Текст книги "M Is for Mama's Boy"

Автор книги: Michael Buckley

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

“Good afternoon,” Duncan said to a stocky, thick-limbed lunch lady behind the counter in the school cafeteria. She had hairy, tattooed arms and smoked a cigar. She also needed a shave.

The lunch lady nodded. “Good afternoon,” she said in a gruff voice. “I have something very special on the menu that I think you—”

Duncan shook his head and lifted a brown paper bag so the lunch lady could see. “I brought mine from home. I just need a spoon, please.”

The lunch lady bit down on his lower lip. He took great pride in his cooking. Yes, I said “he.”

The lunch lady had a few secrets besides his carefully guarded recipes. Most of them are classified, but suffice it to say the lunch lady was not really a lunch lady. Nor was the lunch lady really a lady. No, she—I mean he —was actually a spy, just like Duncan Dewey. But while Duncan got to stroll the halls of Nathan Hale Elementary dressed as a normal fifth grader, the lunch lady had to wear a smock, wig, and hairnet to work every single day. Still, despite his lousy cover, he was content. He had discovered the joy of cooking. It wasn’t as much fun as, say, cleaning his bazooka or knife-fighting with terrorists, but it did give him some satisfaction.

“Are you sure? Today we have tilapia with cranberries and capers,” he continued. “Tilapia is a lovely fish—”

Duncan shook his head. “I’m good. Just the spoon, please.”

The lunch lady frowned and eyed Duncan’s sack lunch with disdain. “You eat too much of that stuff, kid. Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

Duncan shook his head as the lunch lady handed him his utensil. “How could I get tired of the most delicious thing in the world?”

The lunch lady waved the boy away. “Then go! Get out of my kitchen!” he bellowed.

In the lunchroom, Duncan quickly spotted his best friend, Flinch. Flinch was a scrawny Mexican-American kid with dark hair and eyes. Like Duncan, he brought his own lunch. In Flinch’s case, two huge chocolate bars stacked like a sandwich with fruit pies and candy corn between them. As a side he had two perfectly toasted balls of fried ice cream, and for dessert, a jar of Marshmallow Fluff. He inhaled all of it at an incredible speed, and within a few seconds the boy was hooting and bouncing in his chair like a monkey.

“The lunch lady is grouchy,” Duncan said.

Flinch opened his mouth and a stream of crazy words and noises that made no sense spilled out. There were a few high-pitched screams and he slammed his head into the tabletop a couple times, then giggled like an idiot. Finally, he reached inside his shirt and turned a big glowing knob counterclockwise. It seemed to calm him down.

“Sorry, I’m a little wound up today,” Flinch said.

“Just today, huh?” Gluestick asked with a smile. He had known Flinch for almost two years, and he had always been hyperactive. Luckily, when the boys became members of NERDS, Flinch was given a special harness that channeled all that sugary energy into superhuman strength and speed. The harness also helped calm him down when he was on the verge of a hyperactive fit. Without it he was practically a blur of nervousness—hence his nickname, Flinch.

“Where’s the rest of the team?” Duncan said.

“Last I saw, Brett Bealer was ‘escorting’ them into the bathroom for their daily dip into the toilet,” Flinch said. “They’ll be along as soon as they dry their hair.”

“Any word from Agent Brand or Ms. Holiday?” Duncan asked as he opened his own sack lunch and took out his feast: a bologna sandwich, a banana, a small container of raisins, and a bottle of Elmer’s Glue. He opened the cap on the glue and smelled it the way grown-ups sniff a glass of wine. His nose came alive with flavors. It had been a good year for craft adhesives. Still, he knew he shouldn’t eat his dessert first, so he put the cap back on and set it aside.

“Nothing yet,” Flinch said. “I did run into Brand this morning, but he’s still in a foul mood. He wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“Ms. Holiday told me he’s still very upset about Heathcliff’s betrayal of the team. She says he thinks he failed us by not seeing what was going on earlier.”

