by Dustin Brady
“I’m the one you want, right?” Charlie said.
“We played catch, we told jokes—I was just like a real dad to you, wasn’t I? Actually, I was always there for you, so I was kind of better than a real dad.”
“Stop talking about my dad and tell me what you want.”
“I want you to watch me kill your friends.” The RMG’s eyes glowed red, and his arm tightened around my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I tried bringing the invincibility orb up to my chest, but he had my arm pinned tight. The world started going dark. Eric was yelling, Charlie was yelling, but the voices all started to blend together and fade. Then Charlie said something that snapped me out of it.
“DAD!”
I opened my eyes to see a giant blob behind Charlie. The snake again? I squinted to refocus and saw that it wasn’t the snake, but a giant swordfish floating over the pit behind Charlie. The RMG looked surprised. “Wha … ”
Before the RMG could finish that one-word question, the swordfish vaporized him with its own laser eyes. We heard a BUM-BUM, and the RMG disappeared.
“Wow!” Eric marveled. “Great timing! You really saved our bacon, Mr. Gregory!”
The swordfish looked at Eric and spoke. Its voice was much deeper and scarier than the snake’s. “I’m not Mr. Gregory.”
Then it jumped out of the pit and skewered all three of us at once.
Chapter 16
Mr. Nice Guy
I flexed my arm. Touched my nose. Cracked my neck. Everything worked. I was either back in the real world or in heaven.
I opened my eyes and immediately closed them. Too bright. Maybe it was heaven.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
I squinted and sat up. A doughy, middle-aged man wearing a T-shirt tucked into jeans stood over me, Eric, and Charlie, clapping slowly. It was Max Reuben, the billionaire from TV.
CLAP-CLAP-CLAP.
Applause soon filled the room. The two dozen or so suits surrounding us followed their boss’s lead and clapped like weirdos. I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out where we’d ended up. The large, empty room looked like it had held dozens of office workers at one time, with carpet stains outlining cubicles and desks.
The only thing in the room now was a tall, complicated tower right in the middle. It looked just like the one I’d seen at Mr. Gregory’s Bionosoft lab, but in addition to the screens and lights from before, the tower also had wires leading to doors around the room. So many doors. At least 50 of them lined the four walls of the room, with a wire from each leading back to the tower.
The applause finally died down, and Max reached out his hand to help us up. “Hi! I’m Max from TV.”
We got up without taking the hand. “Where’s my dad?” Charlie demanded.
“He’s here,” Max said. “But we had to send him away while we tried to get you out of that rickety, old game. I’m glad you’re safe now.”
Charlie folded his arms and scowled. I admired his attempt at looking tough.
“Are you still upset about your dad?” Max asked. “I really needed him to work for me for a few weeks, but I didn’t want you to be without a dad any longer. I knew he’d already left you alone recently.”
Charlie stood silently with his arms folded, noticeably trembling.
“Wasn’t the robot dad good enough for you?” Max asked. “I’d really hoped he would be.”
“Why do you need Charlie’s dad?” Eric asked.
“He’s helping me with my big plan,” Max said. Then his eyes lit up. “Do you want to hear the plan?”
“No!” I yelled. I’d seen enough movies to know that when the bad guy tells you his plan, it’s all over. He has to kill you—those are the rules.
“Let’s hear it,” Eric said.
“No plan!” I yelled.
“Just a teensy bit of the plan?” Max fake-begged us.
“NO!”
“Yeah, sure, why not?” Eric said.
“ERIC!”
“Maybe it’s a good plan,” Eric whispered back.
Max rubbed his hands together. “Oh, it is a good plan! Now, where to begin? First … ”
“NO PLAN!” I interrupted. That’s all I got a chance to say before one of the suits put his giant hand over my mouth. “MMMM MFFF MFFFFFFFF!”
“Thank you, Daryl,” Max said to the suit. “Also, before we go any further, I’d like to extend a proper welcome from all of us at the Max Investment Agency headquarters in San Francisco, California. Welcome.”
“Thank you!” Eric said. He actually seemed to be enjoying this. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with him.
“We have one of the finest facilities in the city. I’d love to give you a tour sometime under better circumstances.”
“Aw!” Eric whined. “No tour?”
“I have thousands of employees,” Max said. “They are all wonderful people, but some might be—let’s say—closed-minded to what we’re doing here on the fifty-sixth floor.”
“And what is it you’re doing here?” Eric prodded.
Max smiled at me. “See, your friend … ” He turned. “You’re Eric, right?”
Eric grinned, proud that a billionaire knew his name. “Yep!”
“Your friend, Eric, is a delightfully open-minded individual. You should be more like Eric.”
“People tell him that all the time,” Eric said.
Max put his arm around Eric. “Eric, you know what I do, right?”
“Yeah, you’re on that Shark Tank show.”
Max gasped and pulled his hand back like Eric had just insulted his mother. “LIONS’ DEN!” he shouted. “DON’T YOU EVER … ” he stopped and composed himself. “I believe Shark Tank is vastly inferior to our show.”
“Oh, of course. I think Lion Cave … ”
“LIONS’ DEN!”
