by R M Scotford
“Who’s there?” came the voice from the trees.
Stupidly, the two children did not answer.
“Who’s there?” came the voice once again.
Douggie and Maggie glanced across at each other. Neither of the children knew what to do, so they just hid like frightened sheep.
“Ok. That’s it,” the voice yelled from up ahead.
A whistling sound and a deep thud followed. Soon the trees in which the children were hiding were being pelted with a barrage of tiny white objects.
“Incoming,” Douggie yelled as he jumped on the floor for cover.
Tiny pieces of bark fell all around them as the fast moving objects whizzed above their heads and hit the trees hard. From the safety of his bush, Douggie picked up one of the objects that had come whizzing through the trees and hit the floor; it was chalk.
Under the hail of chalk fire and flying debris, Maggie’s temper was beginning to boil. A strange feeling was rising up from her heart and her head began to pulse. Douggie glanced over at her.
“Uh oh,” he said to himself.
All around Maggie the air glowed a shiny, silver colour. Maggie threw Douggie a stern glance, which he immediately avoided by looking down onto the ground. When he finally looked up, Maggie had jumped to her feet.
“ENOUGH ALREADY!” she screamed at the top of her voice.
To Douggie, Maggie seemed to be standing about six feet tall surrounded by a shimmering silver glow. Pieces of chalk bounced off the pulsating bubble of light that encased her. Douggie looked at Maggie’s face; her eyes looked as black and as mean as a lion’s. He’d never seen anything like it and crawled further under his protective bush.
A final barrage of chalk came ripping through the spinney, slicing up the trees like jelly. Maggie’s protective energy reached its climax and her body was shaken as pulse after pulse of energy flooded out of her. As each chalk stick hit, Maggie’s determination became stronger. The final piece of calcified chalk rocketed furiously against her sending out a ripple of silver shockwaves across the spinney. The calcified bullet fell to the floor harmlessly.
But it wasn’t over. Maggie had one trick left; she thrust her arms forward and a silver ball hurtled forward, leaving Maggie behind. The ball of translucent energy engulfed everything in its path, either knocking it down or blowing it aside like paper in a storm. Up ahead, a small boy was lifted off his feet and dumped unceremoniously into the stream behind the trees followed by a shower of old soda cans, leaves and twigs. The silver energy ball continued to swathe out a path in the forest until it finally ran out of power and disappeared, leaving only sparks and a few leaves glowing silver. Maggie was not far behind; she sprinted into the small clearing.
“Really, it didn’t have to be like this, I have no idea what you’re playing at,” Maggie yelled at the top of her voice, her face bright red.
“Wherever you are, come out, and no more stupid stunts. Those pieces of chalk HURT.”
Douggie ran into the clearing of trees.
“Wow, that was pretty cool, Maggie.”
“You think so, huh?” Maggie said, flashing him a cheeky smile.
Maggie relaxed a little and called out,
“Look, kid, we need to talk to you. Let’s not fight anymore, OK?”
A faint noise came from the stream and the two children ran to investigate. It was the Chinese boy covered from head to toe in green sludge, looking like a swamp beast.
“Well, that was quite a performance,” said Maggie. “We certainly have no doubt you’re special, with some strange and painful powers.”
The small boy scratched his head and shifted on his feet uncomfortably,
“Sorry about that, you frightened me.”
“Really!” exclaimed Maggie. “Well, we know not to get on the wrong side of you now, don’t we? What’s your name anyway?”
The boy wiped the stinky sludge from his hand.
“My name’s Maximus Chan. What’s yours? And how come you have powers too?”
Douggie took Maximus’ hand and pulled him out of the stream. At that instant, an amazing thing happened, Maximus’ head was filled with intense images like he’d just plugged his brain into the Internet. He saw pictures of Maggie and Douggie, exploding televisions and a destroyed building. It all made sense and he became very excited.
“I want to explain something to you,” Maggie said sternly.
Maximus interrupted,
“I know — we’re all special, we can all do weird-stuff and, and, I can see it. Now that we’re here and together, I can see it in my mind.”
“Good,” Maggie said. “We need your help because —”
Maximus interrupted again, “You need my help to make a secret gang and contact the others. Yes, yes, I’ll help.”
Every time Maggie opened her mouth, Maximus could see what she was going to say. It was just like watching TV. Douggie began to speak,
“But the problem is —”
“You don’t know how to contact the others.” Maximus finished off the sentence again.
“Exactly,” said Maggie. “So do you have any —”
“Ideas? Of course I do. It would be simple for me to do. I can tap into the city records on my computer. Just describe the children for me and I’ll write a software program to do a search. I can find anything you want, addresses, phone numbers, emails, webpages, anything.” Maximus said proudly. It felt good to be able to use his skills to help someone.
“Good,” Maggie said, frowning.
The three children arranged to meet in Maximus’ lab loft the next day. The gang was getting bigger.
Missing or Malfunctioning?
Chief Inspector Dent looked up from the large stack of reports he was pretending to read.
“So, Hatchet, can you go over that again for me? I’m a little unclear on the main points.”
“Certainly,” Hatchet said. “It’s like this.”
