Brainwashed!

by R. McGeddon

“Dunno. It ends there.”

  She fired off a quick reply—“But what?”—then slipped the phone back in her pocket.

  “What now, then?” she asked. “How do we get inside the base?”

  Arty puffed out his cheeks. “Find the entrance?”

  “Well, obviously,” Emmie tutted. “But how do we do that?”

  Arty thought for a moment. “We could follow the massive truck, I suppose.”

  Emmie frowned. “What massive truck?”

  A massive truck swept past them on its way toward the mountain.

  “Oh. That massive truck.” Emmie noticed the spiral pattern on the side, the same one they’d been seeing all over town.

  They cycled after it, Emmie’s legs pumping, Arty’s motor whispering along. They rounded a bend and suddenly the massive truck was lost in a crowd of other massive trucks. They thundered in and out through an arched hole with giant metal shutters built into the mountainside, throwing up clouds of black volcanic dust with their tires.

  A procession of the trucks trundled toward the town. Arty and Emmie bounded down from their bikes and took cover behind a clump of bushes before anyone could ask them who they were, what they were up to, and why they weren’t all brainwashed ’n’ that.

  “I bet the lab is through there,” said Arty.

  “Oh, you think?” snapped Emmie.

  Some guards were standing just outside the entrance, glassy eyes scanning for trouble. “How do we get in?” Emmie wondered.

  “There’s a truck,” said Arty.

  “There are tons of trucks,” Emmie pointed out.

  Arty gestured to one that had stopped just ahead of them. It was a small flatbed, with a bit of tarp covering the back. “I meant that one. We could sneak on the back, then hop out when we’re inside.”

  “Good idea,” said Emmie.

  Arty looked taken aback. “What? Really?”

  “Yes. You go first; I’ll keep watch.”

  Arty’s face fell. “Me? But I thought I might just wait out here…”

  Emmie gave him a shove. “Go.”

  “Right, okay,” Arty fretted. He glanced around to make sure the coast was clear. “Here goes,” he whispered, and then he ran.

  And then he got tangled in the bush.

  And then Emmie helped untangle him.

  And then he ran again.

  Heart pounding, blood pumping, bladder quivering nervously, Arty dragged himself up onto the back of the flatbed and covered himself with the tarpaulin. He turned to Emmie and gestured for her to come.

  As Emmie took her first step, there was a deafening roar and Arty felt the world lurch sharply. His first thought was that the volcano had erupted, and he was about to be smothered by millions of tons of molten rock.

  His second thought was, “Oh no, the truck’s moving.” He wasn’t entirely sure which thought was worse.

  Emmie sprinted after him, but fell farther and farther behind. She must’ve given up. He could only watch as she abruptly took a right and dashed back into the bushes that ran along the road. The truck pulled away and carried him toward the volcano.

  Alone.

  * * *

  How to Infiltrate a Secret Base

  You’ve stumbled upon the lair of a supervillain and you want to peek inside. Before you rush in, brave hero, here are some suggestions that might help.

  1. Before attempting anything really clever, check if the door’s open. You’d be surprised how often it is.

  2. Likewise, check the windows. Supervillain lairs can get quite stuffy, and often the windows will be wide open for most of the day.

  3. If the door is locked, check under the mat for a spare key. Keep your eyes peeled for plastic-looking rocks positioned conveniently nearby, too. A key may be lurking inside.

  4. Disguise yourself as an evil robot salesman and talk your way inside.

  5. Disguise yourself as an evil robot and blast your way inside.

  6. Become invisible (trickier than it looks).

  7. Pretend to be a photographer from What Supervillain magazine, and that you’ve come to do a two-page spread on the villain’s HQ.

  8. Um … dig a big tunnel or something? I dunno. I’m out of ideas. Write your own below.

  9. ________________________________________

  10. _______________________________________

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You!” Sam said again, for the benefit of everyone who forgot he said it at the end of Chapter Seven.

