Bugged Out!

by Matthew Porter

  As she crept up to the school, the buzzing of the machines got louder and louder. When they were within thirty feet or so of the pyramid barrier, the TV flickered with loud static every few seconds. It became more frequent the closer she got to the energy field.

  One of the F.E.S.P.A. men in S.W.A.T. gear ran to the reporter. “Stop right there!” he yelled. “It is unsafe here, ma’am. Please vacate the area.”

  “Just what is that thing surrounding the school?” she asked, practically shoving the microphone into his face.

  “It’s a new government-issue defense system,” he said, swatting the microphone away. “It will make sure those insects stay in and keep everyone else out. Do not touch it. That’s electricity you see shooting out of those mechanisms. If you touch it, it can be fatal.”

  “Why would you endanger people with such a device?” she asked, then shoved the microphone back into his face. There was another brief moment of static.

  He slapped it out of her hand. “We must use extreme measures to resolve the insect problem. These creatures are very dangerous. If they were to get out into the public, there is no telling what would happen. Now, the only other comment I have is this: stay away from this place until the energy field is down. Any unauthorized persons we find on the premises will be dealt with. Good day, ma’am.” He shooed her out of the schoolyard.

  “Do you think these guys could be part of the Edania Organization?” asked Abby.

  I pondered for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible. They certainly have impressive technology.”

  “Those guys were jerks,” said Kelly. “They didn’t seem to have the ethics that they do here.”

  “Not to mention at least three of them can be Freeze-Framed,” I pointed out. “People in the organization are supposed to be immune to that power.”

  Nick turned off the TV. “Well, whoever they are, we need to get back into school if we’re gonna find that Ark thingy. It’s not gonna be easy, by the look of things. I mean, I don’t really want to get electrocuted like the kid from Jurassic Park.”

  “Regardless of who they are, we have to focus on the task at hand,” I said and opened the jar. I donned a pair of examination gloves and placed the insect on the exam table. The second I did, I became light-headed and stumbled over the table. My vision became blurry as I tried to focus.

  I heard Nick’s voice. “J-Man, you—” his voice got muffled and quiet “—all right?” I felt as if I were underwater, trying to hear him. The whole room darkened, and the only thing that I could see was the dead insect. It was glowing, and I saw a red target marker surround it. Words appeared in front of me, as if my eyes were a computer screen.

  SUBJECT: GENETICALLY MODIFIED MANTIS THAT FEEDS ON CELLULAR ENERGY…SEARCHING DATA BANKS…SEARCHING DATA BANKS…SEARCHING DATA BANKS…

  The others were talking to me, but I couldn’t understand them. It was as if an invisible wall stood between me and them.

  SUBJECT IDENTIFIED. IT IS THE RESULT OF THE EXPERIMENT CODE-NAMED SHADOW MANTIS. SUBJECT IS THE NYMPH FORM. ALMOST ALL OF THE EXOSKELETON IS ESPECIALLY HARD AND DURABLE. WEAKENED AREA OF EXOSKELETON ON THE TROCHANTER.

  The target marker zoomed in on the insect’s rear leg and focused on the area where hip and femur met.

  EXPERIMENTS HAVE SHOWN WEAKNESS TO HEAT IN THIS AREA, AND IN CASES OF EXPOSURE TO FLAME, CAUSES SUBJECT TO OVERHEAT INTERNALLY AND COMBUST.

  EXPERIMENT CASE #244, TRIAL 14, DR. O. BARBAAS, CHIEF OF GENETICS, DOREN CORP. ARCHIVE 0045. DBC LABORATORY…WARNING…WARNING…USER UNKNOWN. ACTIVATING FIREWALL SECURITY…

  A sharp pain stabbed the back of my head, and I was shot back from where I was standing. I slid across the floor and hit my head on the shelf behind me. Empty beakers and test tubes fell and shattered all around me.

  My friends ran to me, and I could hear and see them clearly again.

  “What just happened, bro?” asked Nick. He grabbed my arm to help me up and glass slid off me as I stood.

  “I think my brain hacked into Doren’s data banks,” I said, rubbing my head. “I saw a file on the insects. It was like I was a computer.”

