Scanner Kidz

by R M Scotford

  Jimmy span round and stared. The brief second that he had left to live felt like a lifetime as he marveled at the shimmering blue beauty of the enormous fish tank. Fish of every shape and size busied themselves ignorantly in their fake ocean paradise.

  Without even a nano-second to spare Jimmy grabbed a folded chair and smashed it as hard as he could into the enormous front panel of the tank. As a pair of manicured, steely K-BOT fingers grasped his soft, vulnerable, flabby neck, a crack two metres long shot across the tank like a bolt of lightening. Its tremendous sound echoed around the marble foyer and bought Jimmy an extra second of time before he was throttled to death. The K-BOT looked up at the tank. Jimmy looked at the K-BOT.

  “Too bad,” he chuckled. “Time for a swimming lesson.”

  Before you could say Fish Fingers, the front of the tank shattered into a thousand pieces, spewing out a tidal wave of water. The K-BOT let go of his throat as it was pummeled into the wall by the immense force of the water. Jimmy pulled the folding chair under his body and surfed the mighty wave through the wall of K-BOTS. His chair sped along the wave’s crest at head height, taking out numerous robots as he went. As he burst back through the doors to the main hall, the front of the chair hit an unfortunate K- BOT square in the mouth. The immense pressure sent its eyeballs flying out of its head and into Jimmy’s hands. Deftly, Jimmy juggled the two eyes for a second before throwing them into another K-BOTS face like two big, fat cobbles.

  In an instant, the main body of water came gushing through the doors and flooded the main hall, engulfing a thousand K-BOTs and drenching Abu. Like a pro surfer, Jimmy brought his chair safely to a stop and jumped off.

  “Abu, you’re alive?” he shouted, elated.

  Abu span round and gazed at the jumble of short-circuiting, charred K- BOTS twitching and fizzling in the shallow water.

  “Nice one, Jimmy. I thought I was toast for a moment.”

  Jimmy grabbed Abu’s hand.

  “Let’s go; it’s not safe here. There’s plenty more left.”

  The two boys jumped over the steaming K-BOT debris, and made for the fire exit. They smashed through the heavy fire doors and ran straight into a K- BOT who was hurriedly running down the stairs to join the melee. Working as a team of pro-wrestlers, Jimmy and Abu went to work on the startled, hapless nanny. Abu went for her legs and Jimmy went for her head. The three of them collapsed into a heap of flailing arms and legs, but the K-BOT was too strong for the smaller boys. A well-placed kick from a pink sandal sent Abu flying into a fuse box. The breath shot out of Abu like a popped balloon and he slumped to the floor in a shower of sparks.

  With Abu temporarily out of action, the K-BOT went to work on Jimmy. Her spidery fingers weaseled their way around his neck and began to squeeze. Jimmy choked for help.

  “Abu.”

  The fingers closed in tighter.

  “Ab—bu, hel—p.”

  Abu looked around him. He’d broken open the fuse box revealing a number of exposed electrical connections. Without a second thought, he leapt onto the K-BOT to prevent her from throttling his best mate.

  Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!

  He boxed her ears with a bunch of fives, giving her a suitable distraction from finishing off Jimmy. The hideous nanny howled with fury and Abu was lucky to dodge her slashing nails. Her once pretty blue eyes flashed venomous hatred. She wanted to gouge out his eyes. Quick as a flash, Abu sidestepped her clumsy attack and smiled.

  “Bad move, nursey,” he laughed.

  “Time for an electron sandwich.”

  He grabbed one of the electrical wires and stuffed it into the K-BOTS’ mouth. Her head lit up like a 10,000Watt light bulb and she slumped to the floor — a smoldering wreck.

  “That’ll teach you,” Abu chided.

  Meanwhile, a great, pink tide of K-BOTs continued to try and storm the stage but they were repeatedly beaten back by Maggie’s energy balls. Her superpowers were proving incredibly effective at dispatching bucket loads of robots. They lay crumpled and crushed all around her. Maggie was getting a real buzz from the fight.

  “COME ON!” she roared, as she pile-drived a power ball into another unfortunate group. She laughed out loud as they were bowled over like flimsy pink skittles.

