“Ah, um. I forgot what I was going to say midrant.” Kid joked.
“Nice. You don’t see these as a possible threat to us? It seems like this is going to get worse before it gets better,” Sam said back.
“Oh, I remember,” Kid said, snapping his fingers. “While it is a minor threat and an inconvenience for you to weed through all this garbage, the fact remains that the longer the press and everyone are distracted by these false reports, the easier it is for us to operate. You’ll have to admit that it’s been nice and quiet for us.”
“Well, it has been,” Samantha conceded. She sighed and continued. “I still don’t like it. I mean, no good can come from ‘The Troublesome Duo,’” she said, clicking one last image.
“Hey, isn’t that the two Johns from gym class?” Kid questioned.
“Heh. It is,” Samantha responded.
“Huh. Weird. Makes you think,” Kid replied. The sarcasm was thick.
“Stop it!” Samantha said smacking Kid on the arm.
“Forget it, Sam. We might as well stop now. We can’t compete with ‘The Troublesome Duo!’” Kid said, barely holding back his laughter.
“You done?” Samantha said, hands on her hips and getting less and less amused by Kid and his antics.
“Yes ma’am,” Kid came back. He tried to compose himself. “So what’s going on around here? Anything good?” he said, looking around.
“Gears is still working on the SIM card. He should have something shortly. That’s about it. We’re all just waiting on him,” Sam said, typing away on her computer.
“I’ll go check with him. Want to come?” Kid asked.
“Nah, I’m still looking over these reports. You go ahead; I know you’re not interested in this.”
“You’ve got that right,” Kid said with a wink as he exited the room. Sam just glared and mumbled. Kid smiled and walked across the room and out to Research Lab B. He made his way through the lab and over to Gears. Gears sat at his computer hacking away at the SIM card produced from the boy’s phone from the mall. He saw Kid enter and greeted him.
“How is it going, Gears?” Kid asked. “Samantha said you may be close.”
“Oh, I’m close,” Gears concluded. He hacked away on his keyboard some more. “Shouldn’t be more than a few minutes before I can read the full card. I’ve been going through their phone book and phone logs, but that didn’t prove too much. They did call the curator a few times, and there are some ancillary calls in there that may be of some interest, but nothing too promising. I’m just waiting for the algorithm to finish so I can read their date book. Should only be a few more seconds,” Gears said as he turned back to his computer. The screen flashed a few different windows, and a status bar grew in size. The two boys waited in silence for the bar to reach its maximum size and produce the data. After a few minutes, it did.
“There we go,” Gears said. The screen produced a new window that resembled a calendar. The current date was highlighted, but there were no entries. “Doesn’t seem like much data is in this book, but, I guess, how many appointments do sixth graders have?”
“Yeah. That’s a good point,” Kid said in disappointment. He then got an idea. “Click on the monthly view tab there on the right,” Kid said, pointing at the screen. Gears moved the mouse over and clicked on the month view icon. The screen changed to produce a few notes. The first one they noticed was from a few days prior. It was their meeting with Alfred E. Scott, the night Samantha broke into the museum. Kid then noticed there was a note on the next day’s date.
“Click on tomorrow. What does that say?”
“’Meeting with Scott. 8:00 pm at the museum—during party.’”
“Party? At the museum?” Kid questioned.
“Let me do a search,” Gears said. He brought up a new window and a search engine. Gears quickly ran some queries, and a newspaper report from the Elmcrest Times appeared on the screen.
“Here we go. ‘Annual Museum Costume Ball. Alfred E. Scott will be hosting his yearly costume party to help raise money for the museum,’” Gears read from the article. “It says it’s this Sunday. That’s tomorrow, Kid. What do you want to do?”
“Crash the party, of course,” Kid said confidently. It was the break he had been looking for.
“Sounds good!” Gears came back.
“Get the troops together in Main Conference 1, Gears,” Kid said. He patted Gears on the shoulder and then walked toward the door.
