by Lucas Flint
I found it hard to focus on any one thing, at least until my eyes fell on one of the smaller display cases, standing next to a display case of what looked like the blackened remains of a giant laser cannon. I probably would not have noticed the smaller display case if I hadn’t seen the object inside it move.
I stopped and looked at the smaller display case more closely. Standing inside the display case, on a pedestal like the rest of the trophies, was what looked like a pound of solid rubber. It was the exact same colors as Rubberman’s costume, which was part of the reason I had noticed it. More importantly, however, I thought I’d seen it move, though it wasn’t moving now.
Underneath the rubber was a golden plate with these words written on it:
RUBBER BALL
ORIGINALLY OWNED BY XAVIER ‘SPACE EMPEROR’ ZULAUF
DATE RECEIVED: SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12th, 2012
NOTE: DO NOT TOUCH! REMEMBER DENNIS!
Frowning, I looked at the Rubber Ball again. Aside from its size, it looked like an ordinary bouncy ball, like the kind you get in those small capsules in grocery store vending machines. I didn’t know who this ‘Xavier Zulauf’ guy was, nor did I recognize his nickname ‘Space Emperor,’ although it did seem to stir a memory somewhere in the back of my head, like I’d heard it somewhere before once. But it was a very vague memory, not very helpful.
The date was fairly recent, too. Nightbolt said that all of his trophies came from before the late eighties, when the Department of Superheroes started confiscating trophies from fallen supervillains, but this was from 2012. That was six years ago.
And then there was that note: ‘REMEMBER DENNIS!’ The only Dennis it could possibly be referring to is Dennis Pullman, or, as I usually called him, Rubberman. Did this Rubber Ball have something to do with Rubberman?
“Kid!” Nightbolt suddenly shouted. “Get over here and stop staring at my stuff!”
I started and looked down the aisle. Nightbolt stood in front of a crate that appeared to be full of large glass jars. He had pulled one of the glass jars out and was already feeding the webbing into it. The webbing was coiled inside the jar like a snake, although unlike a snake, it probably wasn’t going to bite him.
“Sorry, sir,” I said as I walked over to him. “I just got distracted by one of the trophies.”
Nightbolt rolled his eyes as he kept feeding the webbing into the jar. “This isn’t a museum, kid. If it was, I would have charged you for admission. None of this stuff concerns you anyway.”
“Sorry,” I said again. “I was just looking at that Rubber Ball and—”
“Rubber Ball?” said Nightbolt sharply. “You mean the big one?”
“Uh, yes,” I said, nodding. “Unless you happen to have another pound of rubber in a display case that I’m unaware of, that is.”
“No, just the one,” said Nightbolt. “You didn’t touch it, did you?”
I shook my head. “No, why?”
“Good,” said Nightbolt. “That thing is dangerous. If you’d touched it … let’s just say that your parents would be picking out the coffin for your funeral soon and leave it at that.”
I grimaced. I looked back over at the Rubber Ball, which looked relatively harmless in its display case, but I now sensed danger emanating from it like energy. I was grateful that I hadn’t touched it, but at the same time, my curiosity burned just the same, because I wondered what the exact connection between that thing and Rubberman was. That Nightbolt didn’t want to talk about it made me even more curious than ever.
Nightbolt finished feeding the last of the webbing into the jar and then closed it tight. He held up the jar and said, “There we go. These things are airtight, so the webbing should last long enough for me to study it and figure out exactly what the hell it is.”
“Do you have the right equipment for that?” I said.
“Sure I do,” said Nightbolt. He put the jar inside the crate and then placed the lid back on the crate itself. “And some training as well. I was never a scientist, but I was friends with several scientists who were always happy to show me how they did their work. I’ll run a DNA test on it to find out what its genetic makeup is. Maybe it will help us understand what these aliens are and what kind of creatures they are.”
“I never took you for a guy interested in learning about that stuff.”
Nightbolt grinned. “Back in my day, superheroes were true Renaissance Men. We knew a little bit of everything, because you never know what you’re going to need to know in this business. One time, I fought a supervillain whose entire body was made of helium. Completely immune to all of my punches and kicks; on the other hand, he wasn’t immune to fire, as he discovered to his chagrin.”
Nightbolt sounded a little crazy when he said that, but I said, “Okay, what are we going to do now?”
Nightbolt yawned. “Go to sleep. That damn alien woke me up far too early. If I was your age, this probably wouldn’t bother me as much, but us old folk need as much sleep as we can get. So I’m going to head back to the house and catch up on my beauty sleep. You should do the same.”
“Do you think those two agents will show up again?” I said.
Nightbolt shook his head. “Naw. No one else besides us knows about this alien attack. And that’s how it is going to stay, at least until we find out more about what these aliens are trying to do.”
Nightbolt walked past me, yawning as he did so. “Now let’s go. It’s already starting to get hot down here and the sun isn’t even halfway up in the sky yet.”
I immediately followed him back to the stairs, which meant we passed the Rubber Ball again. I glanced at it, not expecting to see much, but then I saw it move slightly, causing me to start.
