“Sorry, can’t help you there.”
I watch as Tyler suddenly stops and sits down on one of the benches in the school’s courtyard area.
“Tyler, you okay?”
“Uh.. Yeah, never better.”
“Well, then let’s go! I recently got the new Monster Invaders 4 video game you gotta try it!”
“Can I, uh, take a rain check on that?”
“Dude, what’s up? I’ve never heard of you ever turning down a chance to play one of the monster invaders game! Heck, you’re usually the one that preorders the game when you find out about it!”
“Well Zak, it’s kind of like this. I want to ‘officially’ ask Ciara out to the dance at the winter retreat.”
Whoa, can’t say I saw this one coming! Ciara is going to be doing back flips when she hears about this! In fact, this could work well in my favour! Maybe I can spin this so that I make her think that I played a part in this by constantly dropping her name when I’m with Tyler!
“Really? But..”
“But what?”
“Before I ask her out to the dance, I thought I’d ask her out to catch a movie or something tonight. You know, just to get to know her a little more so that I’m asking her out for the right reasons.”
And just as I’m about to get the low down on how this all came about Ciara walks up to us.
“Hey Tyler! So, you wanted to ask me something? Tyler? You okay? You look a little, well um.. Out of it.”
Ciara takes a seat next to Tyler.
“Uh yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that..”
I can pretty much guess that having me standing here isn’t making it any easier on Tyler.
“Hey guys? I gotta get going, you know how Dr. Brady doesn’t like it when I’m late for practice!”
I quickly make my way across the courtyard and round the corner to the bike racks. I flip a switch on my armband communicator and my ten-speed bike transforms into a supped-up high performance motorcycle that would make even the most hardened die-hard superheroes jealous. Thank you Dr. Brady!
I didn’t have to stand around with Tyler and Ciara. I already have a pretty good idea of how this is going to turn out since, after all, Ciara has had a crush on Tyler since junior high and now that Tyler is going to ‘ask her out’, she is so, of course going to say yes. As I get onto my bike and ride out I’m just a little depressed that this winter retreat is going to suck. Mainly because Tyler and I hung out together during the last winter retreat at my place playing video games, chatting but pretty much just hanging out chilling. Man it’s going to suck being alone for a week.
CHAPTER TWO
I’m lost in my thoughts when I suddenly hear a distress call on my bike’s police scanner.
“Calling all units in the mid-town area, Officer Dent is requesting immediate back up!”
Mid-town? Isn’t that where the mall is? Hmm. I wonder what Officer Dent is doing over there. Probably a crowd control thing. I remember hearing about the new ‘The Squeegits’ music CD coming out this week. I honestly didn’t think the band was that popular. But still, I’d better just swing by and take a look. Besides, any brownie points I can accumulate now would be most beneficial before I go and see Dr. Brady. That and I’m sure an autographed CD from his favourite boy band, even if he won’t publicly admit it, will smooth things over when he finds out I’ve been hanging out with Torrance instead of patrolling the streets like he wants me to do after school.
As I get closer to the mall I see what appears to be a police barricade. Interestingly enough, I also see a lot of press mixed with the police behind the barricade. And look! There’s Officer Dent trying to control the crowd! Things never go to well for him with crowd control. Who knows? Maybe it just ain’t his thing. Wait, there drawing there guns and shooting! What the heck is going on?
Suddenly, various police officers and news reporters dive for cover as a laser beam cuts through the crowd and hits a limo attempting to drive off! I watch as the limo sputters and dies. This looks like a text-book case of ‘super-villain-snatching-movie-star-for money-scenario’. I ran into this scenario a while back when I was still a part of the society of super heroes. You see, lightning lad and myself were on patrol duty when some idiot of a super villain decided to try to use his robot and do a snatch and grab of this movie star. Luckily for her we were in the area. It went down sort of like what I’m going through now. The only difference? Well, right now I a) don’t have any super powers and b) lightning lad is now captain lightning and he’s flying solo these days.
I rev the throttle; hop the curb to the parking lot and speed towards the robot. I quickly use the ‘net gun’ attachment Dr. Brady installed in my armband communicator to take down the robot. I’m sure Dr. Brady will pleased to know it worked.
With the robot knocked down I place myself between the robot and the police barricade. From what I’ve learned about fighting super villains the moment you give them multiple targets they will always go with the newest target that comes into the mix. Now, not to rain on their parade but every rookie (be it a super hero or villain) knows that you should take down your ‘immediate’ target before engaging a ‘new’ target. Now he has the police and me to worry about! Wait a sec, what am I thinking! Police nothing! Now, he only has me to worry about! And come to think of it, looking at this robot, well, it just kind of sucks. I mean, look at it! One eye, black steel construction, laser beam emitters coming out of the palm of the hands! Can we get any more cliché? I swear, sometimes I think all ‘evil- mad scientist’ get their plans from the same place or something along those lines. That would explain the lack of variations of the robots I’m fighting these days. Just once, just once! I would like to fight a robot that had originality to it!
CHAPTER THREE
In shock, Dr. Raine spews out his smoothie all over the monitor. He quickly wipes off the smoothie from the monitor.
“Can it be! Do my eyes deceive me! Forget getting him at the winter retreat let’s just do it now!” Dr. Raine pushes a button on his console and speaks into it.
“Warren, I want you to max out your power levels and take out Zak now!” On the monitor Dr. Raine watches as Warren re-allocates power to his eye beam. The eye and hand beam energy indicator now reads that the power is at a hundred and eighty percent.
Dr. Raine’s robot has now gotten up and broken free of the net. The robot’s eyes flashes a bright crimson red as it raises its arms at Zak. And all the while Zak just stands there.
Dr. Raine looks curiously at the monitor. He can’t figure out why would Zak just sit on his bike?
“What could Zak be doing? I’m sure he gets the idea that my robot is about to shoot him. Yet, he just stands there? What am I missing? Oh well, you know what they say, ‘when opportunity knocks, answer it!’”
Dr. Raine sits there and watches as the robot prepares to fire. Dr. Raine watches with great anticipation as the robot’s targeting circle locks onto Zak. The monitor lights up with a message indicating that the robot is about to ‘commence’ it’s firing sequence.
And that’s when everything goes wrong. Suddenly time slows to a crawl as Dr. Raine notices that the entire image on the monitor starts to tilt to the right as if the robot was being knocked over. Worst of all, the laser beam misses Zak by a mile! Instead of hitting Zak, it totally demolishes the food court behind him!
“WHAT! How’s this possible! NO! Not the food court! Drat! I loved that smoothie shop! Come to think of it, that was the only smoothie shop near work! Great, now where am I going to go when I need to satisfy that mid afternoon smoothie craving?”
Suddenly, another