“Wow! Look at all this cool stuff,” I said as it sank in. Set up on display tables and shelves throughout the room were a complete range of Amazing Indestructo products. There was the AI SuperBaby Crib with bendable iron bars that I had when I was really little; the Professor Brain-Drain Punching Bag; a copy of the first issue of The Amazing Indestructo (and the League of Ultimate Goodness) comic book; and (holy criminy!) even a complete set of all eight of AI’s Power Vehicles, including his Atomic-Powered Rickshaw! These had been offered as prizes inside kids’ Dinky Meals at the Dinky Dogs fast-food chain. I had found all of them except the rickshaw. In fact, no one I know had ever found one. As my shaking hand reached for the rickshaw, a voice suddenly interrupted me.
“Please don’t touch that. It’s the only one in existence.”
We all turned and saw a man who looked about fifty. He was seated in a chair that had been turned away from us when we had first come in but was now swung around to face us. The first thing I noticed about him was that he wasn’t wearing a costume. I mean, he wasn’t naked or anything like that. It’s just that instead of tights and a cape, he was dressed in an ordinary suit and tie—actually, a very expensive-looking suit and tie. He also did not seem the least bit pleased to see us in his office.
“Are you the president of Indestructo Industries?” I asked.
“I am,” he said coolly. “My name is the Tycoon. My power is making money—lots of it.”
“I’ve never heard of you before,” Plasma Girl spoke up.
“That’s the way I like it. Now how did you get in here?” he asked. “And what’s happened to my secretary?”
“She went to get some fresh air,” I said nervously. Then I built up my courage. “And we’re here to talk to you about the collector cards you’ve just released.”
Without saying a word, the Tycoon pressed a bright red button on a panel next to his phone. He then returned his attention to us.
“I’ll be happy to answer whatever questions you like,” he said with an oily smile. “You have about three minutes before the security guards I’ve just summoned arrive to remove you, so I suggest you ask quickly.”
Plasma Girl and Stench both looked nervous, but I decided to get right to the point.
“Did you create a card for Professor Brain-Drain?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Are they in packs that are available to buy in stores?”
“Of course,” the Tycoon replied.
“How many are out there?” I pressed.
“Three,” he said as the corners of his mouth turned up in an evil-looking smile.
“Three!?” Stench said in outrage. “No wonder we couldn’t find one!”
“If I’d had my way,” the Tycoon continued, “there wouldn’t have been even that many. But we ran into a little trouble with the Superopolis Trade Commission when we ran our last Dinky Meal promotion. They were outraged when we advertised for kids to collect all eight of those toys that you were just admiring—especially since we only manufactured seven of them. They threatened to close us down if we ever did anything like that again.”
“You creep,” Stench said. “I must have eaten over a hundred of those meals trying to find the AtomicPowered Rickshaw.”
“It shows, kid,” the Tycoon said. Stench turned red with anger. To be honest, Stench isn’t fat at all. He’s just big.
“But that was the plan,” he continued. “We sold tons of those meals. Just like we’ll sell tons of these card packs as you kids go crazy trying to find them all.”
NAME: Tycoon, The. POWER: An unfailing ability to make money. LIMITATIONS: Vulnerable to tax collectors. CAREER: President of Indestructo Industries. CLASSIFICATION: Loaded.
“The Amazing Indestructo would toss you in jail if he knew what you were up to,” I accused the Tycoon.
“Oooh, well I’ll guess I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t find out.” The Tycoon laughed. “Come on. AI himself suggested that there be thirty-two cards of him, sixteen cards of the LUG’s, and sixteen cards of his villains. He hates Professor Brain-Drain so much he won’t exactly be disappointed that there aren’t very many of him.”
“Where are the three Professor Brain-Drain cards?” I demanded, figuring I might as well ask.