  Nick’s eyes got wide. “Dude, your brain has Wi-Fi?”

  “I suppose so,” I said, feeling like I had just been bludgeoned over the head.

  “That is so cool!” he exclaimed.

  “Not for me,” I mumbled. “My head is killing me. Anyway, I found out that these things are called shadow mantises. Someone named Dr. Barbaas engineered them.”

  “Did you get some useful information?” Kelly asked.

  “Yeah, like how to kill them without getting near them?” Abby said.

  “I was kicked off by their computer’s security, but I did read something interesting,” I said as I walked back over to the specimen.

  “What is it?” Kelly asked.

  “The file said that there is a weak point on the hind legs, right at the trochanter.” I grabbed a magnification device and examined the hind legs of the mantis. The area was discolored and appeared to be less protected. I poked at it with a probe. It was much softer tissue than the rest of the exoskeleton.

  “See? Right here” I said, keeping the probe pointed at the joint. “According to the report, it is especially vulnerable to heat. So, if we apply a flame to this area…”

  Nick slapped his chest. “I gotcha, J-Man. I’ll light the sucker up.” He tried to make a fireball, but I slapped his hand. “Hey!” he said. “I’m just trying to help out.”

  “We don’t want to burn the laboratory down, do we?” I said, feeling protective of it. “I have a much safer way of testing our hypothesis.” I walked to a shelf in the far corner, glancing at all the tools and equipment in the room. If my head hadn’t felt as if it would spew magma at any second, I would have been downright giddy at the opportunity to conduct an experiment in such a lovely lab.

  I opened a glass cabinet, grabbed a portable Bunsen burner and returned to the exam table. I picked the specimen up and placed it in a stainless-steel tray. I turned on the burner, and carefully aimed it at the torso first.

  “Why aren’t you aiming it at the weak point?” asked Abby, who had her hand on the fire extinguisher.

  “Seeing if it has any other weak points,” I said, carefully moving down the insect’s body. “It doesn’t appear so. Now, let’s see what happens when the flame touches the—”

  The moment I touched the flame to the trochanter, the entire insect burst into flames. I jumped back before I lost my eyebrows.

  Abby grabbed the fire extinguisher and doused the flames. All that was left on the tray were ashes.

  “Looks like it’s true,” I said. “The insects are indeed weak to fire. Now we can come up with a game plan.”

  “Yeah, lucky for us we have a human supercomputer,” said Abby, fixing a strand of hair that fell over her face. “Your power is impressive, James.”

  “That it is, baby,” said a woman’s voice, coming from behind us.

  I turned around and saw a middle-aged woman with very rich, dark skin. She was short and solid, and looked like she could wrestle a crocodile into submission. Her long, braided hair flowed down her back like ropes of pure night. She was wearing a lab coat over a rather exotic yellow-and-black floral dress.

  She looked at us, eyebrows raised. “You children should know better than to work in a laboratory without personal protective equipment,” she said reprovingly in a Georgian accent.

  I was ashamed. I knew laboratory protocol. I should have taken every precaution, but I didn’t. I had gloves on, but the others didn’t...and I didn’t even think about goggles. “I apologize, ma’am.”

  “Just see it don’t happen again, child.” Her voice was pleasant and gentle, but her face was stern, and a little scary.

  “Who are you, ma’am? If you don’t mind me asking,” said Kelly.

  The woman smiled at Kelly. “I am Dr. Stephani, chief administrator of the Edania Organization and head of the medical research and development branch.”


  Nick walked up to her and put his hand out. “We’re the new agents. Nice to meet ya, Doctor Steph. I’m Nick.”

  She looked down at his hand and then back up at him. She raised her eyebrow again and glared fiercely into his eyes. When Nick went to take a step back, she smiled and slapped him on the back. “I know that you’re the new field agents, dears. I’ve been excited to meet you. What a fine group of young men and ladies Eli picked, too.”

  Nick rolled his shoulder and winced.

  Dr. Stephani continued. “Now, about getting the Ark. It looks like you children have your work cut out for you. I saw the news.”

  “Yeah, about that,” said Abby. “Do you know who those F.E.S.P.A. guys are? Are they affiliated with the organization?”

