The Nerdy Dozen

by Jeff Miller

  “Now’s our chance. How should we do this?” Neil whispered to the others. Then he locked eyes with Yuri, who nodded. “I know,” Neil said. “Let’s let the dice decide.”

  Yuri smiled and produced the twenty-sided die from his pocket. He rolled it on the cold and unforgiving ground.

  “We’re gonna roll for this? What are we waiting for!” yelled Waffles, who jumped up, his plastic restraints falling to his feet. He grabbed the white die and threw it forcefully at the window of the door. Everyone watched as, in near slow motion, the small projectile ripped through the thin pane, which erupted in a storm of broken glass on the floor of the warehouse.

  Dale turned to the sign boasting DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT. He erased the 87 printed on it now and replaced it with a big, looping 0.

  The guard turned at the noise, then, his eyes widening, fumbled to grab a radio to communicate with the other henchmen attending to the Great Pizza Fire.

  “My lords and ladies, our plan needeth a hero!” shouted a nervous Riley. “Of super proportions!”

  Wait. We’ve got one! thought Neil.

  “Jason Two—er, the Shrieking Salamander. Now’s your time, buddy!” Neil said, looking directly at Jason 2. Jason looked worried for a second, then nodded and ripped his uniform off in a single motion. Underneath it, he was wearing his sparkly green costume, with a white utility belt clinging around his waist. He ran up to the still-locked doorway and faced the guard, who was running at them fast, fingers fumbling for his weapon.

  “Cover your ears, everybody,” said Neil. Everyone did, except for Jones, whose bad ear was aimed Neil’s way.

  “What’d you say? Cover our wha—” Jones started, but an ear-piercing scream rang out before he could finish. It brought Jones to his knees, as well as the guard, who stumbled forward, trying to block out the shrieking noise.

  Man, maybe Jason Two really is a superhero, Neil thought.

  Jones, his good ear now muffled from Jason 2’s scream, grabbed hold of the bolt cutters and reached through the broken window to snip the lock trapping them inside. As it fell to the floor with a thud, Jones pushed open the door, stepping over the broken glass and the shaking guard, who’d been rendered useless.

  “We’re back in business, everybody,” Jones said. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  “You heard the man, you scum-sucking sacks of grain!” Corinne yelled, doing her best drill sergeant impression. “I want the location of every Chameleon, stat! Let’s get out of here—now!”

  Following her lead, everyone funneled out of the room and into the hallway toward freedom, swiveling their heads to look for any lingering guards.

  “JP!” Corinne was still yelling. “You get your fighter jet and pilots, and I want you off this island in one minute! You got me?”

  “Nicely done, pilot,” Jones said.

  “Our plane,” mumbled one of the captured pilots to Neil, his head rolling side to side from exhaustion and Feather Duster prison. “It’s over there.” He nodded to a remote corner of the warehouse, behind a line of wooden boxes packed full of video games. Neil and Trevor scooped the pilot up on their shoulders and walked toward the corner.

  As they slid through a wall of ostrich-themed crewneck sweatshirts, Neil saw a giant open space. He assumed it housed a hidden Chameleon, and on looking closer, Neil saw it wasn’t completely invisible. Neil could make out its outline. He walked over and pressed his hand to the plane, breathing a sigh of relief when the hydraulic compartment opened with ease. Since this plane had gone missing before he was entered in the system, he hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that it would work.

  “I’ll take our men with me,” Jones said, hoisting the small pilot over his shoulder. Neil glanced to see Wells and Lopez shuffling out with the other captured soldier. “I want to keep a close watch on them. You just get this thing out of here. Andertol”—he looked Neil in the eyes—“why don’t you drive?”

  Trevor ground his teeth in frustration as he and Neil climbed into the stolen Chameleon. Moments later, they heard three sets of footsteps running toward them.

  “Don’t think we’ll have enough room with everybody out there,” said Sam, with Jason 1 at her side. Riley trailed just behind her, doubling over to try to catch his breath. “Mind if we ride with you?”

  “Sure thing,” said Neil. He was ecstatic. Not only would he get to pilot the fighter, but he’d do it with only his fellow recruits along for the ride, like a real pilot. They huddled in, Jason taking the emergency jump seat.

