And then I had a sudden and overwhelming need to eat a grilled cheese sandwich.
Supervillain Team-Up
“I’m not paying you to sit here and play Space Invaders all day,” said a faraway voice.
Blearily, I opened my eyes to see Christopher Talbot standing over me.
“Just to be clear,” he went on, “I’m not paying you, but if I were, then it wouldn’t be to play computer games. Well, what have you to say for yourself?”
“I’m not in an evil giraffe dimension,” I mumbled.
He folded his arms. “OK, one out of ten for sense, but I’ll give you the full ten for weirdness.”
I was still woozy from the teleportation, but I could see that I’d made it back to Crystal Comics. There wasn’t much time—the aliens would be right behind me. I had to explain everything to Christopher Talbot and warn Zack without delay.
Too late. A green glow enveloped the Xbox, and a swirl of atoms appeared in the beam.
They were coming.
“You know anything about this?” said Christopher Talbot, poking an investigative finger at the beam.
“Don’t!” I cried, reaching for my alien remote. It wasn’t there. In the chaos of the escape I must have left it behind. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
Before I could move, the atoms took the shape of a tracksuited sue-dunham. She stepped from the beam onto the floor of the comic book store. Immediately, she was followed by another. Behind them I could see a third forming. Instead of the usual light-blue tracksuit, each wore a matte black version, and their silver whistles were smudged with camouflage paint to reduce reflections. Just as I’d expected: the Overlord had sent a squad of Special Forces gym teachers to hunt me down.
Christopher Talbot threw me a questioning look.
“I was on an alien spaceship, and I may, accidentally, have brought about the end of the world. I didn’t mean to,” I added hurriedly.
He shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.”
The sue-dunham commandos raised their remote controls.
Christopher Talbot gave a reluctant sigh. “I was saving this. But desperate times . . .”
He thrust out a hand and flared his fingers.
There was a howl, like a hurricane and a tornado having a fight, and the aliens sailed toward the back wall of the store. With a succession of thuds they slid to the floor, stunned but alive. One of them vanished in a cloud of glowing particles. I think she must have been damaged, and some automatic recovery system had beamed her back to the mother ship. That left two.
I knew instantly what had happened. “You lied to me,” I stuttered, turning an accusing stare on Christopher Talbot. “The asteroid. It did give you superpowers.”
He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Of course it did. Some kind of energy field. My theory is that Nemesis had a nickel-iron core—y’know, the stuff they used to make rechargeable batteries from. And somehow the power was transferred to me.” He studied his hands. “I’m thinking of calling myself the Energizer.”
It was a terrible name, but at that moment I didn’t care. The sue-dunham were already getting to their feet. “Can you do it again?” I asked.
“Takes about an hour to recharge,” he said, running for the door. Fleetingly, I registered that he wasn’t using his cane anymore. He paused in the doorway. “Well, don’t just stand there. Move it! I can’t have those aliens blasting you to atoms. Not before I’ve had my chance to blast you.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Yes,” he said grimly. “Until they’re defeated, looks like we’re on the same team.”
I scrambled after him, and we raced out onto Main Street. Christopher Talbot was a whirl of pumping arms and legs. I struggled to keep up. He hurdled a line of kindergartners. “But just to be clear, Luke, the first chance I get, I’m going to double-cross you and take my revenge on you and your annoying brother.”
At least I knew where I stood. He dashed across the road to the angry honks of passing cars.
“But you always said you wanted to be a superhero,” I said, catching up with him once again.
“That dream is over,” he said, clipping the elbow of a charity collector and knocking the money can out of his hand. “And I have you to thank for putting me on my true evil path.”
Me?
“As you so ably pointed out during our epic confrontation in my former volcano lair, I am a much better villain than a hero.”
I felt a sudden and terrible weight on my shoulders. I was responsible for giving the aliens the key to taking over Earth, and I had turned Christopher Talbot to the dark side. And it wasn’t even lunchtime.
“In here,” he cried.
We ducked into Marshalls, and he made directly for a rack of clothes in the clearance section.
“So, what exactly are we dealing with?” he asked, flicking through an assortment of jackets and cardigans.
“A squad of alien shock troops, sent in advance of the main invasion by an evil overlord on a cloaked mother ship disguised as an ordinary junior high school in geosynchronous orbit above the highway at the corner of Brewery Road. And it’s all part of an intergalactic reality TV show.”
“OK.”
I’d been counting on him catching on quickly, but I was still surprised at how well he took the news. “So you believe me?”
“I’ve just been assaulted by cloned gym teachers who materialized out of an Xbox. Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind.” He thrust a cardigan at me. “Here, put this on.”
“For a disguise?”
“No, because the blue brings out your eyes.”
I pulled on the cardigan as he slipped into a tweed jacket. Finally, he handed me a stripy wool hat with a pom-pom on top. Normally, I wouldn’t wear anything with a pom-pom, but these weren’t normal circumstances. I had a horrible thought. If he was willing to team up with me, then . . . “You’re not going to do some sort of supervillain deal with the aliens, are you?”