The Tycoon stared at me for a moment with a mildly amused expression on his face. “I admire your spunk, kid,” he said finally. “But of course I won’t tell you exactly. I will, however, give you a hint: Just look near the three types of rock.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but before I could say anything, six brawny guards burst into the office. As the two who came for me grabbed hold of my arms, I glanced over and saw Stench easily lifting his two into the air, one in each hand. Plasma Girl had morphed into a glob, and her two guards were frantically trying to get her into an Amazing Indestructo Slot Machine coin bucket that one of them had grabbed from a display table. As usual, I was useless, and I soon found myself being dragged from the office.
“Wait a minute,” I yelled to the Tycoon. “What about Meteor Boy? How did he get into the collection?”
“Interesting question,” he replied. I heard a sizzle of electricity and noticed Stench slump. “As you know, there are ten current members of LUG, plus the five original members, now retired. I needed sixteen heroes. At first I was going to use the Weatherman, but he’s gone solo now and wouldn’t give me permission.”
“And?” I insisted. I had been dragged to the door and was now clinging to its frame. Stench looked unconscious as the two guards attempted to lift and drag him through the door, and the final two guards had succeeded in trapping Plasma Girl in the bucket.
“And so I took it upon myself to use Meteor Boy on the sixteenth card. I doubt that AI will mind. After all, we only created ten copies of it. I’m impressed that you even found one.”
That was the last I heard. The office door swung shut. As the two security guards hauled me away, I could have sworn that I saw a figure dart out the door before it closed. But a second later it was gone. Meanwhile, Stench, Plasma Girl, and I found ourselves being dragged toward the elevator.
CHAPTER TEN
A Rocky Start
I was thrown out the front door of Indestructo Industries and landed right beneath the enormous statue of the Amazing Indestructo. Stench came rolling behind me, his eyes finally blinking back open as he bumped into AI’s enormous boot. The last of the security guards took the bucket and tossed its contents onto the sidewalk. A few moments later, the goop had reconstituted itself back into Plasma Girl.
“How rude,” she said, sticking her tongue out at the departing guards.
“At least you didn’t get shocked,” Stench said as he tried shaking some life back into his left hand. “I think one of those guys must be able to generate an electrical charge or something.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. I’m never going to buy anything from this company again,” she added. “Not even the new Bee Lady Girl-Power Tea Set complete with recipes for Honey Crumpets and NectarAde.” She paused for just a moment. “Even though I really, really wanted it.”
Stench and I just looked at each other. Neither of us was ready to make such a drastic pledge. I couldn’t help thinking, that Plasma Girl had a point. But right now we had to try and figure out where the three Professor Brain-Drain cards were.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s almost four o’clock. Let’s go meet Tadpole and Hal. We can figure out later how to tell AI what the Tycoon is up to.”
The Cavalcade of Candy was the biggest candy store in town. Shaped like a dollop of whipped cream, it was a hundred feet tall, but the entire interior was as hollow as a chocolate bunny. One long pathway inside the store spun its way to the top in a single continuous spiral.
All along this path were individual shops specializing in any type of candy you could possibly imagine: chocolates, toffees, brittles, cotton candy, licorice—you name it. Running all through the open space in the middle there was also
an incredible roller coaster called the Sugar Rush. In my opinion, though, the coolest thing there was the scale model of Superopolis that covered the main floor and was made entirely of candy. Mountains were made out of chocolate, trees were made from wisps of green cotton candy, and the buildings were made of gingerbread. It was completely accurate, too. I could even find the model of my own house!
THE CAVALCADE OF CANDY
The brainchild of the Superopolis Dental League, the Cavalcade of Candy was built on the same location as their previous enterprise, the Little Tykes Puck-Whacker Hockey Arena, which had been shut down by the city over its refusal to provide kids with face masks. Home to nearly one hundred confectioners, the Cavalcade of Candy was a success from the day it opened and is recommended by four out of five dentists.
