The Superpower Project

by Paul Bristow

  “Yeah,” said Cam, “piece of bun really.”

  “We should go to the next place on the map as quickly as we can.”

  “Oh,” said Cam, who had been hoping that getting attacked by a big angry sculpture might have put Megan off exploring for a bit.

  Megan smiled. “Me, you and TJ – we just proved we can do anything!”

  Cam tried to look inspired and brave, but mostly just managed to look queasy and tired.

  Chapter 13.

  Art and Craft

  Mr Finn watched Megan, Cam and TJ struggle through Megan’s front door. He had followed them home from the ruined warehouse, and even though he was annoyed about his sculpture getting smashed, it had saved him a lot of bother sorting out building demolition. Every cloud had a silver lining.

  Plus, he had always wanted to see the real Tin Jimmy, so that had been nice.

  I wonder if they have any idea what they’re getting themselves into, mused Mr Finn as he turned back to the warehouses to scrape up all the pieces of Resilience. He didn’t want any of the parts getting into the wrong hands and ending up on eBay. Again.

  ***

  At the demolished warehouse, Mr Finn ran his hand over Resilience’s battered head. It was going to take quite a bit of hammering back into shape. That wasn’t all bad news, though, because Mr Finn actually quite enjoyed hitting things with hammers.

  The Waterworx security team were busy hoisting the sculpture onto the back of a truck, while some of the guards were trying to fend off a nosy photographer from the local newspaper.

  “Where you wanting this dumped, sir?” said head-of-security Davy. “Scrap yard?”

  Mr Finn glared. “Take it to my house, please. I will see to the repairs personally.”

  “You sure, sir? Because me and the boys reckon you could get a few grand from Big Shug at the yard.”

  “Thank you for the suggestion,” said Mr Finn in a way that made it clear that any further suggestions would result in being sacked, “but this isn’t a mashed-up Ford Focus, this is art. Big Shug wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

  “Oh, he’d love it. He’d probably just melt it down. He melts most things down.”

  The rest of the security team backed slowly away from Davy and started looking in other directions.

  “Yes. I do enjoy a bit of melting, myself,” said Mr Finn. “Of course, I’m more of a dabbler, not a skilled craftsman like Big Shug, art genius.”

  Too late, Davy realised his mistake. “No sir, I didn’t mean… I was trying to be helpful…”

  “Being helpful is a pointless waste of time, Davy. Just like you. And to help you remember that in future, you’re fired. As of now.”

  Davy turned to his workmates, hoping for support, but they had all wandered off whistling and looking at their phones.

  “Bye Davy,” said Mr Finn, waving. “Hurry along now before my terrible sculpture falls on you. You know how easily accidents can happen.”

  Mr Finn laughed as Davy quickly walked away. The sculpture was carefully loaded onto the truck and driven off into the night.

  Chapter 14.

  Paper and Pens

  TJ had been in Megan’s house for two days now, and so far absolutely nothing had exploded or burned down. No one had mentioned that though, just in case they jinxed it.

  Rather than jamming him into a cupboard or under a bed, Megan had decided to stick with her story that the robot was a project from school. After all, she did intend to do a bit of reprogramming, so it wasn’t a complete lie. This meant that TJ could just stand in her room, plugged in and recharging, in full view of her family. The only tricky bit was making sure no one saw or heard him walking about. So far, so good; her mum had already started hanging Megan’s jackets on his outstretched arms. Thankfully TJ was too polite to complain about it.

  Cam had rushed over before school because the Morse-code paper had arrived in the post. He carefully threaded the thin strip of paper into the machine in Tin Jimmy’s chest. Despite it only being paper, and TJ being a robot, Cam treated the whole procedure as if it were a delicate medical operation.

  “There,” he said, rather pleased that he hadn’t broken anything or somehow managed to set fire to the paper.

  Megan, Cam and TJ all waited, hoping the machine would spring back into life and start printing secret messages. Nothing happened. Cam tapped it repeatedly until TJ asked him to stop.

