Here Comes Mr. Trouble

by Battles, Brett

Fiona wiped a hand across her cheek and said to the others, “Wait here.”

  She strode with purpose over to the ladder and climbed up. The moment she reached the doorway, she started talking to her brother. Every few seconds, he would look past her toward Eric and Maggie, the expression on his face growing more and more serious each time.

  When Fiona was through, Mr. Trouble patted her on the back and moved so she could pass inside. Once she was out of sight, he clapped his hands together and said, “All right, then. Mom, I think we need you up here for an XK-eleven.”

  “I thought as much,” Mother Trouble said, heading toward the plane.

  “Eric? Maggie? Keira will take you to the workshop.”

  “Follow me,” Keira said.

  She led them around to the very back of the aircraft, then opened a small metal panel. Inside was a touch screen that came to life when she brushed a fingertip across it.

  “Stand clear,” she said.

  As she touched the screen again, an electric motor began whirling somewhere just inside the craft. Almost immediately, a large section of the back of the plane lowered all the way to the ground like a drawbridge. Mounted on the other side of the section were stairs that led up the ramp into the Lady Candice.

  “Hello!” Uncle Colin called down from the top of the ramp. As before, he was wearing his bright white lab coat. “Come in, come in.”

  Eric shared a look with Maggie, then shrugged and headed up the ramp. Maggie followed behind, with Keira bringing up the rear.

  As soon as Eric neared the top, Uncle Colin said, “I’m so happy you’re still with us.” With that, he turned and opened the door behind him. “Now, everyone inside.”

  The room they were led into was larger than Eric expected. It took up what he guessed to be about a third of the plane. It was windowless and grew wider and taller going forward as it followed the shape of the fuselage. It was also filled with some of the oddest items Eric had ever seen on an airplane, either in person or in the movies.

  Along each wall was a waist-high workbench complete with vices and clamps to hold things in place. Little sets of drawers containing who-knew-what ran along the back of the opposing benches, while tools hung on the wall above, held in place by plastic snaps. Under the benches were cabinets with clear plastic doors.

  On the floor in front of each workbench were odd-looking metal tracks. They were made even odder by the wooden stools—one per side—attached to them. Eric figured they were designed so a person could sit on the stool and move from end to end as they worked without falling over.

  On the walls that didn’t have hanging tools above the workbenches were dozens of electrical panels and devices. There were also several television monitors suspended from the ceiling on poles that seemed to allow the screens to be moved up out of the way or down into view as needed.

  The wall at the other end of the room, opposite the door, was a floor-to-ceiling dry-erase board covered with notes, calculations, and a few anime character drawings. Keira’s contribution, no doubt.

  Uncle Carl was sitting on one of the stools, fiddling with the dial of a device mounted to the wall in front of him. On the device’s four-by-four-inch screen were several yellow lines, their positions changing each time Uncle Carl turned the dial.

  “Sit, sit,” Uncle Colin said.

  Eric looked around. There was only the one empty stool. He motioned for Maggie to take it but she shook her head.

  “It’s okay. You can have it,” he said.

  “No. I don’t want it.”

  “Just sit.”

  “I said no.”

  “What’s the problem?” Uncle Colin asked. Then his eyebrows shot up in realization. “Right. Of course. Only one. You’d think my math skills would be better than that. So, Eric, you should be the one to sit. You are the one we’re here for, after all.”

  “It’s okay. I can stand.”

  Uncle Colin seemed momentarily flustered. “Sure. You could stand. If that’s really what you’d like. But, um…” he hesitated. “It would be easier for me to put the scanner on your head if you were sitting down.”

  “Scanner?” Maggie asked.

  Eric looked alarmed. “What scanner?”

  “Just your typical scanner. Well, with a few customized adjustments, of course.”

  “What are you scanning me for?”

  “Naturally, we need to test to see how much effect they’ve had on you.”

  Eric had a million more questions but Keira said, “They used a talisman on him this afternoon.”

  Uncle Colin jerked back as if he’d been shocked by a live wire. “Carl, did you hear that?”

  Uncle Carl was still focused on his dial. “Hear what?”

  “They…they used a talisman on him.”

  Uncle Carl whirled around on the stool, a look of shock on his face. “What color?”

  “Gold,” Keira said.

  The two uncles stared at her for a moment, then put their heads together and whispered back and forth. When they pulled apart, Uncle Carl said, “Are you sure it was gold?”

  “Show him,” Keira told Eric.

  Carefully, he removed the sandwich bag from his backpack and held it out to the two uncles.

  They immediately moved in for a closer look, their eyes only a few inches from the ball.