Flinch shook his head. “I’ve known Heathcliff since the first grade. I didn’t see it coming. He was just a bad box of graham crackers.”

Suddenly, Duncan felt a tingle in his nose. His eyes watered and he let out a loud and obnoxious sneeze. Flinch did the same and then both of the boys heard a familiar voice inside their heads. “Gluestick, Flinch, this is Ms. Holiday. We need you in the Playground at once.”

Flinch hopped up, pounded on his chest, and bellowed like Tarzan. “Finally, a mission. I thought we were going to have to spend the day in class!”

“On our way,” Duncan said out loud, causing several children at nearby tables who had not heard the voice to move farther away.

Together Duncan and Flinch dashed out of the cafeteria. They weaved in and out of other students, slinked past the suspicious eyes of Principal Dehaven, and zipped down the halls as fast as they could. Along the way they came across a trio of children hurrying in the same direction. The first was Jackson Jones—a wide-eyed kid with lots of product in his blond hair and the worst set of braces ever attached to a human being. The second was Matilda Choi—a tiny Korean-American girl whose asthma inhalers never left her hands. And last was Ruby Peet, a rail-thin girl with a poof of blond hair and thick glasses. She spent most of her days scratching and avoiding the millions of things she was allergic to. At the moment her hands were swollen to the size of balloons.

“It’s bad news,” she said. “I know it’s bad news.”

“How can you tell?” Duncan asked.

“I’m allergic to bad news,” she said, showing him her hands.

Jackson shrugged. “Agent Brand probably wants to lecture us again about filing our reports.”

Matilda rolled her eyes and dashed out of the way of a group of giggling kindergartners. “I highly doubt he would call us in for paperwork.”

“He would if you hadn’t filed any since you became an agent,” Jackson said with a mischievous grin.

Matilda laughed, but when she spotted Ruby’s disapproving look, she forced a frown onto her face. Ruby still wasn’t thrilled to have Jackson as part of the NERDS team. He had once been a bully—until he got his braces—and was a bit too arrogant for his own good.

“I hope it’s a mission,” Duncan said. “There are some new gadgets I want to try out.”

“Who cares about gadgets?” Matilda said. “I just hope I get to bodyslam someone.”

They rounded the corner and came to a dead stop. Blocking their path was a pack of bullies, led by Brett Bealer, Jackson’s former best friend.

“Well, well, well,” Brett said. “If it isn’t the nerd herd. What are you doing in my halls, losers?”

“These aren’t your halls!” Ruby cried.

The outburst caused Brett’s gang to circle the children, like a pack of jackals searching for weaknesses.

“Gluestick! Where are you and the rest of the team?” Ms. Holiday’s voice sounded in Duncan’s head. “Agent Brand is in a particularly grumpy mood this afternoon. Don’t keep him waiting.”

“On our way,” Duncan mumbled. Then he turned to Brett. “He’s right, Ruby. We have no business wandering around like we belong here. I think we need to be taught a lesson.”

“What?” Matilda cried.

“Duncan, you’re taking the nice guy thing a bit too far,” Jackson added.

Brett scratched his head as if he had just opened a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle and had no idea what picture the pieces would make.

“Maybe you should stuff us into these lockers,” Duncan said, pointing to a row of lockers nearby.

“Oh, I get it,” Jackson said, giving the chubby boy a knowing wink. “Yeah, that will teach us!”

“Good idea, nerd! Get ’em, guys,” Brett said. Duncan and his friends were roughly grabbed by the arms, necks, and underwear waistbands and shoved unceremoniously into lockers. Then the doors were slammed shut.

Now, for ordinary kids, getting stuffed in a locker would be the worst humiliation ever, but Duncan, Flinch, Ruby, Matilda, and Jackson were no ordinary kids and these were no ordinary lockers. A blue light flashed in the ceiling of Duncan’s locker and a robotic female voice could be heard.

“Welcome, agents. Prepare for transport to the Playground.”

