Kid Normal and the Final Five

by Greg James

  At once, the wombat stopped snuffling and stood rigid and quivering on the laboratory floor. (Now there’s a sentence for you. Who says there are no original ideas left in children’s literature, eh?) Its eyes began to glow bright red, and an angry chittering came from its mouth. It’s hard to write down, but it’s kind of like, ‘Ack, ackackack, snee! Ackackack. Snee!’ No, higher pitched than that – try it again.

  Yeah, that’ll do.

  Its furious red eyes were fixed on the mannequin.

  ‘What’s it going to do?’ said Kopy Kat scathingly. ‘Cuddle it to death?’

  ‘The wombat,’ said Professor Graham Smith, ‘is perhaps the most underestimated marsupial of all. It is capable of speeds of up to twenty-five miles per hour over short bursts, and when its cerebral cortex is stimulated in the correct manner, I have discovered, all cuddliness disappears. This wombat is deadly!’

  With a final piercing ‘Snee!’ the wombat launched itself into the air, straight at the mannequin’s face, its teeth bared in a terrifying display of wombatty fury.

  ‘Well, at least I’m not looking at the rudey bits any more,’ said Kopy Kat, as splinters of plastic pinged against the partition like pink hail.

  ‘Well, that was odd,’ said Knox over dinner later. The banqueting hall of the Presidential Palace was enormous, capable of seating 200 people for dinner. Knox didn’t like other people, though, and he certainly didn’t want them interrupting his meal. Kopy Kat was the only dinner companion he required – in fact, she was the only person he’d ever met who liked the exact same things as him: power, taking other people’s power, stopping other people from getting any more power, consolidating your own power, and needlessly expensive, over-rich food.

  ‘It was weird,’ agreed Kopy Kat through a mouthful of foie gras wrapped in thin sheets of veal which the chef downstairs had privately nicknamed a ‘cruelty fajita’. ‘But this Combat Wombat, you know, it’s not bad!’

  Knox grudgingly agreed. Professor Graham Smith had actually come through, for once.

  ‘It will keep the baby Heroes busy while I do my enweaselment,’ decided Kopy Kat.

  ‘Yes, excellent,’ said Knox, leaning forward to help himself to another portion of caviar pie. ‘And I think I have an idea that will bring those little freaks right out into the open. Something they won’t be able to resist.’

  In reply, Kopy Kat gave a slow, chilling smile as she took another bite of unethically sourced meat.

  11

  The Final Five

  Stripes of warm spring sunlight fell through the partially open blinds and across the shape of Flora Walden as she lay sleeping peacefully. One arm was outside the thick blankets that covered her, its hand clasped in that of her daughter. Angel looked up as the Super Zeroes entered the bedroom. ‘Wotcher,’ she said quietly. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Eventually … yes,’ said Murph, thinking back to the long council of war that had kept the Zeroes talking well into the early hours. Their entire world had turned upside down during their long weeks of imprisonment. The speed with which Nicholas Knox had seized control was staggering.

  ‘How’s Flora’s leg?’ asked Billy.

  ‘Thanks to your prompt first aid, healing fast,’ said a voice from behind him. One of the Cleaners who had taken Flora away on the stretcher was coming in with a steel tray. ‘Cleaner Corporal Cayton,’ he introduced himself. ‘Medical Corps.’

  ‘Harry’s Capability is accelerated healing,’ explained Angel. ‘And I’ve been able to magnify it. With my help, Mum should be back on missions in no time. Until then, though –’ she looked round at the five Zeroes – ‘you’ll have to do without me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Of course,’ Murph nodded. ‘To be honest, we’re not sure what our first move’s going to be, anyway.’ Despite sitting up late into the night, they had been unable to see a way to challenge Knox’s sudden domination. Murph felt like something was flicking at the back of his brain, like a troublesome fly bothering the eye region of a horse, but he couldn’t quite bring it out into the open.