Hatchet excitedly recalled his afternoon’s experience at the Kiddy-Care Centre. Dent interrupted Hatchet once more,
“So, what you’re essentially saying is that Old Hobbs the owner of Kiddy- Care is a gangster?”
“Yes, boss.”
“And the missing nursery teachers are staff members who have found out the truth and been ‘knocked off,’ or executed! Am I correct?”
“Erh, yes Boss, that’s pretty much it,” Hatchet rambled. “The Kiddy-Care Empire is enormously wealthy, far too wealthy for just childcare, the money must be coming from somewhere, and the child was a witness. He saw one of the nursery teachers ‘get it’, and, and...”
“Did you get a statement from the kid who saw this execution?” Dent asked sarcastically. “I’m presuming that the witness knows how to write, or at least speak?”
“Erh, erh. No, Boss. I came straight back to the station as soon as I knew.”
Dent rolled his eyes and sat back in his squeaky leather chair.
“Hatchet,” he sighed, “if you had a brain, you’d be dangerous.”
“Thank-you sir.”
Dent shook his head and turned his attention to the documents that were spread out before him. Without looking up, he ordered Hatchet back to the Kiddy-Care Centre.
“Oh, and Hatchet, try and get some useful statements this time, or some wax crayon drawings from the kids, or maybe some finger paintings?”
“Erh, yes Boss,” Hatchet nodded, as he left the office feeling confused.
He hadn’t realized they could use finger paintings in court.
Atop of the highest hill overlooking the town sat the Hobbs’ magnificent and imposing mansion. It was a place of great splendour, but all the luxury was completely wasted on them. Nurse Hobbs had long since grown tired of material objects. Her heart yearned only for adulation and worship. On the other hand, her reclusive husband was content with his small office in the drabbest corner of the mansion. Here he whiled away the hours consuming science journals or writing up experiments that no one else would ever read.
Grenwold tapped away on the computer, distractedly. His small office under the large oak staircase was littered with books and scraps of paper with secret formulas scribbled all over them. His mind was that of a harmless, mad genius which thrived in the world of computers, algorithms and flow charts; but in the everyday world that you and I live in he was a timid little man. Since he’d been young, he’d been constantly bullied and harassed by everyone. Only the young, sweet and kind-hearted Thora Hobbs had ever shown him any affection.
Grenwold thought back all those years ago to those pleasant days when he, as a young man, had courted the fresh-faced Thora. She was the most caring woman he’d ever met; she was full of life and energy to help anyone she could. Her spare time was filled with every sort of charity work imaginable, and her dream had been to become a nurse so she could dedicate her life to other people.
Grenwold smiled to himself when he thought about Thora’s first day at the hospital. She came home bubbling with excitement and colourful stories about how she’d assisted in her first childbirth. From that day on Thora delivered hundreds and hundreds of healthy babies and had won ’The Good Citizen of the Year Award’ on numerous occasions.
His daydream was shattered by the sound of his wife’s shrill voice echoing around the long, lonely corridors of the mansion. Things had changed. His lovely wife had become obsessed with money and power; she had lost sight of her youthful values and traded them in for a red-hot temper and a desire to be adored by everyone. Now, Thora reminded him of a demented hippopotamus that had sat on a hornet’s nest; she had completely forgotten what it was like to be happy.
It had been over ten years since Thora Hobbs had been removed from Baby Ward C and nearly seven years since they started their company Kiddy-Care. Grenwold wished he could get back to the good old days when Thora was a nurse and he was a part-time lecturer at the University with plenty of time to indulge in his favourite hobby: making models. Model planes, cars, boats, and helicopters, anything that moved. He’d loved this since he was a child. Unfortunately, those days were now gone, Grenwold hadn’t made a fun model in years. His time was consumed with making hundreds of blasted K-BOTS. Admittedly, when Thora had first come to him asking if he could make a humanoid robot, he was excited. However, there were so many design and manufacturing problems he finally admitted to himself that he couldn’t make a perfect human replica. His robots were good, but they were robotic. If you didn’t spend much time with them you wouldn’t notice they weren’t human, but they lacked any true life-like qualities. And their battery power didn’t last long enough. They conked out after a few days. The new problem with their heads exploding was a mystery to him.
He was ready to give up on the robot project, but Thora insisted he give it one last try. His final K-BOT model was easily his best attempt. It had been running for six days and performing fabulously.
But it was coming to the end of its battery life. Simply recharging the K- BOT in the evenings was not enough. It needed an entirely new battery system. Grenwold knew it would grind to a halt and that his increasingly demanding wife would be very disappointed. He prepared himself for the worst. However, when the K-BOT finally shut down, Grenwold witnessed a hideous miracle.
He expected his wife to throw another temper tantrum, but she calmly walked over to the defunct K-BOT and slowly massaged its head, as though it were a real sick person.
“Be careful, darling,” he said. “What if her head explodes in your lap? You know the problems we’ve been having at the nurseries.”
Thora ignored him. Sparks of electric current leaped from her fingers. Bright flashes danced around the lifeless K-BOT’s body and the room filled with a low, reverberating hum. Something strange and terrible was happening. The laws of science were bent and broken.