“Sure thing. What’s our plan, Kid?” Gears asked.
A confident Kid stopped and turned back.
“Our plan? Oh, I’ll think of something,” Kid Combat said with a sly smile on his face. “Gather the troops. We don’t have much time. And it seems we’ll need some costumes.”
Chapter Eleven:
The Masquerade
8:00 pm
It was the following night. Darkness started to descend on Elmcrest as the sun began to set on this late summer day. The skies above became a maze of colors, from the glowing orange as the sun’s rays were reflected high into the cloudless skies, to a dark sea of blue as the moon started to come out and play. Eventually, it would all fade to black and galaxies of stars would appear high above Elmcrest.
It was a perfect night to be an astronomer, to sit out high above the lights of Elmcrest with a telescope and watch the endless supply of wonderment come alive.
It was also a perfect night for the Science Museum’s yearly party, the Costume Ball. Dubbed the biggest party of the year, it was the highlight for Elmcrest. Everyone with any kind of elite status in the community would show up. Politicians, mayors, television people—anyone important.
For such an event, the whole museum, inside and out, was decorated in a theme. The museum spared no expense, and each year, the decorations became more and more elaborate. This year’s theme marked the arrival of what would become the museum’s biggest attraction.
The outside of the museum was lit up with different colored lights on every side of the building, making it glow a deep green in some areas and a marvelous purple in others. Yellows, reds, and blues were also found, making the sides of the building a rainbow of wonderment.
There were also flags strung about. Massive, ten-foot-long white flags adorned the walkways leading up to the main entrance of the museum. As the flags flapped in the wind, the colors from the lights bled on to them, making a magical site.
The neighboring trees on the property were also lit up. Holiday lights of green and red hung on every tree, and some even had streamers hung from them. They too flapped in the wind, making the light bend into different forms.
But this, after all, was a costume party, and meant to be a little bit scary, so Alfred E. Scott also had the museum buried in a thick, artificial fog. Dry ice arrived by the truckload, and fog machines were strung all about outside. The lights, the flags, and everything else engulfed the museum, making for one eerie scene.
Inside, partygoers found anything but the usual. The date of this year’s costume ball coincided with the day the Egyptian exhibit arrived in town. A whole wing was segmented off for this exhibit and would become the museum’s busiest display. Everything Egyptian was already inside and regulated to that particular wing, except for the main attraction, the mummies.
By the dozen, they littered every hallway, every entrance, and every crevasse. Real ones, fake ones—it was impossible to tell the difference, and no one really asked.
Skeletons, cobwebs, dust, and even fake jewels also littered every entrance, every corner, and every hallway.
The lighting was also changed on the inside of the museum. On the average day, the museum was lit up like the Las Vegas strip and it was hard to find any shadows, but tonight it was just the opposite. The house lights were brought down to a minimum and black lights were used in their place.
The walls, hallways, and pillars were covered with a new art of their own. Every wall displayed images of Egyptians, hieroglyphics, and scary beings. Once on, the black ligh
ts showed the massive amounts of glow in the dark artwork around the museum.
To Alfred E. Scott, it was perfect. The design came out better than he had hoped. He stepped down every inch of the museum, looking over every detail to ensure everything was to his liking. So far, he was very impressed.
He made his final laps. Within minutes, he found himself in the main foyer of the museum, starting to greet his guests.
Hundreds of them, all dressed up in different outfits, started to pour in the front doors. There wore scary masks and playful masks. The women in gowns and men in tuxedos all wore unique masks.
One by one, they filtered into the main room on the first floor of the museum. The grand foyer, where small exhibits once were, now was home to hundreds of tables. The tables were adorned with white tablecloths and each seated between six and eight guests. Each featured a lavish centerpiece of skeleton bones arranged into different patterns and held together by roses twisting around them. In the center of each design, a skull sat with a lit red candle sticking out of it. The wax dripped down the sides of every surface, resembling fake blood oozing out.