  Murph’s horsey brain-fly kept zuzzing at him over the next few days as they explored Rebellion headquarters. There was only a small team of people here – their mums hadn’t been exaggerating. Almost all Heroes had been mind-controlled, and the others were presumably on the run or in hiding. There was a small team of Cleaners, plus Mary’s dad, who spent a great deal of his time locked away with Carl in the dairy’s garages. But it was clear that until now the whole energy of the Rebellion had been directed at Murph’s own rescue. Deborah Lamington and her partner Dirk – a team of Heroes nicknamed The Posse – had been here until recently. But Murph now knew that they had led an attack on Knox’s forces to create a diversion while Angel and Flora went to break out the Super Zeroes, and were now in prison themselves. Resources were slim, and Heroes in very short supply. Murph only hoped he could repay the faith the Rebellion were showing in the Super Zeroes. Freeing them had been a bold final throw of the dice.

  A few days later, Murph and the others wandered out into the meadow that lay at the back of Perkins Dairy. A sturdy wooden gate led out from the main courtyard, and beyond it was the field, with its duck pond in the middle. Underneath a willow tree on the bank of the pond stood a cluster of wooden picnic tables. Carl had extended his Displacement Field to cover this area, and it had become a favourite plotting point.

  ‘Hello, Mick,’ said Mary as a large brown and green duck swam over and waddled out of the water towards them.

  ‘Why’s your duck called Mick?’ asked Billy.

  ‘Because that’s the noise he makes,’ explained Mary. ‘Some ducks say “quack”, but we always think the noise he makes sounds more like “mick”, so that’s what we call him.’

  ‘Mick,’ confirmed Mick. Mary reached out and gave his head a friendly scratch.

  Hilda sat down at a picnic table and pulled a crumpled newspaper from her pocket. As she smoothed it out, Murph could see that it bore a large photograph of Nicholas Knox in the ruins of Titan Thirteen. ‘I just know we’ve seen him before,’ she said to herself, sounding frustrated.

  ‘He’s been on the front of every newspaper for the past six months,’ Billy pointed out.

  ‘No, before that,’ said Hilda, scrunching up her eyes in concentration.

  ‘Maybe. But where?’ asked Murph, wandering over and gazing down at the photo. ‘I don’t remember coming across a slimy guy in a smart suit on any of our missions? I mean, look at those pointy shoes. You wouldn’t forget those in a hurry.’

  Hilda tipped over backwards in her chair with excitement, letting out a surprised squeal. ‘Shoes!’ she breathed, getting back up and dusting herself off. ‘Of course! His shoes! I knew I recognised them.’

  By now the rest of the Zeroes were clustering around. ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Mary.

  ‘Ribbon Robotics!’ said Hilda breathlessly. ‘Remember? Way back when we were on our way to find Nektar, we ran into a man who looked like a janitor or something?’

  ‘The guy in the brown coat, holding a broom?’ recalled Billy.

  ‘Yes!’ said Hilda, stabbing a finger at Knox’s photo. Murph squinted. It did kind of look like the same man.

  ‘I said at the time, he had unusually shiny shoes for a member of the domestic staff,’ Hilda went on. ‘That’s what made me think of him!’

  ‘So … if he was at Ribbon Robotics …’ Murph began.

  ‘Then he hasn’t got hold of the mind-control technology at all …’ Hilda went on.

  ‘He had it all along!’ Mary finished. ‘In fact, he might have been behind Nektar’s mind control in the first place!’

  ‘This is huge!’ said Billy. ‘Yeah, I remember him. He was very keen to get out of there, wasn’t he? Slimy little coward.’

  ‘We need to go back,’ said a soft voice. They all turned to see Nellie, staring at them with a serious expression.

  ‘To Ribbon Robotics? Yes, I think you’re right,’ Mary agreed. ‘There might be clues
there.’

  ‘What, like, a backstory for Knox?’ Billy wanted to know. ‘So we can find out why he became a bad guy in the first place? He might have been an orphan, or, like, bullied as a child or something?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Mary. ‘Who cares about his backstory? Some people are just nasty pieces of work. I’m interested to see whether we can find a weak spot – some way of defeating him or his mind-control system.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Billy, sounding relieved. ‘I thought we were going to get bogged down in some boring villain-origin story then, instead of just smashing stuff up and having adventures.’

  ‘No chance!’ said Mary, turning to Murph. ‘What’s the plan, then, Kid Normal?’

  ‘Let’s go and have an adventure,’ grinned Murph. ‘And smash some stuff up.’

  ‘Yay!’ Billy celebrated, inflating a foot in delight.

  ‘Let’s find Carl. We need a way of getting to Ribbon Robotics without being seen.’

