The Kid Sensation Series Box Set

by Kevin Hardman

  The sudden deceleration of the car brought me back to myself. While I had been busy internally debating whether to try to read his mind, Schaefer/Walker had driven into an underground garage and was parking the car. A quick glance around revealed a sign that indicated that we were in the parking area for guests of a posh five-star hotel. (And he couldn’t treat Mom to an expensive dinner?)

  Schaefer was getting out of the car, so I made the decision to just try the direct approach. I teleported behind him and became visible as he was shutting the door to his car.

  “Boo,” I said as he turned around.

  Startled, Schaefer/Walker took a step back, at the same time seeming to reach behind him for something. However, he stopped in mid-motion and looked closely at me.

  “Jim?” He stared at me in open surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “I figured we needed to talk,” I answered.

  “Talk? About what?”

  “Why don’t we start with Nighthawk and go from there.”

  “I see,” he said, eyes narrowing. “But why don’t we discuss this up in my suite?” He walked past me without waiting for a response, heading towards the hotel elevator. I fell in step behind him, ruminating on the fact that he had a suite in a swanky hotel, but took the cheap route on his date with my mother.

  “Ahh…” he muttered as he began patting his pockets. “This elevator requires a room key to operate. Security, you know.”

  I was only half paying attention when he suddenly swung around with some kind of weapon in his hand. It bore an odd resemblance to a gun, but instead of a barrel, it had some metal studs on the end.

  Some kind of stun gun, I thought as he fired. I shifted into super speed, and the world slowed down around me. I watched the probes approach and then sidestepped them. I slowed back down to normal speed.

  “Bad move, dude,” I said as I teleported the weapon from his hand and into mine.

  Chapter 2

  I will say one thing for Schaefer (Walker was apparently a code name), he was indeed well-trained. Of course, I had never tried to extract information from anybody before, so it could have been my lack of experience that made him seem so formidable. Still, I like to think that I did more than just give it the old college try.

  He hadn’t talked after I’d taken the stun gun from him and asked nicely. He still refused to say a word when I teleported him to a frosty mountain peak where a blizzard was blowing. He also continued showing steely resistance after I took him to a height of a thousand feet and let him drop. Nothing I tried seemed to work, and I had almost resolved to try reading his mind when I remembered a trick my grandfather had taught me.

  I telepathically parked myself right outside his mental house and - peeking in through a “window” - asked him, “What are you most afraid of?”

  Needless to say, he didn’t respond verbally, but an image flashed through his brain and I was inside just enough to get a glimpse of it. I smiled to myself, and then teleported us to the shark tank at the city’s aquarium.

  We were actually in the observation room, with its huge glass walls that let you see inside the various fish habitats. A huge great white - at least fifteen feet long - swam by a second after we appeared, its mouth open and full of monstrous teeth. Schaefer took one look and went white as a sheet. (He hadn’t even looked this white after I’d teleported him out of that blizzard.)

  “No,” he murmured. “You can’t…”

  I didn’t feel like arguing. I popped him into the shark tank.

  It was almost comical. As he had been in the middle of saying something, Schaefer appeared in the tank with his mouth open and working. His eyes suddenly bulged, not just from having water suddenly gushing into his lungs, but also from the sight of a massive three-ton image of appetite and teeth suddenly heading in his direction.

  From the way his mouth moved, I imagine he was trying to scream as the shark closed in on him. The huge mouth opened, then clamped down…

  …on nothing.

  I had phased Schaefer, making him insubstantial so that the shark passed through him as if he were a ghost.

  I teleported him back out of the shark habitat. He collapsed to the ground, completely soaked and retching uncontrollably. The whole ordeal had lasted less than ten seconds, but it was another five minutes before he coughed up all of the water in his lungs and was able to speak. And at that point, he was ready to tell me everything.

  Chapter 3

  The Men in Black showed up the next day around noon. Frankly speaking, I had expected them earlier, but maybe they got caught in traffic.

  My mother had just left to run some errands, leaving me and my grandfather playing video games. The old man was crushing me in NCAA Football when he suddenly sighed in annoyance and hit the pause button.

  “Get the door,” he said. “We’ve got company.” Gramps is psychic (a universal term for anyone with mental powers), and was once the most powerful telepath on the planet. He had been retired for a while now, but his abilities had only mildly diminished from his days as an active superhero.

  I went to the door and opened it just as the MIBs were preparing to knock. Correction: I opened it just as a man in a pinstriped gray suit was about to knock; however, MIBs formed a tight semi-circle around him - one on each side and two behind. They were dressed in accordance with urban legend - black suits, white shirts, black ties, and sunglasses. (Obviously these guys believe their own press.)

  Knuckles poised to rap on the door, the man in the gray suit looked a little surprised when I opened it. He appeared to be in his early sixties, with iron-gray hair that he wore combed back. He gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his cold, gray eyes and extended a hand towards me.

  “You must be Jim,” he said, pumping my hand as we shook. He had a strength that belied his age, and I felt an emotional intensity deeply embedded within him. There was some driving force in this man, but I didn’t quite know what it was.