  “I think we’ve established that now,” said Priscilla. The coach was no longer smiling a smile that could crack walnuts. She was scowling a scowl that could crack heads. “And as you’re clearly not under our control any longer, allow me to say this…”

  She raised her phone to her mouth and her fine features became twisted with rage. “GET HIM!” she screeched, and her words spat from the speakers positioned around the building site.

  All at once, the people of Sitting Duck turned in Sam’s direction. They downed their tools and dropped their metal bars.

  Then they picked them up again, because they looked much more menacing that way.

  Sam glanced across the crowd. The faces looked familiar but the expressions didn’t. Everyone—every single person working on the transmitter—glared at him like he was a bug in need of a-squashin’.

  Sam, despite being the bravest person I’ve ever met, swallowed nervously and flashed a worried smile. “Can we talk about this?” he asked, then he ducked as a claw hammer whistled toward his head. “I’ll take that as a no,” he said, then he shoved Priscilla out of the way, dodged past an old lady swinging a brick at him, and began to run.

  Sam twisted, weaved, rolled, somersaulted, crawled, cartwheeled, backflipped, crab-shuffled, and wriggled his way through the throngs of brainwashed townsfolk. Wrenches were swung, hammers were hurled, and monkeys were notable by their absence.

  Major Muldoon came lunging, swinging with an iron bar. Sam ducked. The bar sliced through the air above Sam’s head, then collided with Miss Tribbler—who had recently begun to thaw—knocking her out cold.

  With one of those fancy kick-flip things they do in martial arts movies, Sam was back on his feet. With a yank on Major Muldoon’s ’stache, Sam sent him spiraling into the path of some more pursuers.

  That left the route to the edge of the tarp clear! Sam sped toward it, pulling over a stack of tools behind him.

  “STOP HIM!” Priscilla screeched, but Sam was too close to the tarp’s edge now. Freedom was just moments away.…

  And that was when things really started to go wrong. Dozens of brainwashed Sitting Duckers flooded in below the tarp, weapons raised and faces nasty. Sam jumped sideways just as one man swung with something big and painful-looking.

  There was a crackle of energy and Sam felt the air beside him burn with cold. The man froze instantly, his weapon still raised to attack. Sam turned in time to see one of Priscilla’s guards taking aim with his freeze ray again.

  “This just gets better and better.” Sam grimaced. He took cover behind a stack of metal girders just as the guard opened fire. The metal instantly froze, then shattered like glass.

  Frantically, Sam looked around. He was blocked in on all sides by people who had been his friends and neighbors. Now they were nothing but drone-faced puppets (which, incidentally, would be an amazing name for a band).

  Left, right, forward, and back were cut off, so that left Sam with only one route: up. Hurling himself onto the scaffolding, he began to climb.

  He had almost reached the first platform when Phoebe’s face appeared over the edge. “Goode is, like, totally good,” she chanted, and then she swung an arm down. Sam felt a burst of pain as a mallet thumped against his fingers. His grip slipped and he tumbled backward onto the concrete floor.

  But it would take more than a sore hand and a bruised bottom to stop Sam Saunders! He bounded to his feet! He turned sharply! He stopped immediately as a gun was shoved right up in
his face.

  On the other end of the weapon stood Priscilla. His eyes met hers, and she flashed him a wicked grin. “How’s about a game of freeze tag?”

  Slowly, being careful not to be shot in the face by a crazy villain, Sam raised both hands. “Okay, you’ve got me,” he said. “But you won’t get away with this.”

  “Oh no! Oh goodness! Oh heavens! We won’t?” yelped Priscilla, then she let out a snort of laughter. “And who’s going to stop us exactly? You? You don’t have a hope.”

  Sam pulled himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. He looked really quite impressive and grown-up for someone his age, and the circle of brainwashed townsfolk seemed to shrink back a pace.

  “I’ve faced a horde of zombies. I’ve sent alien invaders packing,” Sam said, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the towering metal construction behind him. “You all can’t even build a Town Hall properly. Of course I can stop you.”