The floor disappeared beneath Duncan, and the chubby boy was spun, shot, flipped, flopped, twisted, and turned through a series of tubes, shafts, and loop-the-loops until he finally plopped into a leather chair at the center of a huge subterranean chamber.

All around him in the cavernous room were scientists in white lab coats, working on complicated experiments that pushed the limits of imagination: robotic pets, exploding lunch boxes, sneaker silencers, even a new underwater breathing prototype called Scuba Gum. No wonder they called the place the Playground. To Duncan it was heaven on earth—filled with cool inventions and brilliant people who loved science and technology as much as he did. He would have to leave NERDS when he turned eighteen, but he was already considering a job working here as a researcher when he retired.

The rest of the team arrived, landing in their own leather chairs. They were seated at a glass table made up of thousands of wires, circuits, and blinking lights. At its center was a hole. Duncan reached into his pocket and removed the blue orb he called Benjamin. It floated out of his palm and hovered over the hole.

“Let’s get started,” said a voice from behind the kids. They turned to find a tall man in a tuxedo. His name was Alexander Brand, and at one time he had been America’s greatest secret agent—dashing, fearless, staggeringly handsome. He was the man the government called when no one else could get the job done. But then he had been injured in the line of duty and forced to use a cane to get around; his life as a spy had come to an abrupt halt. Still, his mind was as dangerous as his body had once been, so he was the perfect person to become Director of the National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society, though it was clear to Duncan and the others the man wasn’t completely comfortable managing a group of fifth-grade superspies.

Duncan was incredibly curious about Brand. He was a mystery. Duncan had used Benjamin to try to track down information about him but had found nothing. There were no clues to how he had been injured, where he grew up, or even the names of his mother and father. It was as if the man did not really exist, and though Duncan was tempted to hack into Brand’s government file, he knew the former spy would be furious if he discovered the breach. He was not the kind of man who liked to share. In fact, he spoke very little, unless, of course, he was angry, which was frequently.

“So, boss, what’s the trouble—”

Brand raised his hands to silence Ruby. “Heathcliff Hodges.”

The children looked at one another in stunned silence.

“He’s back,” Brand said.

“That’s not possible,” Ruby said. She began to feverishly scratch her leg. She was allergic to impossibilities.

“Pufferfish is right,” Jackson replied. “I saw him fall into the ocean. There’s no way he could have survived.”

“Apparently, no one told Heathcliff,” their director said. “Benjamin, could you be so kind as to replay the bank footage we received?”

The blue orb hovered on the glass table before them. It let out a few odd chirps and suddenly a dozen television monitors lowered from the ceiling and flickered to life. The screens showed a young boy in a black mask with a white skull on it using a herd of squirrels to empty cash drawers. The boy took off his mask to reveal his enormous teeth. Duncan watched the security guards and Heathcliff’s hostages suddenly calm down, then follow his commands like sheep.

“Aarakdhgyyg!” Flinch said, then turned a knob on his harness. “Sorry, too much sugar at lunch. How many banks has he robbed?”

“This is his fifth heist,” another familiar voice said. From one of the passages came a stunning woman with blond hair and blue eyes. She wore a cashmere sweater and a wool skirt. Stylish glasses sat on the end of her button nose. Ms. Holiday was the school’s librarian, but she was also the team’s information specialist. “We estimate that he’s stolen nearly a hundred thousand dollars so far, focusing on the tellers. He also hypnotizes the customers into using their ATM cards to empty their accounts.”

“Why not head for the vaults?” Matilda said. “That’s where most of the money is kept.”

“Modern bank security systems make the vaults nearly impenetrable. They’ve made a guard with a nightstick obsolete,” Ms. Holiday said.

Duncan had read a lot about banks in magazines and books. He was fascinated with how their security systems worked. He spoke up. “Even if Simon were to break into a vault, he would find a steel wall blocking his exit, then sleeping gas knocking him out until the cops could arrest him. If he managed to get past all that, many banks have a program that drops the vault into a chamber dozens of feet below the ground, making it nearly impossible to escape.”

