Then I realized he was planning to finish the job by manually draining the rest of my brain directly into his own. But just as Professor Brain-Drain’s finger was about to touch my forehead, a strange thing happened—a taxicab came flying through the hole in the wall that the Amazing Indestructo had created. As we all turned to watch, it came screeching to a halt in the middle of the Professor’s lair. What was even odder was the fact that Stench was lying on top of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The New New Crusaders
As the Levitator stepped out of the car, it became clear how a taxicab had gotten up to the seventy-fifth floor of a skyscraper. I guessed that once Lev had raised the taxi to the proper height, Stench had used his own particular talent to propel the car through the hole in the wall. The Levitator was followed out of the cab by the Big Bouncer, Windbag, and . . .
“Dad!” I hollered. “He’s trying to drain my brain!”
“Over my dead body,” my dad growled, heading for Professor Brain-Drain, his hands already glowing bright red.
“Look out, Dad,” I warned him.
Three Deadly Dumbots came right at him. One of them dove at my father and knocked him to the ground. The other two piled on a moment later. I immediately heard one of them start to scream, and I knew Dad was laying on the heat. Thankfully, additional help was also on the way.
The Big Bouncer came crashing through, knocking two of the Dumbots off my father. Next, the Levitator grabbed both Dumbots by the ankles and hoisted them harmlessly into the air where they couldn’t reach any of us.
The remaining three Dumbots came running toward the new arrivals, but they ran into a solid blast of air from Windbag.
Now free, the members of the League of Ultimate Goodness rejoined the fight as well. Spaghetti Man grabbed an umbrella and used it to whack one of the Dumbots. Major Bummer sat down on the one who had been guarding him and began telling him all his troubles. Whistlin’ Dixie provided an exciting background fight melody. And the Crimson Creampuff, no longer being used as a kickball, was renewing some family ties.
“BB!” he shouted at the Big Bouncer. “It’s me!”
“CC?” the Big Bouncer replied. “What are you doing here, little brother?”
“I’m here to kick some bad guy butt!” he yelled. “Are you ready to help me?”
“Let’s do it,” BB answered.
With that, the Big Bouncer propelled himself into an oncoming Dumbot and sent him sailing right toward his younger brother. The Dumbot landed right in the center of the Crimson Creampuff’s ample belly and seconds later was ricocheting into the upper recesses of Brain-Drain’s lair.
“This just won’t do at all,” Professor Brain-Drain commented mildly as he watched his Deadly Dumbots being dispatched one by one. Retrieving the Oomphlifier and shoving it into his pocket, he turned back to me. “I believe it’s time to depart. And you will be coming with me.”
“Wait a minute!” a voice shouted to the Professor. It was the Tycoon. “Don’t forget your contracts. When you’ve had a chance to look them over, just sign them and send them back to me.”
The Professor grabbed the briefcase full of contracts in one hand. Then, quickly unlatching me from the Brain Capacitor, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me behind him up the central circular stairway. Dad was still fighting with a pair of Dumbots and couldn’t see what was happening.
“Up we go to the blimp.” Professor Brain-Drain cheerily hummed to himself. “Do you enjoy blimps? Of course you do. All children love blimps.”
“Let me go.” I struggled. “And, no, I don’t like blimps!”—even though I sort of did.
But I couldn’t break free of that skeletal grip that crazy old men always seem to have, and soon we were up on the catwalk that led to the moorings where the blimp awaited us. As we got closer, I saw the Multiplier in the gondola carriage.
“Lock the boy in the blimp,” said the Professor to the Multiplier, handing over me and the briefcase full of contracts. “Then come with me.”
The Multiplier did as he was told. Trapped in the blimp I watched the Professor and the Multiplier head over to a small room where I assumed the tethering mechanism was located. As they disappeared, I turned to check out the interior of the blimp. It actually looked fairly homey. In fact, it looked like an entertainment room. There was a small kitchen area, a television set, a rug, some furniture, and . . . a Ping-Pong table? Well, why not?
