The Brain Sucker

by Glenn Wood

  Jinx lay hunched in a ball on the floor, protected from the falling pallets by the biggest thug, who had collapsed on top of him. This made escape impossible, but he was happy to be under the bulky body when the insects attacked. A swarm of bees had made their nest in one of the pallets, and now they set about punishing the people who disturbed them. The two men leaped from the smashed remains of the pallets, yelling in pain and jumping around, completely engulfed in a stinging mass of agitated bees.

  Jinx also got to his feet, making the most of the diversion. He ran for the exterior door, only to find the German shepherd barring his way. He went back into the warehouse and looked for a way out. All the exits were blocked by either psychotic dogs or angry bees. As he studied his surroundings, he formulated a plan and climbed onto a nearby forklift.

  Right, he reasoned. I’ll drive this forklift through the wall and escape that way.

  He turned the key and the machine burst into life, briefly. Almost immediately Jinx’s bad luck caused something to go wrong. With a sudden screech and a fart of black smoke, the engine exploded. The smoke drifted over the swarm of bees and calmed them down. Jinx stared at the angry dog now circling his forklift and glanced towards the badly stung men emerging from the cloud of dropping bees. He moaned in frustration and sat in the cab of the broken forklift waiting to be recaptured.

  After leaving the laboratory, Lester trooped Sophie and Callum through the training area and over the drainage ditch to the punishment cells he had built beside the elevator.

  Lester opened the cell door. He grabbed Callum’s wheelchair and pushed him inside, then slammed the door shut. He took hold of Sophie’s wrist, holding her back.

  “Get your hands off me,” cried Sophie, struggling against him.

  Callum slammed his wheelchair into the door. “Leave her alone,” he yelled.

  Lester sneered and shook his head. “I’ve got a lot to do this morning so I only have time to suck the goodness out of one of you. I thought it’d be fun to attach the brain sucker to the girl and make you watch.”

  “Take me instead,” Callum said, and then added in a voice only Lester could hear, “Hurt her, and I’ll destroy you.”

  Something in Callum’s tone chilled Lester. He almost believed the boy. He gathered himself and decided it didn’t matter whose goodness he took. Besides, he wanted to humiliate the boy for having the audacity to threaten him. He gave a dry laugh. “Say please.”

  Callum held Lester’s gaze. “Please,” he said quietly.

  Lester regained some of his confidence. “How about ‘pretty please’?”

  “Pretty please,” said Callum in a clear voice.

  “Such lovely manners. Well, let’s change that.” Lester wrenched the door open and threw Sophie roughly inside. She fell to the floor. Callum reached over to help her up. Sophie took his hand and clambered to her feet. “You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, brushing angry tears from her eyes.

  “Yes, I do,” replied Callum. “This is all my fault. It’s my gran who had her goodness removed, not yours. I should never have got you involved. Now look at the mess we’re in. I’m so sorry, Soph.”

  Sophie shook her head. “You don’t have to be. I knew the risks when I decided to help, and I don’t regret it. When are you going to realise that you don’t have to do everything by yourself? Friends help each other no matter what.”

  “You’re right,” he murmured. “And now I’m helping you.”

  He wheeled out of the cell and let Lester take hold of his chair.

  Sophie screamed at Lester. “You can’t do this!”

  Lester raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You’d be amazed at what I can do.”

  He reached for a brass key hanging on the wall beside the elevator. He locked the cell door then put the key back on the hook.

  “Now the fun begins,” he said, addressing Sophie. “And you’ll be able to watch it all from the safety of your cell.”

  Lester pushed Callum back over the drainage ditch and into the training area. He positioned Callum’s wheelchair in front of one of the benches, about twenty metres from the cell and facing directly towards Sophie. Lester moved behind the boy and pulled the brake on his wheelchair. “Don’t want you running away, do we?” He poked the boy’s legs then added cruelly, “Oh that’s right, you can’t.”

  Lester walked back into his laboratory and returned with a silver case. He placed the case on a nearby work-out bench and snapped it open. With almost reverential care Lester lifted a gleaming aluminium vacuum pump and flask from the case. It was similar to the machine that Sophie and Callum had witnessed Parson using on Rose, but it was older and chunkier.