Grenwold looked on in horror. The rhythmic speed of the dancing sparks increased. Thora’s body shone like a burning nebula as wave after wave of juicy energy poured out of her hands to be guzzled down by the power hungry K- BOT. The blank eyes of the robot flickered on and off. Thora Hobbs cackled,
“I knew it. I knew it could be done. Grenwold. Grenwold fetch me another. This one’s almost ready.”
She let out a glass-breaking scream of joy. Poor Grenwold was beside himself with fear and he ran to his laboratory. It couldn’t be true.
He suspected that some unearthly force drove his wife but he never realized she could be so powerful. There was no doubting it now; he’d seen it with his own eyes. He paced up and down his office, muttering to himself,
“What to do? What to do?” His head swam.
He jumped out of his skin at the faint sound of gentle knocking on his door. Grabbing a few thick textbooks, he held them in front of his body in a lame attempt to protect himself,
“Erh, erh, come in, it’s not locked,” he said.
The door swung open with a long, drawn-out, spine-tingling creak. Grenwold was so frightened that he nearly vacated the planet. Only his scientific curiosity kept him from meeting his maker right there and then. He gawped at the hideous figure standing at the door. She was a mechanical marvel. A man-made monstrosity. Grenwold fainted and hit the floor with a thump; followed by the two heavy books he was holding—THUMP! THUMP!
The wonderful aroma of camomile tea wafted through Grenwold’s disturbed dream. He opened his eyes with a start. Above him was his wife, carefully caressing his head with a cold, damp cloth.
“My, my, Grenwold. You gave yourself a few nasty bumps on the head just now.”
He smiled up at her,
“I had a terrible dream; I dreamt that you —”
But before Grenwold could finish his sentence a K-BOT bent over and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Camomile tea sir?” she said in an overly nice human voice.
He leaped up off the tiny couch and banged his head on the hot teapot in the K-BOT’S hands. Thora pushed him back,
“Now relax, my dear husband. This is nothing to be worried about. Your robots are perfect. I love them. But they lack a certain woman’s touch; the spark of life that only a woman like me can give.”
Grenwold tried to sit up once more.
“But, but, but, but —” he mumbled.
Thora pushed her meek little husband onto the couch, this time with more force.
“Grenwold, my dearest Grenwold. I have a burning force inside me. I don’t know where it’s come from, but I have POWER.”
Her voice became deeper and more forceful,
“I need you to build me an army, Grenwold. An army to serve me; love me; adore me.”
Grenwold quivered.
And so it was, from that day on, Grenwold spent all his time making an army of robots, ten thousand strong. And his wife brought them to life with her chilling, unearthly powers.
Loft Lab
“Wow,” gasped Douggie, “this is a totally cool room, Maximus. You’ve got everything here. Your parents must be loaded.” Douggie was impressed.
Maximus smiled shyly as he looked out across the jumble of high-tech equipment that filled every corner of his loft room.
“Does all this stuff work?” Maggie asked.
“It looks more like a spaceship than a bedroom,” Douggie added. “Where do you sleep?”
Maximus pointed to his tiny bed that was hidden away in a corner,
“Don’t really have that much time to sleep,” he said.
“What do you do with all this stuff?” Maggie asked.
“The question is, what can’t I do with all this stuff?” He was feeling pleased; this was the first time that he’d ever bought any friends up to his room.
“So...what can’t you do with all this stuff?” Maggie repeated.
“I don’t know,” Maximus laughed. “Everything I’ve ever tried, I’ve completed. So I guess there’s nothing I can’t do.” He burst into giggles.
The other two frowned at each other as Maximus laughed hysterically for a good minute.
“Right then,” sai
d Maggie, interrupting the laughing marathon. “Let’s see what you can do, techno-boy.”
She pulled out a piece of paper from her jeans’ pocket.
“We made a list of everything we could remember about the other two children, plus we have a question for you: when’s your birthday Maximus?”
“January 7th,” Maximus replied.
“Just like the two of us. I thought so! We all share the same birthdays. So start your search with that. Find every kid in the area who was born on January 7th.” Maggie added excitedly.
Maximus glanced down at the descriptions of the two children Maggie had given him.
“This will be so easy,” he said, smiling.
Quick as a flash Maximus’ printer spat out the two names:
Kimiko Izumi // Abu Ismael.
Maggie grabbed the piece of paper and read out the names.
“We should message them. They both have phones according to this.”
Douggie whipped out his phone.
“Let’s do it.”
The three children huddled around the phone and read the message one last time before they pressed send:
We are three children who have special powers just like you. Please answer this message ASAP
Douggie hit the send button on his phone, and they all held their breath. Less than a minute later the phone buzzed into action making all the children jump. Maximus grabbed the phone and read the text:
Who are you and what do you want?
It was from Abu. Maggie felt her stomach tighten, the last time she’d run into this boy he’d chased her into the old warehouse. He was aggressive and powerful. His text was not friendly, and Maggie wondered if they could ever be friends. Maximus fired off another message as quickly as he could. Douggie reached across the table and tried to grab the phone from him,
“Hey Maximillian, don’t send off any messages without telling us what they say.”