Maybe it was just a habit, but with nothing else to do, I instinctively walked over and turned on the TV. To my surprise, what popped onto the screen was a shot of the Professor’s lair. And it was a live shot. I could see the battle going on between the Deadly Dumbots, the League of Ultimate Goodness, and my father’s team (I couldn’t quite bring myself to call them by their awful new name just yet).
The Multiplier and Professor Brain-Drain soon reappeared. The Professor seemed a little jittery as he stepped into the gondola, but he was calm again by the time he took the controls of the blimp and began backing it away from the spire of the Vertigo Building.
Just then I heard an explosion, and a blinding flash illuminated even the darkest nooks and crannies of the spire’s interior. For a moment I thought I saw a figure in white still standing on the catwalk. The Sneak, I thought to myself. He got left behind! Ha! And then there was another burst of color. From the chords of calliope music I was hearing, my bet was that Tadpole
had gotten his hands on the Combustible Calliope and was giving it its test run.
I turned back to the screen to see if anyone would be coming to my rescue anytime soon. Things down below looked like they were just about wrapped up even amid the fireworks. Stench had grabbed the Levitator’s two Dumbots right out of the air and, knocked their heads together, leaving them unconscious. Counting the one that had been put out of commission by the Crimson Creampuff and the Big Bouncer, and the two that Major Bummer and Spaghetti Man had incapacitated, only one was still causing trouble.
Dad finally got the last Dumbot off him—the Professor Brain-Drain with hair—by pressing his hands against the mindless creature’s face and delivered a searing blast of heat. It ran off howling with a bright red handprint on each cheek. Then Dad was on his feet in under a second, calling out for me.
“OB!” I could hear him holler both on the screen and from a distance, even though the blimp was drifting away from the building at that point.
“I’m on the blmmmp,” I tried to holler back just as the Multiplier covered my mouth with his hand.
But Dad had heard me, and I could see him standing in the gaping hole in the side of the building staring back helplessly at me. I should have known he wouldn’t let that stop him though.
Desperately, he looked about the laboratory and immediately spotted the invention that Brain-Drain had called the Icarus III. Jumping aboard it he began to pedal. The wings started flapping right away and he was soon barreling toward the hole in the wall. Fortunately, the wings fell off almost immediately. If they had waited until he was out of the building it would have been bad news for Dad. On the TV, I watched him bolt over to the Levitator.
“Lev, you’ve gotta get me out to that blimp,” he implored.
“I wish I could, Thermo,” he said helplessly. “But I can only levitate things up and down. I’m not the Propellerator!”
“This guy can get you there,” Windbag said huffily, pointing at the Amazing Indestructo.
I could see that AI wasn’t sobbing anymore, but he still looked beaten down. Tentatively, he glanced up as all four members of the New New Crusaders stepped up to him. Okay, so I said it. But it’s still a stupid name for a team.
“What about it, AI?” said the Big Bouncer. “Thermo’s son is on that blimp and you’re the only one who can get Thermo over to it.”
“You didn’t help us fight,” pointed out the Levitator, “so here’s your chance to make up for it.”
The Amazing Indestructo looked pathetically from one to the other.
; “It’s no use,” he wailed. “I’m a failure as a hero and as a human being.”
“That may be true—” Windbag started to say, but he was interrupted.
“You fellers jes need ta know the right sorta things to say,” Whistlin’ Dixie said as she barged her way into the conversation. “And a course how ta say ’em.”
Taking a deep breath, and pulling her spangly rodeo gloves on tight, Dixie went to work.
“Oh, you big handsome feller you.” She batted her eyes. “Ah hear yer the most powerfulest hero thar ever dern was.”
Sure enough, AI looked up and his eyes were no longer teary—but focused on the damsel in distress. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, still a little weakly. “That is what they say.”
“Then only you can help lil’ ole me,” she said, pouring it on. “Will ya?”