“What do you think that little runt wants with the money?” Matilda asked.

Jackson shook his head. “It’s not about the money.”

“Then what?” Ruby said.

“Attention,” Jackson said. No one challenged him. Braceface was an expert on getting attention, having once been the most popular kid at Nathan Hale Elementary. “If you’re trying to be inconspicuous, you don’t rob a bank with a herd of squirrels. He wants us to see him. He wants us to know he’s still alive and plotting something new.”

YOU’RE BACK. GOOD.

NOW LET’S START TRAINING

YOU FOR YOUR LIFE AS A

SECRET AGENT. WHAT? YOU

WANT TO KNOW WHEN YOU GET

TO LEARN THE COOL STUFF.

YOU MEAN LIKE JUMPING OUT

OF A BURNING PLANE, FIRING

A BAZOOKA WHILE RIDING A

JET SKI, AND KNOCKING A BAD

GUY OUT WITH A KARATE CHOP

TO THE NECK? WHOA . . . SLOW

DOWN THERE, BUDDY. FIRST,

LET’S FOCUS ON A BASIC SKILL

EVERY SPY MUST KNOW: THE

ABILITY TO READ AND WRITE

SECRET MESSAGES.

SOUNDS EASY, HUH?

WE’LL SEE. THIS IS

A LITTLE SOMETHING

WE CALL THE ALPHABET.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

HOPEFULY, YOU RECOGNIZE

IT. AND THIS IS A LITTLE

SOMETHING WE CALL

A CIPHER CODE.

T D N U C B Z R O H L G Y V F P W I X S E K A M Q J

EACH LETTER IN THE

ALPHABET CORRESPONDS TO

THE LETTER IN THE CIPHER

CODE PRINTED BENEATH IT.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

T D N U C B Z R O H L G Y V F P W I X S E K A M Q J

SO I’M GOING TO SEND

YOU A VERY SENSITIVE

AND SECRET MESSAGE

WRITTEN IN CIPHER CODE.

THEN IT’S YOUR JOB TO

TRANSLATE IT INTO OUR

ALPHABET. YOU READY?

AGAIN, THIS MESSAGE

IS JUST FOR YOU.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO GRAB A PIECE OF PAPER TO WRITE DOWN YOUR ANSWER.

SRC XYCGG FB QFEI BCCS OX YTLOVZ YC NIQ

LISTEN, SOMEBODY HAD TO

SAY SOMETHING. YOU CAN’T

BE A SPY WITH THAT KIND

OF FUNK. THE BAD GUYS

WILL SMELL YOU

A MILE AWAY.

OH, GOOD JOB ON THE

CIPHER, TOO . . . STINKY.

Albert looked down at the business card. Then he looked up at the abandoned entrance of the South Arlington Botanical Garden. The garden had been closed to all but vermin for nearly a decade. Albert had visited many times as a child. The place had once been glorious, but now was overgrown and wild. Someone had vandalized the gate, pulling it off its hinges and leaning it against a wall. Anyone could walk inside.

“This can’t be the place,” Albert said. He looked at the business card once more. There was no mistake.

He wondered if he was the victim of some elaborate hoax. There were people at Big Planet Comics whom he would call rivals. He had once gotten into a heated conversation with Ivan Purlman about whether Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, or Tim Drake was the better Robin to Bruce Wayne’s Batman. Could Ivan have decided to teach him a lesson by concocting this silly prank?

Albert always had trouble making friends, and his mama was to blame—Mama and her stupid plans. When he was just three months old, his mama had made a chart that plotted out his entire life. Some of the highlights were: winning the National Spelling Bee at age ten; going to Space Camp at fourteen; early admission into an Ivy League college at sixteen; graduating with a full doctorate by twenty-one; and at twenty-five, marrying a woman she introduced him to, followed by lots and lots of grandbabies.

