by Lee Bacon
I looked past Milton, my eyes landing on my closed garage door. And that’s when it hit me.
“Milton, it’s your lucky day,” I said.
21
Hover vehicles are subject to intense government regulation. They also get horrible gas mileage. You should use them only when it’s absolutely necessary.
My parents kept their hover scooters in the corner of the garage. Even after Mom’s scooter had been blasted to smithereens during their attempt to flood the earth, they still had three older models that we could use. Luckily, I’d played around on their scooters enough over the years to know how to operate them.
With my feet planted against the metal board at the bottom, I flipped the On/Off switch. The hover scooter shivered as the engine began to hum. I gripped the handles and pulled upward very gently. The scooter lifted off the ground. Leaning forward on the handlebar caused the scooter to float forward. Pulling it backward put it into reverse.
After giving a few more tips to Sophie and Milton, we found bike helmets and began to practice in the backyard.
Sophie figured it out right away. Within minutes, she was hovering across the yard. Soon she was accelerating her scooter from one side of the yard to the other.
Milton took a little longer.
“Make sure you pull up gently,” I said.
“Gently,” Milton said. “Got it.”
Milton concentrated on the handlebars.
“Is it doing anything?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“What about now? Am I flying?”
“No, you’re still on the ground.”
“Are you sure?”
“Maybe you’re being a little too gentle. Try pulling up a bit harder.”
Milton yanked upward on the handle. All of a sudden, the scooter burst fifty feet into the air. He screamed, hugging the handlebars close to his chest as he shot into the sky like a Milton-sized bottle rocket.
“Too hard!” I called up to him.
“You think so?” he screamed. “How do I get down?”
“Just push down on the handle—very softly. And be careful that you don’t—”
Before I could finish, the scooter performed several front flips. It would’ve actually been a kind of impressive maneuver if he hadn’t been screaming in a high-pitched wail the entire time.
“Milton!” I called. “Be careful not to twist the handles.”
But by this time, he’d lost control completely. A few seconds later, he was circling the yard upside down, hanging from the handlebars. He twisted and spun in the air, narrowly avoiding the roof. He finally came to a stop when he got snagged in the branches of a tree.
After a few more practice rounds, Milton got the hang of it. He hopped from foot to foot, gazing at his scooter proudly. “It’s like a real adventure! And you know what every good adventure needs, right?”
I shook my head.
“Snacks! If you let me borrow your backpack, I’ll get everything we need.”
“Fine.” I went inside and grabbed my backpack. As I handed it over to Milton, I reminded him, “Just essential items.”
Milton came back a few minutes later. The backpack was stuffed full of Dr Pepper, potato chips, and Justice Jerky.
I entered the coordinates into the VexaCorp navigator that was built into the front panel display of my scooter. A map showed up on the LCD screen, displaying the route to Carrolshire.
“Ready?” I said, glancing at Sophie and Milton.
“Ready,” they said at the same time.
We boarded our scooters and launched into the air.
If you’ve never traveled long distance by hover scooter before, I recommend it. The wind blasted my face as the landscape of country roads and fields drifted beneath us. I swallowed a few bugs along the way, but otherwise it was great.
After we’d been in the air for a few hours, the GPS system showed us nearing our destination. Up ahead I spotted the shape of a lone building on the horizon.
“I think that’s where we’re headed,” I called out.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones in the air.” Milton pointed at a cluster of birds flying above the building. There were at least a dozen of them, circling the building in a tight formation. As if they were guarding the place.
My grip tightened on the scooter’s handlebars. The birds were about the size of crows, but they didn’t look like any crows I’d ever seen. Their beaks and legs were silver. They had jet-black bodies that reflected the sunlight as they cut through the air.
As we got closer, the birds stopped patrolling the air around the building and instead began flying in our direction.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this!” I yelled.
“M-maybe they’re just migrating south for the winter,” Milton said. But I could tell from his shaking voice that he didn’t believe it.
“We’re too vulnerable up here,” Sophie called. “We need to get onto solid ground.”
We steered our scooters downward, bringing them to rest on a vacant field. I was still holding on to a scrap of hope that the birds would pass over us. But by the looks of it, they had other plans. I squinted into the sky, fear darkening my thoughts. The birds were descending on us like fighter jets.
Their shadows surrounded us. A split second later, the birds were everywhere.
Sophie, Milton, and I went running in different directions, trailed closely by swarms of birds. Shielding my face with one arm, I swung with the other, making contact with a bird that was trying to dive-bomb my head—
CLANG!
Pain erupted in my hand. It felt like I’d just slammed my knuckles against a steel pipe. Their beaks were silver and sharp as daggers. Their bodies were covered in smooth, black metal. I could hear the electronic whir of their wings.
These weren’t birds. They were machines.
“Why do robots seem to attack me every time I hang out with you guys?” Milton screamed, ducking out of the way of a kamikaze bird.
A metallic clack rang out as I knocked another bird into the dirt. But there were plenty more where that had come from, flapping around me from all sides. If it hadn’t been for my bike helmet, my head would’ve looked like Swiss cheese.
