The Nerdy Dozen #2

by Jeff Miller

  Neil looked for any lever or handle marked with a flying chimp and pulled them all furiously. He could feel the ship at the edge of a cliff, just barely, come to a complete stop. A glaringly white expanse stretched before them.

  “Welcome to space, you guys!” shouted Waffles.

  NEIL GROANED AS HE UNFASTENED HIMSELF FROM THE SEAT to make sure each body part was still intact. They were, barely.

  “So, what now? Unless the universe looks like a ski resort, I’d say we’re in the wrong place,” said Corinne, worried.

  “And I think the crash broke the radio. I can’t hear NASA anymore,” said Biggs. “Hello? Houston? Dallas?”

  A transmission fuzzed in and out, but it was mainly clipped words and choppy noises.

  “We must be near a magnetic pole. There’s a field of something interfering,” said JP, inspecting the waveform transmitted by the radio. “Hello? Houston, are you there?” Only a static buzz answered him.

  “Well, I’m not just sitting here,” said Sam as she unhooked herself from her chair.

  The eleven crew members filed out of the door Finch sealed minutes before, squinting at the snowy wilderness around them. They all wore their compressed NASA flight suits, clear helmets firmly attached to their uniforms. Since they were not yet in space, the bulkier suits meant for space walking stayed tied to the walls of the air lock. Snow flew diagonally, and powder whipped up off the ground in all directions. Visibility was an issue, as anything past twenty yards was a white blurry mess.

  “Well, what’s the plan, dude who got put in charge?” asked Waffles. They all turned to Neil, the commander and leader of their now-arctic adventure.

  “Yes, Master and Commander, where are we?” said Riley. “Our town blacksmith, Lord Carl, tells horrific tales of cannibal Vikings and frost ogres in places such as these.”

  Frigid winds swept up all around the crew, relentlessly pummeling the side of the ship, which echoed through the mountain range with a spooky howl.

  Neil felt pressured to provide answers. He looked to Sam for assistance, but her face seemed as scared and concerned as the others’.

  “Well, first things first, let’s look at the plane for any damage,” Neil said.

  Hey, that actually sounded like the correct thing to do.

  “Right,” said Dale, followed by his brother.

  The team quickly spread out around the now-frostbitten Whiptail, stamping about until they found a small spot of damage on the wing.

  A tiny corner of a piece of the high-tech paneling had peeled up, barely a malfunction but enough to alter the course of the ship.

  Trevor kicked a huge chunk of snow in front of him and thrashed his arms in frustration.

  “Well, now what do we do out here, huh?” Trevor screamed, his visible breath getting shorter and more frequent.

  A few people moaned, and nobody seemed ready to refute Trevor. Without any way to get ahold of Finch or NASA, being stranded was becoming a distinct possibility.

  “Well, let’s not overreact,” Neil said, half in agreement with Trevor’s negative outlook.

  Trevor kicked the metallic side of the plane’s wing. The space-age material absorbed the kick, but Neil watched some snow from the collision fall from the ship’s wing. A small logo was uncovered on the corner of the heavily bolted metal sheeting.

  BEED INDUSTRIES it read, with some sort of long lightning bolt in the background.

  Neil crinkled his eyebrows—that name sounded familiar.

  Harris Beed! Beed Industries belonged to Harris’s father!

  “Guys. If we can’t reach NASA,” Neil said, the gears of his brain turning, “maybe we can get . . . Harris.”

  “You mean the guy who basically tried to illegally steal a top secret jet, as well as destroy all video games in the world apart from his own?” JP asked, his voice serious and concerned.

  “Yup, that’s the one,” Neil said, his voice brimming with confidence. “In case you guys have forgotten, we have a mission to get back to, a ship to fix, one to save, and right now Harris’s help is our only option.”

  He knew Harris wasn’t actually an awful person, just a bit mixed up. If anyone was able to help them out in a ridiculous situation like this, it would be Harris, a ridiculous person.

  “Now we just need to figure out a way to contact him. Our radios are definitely out?”

  “Yes, Commander. Maybe something just got knocked loose,” said JP, heading back inside the Fossil.