She planned for every possible obstacle and even allotted for a short puberty-fueled struggle for independence when he was fifteen. She figured Albert would need only a couple of weeks before he came to his senses and realized he should put all his faith in his mama.

How her little baby would get to such personal success was a little hazy, so she paid close attention to what the other mothers on the block were planning for their children. Tommy Beacon’s father was pushing his son on the swings and toward a career as a marine biologist. Nikki Mock’s mother was laying the groundwork for her daughter to be appointed as Secretary of Education. Mark Killian’s parents had their son sleeping with a catcher’s mitt. Mama knew she had better decide quickly before all the good careers were snapped up, so after much debate she decided that Albert would be a brilliant scientist, and because she loved him so much, she set about brainwashing her son into doing just that.

Each night, when Albert was ready for a good-night story, Mama would forgo Harry the Dirty Dog and Where the Wild Things Are in favor of Einstein’s theory of relativity or the latest article on climate change. She emptied his room of toys and filled it with alkaline test strips, microscopes, and fossils. She hung the periodic table of the elements on his wall and made a mobile for his crib featuring her favorite igneous rocks.

Holidays were just another opportunity to immerse the boy in his would-be career. Every Christmas, Albert would wake up early to find Santa had left a Bunsen burner or a petri dish filled with molds under the tree. On Easter, instead of searching for eggs, Albert hunted for test tubes that Mama had hidden throughout the yard. Halloween was a chance to dress up as different kinds of scientists. At seven Albert was a paleontologist carrying around a plastic dinosaur bone. At ten he went as a mineralogist dragging a lump of quartz from house to house. At twelve he went “trick-or-sleeting” as a meteorologist. It didn’t seem to matter to Mama that each year her son’s costume was nearly identical to the previous year’s.

By Albert’s thirteenth birthday, Mama finally realized what her son’s true calling was—computer science. Her revelation had nothing to do with anything he had mentioned or hinted at. In fact, Albert had shown very little interest in computers, but his mother saw the kind of money a computer mogul made and gave her son a laptop computer for his birthday.

Much to Mama’s great satisfaction, Albert was immediately hooked. Within a matter of months, he knew everything there was to know about the machine—the bits and bytes, the boards and binaries. Soon he had taken his computer apart and rebuilt it to make it not only more efficient, but also incredibly powerful.

Mama couldn’t have been happier. She sat back and marveled at her cunning, wondering if perhaps she should write a book on making young boys into successful men. Unfortunately, Mama’s dream was soon to wither. Despite all her careful planning, she was unprepared for the distraction that would ruin everything. It wasn’t girls—the poor boy was a physical mess who rarely saw the sunshine, let alone a girl’s approving gaze. It wasn’t cars. She had seen dozens of mothers lose their sons to hot rods and motorcycles, and wouldn’t allow auto magazines past the door. No, the thing that brought her house of cards crashing down around her was comic books. At the age of fifteen, a neighbor lent Albert a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #159. Albert read it cover to cover, then read it again. And again. And again. And again. Mama gave it little attention at first. After all, she had noticed that the issue he was reading contained a character known as Doctor Octopus. He had a PhD. Mrs. Octopus must have been very, very proud.

Unfortunately, Spider-Man was just the beginning of Albert’s obsession. When he returned the well-worn comic to his friend, he was told he would have to buy his own from then on out. He promptly went home and took a hammer to his piggy bank, which was stuffed with money for college, and squandered Mama’s dreams on Batman, the Green Lantern, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, and of course, Superman. Albert read everything his local comic shop sold and spent his weekends at garage sales patrolling for back issues of Sgt. Rock and golden age Justice League. And quite soon, Doctor Octopus, as well as Doctor Fate, Doctor Doom, and Doctor Strange, were taking up more space in his imagination than Dr. Nesbitt—future computer scientist.