  The powers of the Scanner Kidz were too much for the robots’ vulnerable circuits. The Scanner Kidz reduced the main convention hall into a scrap heap with bits of K-BOT strewn everywhere. After a few short minutes, there were only a few remaining K-BOTS wandering around aimlessly and leaderless. After all, a K-BOTS’ main system software was dedicated to looking after toddlers. They weren’t battle-hardened warriors. Kimiko kicked a robot’s head off the stage; it clanged into a pile of crumpled body parts.

  “Is that it? It can’t be that easy?” she asked, turning to face Maggie.

  Maggie swept her hands around in a slow wave, looking for another group to blast.

  “I think it might well be. Maybe some escaped outside?”

  Douggie stepped forward, nursing his sore head.

  “I don’t think we have to worry about the K-BOT army anymore. Look, I have the detonation device. I think the police can round the rest of them up.”

  Maggie dropped her guard and looked in the direction of the backstage exit.

  “What happened to Grenwold and Nurse Hobbs? Did anyone see where they went?”

  Ninja Nannies

  At that moment a tall, elegant, pink figure stepped onto the stage, closely followed by a number of identically dressed women. Like soldiers, they quickly lined up against the back wall, placed their hands on their round, curvaceous hips, and gave each child a femme fatale glare. The worst was yet to come. Like a troll rushing out from its hideous lair; Nurse Hobbs appeared from the dark corridor and let out a bone shivering cackle,

  “Ha, ha, kiddie-winks, I think you should meet your new baby sitters. They’re specially programmed to deal with problem children like you.”

  She shook with laughter. These were her Elite Ninja Nursery Nannies, dressed from head to toe in pink rubber latex suits; they were primed, pink commandos, fully armed and extremely dangerous. Her eyes narrowed and her fat face burnt bright red as she screamed at the Scanner Kidz.

  “You little punks may be able to take on 10,000 unarmed nursery teachers, but you’re no match for my personal body guards. Prepare to be blasted to wherever you came from. I’m going to paint the walls red with your guts,” she shrieked with crazed excitement as her top K-BOT team moved forward into battle formation.

  The Elite Ninja Nannies gave the children on stage little time to react as the first one somersaulted through the air and exploded in a terrific ball of flames. The shockwave from the explosion blasted Kimiko, Maximus and Douggie clean off the stage like feathers. They crashed into a pile of broken body parts, bruised and winded. Only Maggie was left standing. She surrounded herself with her silver energy field and prepared for the next attack.

  “One down, seven to go,” she said confidently, raising one eyebrow and beckoning the others on with the fingers of her left hand.

  Nurse Hobbs laughed another mocking laugh.

  “Your puny shield won’t protect you for long.”

  She waved her arm, and another two pink ninjas sprang into action. The first one was a feint—it leapt into the air legs kicking and arms swinging to distract Maggie, while the other ran kamikaze straight into her shield. There was an enormous crack and a blinding flash as the energies from the exploding ninja and Maggie’s sphere collided. The Egg shook from the force and ten years of dust cascaded down from the light fittings.

  When the air cleared, Maggie lay broken on the floor. Her shield was down and her eyes were closed. Standing directly over her, legs astride, was the imposing figure of the second pink ninja. She flicked her bobbed, blonde hair triumphantly and prepared to self-detonate. Immediately, Douggie ran to Maggie’s aid. Arms outstretched, he directed every drop of superpower he had at the elite K-BOT conveniently wrapped in a suit of r
ubber.

  On the toilet, Bob put down his newspaper and listened. He had heard two loud bangs. Maybe the Kiddy-Care Convention was having a firework display. He shook his head. If they were using fireworks, then the organizers would be in big trouble: they had no authorization. They weren’t even allowed to smoke in the convention centre, so pyrotechnics were completely out of the question. He listened again. Silence. Everything seemed normal. He picked up his newspaper and continued to read. He would deal with them later. There would be an enormous amount of paperwork to be done if the convention organisers had broken the house rules. As he turned to the sports page, he was knocked off the toilet by a third much bigger explosion that almost shook the toilet to rubble.

  “What the Dickens?” he cried. “That was no firework.”

  He pulled up his pants and fumbled desperately with his belt. If the nannies had made a mess, then they’d have to clean it up.