  He paraded the machine in front of Callum. “I’m going to use a very special machine on you. This is the first manners-extraction machine I ever invented – the Mark One Brain Sucker. It works extremely well; in fact, if anything, it’s a little too efficient. Not only does it suck out your goodness, but it also removes a small chunk of your brain. The convenient side effect being that your memory will be completely wiped. But don’t worry, you’re just a kid so you won’t forget anything of any importance.”

  Callum ignored Lester’s taunt. His muscles tensed as he prepared to launch himself from his chair.

  Without warning, Lester wrapped one of his arms around Callum’s chest and pinned him in place. He was much stronger than he looked. “Give me any trouble, boy, and I’ll put a bullet in you.” Callum relaxed, but Lester didn’t release him, instead he pressed harder. Callum gasped.

  Sophie saw what was happening from the confines of her cell. “Let him go, you sick freak,” she screamed.

  Lester removed his arm from Callum’s chest and picked up the brain sucker. He yelled at Sophie, his voice thick with menace. “I’d advise you to keep quiet, young lady, or I might just let the machine keep sucking until there’s no brain left at all.”

  Sophie bit her tongue; she had no option but to watch in silence.

  Lester flicked a switch on the side of the vacuum pump, and the machine kicked into life with a low hum. It vibrated violently in Lester’s hand. He attached a short hose and a suction cup, then held it close to the boy’s head to heighten his fear.

  The hairs on the back of Callum’s neck stood on end. He could feel the thrum of the machine as it came closer. The vacuum pump pulled at the air like an exhausted runner gasping for oxygen. Lester clamped his free hand on Callum’s shoulder, pushing him hard into the base of the chair. Callum struggled but he couldn’t move. He heard Lester’s voice, a soft hiss in his ear. “Once your goodness has gone, you’ll be just like me.”

  Then the voice was replaced by a loud thock as the suction cup attached itself to Callum’s ear. His vision blurred, and his breathing came in short, rasping gasps. His head shook as if it had been placed in a milkshake maker, and there was a roaring within as if an angry beast had been let loose inside his cranium. He smelled burnt onions.

  Lester howled with pleasure as he pressed the suction cap tighter onto Callum’s ear. It would only be a matter of moments before his goodness let go and was sucked from the boy’s skull forever.

  Sixteen

  Jinx offered no resistance as the two badly stung thugs hauled him off the forklift. He was conserving his strength. Both of his captors were considerably worse for wear: their faces were swollen from the bee stings and Parson seemed to have concussion. Jinx was sure he’d soon be free of their clutches, then he’d be able to show Callum and Sophie they had made the right decision including him in the team.

  The thugs put him in the service elevator and pushed the down button. Somewhere between the upper and lower floors, the copious amount of poison in the men’s bloodstream overtook them. Parson was the first to go. Jinx watched happily as the man slumped against the elevator cage and drifted into unconsciousness. Darryl hung on longer, but not much. Woozy and with a face like a puffer fish, he placed one of his massive hands on Jinx’s shoulder to steady himself. Jinx shook it off, and th
e thug joined his friend on the floor of the elevator.

  Seconds later the wire cage cleared the concrete lip of the floor above and the underground lair opened up before Jinx. He assessed the situation. His friends were in grave danger, of that there was no doubt. Sophie was locked behind the metal bars of a cramped and, frankly, quite unsanitary-looking cell, but she seemed unhurt. It was Callum who was in the most trouble.

  Jinx had no idea who the thin man was, but recalling Callum’s description of the brain-sucking machine, he could guess what the man was doing.

  Rage coursed through Jinx’s body, not an uncontrollable anger, but a cold focused fury. He looked over the unconscious forms of goons on the elevator floor and knew they were no further threat. Then he let out a loud warbling hoot. This was the signal he, Callum and Sophie had agreed on earlier, but this time he wasn’t warning his friends of danger – he was warning his enemies that he was coming. He opened the elevator door and stepped onto the concourse. Sophie scrambled as close to him as she could and yelled through the bars. “Run, Jinx. Get out of here.”