“I think Lions’ Den is way better, too.”
Max relaxed a little. “Exactly. While they’re investing in toasters and scrub brushes, we’re changing the world. A few years ago, I invested in a company that could not only change the world, but also the course of human history.”
“Bionosoft?” Eric asked.
“Let me just say that you are a super-smart kid. Yes, Bionosoft. They were doing amazing things. That Hindenburg thing that creates perfect video game worlds by itself? Genius. A billion-dollar idea. The technology to transport people into video games? Maybe a trillion-dollar idea. The thing is—they were thinking small.”
“Jevvrey Delfino told us about games that people could pay to live in,” Eric said.
“Exactly. Just a little better virtual reality. Small potatoes,” Max said. “But I kept pushing him to work on that because I had a plan of my own. Everything was almost ready when you two basically burned that company to the ground.”
“We were just trying to help our friend,” Eric pointed out.
“And no one could blame you for that,” Max said. “Maybe it’s my fault that they took Mark. I was pushing them pretty hard to finish. They took a few shortcuts and made some mistakes. But that’s all OK now because my men were able to get Bionosoft’s best asset out of the building before the police arrived.”
He motioned to the door. Some suits on the other side must have been waiting for his signal because as soon as he motioned, two suits walked through with Mr. Gregory.
“DAD!” Charlie yelled. He tried to run, but a suit held him back.
Mr. Gregory looked defeated. His normally tall, pointy hair was droopy and disheveled. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while, but instead of a regular beard, his face was covered with patches of wisps and stubble. His eyes got super sad when he saw us. “Why didn’t you go into the safe?” he whispered with a hoarse voice.
Before we could reply, Max continued his speech. “Alistair Gregory here has been helping me put the finishing touche
s on my masterpiece for the past few weeks now.”
“What is it?!” Eric asked, apparently unfazed by the appearance of Mr. Gregory. “What’s the masterpiece?”
I’d finally had enough of Eric. Not only was he making friends with a supervillain who’d just admitted to kidnapping our friend’s dad, but he was also putting all of our lives in danger by keeping this maniac talking. I ripped the suit’s hand off my mouth and yelled, “STOP! IF HE TELLS US, HE’LL HAVE TO KILL US!”
Max walked over to me and patted my back. “Is that what you’re afraid of? Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you. I’m going to show you.”
Just then, another door opened across the room. In stepped the fake mom I’d run into at the park earlier. Behind her were five suits surrounding a group of people. Charlie caught a glimpse of who they had before I did, and he started screaming. “NO! NO, PLEASE, NO!”
The suits parted long enough for me to see three children hugging a woman’s leg.
Charlie crumpled. “MOM!”
Chapter 17
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Mr. Gregory ran toward his wife and kids, but the suits blocked his path. When he tried fighting through them, they pinned him down. Max approached Mr. Gregory, shaking his head. “I tried to play nice. You know that … ”
“Excuse me!” Eric interrupted.
Max shot him an annoyed glance.
“How did they get here?” Eric asked.
“Who?”
“Them.” Eric jabbed a finger toward Charlie’s frightened family. “We live really far away from San Francisco, and they got here super-duper fast.”
Max’s annoyed expression turned to one of pride. “Oh, it’s teleportation! I believe that’s one you actually helped us with.”
“Oh?” Eric looked proud to have contributed.
“Through your little Go Wild escapade, you showed us that this technology can be used for teleportation! Put someone in a video game over here, take him out over there. Another billion-dollar idea! Last week, Alistair helped us build quick-link teleportation doors to places around the world. We call them checkpoints.” Max motioned to the doors lining the room. “Just another benefit of having this guy around.” Max tussled Mr. Gregory’s hair. Then he got serious as he turned his full attention to Mr. Gregory.
“Like I was saying, Alistair, you brought this upon yourself. If you’d finished our little project, I would have kept my promise. But a deal’s a deal … ”
“Where does this one go?” Eric interrupted again. He had worked his way over to the left wall and was holding one of the doors open. A blue glow from the other side lit up half his face.
“Close that!” Max yelled. A suit quickly slapped away Eric’s hand and closed the door.
“Sorry,” Eric said. “I just wanted to know where it goes.”
Max looked annoyed again. “That one’s Dubai, I think. But you can’t be touching things in here!”
“Is Dubai near Washington, D.C.?”
“What? No, it’s in the Middle East.”
“Do you have a door that goes to Washington, D.C.?”
“This one!” Max banged the door behind him. “And if I hear one more word out of you, I’m going to tie you up, open this door, and throw you to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. Understand?!”
Eric nodded. He did not say another word.
Max turned back to Mr. Gregory. Eric’s questions had erased the last of his patience. “Look, you’ve been telling me for weeks that the project’s not ready. I think it is. So we’re going to find out the hard way.”
“Please,” Mr. Gregory begged. “Just give me a little more time, and I promise … ”
“No more Mr. Nice Guy,” Max said. Then he turned, took a deep breath, put on the fake smile he’d been wearing earlier, and walked toward Charlie’s family. “Hi, kids!”
The kids all huddled closer to their mom.
Max got down on one knee. “Do any of you want superpowers?”