  “I could go check on it, too. But I’m not exactly sure how it all works,” said Trevor. “I can’t figure out if a chimpanzee picture with a mouth closed and arms straight up means ‘do’ or ‘do not touch.’”

  “Okay. Biggs and the twins stay with me. Everyone else head inside; we’re going to go find some help. You said you’ve been working with Harris, right?” Neil asked. “We need to find a way to call him.”

  The rest of the group trudged inside. Sam gave Neil a hug and sent them off.

  “I’ve got Harris’s private number,” Biggs said proudly. “We’ve been trying to find a time to talk about some new smells for our game. He’s a very particular man when it comes to his privacy and ostrich scents.”

  Neil felt weirdly jealous. After exchanging gaming names earlier, he had expected to be the one hearing from Harris.

  “Let’s find a lookout,” said a helpful Dale.

  With squeaks from their bulky space-suit boots, Waffles and Dale attempted to scramble up the ship’s wing to climb to the top. The snowy conditions didn’t help matters, and the two kept sliding back down. They trudged through the snow to the front of the plane, and Biggs boosted the brothers up. Neil followed behind, resting a hand on the side of the spaceship.

  “You know, call me crazy, but I might know this mountain range,” said Waffles, glaring out across ice fields sparkling in the fierce sunbeams. “Yeah, I think if we just curl around that last hill, there may be something. I kind of think this is a level on Yeti Bobsled.”

  “You think? Also, what’s Yeti Bobsled?” asked Neil. He’d spent all summer glued to Chameleon, so he wasn’t up-to-date on the newest offerings in the gaming world.

  “It’s sort of like hide-and-seek with mythical frost beasts,” Waffles explained. “It’s a five, maybe six, out of ten. Could use more yetis. But this mountain range is definitely in there. I remember that hill that looks like a baby camel. There’s an outpost that way. Can you see a beacon?”

  Neil thought for a second, following Waffles’s pointed finger toward a small humped mountain with a speck of blue light. It was a better plan than nothing.

  “Guess we’ve got no other choice. Let’s go, everybody. Waffles, we’ll follow your lead,” Neil said. As commander of the mission, Neil knew he had to make decisions, and fast. Now, just how were they going to get there?

  “I’ll come with you guys,” added Biggs.

  The brothers climbed down from the ship, and Dale ducked inside the chimp-scented air lock of the Fossil. He quickly reappeared, and in his arms he clutched a yellow plastic brick. Neil instantly recognized it as an inflatable emergency raft. It looked just like the one from the Chameleon. The twin brothers pulled a valve, and the raft sprang to life.

  “I think this might work,” said Waffles, looking at the steep hillside around him. While the Fossil was angled directly off an icy cliff, the other side of the peak was a gradual decline that fed into a snowy valley. It looked like a ski resort’s quadruple-black-diamond run.

  Biggs hopped into the raft and grabbed tightly onto one of the canvas straps stemming from the floor. Dale stood behind and braced both hands on the back of the emergency blow-up sled.

  “A yeti bobsled isn’t complete without four people,” said Waffles, trying to wedge himself into the raft. “Technically it’s not complete without three hundred pounds of yak meat, but we’ll make do. Now hop in!”

  Well, here goes nothing.

  Neil jumped into the inflatable life raft, and Dale gave them all a qu
ick push before darting in next to his brother. They instantly gained speed. They coasted over snow and ice, leaving a trail of flurries in their wake.

  COMMANDER ANDERTOL AND HIS CREW FINALLY ARRIVED at the arctic outpost.

  Pale-yellow sunlight illuminated the shack. It was just bigger than a semi, with a blue light flashing on top of a pole.

  Up a tiny stairway was a door and a small window.

  “Hello? Anyone?” Neil said as he opened the door. The station was a big open room, with papers messily strewn about over tables and laboratory equipment. Low static warbled over a radio telecom system. It looked deserted, but Neil soon saw what they’d come for: a telephone.

  “Biggs,” Neil said, tipping his head toward the phone.

  “On it, my good man,” Biggs said, confirming with a new piece of sign language that involved lots of finger twisting.