Focus! I told myself—not the easiest thing to do when a flock of mechanical crows was trying to peck my eyes out. I thought back on all the practice I’d had over the last few weeks—setting twigs on fire and heating up snacks after school. This wasn’t all that different, right? Just think of the birds like big Hot Pockets with wings. Hot Pockets that were trying to eat me instead of the other way around.
I swung my arm, and a surge of energy pulsed through my veins. The birds were consumed in an explosion that knocked me onto my back. A wave of heat pushed past me. And a smell. The smell of short-circuited wires.
The charred remains of robot birds were scattered around me. Dismantled wings and wires, broken legs still twitching.
Nearby, Sophie was back in full glowing mode. She ripped one bird out of the air and chopped another in half with the side of her hand. A third was dismantled with a single kick.
“Guys!” Milton screamed from behind us. “A little help!”
Shiny metallic birds flapped all around him. He struck out at one, spun around, and then lost his balance and fell to the ground. The birds swept down on him in an instant.
Sophie was already running. When she reached Milton, she punched one of the birds into oblivion. Scrap metal flew everywhere. She chopped a second bird to the ground just as I arrived.
I grabbed a bird out of the air just before it could plunge its silver beak into Milton’s throat. Another throb of energy passed through me, and the thing exploded into a thousand pieces.
Once we’d finished off the last of the birds, an eerie silence settled over the field. The sounds of clanking metal and flapping mechanical wings were suddenly gone. Now I could only hear my own heavy breathing.
Milton rose onto one elbow, brushing pieces of grass and bi
rd parts off his clothes. “These robots really hate you guys, huh?”
“I guess you could say that.” Sophie picked up a part of one of the birds—a midsection with only one wing attached to it. A familiar logo was etched into the smooth, black surface.
Z
Guard Bird™
“What do you think they were guarding?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Milton shrugged. “But whatever it is, it’s inside there.”
He cast a nervous glance toward the building in the distance. It was a grim old structure that looked like it had been abandoned years ago. Tangled vines clung to the gray walls; boards were nailed across the windows.
Leaving our hover scooters in the tall grass, we approached the building. Getting closer, I spotted a faded sign outside that read:
OCEAN VIEW HOT L
“What kind of a name is that?” Milton asked. “I don’t even see any ocean.”
“And there isn’t much of a view either,” I added, surveying the dreary fields all around.
The only sign that anyone had visited the hotel in the past decade was the brand-new red convertible parked in the overgrown dirt road out front. The license plate read:
JUSTICE
Turning to Sophie, I saw that she was still holding the bird fragment in one hand. Her eyes moved from the car to the Z logo engraved into the bird’s midsection.
“How could my dad be doing this?” she whispered.
I didn’t know how to respond, and I doubted Sophie was waiting for an answer anyway. She threw the bird at the ground with so much force that the remaining wing broke off. Then she stomped up the shaky steps leading to the front door of the hotel. When she turned the rusted knob, the door creaked open.
Hesitating on the doorstep, the three of us peered into the dark interior. Then we stepped inside.
22
You can’t always rely on your Gyft alone.
Sometimes you’ll need skill, talent—and luck.
The inside of the hotel was even crummier than the outside.
Near the front door, a stairway twisted upward into the shadows. At the bottom of the stairs, two rusty iron gargoyles leered in our general direction. Dreary curtains covered the lobby windows. Everything was shrouded in darkness. There was no sign of Captain Justice, or anyone else.
We were alone.
The floorboards groaned beneath our feet as we passed a long reception desk. But like everything else, it was vacant.
At the far end of the lobby was an open corridor. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I noticed a dark shape moving across the open space. But when I looked, there was nothing except faded carpeting and peeling wallpaper.
“Are you sure we should be here?” Milton asked. “Maybe there’s a bed-and-breakfast somewhere nearby that we should check first.”
“My dad’s here,” Sophie said. “We just need to find him.”
We pushed open a door that led into a vast room with dirty tiled walls. In the center of the room, the floor dropped away, revealing an empty pit. The hollow space was surrounded by plastic lounge chairs.
“It’s the indoor swimming pool,” Sophie said. “They drained out all the water.”
There may not have been any water, but the pool wasn’t empty. At the bottom was a pile of supervillain uniforms and accessories. I recognized the cape and spear that had once belonged to the Abominator. The big armor-plated gloves of Tesla the Terrible.
And then my heart clenched as I noticed a pair of my dad’s customized goggles at the top of the heap. Nearby was a green and black bundle of spandex and body armor that could only be my mom’s.
“My parents,” I whispered. “They’re here. Or at least, they were.”
I stared down into the drained pool. A shadow shifted across my thoughts.
“Why is all this stuff just piled in here like this?” I asked. “You don’t think my parents have been—”
“No,” Sophie said. She must’ve known what I’d been about to say. “My dad wouldn’t do that.”
“What about the smoke creatures and the Firebottomed Rompers your dad’s controlling?” I said. “What about all the other secrets your dad’s keeping from you?”