  Stephani shook her head. “No, they sure ain’t friends of ours. They’ve popped up every now an’ again when issues with the Corrupted arise. I don’ think that they’re friends a’ Doren, either.”

  “We had to run away from ’em with that bug,” said Nick, pointing at the pile of ashes on the table with his thumb.

  “Dr. Stephani, ma’am?” I said.

  “Jus’ Dr. Stephani, child. You don’ have to be so formal.” She wagged her finger, like my grandmother would have done when she was scolding me.

  I blushed. “Sorry, Dr. Stephani. Do you think they might be a secret government organization or something?”

  She pondered for a moment. “If they are, it would be a very top secret one indeed. We have contacts all ova’ the government, and they ain’t heard of them, either.”

  “Then, who are they?” I asked.

  She looked at me sympathetically. “Well, whoever they are, you’re gonna have to sneak past ’em to get back into the school so you can get that Ark.”

  My eyes widened. “How can we? They have that energy field that will shock whoever touches it. And we don’t know where the Ark is, even if we manage to break into the grounds. We’d be walking around blindly.”

  Dr. Stephani smiled. “I think if the four of you put those brilliant minds together, you’ll figure it out. As for findin’ the Ark, I have an idea. Follow me.”

  We followed her to another room on the second floor. This one had dozens of computer screens that lined the walls with one giant one in the back. A control panel was set in the middle of the room, where Dr. Stephani turned the system on.

  “This computer has a program specifically designed to track Segol activity, as well as the Arks. We have a map of the school here somewhere. If we had enough information, we could narrow down the search further.”

  She began to type, and the giant computer screen brought up a schematic of Force-Pointe High. It zoomed into the west portion of the school.

  “Why did it do that?” I inquired.

  “The system’s narrowed it down to this part of the school from the Ark’s signal,” said Dr. Stephani. “It’s very weak now, but we were able to save the information before it got too weak to track.”

  “It’s still an enormous building,” said Kelly. “We need to narrow it down further. What else do we know?”

  I thought back to the visions I had. One was the mantis nest, and the other was what I assumed to be the Ark’s location. They were both dark and concrete, like a cellar or— “Wait,” I said. “Does Force-Pointe High have a basement?” I felt a little foolish; this was my third year going there.

  Dr. Stephani typed on the control panel, and it zoomed in again, focusing on the first floor, in the liberal arts wing. A red dot appeared on the screen, and the schematic said “maintenance basement.”

  “That explains it,” I said. “I’ve never been in the liberal arts wing.” I paused, thinking about it. “I didn’t know we had a liberal arts wing.”

  “You’ve never had a class in the liberal arts wing? Didn’t you take music or art?” asked Abby, looking shocked.

  I nodded. “In summer school. They were in a different building. I did not want to waste a whole semester on art and music.”

  Kelly shook her head. “I swear, James, you are so uncultured.”

  “I say the word culture is relative,” I said. “Music styles change every two weeks anyway, and what some perceive as art, others perceive as an eyesore. Give me the sweet music of lab machinery and the beautiful art of the microscopic world any day.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes and looked at Abby. “I give up.”

  I looked back at the schematic of the school. “At any rate, now we know where the basement is, and I think that’s where we’ll find the Ark. But it’s probably where the mantis nest is, too. Dr. Stephani, could you pull up the schematic of the basement, please?”

  “Can do.” She typed swiftly on the keyboard.

  “It looks more like a maze than a basement,” I said, looking at the map with its many hallways and rooms.

  Abby squinted at the screen. “So, where’s the Ark?”

  “We know it’s somewhere on the west side of the school,” I said. “But there are so many rooms… It’s too hard to tell from just looking at a map. We’ll have to go in person.”

  Abby groaned. “So, we’ll be walking blindly into the lair of the beast?”

  “We gotta do it, Abbs,” Nick said. He stood up straight and placed his hand over his heart. “The merit of a hero is measured by his courage and heart, and—”

  “I’m sorry, only his?” Kelly said, her arms crossed.

  Nick frowned. “Aw, Kelly, you ruined my moment.”

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine, finish your speech.”

  “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “The merit of a hero is measured by his—or her—courage and heart. A hero walks in honor and faithful service. He—or she—must do right, no matter the cost. The right way isn’t always the easy way.”