“Of course,” he said a little more firmly as he once again got to his feet.
“Ya done such a darlin’ job moppin’ up all these nasty criminals here.” She waved her hand across the field of victory that AI had had no part in.
“Well, ma’am, that is my job.” A corner of his mouth rose in a rakish smile as he surveyed the wreckage.
“Well, thar’s a lil’ buckaroo who still needs rescuin’, and someone has to take that tyke’s poor papa out thar and help him save the boy.”
“A perfect job for the Amazing Indestructo,” he boasted, apparently fully back to his normal superior self. “Let’s go!”
Windbag and the Levitator, standing on either side of Dixie, gaped in amazement.
“They don’t keep me aroun’ jes fer ma whistlin’,” she said, giving them a wink.
Most important, the Amazing Indestructo started up his rocket pack and grabbed my dad from behind, hooking his elbows beneath his arms. As the fires from the rocket pack built up to a roar, the two heroes blasted off toward me and the blimp.
“Let’s go save your boy!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The Price of Popularity
They were coming to rescue me! Now I just had to keep the Professor distracted until they got here . . . hopefully before he remembered to drain my brain.
Professor Brain-Drain set the blimp on autopilot, got up from the controls, and came back to find the Multiplier. I stayed carefully out of the way.
“There you are,” Brain-Drain said in exasperation when he found the Multiplier sitting on the edge of the Ping-Pong table, smugly bouncing one of the balls with a paddle. “Are you ready to do your job at last?”
An evil-looking leer spread across the Multiplier’s face as he withdrew the fully-charged Oomphlifier from a pocket in his costume.
“Now you’ll see my power unleashed,” he sneered at me.
“No,” the Professor corrected him, “it’s my power. I just happen to be lending it to you for my own purposes.”
Professor Brain-Drain strolled to the back of the blimp and pulled open a hatch in the floor. A huge empty cargo area was situated below.
“Your job,” the Professor continued, “is to fill this cargo bay with my collector card. It should hold about two million of them. You have ten minutes. I want to drop this first load over Lava Park.”
The Multiplier removed the original card from a pocket in his costume. Touching it just briefly, he handed it over to the Professor, who slipped it into his lab coat. Then the Multiplier extended his arms, spread out the fingers of both hands . . . and concentrated. In less than a second Professor Brain-Drain cards started shooting from his hands with such speed that he looked like a magician performing the world’s most spastic card trick.
“Ahhhh, ha-ha-ha-haha-ha!” He let out that incredibly annoying maniacal laugh of his. “Witness the awesome power of the— Ouch!!”
I couldn’t help it. I kicked him in the back of his knee. I think he was about to turn on me, but a sharp rebuke from the Professor stopped him.
“Keep making the cards,” he commanded. “I’ll
take care of this one.”
With that, Professor Brain-Drain dragged me toward the front of the blimp. I was sure this was it for my brain. How to distract him? I spotted the briefcase filled with the Tycoon’s contracts for a whole new line of Brain-Drain products.
“No kid in Superopolis is going to want any stupid Professor Brain-Drain merchandise,” I blurted out.
“You wound me, son,” said Professor Brain-Drain, looking genuinely upset. “Why would you say such a hurtful thing?”
“It’s true,” I pressed. “And it’s your own fault. Yesterday, before you started creating these duplicates, every kid I know was talking about you. You were even more popular than the Amazing Indestructo. Kids were offering to trade thirty-two AI cards for just one of yours.”
“Were they really?” Brain-Drain asked, his face brightening. “I always hoped that children would someday recognize my appeal. I must admit that it’s nice to be loved—even by those one is planning to destroy.”
“Well, thanks to you, that love only lasted about twenty-four hours,” I informed him. “As soon as you sent the Sneak around this morning to sell the Multiplier’s first duplicates the situation began to change. When kids found out your card wasn’t rare anymore, your popularity dropped as fast as AI’s self-respect.”