  “Idiot,” Priscilla hissed. “We don’t need a Town Hall anymore. Any fool can see that we’ve been building a transmitter. We just needed an army of volunteers to put the finishing touches on it, and that’s where Sitting Duck came in. With that transmitter, my father will be able to broadcast his message across the whole world.”

  A smile crept across Priscilla’s face. “Imagine it—his hypnotic signal beamed from country to country, city to city, town to town. Every single person on Earth, all under his command, doing his bidding, bending to his will.” She shook her head and sneered. “And you thought we were building a Town Hall!”

  Sam shrugged. “Actually, I didn’t,” he said. “I knew this was a transmitter. I just didn’t know what it was for. Now I do. Thanks for revealing your plan. That’ll make it much easier to stop you.”

  Priscilla’s face fell and her cheeks flushed. “No matter,” she seethed, raising the gun. “Knowing the plan won’t do you any good, because you won’t be around to see it put into action!”

  And with that, she fired.

  * * *

  The REAL Priscilla Character Profile

  Name: Priscilla Goode

  Job: Supervillain’s daughter

  Appearance: Aw, still lovely

  Likes: Evil, shouting, pointing guns, bossing everyone around, villainy, taking over the world, bubble gum.

  Dislikes: Goodness, democracy, children, anything starting with the letter H (don’t ask), being nice, singing, joy.

  Ambition: TO RULE THE WORLD (with her dad)!

  * * *

  CHAPTER TEN

  Arty bounced around on the back of the flatbed as it trundled its way toward the entrance to Dr. Goode’s volcano lair.

  Emmie had left him. He couldn’t quite get his head around that. Sam was the bravest person Arty knew, but Emmie … Emmie was fearless. She never had to be brave because she wasn’t really scared of anything, but Arty had just seen her turn and run back into the bushes like a smelly coward.

  And now he was heading straight into the lion’s den, all on his own, with no idea what he was going to be facing. He thought about jumping off, but the truck was moving quite quickly now, and he realized he had two choices: a) Jump off and probably die, or b) Stay on and probably die.

  They were not, he realized, great choices.

  Suddenly, there was a rustle from the bushes and a shape exploded out through the leaves.

  “Emmie!” Arty cheered, then he quickly clamped his hands over his mouth in case anyone heard him.

  With a soft, barely audible whine from its electric motor, Arty’s bike came speeding up toward the truck, Emmie bent low over the handlebars. She blinked in the cloud of dust and ash being thrown up by the truck’s wheels. Her feet pumped furiously on the pedals, doubling the speed of the motor.

  She was gaining! Arty could hardly believe it. Despite the truck’s head start, Emmie was closing fast. He held a hand out as she drew up to the back of the vehicle, but Emmie was never very good at accepting help.

  With a wobble, she put one foot on the seat, then the other. The bike slowed so it was no longer gaining, but merely keeping pace with the truck, Emmie now standing upright on the seat.

  And then she jumped, like a diver leaping off the board. She sprang through the air and landed expertly on the back of the truck just as it swept through the arched hole in the rocky mountainside.

  She slipped beneath the tarp beside Arty just as two huge metal doors slammed closed with a clang.

  “Cool electric bike,” she whispered.

  “What, you mean you knew?”

  “Of course I knew. There’s no way you could have pedaled up here without help. Besides,” she added, “it says ‘requires forty-eight AA batteries’ on the side.”

  The truck squeaked to a stop. The engine gave a final shudder as it was shut off. Emmie and Arty kept quiet as they heard the driver get out and close his door.

  They waited until they could no longer hear his footsteps before lifting the corner of the tarp and peeking out.

  The inside of the volcano looked pretty much exactly like you’d expect the inside of a volcano to look, only with lots of lights, dozens of people, and a fleet of trucks added in.

  Arty gazed in wonder at the lights. They were made up of a network of glass tubes, stretching all the way from the floor and criss-crossing across a metal ceiling overhead. Lava pumped through the tubes, casting a twinkling orange glow across the cavernlike interior.