Mama was horrified. If her son did not grow up to run a multinational software corporation, what would she brag about with Linda Caruso from next door? Linda had been preparing her son for a career as a lawyer, dressing him in pinstriped suits and taking him to wine country on vacations. If Albert didn’t give up his ridiculous love of funny books, Linda would look down her nose at Mama forever! Something drastic had to be done.

So, one day, when Albert was at school, she packed up his comic book collection and put it on the curb. As she watched the garbage men toss the boxes into the back of their truck, she told herself she was doing her son a favor. One day, when he was flying around the world in his private jet, he would thank her.

When Albert got home from school and realized what she had done, he got on his scooter and tore through town until he tracked down the garbage truck that had stolen his treasures.

The next day, after rescuing his collection out of a landfill, he moved all his belongings down into the basement and had a locksmith install tamper-proof deadbolts on the door. Mama’s relationship with him was never the same. They rarely spoke except at mealtimes. More than twenty years later he was still down there. What he was doing, Mama could not say, but she gave up on his career in science when she found his microscopes in the trash can.

Despite his appearance and his rather smelly secret lair, Albert was not lazy. He had put his scientific training to good use. He had conducted hundreds, thousands of experiments with a single aim: to acquire real superpowers. He’d bombarded spiders with radiation in hopes of gaining their abilities, landing in the hospital instead. He had poured toxic waste on himself in hopes of enhancing his senses, and ended up being scrubbed with wire brushes by men in hazmat suits. He’d even tried to build a flying suit out of iron, only to trap himself inside for several days.

Now, as he stood in front of the abandoned garden with its rusting gate and potholed parking lot, he debated with himself. Should he turn away from almost certain ridicule, or should he listen to the rhythmic knocking of destiny? He chose destiny and entered the botanical garden.

It was a jungle inside. With no one to manage them, the trees were taking the grounds back, slowly erasing the park from existence and returning it to forest. They had grown tightly together, their branches intertwining and creating a lush green canopy that blocked out the sun. Many of the buildings had trees growing out through their windows and roofs. Leaves were scattered everywhere.

Suddenly, a rope ladder fell from the trees above, almost knocking Albert in the head. Albert looked up to find out who had nearly killed him and saw the man he had met at the comic shop. He was looking down at him from what appeared to be a huge tree house.

“The boss is waiting,” the goon said.

“The boss is up there?” Albert said, eyeing the rope ladder with doubt.

The goon nodded. “And he doesn’t like to wait.”

Albert frowned but hoisted himself onto the ladder. He climbed the best he could, but it wasn’t easy. He grunted and puffed, occasionally whining, until he got to the top, where the goon helped him stand. What he saw shocked him. Stretching out for acres was a palace formed from the trees’ intertwining limbs. They had created a floor firm enough to stand on, and there was furniture too, made from both plant life and stuff you would find in a store—including a refrigerator, a microwave, and beds. And everywhere Albert looked there were squirrels—dozens of them, leaping from tree to tree as they patched holes in the branches with trash and leaves. They were building a nest—only on a gigantic scale.

“Boss,” the brute called out, ignoring Albert’s bewilderment.

Suddenly, a spotlight appeared, shining on a small figure wearing a skull mask. He was sitting in a high-backed chair, enjoying a bowl full of nuts. He had lifted his mask up just enough so that he could eat, revealing two gigantic front teeth, like posts on a white picket fence. Albert could not take his eyes off of them.

“Albert Nesbitt, it’s good to meet you,” the masked figure said between bites. His voice was young—that of a boy. “I am Simon.”

Albert eyed the figure closely. “You’re just a kid.”

The squirrels seemed to sense his disrespect. They leaped at him and scratched at his face and hands. He fell to the floor, screaming for mercy.

“Minions!” Simon shouted, and the squirrels scurried back to his chair. “Please forgive them. They are very protective of me. After all, you’ve caused me a great number of headaches recently. You’ve been meddling in my affairs, Albert.”