  *

  They tracked the old man down in Flora’s sickroom. He was sitting beside her bed. Flora was once again peacefully asleep. Carl looked up as the Zeroes came in.

  ‘Flora Peacock,’ he said quietly, gazing at her sleeping face. ‘I still remember the first time she walked into the lecture hall, all those years ago. I knew straight away that I’d follow her anywhere.’

  ‘And you did,’ said Angel, looking up at him affectionately from the other side of the bed where she was kneeling, using her borrowed healing Capability to speed up her mum’s recovery.

  ‘I did indeed,’ confirmed Carl, wiping an eye. ‘All the way to the Olympics, for a start.’

  ‘Flora went to the Olympics?’ said Mary, awestruck.

  ‘Gymnastics, 1964,’ reminisced Carl. ‘She’s still got the poster over her desk – surprised you never asked her about it. Anyway, enough of my ramblings. You lot look like you’ve got adventures on your minds.’

  ‘We have, actually,’ admitted Murph.

  ‘Well,’ said Carl, shaking his head as if shedding himself of old memories like drops of rainwater, ‘that’s what she rescued you for, after all. Angel, you keep an eye on Mum, OK?’ Angel nodded seriously. ‘Come on then, the rest of you,’ said Carl, his eyes brightening. ‘Come and tell me the plan.’

  ‘Ribbon Robotics?’ said Carl sceptically as he led the Zeroes across the cobblestones to the centre of the dairy. ‘What do you think you’re going to find there?’

  ‘I know it’s a long shot,’ admitted Murph.

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Carl gruffly. ‘The Alliance went over that place pretty thoroughly after Nektar’s capture, you know.’

  ‘We know,’ said Murph, ‘but it’s got to be worth a look. We should check for ourselves rather than take someone else’s word for it.’

  ‘Spoken, as usual, like a Hero,’ said Carl, breaking into a smile.

  On the opposite side of the courtyard from the ice-cream kitchen was a large spacious set of garages. A series of archways was set into the brick walls, and a long row of electric milk floats was parked inside. Carl led them through the last opening and into a wide, open workshop.

  ‘This is where Dad repairs the milk floats,’ said Mary.

  ‘Yes, well … I’ve been giving him a hand,’ said Carl.

  Murph looked around the garage, feeling a rush of affection for his old friend. Even here, in the middle of a dangerous rebellion, Carl had managed to find a space where he could get oily and inventor-y. Back at The School, he’d had his collection of wooden huts. The ‘Fortress of Solitude’, some of the students had nicknamed it – a place where he could design, build, tinker and spend long afternoons on the veranda gazing out across the pond in the woods. Those huts had become a place of refuge for Murph, too, during his difficult first few months there.

  Murph thought back to what he’d been told about The School … Closed down. Under enemy control. In his mind’s eye he saw gangs of mind-controlled Cleaners ransacking Carl’s huts, examining his inventions to see what they could report back to Knox, and he balled his fists in rage.

  But clearly not everything had been lost. Because here, in the garage of Perkins Dairy, Carl had created another fortress for himself. Wooden benches lined the back wall, and Murph could see an array of clamps, tools and strange devices that meant Carl was still inventing. He thought of the silvery armour that Angel had been wearing during their rescue, and smiled to himself.

  ‘Right,’ said Carl, clapping his hands together and looking around. ‘Let’s get you lot kitted up, shall we?’ He moved over to a large wooden trunk placed beneath one of the workbenches.

  ‘You’ve managed to salvage some Hero equipment, then?’ said Mary.

  ‘Salvage? Yes, we managed to salvage some bits and pieces,’ said Carl, his knees clicking as he bent down to fiddle with the lock. ‘But most of this has been created just for you.’

  ‘Us?’ said Murph, nonplussed. ‘Why us?’

  ‘Because you’re the Alliance’s best hope,’ said Carl, looking back over his shoulder. ‘We thought you’d be the ones to bring Knox down, that’s why we’ve spent months planning your rescue. And we were right, weren’t we? You’ve already got a lead.’

  Murph felt his face flushing. He still wasn’t sure he and his friends justified that level of confidence.

  ‘Besides,’ Carl added, opening the padlock, ‘you’re the last Heroes now, aren’t you? Flora’s out of action, Angel needs to look after her. Just about everyone else has been captured, bar a few Cleaners and technicians. You’re the … the final five.’