  But Jinx wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to help his friends no matter what. The thumb on his left hand started to shake, and he concentrated all his attention on the machine in the thin man’s hands. Jinx raised his own hand and pointed at his enemy. The shake spread from his thumb and soon his whole arm was vibrating.

  All of a sudden the machine attached to Callum’s ear began to smoke, and then it whined like an abandoned dog. The machine sparked and sent a jolt of electricity coursing along the thin man’s arm. The man jumped in alarm, dropping the machine onto the ground. The suction cup was wrenched from Callum’s ear, uncoupling with a wet pop.

  Sophie stared at Jinx in disbelief. His entire left-hand side was vibrating now, but his eyes were sharp and clear.

  “Jinx,” she cried urgently. “What’s happening?”

  The red-headed boy turned to her, his face breaking into a wide smile. “I’m controlling it,” he replied with a crazy laugh. “I’m controlling the bad luck. For once in my life it’s working for me.”

  The bars under Sophie’s hands began to shake. Softly at first, then more violently. The floor was trembling too. A low rumble echoed through the chamber as the entire facility began to quake.

  “Whoa,” bellowed Jinx. “Not good.” He was flailing around like a sock in a tumble dryer. His eyes were wild. “Soopphhiiiieeee,” he hollered. “I don’t think I’m in control any more.”

  The underground lair became a living thing: the walls shuddered, the floor heaved and plaster rained down as great cracks appeared in the ceiling. Sophie was flung to the floor of her cell. Her hip struck something hard and a shock of pain shot through her body. Shards of cement smashed into the bars above her, and she threw her arms up to protect her head from the falling debris.

  Jinx fell to his knees. His convulsing had stopped, but the earthquake he’d brought on continued. Jinx crawled as close as he could to Sophie. He shouted through the bars, trying to be heard over the cacophony of crashes and cracks that filled the chamber. He rattled the cell door. “I’ll get you out of here. Where’s the key?”

  Sophie pointed to the hook on the wall beside the elevator. The hook was empty. “It was on there.”

  Jinx scrambled his way across the bucking floor to the wall. He clung to the side of the metal cage with one hand and searched frantically amongst the growing pile of rubble. A glint of brass caught his eye. The key lay half-buried under a layer of cement dust. He reached for it then, just as his fingers touched the metal, a crack opened in the floor and the key disappeared from sight.

  Jinx cried with frustration. He glanced back to Sophie and saw the despair in her eyes. He returned to the cell and looked desperately for something to jemmy the door open. He saw nothing. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Control, he thought. It’s all about control. Jinx focused on the ceiling directly above Sophie’s cell. A thin crack opened up. It grew longer and wider as he watched. Cement dropped away revealing a large metal support beam. Jinx focused harder. The beam groaned and shook, and then one end broke free and crashed down on top of Sophie’s cell. Large chunks of rock peppered the floor around Jinx, and a boulder the size of an armchair missed him by centimetres. A cloud of dust fell like a curtain, temporarily blacking out everything. Jinx spluttered and lurched towards the fallen beam.

  The girder was on a forty-five degree angle, one end still fixed to the ceiling, the other on the floor by the elevator. Tonnes of solid metal had smashed into the ceiling of the cell, bending, twisting and in some places even snapping the bars. Rubble littered the cell floor. Sophie lay amongst the debris. Dust covered her body like a shroud. The girl was still, her eyes closed.

  Jinx called her name in anguish. “Sophie!”

  She didn’t move.

  Jinx rattled the bars in panic, shaking the entire cage. “Come on,” he screamed. “You’re all right, you have to be.” He sunk to his knees, head bowed. Then he heard a tiny splutter.

  Sophie’s eyelids fluttered. She coughed and spat out a mouthful of dust, then drew her body into a crouch.

  Jinx hooted with relief and pointed to a section of the cage where the bars had twisted apart enough for her to climb through. “Over here.”