  As Douggie ran at the Elite Ninja Nanny, a shimmering force emitted from his hands. The energy beam hit the K-BOT and immediately reacted with her latex cat suit. She bounced high into the air like a ping-pong ball, and detonated harmlessly in the rafters.

  Nurse Hobbs’s face dropped. She immediately waved at the remaining five Ninjas. They were her last line of defense, but she was already making plans to escape. She flipped open her phone and punched a few buttons.

  “Is that the pilot? Start the chopper; I’m leaving.”

  “Now?” came the crackled voice of the pilot.

  “NOW!” screamed Nurse Hobbs.

  Meanwhile, at the centre of the stage, the Ninja Nannies were programmed to fight dirty. The fourth Ninja ran straight at the dazed Kimiko, who was still trying to recover from the first blast. Douggie had her measure, and he directed a blast of telekinetic energy that sent her spinning out of control and into a wall, where she exploded ineffectively.

  “Hmmmm,” mused Nurse Hobbs.

  Her Elite Guard wasn’t proving as effective as she had first hoped. Now she would have to use them to cover her escape. She ordered two Ninjas to attack Douggie, while she escaped down the corridor with the last two.

  As the two assassins leapt into the air, Douggie desperately tried to defend himself but was only able to hit one with his energy beam, sending her helter-skelter into a huddle of confused nursery teachers. The second ninja landed next to Douggie and pulled a couple of nifty Kung-Fu moves. She looked pretty cool and would be deadly if she self-detonated so close to him.

  There was no time to react. Douggie braced for the impact of the explosion. But it never came. Instead, Douggie turned to watch the Nanny’s head disintegrate into a white-hot firestorm. Flames danced round her head and licked out her mouth like a fiery tongue. Her body jolted as another magma missile smelted through chest. She raised her arms in a pathetic last attempt to throttle Douggie but crumpled to the floor in a molten heap. Douggie span round to see what had happened. There on the second floor, he saw Abu and Jimmy; they were jumping up and down excitedly and gave each other a high five. Douggie had been saved by a couple of red-hot shots from Abu, just in the nick of time.

  He stepped away from the burning robot and made his way quickly over to Maggie. Kneeling down he picked up her limp, lifeless body. Her face was bruised and covered in dust, but to Douggie she still looked beautiful. Softly, he spoke into her ear.

  “Maggie are you ok? Maggie? Maggie?” His eyes welled with tears. He stroked her matted hair.

  “Don’t die,” he pleaded. “Don’t die.”

  His voice broke. Tears dropped from his eyes and pitter-pattered softly onto her cheek. He gave her a gentle squeeze.

  “Don’t leave us, Maggie. We need you.”

  By now the other Scanner Kidz had recovered from the first blast and ran over to where Douggie was holding Maggie.

  “Is she OK?” Kimiko choked, fighting back the tears.

  “I don’t know. She seems to be hurt real bad.” Douggie wiped more tears onto his grubby yellow T-shirt.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” said Kimiko.

  “Yes, quickly,” said Douggie.

  He held the broken Maggie in his arms and sobbed. Was this the price they would have to pay for defeating the K-BOT army? It didn’t seem worth it.

  Nurse Hobbs waddled down the corridor as fast as her chunky legs would carry her. She shook her head and muttered repeatedly to herself,

  “How has this happened? How has this happened?”

  Who were those children? How had they got such amazing powers? It was her worst nightmare come true, defeated by a bunch of kids. She shook her head in disgust and slapped one of the Ninja Nannies on the back. She’d spent ten years preparing for this day and it had all gone up in smoke. She thrust open the fire exit and stepped out onto the windy helicopter pad.

  The helicopter was slowly ticking over its engine, and the pilot gave her a friendly salute from the cockpit. Nurse Hobbs was in no mood to suffer fools. She screamed to him,

  “Get it started you imbecile. There’s no time to lose.”

  Flanked by her two remaining Ninja Nannies, she made her way across the helipad and onto the chopper.

  Back in the main hall, Maggie opened an eye slowly. She could make out Douggie’s cute, dirty face very close to hers. She opened the other eye. Her face was wet too. What was happening? Was Douggie crying? She tried to sit up and startled Douggie.

