by Bryan Davis
“Can it handle a ten-amp draw?”
“I think so. Why?”
“I have an emergency. So, if you don’t mind.”
“What kind of emergency?”
I took a deep breath. “I have to save the world.”
Chapter 11
What Happens When You Plug in a Superhero?
Two flashlights, Damocles’s and Barney’s, lay on the lobby floor and illuminated Barney’s generator as it chugged and coughed. Smoke poured from its exhaust pipe and up to the high ceiling where it seeped through big cracks and filtered out.
I plugged the superhero invention’s lamp module into one of the generator’s outlets and my computer power adapter into another. Getting Damocles back into commission was probably the most important thing I could do. The world needed him.
I set the computer on the floor. While it charged, I positioned the lamp so that the lens pointed at me. I could try it on myself, but since it didn’t work before, it was better to let Sam be the superhero again. As weak as she was, she needed the boost.
“So what’s this gizmo?” Barney asked, pointing at my invention.
“Well ...” I took Sam’s hand and pulled her in front of the lens. Somehow I had to create a diversion. “Hey. Do you have anything to eat? Sam’s going to be really hungry.”
“Going to be hungry? How do you know?”
“Just trust me. If you don’t want her to eat your shoes, you’d better find something.”
“Okay. Whatever.” Barney shrugged. “I have a peabudill in a cooler in my truck. She can have that.”
“A peabudill?”
“It’s short for a peanut butter, mayonnaise, and dill pickle sandwich. Tastes great, but the texture is like chewing cockroaches. You kind of have to get used to it.”
I resisted the urge to cringe, and I definitely didn’t want to ask how he knew what chewing cockroaches felt like. “That’ll do.”
When he exited the building, I set my hands on Sam’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Are you ready? I mean, you don’t have to do this.”
“I’m ready.” Her weak voice barely rose above the generator’s racket. “I want to be Princess Queenie again. I have to stop Mephisto.”
“All right, then.” I released her and stooped beside the superhero device. With a finger on its power switch, I gave her a nod. “Close your eyes.”
When she complied, I flipped the switch. Bright light flashed from the lens and bathed Sam in an ultra-white glow. Her entire body looked like the negative of a photograph, and her bones appeared through her skin and clothes.
The generator whined. Obviously, the amperage draw was putting a strain on it. It might not last much longer. After a few more seconds, my invention’s auto-timer shut the light off, and the unit powered down. The generator sputtered and coughed, then died. Silence descended in the lobby.
I rose and took Sam’s hand. “You can open your eyes now.”
She looked at me and smiled. “I feel a lot better.”
“Do you have your strength back?”
She lifted an arm and flexed her bicep. The muscle swelled and bulged. “Yep. I’m Princess Queenie Unicorn Ariel Kitten Emerald Sesame Lilac Iris Pony again.”
“Princess Quakeslip? That’s a new one.”
“No, it’s not.” She uncapped the Gatorade bottle. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, I thought that might happen. Barney will be back with something in a minute.” I unplugged the handheld computer from the generator and looked at the battery meter — about 20% charged. “Let’s see what Damocles has to say.”
“Look who I found.” Barney walked in with Mom at his side.
“Eddie! Sam!” Mom ran to us and pulled us both into a hug. “Where have you been? I was so worried about you.”
“We came here looking for you,” I said.
Mom drew back and wrinkled her nose. “It smells like you’ve been wrestling with pigs.”
“We kind of took a spill in a —”
“And Sam’s arms. She’s swollen again.” Mom took the Gatorade bottle from her. “Purple Gatorade? You know she’s —”
“I know, Mom. I know.” I wrestled free from her grasp. I had to figure out how to escape so we could get to the Stellar building. “Mom, don’t they still need you at Magruder’s? I heard it’s like an emergency shelter now.”
“They do. Supposedly we’re going to have another earthquake in ...” She looked at her wristwatch. “Just under one hour. So I need to get you there. If any building can stand another quake, Magruder’s can.”