“Well, I wasn’t,” he said. “But now that you mention it—”
“No! I didn’t mean—”
“Yes,” he mused. “Once they’ve taken over the world with my help, they’re sure to reward me. Perhaps I’ll ask for Bavaria. I’ve always had a weakness for zwetschgenkuchen. It’s a short-crust pie covered with pitted zwetschge.” He gave me a withering look. “Oh, come on, Luke, what do you take me for? Team up with alien invaders—when has that ever worked out for the villain?”
He was right. I’d never read a single comic in which alien invaders stuck to their promises.
We joined a line to pay for the new clothes. “And anyway, I’m not the one who gave the Martians the nuclear codes, or whatever it was you did up there.” He paused. “What exactly did you do up there?”
I fiddled guiltily with my pom-pom. Swiftly, I explained the situation with the Cara-borg sent to distract Star Guy. Just as I finished, there was the screech of a whistle from behind the new season’s monochrome checkered jackets. One of the sue-dunham commandos had found us.
“Let’s get out of here!” I yelled, but Christopher Talbot had already gone. We hadn’t been a team for long, but I’d already noticed that at the first sniff of danger, he didn’t exactly hang around.
“We need to find your brother before that robot girl gets her lips on him,” he said as we burst through the door back onto Main Street.
“I know where he’ll be,” I said. I glanced back to see a security guard tackle the sue-dunham in a tassel-print wrap dress that she hadn’t paid for. That would buy us some time.
It didn’t take long to reach our destination. The slab-sided battleship that was the Central Library reared up before us.
We dashed inside to begin our search for Zack. “He’s probably in the section with all the math books,” I said. “Let’s start there.�
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“Lead on, Macduff,” said Christopher Talbot with a grin.
I thought that in all the excitement he must have forgotten my name, but I didn’t correct him. He loped up the staircase, three stairs at a time, fizzing with energy and happier than I’d seen him since he’d stepped into his Mark Fourteen Super Suit, ready to do battle with Nemesis. A dose of danger and the prospect of revenge had made him perkier than a pig with a jetpack. I was glad, at least for now. I needed all the help I could get if I was going to stop the aliens.
Zack wasn’t among the math books. As we continued to the next floor, the sheer scale of our challenge struck me. Zack had been obsessed with Cara since the day she’d moved onto our street. The robot was a flawless copy of my brother’s dream girl, programmed to love him. As far as he knew, she was Cara. This wasn’t Mission: Impossible; it was harder than that.
If I was going to save the world, I had to stop Zack from kissing Cara.
Shh!
We reached the next floor and swung through the doors into the silent room beyond. A librarian in a purple dress and big boots rolled a squeaky cart loaded with books across the floor. I spotted Zack immediately—he was the only other person in the place. He sat at a table under a window, his back toward me. I was about to call out to him, but before I could open my mouth, a long shadow fell across the library floor. There was a whisper of tracksuited legs as one of the sue-dunham Special Forces burst through the door with an earsplitting shriek from her whistle.
“Shh,” hushed the librarian.
The sue-dunham aimed her remote control at us and fired.
I clutched my chest, fingers prodding for the expected blast hole, but I was still in one piece. She must have missed. Christopher Talbot raised his arms in surrender. For someone with superpowers, he wasn’t exactly overflowing with bravery.
While she held him in her cold gym teacher’s gaze, I seized my chance. Bolting across the room, I had one thought: to warn Zack. Approaching his table by the window, I saw that he was plugged into his phone, and I remembered that he liked to listen to podcasts about famous mathematicians while he studied. I tugged out his earbuds and he spun around in surprise.
“Luke,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a beanbag in the shape of a dragon sail across the library, as the sue-dunham commando chased Christopher Talbot through the children’s section. And in turn they were both pursued by the librarian.
“There’s an alien fleet poised to invade Earth, and you’re being hunted by a robot that looks like Cara” was what I tried to tell Zack, but what came out was . . .
Silence.
I tried to speak again, but the only sound was the flapping of my lips.
With horror I realized what must have happened. The sue-dunham hadn’t missed her target at all. Her remote control had been set to MUTE.
I was about to contact Zack telepathically when I remembered he’d blocked me. I raged in silence.
With a huff of impatience Zack turned his back on me and returned to his studying, just as Christopher Talbot wheeled by, riding atop the librarian’s cart, hurling books off the back of it at the pursuing commando.
Zack didn’t see a thing. I tugged urgently at his sleeve.
“Luke, what is wrong with you?”
With no other way to communicate, I’d have to write down what was going on. I searched his desk in vain—there was never a uni-ball Gelstick when you needed one. I thought fast. There was one man who could help me—and I knew exactly where to find him. Grabbing hold of Zack’s sleeve, I hauled him deeper into the leather-bound quiet of the library.
“Hey, get off!” he yelled, but I wouldn’t let go. As we sped past lines of neatly stacked books, I scanned the spines for their authors. Vance . . . Verne . . . Vonnegut . . . Almost there. The next row. Got it! The author’s name shone from the book like a lighthouse in a storm—on Mars.
