Adventure Bike Club and the Tire Giant

by Brian Bakos

I just give up, who could blame me for that? Maybe I can jump out of this globe and hurtle down in a final swan dive ...

  If only Quentin was back to normal! He’s always so strong and confident – before he crashed his bike and got electrified, that is, before our problems overwhelmed his ability to act. I need him so much now. But there he is, far below us in the glimmer radiating off the dynamo, just sitting dejected by the bikes.

  The bikes! A magnificent idea explodes in my mind like a firework.

  “Get me back down,” I say.

  “As your ladyship wishes,” Kintz A says.

  She closes her eyes and goes even more rigid than she usually is, as if she’s concentrating extremely hard. We begin to sink.

  “Lady Amanda has devised a plan?” Kintz C asks.

  “You bet I have!”

  Kintz A opens her eyes again. We are drifting toward the floor now, and she is in easy control.

  “Of course, we will assist you any way we can,” she says, “but please be aware of the cost, should you succeed.”

  “Cost?”

  I don’t like where this conversation is going.

  “Yes, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says. “In our world, everything must be paid for. Is it not likewise in yours?”

  “Yeah ...”

  “Please bear this in mind then, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says. “If you are successful, then Earth America will be regarded as an enemy by the rebels. They will seek revenge if they can. They know how to get here, after all.”

  “Revenge ... you mean like, an invasion?” I say.

  “Yes, a very powerful invasion,” Kintz A says.

  We are on the floor again, and our globe is starting to fade out.

  “Those guys are pretty tough, eh?” I ask.

  “Very, and they have no scruple,” Kintz A says. “We have learned that to our sorrow.”

  “So ...” I say, “if we do nothing, and just allow the ship to take off, would they bother us here?”

  “I would deem that unlikely,” Kintz A says. “The renegades are vicious, but they do not strike without cause.”

  Our globe suddenly blinks out. The wild hope that flared inside me is blinking out, too.

  “I regret to tell you all this, Lady Amanda,” Kintz A says, “but it is honorable that I should provide you with all the available facts.”

  “Yeah ... thanks,” I say.

  Suddenly, my wonderful plan seems a lot less wonderful.

  “Are all people on this planet Earth Americans?” Kintz B asks.

  “No,” I say, “but that’s their problem.”

  “No matter,” Kintz A says, “should the rebels come here, they will turn their wrath upon everyone.”

  21. Crunch Time

  I plunk back down to reality beside the dynamo band. The thing is six or seven feet across, and from close up, it gives off a shimmery, dead light that sucks warmth and hope out of the atmosphere – like it’s the yellow brick road to nowhere. My mind is as gloomy as the surrounding darkness.

  “We shall be nearby,” Kintz A says. “Summon us if you need us again.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I say.

  The girls move away. They must have figured that I need some alone time for deep thinking. But I don’t want to be alone, and I’m tired of thinking. I am just about to call for Eddie when he suddenly appears beside me.

  “Looks like it’s starting.” He gestures to the dynamo band. “It won’t be long before takeoff.”

  He seems unnaturally calm, as if this whole thing is no big deal. The light shimmering up from the floor streaks over his face in a horror movie effect – like he’s a walking jack-o’-lantern.

  “I already found that out,” I say.

  “What else did you find out up there, Amanda?” Eddie asks.

  “I-I don’t know. I can’t get it straight in my mind.”

  “Maybe I can help,” Eddie says.

  I take a deep breath.

  “Okay, Eddie, tell me which is better, or at least less bad: A few people survive and the whole world suffers, or a few people have to die, and the whole world benefits.”

  “You mean us, right?” Eddie says.

  “Well ... yeah.”

  I tried to keep things general purpose, but Eddie sees right through me. He doesn’t hesitate a second to answer, either.

  “It’s wrong to throw people away,” he says. “I’ve been thrown away before, and I didn’t like it much.”

  “But ... I mean the whole world ...”

  “The whole world’s bigger than us, right?” Eddie says.

  “Right.”

  “Then, I think it can take care of itself,” he says.

  “Yeah, but – ”

  Eddie sticks out his hand.

  “Are you through with the communicator? I want to talk to Kintz One, while I still can.”

  “Sure.”