I mentally pictured the restaurant and the nearby triage area. If the police car was still there, Sam and I could go for another ride on the cleared road and walk the rest of the way. “That’s perfect, Mom, but how do we get there before the quake hits? No car can get around all the damage on the roads.”
“No, but bicycles can.”
“Bicycles? We don’t have —”
“Yes, we do. I bought three bikes with some of the money you gave me. You’ve been asking for one for months.” She pointed toward the door with her thumb. “Barney has them in his truck.”
“Sure do.” Barney pulled a wrapped sandwich from his pocket and extended it toward Sam. “And here’s the peabudill I promised you. Your mom said it shouldn’t make you react.”
Sam took the sandwich and began tearing the wrapping off. “Thanks.”
Mom pointed at my belt. “What are those gadgets you’re wearing?”
“Superhero gear. You know, to stop Mephisto from destroying Nirvana.”
“I love your imagination.” She patted me on the head in the most annoying way possible. “Keep aspiring to great things, Eddie.”
I ducked out of her reach. “Sure, Mom. I’ll do my best.”
“We’d better hurry.” Mom took Sam’s hand. “Time’s running short.”
I snatched Damocles’s flashlight and the computer from the floor and attached them to my belt. But I had to leave the superhero generator behind — too awkward to carry while riding a bike. “Mom, why don’t you and Sam and Barney get the bikes? I’ll meet you in the parking lot in a minute.”
“Why? What do you have to do?”
I altered to an excited-little-kid’s tone. “I have to hide my superhero generator so Mephisto won’t find it.”
“Okay, Eddie. Whatever you say.” Mom, Sam, and Barney walked outside.
As soon as they were out of sight, I picked the unit up by its handle and set it behind the lobby’s front desk. When I emerged, Milligan walked in.
He smirked. “Whatcha doin’ back there, Eddie? Hiding?”
I concealed a swallow. I couldn’t let him know the truth. He might steal my invention. “Yeah. Hiding.”
“Not so brave without your superhero disguise, huh?”
I altered to a timid voice. “Yeah, it’s pretty scary out there. The ground’s been shaking a lot.”
“Don’t try to con me, kid. I saw you swing across the skyline like Tarzan. You’re not scared of a few jiggles in the ground.”
“Well, they felt pretty strong to me.” I marched toward the door. “I gotta go.”
“Suit yourself, but I’m keeping my eye on you. I have to be a watchdog for a poor family that doesn’t have a dad around, you know.”
I exited and walked toward the parking lot, looking back to see what Milligan would do. He sauntered out and headed in the opposite direction. Good. My invention was safe.
After Barney unloaded three bicycles from his pickup truck — blue for me, red for Mom, and pink for Sam — he opened the truck’s passenger door and produced three backpacks with the same colors.
Sam clapped her hands. “New backpacks!”
“And color coordinated,” Mom said.
After Mom and Sam put on their backpacks, Barne
y handed me the blue one. “You might want to stick your gadgets in there. Tough riding with stuff dangling near the spokes.”
“True.” I took the backpack and transferred most of the gadgets from the belt to the pack’s main pouch, including the flashlight, the computer/projector unit, and Mastix, though I left the two spools attached. They wouldn’t dangle, and having them handy might be a good idea.
All that stuff made the backpack pretty full, but I might be able to fit the superhero device in there. I just needed an excuse to go back and get it.
“Let’s hurry,” Mom said as she climbed on her bike and pedaled away. “They need me at Magruder’s right away.” Sam jumped onto her bike and followed.
Sighing, I followed as well. Without a decent excuse, I just had to hope the device was safe behind the desk. No one who found it would think it’s valuable anyway.
Along the route, we dodged holes, ditches, and wrecked cars. Once we had to ride through water that rose halfway up our wheels, but we managed. Sam kept surging in front, her powerful legs giving her a boost, but with a few scolding looks, I finally convinced her to stay at a normal kid’s speed.