Each guest was assigned a specific chair. The chairs themselves were white in color and crafted of very distressed material. Each has an assigned number etched on the back in a dark red, bloodlike shade.
The guests arrived, and the night started off without a hitch. They gathered in groups around their tables and talked. At the many different bar stations, they gazed in wonderment at all the artwork around. Music pumped in from a back room, and a dozen monitors displayed various scary images all night long.
Dinner approached, and the guests filed toward their assigned seats. As they started to settle in, the waitstaff came out and began to serve them their appetizers.
The waitstaff was also dressed up in costumes of their own. They wore black bodysuits from head to toe with a skeleton painted on the front and back. They all wore black hoodies and skeleton masks with deep, black eyeglasses over the sockets. The staff, mostly consisting of teenagers, numbered about fifty. They waited tables, refilled drinks, and greeted guests as they arrived. Among them were four kids who hadn’t been officially hired by the museum.
Kid Combat made his way around one of his three assigned tables. He refilled some glasses of water and looked around the museum floor. He scanned up, down, left, and right for Ace and Tommy, the two boys connected to the vandalizing of Spring Road Toys. He also kept an eye out for the main man himself, Alfred E. Scott. To his dismay, he found nothing.
Off to his right, was Samantha. She too was assigned three tables, and she too was attending to them. In typical Samantha form, she did it with her usual charm. Paying more attention to her mission than to her customers, Samantha spent most of her time spilling water on the guests and giving them quick, short answers. Samantha’s future as a waitress was in doubt. Her real mission, though, was not to fill someone’s glass with water, but to find the two boys.
The twins, Wedge and Rocket, were out of sight. Unfortunately KC hadn’t been able to secure waiter jobs for them. They were stuck back in the kitchen, washing dishes. They stood at the massive sinks, side by side, and scrubbed pot after pot, dish after dish. Wedge let it be known every second to his little brother that he was not too happy.
“Why are we even doing this? It’s not like we are any help to them,” Wedge said.
“Dude, we’re running backup on this one. In case KC or Sam gets in a jam, we can save them or take over the mission,” Rocket said softly.
“Dude, my hands are dying in here!” Wedge said as he shook his hands violently, making suds fly all over.
“Knock it off, you two,” the sound of Kid’s voice came through their earpieces. “Stay sharp, and look for the boys.”
“I can’t see a thing in this thing,” Sam ranted. She complained about her costume disguise. “Could they make the eyeholes any darker?”
Sam was forced to go back to work, waiting on her tables as her guests started sparking demands at her. Fill my water glass, get me some bread—the requests were coming in fast.
“Whoops, sorry.” Sam poured water all over some man’s plate as her attention was consumed in looking for the two boys. The man gave her a sharp look.
“What?” Samantha said inquisitively. “It’s just water. Relax!”
Kid Combat was off to Samantha’s left still looking for the two boys, but he was doing a much better job at waiting his tables. His guests’ glasses were filled to the brim, without a drop being spilled. Everyone had enough bread, and all their needs were met.
“Any luck, Sam?” Kid said over his voice piece to Samantha. In her ear, Kid Combat’s voice ran true.
“Ah, little busy over here serving royalty,” Samantha snapped back.
“Keep looking, Sam,” Kid answered back. Samantha was getting frustrated by the situation she was stuck in and snapped at Kid.
“What do you want me to do, Kid. I’m looking. What do you expect me to do— look up and just magically …” her sentence was cut short, for as she looked up and pointed at the second floor of the museum, there stood Ace and Tommy. “Found them,” Samantha’s voice said over Kid’s earpiece. His head swiveled toward Samantha so fast he almost took a man’s head off with the water jug. Kid looked at Samantha, and she motioned her head over to the right. “Up there. Second floor.”
“There’s Scott,” Kid said to Sam. The two were now next to each other talking face-to-face. “Behind you, first floor. By the Tomorrow’s Technology exhibit.”
