The small dwarf of ice and rock came into view as Samantha entered the exhibit. All the lights in the small room were off, save the one illuminating the small world. The light reflected off its shiny exterior and made it hard for Samantha to see much else in the room.
She ran straight for the six-foot-high model. Behind it, an access door led out to a small landing platform on the second-floor roof of the museum. From there, Samantha would make her escape from this place.
Down a short hallway, up a flight of ten stairs, and then onto the roof—that was the plan. Simple and efficient, the way most SOCKs plans ran. From there, Samantha was to shimmy down a drainage pipe and run across the parking lot to the set of bushes next to the mailbox where the rover was hidden.
The rover was Gears’s latest project, made with the help of his new right-hand man, Roller. The rover was nothing more than a glorified go-cart. The steel frame was square in shape and big enough to hold one rider. The pieces of steel came from the old hang glider Kid Combat used to escape out of Jones’s mansion a few weeks back. Seemed its flight-worthy days had expired.
The engine had five-horsepower and belonged to Wedge – one half of the set of twins on Kid Combat’s team. Wedge had the engine hidden in his parent’s garage. It was from his “private collection” of “things that could help him go really fast.”. The steering column, wheels, and other parts had come from each of the SOCKs members’ garages and were assembled in Maple Forest in The Playground.
The rover went pretty fast. It would hit thirty miles per hour without much effort. Wedge held the record for fastest test lap around The Playground. He also held the record for most damage done to The Playground on a single lap.
In an effort to save time for Samantha, Roller came up with the idea of outfitting the rover with a remote control device that would allow him or Gears to start the rover remotely from The Playground. This way, if Samantha was in a bind, as she was tonight, she wouldn’t have to waste time starting the rover. She could simply jump on and take off. Roller and Gears had tested that feature several times before tonight’s mission.
Samantha tried to run faster. The boys racing footsteps sounded behind her. They both gained ground at every step of the way. One of the boys made a last-ditch effort to stop the unknown intruder. He dove, head first, and attempted to tackle the small girl. Samantha countered and jumped up in the air. The boy’s hand came close, but it wasn’t close enough. He fell to the floor with a thud and momentarily fell behind in the chase.
His partner tried the same maneuver. He too dove straight at Samantha’s back leg. He made a grunting noise as he hurled himself toward her. Samantha tried the same jump she did with the first boy, but this time she wasn’t as lucky.
Knowing her move, the second boy’s right hand hooked and snagged on the back of Samantha’s ankle, knocking her off balance and sending her crashing to the ground. As Samantha hit the floor in a painful collision, her instincts forced her to outstretch her arms in an effort to catch herself. This caused her to slide for a few feet and in the end she lost her handle on the camera. The small device hit the floor and was sent spiraling across the marble floor. In its final rotation, the camera smacked up against the far wall and shattered to pieces.
As Samantha lifted herself up off the floor, she had no choice. Sam had to leave the camera, its memory card, and all the pictures behind. Being caught would be a far worse situation. Samantha regained her composure and her lead and sprung through the access door behind the small model of Pluto. She raced down the small hallway and opened the door leading onto the roof of the museum.
The wind caught her face. For a moment, Samantha lost her breath and had a hard time talking over her communicator.
“Gears. Roller,” she puffed, “I’m out and I’ve got company!”
Back at The Playground, the two boys feverishly typed away on their keyboards. Two monitors displayed the results of their labor, showing real-time pictures of the town and infrared shots of the museum.
Gears and Roller had been busy over the past few weeks setting up surveillance all around town. When word had come that Spring Road Toys was in jeopardy, they concentrated all their efforts on making sure the square block around the toy store was secure. The two boys continued to type away and bicker back and forth—as usual.
“Hurry up, Gears,” Roller spouted out as he slammed away on his keyboard. “She won’t last long out there by herself!”
“I’m trying!” Gears rang out, not looking up from his keyboard. Moments went by that, to Gears, seemed like forever. “It’s … it’s not responding.”
Roller looked over at Gears, and then he looked at the monitors. “They gotta be right on her tail. Hurry!”
Samantha ran to the far end of the museum’s roof and waited. She then realized that this wasn’t where she was supposed to make her exit. Her heart was pounding, and she began to sweat—too much for her liking. She took off her mask in a fit of frustration and waited for an answer from the boys.
“Gears! What’s going on?” she shouted.
“I told you—it’s not responding to any of the commands!” Gears snapped back.
“You said you checked it?” Kid chimed in.
“I did. We did. Several times,” Gears defended himself to KC.
“She needs to get out of there before they get through that door!” Roller exclaimed.
“Sam, the rover isn’t responding. You’ll have to improvise,” Gears’s voice crackled over her earpiece.
“Improvise? Are you kidding? I’m on a freakin’ roof here! What would you like me to do—fly?” Samantha snapped back at the boys. She was pinned down, and she could hear the two boys pounding on the access door to the roof. The door wouldn’t take too much more before it was broken down. To make matters worse, Samantha could spot flashing lights off in the distance. She could also hear sirens approaching. The curator must have called the police to report an intruder at the museum.