“But I never sent the Sneak out to sell the cards,” said the Professor. “My plan was merely to destroy all Superopolis with them.”
“I guess he decided on his own that there was some money to be made,” I concluded. “While following me and my friends, he must have figured out what those cards could be worth and decided to make some extra money on the side.”
“Sneak!!” Professor Brain-Drain hollered, looking around the blimp’s control room. As I had suspected, there was no sign of him. The Sneak had snuck off.
“He probably slipped away in all the confusion before we even got on the blimp,” I said. “And now your short-lived popularity has been ruined.”
“Yes, that’s probably true,” he agreed wistfully. “But tell me again, were children really more interested in me than in the idiotic Indestructo?”
“Yes,” I said, “but you’ll never be able to regain their affections if you bury them under trillions of cards. And now that I think about it, why are you making licensing arrangements anyway if you’re planning on destroying the entire city?”
“They’re both valid forms of self-promotion,” he responded, “and if one doesn’t work, hopefully the other will. A true genius never puts all his potato chips in one bowl. The truth is I have several fiendish plots that have been brewing for decades. I haven’t moved forward with most of them because they don’t provide a challenge. As you yourself have come to realize, the Amazing Indestructo is a buffoon. Outwitting him is about as difficult as cheating at solitaire.”
Then he looked directly at me, his head tilting slightly, and a shiver ran down my spine.
“Without a worthy opponent, the thrill of destruction just isn’t the same.”
Even as he spoke, I could tell his mind was shifting gears. And I couldn’t help but get a creepy feeling that what it was shifting to was—me. I began to back away.
“Speaking of destruction,” he said. He was now
looking at me the way a starving man looks at a pot roast. “As helpful as it is as a storage device, you know I don’t need the Brain Capacitor in order to drain someone of their intelligence. The old-fashioned method works just fine.”
Raising his left arm, he pointed his index finger at me and advanced to within an inch of my forehead.
“It almost seems a shame,” he said sadly. “Given time, you might have developed into a truly interesting adversary.”
As his finger came in contact with my forehead, the last thing I heard was my own sharp intake of breath. Then everything exploded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Thermo to the Rescue
I opened my eyes and saw chaos. The Amazing Indestructo was holding Professor Brain-Drain up in the air with one arm, whil
e an even greater superhero was rushing toward me.
“Dad!” I cried out in relief as I ran and threw my arms around him.
“Take it easy, hero,” he said. “I’m here, and everything is going to be fine.”
“Don’t let Professor Brain-Drain say too much to AI,” I warned my father. “He might turn him into a whimpering wreck again.”
But apparently, the Amazing Indestructo had pulled himself together enough to finally lash back at his archenemy.
“You’re in default of our agreement!” he hollered.
It wasn’t exactly the heroic challenge I would have hoped for, but it seemed pretty typical for the AI I’d so recently come to know and disrespect.
“You know our contract says you cannot interfere with the production and distribution of any Indestructo Industries merchandise,” AI said indignantly. He motioned toward the Multiplier at the back of the blimp. “Your unauthorized copying of these collector cards obviously violates our deal.”
“Yes, a deal that ends quite soon.” The Professor chuckled. “Perhaps you thought that by only manufacturing three copies of my card, you would make it seem like I was losing popularity, and thus I’d be in a weaker position to renegotiate.”
From the guilty-looking expression on the Amazing Indestructo’s face, I could tell that the Professor had hit it right on the head. This whole collector card crisis was just because AI wanted to be in a better position to renew a contract with Professor Brain-Drain. From the look on my dad’s face, I could tell he was appalled as well.
“Maybe what you need is a new archenemy,” the Professor said. “I’m sure someone like the Human Jellyfish would be available to take my place. Good luck with that! Meanwhile, I’ll continue with my own plan to reestablish my fiendish reputation with the good people of Superopolis.”
The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book 1: The Hero Revealed Page 15