  “Did you get that from a fortune cookie or your Justice Society lunch box from fourth grade?” Abby asked.

  “It doesn’t matter where I got it,” he answered. “It’s still true. We gotta go. It’s the right thing to do.”

  Dr. Stephani clapped her hands and laughed. “It was inspiring no matter where you got it. My question is, do y’all have a plan in case you run into the insects or those F.E.S.P.A. ruffians?”

  Nick slouched from his proud stance. “Nope. I got nothin’.”

  Dr. Staphani frowned reprovingly at him. “Well, it don’t matter how much courage you have if you go unprepared. In fact, there’s a fine line between courage and stupidity. Think yourselves up a plan before throwin’ yourselves into danger.”

  “We already know that the mantises are weak to fire,” I said.

  Nick produced a fireball in his hand in one try. “I can run in there and scorch ’em all! Bug BBQ, anyone?”

  Dr. Stephani frowned again. She snapped her finger, and the fire puffed out. She slapped him upside the head. “What in the name a’ heaven is wrong with you, boy? You fixin’ to burn this place to the ground?”

  “Ouch!” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m sorry. It’s a good plan, isn’t it? And how did you make it go out like that? I can’t make it turn off when I want to.”

  “Hush now and listen to me,” Dr. Stephani said. “You can’t go into the battlefield with just sheer force and no strategy. You gotta think before you act.”

  I thought for a moment. “I think I may have a plan.” Everyone turned to me, and my stomach tensed. “Well, n-never mind.”

  Dr. Stephani walked over to me, grabbed my cheeks, and directed my head down to look at her. “That’s your problem, James. You need to have confidence, like young Nicklaus ova’ there. You are a very bright young man. Tell us what you have planned.”

  “I—I, uh…”

  “C’mon, bro, it’s just us here. Tell us what you got,” said Nick.

  “Don’t make me slap it out of you,” said Dr. Stephani with a giant grin.

  I couldn’t tell if she was serious, so I decided to tell them my plan. If she really was like my grandmother, she would slap me. “Okay
, I’ll tell you.”

  She lightly patted my face. “That’s a good boy.” She walked back to the control panel and sat down. “Now, tell us what that brain has cooked up.”

  “W-well…” I started. “I don’t have a plan about the F.E.S.P.A. problem, but if we’re confronted by the giant mantis, we could start with a distraction. Kelly could fling whatever is lying around at it with her power, to get its attention.”

  Kelly nodded. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  I nodded back. “Good. Then, while it’s distracted, Abby can freeze it.”

  “If I can get it to work, I’ll do it,” she said.

  I nodded, then looked at Nick. “Then, while it’s frozen, Nick can throw a fireball at its hind legs. Make it as big as you can. It stands to reason that the mother has the same weak spot as the nymphs do. Hopefully the monster will combust.”

  “All right, I’m down,” said Nick. “Let’s do this.”

  “It’s as good a plan as any, but I still don’t like this,” said Abby.

  “It’s decided, then. Let’s go,” said Kelly.

  Dr. Stephani folded her hands. “Good. Oh, this is excitin’. Your first mission. Get goin’, and do me proud.”

  With those final words of encouragement, we left the organization with a not-so-carefully planned strategy. I just hoped it worked.

  doren report #2: barbaas

  TOLLES ISLAND

  DOREN CORP.

  DEATHBORNE CAVE BRANCH

  CENTRAL CONTROL ROOM

  Dr. Barbaas stood in front of Doren’s computer, waiting for him to appear. He couldn’t wait to tell his master that the mission was proving quite successful. His creations were collecting energy at an impressive rate, the Ark’s barrier was weakening by the day, and everything was going according to plan.

  Barbaas giggled at the thought of his beloved insects attacking their prey. It had always been his greatest delight to watch dangerous creepy-crawlies attack and devour their victims, ever since he was a boy.

  ***

  Dr. Barbaas had been born into a well-to-do family from a wealthy Force-Pointe City suburb. He was exceptionally bright and highly intelligent, but was prone to nasty fits of rage. He eventually learned to mask his violent nature as he grew up, but the suppressed anger eventually turned his young mind to depravity.