  “Well,” said Cam, “it will probably work next time a message comes through.”

  “There are five.”

  “We know TJ,” said Megan patiently, “and if just one of them sends you a message I’ll be happy.”

  “C’mon, we’ll be late,” said Cam, tapping the machine once more just in case.

  Megan gave TJ a little kiss on the cheek, then she and Cam headed to the bus stop.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Megan.

  Cam nodded, looking interested, even though Megan thinking almost always meant trouble.

  “Now that we’ve discovered our powers, don’t you think we should be doing something with them?”

  “What, solving crimes and stopping bank robberies?” said Cam. “Flying Girl and the Amazing Animal Boy to the rescue!”

  “How come you’re the Amazing Animal Boy and I’m just Flying Girl?” said Megan. “If I’m anything I’m the Fantastic Flying Girl. Or Fabulous. Yeah, maybe Fabulous.”

  “Or full of it,” said Cam, smiling.

  “I feel like we should be helping people,” said Megan. “You’ve read superhero comics. You know how it works.”

  “Yeah, but those are proper superheroes. I tried turning into a tiger last night and I just ended up with a stripy face and a tail, like a really rubbish Halloween costume.”

  Megan laughed.

  “It wasn’t funny. I got stuck like that and had to stay in my room all night. I missed dinner and it was egg and chips.”

  “Well I keep sleep-flying,” said Megan. “I have to make sure my windows are shut every night or I’ll probably just float off down the street.”

  “We’re really not that super at all,” said Cam, before suddenly brightening. “Do you think costumes would help?”

  “You’re just looking for an excuse to wear your underpants over your trousers. Again.”

  Megan was smiling, but Cam knew it wasn’t her real smile. “You ok?” he asked.

  “It’s just… I’m sure the superpowers and the robots are connected to the places on the map,” said Megan, “and that’s why Gran wanted me to go to them.”

  “But we didn’t find any answers in the last two places we looked.”

  “Exactly,” said Megan, “just more questions. What’s the coin for? Why did my gran have a robot? Why were we supposed to find TJ first? Why could Gran fly? Why did the Waterworx sculpture attack us? We don’t know anything!”

  Over the last few days, Megan had felt angry at her gran for not giving them enough to go on, then bad for feeling angry. Today she was mostly feeling stupid for not understanding whatever it was Gran had trusted her to discover.

  “We know loads!” said Cam, putting his hand on her shoulder. “We know your gran has hidden weird stuff in all these old places, we know that at least one of the new Waterworx sculptures is actually a giant murderous robot…”

  “And we know where we’re supposed to go next,” sighed Megan.

  “Exactly, we just need to get on with it,” said Cam, swiping his phone to bring up their map.

  “Number three is Crowfell Hospital,” said Megan.

  Cam shuddered. “Great, what could go wrong at a creepy abandoned old hospital?”

  “Well, it’s better than the graveyard, which is where we’re going afterwards!”

  “You know it must be really bad when that’s the best thing you can say about a place,” said Cam. “Better than a graveyard.”

  “So,” Megan continued, “can you make it tonight?”

  “Not tonight. My mum’s backshift starts tomorrow tho
ugh. You can tell your parents you’re at mine and I’ll tell Dad I’m at yours.”

  “Tomorrow then,” said Megan, wondering if abandoned hospitals still had old trolleys and bandages in them. “I wonder what we’ll find this time?”

  “Well, so far we’ve found a broken robot and a rusty old tin with a coin we can’t spend,” said Cam. “Your gran was great at stories, but her treasure hunts are rubbish.”

  Megan suddenly felt a sparkling feeling in her chest – a pulling sensation. Without knowing why, she looked across the road and saw Kirsty McKell’s wee brother Jake stepping out onto the street without looking. He couldn’t see the oncoming car.

  In seconds, Megan had whizzed across the road, pushing him back onto the pavement.

  Jake stared at Megan, open-mouthed. The car screeched to a halt and the driver got out of the car to check everyone was ok.