As we wheeled along, a feeling that we were being watched made my skin crawl. I looked back every few seconds. Maybe Milligan was following us again. But how? No car could navigate all of these obstacles.
When we arrived at the restaurant, we squeezed our bikes through the crowd in the lobby and parked them inside next to the front window. After we used the restrooms, Mom set us at a two-person booth and gave us each a meatball sub.
Sam downed hers in about a minute and a half. While I munched on mine and watched Mom bustle back and forth among the customers, I estimated the time it would take to bike to the Stellar building — probably fifteen minutes.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, a circular analog face with beer bottles for hands — 2:40 a.m. My wrist watch said the same. Twenty minutes till the next quake. Since I still had to talk to Damocles, we couldn’t afford to lose another second.
The moment Mom disappeared into the kitchen, I stuffed the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth and whispered to Sam in a bread-garbled voice, “It’s time to go.”
Our heads low, we skulked to the waiting area, grabbed our bikes, and walked them outside. Once on the street, we hopped onto the seats and took off toward downtown.
After we passed the triage area, we came upon the police car and a motorcycle parked next to the decapitated duck. Chet Graham sat in the car’s driver seat with the officer on the passenger’s side. When Graham saw us pass by, he jumped from the car, leaped onto the motorcycle, and kick started it.
I pulled a few feet of line from a spool and reached the claw toward Sam. “Attach this and take off like a rocket.”
Grinning, she grabbed the claw and hooked it to her bike’s frame. She then leaned forward and churned her legs like a pair of hot-rod pistons. After giving her a short lead, I locked the line, lifted my feet from the pedals, and hung on.
When the line tightened, my bike and I surged ahead. Angling this way and that, Sam dodged holes, fallen streetlamps, and trapped cars.
I looked back. As the motorcycle dodged the obstacles, its headlight weaved from side to side. The light’s glare made it impossible to see Graham’s face, but I imagined a threatening scowl.
The headlight drew closer and closer. Sam was fast, but she was dragging too much weight. I called out, “I’m cutting myself loose. Go to the Stellar building. I’ll meet you there.”
I detached the line and let it fly. Sam shot ahead while I drifted back until I stopped. Just before Graham’s motorcycle caught up, I turned my bike ninety degrees and leaped out of the way. The bike slid under his front tire, and the motorcycle slung him forward over the handlebars. While he flew, the two bikes tangled and flipped again and again before skidding to a stop.
Darkness shrouded the street ahead. No sign of Sam or Graham. I ran in the direction we were going. As I passed my bicycle, I looked it over. It had twisted into a blue metallic pretzel. So much for my gift from Mom.
About thirty feet farther down the road, I found Graham sprawled across broken pavement, his face bloodied. I check his throat pulse. He was alive, but he seemed to be unconscious.
I jogged on, dodging puddles and leaping over jutting concrete as I called out, “Sam? Where are you? Can you hear me?”
When I reached the ditch where I had fallen earlier, I halted and looked beyond it. Sam was a stubborn squirt. If she decided to go to the Stellar building like I told her, nothing would stop her.
I glanced at Graham, now fifty feet back. He lay motionless. I couldn’t just leave him there, could I? He might be bleeding internally. He could die.
But this guy was a first-class creep, the bad guy, the villain. Probably almost as evil as Mephisto. I could leave him without another twinge of guilt.
I searched the area for something to build a bridge with. After finding a few broken two-by-fours and setting them over the ditch, I tiptoed across and ran toward the Stellar building, alternately looking at its roof and the ground, both illuminated by moonlight.
When I drew within a couple of blocks of the building, the pavement ahead buckled. The ground shook and lurched from side to side. I dropped to my knees and grabbed a fallen light pole. The Stellar building cracked down the middle. Half of it fell to the side and crumbled over a lower building’s roof, sending a rolling river of dust toward me.