  After buckling himself into the pilot’s seat, Neil started the fighter. “Where’s our exit, copilot?” he asked Trevor, reaching for the controls. Trevor pointed directly to the old shipping port shuttered by rusted fencing. “Bingo.”

  Trevor eased forward on the throttle as the Chameleon slowly began to trample boxes of games and promotional materials. Stuffed ostriches squeaked, then popped, under the tread of the landing-gear tires. The Chameleon accelerated through the confines of the video game warehouse and burst through the gates at the end of the shuttered loading dock. As the nose of the fighter tore through the building, misshapen chunks of chain-link fence shot far into the ocean. They splattered and skipped on the warm surface of the water, thrown out like a handful of skipping rocks.

  “Let’s see what this baby can do!” Neil shouted as Trevor instinctively pushed forward on the throttle and they took off. The Chameleon skimmed over the glistening water, flying low enough to leave a bubbling wake behind it.

  Neil pulled back on the ship’s virtual reins, feeling the thrill of gravity pushing down on him as he spiraled upward. His chest throbbing in triumph, he confidently rolled his fighter until they were upside down, covering miles of ocean in mere moments.

  “Riley, uh, maketh thine . . . ,” Neil stammered, trying to think of words that Riley would understand.

  “Prepareth the cloak of un-vision,” Sam suggested. Everyone smiled. Suddenly realizing that they were flying without helmets and he needed to be safe, Neil flipped the Chameleon back over and started heading northeast, back toward the Martin Van Buren.

  “As you wish,” said Riley.

  But as the Chameleon began activating its scales, something struck Neil as odd. He scanned the altimeter and radar, wondering what was bothering him, but everything was completely normal. Trevor noticed Neil’s eyes darting around.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “Is something . . . off to you?” Neil asked, keeping firm control of the fighter.

  “Not that I’m seeing.” Trevor surveyed the cockpit. “Listen, Ashley, don’t get paranoid on me now. Relax. You did it, somehow. There’s nothing but open sky from here until that ship full of sideburned weirdos.”

  Neil laughed and shrugged. Maybe Trevor was right, and he was just overthinking everything. He had done it, after all—he had rescued everyone and was piloting the most top-secret fighter jet in history after freeing it from the clutches of a crazy billionaire. He took a silent moment to let this sink in. And then it struck him.

  The buzzing. That high-pitched, Grandma’s-house-TV droning that somehow only Neil could hear. He’d heard it on the flight in, but now it was gone. Neil was certain of it. But before he could determine how they’d fix the scales, he was startled by the wailing alarm of the jet’s radar.

  “Uh-oh,” Trevor said. “We’ve got company.”

  They turned back to see two jet fighters in hot pursuit. Do these guys work for Harris, too? Neil thought. One looked like the same attacker that had harassed them on their flight in. Missiles clung to each craft like suckerfish to a shark. Neil watched as a few warning shots fired past his right wing.

  Time to fly.

  Without having to say anything, Trevor pushed forward on the throttle. The Chameleon shot forward as if it had been shoved by someone. But the two fighters kept pace, firing shots dangerously close to Neil’s wings. Neil expertly dodged back and forth, keeping his jet safe.

  “Do they have some
kind of radar that can pick us up?” Sam shouted. “They can’t see us, but their shots are coming straight for us!”

  Neil dipped the controls down, diving toward another small outcropping of rocks. A giant stone arch connected two lush, overgrown islands ahead. Neil pitched his Chameleon and flew closer to the lapping waves below, well beneath the ceiling of the rock bridge ahead.

  “Stick with me on this one, Trevor,” Neil said to his copilot.

  Trevor pushed them faster and faster, streaks of water spouting up in their tailwind.

  “So, that split-S move? I’m thinking about a split capital R. Or maybe even one of those German U’s with the dots over it. Is that a thing?” Neil asked.

  “It is now. Let’s do it,” Trevor said.

  Their fighter threaded through the smooth opening of the arch, leaving plenty of space on all sides. The two bogeys were directly behind them, following intently on their tail.