  “It’s okay to call you ‘Jim,’ right?” he asked, as I disengaged my hand from his. “Or do you prefer ‘Kid Sensation’?”

  “Jim’s fine,” I responded, keeping my face and voice neutral. After my conversation with Schaefer last night, it wasn’t any surprise that they knew who I was. I kept my position in the doorway, my body language making it clear that they weren’t invited in. “And you are…?”

  “Gray,” my grandfather said from the interior of the house behind me. “That’s Mr. Gray. Go ahead and let them in.”

  I stepped aside and Gray entered, followed by the MIBs, who fanned out and took up strategic locations around our living room. One stayed by the door. Another stepped to the walkway between the living room and kitchen. The third stood by the stairs and the fourth just took a position in a corner of the room whereby he could see everything and everyone.

  Gray went straight to my grandfather and shook his hand. “Good to see you, John.”

  My grandfather returned the handshake without comment. He motioned to a nearby recliner, which Gray plopped down into. My grandfather and I sat back down on the sofa in the positions we’d previously held while playing the video game.

  “So what’s it been, John - forty years?” Gray asked.

  “No,” Gramps answered. “Forty years ago is when you crashed my wedding. It’s been more like thirty-five, but it feels like yesterday.”

  Gray chuckled. “Look, I think we both know I was just doing my job. I wasn’t trying to harass you.”

  “Really? My wife and I saw it differently.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interjected. The conversation had taken a decidedly personal turn: they were talking about my grandmother. “Gramps, who is this guy?”

  “Mr. Gray here runs the MIB organization, and their primary focus is extraterrestrials.”

  “Huh?” I was really just being facetious when I’d called them that earlier. “There really is an MIB organization?”

  “Actually, our official name is classified,” Gray said. “But ‘
MIB’ works for us.”

  I was somewhat surprised. “So even your agency name is classified?”

  Gray responded with an acquiescent shrug.

  Gramps grunted in annoyance. “Don’t get too chummy with him, Jim. Gray here made me and your grandmother his own pet project from the time we were engaged up until the moment she left.”

  “What did you expect?” Gray demanded. “You married an alien, John. Nobody knew anything about her, where she came from, what her intentions truly were, and suddenly she’s got access to the most powerful telepath on the planet! A man who can read anyone’s mind - who can find out about our latest weapons technology, or dig nuclear launch codes out of the president’s brain!”

  My grandmother, Indigo, was an alien princess from a distant planet. Mom had been an infant when her mother had been compelled to return to her homeworld, leaving my grandfather to raise their daughter on his own. They’d had enough problems to deal with at the time – him with his dusky complexion and her with skin like porcelain. It had never occurred to me that they were also being hassled by the government.

  “And did any of that ever happen?” My grandfather asked.

  “No,” Gray admitted, smiling. “No, it did not. In fact, she became a superhero and a member of the Alpha League. But of course, you already know all this.”

  “Yes, but thanks for the history lesson,” Gramps said. “Anyway, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

  Gray’s face darkened a bit before he replied. “I’m afraid it’s serious, John. Your boy here assaulted a federal officer last night.”

  I felt a slight mental probe from my grandfather. <???>

  I responded. I hadn’t told him about spying on my mother’s date and the whole thing with Schaefer, but I’d known that I would have to, eventually.

  “Jim, don’t say a word,” my grandfather cautioned, his expression never changing. It struck me as sound advice, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “He doesn’t have to say anything,” Gray quipped. “We have a sworn statement from the agent involved.”

  “Did he identify himself as a federal agent?”

  “He flashed his badge,” Gray answered, which was true. After our sojourn to the blizzard-whipped mountain peak, Schaefer had pulled a little gold shield from his pocket and declared himself to be with some agency or other. I was so intent on getting usable info from him that I hadn’t even paid attention to the name of the organization he said he worked for. Using my telekinesis, I had yanked the shield from his hand and then crumpled it like a wad of paper.

  “Well, if he works for you, Gray, then anything dealing with Jim is outside his scope of authority. Your jurisdiction is limited to extraterrestrials, so he couldn’t have been acting in an official capacity.”

  “Actually, your grandson falls dead center into my wheelhouse.”

  My grandfather scoffed. “You’re crazy. Jim’s not an alien of any sort. He was born on this planet, in a local hospital in fact, which makes him a citizen of this country, just like you and me.”

  Gray turned to me. “John Indigo Morrison Carrow. Also known as Jim Carrow. Also known as Kid Sensation. Born sixteen years ago to Geneva Carrow – herself the natural daughter of the alien known as Indigo – and the alien super known as Alpha Prime.”

  I kept all of the emotion out of my face as he spoke. They had clearly done their homework; very few people knew that I was the son of Alpha Prime, the world’s greatest superhero.

  Turning his gaze back to my grandfather, Gray stated, “With three-fourths of his physiology being alien, I would argue that my authority definitely extends to him.”

  “Except your math is wrong,” I chimed in, ignoring the concerned glance Gramps gave me. “My father’s from an alternate dimension, not an alien world. He’s as human as anybody else – just more powerful.”