  “Oh, that’s clever,” Arty said.

  “Yeah, don’t you just love what he’s done with the place?” Emmie said, then she slapped Arty across the back of the head and gestured to a guard who was marching back and forth in front of a door. “I’m going to go knock him out,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “So I can steal his uniform and disguise myself,” she explained. “Then we can find someone else, knock them out, too, steal their uniform, and—”

  “Or we could just wear these,” Arty suggested. He held up two overalls that had been bundled up beside him.

  “Or we could just do that,” conceded Emmie, even though she had been looking forward to knocking someone out.

  They quickly pulled the overalls on and Arty spent the next minute or so moaning that the material was a bit rough for his delicate skin. Emmie then spent the following minute explaining exactly what she was going to do to him if he didn’t stop complaining.

  Arty stopped complaining.

  They made their way across the cavern toward the door with the guard. It’s always a safe bet that the key to defeating the villain will be behind the guarded door rather than, say, on a well-lit pedestal with STEAL ME printed on it in shiny letters.

  All around them, other people in overalls hauled tools and metal into the backs of the waiting trucks. They moved in the now-familiar robotic way, arms jerking, legs shuffling as if they’d wet themselves.

  “Act brainwashed,” Emmie whispered. She and Arty shuffled their way toward the door. The guard barely even glanced their way as they approached and pushed on through.

  Closing the door, they found themselves in a long and winding corridor hewn from the rock. Doors and windows lined both walls, and as they crept along they stole fleeting peeks inside.

  The first room was set up like a science lab. It was exactly what Arty had always hoped a mad scientist’s laboratory would look like. He pressed his face against the glass and gazed longingly inside.

  Test tubes bubbled with glowing green liquids, pink goo glooped along lengths of coiled plastic piping, and one of those electric things that sits in the corner and goes fzzzzzt sat in the corner and went fzzzzzt.

  “Now,” said Arty, before Emmie dragged him away.

  The other rooms were similarly full of weird and (to Arty, anyway) wonderful stuff. In one room there was a big glass tube containing a chicken with the head of a bear. In another there was a bit of a robot and a diagram showing how to make a kitten massive.

  Arty would have loved the chance to explore properly, but they had a
job to do, even if they weren’t entirely sure what that job was.

  “What are we even looking for?” Emmie asked.

  “Some way to stop Doctor Goode,” Arty guessed. “You know—gadgets and stuff.”

  They stopped at another door. The words GADGETS AND STUFF were printed on the nameplate. “They must be in here,” said Arty, in what was probably the most obvious statement anyone had ever made in the history of the world ever.

  A glance through the window told them there were no baddies lurking in the room, so they hurried inside.

  They found all sorts of gizmos scattered across the room’s stainless steel tables. Arty could only guess how they all worked and exactly what they did. He picked up something that looked like a small torch and flicked it on. A blinding light hit him in the face, and he suddenly had an overwhelming desire for a cool, refreshing glass of a famous cola-based drink.

  Arty blinked and turned the device over in his hands. A small rectangular label told him it was a Subliminal Advertising Ray. He set it down again and tried to resist the urge to go swimming in a lake of fizzy cola goodness.

  “Look at these,” said Emmie. She showed Arty a pair of spectacles with swirly lenses, just like the ones Dr. Goode had worn on TV. “Think they’re important?”

  Arty nodded. “I think they might be,” he said.

  “I’m going to take them,” Emmie said, slipping them into her pocket.

  “Great plan!” agreed Arty, a little too excitedly. “Then we can go and find a drinks vending machine!”

  Emmie frowned. “What?”

  Arty gave himself a shake. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter.”

  “We should keep looking,” said Emmie. “See if there’s anything else.”

  “Good idea,” Arty agreed, but a sudden sound from behind stopped them in their tracks.

  The door to the gadget room eased open with a low creeeeeeak. Arty and Emmie spun around to find a shadowy figure silhouetted in the doorway.