  “I’m gonna try and call NASA first,” Biggs said, bringing the old brown phone to his ear. He cocked his head to the side to pinch the receiver between his shoulder and his cheek. “You think it’s just 1-800-NASA?”

  Biggs smashed the number into the keypad and soon heard a busy signal. He called again, this time getting through for a ring, but then he only received a recorded message about early registration for Space Camp.

  “No luck,” said Biggs as he hung up the phone. Neil, Dale, and Waffles had all continued riffling through papers, which seemed to be in both English and Russian.

  Biggs dialed another number and held an arm high with a thumbs-up as it successfully started to ring.

  “Whoa, jackpot!” yelled Dale as he opened a small refrigerator in the corner of the room. He pulled out cans of Coke and tossed one to each fellow adventurer. Neil popped the top of his drink and listened intently to Biggs. He glanced over to the flimsy wooden door on the other side of the room and took a quick gulp of his drink. The fizzing bubbles tickled his throat.

  “Are you there, Harris? It’s me, Biggs,” Neil’s friend said, twisting the phone cord around his index finger. “First, great news on the smell front. I think we’re close to working those kinks out. Which is to say, about only half of the stuff still smells like dirty wildlife.”

  Neil cleared his throat, respectfully reminding Biggs of the task at hand.

  “Oh, right,” Biggs continued. “And more important, Neil, you remember Neil, right? Well, we’re actually flying a plane made by your father’s company.”

  Biggs continued on, explaining as much as he could. Waffles then ran up to him, excitedly pointing to a map with specifics on their location.

  Neil knew Harris was their only chance, and Harris needed to understand how serious the situation was. Neil walked over to Biggs and motioned for the phone before plucking it from Biggs’s hand.

  “Harris, I hate to be demanding, but I could really use a favor right about now. We have to fix this spaceship and get back to our mission,” Neil begged. “Please, come help us.”

  Neil started to hear a voice on the other line, but the connection cut out.

  Well, better than nothing.

  “Uh, guys?” said Waffles, moving into his friends while purposefully backing away from the door.

  Commotion sounded from outside. A crash was followed by a menacing growl. What was that, a yeti? Santa?

  It was, in fact, a polar bear. And it was blocking the door they had just come through.

  “Run!” Neil screamed as the group bolted out the door on the other side of the building. It might as well have been marked “Polar Bear Escape Route.”

  “So how do we outrun a polar bear? Is that in the game?” Neil wheezed, turning to Dale. They watched the wild animal race toward them across the snow.

  “I have no idea!” Dale exclaimed. “Truth be told, Yeti Bobsled got pulled from the shelves for overly realistic Abominable Snowman violence. Every game ended with some kind of snow monster using your femur as a toothpick.”

  “Why didn’t we hear about this before sledding down a mountain?” yelled Neil. The bear had followed them outside and was in pursuit.

  Neil was panicked, and he knew he had to do something. The bear was right on their heels when Neil remembered his hand was still clutching a can of Coca-Cola. And based on his extensive television watching, Neil knew that polar bears loved Coca-Cola.

  He turned and faced the bear, which reared up on its hind legs and growled dangerously, strands of saliva dangling from its sharp teeth.

  “I hope this works,” Neil gulped. Waving the can of Coke like a stick in a game of fetch, he hurled it as hard as he possibly could. Neil had hoped to throw it beyond the bear so the bear would chase after it. Instead, the half-full can spiraled wildly, exploding in a shower of carbonated, sugary goodness.

  Neil closed his eyes in terror, sure that the bear had a taste for sugar and that it was smelling the Swedish fish coursing through his veins. But as his breath fogged up against his clear helmet, Neil opened his eyes to see nothing had happened.

  The bear was on all fours, licking at the Coke that had landed in the snow. It was like a Coke slushy, and Neil appreciated the bear for its good taste. Neil would do the same with his friend Tyler, eating syrup-stained chunks of snow one snowball at a time.

  “Come on, guys!” Neil said. The bear was certainly under some sort of sugar-high trance, so they had to move fast.