  Sophie stumbled to the bent bars, and Jinx reached through to help her. As she went to take his hand, a cavernous crack opened beneath Jinx, and he fell onto a narrow outcrop, his body rolling along for several metres then slipping off the edge. At the last possible moment, Jinx grabbed a rock with one hand, saving himself from falling into the darkness below. He grunted with effort as he tried to pull himself back onto the ledge but lacked the strength. “Soph, help!” he called from the cavern.

  Sophie squeezed her thin frame through the gap in the cell bars and crept to the edge of the hole. She peered into the darkness and could see the rock walls forming a low tunnel above the ledge where Jinx dangled. A familiar fear gripped her, and she backed away from the tight opening.

  Jinx’s fingers ached as he clung desperately to the rock. “Hurry, Soph. I can’t hold on much longer.”

  Sophie’s heart pounded in her chest. Every nerve in her body was telling her to leave her friends and run to the surface. “I can’t do it,” she sobbed. Then, with a tremendous effort, she pulled herself together. Sophie took a deep breath and launched herself into the cramped darkness of the hole. Ignoring the cold sweat on her brow and the tightening in her chest, she crawled towards Jinx’s dangling body. As his fingers began to slip, she grabbed his wrist. His weight startled her, and she overbalanced, smashing her knees into the dirt to stop from tumbling into the blackness. Breathing hard, she leaned back and pulled Jinx’s scrambling form onto the ledge.

  “That was close,” he huffed. “Now, can we please get out of here?”

  She pulled Jinx in the direction of the drainage ditch. “Come on, we’ve got to find Callum.”

  Water swirled around the edge of the ditch. The current had swelled to twice its normal flow and the watercourse was at the point of overflowing. Jinx hadn’t brought just an earthquake down upon them – he’d summoned a flood as well.

  Sophie and Jinx pulled back from the edge and scanned the training area. Callum and Lester were nowhere to be seen.

  Seventeen

  As soon as the brain sucker had fallen from Callum’s ear, his equilibrium returned. Energy flowed into his body and he reeled back in his chair as if he’d been slapped. His eyes snapped open, his breathing was sharp. He tried to work out what was happening. Had his goodness been sucked away? A test: was it rude to text at the dinner table? Yes! His manners were still intact so he must be all right.

  He could still feel Lester’s presence behind him, but the thrumming of the machine had stopped. Something had gone wrong. A curse from Lester confirmed his suspicions. Callum tried to turn, but he was still pinned to the chair. He glanced towards Sophie and saw that Jinx was there too. He was just about to call out whe
n the earthquake struck.

  In seconds he was surrounded by chaos. The training area erupted as mats, bars and weights were thrown about like autumn leaves. A heavy work-out bench flew through the air and smacked into the ground just behind his chair. Callum heard a grunt and the pressure on his shoulder fell away. He was free. Wasting no time, Callum clicked the Thunderkit into out mode and pushed on one rim. The wheelchair spun one eighty degrees until he faced Lester’s room. He looked for his tormentor and found the thin man lying in a heap against the wall – he must have been clipped by the flying bench.

  This was the opportunity Callum had been waiting for. He accelerated hard and manoeuvred deftly around the chunks of masonry and jutting cracks that were appearing in the floor. The suspension in the Thunderkit absorbed a large amount of the floor roll, and Callum moved quickly into Lester’s bedroom. He punched the code into the keypad on the laboratory door then wheeled back as it slid open.

  The laboratory shook less than the rest of the building. Callum wondered if it had been reinforced. But even so, hairline cracks were appearing in the massive glass aquarium. The blobs of goodness seemed to know something was about to happen. They had clumped together in a gigantic pulsating mass right in the centre of the tank. As Callum watched, the throng thumped against the glass, causing one of the cracks to deepen.

  Callum didn’t have much time; he didn’t want to be in the room when the glass gave way. He saw the bad bomb on the bench and scrambled to wrench it from the power supply when a hand slammed into his wheelchair and pushed him aside. He turned in panic and saw Lester beside the bench. The man must have recovered from the blow and followed him into the lab.

  The left side of Lester’s head was streaked with dirt and dried blood. He reached for his remote control and sneered. “You’re too late, kid.” He punched a button and the rocket uncoupled from the power supply. The robotic arm picked up the bomb and moved it towards the launching chute.