  “Definitely gold,” Uncle Carl said.

  “Definitely,” Uncle Colin agreed. “Spherical.”

  “Yes,” Uncle Carl said, as if he were hoping it hadn’t been.

  Without looking away, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ruler that had two sliding arms sticking from it. He placed one arm against the gold ball and slid the other arm until it was snug to the opposite side.

  “Point-seven-five centimeters,” he read from the ruler.

  “Are you sure?” Uncle Colin asked, surprised. “Did you take the thickness of the plastic bag into consideration?”

  “Yes, yes. I took it into consideration.”

  “That’s too big,” Uncle Colin said.

  “Apparently not,” Uncle Carl said.

  “You think that’s surprising,” Keira said. “Eric was able to move while he was still holding it.”

  Both brothers instantly froze in place, staring at her.

  Finally, Uncle Colin opened his mouth. “Wha…wha…what did you say?”

  “You tell them,” she said to Eric.

  “Uh, well, I couldn’t do anything at first except what they wanted me to do. Then, while everyone was fighting, my finger moved. I thought that if I could move a finger, I should be able to move everything.” He shrugged. “I guess whatever this thing is…a talisman, did you call it? I guess it must have run out of power.”

  “My dear boy,” Uncle Carl said. “Talismans don’t ‘run out of power.’”

  Uncle Colin leaned toward him. “You were…moving and holding the talisman?”

  “Well, it was in my hand. The only thing I couldn’t do was open my fingers to let go of it.”

  Uncle Collin looked at him for a moment, then looked at Uncle Carl, then back at Eric.

  “My,” he said. “My, my, my, my, my, my. I believe, Carl, this is a first.”

  “I believe you’re right,” his brother said.

  Eric didn’t really care what it was. He shook the bag with the talisman in it. “Do I have to hold this thing all day or are you going to take it?”

  “What?” Uncle Colin asked. “Oh, yes. Of course, of course.”

  He pulled a rubber glove out of his pocket, put it on, then very gingerly took the bag from Eric. As he carried it over to the workbench, Uncle Carl pulled a container out of the storage cabinet and they put the ball inside. Once they’d sealed the container, they whispered to each other again.

  Finally, they looked back at Eric, Uncle Colin wearing a large, forced smile on his face. “All right. Everything’s fine here. Nothing to worry about.” If possible, the smile grew wider. “Okay, the scanner, then.”

  “Yes. The
scanner,” Uncle Carl said, moving quickly to the other side of the workshop.

  Uncle Colin put an arm around Eric’s shoulders and guided him to the stool. “If you’ll just sit here, it will make things much, much easier.” He glanced quickly at Keira then said in a voice he probably thought was quieter than it was, “When did he come in contact with…it?”

  Keira shrugged. “I don’t know. Twenty or thirty minutes ago.”

  “Which was it?” Uncle Carl asked. From the cabinet, he’d removed a plastic case that looked big enough to hold a bowling ball and was in the process of opening it on the workbench. “Twenty minutes or thirty minutes?”

  “I don’t know,” Keira repeated. “We were a little too busy freeing him to check the time.”

  “You should always check,” Uncle Carl said. “How many times have we told you that?”

  “Uh, never,” she said.

  “That can’t be true,” Uncle Colin said.

  “Oh, believe me. It’s true.”

  Uncle Colin smiled at Eric again and pushed him down on the stool. Then, without looking back at Keira, he said, “Well, you now know for next time. It could help you save someone’s life.”

  “What?” Eric said, pushing himself to his feet.

  “Oh, not you,” Uncle Colin said, gently forcing him back down. “You’re going to be fine. Just fine.” As he turned away, he added, “Hopefully, of course. Now where’s the scanner?”

  “Hopefully?” Eric said.

  Excerpt from the TFS Encyclopedia

  Talisman

  Name for item used by Maker surrogates to control subjects.

  The talisman must be placed on the subject, such as in a pocket, for it to work. If talisman comes into direct skin contact for more than 30 minutes, it can cause permanent damage to the subject’s mental capacity. Shorter periods can cause illness and loss of memory.

  There are several different levels and strengths of talisman, recognizable by a combination of color, shape, and size. For example, the weakest known talisman—a black disc, the size of a nickel—will simply freeze the subject wherever they are. Whereas the strongest—a red sphere half the width of a dime—will put the subject under complete surrogate control, including use of subject’s voice.

  Talisman order of color strength, strongest to weakest:

  red

  gold

  silver

  blue

  black

  Talisman order of shape strength, strongest to weakest:

  sphere

  pyramid

  cube

  disc

  Talisman sizes range from .5 centimeter to 2 centimeters. Surprisingly, the smaller the size, the more powerful the talisman.

