by Dustin Brady
Once we made it to the water, Sam turned around. “I think we lost the dragon.”
“SCREEEECH!”
A fire blast lit up the lake as the dragon swooped down. Mark yanked the wheel hard right, throwing up a huge wake of water. The dragon pulled back up and pursued from above as we skipped across Lake Erie.
“SCREE—”
BOOM!
A cannonball stopped the dragon mid-screech.
BOOMBOOMBOOM!
Mark got low as he navigated through the cannonballs splashing all around us. We approached the dark shape of a massive pirate ship. Suddenly — WHOOSH! — the slain dragon landed in the water behind us and produced a wave big enough to launch us onto the ship’s deck.
“It’s over there!” Sam shouted, pointing at the mast. Mark drove through an army of robot skeleton pirates toward a glowing cube. “This one’s yours, Jesse!” Sam said.
I reached out just far enough to touch the button on top of the cube as we passed by.
ZZZZZING!
The cube transformed into a million metal pieces, slid down my body and reassembled themselves into robot legs. I rotated my right ankle in a circle. “It works now!” I exclaimed.
“Good!” Mark shouted as he flew off the back plank. We sped up the coast until we reached another level in Ohio’s only drive-through safari. Mark surprised a robot lion by driving into its den. He snatched a power-up cube that gave him an Iron Man blaster hand, then pushed the throttle to blow past a pride of real lions before they had a chance to react. As we were leaving the safari, a metal giraffe started galloping behind us and extending its head with an Inspector Gadget neck. Mark turned around to fire his new blaster, but Sam punched the giraffe with her metal fist before he could get a chance.
“Eyes on the road!” she yelled.
We zoomed toward Alpine Snow Trails ski resort. The resort didn’t quite have the majestic peaks of the video game’s snow level, but the robots had managed to create an impressive amount of fake snow for the beginning of May. Mark sped up the slope and dodged an abominable snow monster so Sam could snag one of the most boring power-ups in the game — a portable battery pack. With that final piece of the puzzle, we merged onto I-77 toward Amish country. Since there were very few cars on the road at 5 a.m., Mark could really open up the throttle.
After a few minutes of weaving in and out of traffic at blistering speeds, a police siren turned on behind us. My shoulders slumped. I was afraid of this. I couldn’t imagine that the police would look too kindly on a 12-year-old without a license driving at 200 mph.
“Go faster,” Sam said. “They can’t keep up.”
“We don’t do that in America!” I blurted out, slightly less comfortable with a high-speed police chase than Sam appeared to be. “We should at least talk to them, right? Maybe they can help us! Maybe…”
My voice trailed off as I watched the police car start catching up to us. We were traveling at speeds impossible without rocket assistance. When did the highway patrol get jet-cars? As if to answer my question, a head emerged from the passenger window. The red and blue lights illuminated the guy’s clothing, and even in the pre-dawn darkness, I could tell he didn’t have a police uniform.
He was wearing a suit.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Goliatron
The suit hanging out of the window pulled out something long and rifle-like.
CRACK!
It was, in fact, a rifle.
“Turn off the road!” Sam yelled.
Mark made a hard right directly into a cornfield.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK
We all covered our faces as the hovercraft tore a path through the cornstalks. After a few seconds of driving blind, the thwacking stopped, and we found ourselves in an open field. Or at least it was mostly open.
“COW!” Sam screamed.
Mark yanked the steering wheel right to dodge a cow.
“SHEEP!”
Mark weaved left to dodge the sheep.
“DUCK!”
“WHERE?!” Mark yelled. “I DON’T SEE A…”
Sam yanked Mark down with her as she ducked a millisecond before we passed underneath the blade of a threshing machine.
Mark popped back up just in time to see the fence in front of us. “Whoa!” He yanked the steering wheel, but it was too late. We barreled into the fence at 200 mph. The fence snapped from its post and tangled around us as we bounced across the field. I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto the safety harness until we rolled to a stop.
When everything settled, I peeked my eyes open to see Mark with his head in his hands.
“You OK?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “But how are we gonna find Eric now?”
“Look up.”
Just across the field, silhouetted against the rising sun, was a 150-foot-tall rocket ship. Dozens of robots scurried up and down a stair tower that went all the way up to the rocket’s cone. And next to the stair tower, standing almost as tall as the rocket, was Goliatron.
Gulp.
Of all the scary video game creatures I’d stared down over the last 24 hours, none were scarier than the boss of Lavers Hill. I had known what was coming thanks to the BillyBotBoy video, but in person — wow. While I stared at the robot, Sam jumped out of the hovercraft and started running left.
“Do you see it?!” Mark shouted to Sam.
“It should be next to the barn,” she said without turning around.
Mark took a few steps toward the barn before realizing I hadn’t yet left the hovercraft. He ran back and grabbed my shoulder. “Jesse.” He looked me in the eye. “You got this, OK? Remember — distract and stall.” He patted my shoulder and ran toward Sam. “Did you find it yet?!”