  Neil pulled hard on the controls, looping back until they were upside down, staring at the top of the rock bridge. Neil cranked the controls to his left, and the responsive fighter quickly cut over, slicing down to make another pass.

  “Maybe more of a lowercase Q,” Neil corrected, his limbs humming as they plunged down to the water below. He swooped back through the arch and heard the sound of the enemy fighter skidding into the water with a splash.

  “A pox on that bogey!” screamed an excited Riley.

  “You got one!” said Sam. “At least I think that’s what he said.”

  Neil leveled out and flew forward, glancing back to see the second enemy fighter swirl from behind the bubbling wake of its fallen comrade.

  “Let’s set coordinates for the USS Martin Van Buren, everyone,” Neil said, hoping to outrun their pursuers and get some muttonchop backup. But before he could even start entering the coordinates, a rocket streaked past the nose of the plane and exploded in bright orange-and-red plumes.

  Neil panicked. There was only ocean in front of them, no other rocks to use for help. It would be a real dogfight, one that might last all the way to the aircraft carrier miles away. Neil’s breath grew short, and he slipped back into old habits, wishing for a natural disaster to whisk him out of nervous situations.

  Tornado. Lightning bolt. Flash flood. Vol . . .

  “Volcano!” yelled Neil. He yanked the plane up and over to head back to the spooky face of the island chain they had just fled.

  As the enemy followed in close pursuit, Neil dodged its fire, moving his wings to avoid a targeted missile lock. A bullet barely grazed the right wing, and a frantic siren started up in their cockpit. As the string of islands approached, Neil could see Ostrich Island, where he’d met Weo, and headed for it.

  He was flying so low that the tops of palm trees shook and bristled as he jetted past. Behind him, Neil heard the whirling of the enemy’s missile targeting system and cringed. They had a lock on him. Just as he reached the lip of the crater, he pulled back, steering clear of the exceedingly hot temperatures of the magma below.

  But the Chameleon barely pulled up and began to spin out of control, just the way it had when Trevor had flown over the volcano. Neil struggled to stay firm on the joystick, the plane rattling like the old clothes dryer in his basement. He looked back and saw the enemy jet fly right over the crater. Its wings shimmied violently as the bogey flipped end over end and then turned to head back in the other direction, giving up the chase.

  But the Chameleon was still twisting all over the map, flailing like a slow-moving Frisbee. To power out of the revolutions, Trevor slowly pushed the throttle forward. Neil was starting to feel like he was a part of the plane again, just as Jones had said. He tilted the wings, feeling the wind beneath them, almost as if the wings were his own arms. He smoothed the fighter out and triumphantly skimmed just above the whitecaps below.

  “Way to go, Neil!” Sam exclaimed. “That was unreal!”

  Now the only thing between the recovered Chameleon and the safety of the muttonchop-covered Martin Van Buren was a few hundred miles of airborne freedom. Trevor and Neil started to climb to a cruising altitude, guiding the tip of the jet toward the rising sun.

  But in the far reaches of his brain, a small, vocal part of Neil knew the Chameleon had to stop. Something is still wrong with this plane.

  “Guys, I . . . I think we have to land. Now,” Neil voiced.

  “What? No way. Let’s just get to the aircraft carrier,” Trevor argued.

  “Something’s wrong with the plane. I can feel it!” Neil insisted.

  “Neil, let’s just get out of here. What would stopping do?” Jason 1 argued. “If something’s wrong, the guys on the Martin Van Buren can fix it.”

  “Sorry, guys,” whispered Neil, rearing back in a giant, lightning-fast split S. Trevor tried reaching for the controls, but everyone’s weight was magnified by four times that of regular gravity, and Trevor’s hand flopped back, useless.

  “Come on, come on,” Neil muttered. The islands were right below him. Like a futuristic pilot coming out of a light-speed warp drive, Neil pulled back on the jet’s thrust. But his timing was off, and he slowed the Chameleon just in time to clip the tops of the tallest palm trees on the island. The nose of the fighter careened down abruptly, burying them once again in the sand.

  For the second time this Memorial Day weekend, Neil was at the beach. In the worst possible way.