  12

  Uncle Carl lifted something that looked like a cross between a football helmet and a strainer out of the case. There were several wires trailing from it, and the surface was covered with electronic components and tiny readouts.

  As he carried it toward his brother, he glanced at a dial on its side. “It’s set to level seven. What do you think?”

  “Sounds low to me,” Uncle Colin said.

  “I agree. Eight, then?”

  “Let’s make it nine.”

  Uncle Carl touched something on the side of the scanner then handed it to Uncle Colin, who immediately raised it into the air above Eric. “If you’ll just hold still for a moment.”

  A part of Eric wanted to refuse to cooperate, but if they could learn something that would help bring his mother home, then it was worth it. “I’m ready,” he said.

  Uncle Colin slipped the helmet-like contraption onto Eric’s head and gave it a nice downward shove.

  “Hey!” Eric said.

  “Just need to make sure it’s on tight.”

  “It’s definitely tight.”

  Uncle Carl grabbed the loose wires and began plugging them into an input strip on the front of the workbench.

  Uncle Colin, meanwhile, pulled a monitor down to eye level and ran a cable from the back of it to a rectangular device on the wall. He then turned both of them on.

  “What’s all this for?” Maggie asked.

  Uncle Colin turned quickly and looked around, trying to indentify who had spoken. When his eyes settled on Maggie, he said, “Ah, yes, the friend. Don’t worry. Your boyfriend will be fine.”

  “Whoa,” both Maggie and Eric said at the same time.

  “I’m not her boyfriend,” Eric said.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Maggie said.

  “Okay. Friend of Eric, then,” Uncle Colin said. He flashed his teeth in another phony smile. “And please don’t wander off. You’ll be next.”

  “Me?” Maggie said. “I am so not doing that!”

  Uncle Colin looked confused by her refusal. “But you have to. You’ve been hanging out with your…friend here, have you not? It is possible, though unlikely, that some of his…” he paused for a moment, “…troubles have rubbed off on you.”

  “You mean the Makers could be after her, too,” Eric said. He felt angry with himself for putting his friend in that kind of danger.

  Uncle Colin’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “You know about the Makers?”

  “A little.”

  Uncle Colin was silent for a moment, then said, “As I’ve already mentioned, it’s highly unlikely she’s been affected, but it’s always best to check.”

  “Set!” Uncle Carl yelled out.

  Uncle Colin moved his hands over the helmet for a few seconds then said, “Set.”

  “Should we stand back?” Maggie asked.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Uncle Colin said. “It’s completely harmless.”

  Keira raised an eyebrow and took a step backward anyway. Seeing this, Maggie did the same.

  “Do you feel anything unusual?” Uncle Colin asked Eric.

  “You mean other than my head being crushed by your stupid helmet?”

  “It’s not a helmet. It’s a scanner.”

  Eric rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Should I be feeling something?”

  “Of course not. We haven’t turned it on yet.”

  “Then why did you ask—”

  “Switching on now,” Uncle Carl announced.

  Eric’s eyes moved nervously from side to side as he braced himself for whatever was about to happen. He tried to catch Maggie’s attention but she was avoiding his gaze.

  The helmet began humming lightly then started to vibrate. Surprisingly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, it was just the opposite, like someone was massaging his scalp. He kind of liked it.

  Suddenly something started going clack, clack, clack like a piece of paper caught in the spokes of a bicycle. Eric flinched.

  “Please,” Uncle Carl said. “Hold still.”

  Though the clacking noise continued, it did nothing to change the feel of the helmet—sorry, scanner—on his head. So Eric started to relax again.

  “Are you getting anything?” Uncle Colin asked.

  “Coming through now,” Uncle Carl replied.

  Eric moved his eyes, trying to see what was going on, but Uncle Carl was too far to his right and all he could see was the man’s back.

  “Thirty more seconds,” Uncle Carl said.

  “Are you all right, Eric?” Uncle Colin asked.

  “I guess so,” Eric said.

  “Excellent. Excellent. Thirty seconds and we’ll be done.”

  Eric tried to count down the seconds in his head, but all of a sudden he was having a hard time concentrating and kept having to start over. Then he couldn’t remember why he was counting in the first place. In fact, he couldn’t remember why he was sitting on this stool, or was even in this weird-looking room. And who were these strange people staring at him?

  Where are you? A voice that wasn’t a voice said. It was pleasant, almost like a song. Eric Morrison, where are you?

  “Right here,” he mumbled.

  He waited for the voice to say something more. It was a nice voice, pleasant, like a
massage for his ears to go with the one his scalp was getting.