  “How did you…” said the startled driver. “You were faster than a…”

  Megan reddened. “Thanks, eh… must be the adrenaline. I’d better get to school. Watch where you’re walking Jake… Bye!”

  Cam waited on the other side of the street, looking just as startled as everyone else. “You do remember about keeping superpowers secret, right?” he whispered.

  “I couldn’t help it, it was like… a reflex,” said Megan. “I was only flying a little bit. The driver just thought I was running ridiculously fast.”

  “Yeah.” Cam smiled. “So fast your feet didn’t touch the ground.”

  Megan grinned back. “I do feel a bit super now. Fabulous Flying Girl to the rescue…”

  ***

  As if double P.E. in the morning wasn’t bad enough, in the afternoon they had more sculpture design. Needless to say, Cam’s packed lunch of yoghurt-coated goji berries and whole-wheat breadsticks had not helped him get into the zone.

  Kevin had sat beside him all lunchtime trying to talk about their designs. He really was ok when you got talking to him; even better, he was happy to do most of the work on this project. The only problem was that almost every time Cam turned around today, Kevin seemed to be there.

  “Maybe we should do a sculpture about all the water power in the area?” beamed Kevin.

  “Water power? Sounds a bit Pokémon,” said Cam.

  “It says here that all the sugar refineries were powered by watermills,” said Kevin. “Maybe we should make it a water monster. Did Megan’s gran do any books about sea monsters?”

  “Hmmm,” said Cam. “I think Serpent Song was about a sea monster.”

  “Like a Loch Ness monster kind of thing?” said Kevin, showing Cam a few scribbled sketches.

  “Maybe,” said Cam, “that one’s pretty cool.”

  Miss McCue had warned them all that today Mr Finn would be coming in to see how their designs were coming along. She had then warned Cam not to mention the freshly smashed sculpture that had been on the front page of the papers.

  Despite this, no one was surprised when, as soon as Mr Finn entered the class, Cam stuck up his hand.

  “Hello Cameron,” said Mr Finn. “Hello Class. How nice to see you again. It’s so good to have such enthusiastic pupils.”

  “Are you going to rebuild Resilience to make it more resilient?” said Cam.

  Megan stared straight ahead, making a real effort not to glance at Cam, in case that somehow made them look guilty.

  Mr Finn took a moment to do the special breathing he had been told to do by the doctor. “Thank you for the suggestion Cameron, but we are talking about art here. You don’t just repaint a Mona Lisa.”

  Right now, Megan wished her superpower was telepathy so she could silently shout at Cam to shut up. She decided to jump in before it got any worse. “Are the other sculptures ok?”

  “Yes Megan.” He nodded. “Evolve and Chronos are both fine.” Then he turned to stare straight at her. “I really hope they stay that way.”

  “Oh, we all do!” said Miss McCue, enjoying this morning’s lesson even less than normal. “Vandalism is a terrible thing. We had the police in talking about it last year.”

  “Quite right too,” said Mr Finn. He began wandering around the classroom, slowly picking up their drawings,

  staring at them and then putting them back down on the desks without saying a word.

  “Well,” said Miss McCue nervously, “I hope some of our designs will cheer you up. We’ve had all sorts of ideas. There are sugar molecules, sugar cubes, sugar tongs, a sugar bowl…”

  Mr Finn nodded. “All very sweet,” he said. Abruptly, he stopped beside Cam and Kevin and picked up Kevin’s drawing. “Now, what’s this?”

  “It’s supposed to be, like, a sea monster,” said Kevin nervously, “but we were going to make it a bit friendlier.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” said Miss McCue. “We don’t want to be scaring people do we?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr Finn, staring pointedly at Cam. “Everyone likes a good scare.”

  “I’m not sure the school would approve of—” began Miss McCue.

  “And what kind of new roof would the school approve of?” interrupted Mr Finn, smiling all the while.

  Miss McCue looked unusually flustered and returned to her desk, pretending to look for something.

  “I like this, Kevin,” said Mr Finn, holding the picture up to the light so he could see it even more clearly. “But I really think it could do with some more teeth, and claws.”