  ‘The final five …’ repeated Murph, awestruck.

  ‘Got a ring to it, actually,’ mused Carl. ‘Yes. I like it. The Final Five.’

  Murph and the others looked at each other with a mixture of emotions. They had worked alone before, of course, but this was something different. The Alliance had always been there in the background – Heroes old and new, coming together in secret to keep people safe. Now that was all gone. It was the five of them against Nicholas Knox and all his power. The five of them against the world.

  ‘And as you are the last Heroes,’ said Carl. ‘I don’t see any point in staying hidden any longer. It’s time to take the fight to that oily villain. Time to show him that true Heroes aren’t afraid.’

  He opened the lid of the trunk to reveal five piles of clothes and equipment inside.

  ‘You don’t mean …’ gasped Hilda. Murph glanced at her. Hilda had always dreamed of the time Heroes called the Golden Age. A time before they had to hide away. A time when they didn’t operate in secret, when they were able to wear …

  ‘Costumes!’ squealed Hilda, racing over to the trunk and peering inside.

  Murph followed. The inside of the lid was emblazoned with a strange symbol – a silver triangle, with red lines down the left-hand side, yellow ones down the right. ‘What’s that?’ he asked Carl.

  ‘A silver shield for the guardians of truth,’ said Carl rather grandly. ‘Look at the letters.’

  ‘That looks like an S on one side …’ said Murph.

  ‘And a Z on the other!’ realised Mary, coming up to stand beside him. ‘Super Zeroes!’

  ‘Whoa! Did we get a logo?’ asked Billy. ‘That is seriously awesome. I’ve always wanted a logo!’

  Hilda had pulled a pile of clothing out of the trunk. It was yellow and purple, and as she held up the top, Murph could see the same silver triangle framed by the S and the Z.

  ‘You showed Angel some designs for your costume once,’ smiled Carl. ‘I hope we got it more or less right.’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ said Hilda, her eyes shining. ‘You even made the gloves!’ She was holding up a purple glove with fringing down the back. ‘Gloves with manes!’

  ‘Equana will ride out in all her glory,’ said Carl, looking a little misty-eyed.

  ‘I got gloves too!’ Billy exclaimed, holding up a large grey gauntlet. ‘What’s this, Carl?’

  ‘Ah, yes, I’m rather proud of
those. The fabric’s ultra-strong, and ultra-stretchy. So if my calculations are right, you should be able to balloon your fists inside the combat gauntlets and give yourself some serious punching power.’

  Mary had pulled a yellow raincoat like her own out of the trunk. It, too, was emblazoned with the Zeroes’ logo.

  ‘No high-tech umbrella?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought you were pretty happy with that one,’ answered Carl. ‘But the raincoat’s something special. It’s ultra-strong. Same fabric as Billy’s gloves.’

  ‘A bullet-proof raincoat?’ marvelled Mary.

  Carl nodded proudly.

  Nellie had put on a black eye mask and was examining a black top with the SZ logo on it, and a silver belt.

  ‘Ah, yes, the colours of a thunderstorm for Rain Shadow,’ Carl told her as she beamed back at him.

  ‘What about me, then?’ Murph wanted to know.

  ‘Kid Normal?’ Carl replied. ‘Well, we didn’t think you’d want anything too fancy. Bit off-brand, if you get my drift. But there’s this …’ He pulled out a T-shirt with the Super Zero symbol picked out on the front. ‘And this …’ He held up a thick black belt, slung with pouches and holsters.

  ‘A utility belt?’ marvelled Murph. ‘No way!’

  ‘Why does Murph get the utility belt?’ complained Hilda. ‘The utility belt’s the coolest thing!’

  ‘Murph’s the leader of the Super Zeroes,’ Carl explained. ‘The head of the Final Five.’

  ‘S’pose,’ sulked Hilda, cheering up slightly when she discovered a pair of purple boots and a pair of horse ears in the trunk to complete her outfit.

  ‘What am I packing, then?’ asked Murph as he buckled up the belt.

  ‘Universal unlocker,’ said Carl, indicating a large pouch on his left hip. ‘Grapple gun, stun rocket, comms jammer, and that pocket there is particularly handy.’

  ‘What’s in it?’ asked Murph, looking at the smaller pouch on his left.