There was no time to spend looking at it now, though. Plasma Girl, Stench, and I headed up the spiral pathway. We passed the Rock Candy Menagerie, where they sold little figures of animals made of rock candy, scooted by Great Balls o’ Fire, whose jalapeño fireballs are even too hot for my dad, skirted around the Gummy Grave Robber, who sold gummy candy that looked like most of the major internal organs (Plasma Girl made an ick face as we passed by), until finally we reached the Collector Card Coliseum.
The department is enormous, but it was easy for us to follow the flashes of light over to where Halogen Boy was lighting up packs of cards while Tadpole checked out their contents.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“None at all,” Tadpole responded. “But we only just got started. Hal insisted on having a large Apple Super Seltzer at the Fizz Bar before we started looking, and the carbonation gave his light such an on-and-off flashy quality that I couldn’t focus on anything in the packs. It was only after he went to the bathroom that he toned down enough to be useful.”
Tadpole gave Hal an annoyed look, but he just shrugged his shoulders innocently and burped.
“There are hundreds of packs to look through, though,” Tadpole added hopefully.
“To be honest, I don’t think there’s any point in even checking,” I said, and then I told them what we had learned at Indestructo Industries. “Our only chance is the clue that the Tycoon gave us,” I said. “What could he have meant by three types of rock?”
“How are we going to find three cards scattered all across Superopolis?” Tadpole exclaimed in frustration.
“Our only chance is the clue that the Tycoon gave us,” I said. “What could he have meant by three types of rock?”
“Maybe he meant rock music!” Plasma Girl blurted out hopefully. “Let’s see, what are the different types?”
“There’s Heavy Metal,” Tadpole suggested.
“Right,” Plasma Girl agreed. “And there’s Punk Rock.”
“What about Rap?” Hal added helpfully. “Is that a type of rock?”
“I’m not sure that even counts as music,” Stench said.
I was only half listening. I drifted over to the railing where I glanced down at the scale model of Superopolis. My eyes focused on an enormous chocolate mountain in the center of the model. That was all it took for me to realize we were completely on the wrong track.
“He wasn’t talking about rock music,” I said, interrupting a discussion about the difference between Light Rock and Soft Rock. “He was talking about rocks!”
“What do you mean?” Plasma Girl asked.
“I mean regular, ordinary, old everyday rocks. The kind you find on the ground.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tadpole said. “There are millions of different rocks.”
“No,” I corrected him, “there are only three. Don’t you remember in science class when we learned the three types?”
They all looked at me blankly, indicating how little they had absorbed of Miss Marble’s recent lessons on geology.
“I sort of remember a little about it,” Plasma Girl offered. “Just not very much.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Let me refresh your memories. Rocks are divided into three types—igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.”
The blank looks remained in place.
“Let’s start with igneous,” I said. “Igneous rocks are crystal or glassy types of rocks that are created by molten lava when it cools.”
As they stood there silently, I realized I wasn’t getting through to them. So I jumped ahead.
“What it means,” I said triumphantly, “is that I know exactly where one of the cards is located.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lava’s Labors Lost
In the heart of downtown Superopolis is Lava Park. It’s called that because there is a live volcano smack in the middle of it. The volcano, Mount Reliable, erupts every day at exactly five o’clock. And without fail, one of Superopolis’s many heroes arrives on the scene and prevents it from doing any damage.
“The best example of igneous rock in all Superopolis is in Lava Park,” I informed my teammates. “Igneous rock comes from lava that has hardened. It makes perfect sense.”
“But how do we find a card that’s hidden in a live volcano?” Halogen Boy asked, glowing dimly.
“It’s not in the volcano,” I responded. “Can you think of a place that normally sells this sort of thing and also happens to be located right near the volcano?”
LAVA PARK
After early attempts to sell the land around Mount Reliable as housing lots failed, the city leaders gave up and declared the area a municipal park. At over two hundred acres, the park now provides a needed oasis of green (and bubbling red) in the heart of the Superopolis business district. The numerous thermal vents throughout the park make it particularly popular for barbecues.