  I hand over the communicator. Eddie takes it and walks off.

  Well, wasn’t that an earful? That little brat! He’s abandoning me when I need him most. How am I supposed to make this huge decision by myself?

  But Eddie has already said everything he’s going to. He’s pretty smart, if you look beneath the grime, and his opinion is crystal clear. I could talk to him from now until doomsday and he wouldn’t say anything different.

  The glow band is beginning to speed up, the whining sound is getting louder. Doomsday is coming on fast!

  I think of my family and of all the other people I’ll never see again. Mom and Dad will really take it hard when I don’t come home. Dad, especially, will be all broken up. He’s real tough on the outside, but deep inside – where he keeps me and Mom – I think he’s very delicate.

  They can have more kids, though, can’t they? Maybe the next one won’t hurt them so much.

  I’ll never see my beautiful room again, or the kids in my class at Becker School. Karen and Shelly, and all the rest – they’ll never know that I was actually a hero. They’ll never know that their whole future depends on my sacrifice. They’ll grow up, move on to high school, college, get married and have kids of their own, never realizing that they have me to thank for everything.

  I’m actually getting puffed-up on this idea: Amanda Searles, the Savior of the World.

  What a crappy way to think!

  I’m just one person, but what’s more important than that? Is everybody else better than me, just because there are more of them? I think of Dad again – he fought the communists in Korea; and my Great Aunt Tania – she battled the Nazis in Russia. What would they tell me to do?

  I know what they’d tell me. They’d say: “Don’t go down without a fight, Amanda. Make it count!”

  They are genuine heroes. They’d been ready to die to defend what they believed in. But they didn’t let anybody throw them away, either.

  The glow band is hurting my eyes. I turn my back on it.

  Heck, I can’t figure out all the stuff that might happen or should happen. Neither can Kintz A or anybody else. I just have to go with what I can see. And all I can see is that my friends need me.

  I need me.

  We have to fight this enemy – now. They won’t respect us if we don’t. If they think ‘Earth America’ is a pushover, what will stop them from coming here again? If they win their civil war back home, they might just want to expand their empire here.

  Or if they lose the war on their home world, then why not escape here and take us over? Sort of a consolation prize.

  They are like Hitler. People were always trying to buy him off, but he eventually attacked them, anyway. The small groups that got killed in the beginning didn’t matter at all.

  I stride over to our bikes.

  22. We Begin to Fight

  Quentin and Tommy are still sitting on the floor with these hang-dog expressions on their faces. I grab my Hornet and sweep the kickstand back with authority. The boys look up at me totally uninterested, as if I’m planning nothing more than a little spin around the blo
ck.

  “Come on guys, get a move on!” I yell.

  I steer my bike onto the glowing band. Eddie emerges from the shadows.

  “What are you doing, Amanda?” he asks.

  “Maybe we can reverse this dynamo, so it’ll send the ship back the way it came,” I say. “At least, we might force the guard to come out here so we can fight him.”

  I hop on my bike and start pedaling against the direction the band is moving. Melissa twists around in Kintz One’s arms to watch me.

  “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of, Amanda,” she says.

  “If you’ve got a better idea, spill it,” I say, already panting from the strain. “Otherwise, get over here and help me!”

  “I’d better ask Kintz One about this,” Eddie says.

  “Go ahead.”

  Myself, I am finished with talking. Either my plan works or it doesn’t. What do I have to lose by trying?

  Now that some definite course of action is finally available, Quentin returns to life. He springs to his feet and grabs Old Reliable. Suddenly, he looks about twice as big as he’d been just a few seconds ago.

  “Come on Tommy,” he says, “let’s tear it up!”

  The boys jump on their bikes and ride along with me. Although we pedal hard, we are scarcely moving because the dynamo cancels out our effort. Worse, I can see two of the robot things hurtling down at us from the upper regions.

  “Kintz One says it might work!” Eddie calls to us. “You’re going the wrong way, though.”

  “About face!” Quentin says.

  Just like that, he’s taken over command – which is okay with me. I’ve already racked my brain enough and am glad to let somebody else take the heat for a while.

  The robots are nearly on us! They are cylinder type things with rotating domes on one end that have flashing red eyes. One of them is coming directly at me, its spindly arms waving around. I can see