“Great,” Samantha said to herself. Her expression quickly became one of deep frustration as she tried to figure a way out. She surveyed her surroundings. For the life of her, she couldn’t see anything that would help her out of this predicament.
Samantha heard a loud crashing noise behind her. The door that separated her from the two boys split in two. The boys made quick work of what remained and made their way through the door. Samantha began to freak out a bit and ran to the farthest point away from the door. The two boys quickly saw her and ran after her.
Samantha made it all the way to the corner and then realized how trapped she was. The two boys came up from behind her and stopped about ten feet short. Confused on what to do with her, the two boys radioed back to the curator inside.
“Ah, we have her trapped on the roof, sir. What would you like us to do next?” one of the boys said.
“Keep her there. The police will be here soon. We’ll be right up,” the voice said back over the speaker.
“You heard him,” the other boy said. “Don’t try anything funny. We’re bigger than you, and we would hate to hurt you.”
Samantha just stood there facing away from the boys and looked down. It was way too far to jump. There were no drainage pipes, bushes, or even a dumpster down below to break her fall. The situation seemed helpless.
“Samantha, it’s Roller,” came a voice over her earpiece. “I have an idea, but it’s not the best one I’ve had in my short career here.” That news didn’t exactly fill Samantha with confidence. “I’ve managed to hack into the system that controls the exterior of the museum. Apparently there is a retractable awning right above the first-floor window that you’re above. I think I can get it extended, but I have no idea if it will hold you.”
Samantha stood there and rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe this mission was turning out like this. First she blew her cover, then she smashed the only evidence she had, and now she had to jump from a second-floor roof onto an awning that might or might not hold her.
“Just do it,” Saman
tha said back to Roller. Within seconds, the awning started to extend.
“Hey, who are you talking too?” one of the boys asked.
“I would love to stay and talk to you boys, but I gotta jet,” Samantha said. She then proceeded to dive off the roof like she was a high diver at the Olympics. As she fell through the air, Samantha executed a half circle, proceeded to tuck, and waited for impact.
She hit the awning softly. The impact of falling only twenty feet was nowhere near enough force to send the small, thin girl through the awning. She bounced up about three feet, hit the awning again, and rolled off of it. Samantha fell about seven feet down, but she landed on her feet and sprang back up.
She brushed herself off, took a quick look back up to the boys, and bolted down the street. As she ran north through the open section of the parking lot, three police cars drove through the south entrance. With their lights flashing and their sirens blaring, they rolled in and blocked that entrance. By then, Samantha was long gone.
Seconds later, the curator and a boy dressed in all blue emerged onto the roof. They stepped over the broken remains of the roof door. The other two boys hurried over to both of them.
“She got away, sir. She jumped,” one boy said to the curator.
“It’s of no matter. Let her go,” the curator said. “Begin your assignment.”
“Yes, sir,” the two boys said almost in unison. They then ran back into the museum.
The curator and the boy in blue stood alone for a second. The boy in blue wore a hoodie, along with thick silver sunglasses to conceal his identity. Disgustedly, he shook his head from side to side at the curator.
“He won’t be happy with this,” the boy said to the curator.
“You don’t need to tell him about this, do you?” the curator said back. His voice trembled with fear.
“No, I don’t have to tell him,” the mysterious boy in blue said. He paused for a second. With a smile that could be seen from underneath his disguise, he continued. “I want to tell him.”
The curator’s look of fear quickly vanished and turned into anger. Seeing that response, the boy in blue enjoyed an even bigger smile.
The boy turned and disappeared back into the museum, leaving the curator alone on the roof with his thoughts.
Chapter Two:
The Return Home
10:15 pm
Samantha was a lot of things, but one thing she wasn’t was late. Over the years, Samantha had gained a reputation among the members of SOCKs as “the early one.” She had a great sense of time. It stemmed from her early childhood.
A divorce shortly after her birth meant that Samantha had been raised primarily by her mother alone. With just the two of them, Samantha’s mom made tight schedules to fit everything into their busy lifestyle. From having to get to and from work and pick up Samantha from daycare, to eventually adjusting to Samantha’s school schedule and school activities, Samantha’s mom ran a tight ship. Samantha learned early on that being on time for pickups and drop-offs meant the difference between a happy mom and a crabby mom.
This carried over into life within SOCKs. If you were to meet Samantha at seven o’clock, you better be there at seven o’clock. Or better yet, fifteen minutes prior.
With such a regiment of being on time, everyone knew that if Samantha was tardy for anything, it meant one thing—trouble.
When Kid Combat, Samantha, and the rest of the SOCKs group were planning for this mission, they estimated that the time it would take to go from the museum on Spring Road to The Playground in Maple Forest would be about twenty minutes. And that was factoring in a few detours to throw off anyone that might be following Samantha.
As the minutes continued to roll by since Samantha had left the museum, it became official—Samantha was late.
“What’s her status?” Kid asked Gears once again.