“What’s the matter?” said Nightbolt, looking over his shoulder at me with a frown on his face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I pointed at the Rubber Ball. “I saw the Rubber Ball move. All by itself.”
“Are you sure?” said Nightbolt. “Maybe you’re still not entirely awake or you’re hallucinating. It isn’t uncommon for people who’ve encountered these aliens to see hallucinations for a while afterward.”
I frowned and looked at the Rubber Ball again. I was so certain that I’d seen it move, but maybe Nightbolt was right. Maybe my mind really was playing tricks on me or maybe that alien had cast some kind of spell on me that was messing with my mind and my perception of reality.
But I didn’t think so. I didn’t think so at all.
CHAPTER NINE
As the day went on, I couldn’t forget about the Rubber Ball, despite Nightbolt’s insistence that it was nothing important or worth worrying about. I became more and more certain that the Rubber Ball had, in fact, moved, that it might even have been alive. I was even more sure that it was related to Rubberman in some way. Rubberman had told me that he got his powers six years ago, which was also around the same time he started his superhero career. ‘REMEMBER DENNIS!’ could refer to no one other than my boss, yet I did not know the exact way in which the Rubber Ball was connected to Rubberman.
Of course, I didn’t mention this to Nightbolt. He spent most of the day either napping in bed, checking on Spike to make sure he wasn’t in any unnecessary pain, and generally showing little-to-no concern over the events from early in the morning. Despite that, I could tell that the alien’s attack on his house had unnerved him. He was probably thinking about how lucky we were that Spike just got such a minor injury. No doubt Nightbolt was thinking about how those aliens could have completely flattened the entire house with the weapons on their ship if they wanted, and with us still inside.
The only thing Nightbolt did in relation to the aliens was put the bracelet in the Basement. He said that it would be safer down there and that the aliens would be unlikely to find it, because so few people knew about the Basement. I agreed that it was probably safer down there than up here, but at the same time, I couldn’t get over the Rubber Ball. I thought about calling Rubberman and asking him about it,
but at the same time, I realized that if I did, he would probably just avoid the question; after all, if he hadn’t thought it important to tell me about his origin the first time I met him, why would he do it now?
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about the question, however, I decided that I would go down and touch the Rubber Ball myself tonight. Once Nightbolt was in bed, I’d slip out of the house, go to the Basement, and investigate the Rubber Ball. With any luck, I might be able to figure out what it was whether Nightbolt wanted me to or not.
Did that mean going against Nightbolt’s warning about not touching the Rubber Ball? Sure. It probably wasn’t very smart for me to do something Nightbolt didn’t want me to do, but I was too curious to ignore it. I would never be able to focus on my training or anything else as long as I kept wondering about the Rubber Ball and, by extension, Rubberman’s origin.
I didn’t have to wait long to put my plan into action. Nightbolt went to bed early, due to his old age. I also pretended to go to sleep early, but I just waited in my bed until I could hear Nightbolt’s loud snores coming from his room. Then I donned my costume and climbed out of the window of my room as carefully and quietly as I could. I didn’t want to go through the main hallway and possibly wake up Nightbolt, hence why I went through the window.
After climbing through the window, I made my way toward the Arena. With the sun rapidly setting in the west, it was already getting dark. That was one of the things I’d noticed about West Texas. It got bright early and dark early. That was probably due to the lack of mountains or other objects to block the sun’s rays. In any case, soon it would be as dark as midnight tonight, which meant I would need to be quick before the darkness descended. While it seemed unlikely that the aliens would return two times in the same day (Nightbolt said that they only ever appeared once a night prior to this), the aliens had already started behaving in unexpected ways and I didn’t want to be stuck out here facing that alien spider creature again.
I pulled open the Arena doors just enough for me to slip through. It was already nearly pitch-black in the Arena, forcing me to turn on my helmet’s flashlight in order to see anything. Moving my flashlight this way and that, I saw that the Arena was as empty as it had been all day. That was good, because a part of me had worried that the spider alien had returned and was waiting to get me in the darkness. It meant that the aliens were not coming back tonight after all, at least not so far.
It didn’t take me long to find the gun cabinet and open it (I had taken Nightbolt’s key ring not long after he went to bed). Once again, I found myself staring at an unusually vast array of guns of all different types and sizes. I wasn’t much of a gun expert, so I didn’t quite know the proper names of all of the makes and models, but even I was impressed by all of these guns. Nightbolt made it sound like it was just a hobby of his, but I wondered if the real reason he had all of these guns was for his protection. You could defend a small fortress with this amount of weaponry.
But I didn’t care about that. I pushed aside some of the shotguns and found what I was looking for: The button that would open the way to the Basement. I pressed the button and, not even a second later, a portion of the center of the floor slid away, once again revealing the dark staircase leading down into the Basement itself.
I walked over to the stairs, but before I walked down into the Basement, I heard the Arena doors creak behind me, followed by the sound of feet shuffling. Instinctively, I realized that the aliens were back, so I whirled around and fired a powerful blast of energy from my eyes toward the doors.
I heard a yelp of surprise as the person standing in the doorway fell to the floor, my lasers passing over her head and outside without hitting anything. I was ready to shoot another blast before a feminine, Hispanic voice said, “Don’t shoot! Please, it’s me!”