“Distract and stall” sounded a lot better from the safety of Mark’s basement than it did staring at a 12-story robot whose only goal was to pound me into the ground. Goliatron noticed Mark first and started walking toward him. That kicked me into action. “Hey!” I yelled. The robot spun around and glared at me. “Come on!” I said, trying to sound tough. “Let’s rumble!”
Let’s rumble? I was so bad at video game smack talk.
Goliatron pounded his fists together a few times like a boxer and started lumbering toward me. I looked around in a panic. Where was Roger? He was supposed to be my distract and stall buddy! Ting! Something hit Goliatron in the back of the head. He paused, shook his head, then continued walking toward me. Tingtingting! It was Roger! The little drone was battling a robot 100 times his size by running into the back of its head over and over. Goliatron turned around to find the distraction, which gave me enough time to throw a boomerang.
Clank!
It hit him right in the chest. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, of course, but it did make him turn back toward me.
Ting!
Roger got him again.
Clank!
Then I did. I glanced nervously toward the barn — this couldn’t last for long. “How are you guys doing over there?” I called out.
“Found it!” Mark grabbed the power-up cube he and Sam had been trying to find.
Ting!
Mark ran toward the rocket while stuffing the cube in his bookbag, being careful not to press the button. “You’re doing great!”
Clank!
“I’m almost ready too!” Sam shouted.
Ting!
“Keep it up!” she said.
THWACK!
That “THWACK” was neither Roger nor me. It was Goliatron, who’d finally been able to swat Roger out of the air. Roger spun and tumbled 12 stories.
“ROGER! NOOOO!” I screamed.
CRACK!
Roger split in half when he hit the ground. He then bounced a few more times, leaving a trail of broken plastic behind.
I stared at my little buddy in shock. Then Goliatron turned back to me, its eyes glowing red. I backed up. He started marching toward me with a purpose, the ground rumbling with every step.
“Sam?” I yelled over my shoulder. “Ready yet?!”
No answer. The robot got closer.
“Sam?!”
I threw the boomerang again. It didn’t even faze him. Each step was now shaking the ground so much that I couldn’t move. “SAM?!”
“HEY YOU BIG DUFFER!” Sam finally screamed.
Both Goliatron and I turned to Sam. She had rigged the laptop and projector from Mark’s house to the battery pack from the ski resort. “Check this out!” She pressed a button on the keyboard, and suddenly BillyBotBoy’s Lavers Hill video projected onto the barn. The robot tilted its head, confused. Sam clicked “play,” and Goliatron stared at his character in the game. I watched his reaction closely. If this didn’t work, we were done. There was no Plan B.
Goliatron did nothing but stare for a few seconds. Come on, come on, come on. Then I noticed his hand start trembling. Good. I could see him trying to pivot toward me, but something about the video made it impossible for him to turn away.
“Turn up the sound!” I yelled.
Sam turned it up just as the video Goliatron let out a loud roar. When real-life Goliatron heard it, he began making that dying robot noise that Roger had made when he saw himself on video. “Louder!”
Sam cranked the volume as loud as it would go. Goliatron stumbled backward, visibly shaking all over now. His legs wobbled, then his head twitched. Just like Roger, his microchip brain couldn’t seem to process seeing himself in a video game. Then, without warning —
BOOM!
He exploded. I curled into a ball to protect myself as millions of hot metal shards showered onto the field. When it was finally over, I looked around. With Goliatron gone, all the other robots had made a beeline for the rocket ship. Ready or not, they were taking off.
I scanned the stair tower and found Mark about halfway up. He was using his Iron Man hand like a pro, blasting, punching and chopping his way through a horde of bad guys. I followed the stair tower up to the open door in the cone. We’d come all this way assuming that Eric was inside that door, but what if he wasn’t? What if they’d already…
A head poked out of the door for just a second before getting pulled back in. “ERIC!” I yelled.
The head poked back out again. “Jesse?!” Eric yelled before getting yanked back in. He struggled his way back to the door. “Did you see the robot monster out there?! IT’S HU…” Yank. He reappeared another second later. “And the robot pirates? Did you know they have robot pirates?!”
“Eric, don’t worry, we’re…”
Yank. I waited for him to come to the door again. “Mark is coming to get…”
Eric interrupted me. “Mark is here?! You guys should come check out this rocket! It’s incredible!”
“It’s going to the moon!” I yelled.
Eric fought off another robot that was grabbing for him. “What?!”
“IT’S GOING TO THE MOON!”
This was news to Eric. He started to panic. “I CAN’T LIVE ON THE MOON!”
“Mark’s almost there!”
By now, Mark was just one flight of stairs away from Eric. He pulled the power-up out of his bag and held his finger over the button. This particular power-up was a heavily-armored hot air balloon that you were supposed to use to get eye-level with Goliatron so you could hit the weak spot on his forehead. The plan was for Mark to press the button just as he reached Eric, drag him into the balloon and land safely in the field as the rocket took off. It was not the most thorough plan — none of us knew the first thing about flying a hot air balloon, for example — but it was the best we could do at 3 a.m.