“Inkblot’s Newsstand!” Plasma Girl cried.
“Exactly!” I said.
The Inkblot has had his newsstand on a corner of Lava Park for over fifty years. In that time he’s watched lots of major historical events pass by on the front pages of the newspapers he sells there. Today’s headlines weren’t all that earthshaking, though. The Hero Herald had a headline about an investigation into the unusually large number of solid gold thimbles that Mayor Whitewash recently received as gifts—“They’re only thimbles of appreciation” the headline quoted the mayor as saying. The Weekly Daily had a story about the enormous jackpot available in the Superopolis Lottery, which of course was pointless since the drawing had already happened three days ago, and The Superopolis Times had a piece on AI’s capture of the Multiplier. They reported the Multiplier’s dramatic increase in power, but there was no mention of the fact that my dad and the Big Bouncer had really brought him down.
In addition to papers and magazines, the Inkblot’s stand also has a wide array of snack-size bags of potato chips, a selection of candy bars and breath mints, and, sure enough, a small assortment of card packs. Among them was a stack of Amazing Indestructo Collector Cards.
“Hello, young uns,” the Inkblot greeted us as we made straight for the cards. “Can’t get enough of that AI stuff, can you? When I was just a sprout, I was the same way about Captain Radio. You kids probably don’t remember him, but he was the Amazing Indestructo of his day. He could ride the radio waves like one o’ them surfer dudes. Now that was a power! I still remember the day I met him. I must have been about the age you whippersnappers are now. I couldn’t wait to show him my power.”
Hal illuminated his hand and I tried to both check out the cards and look like I was listening politely.
“I was still young enough to think my power was pretty impressive,” the Inkblot continued. “I was in my brand-new costume. White as snow it was, except for the shape of a dark blot of ink smack in the middle of my chest. My boots, belt, and cape were the same dark color as the blot. I felt like I could take on every villain in Superopolis! That’s when I met the captain.”
We were halfway through the cards at this point, but there was no sign of a Professor Brain-Drain card. The Inkblot kept rambling on, now seemingly telling his story to a pigeon that had landed on
the far edge of his counter.
“‘Well, sir,’ I said to him, ‘wait’ ’til you see this!’ Then I took out my bottle of ink and poured it into my hand. Of course, it didn’t land there, ya see, because that’s my power. I can repel ink from my body, ya know! So I held out my hand to Captain Radio and the blob of ink hovered in the air above my palm. I moved that blob from hand to hand, working up its speed, and then, wham! I sent that inkblot flying through the air until it went splat against a wall over ten feet away.”
I only heard a portion of this. We were down to the last couple of packs, and there was still no sign of the card.
“I turned to the captain,” the Inkblot continued, “sure that he would be as impressed with my power as I was. He stood there silently for a few moments as my heart beat with excitement. I figured my skill had left him speechless. Then he burst out laughing, hopped onto a radio wave, and surfed away without saying a word to me. I felt pretty lousy for a while, but I also grew up a little that day. It wasn’t long after that I got my first job selling newspapers. And in sixty years, I haven’t once gotten my hands dirty handling them.”
The Inkblot finished his story and held out his ink-free hands for me to inspect. We had gone through all the packs, and none of them contained a Professor Brain-Drain card. Before I could ask him about it, though, an enormous rumble suddenly threw us all to the ground. Mount Reliable began to spit balls of fire into the sky. Tadpole shouted, “Hey, guys, look! It’s the Weatherman!”
Sure enough, the Weatherman himself was taking on today’s volcano duty. Soaring to the top of the peak, he whipped up a blizzard over the mouth of the volcano, instantly freezing the lava that erupted into the air. For five minutes he kept at it, turning molten lava into—well, igneous rock. Finally, right on schedule, the volcano calmed down. After waving to the cheering crowd that had stopped to watch his performance, the Weatherman glided off on an air current into the late afternoon sky.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed Page 6