They didn’t answer. They barely breathed. One of Charlie’s sisters buried her face in her mom’s leg.
“Don’t be shy! Surely you’ve thought about it before! You can have any superpower you want. Flying! Invisibility! Super strength! What’ll it be?”
Silence for a second. Then, a small voice said, “Shar warsh?”
Max’s face lit up, and he looked at Charlie’s little brother, Christian. “Yes! Star Wars! Just like Star Wars! Do you want to be in Star Wars, young man?”
“Don’t talk to him, Christian!” Mr. Gregory yelled.
Christian didn’t talk, but he did give Max a slight head nod.
Max smiled even more. “Then Star Wars it is!” He grabbed Christian’s hand. Charlie’s mom lunged for him, but the suits held her back. Max walked Christian past Mr. Gregory, who was also struggling against two suits. “You want to get it ready, Alistair?”
“Max, please, it’s not safe. If you just give me a few hours … ”
“How about a few seconds?” Max retorted. He’d reached the other side of the room and thown open a door. This was the biggest door in the whole room—actually it was one of those double doors straight out of Dracula’s castle. And instead of blue light coming from the other side, this light was swirling and red. Like lava. By now, Christian was having second thoughts. He tried to escape, but Max gripped his arm tighter.
“Max … ” Mr. Gregory tried.
“Ten. Nine.” Max started a slow countdown.
Mr. Gregory ran to the tower in the middle of the room and started furiously typing. “Wait! Just give me a minute!”
“Eight. Seven.”
Mr. Gregory swiveled one of the screens up to his face. “It’s not even booted up yet! He’ll just burn up in there!”
“Six. Five.”
Mr. Gregory dove to the other side of the tower. He unplugged one of the cables and moved it to another slot. A light started blinking on the tower, then three more lights lit up, and suddenly it whoooshed.
“Four. Three.”
Three screens came to life, showing a dusty red planet.
“Two.”
“Christian, Daddy loves you lots!” Mr. Gregory yelled.
“One.”
“I’ll get you out of there! Just don’t … ”
Before he could finish, Max threw the child into the red light and closed the door.
Chapter 18
Planet Bottomless Pit
For about ten seconds, everything was silent in the room. Mr. Gregory stared at one of the screens, so that’s where everyone else looked, too. Even the suits seemed nervous that Charlie wasn’t going to make it. Finally, the screen flashed white, and a small boy appeared on the desert planet. The room breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. Gregory started checking screens and typing on three different keyboards at once.
Max walked by Mr. Gregory and gave him a sarcastic, extra-hard whack on the back. “Wow, works pretty well now, huh?”
“It’s drawing too much power,” Mr. Gregory said without looking up.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Max replied. “At least, you’d better figure it out. Because in 30 minutes, I’m throwing another one of your kids in there.”
“In where?” Eric asked, breaking Max’s “not-one-more-word” rule to ask a stupid question. “Where is he?”
“Eric, stop!” I yelled. “What is wrong with you?”
Max turned to me. “What, you’re worried that I might reveal the rest of my plan, forcing me to kill you? Fine. I’ll tell you.”
Gulp.
Max pointed to the big door he’d just thrown Christian into. “That leads to the Reubenverse. It’s a universe I’ve built with the help of an army of Hindenburgs. There’s Planet Star Wars. There’s Planet Lego. There’s Planet of the Apes. Ther
e’s Planet Eat-As-Much-Food-As-You-Want-Without-Getting-Sick. There’s everything anyone could ever want in the Reubenverse, which is good because everyone’s about to go there.”
“When you say everyone … ” Eric asked.
“The moment I give the word, everyone within 20 feet of a screen will automatically transport to the Reubenverse whether they want to go or not. I call it ‘The Reuben Rapture.’ With all the phones, computers, and televisions in the world, we estimate we’ll get 80 percent of the world’s population on the first try.”
I looked at Mr. Gregory, who was furiously typing to keep his son alive. “That’s not possible, right?” I asked.
Max answered for Mr. Gregory. “It’s possible if you have enough computer power—which I’ve bought—and the proper motivation for your talent,” Max pointed to Christian on the screen. “Which I now have.”
“Huh, neat idea,” Eric said, apparently trying to butter up Max enough to become a prince or something in this new universe. “But why?”
“Hmm, why would I want to create a universe where every president, king, and dictator in the whole world has to answer to me? Why would I want to create a universe where I call every shot—who gets money, who gets food, who lives, who dies—based on how they treat me? Why would I want to create a universe where every dream I’ve ever had could come true in a second? I don’t know. It’s a tough call.”
After that speech, I felt dizzy. Charlie’s face was white. Mrs. Gregory had her eyes closed, and she was moving her mouth like she was praying. Half the suits looked like they were going to throw up, so apparently, this was the first time they’d heard the full scheme, too. The only person who remained unaffected was Eric. He continued grinning like an idiot.
“Any other questions?” Max asked.
“That’s all, thanks!” Eric answered.
Max turned to me and shrugged. “Then I guess I have no choice but to kill you.” He gestured to the suits. “Let’s try Planet Bottomless Pit.”