I crouched and turned my back to it. The river blasted into my body, coating me with dirt. When the dust settled, I turned toward the building again, coughing as I shouted again, “Sam? Where are you?”
I staggered toward the Stellar’s remains, the quake pitching the ground and making me feel like a seasick sailor on a storm-tossed ship deck.
Then, the quake stopped.
Dizzy, I tried to walk straight ahead, but the road still seemed to waver. I stopped at every intersection and looked both ways, calling for Sam, but no one answered.
After several stops and futile calls, I came upon a fire hydrant that spewed water into a huge gorge. Since it was at least twenty feet wide, I couldn’t jump over it, and the gorge’s ends were out of sight, making it impossible to go around it.
I stepped close and looked down. The gushing water spilled into the depths, too dark to see anything more than a few feet below.
Something glimmered to my right. Several steps away, a pink bicycle lay near the edge with the spool line lying on the street.
My throat cramped. Sam?
Chapter 12
Sometimes a Sister is Pretty Cool to Have Around
I shouted into the gorge. “Sam? Are you down there? Can you hear me?”
The roar of gushing water drowned my voice.
I grabbed the spool line’s claw from the bike frame and attached it to the fire hydrant. After getting my gloves from the backpack and putting them on, I clutched the line with both hands and rappelled down the side of the gorge.
As I slid lower and lower into darkness, I called out for Sam again and again, but the deafening sound of crashing water overwhelmed my shouts.
Since I had detached the line from the spool while we were riding our bikes, I wouldn’t be able to auto-reel the line when the time came to climb back out of the gorge. Of course, I could manually rewind the line into the spool and reset the spring, but that required special tools I had at home. I should’ve used my other claw and spool. Too late for that now.
When I touched down, I stood in a cold, knee-deep rush of water. I pulled the flashlight from the backpack, flicked it on, and cast the beam around. No sign of Sam.
Downstream, the river hurtled into darkness. Upstream, the waterfall from the hydrant above splashed onto bare rock, birthing the shallow river and a wall of misty spray. Behind the cascading curtain, the ground appeared to be dry. Sam was smart enough to go that way
.
I sloshed upstream and dodged the cascade, though the spray dampened my hair and face with tiny droplets. As I walked on, I swept the beam from side to side, checking for any sign of a girl with super strength, but only dark rock appeared in every direction.
When the splashing noise lessened, I ventured another call. “Sam? It’s Eddie. Can you hear me?”
My voice echoed off the walls, but no answer from Sam. I pivoted and looked back at the tumbling water. How far should I go? Maybe she didn’t fall in. Maybe she ditched the bike and jumped over the gorge. If she made it to the Stellar building, she might have been crushed when it collapsed.
I heaved a sigh. Just one hundred steps more. If I didn’t find Sam, I would turn back and try to climb out.
Counting my paces, I walked on. Above, the opening vanished. I was now in a tunnel that turned in the direction Sam and I had been biking. When I reached eighty steps, a light appeared far ahead. It looked like the end of the tunnel — a circular opening into some kind of underground chamber.
I stopped. Based on my memory of the city map, that chamber was right under the Stellar building, or what was left of it. Keeping my footfalls quiet, I hurried on.
As I drew nearer, the sound of a motor grew louder and louder. I ran to the opening, hid behind the wall, and peered around it. The chamber, little more than a cavity carved out of the rock, appeared to be about twenty feet in both length and width and eight feet high.
The light came from a table lamp lying on the floor, probably toppled by the quake. Its power cord led to a generator sitting near a wall on the left side. As it chugged, its exhaust funneled into a pipe protruding from the wall. To the right, Sam lay curled on a gray upholstered sofa, her eyes closed and her head on her backpack.
As I hurried toward the sofa, I came upon a big hole in the floor and ran around it. I could check it out later. I knelt at Sam’s side and patted her hand. “Sam? Are you all right?”
Her eyes fluttered open. She winced and spoke with a squeak. “No. I feel sick again. Worse than ever, like I’m going to puke.”