Albert knew at once the boy was talking about the bank robbery. He was preparing to run when the goon clamped a giant hand on Albert’s shoulder. Albert couldn’t move an inch.

The boy smiled. “Welcome to my secret lair. It’s just temporary. As soon as I have the funds I will build something a little more permanent and with a lot fewer termites. For now, it’s the perfect hiding place and it keeps my friends happy.” One of the squirrels hopped on to the boy’s shoulder and twittered something in his ear. The boy laughed as if he had just heard a hilarious joke.

“What do you want with me?”

“Relax, there’s no need for hysterics. If I wanted to harm you, my associate would have already taken care of that,” the boy said. “Look, we’re getting off on the wrong foot, and I’m such a big fan of yours.”

“A fan of mine? Why?”

“Well, maybe the word fan is not appropriate. You are a mess, really, but your brain—that amazing brain of yours. . . It takes someone of great intellect to stop me, and you managed to do it with a computer you built in your mother’s basement.”

“I have a way with computers,” Albert said modestly.

“I know, and it’s a talent that could prove very useful to me. I’d like to hire you, Albert. I want you to build something for me with that amazing brain of yours, and I can pay you very well. My friend informed you of what I’m offering—correct?”

“He said you could give me superpowers,” Albert said, eyeing the big man for traces of a lie.

“That is true. I have access to a machine that can take your weaknesses and turn them into strengths. With the great number of weaknesses you possess, you could be turned into an incredibly powerful individual. You could become a real superhero, Albert. Though, I hope you will give some thought to a career in supervillainy. It can be quite rewarding.”

A television monitor mounted on a tree came to life with a fuzzy image. “I’d like to show you something,” Simon continued as the image came into focus. Albert wasn’t exactly sure what he was seeing. It looked like thousands of electronic bees scurrying about in a strange, light-filled hive. He studied them, then realized what he was seeing: not living creatures, but tiny robots. The longer he looked, the wider his mouth opened.

“Are those—”

“Nanobytes,” Simon said.

Albert stammered, “Scientists have been developing those for over a decade, but what you have here is way beyond the current science. How? Where?”

“All will be revealed in time. And, anyway, wouldn’t you prefer to know what they do?”

Albert smiled. He liked mysteries, especially ones involving computers.

The image zoomed out until the little robots were smaller and smaller and smaller. When the camera stopped, all Albert could see was a set of huge buckteeth.

“Those things are in your mouth?” Albert cried.

Simon laughed. “Yes, they have been implanted into my two front teeth. They create a hallucinogenic phenomenon that makes people susceptible to hypnotic suggestions.”

“So it’s mind control! You control people’s minds with your teeth!”

Simon nodded. “The ability has been further supercharged by a hallucinogenic toothpaste. Combined with my incredible charm and good looks—”

Albert interrupted him. “If you can control people, what do you need me for? All you have to do is flash those big teeth and people will do whatever you say. Everything you could ever want is at your fingertips.”

“Not everything, my new friend. The nanobytes cannot give me revenge. You see, there’s a certain boy in this town with technology similar to mine and I’d like to destroy him.”

“Why not send this guy?” Albert said, pointing to the goon.

“What fun would that be? I’d rather make him doubt himself and the things he holds dear. You see, my friend, it is not fists or superpowers that destroy a man, it’s self-doubt. Albert, you are going to help me destroy this boy, and when he is destroyed you will get your superpowers.”

“Has this kid committed a crime? Is he a bad person?”

Simon shook his head. “Actually, he’s really very nice.”

“But if I help you destroy him, that would make me a villain.”

Simon nodded.

Albert searched his brain for other superheroes who had started out as villains before they turned to a life of fighting crime. “I don’t know about this. How do you want me to help you?”

“My nanobytes allow me to control the mind of any living thing that looks at my teeth. I want you to build a device that will allow me to do the same thing to computers. Once I have people and technology under my control, I will have the tools to destroy my enemies and rule the world.” Simon laughed hysterically and his squirrels joined him.