Here Comes Mr. Trouble tfc-1

by Brett Battles

  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.

  Sleep, it finally said.

  Yes. Sleep. That’s what he needed. Sleep. Just because it was the middle of the day didn’t mean he couldn’t take a nap. Naps were awesome. So what if he hadn’t taken one since he was five? Naps were perhaps the best things ever invented.

  Sleep. I just want to—

  Why was everything shaking all of a sudden? How was he supposed to sleep when it felt like he was in the middle of an earthquake? He just needed a nap. It didn’t have to be for long, just a little while. If the world would just cooperate, he could be in dreamland. He liked dreamland. Dreamland was where—

  “Hurry! Hurry!”

  The voice was far away, barely loud enough for him to hear. But he didn’t want to hear it even a little bit. He just wanted to sleep.

  But both the talking and the shaking continued.

  Somebody please stop the shaking!

  “I think he said something.” This voice was closer and different from the first. “Eric, can you hear me?”

  “Stop the shaking,” he mumbled.

  “Don’t worry about him,” the first voice said, not so distant now. “Someone get the back door.”

  Eric wondered why these people couldn’t leave him alone. He just needed to sleep and everything would be all right. Everything would be just fine.

  There was a thud, then someone said, “Oomph,” and someone else said, “Sorry.”

  “You’re going to have to hold him on your laps,” the first voice said.

  Eric could feel his head move lower than his feet, then he was jostled around for several seconds, and finally seemed to be level again.

  From somewhere not too far away — everything seemed to be getting closer now — came a loud roar. It was followed by a second roar, and a third, and a fourth, each adding to the other until it was one giant thunderous rumble.

  “Shut the doors! Shut the doors!”

  Metal slammed against metal. Car doors, or at least Eric was pretty sure they were car doors. Then there was another roar, but this one was nowhere near as loud as the others. This one sounded like…a car engine?

  He felt motion again.

  “I think we’ve gone beyond an MA813,” a fourth voice said. This one was older, with an accent, a man’s voice. Familiar. Actually, all the voices were familiar. All but the beautiful one that had told him to sleep.

  “What’s an MA813?” A girl’s voice.

  “We have a ranking system for attacks. MA813 is…uh…was the strongest we’ve ever recorded.”

  There was more movement. Just leave me alone, Eric thought.

  “Eric. Can you hear me?”

  Someone grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to bat the person’s hands away. “Just let me sleep.”

  “That’s not sleep you feeling,” the older man’s voice said. “It’s my fault. We kept you under the scanner longer than we should have.”

  Scanner? What was he talk
ing about?

  Eric tried to roll over so that he didn’t have to face whoever was trying to bother him, only there was nowhere for him to roll. The bed he was on was impossibly narrow, and even more uncomfortable than the cot he’d slept on at summer camp in July.

  “Eric. You need to open your eyes. I know you can do it.” Maggie? Yes, it was Maggie’s voice.

  Well, if Maggie wanted him to open his eyes, maybe it was okay. It felt like he’d slept for a little bit anyway. He couldn’t sleep forever, could he?

  Distantly, in the very back of his mind, he heard the sing-songy voice again. Yes. Sleep forever. Yes. Yes. He tried to grab onto it, but it was already weak and fading fast.

  Eric’s left eye opened just enough to let light rush in. He immediately jammed it closed, but the mere act of doing so woke him even more.

  “Good. You’re almost back.” A girl’s voice. Not Maggie’s. “Try it again.”

  Bracing himself for more light, he cracked open each eye so he could peer through his lashes. While it was bright, it was no longer too bright. He opened them a little more. Shapes and colors. He let his eyelids part even further. The shapes turned into arms and faces. Three faces.

  Maggie, an older man, and another girl. Fi…Fi…Fiona. Yes, Fiona.

  Fiona Trouble.

  The Trouble family.

  The attack at school. The plane. The beat-up sedan. Mr. Trouble. Mother Trouble. Keira. Uncle Colin. Uncle Carl.

  The scanner.

  His eyes shot all the way open.

  Maggie, Fiona and the man — it was Uncle Carl — were all looking down at him from a strange angle. It took Eric a second before he realized he was lying across their laps.

  Suddenly the whole world bounced, and he flew up a few inches before falling back down hard.

  “Ow!” Fiona said.

  “We’ve got to hold him,” Uncle Carl said. “That way we all move up and down together.”

  “Where are we?” Eric asked. They certainly weren’t in the workshop any more.

  “We’re in the car,” Maggie told him.

  A car, of course. He, Maggie, Fiona, and Uncle Carl were in the back seat of the sedan. From his position Eric could see Mr. Trouble was driving. And though he could tell there was someone in the front passenger seat, he wasn’t sure who it was.