“What should we do?” Samantha asked of Kid Combat.
“You go after the boys. I’ll go after Scott,” Kid said back to Sam. “Remember, we need something of them on tape.”
“I remember, don’t worry,” Samantha said. She then vacated her table without a care for her seated guests. She moved away, when Kid stopped her.
“Oh, and Sam,” Kid said. Samantha stopped and turned around. “This time, don’t drop it,” Kid instructed with a wink.
Underneath her disguise, Samantha roller her eyes, and she started to follow the boys. She made her way up to the second floor and followed the two boys, but not too close. They made their way up to the third floor, which was off limits to the party, and entered Alfred E. Scott’s office.
A very large and spacious office, it took up almost a quarter of the entire floor’s total square footage. The room was once a small exhibit room featuring antiquities from the Far East. Once Scott became curator, he shut down the wing and kept it for himself.
Ace and Tommy made their way deep inside the room and never saw or heard Samantha sneak in behind them. She made her way into a closet that had double doors. She snuck in, and left the door open a crack.
“I can’t wait to get paid!” Ace said. He took it upon himself to sit at Scott’s desk, put his feet up, and lounge back as if he owned the place.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be sweet!” Tommy returned. “All the pizza and candy and toys we can want!”
“Yeah, well, you waste your half on stupid stuff like that. Me? I’m going to get a new ride—thick mag wheels, the works!”
Samantha tripped her earpiece. “Gears. Roller. You getting all this?” she whispered.
“Yeah, Sam, every word. We’ll want some video. Turn on your recorder.”
Samantha reached down and pulled her mini recorder out of her pocket. She attached it to the harness on her left shoulder and turned it on.
“Got the signal. Good picture too,” Roller said back. “Now all we have to do is wait.”
“What is going on in here!” rang out behind the twins. Startled, they looked at each other. A large, overweight man approached them. He was not too happy with the two boys. Wearing all white, the man was the lead chef for the night’s dinner. He raced to the two boys and firmly waved his finger in their face.
“I’ll ask you again. What is going on in here?”
“How do you mean, sir?” Rocket replied.
“How do I mean? Just look at this
mess around you!” the man blurted out at the two boys. He was in a state of rage and panic. “There is water all over the floor, you have suds on every counter, and not a single dish has been washed! How do you explain this?” The man stood a few seconds with his hands on his hips, waiting for the two boys to explain.
“Well,” Wedge started, “it’s his first time?” he said pointing at Rocket. Rocket stood there shaking his head from side to side.
“Me?” Rocket said anxiously. “You are the one in charge of the soap and water. I was in charge of scraping off the plates.”
“No, you weren’t!” Wedge interjected. “You were supposed to scrap and wash. I was to dry and stack.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Rocket continued. The man stood there listening to the two kids bicker until he lost his temper.
“Hold it! Hold it!” the man shouted. Wedge and Rocket stopped arguing back and forth and looked up at the man. “Get out of here! Both of you! I have no time for this stupidity in my kitchen!”
“But, sir!” Rocket exclaimed. Wedge just threw down his towel.
“Good, didn’t want to work here anyway.”
Meanwhile, Kid Combat followed the elusive Alfred E. Scott. Scott walked down the halls of the second floor of the museum, passing by the planetary systems that Samantha didn’t have the time to look at a few nights ago. As Scott walked in his black tuxedo wearing a rather small mask over his face, his cane struck the solid floor and echoed throughout the halls. Kid was close behind, ducking behind the large pillars that held up the structure.
The pursuit went on for a few minutes. Alfred E. Scott came to the staircase leading to the third floor. He casually walked up the stairs and disappeared into the main hallway.
Kid left his hiding place behind a pillar and cautiously looked from right to left. He then looked up the staircase and proceeded. He didn’t get more than two or three steps before a voice rang out from behind him.
The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys Page 8