  “IS EVERYBODY OKAY?” NEIL ASKED HIS FLIGHT CREW, RUBBING the back of his stinging neck.

  A muffled “yeah” came from those around him, and Neil breathed a sigh of relief. He looked out the cockpit windows to see ostriches sprinting in every direction. Two strutted up next to the plane and began to peck curiously at the edge of the wing.

  “Well, we’re back where we started, Ashley. Couldn’t get enough of this place, huh?” Trevor groaned. “I can’t believe you! We should be halfway to the aircraft carrier!”

  Neil tried hovering up and out but only succeeded in creating a clamoring whir of the engines.

  “What were you thinking, Neil?” Jason 1 said, sighing.

  “And now Harris probably has his communication grid or whatever back up and running,” Sam said, defeated. Even she seemed frustrated with him. She flicked the transmission switch for the plane’s radio communications, but only static filtered out.

  Trevor’s barbs were fairly commonplace at this point, but disappointing Sam made Neil feel awful. He’d been so sure something was wrong with the plane, yet maybe he’d acted too soon.

  Silently, everyone hopped out of the cockpit to slide down the exterior of the Chameleon and land on the beach. As the others began digging the Chameleon from the sand, Neil turned and faced the water. He needed a minute to think things through and started to skip rocks into the ocean. With every plunk of a rock into the clear-blue water, Neil’s thoughts drifted to home and how much he wanted to be there right now, even if Janey had mastered the art of breaking a new type of wood, or whatever roughly femur-sized object she learned to splinter during her weekend tournament.

  Hmm, Janey.

  When they were little, Janey had once borrowed a working, functioning submarine toy from Neil. It was yellow and remote-controlled, and it was capable of plunging ten feet into the water with ease. Back when he trusted Janey, before she became the terrifying karate enforcer she was today, Neil let her take it to a pool party at a friend’s house. It had been one of Neil’s favorite toys, but when she returned it, it no longer did anything that made it cool. It didn’t dive; it didn’t stay upright. He couldn’t get it to make even one lousy bubble. Neil was the proud owner of a floating yellow log.

  Wait. . . . Neil thought of the dogfight he’d just escaped and how the other planes had always known where they were even though they were invisible. Could Harris have left the plane for us to take but removed the best part?

  Neil ran back to the Chameleon and crawled into the auxiliary seat. Trevor and Sam were angrily scooping sand from the nose of the fighter, slowly une
arthing the craft, while Riley and Jason 1 helped keep away the curious ostriches.

  “You feel like helping us, Neil?” Trevor scoffed.

  But Neil ignored Trevor, searching instead for the plane’s invisibility switch. He turned it on and watched as the plane blinked erratically, trying to turn on the scales. Neil ran back outside, and he could see the exterior as plain as day.

  “Guys! Guys! It’s the invisibility!” Neil screamed. “That’s what Harris wanted! Not the plane. Not us. He took the scales!”

  “What are you talking about?” Trevor snapped, but Sam’s voice interrupted him.

  “Cut it out,” she said to Trevor with a glare. “Neil, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “The invisibility,” Neil explained. “That’s why he stole the first plane; that’s why he wanted those other fighters. He doesn’t care about flying, or the plane. He just wants the invisibility technology.”

  “Just because you broke our plane’s invisibility doesn’t mean Harris—” Trevor started to say, but Sam cut him off again.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, her voice shaking. “I think you’ll want to see this.”

  They turned around and followed her gaze. She stood transfixed, looking out at Harris’s island and the warehouse. They watched as what appeared to be a translucent bubble formed over Harris’s island and began shimmering. Slowly, the entire island vanished, fading from the horizon and looking just like another section of roiling seawater against a pastel sky. The suspension bridge from the main island vanished, too.

  “He . . . he made the entire island invisible,” Neil stammered. He looked at his watch, which read 1530H. “We’ve got thirty minutes till that transfer!”

  “We’ve got to go stop him,” Sam said. “The question is, how?”

  The five kids opened the storage cache for their Chameleon and peered inside, hoping to find something, anything, they could use. In the back corner, Neil spotted a bundle of thick yellow material, which he grabbed and dragged onto the beach.

  “Maybe this’ll work,” Neil said.