H. G. Wells.
I plucked the slim volume from its shelf and thrust it into my brother’s hands. He read the title with a puzzled frown.
“The War of the Worlds?”
In the absence of a book titled We’re Being Invaded by Aliens and Your Next-Door Neighbor Is an Evil Robot, this would have to do.
“You want me to read it?” he asked. I nodded furiously. “I don’t have time for this. I have my first exam in”—he checked his watch—“less than twenty-three months.” I flipped the book open and jammed it into his face. When I was little my dad had read War of the Worlds to me as a bedtime story. Since it had left me with nightmares about heat rays and choking red weed, I remembered every word. I stabbed a finger halfway down the first page.
“OK, OK, if it means so much to you.” He cleared his throat and began. “Yet, across the gulf of space . . . intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.” He looked up. “So what?”
Gah! How difficult was it to deduce a full-blown alien invasion from a line out of a groundbreaking nineteenth-century science-fiction novel? And he was supposed to be the smart one.
“Hey, isn’t that Miss Dunham?” said Zack.
The alien look-alike stood at the end of the aisle. Luckily, she hadn’t yet spotted us.
“She wants me on track, y’know.” Zack preened. “I wasn’t going to bother, but then I found out that Cara’s on the girls’ team.” He made a strange gurgling sound in his throat, and before I could stop him he had raised a hand and was waving to attract her attention. “Hey, Miss Dun—oof!”
I bundled him to the floor and clamped a hand over his mouth. He continued to complain in a muffled voice. I ventured a glance over my shoulder. The sue-dunham’s terrible blank eyes met mine. I found myself staring straight down the business end of her remote control. No way she would miss. What would it be this time? Heat ray? Shrink ray? I braced myself.
Suddenly, there was a mighty shushing noise like a great gust in a forest, and the commando was swatted aside by a purple blur. It was the librarian. She hurled herself at the alien, and the two of them crashed into the Travel and Tourism section. The bookcase wobbled and, creaking under the weight of all those atlases, fell on top of the struggling duo. When the dust settled, the librarian arose triumphant. All that was visible of the alien were her sneakered feet poking out, like the Wicked Witch of the East squished beneath Dorothy’s house. There was a faint crackle, and then the alien’s automatic recovery system activated and she vanished in a cloud of glimmering particles—the same thing that had happened to her compatriot in Crystal Comics. With a thud the bookshelf fell the last few inches to the floor. Two down. That left one more commando out there. Somewhere.
Pinned beneath me, Zack hadn’t seen a thing. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said sharply. I felt myself rise into the air. He was using his superpowers on me! Once clear, he leaped up, brushed himself off, and struck off down the aisle, leaving me hovering at eye level with the dusty top of the bookcase, shouting mute warnings after him. From my position I could see all the way to the door, where Lara now entered. Perhaps I’d have better luck explaining the emergency to her.
I felt the telekinetic strings vanish, and thumped to the ground with a silent ouch. Picking myself up, I hobbled out from between the stacks to find Zack at his reading table. Lara stood next to him, her head half-buried in a paper bag.
“They didn’t have tuna, so I got you chicken salad.” She dug into the bag. “Hey, Luke,” she said, noticing me. “What are you doing here?”
“Forget about him,” said Zack, jumping up and clutching his head. He squeezed his eyes shut as he concentrated. “My Star Screen is picking up a disturbance. I’m getting a strong visual. The mall. People running and screaming. Lots of frightened faces.” His eyes flicked open. “Cara.”
“My sister’s in danger?” Lara droppe
d the sandwich bag and snatched up the gym bag containing her costume. “What are we waiting for?”
I shook my head. “It’s not her,” I shouted in vain. “It’s a trap.” I stepped in front of Zack, blocking his path.
“Luke, what are you doing? Cara needs me.” He blushed. “I mean, she needs Star Guy.”
He pushed me aside and they dashed for the door. I set off after them, knowing I could never keep up with the superpowered duo. I was halfway to the exit when I heard Christopher Talbot’s voice boom across the library, and abruptly fall silent.
“Give that device to me; its technology is way beyond your meager understand—”
Click.
I rounded Geography, bolted past Warfare, and skidded to a stop in front of Body and Mind. There stood Christopher Talbot and the purple librarian, wrestling each other for the alien’s remote control. So far, it was a one-sided contest. The librarian must have seized it when she took care of the alien commando. I was impressed. I made a mental note never again to be late returning a book.
Click.
“I warn you, madam,” said Christopher Talbot. “If you do not relinquish that alien artifact, I shall have no option but to—”
Click.
As amusing as it was to watch Christopher Talbot turn mauve with anger, there wasn’t time to let it continue. I snatched the device from her eager fingers and ran for the door. Christopher Talbot caught up with me in a few bounds. Two clicks later, we had our voices back. As we pounded downstairs, I filled him in on what happened with Zack.
“They think they’re rushing off to perform a heroic rescue,” I explained as we raced out of the library and back onto the street. “But they’re about to walk right into the middle of an alien cyborg kissing ambush.”
My Gym Teacher Is an Alien Overlord Page 9