Recognizing the voice, I held back my next blast of energy. Instead, I looked down at the woman lying on the ground of the Arena, trembling and shaking despite how warm it was.
It was Teresa. Her hair was done in a ponytail and she was wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans, but there was no way I could mistake her for anyone else. She looked completely terrified, her eyes big and her lips trembling.
“Teresa?” I said, lowering my hands to my side. “What are you doing here?”
Teresa gulped. “M-My father sent me to deliver some homemade milk to Mr. Owens as thanks for his help, but Mr. Owens did not answer the door when I knocked. So I went around to the back of the house, thinking he might be in the backyard, but then I saw you walking toward the barn and decided to ask you to take the milk for me.”
“I don’t see any milk,” I said. I couldn’t hide the suspicion in my voice, even though Teresa didn’t strike me as a liar.
Teresa slowly got to her feet. She pushed the door open all the way, revealing a metal can with the word ‘MILK’ written on it. “This is from the few cows we still have left. We’ve always given this milk to Mr. Owens as thanks for his help.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish for being so suspicious of Teresa when all she wanted to do was give us some milk. “But why so late at night? He’s already asleep.”
“Sorry,” said Teresa. “I know Mr. Owens usually goes to bed pretty early, but I thought I might be able to deliver the milk before he went to bed. I guess I was wrong.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll make sure he gets the milk, don’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” said Teresa. She peered around me, a curious expression on her face. “But what are you doing out here? I’ve never been in Mr. Owens’ barn before. I didn’t know it even had a basement.”
Damn it. I forgot that I’d opened the entrance to the Basement. Nightbolt had said he didn’t want anyone else knowing about the Basement except for me. Now Teresa had seen it, though she didn’t know what it was yet.
“It’s nothing,” I lied, stepping backwards and spreading my arms so she couldn’t see it. “Just, um, where Nightbolt keeps his spare garden tools.”
Teresa frowned. “Mr. Owens does not have a garden.”
“I mean his farming tools.”
“Mr. Owens does not own a farm, either.”
“I mean …” I threw my hands into the air. “Is this really any of your business? You delivered your milk. You should probably go home before your father starts to worry about you or before the aliens try to kidnap you or something.”
Teresa folded her arms across her chest. “Mr. Beams—”
“Just call me Beams,” I interrupted. “I’m not much older than you and that whole ‘mister’ thing makes me sound old.”
“Beams, then,” said Teresa. “Anyway, I am not stupid. I can tell that you are not out here because Mr. Owens asked you to get something. You act like someone caught in the act of doing something you aren’t supposed to. Your lies aren’t very convincing.”
I bit my lip. “So what? You’re not supposed to be out here, either.”
“True, but I have a feeling you’re doing something Mr. Owens does not want you to do,” said Teresa. “Suppose I go back to your house and tell Mr. Owens what you’re doing out here? I know him better than you do. He doesn’t like it when people, especially people he’s training, go against his orders. I doubt he would be very pleased if he found out that you sneaked out to his barn without his knowledge.”
I cursed internally, but at myself, not Teresa. I’d underestimated how smart she was. She may have been a country girl who had never been to a big city, but she was definitely not an idiot. She reminded me too much of some girls I knew back in school, who could sometimes appear a bit shy or even ditzy, but were always much smarter and cleverer than they let on. It helped that she looked very serious about telling on me.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “What can I give you so you don’t tell Nightbolt about this?”
“Easy,” said Teresa. “I want to come down with you and see what’s down there.”
“Wait, really?” I said. “That’s it?”
“Yes,” said Teresa, nodding. “I’ve always been curious about what is inside Mr. Owens’ barn. I always thought he had to have a lot of interesting things, because he used to be a famous superhero when he was younger. But I knew he would never let me into his barn for any reason, so I thought I’d never get a chance to see what was inside.”
“I thought rural people like you didn’t care much for superheroes.”
Teresa shrugged. “My father doesn’t, but I’ve always been interested in superheroes. Not sidekicks, though. Sidekicks are lame.”
“Hey, I’m a sidekick,” I said in annoyance. “Maybe you should show a little tact.”
Teresa shrugged again. “Sorry. If I’d known you were a sidekick, I would have phrased it a little differently. ‘Silly’ would have been a more polite word.”
I scowled in annoyance, but I decided not to comment on that. “Well, okay, you can follow me inside, but don’t touch anything. I don’t want you to break anything, even accidentally. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Teresa in a suddenly cheerful voice. “I shall keep my hands to myself.”
Now I was sure that Teresa was trolling me, but I didn’t care. I just walked down the stairs, with Teresa following closely behind, ready to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Rubber Ball before Nightbolt realized what I was doing. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to do.
CHAPTER TEN
The Basement was the same as it had been earlier, aside from being hotter. My suit helped to regulate my body temperatures, so I didn’t feel at all overheated, but Teresa broke out into a sweat almost as soon as we entered the Basement.
“Oh my gosh,” said Teresa, wiping the sweat off her forehead. “Why is it so hot down here?”