Sophie shot an angry glance my way. But I felt too full of fear and anger to keep my mouth shut.
“Maybe your dad isn’t who you think he is,” I said.
Sophie’s hands were curled into trembling fists.
“Hey, come on,” Milton said in a fake cheerful tone. “We don’t know what happened here. I’m sure your parents are fine.” He patted me on the back. “They probably just took off their clothes so they could go skinny-dipping.”
The thought of a hundred supervillains skinny-dipping together didn’t cheer me up (especially since my parents were part of the group). Besides, this didn’t look like the kind of place that had a Jacuzzi. There had to be another explanation for why all these clothes had been dumped here. And I knew it wasn’t good.
“Come on,” I said. “We might not have much time.”
We’d nearly reached the other end of the pool when a dark form shifted out of the shadows. A jolt of fear shot through my chest. The figure turned to gaze at us, but where its face should’ve been, there was only a featureless cloud.
A smoke creature.
It was standing in the corner, right next to a NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY sign.
I spun around to run in the direction we’d come from, but that was as far as I got. A second smoke creature was headed toward us.
“This way!” Sophie pointed to the door at the other end of the room.
Our footsteps echoed off the tiled walls as we raced along the edge of the pool, past a rack of foam noodles and kickboards that looked like they’d last been played with before I was born. The smoke creatures stalked toward us, getting steadily closer.
One of them reached out, its fingers like tendrils of smoke. I kept running, following Sophie and Milton through a narrow hallway that wove in and out of crumbling rooms and empty offices.
The dilapidated scenery of the hotel blurred all around me. Broken furniture, dusty antiques, tilted chandeliers. There was no time to figure out where we were going. The smoke creatures were trailing close behind, their dark bodies moving soundlessly in our wake.
We turned down a corridor that led into a kitchen, and ran past a refrigerator with a missing door, and a broken-down stove. Milton collided with a counter, sending a cascade of rusted pots and pans crashing to the ground.
Bursting through the door, we found ourselves in a ballroom. Like the rest of the hotel, it looked like the ruins of a place that might’ve been nice many years ago. Faded velvet curtains lined the walls. The bar in the corner looked like it had been hit by a wrecking ball.
The smoke creatures swept into the room a few seconds after us. We started toward the other end of the ballroom, but came to a halt when we saw what had just emerged from the opposite doors. Another pair of smoke creatures. There were four of them now, blocking both the exits.
We were surrounded.
“What do we do now?” Milton was staring at the approaching smoke creatures, his eyes wide with fear.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but we’ve got to think of something. Just don’t panic.”
“Too late!”
The cloudy figures were closing in on us, their smoke legs carrying them swiftly across the stained carpets.
I looked around the ramshackle ballroom, searching desperately for some kind of an escape. Then I caught sight of a boarded-up fireplace near the bar. If we could get there in time, maybe we could climb to safety.
Sophie had the same idea. She took off running toward the fireplace, and Milton and I trailed close behind. By the time she got there, the glow was radiating from her skin. She ripped the boards away like they were made of paper.
“Whoa,” she said, peering into the fireplace.
Looking over her shoulder, I saw what had caught her attention. This wasn’t an ordinary firepl
ace. It was a tunnel.
There wasn’t any time to wonder why this hotel came with a walk-in fireplace or where the tunnel led. Smoke creatures were steadily drifting toward us.
“Get inside, quick!” My voice echoed in the tunnel.
Milton was first, followed by Sophie. The smoke creatures were looming over me as I scrambled in after her.
The narrow passageway slanted steeply downward, curving so that it seemed as if we were burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth. It was dark, but fortunately Sophie was glowing like a human night-light, illuminating the stone tunnel that seemed to go on without end.
My shoes slipped over the steep rocky floor, and my arms scraped against the jagged walls, but there was no way I was slowing down.
I let out a sharp gasp when I felt something grab hold of my ankle. Falling forward suddenly, terror shot through me. Lurching sideways, I expected to see the dark shapes of smoke creatures swooping down. But the tunnel behind me was empty. No smoke creatures. Nothing.
My ankle was wedged into a hole in the ground.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, then yanked my foot free. Peering back the way we’d come, I could see the cloudy silhouettes of the smoke creatures in the mouth of the fireplace we’d entered through.
“Looks like we’re not being followed anymore,” I said.
“Why do you think they stopped?” Sophie asked.
“Maybe smoke monsters are claustrophobic.” Milton’s shaky voice echoed. “Or maybe there’s something at the end of this tunnel that even they would rather avoid.”
“Well, unless we want to go back and ask them personally, our only choice is to keep going,” Sophie said.
We continued downward, trudging at a slower pace now that we knew we weren’t being pursued. I watched the shadows bouncing off the stone walls, and listened to the sound of our footsteps echoing dully in the passageway.
Eventually we saw a pale light shining up ahead. The tunnel leveled out. We kept walking, trying to create as little noise as possible. Sophie’s Gyft must’ve been winding down, because her glow was fading. By the time we reached the end of the tunnel, her skin looked normal again.