ, we’ll enter the house from the back door. With luck, we should have ZZZ caught and arrested within the hour. We’re also relaying our observations to the police via radio, so they’re on the same page as us.”

  “Good to hear,” I said. “Well, I’m going to enter the house now. I’m going to keep the radio signal on, though don’t expect to hear much from me until I see ZZZ.”

  “Right,” said Myster. “Good luck, Beams. Don’t be afraid to call for help if you need it.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

  With that, I summoned my courage and walked up to the front door of Greta’s house. Even though it wasn’t more than a couple yards away, it seemed to take an eternity to reach the front door from the driveway. I kept expecting some kind of trap to go off, like ZZZ had booby-trapped the driveway to blow up or drop me into a bottomless pit or something. It was kind of a silly fear to have, but given how ZZZ’s objective was to kill me, I didn’t think it was entirely unreasonable to worry that he might try to kill me before I took one step into the house.

  I ran into no traps, however, and soon reached the front door. I almost knocked on it, but then I realized that it was unlikely that ZZZ would answer the door and invite me in to have a cup of tea. So I just opened the door, albeit slowly and carefully, because I didn’t know what was on the other side and I didn’t want to be taken by surprise.

  Opening the door all the way, I peered inside. The hallway was pitch black, meaning that ZZZ really had turned off all of the lights after all. I groped my hand along the wall until I found and flipped the light switch; unfortunately, the light did not turn back on, which meant that ZZZ had probably cut the house’s power.

  But the darkness wasn’t that big of a problem. I tapped the top of my helmet and the built-in flashlight turned on. It was a fairly narrow beam of light, but it lit up the floor and hallway enough for me to see that it was empty. I did not see any hints of traps or ambushes. I did, however, see some paper arrows taped to the floor, pointing toward the stairs. I looked up the stairs to the second floor and saw more paper arrows along the walls.

  Those arrows meant one of two things: Either ZZZ wanted me to go to the room where he kept Greta and Charlotte, or it was a trap. Or both, most likely.

  I probably shouldn’t have followed the arrows, but what choice did I have? I didn’t know the layout of Greta’s house well enough to know where else ZZZ could be hiding. Besides, based on what Cyberkid told me, it sounded like ZZZ would probably go and kill Greta and Charlotte if I took too long to get there. Indeed, for all I knew, he might have already been trying to decide who he wanted to kill first.

  I made my choice. I followed the paper arrows across the hall and up the stairs, although I walked slowly and cautiously. When I reached the second floor, I looked up and down the hall briefly just to make sure that ZZZ wasn’t hiding in the shadows ready to pounce before I resumed following the arrows. They led to a door at the end of the hallway, which had a golden plate with the words ‘GRETA’s ROOM’ written on it in a fancy, curly script. The arrows stopped at the foot of the door, which I would have seen even if I hadn’t been using my helmet’s flashlight, because light streamed from underneath the door, the first light I’d seen in the house since I’d entered. I listened closely, but I didn’t hear anything except a strange snoring sound, like someone was asleep. Part of me hoped that ZZZ had fallen asleep waiting for me
and that I would be able to get the jump on him before he knew it, but another part of me, the more realistic part, knew otherwise.

  Steeling myself for whatever awaited me on the other side of the door, I turned off my flashlight, opened the door, and entered. The sudden change in light—going from complete darkness to a lighted room—was not as bad as it could have been, because the light in the room was much weaker than you’d think, because it came from a lamp on a desk in the corner of the room.

  But I didn’t care about the light. What I cared about was the horrifying scene before me, a scene that looked like something straight out of a nightmare.

  Greta and Charlotte stood against the back wall, tied together with thick rope. Their eyes were closed and their heads lolled on their necks; clearly, they were asleep. They looked mostly unharmed, from what I could tell, but that didn’t make me feel very good about them, because dangling above their heads—suspended by what looked like the thinnest piece of string in the universe—was a large ax that looked more than capable of cutting through their necks like butter.

  I heard movement to my right and looked over. A man in his thirties was leaning against an old-fashioned wardrobe. The heavy bags under his eyes and his disheveled bed hair, combined with his ratty jacket and ripped jeans, were recognizable at once as ZZZ. His arms folded against his chest, ZZZ smiled at me, though it was a rather sleepy smile. A curtained window stood next to the wardrobe, too thick for me to see through or for any light to stream through from outside.

  “Ah, there you are,” said ZZZ. He yawned widely. “I almost fell asleep waiting for you. I guess the robot kid contacted you after all, didn’t he?”

  I blinked and nearly yawned myself. ZZZ’s sleep field was clearly in effect. While it wasn’t as bad as it was when I ran into him at my house, I still felt a lot less alert than I usually was. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I usually like to arrive to my appointments early.”