“It’s just sitting there, Kid. I don’t know what to tell you,” Gears replied, staring at his computer screen. It displayed a virtual map of the town, zooming in on the museum. There, near the southwest corner of the building, a pink light flashed on and off. The pink dot was transmitted from the locater device that was attached to Samantha’s shirt at the start of her mission. Each member was assigned a color and a locator before every mission. Kid’s was blue. Gears, green. The twins had orange and white ones. Roller, brown. Samantha’s was pink.
“What are the chances it fell off when she fell?” Kid asked.
“Probably pretty good, considering the way she fell,” Roller responded. “I’m trying to pull up any visuals from the surrounding area, but most were shut down prior to the mission.”
“Try her radio again,” Kid snapped.
“Kid,” Gears said softly. “I’ve tried it four times already. It’s off.”
Kid sat back down in his chair directly behind the two boys. Man, can’t anything go right today? he thought to himself. Still unaware whether Samantha was safe from the curator, the police, or any other obstacle, Kid waited nervously for signs that his friend was OK.
“It’s gone! The pink light—it just shut off!” Gears said. Kid got out of his chair and looked over Gears’s shoulder. The monitor in front of him displayed only a virtual map of the town, nothing else.
“When do we go after her?” Roller asked.
“I don’t know. With the twins gone tonight, we’re shorthanded,” Kid said. The twins, at the last minute, had been forced to head to their grandparents’ house for dinner and a movie. It had been unclear if they would make it back for the mission; therefore, they were not included in any of the final plans. “We’ll just have to be patient. I’ll be in my room looking at feeds,” Kid turned and left Main Computer Lab 1.
It was now forty-five minutes since Samantha escaped from the museum. Kid sat in his room and sifted through different surveillance feeds from around town that Gears and Roller were able to hack into. Security cameras from stores in the area, ATM cameras, and stoplight cameras were all tapped, and their signal fed back to TPG. Kid sifted through them for any sign of his friend. He didn’t see one.
Roller and Gears stayed in Main Computer Lab 1 and tried to get the rover to respond. They also tried to reach Samantha on the radio once again. They didn’t succeed at either one.
Minutes went by. It seemed like an eternity. The Playground was unusually silent for a mission night, mostly due to the absence of the twins.
Suddenly, a red light started to flash above Gears’s LCD. He quickly looked up at it and started typing away. A new window opened and a video feed of Security Check Point 2 started to play on his screen. There, Gears saw Samantha enter her code at the keypad entrance into The Playground. And then the back wall started to open.
Gears picked up his headset, put it on, and dialed a four-digit extension on his computer. “Kid, she’s home.”
In his room, Kid stopped sifting through the video feeds, switched his screen to the main entrance of TPG, and saw his friend walking in.
“'Bout time.”
Samantha made her way through the main entrance room of The Playground. The lights were off. The only light guiding her was the light from Hallway 2.
Much work had been done to The Playground over the last few weeks. All the floorboards were installed throughout the secret base, and the nice light brown wood surface shined under Samantha’s feet. It was much better than the broken boards and cardboard that had been there no more than a few weeks ago.
A few furnishings had been added to the main research and development room as well. There were some workstations for the crew to develop projects, but more important was the additional recreational area. In the southwest corner, a ping-pong table, foosball, and a pool table had been brought in. Just beyond them, sat two flat-screen TVs, and a number of gaming systems lay about the floor. The boys of The Playground loved this new corner and spent many rainy days and nights here hanging out and playing against one another.
The Playground was definitely coming into the shape Kid Combat
wanted it in. As Samantha entered Hallway 2, she started down the newly finished corridor. The shiny silver walls reflected the light from the overhead fixtures into Samantha’s eyes. She blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted from the darkness of RD1 to the brightness of Hallway 2.
She walked by Gears’s empty workshop and proceeded directly to Kid Combat’s room. The door was open a crack, and she pushed it gently. There, she saw Kid Combat sitting at his desk and staring at his computer screen. She didn’t even get a foot into the room and didn’t have a chance to speak.
“You’re late. I had you leaving the museum over an hour ago, and it’s only a twenty-minute trip, tops,” Kid said as he tapped his computer screen. He sounded more like a parent disciplining his child than a concerned friend.
“Yeah, well, I took the long way here, just in case I was being followed. I didn’t exactly have a smooth exit, you know,” Samantha answered in an equally terse tone. She entered the room and took a chair in front of Kid’s desk. She gave Kid a look of frustration and waited for more of his verbal concerns.
“We lost your locator device and your radio is out. We’ve been worried,” Kid said back.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you about the radio,” Samantha said. She took it out of her pocket and jiggled it around. The radio sounded like a handful of marbles smacking around in a glass jar. You could tell by the sounds that it was making that the radio was trashed, probably from the fall.
“Seems fine to me,” Samantha added sarcastically. Kid, for the first time that night, allowed himself to smile. The tension in the room quickly evaporated, and the two friends shared a small laugh. It didn’t last long as Samantha’s face went from relieved to concerned in the blink of an eye. Focusing back on the mission, Samantha filled Kid in on the details.
“Kid, I’m afraid the rumors are true. Spring Road Toys is in trouble. I overheard the curator talking to two boys. They’re planning something. I can tell.”
The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys Page 2