  “Fine, then,” Gray countered. “You’re one-fourth extraterrestrial, two-fourths extra-dimensional. Doesn’t change the fact that, based on bloodlines, our planet has the weakest claim on your loyalties.”

  Gramps was frowning. “You’re construing loyalty based on genetics? That’s not just outside the extent of your commission, it’s completely absurd.”

  Gray simply shook his head. “You’ve been out of the game a long time, John. Things have changed.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that my agency’s authority and jurisdiction has been expanded exponentially. Ever since the V’lgrath invasion a few years ago, a lot of people have become extremely concerned with what might gently be described as ‘alien infestation’.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that the world is suddenly quite keenly aware of illegal aliens living here – and I’m not talking about people slipping across borders. I’m talking about beings from other worlds, sneaking onto the planet with powers, abilities, and technology that we know nothing about and which could pose a significant harm to terrestrial life.”

  “Jim’s no threat, and you know it. You’ve been watching him his whole life, just like you did his mother.”

  Gray raised an eyebrow slightly in surprise.

  Gramps went on. “What, you think I didn’t know? You might not have shown your face in over three decades, but you didn’t think I could feel you guys out there? Watching my daughter as she grew up? Spying on her friends? Noting the birth of my grandson? Keeping tabs on him his whole life?”

  I had to fight to keep my mouth from dropping open. These people had had me under a microscope since the day I was born?

  “All true,” Gray admitted, “but out of respect for you, John, and the service you’ve done for your country – and your world – we tried to give you a reasonable amount of privacy. We never bugged your phone, your home, anything like that. We kept a respectful distance.”

  “Until now,” I said. With that, I opened up a mental link with my grandfather and shared with him my escapades from the night before.

  Communication between two telepaths – especially those that share a bond, like kinship – is often a high-speed affair. It’s beyond just conveying words; it’s also images, emotions, concepts, and more. Basically, it only took a few seconds for me to bring him up to speed on what had happened. However, instead of the explosive anger I thought would result, I felt only mild vexation from him.

  “If you’re talking about sending agents to date your mother,” Gray noted, “let me just say that that is a relatively new development. As I said earlier, our jurisdiction has increased, so we’ve started taking additional steps to encompass our expanded mission. In essence, we’ve got carte blanche to do whatever we want on a global scale.”

  Gramps frowned. “So what does that mean as far as Jim is concerned?”

  Gray shrugged. “It depends on how he’s perceived. If we decide that he’s a threat, we could strip him of his citizenship and deport him.”

  My grandfather laughed. “What, kick him out of the country? Go ahead. You seem to forget that as Kid Sensation, he saved the world just a few weeks ago; his role in it may not be public knowledge, but enough people in the right circles know. He’ll have a dozen countries lined up to offer him residence - especially if word of it gets leaked to the press.”

  Gray made a tsking sound. “You weren’t listening, John. Our authority is global now, so I’m not talking about stripping him of national citizenship.”

  My grandfather’s eyes went wide, and I felt anger starting to boil in him as the full implications of what Gray was saying sank in. I’m pretty sure I looked to be in shock myself.

  “Offworld? You’d deport him off the planet? Where would he go?”

  “Not my problem,” Gray said indifferently. “And as to the media, we can suppress pretty much any story we want, or spin it in a light that’s favorable to us.”

  Gray lean forward conspiratorially. “But let’s not put the cart before the horse. I’m talking about things that could possibly happen if Jim here is believed to be a
threat. However, if he were to exhibit some token of loyalty, something to let us know whose side he was on…”

  “Cut to the chase, Gray,” Gramps said. “What do you really want?”

  Gray cleared his throat before speaking. “I want your grandson to work for us.”

  Chapter 4

  “What?” I asked incredulously.

  “It’s simple enough,” Gray said. “You’re going to be attending the Academy in-residence, learning what it means to be a superhero along with hundreds of other students. It may come as a surprise, but it’s the single largest gathering of superpowered beings that we know of.”

  “It’s a bunch of kids!” I shouted. “A bunch of teenagers, all still in high school. That’s all the Academy is: a big high school for teen supers.”

  “Some of whom are incredibly powerful,” Gray added. “Like yourself. The whole world saw how you singlehandedly took down the Alpha League following your tryout.”

  I frowned and shamefully lowered my head. Two years earlier, during the ceremony to induct me as a Teen Super with the Alpha League, an altercation with another teen had erupted into a full-scale battle with me on one side and a bunch of superheroes on the other. In retrospect, no one really blamed me for what happened, but the incident was a major embarrassment for everyone involved - especially since it was all caught on tape.

  “Are you trying to say that supers - even terrestrial supers - now fall under your purview?” Gramps asked.

  “I’m saying that whatever I decide is under my purview is what’s under my purview,” Gray smirked. “Think of me as a modern-day J. Edgar Hoover, but without the same limitations on authority. So if I decide it’s supers, then it’s supers.”

  That sounded bad - on several levels.

  “Since when?” my grandfather demanded.

  “Since a bunch of so-called superheroes went rogue and tried to take over the world!”