  Mr Finn put the drawing carefully back down on the desk, and, still smiling, left the classroom without looking at any other designs. Silently, everyone got back to drawing.

  “Cam, does he know we broke Resilience?” whispered Megan. “It really seemed like he knew. And your questions didn’t exactly help!”

  Chapter 15.

  Fact and Fiction

  The Diary of James Watt

  12th December 1811

  I can think of nothing but that machine.

  By day I work on more plans and sketches for Dalmarnock, but each evening is spent creating this marvelous steam-powered man.

  I have taken extreme care to have the parts created in several different foundries so as to keep his construction secret.

  He is already capable of several movements. I have come to realise, however, that powering my metal man will be more challenging than I thought. The energy consumption is intensive. However, the basic principles are all in place. He is magnificent.

  Mr Finn put down the old faded diary. He had read this page hundreds of times before. Generally, he disliked books; they gave people ideas. Ideas were hard to control. Much better if everyone just got on with the future – watching television or playing their smart phones and tablets like they were supposed to.

  He wasn’t a big fan of history either: a lot of old rubbish getting in the road of progress. But this project required him to learn about history – the sort of history normal people never got to hear about. Such as ancient robots built by genius inventors.

  Mr Finn glanced over at the corner of the room where he had propped Resilience up and battered him back into shape. The sculpture was working again, but there was still a lot of work to do on the electronics.

  “My father first got me interested in all this you know,” Mr Finn explained to Resilience. “Neither of us liked football and he was rubbish at fishing – too squeamish to pick up worms.”

  The dented robot’s eyes flickered in vague response.

  “Oh yes, Professor Finn was quite the robot expert. Always reading these diaries, looking for more information on that blasted Tin Jimmy. He was more interested in the robot than in his own son. Even though I was clearly a genius.”

  Mr Finn left a short pause here for Resilience to agree with him, before remembering that the sculpture couldn’t speak.

  “He left when I was thirteen. Never saw him again.”

  Mr Finn paused again, but this time for dramatic effect.

  “That’s when I discovered the secret, began to see the truth about the
project my father had been working on.”

  Resilience’s eyes glowed briefly once again, as if to say, “Oh really? Please tell me more.” At least, that’s how Mr Finn chose to interpret it.

  He held up some of the pages for Resilience to see. “I’d seen some of his research on James Watt before, but there were more interesting diary entries – secrets father had kept hidden from us.”

  Mr Finn continued to read, this time aloud to Resilience’s unblinking eyes.

  It has been many years since I learned the truth about what lies beneath the river, and all that time, I have wondered how best to use my gift to protect what is there. Today, finally, that work is over.

  The guardians and my robot know what is asked of them. The power beneath the river will be hidden as long as the sigils are kept from falling into the wrong hands.

  “Wrong hands!” Mr Finn laughed as he closed the book. “I actually think I have really nice hands,” he said, waggling his fingers at Resilience. “Look at those fingernails. Beautifully clean.”

  He picked up a hammer and wandered over to Resilience to finish tapping out the dents.

  “There are still gaps, of course; the notes didn’t tell me everything. I know plenty about the Tin Jimmy, and a little bit about the guardians – you and the other sculptures are going to help me deal with those little problems. But it’s these sigils…”

  Resilience’s eyes flickered as Mr Finn began absentmindedly banging him on the head.

  “They have to be somewhere, hidden away in this horrible little town. But what to do with them when I find them?”

  The hammer blows got harder and noisier.

  “Father’s plans never quite worked out. This time there will be no mistakes. Whatever power is hidden beneath the river… will be mine!”

  Mr Finn smashed the remaining dent from Resilience with a resounding clang.

  Chapter 16.

  Doctors and Nurses

  Megan waved to her parents as she wheeled TJ down the drive in the wheelbarrow and set off to meet Cam. It was clear they were quite pleased with all the work she appeared to be doing on this project, which was probably going to make next parents’ night even more awkward than usual.