  “Nurse Hobbs?” she said softly.

  Douggie’s face lit up like a firework when Maggie tried to move.

  “What? What did you say?” Douggie whispered.

  “Nurse Hobbs, you have to get Nurse Hobbs,” she said faintly.

  He hugged her.

  “She’s OK,” he cried to the others. “She’s gonna be OK. Same old Maggie.”

  Maggie felt strong enough to sit up. As soon as she was upright she started ordering the others around.

  “Kimiko, Maximus look for Nurse Hobbs, we can’t let her get away.”

  She looked at Douggie and smiled. She reached for his face with her hand.

  “Why are you crying?”

  He pulled away and wiped his red eyes with his arm.

  “I’m not,” he said shyly. “It must be the smoke.”

  “Ok,” she replied. “Then help me up. The job’s not finished.”

  As Maggie checked to see if she had any injuries, Douggie called up to Abu and Jimmy,

  “We have to find Nurse Hobbs. We can’t let her get away. Can you guys meet us out the back?”

  Abu and Jimmy waved back and scuttled off through a door. The hunt was on for Nurse Hobbs.

  Bob, the security guard, rushed out of the toilet; the once shiny, chrome doors to The Egg lay broken and twisted on the car park floor.

  “What the — ?” howled Bob.

  He rubbed his forehead in disbelief. What had the nannies been up to? He stepped into the destroyed foyer; scattered all around were broken robots and the odd dead fish. Bob picked up an arm.

  “What the — ?”

  His brain struggled to catch up with the reality of the situation. He made his way precariously through the jumble of twisted K-BOTS and stepped into the main hall. It was complete devastation.

  “What the — ?”

  The convention centre had been completely obliterated. Broken robot parts, light fittings, tables and chairs all covered the floor like some grotesque, smouldering, metal shrubbery.

  “What the — ?”

  He scratched his head again. Someone was going have to clean this mess up and it wasn’t going to be him. He was only a security guard, albeit a very bad one.

  To The Roof

  At the police station the phone was ringing off the hook, calls came in from distraught citizens telling of multiple explosions at The Egg. Constable Beard yelled out again,

  “Inspector Dent, you’d better get in here.”

  Chief Inspector Dent had locked himself in his room and had hung out the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. He was pretending to do reports. What he
was really doing was playing computer games with the sound down. He tried to ignore Beard as long as he could but to no avail. Something was up.

  “This better be good Beard. I’m warning you,” snarled Dent, yanking open the door.

  Beard held three phones in his hands and smiled at Dent.

  “It’s the Kiddy- Care Convention, there’s —”

  But before he could finish the sentence Dent flew into a rage.

  “I’ve had just about ENOUGH OF THIS.” Dent’s face glowed purple. “WHAT IS IT NOW?”

  “Erh, erh. Reports are coming in of multiple explosions at the convention centre, Sir.”

  For a second Dent calmed down.

  “How many reports?”

  “Erh, multiple, sir. Multiple reports of multiple explosions — Sir.”

  Dent rubbed his chin and paused.

  “The Kiddy-Care Convention?”

  “Erh, yes sir.”

  Dent waved a bony finger at Beard.

  “This had better be for real, Beard. Otherwise, it’ll be your head.”

  Constable Beard gulped.

  “I think it’s for real, sir.”

  “Don’t think, Beard. It’s dangerous for people like you. Where’s Hatchet?”

  “He’s pulling the car round now, Sir,” Beard stammered.

  Dent gave Beard one last evil look before grabbing his coat and dashing out the door.

  Back at The Egg, Maggie and Douggie ran desperately around the back rooms of the convention centre.

  “Where can she be?” cried Maggie.

  Frustrated she rubbed her head.

  “We can’t let her escape. It’s not the scientist who’s evil. It’s that fat, old woman. We can’t let her escape. She’s the one.”

  Douggie picked up his walkie-talkie.

  “Come in Kimiko, Maximus. Where are you?” Click.

  Maggie’s face lit up — of course! The walkie-talkies! She’d completely forgotten about them.

  “Come in Kimiko, Maximus. Where are you?” Douggie repeated. Click.

  The children paused, waiting for an answer. The walkie-talkie crackled into life. It was Kimiko.