  Neil, Biggs, Waffles, and Dale followed their snowy footprints from earlier and dragged the inflatable raft behind them. It seemed impossible to move fast, though. Sliding downhill was a breeze, but climbing back up was proving impossible.

  Neil and the others stopped, panting. They had made it maybe ten meters before doubling over, out of breath.

  “Man, we didn’t really think about how we were gonna get back up this thing,” said a tired Waffles. But as everyone looked up the imposing face of the jagged mountain, Neil heard a voice behind him.

  “You called for help?”

  “HARRIS!” SHOUTED NEIL, IN TOTAL SHOCK.

  He was wearing full puffy winter wear, riding on an ostrich decked out in a furry insulated vest and ski goggles. They both wore Feather Duster–branded gear, everything light blue apart from a yellow ostrich symbol.

  “Did you guys miss me?” he said, pulling his orange snow goggles down around his neck. His skin was still dark from the sun, the remnants of a few recent pimples dotting his forehead. He had the same piercing eyes Neil remembered, but this time they didn’t seem evil. Neil had to admit Harris had a pretty intimidating and confident presence.

  “How’d you get here so fast?” shouted Biggs.

  Harris dismounted from his winter ostrich, which crunched at the snow with insulated boots with holes for talons. He began collecting a few of the canvas tethers attached to the raft.

  “So wild,” Harris said, taking off a white helmet that looked like the kind professional snowboarders wore. “I’m up north doing research for Feather Duster 3: Aviary Avalanche. My dad’s company has an outpost not far from here.”

  “Oh, we got the full tour, my man,” replied Waffles.

  “Oof, yeah,” Harris said. He began rigging his ostrich to the yellow sled. “Been abandoned for a bit. It’s Fuzzy’s home now. He was my old pet, but he started getting too big for his cage. So he lives here. I think he likes it.”

  As the caretaker of a backyard ostrich, Neil saw an alarming trend with Harris and his pets. Unfortunately Neil’s family didn’t have some kind of subzero outpost to which they could ship away an overgrown bird.

  “Well, that should about do it,” said Harris, tugging on the harness he’d just created. “You guys hop on. We’re following the trail you left coming down, I assume?”

  “You’ve got it,” said Neil. He was relieved to see Harris, but more excited that he no longer had to trudge back up the mountain. Harris nudged his ostrich, and they began heading uphill.

  “Biggs, how’re the smells for the game going?” Harris continued.

  “We’re, ah, getting there,” said Biggs. “I�
��ve got a few scents I’m cooking up in some jars back home. Really think I’ve figured out how to get rid of ‘wet dog.’”

  The crew soon went silent, hunkering down to dodge snowdrifts. Harris and his ostrich finally lugged the group back to the Fossil. Everybody was inside, but Neil could see Riley and Corinne waving through the cockpit windows.

  Everyone filed back outside in the swirling cold winds, and Harris’s eye caught sight of the damaged wing.

  “That the problem?” Harris asked as he walked over to the wing, leaving his ostrich to peck at big clumps of snow. He stooped down and ran a gloved hand over the small corner of sheeting.

  “Ah, I see,” Harris said calmly, pulling out a tool kit from the ostrich saddle.

  “See what?” said Biggs.

  “I know we were having issues with some of the spacecraft paneling as it came off the line. Could’ve been what happened here,” Harris said, pulling out what looked like a shiny blowtorch. “But we can fix this. No problem.”

  Neil could sense some of the group was hesitant about having a former evil lunatic helping them out.

  “Are we sure we can trust him?” Sam whispered to Neil.

  “What choice do we have?” Neil mumbled back, taking a wide-legged stance that hopefully made him look bigger than he was. “Harris, do your best.”

  With a nod, Harris sparked the handheld welder and began repairs to the ship.

  “So, mind telling me what, exactly, you’re all doing up here?” Harris said, closing his eyes to avoid the blue spark of his torch.

  Neil told Harris about the mission. How they’d been selected to retrieve a stolen spaceship. Neil chuckled as he wondered what was more random, the mission he’d just described or the fact that Harris rolled around with a spot welder at all times.