“Eric!” Mark said as he ran up the last set of stairs. “When I press the button…”
KAPOW!
An explosion rocked the stair tower, knocking Mark off his feet and causing him to drop the power-up cube over the side. I heard a click to my right and looked over to see a suit standing behind the super-powered police car from earlier. He aimed a rocket launcher and fired another shot.
KAPOW!
This one exploded almost exactly where the first one had. The entire stair tower groaned, leaned, groaned some more, then finally toppled, taking Mark with it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Rocket
Before I could process what had happened, my legs started moving. I was at least 70 yards away from the rocket — way too far to do anything except scream — but I ran anyway. And when I took my first step, I got a surprise. I was fast. Really fast. Like superhero fast. I pushed off with one of my robot legs and launched five feet forward. I took another step and bounded another 10 feet. I ran at the rocket with all my might. Usually in the movies, these scenes happen in slow motion. It’s almost as if the hero is moving so fast that everything else seems to pause around him.
That would have been nice.
Instead, time sped up. I made it to the rocket in less than two seconds, and — bad news — two seconds is not nearly enough time to come up with a plan. Without a plan, I covered my head as metal crashed around me.
CLUNK!
The cube Mark had dropped landed at my feet. I pressed the button, and it instantly POOFed into a humongous hot balloon. I dove into the basket and curled up while the crashing continued. This was when time slowed down. Every clang and every crash felt like it was going to be the one to rip through the balloon and nail me to the ground. Finally, there was one last huge CRASH and everything stopped.
After a few seconds of silence, I heard rustling above me. I poked my head out. “Mark?!” An arm flopped over the edge of the half-deflated balloon. “Mark!” The arm went back. I climbed out of the basket as fast as I could and looked up. The stair tower lay in a mangled mess over the balloon. Blown-up robot parts littered the ground.
PLOP.
Something rolled off the side of the balloon. I ran around to investigate.
“Mark!” I yelled when I saw him lying on the ground. “Are you OK?”
He rolled over to face me. His face was completely black from the blast, and his Iron Man hand looked partially melted. “Listen Jesse. They’re gonna…” he struggled to his feet. “They’re gonna…”
At that moment, a hand grabbed the back of my shirt.
“Run!” I yelled.
But Mark couldn’t run, because another suit had grabbed him too. Mark struggled against his captor. Even though he’d just nearly died from both an explosion and a 15-story fall, he kicked and flailed and fought harder than I’d ever seen him fight before. He managed to tear the guy’s suitcoat off his back, but that was as far as he got before the man wrangled both of Mark’s hands behind his back and started dragging him across the field. My suit joined him, and we soon met up with two other suits who’d captured Sam.
“You got the memory wipe, Doug?” my suit said to one of Sam’s guards.
Doug shook his head. “Can’t use it on them,” he said. “This is the one who’s been missing for a month.” He nodded at Mark.
“Are you kidding? So what do we do with them then?”
“You’ve still got one rocket left, right?” he asked.
The guy holding me looked at the rocket launcher strapped to his back. “Aw come on, I can’t do that,” he said.
“He’s been gone for a month,” Doug said. “You know there’ll be questions if we send him back out, even with the memory wipe.”
“But can’t we just bring him in?”
“Orders are orders. Now tie them up, and let’s get it over with.”
I looked around in a panic. Sam, who usually had something tough to say, slumped against her captor in defeat.
“Wait!” Mark said. “There’s one more!”
“One more kid?” Doug asked. “Sorry, we’ve got them all.”
“Eric. His name is Eric Conrad. He wasn’t in a video game, so he’s not in your records. He’s still out here. If you don’t believe me, just ask Mr. Gregory.”
The suits looked at each other, and Doug stepped up to Mark. “OK, kid. Where is he?”
“I’m not telling until you let them go.”
Doug looked down at Mark’s black face and gnarled metal hand. “I don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate.”
“Come on,” Mark said. “Just do the memory wipe or whatever and let them go. I’m the only one you need to get rid of.”
“Yeah Doug,” one of the suits chimed in. “Why don’t we just do that?”
Doug spun around. “You think command is playing around?!” he yelled. “If we don’t clean this up, we’re the ones who are going to disappear! Do you understand that? Do you?!”
Before the other suit could answer, he got interrupted by an earth-shaking, chest-vibrating roar. We all spun around to see smoke pouring from the bottom of the rocket.
“WAIT!” I screamed. “NO! STOP! WE HAVE TO STOP IT!”
Nobody moved to stop anything. The roar got louder, and the smoke got thicker until the rocket blasted off with Eric inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY
3, 2, 1...
“NO!” I screamed at the rocket. “ERIC, NO!” I continued yelling at the rocket as it disappeared above the clouds. Then I collapsed on the ground and started crying in front of everyone. I’d lost my best friend.
Doug’s voice got soft. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I continued crying without looking up. “Just do whatever it is you’re going to do.”
Without saying a word, one of the suits produced a rope and tied us all up. It went fast — none of us had the strength to struggle anymore. When he finished the job, he pushed us together with our backs facing each other.
