“He’s not a big fan of the technology, huh?” Flinch said as he searched the freezer for some ice cream.
“I think he’d prefer it if we lived in a log cabin without any electricity,” Duncan said. He handed Flinch a spoon and the boy went to work on a tub of orange sherbet he found behind a bag of peas. “Want to see if there are any bad guys up to no good?”
“Duh!”
The boys raced down the hallway to Duncan’s room and closed the door tight behind them. Duncan reached into his pocket and took out Benjamin. The orb glowed bright blue, then floated out of his hand.
“What can I do for you, agents?”
“Activate Surveillance Room,” Duncan said, and suddenly the bedroom furniture vanished and the supercomputer reappeared. TV monitors displayed images from around the globe.
“It’s pretty cool that Brand lets you take one of the Benjamin orbs home with you,” Flinch said.
“Actually, it was Ms. Holiday’s idea. She’s been encouraging me to spend my free time looking for trouble around the world. Plus, Benjamin is great at helping me with homework. So, Benjamin, any bad guys doing some bad stuff out there?”
“It appears you have one right outside,” Benjamin said. “Look!”
Duncan looked at one of the monitors. It revealed a scene from right outside of his house. There, standing in the backyard by the garage, was a tall teenage boy, probably close to eighteen years old. He was leaning against the Deweys’ garage door.
“Who’s that?” Flinch asked.
Duncan shrugged but kept watching until a moment later he spotted Tanisha sneaking out the back door. The boy leaned down and kissed her.
“Oh, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Flinch said. “Who in this world would want to kiss the Creature?”
“Maybe he’s blind,” Duncan said.
Then the teenager reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He passed one to Tanisha, who lit it and took some puffs. Duncan’s jaw dropped open.
“What should we do? Tell your parents?” Flinch asked.
“No, we’ll handle this,” Duncan said.
“Are you forgetting how mean your sister can be? The Creature is like a rottweiler!”
Despite Flinch’s concerns, he marched outside with Duncan. They found Tanisha and her friend in a tight embrace.
“Put out the cigarette,” Duncan demanded.
“Oh, hey little man. No need to get so angry,” Tanisha’s boyfriend said. “I’m TJ.”
Duncan ignored him. “Tanisha, put it out or I’m going to tell Dad.”
“Who is this kid, Tanisha? Your own private bodyguard or something?”
“He’s nobody and he’s about to go back inside and mind his own business,” Tanisha said, flashing Duncan an angry look.
“I mean it, Tanisha,” Duncan said.
“Yo, little man,” TJ said. “How about you go play some video games, and leave your sister and me alone?”
“OK, your call,” Duncan said to his sister. “Daaaaaad!”
TJ leaped in front of Duncan. “Now that’s not nice. Didn’t your parents teach you about tattling, little man?”
“My name is Duncan and my parents taught me to look out for bad influences and ugly people. You happen to be both so you’re easy to spot.”
TJ grabbed him by the collar. “You better watch your mouth.”
“TJ! Let him go,” Tanisha demanded.
Flinch stepped up to the much bigger boy. “I’m giving you three seconds to let him go,” he said. “After that I’m bringing the pain.”
TJ laughed and snatched Flinch by the collar. He held the boys close to his face. “You getting smart with me too?”
Duncan knew exactly how to handle TJ. He wouldn’t come around again if he spent two days glued to the roof. Duncan concentrated to activate his nanobytes then remembered—he was powerless!
“One,” Flinch said.
“Flinch, leave him alone,” Tanisha begged.
“Leave me alone?” TJ shouted. “Babe, I’m three times their size.”
“Two.”
“Now, let’s get something straight. You’re going back into the house and you’re not going to say a word.”
“Three.”
In a flash, Flinch had kicked TJ in the shin. When the older boy dropped the two spies, Flinch grabbed his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back until the guy screamed. Flinch followed this with a punch to TJ’s sternum, and when the older boy bent over to catch his breath, Flinch climbed on his back, wrapped his arms around his throat, and put pressure on his carotid artery. TJ struggled for a moment, like a fish washed up on the sand, then slid to the ground—sound asleep.
“Why didn’t you help me?” Flinch asked Duncan.
“What was I going to do? My upgrades are offline,” he said.
“So are mine!” Flinch complained. “We’ve both been trained in mixed martial arts, dude.”
The Creature was even more incensed than Flinch. She tossed her cigarette on the ground and stomped over to Duncan. He could see her rage and tried to explain.
“This guy is a loser—”
“No! The only loser around here is you. I don’t need your protection and I don’t want it! Take your nanobutts and mind your own business.”
“They’re called nano bytes, Tanisha. I know you’re angry, but please keep your voice down—”
“What would happen if I shouted it for everyone to hear? What would happen if I screamed that my nerdy little brother is actually a spy? Would they drag me away? Put me in prison?”
“Yes,” Flinch said.
Tanisha hesitated, then said furiously, “You should be worried about yourself, Duncan. You might be some national hero, but around here you’re a misfit.”
“What do you mean ‘around here’?”
“You’re nothing like us, Duncan,” she cried. “Who are you like? Dad? Mom? Me? You’re a circus freak who shares our house—with your secret life and your stupid gizmos. Don’t you see how Mom and Dad look at you? It’s like you’re from another planet. It’s because of you we moved to this stupid neighborhood, too. Haven’t you noticed that no one within a mile looks like us? Haven’t you noticed that I don’t have any friends here? It’s all because you have to be different. You have to be special. The rest of us are fine just being us, but Duncan needs the whole world to notice him.”
Tanisha pushed past the boys and went into the house.
“You shouldn’t have been smoking!” Duncan shouted.
She slammed the door behind her, leaving Duncan and Flinch alone with TJ’s unconscious lump of a body.
“The Creature has spoken,” Flinch said.
Duncan shook his head and looked through the back window at his family. Avery was still searching the paper, Aiah was reading a book, and Tanisha was quietly crying in front of the kitchen sink. Her words felt like heavy weights his body could not carry.
“She’s right.”
“No, muchacho.”
“I’m not like them,” Duncan said. “I’m much smarter than everyone in my family. Half the time they don’t understand a word I’m saying. And then there’s all the spy stuff on top of that. They have no idea what to make of me.”
“Your family loves you,” Flinch said. “The Creature is just angry she got caught.”
“Look around, Flinch. My whole family was uprooted from the neighborhood my parents grew up in just so I can get a better education. No one asked her if she wanted to come. No wonder she’s angry. She lost her friends, everyone she knows. She’s alone, all because her brother is some supposed genius.”
Flinch shook his head but offered no argument.
“I have to face facts. I’m a nerd at school and a nerd at home,” Duncan said. “Worse, I don’t even have a cool secret life anymore. Brand isn’t going to send any of us out without our upgrades.”
Dejected, Duncan sat down on the stoop, and Flinch joined him. The boys were quiet for a long time until t
hey were both startled by a loud bang in the neighbor’s yard. They rushed to the fence to see what was going on. What they saw was a thirty-seven-year-old man floundering in a pile of garbage bags. He had red hair and one too many chins. The poor guy had clearly stumbled into his trash can and sent its contents everywhere. He cursed as he dragged himself to his feet.
“Well, it could be worse,” Flinch said. “You could be this guy.”
“Mrs. Nesbitt’s son, Albert,” Duncan said. “I think.”
“What do you mean you think?”
“I’ve never seen him before. He lives in her basement and rarely comes outside. Some of the neighborhood kids think he doesn’t even exist. He’s like Bigfoot.”
“He’s a disaster,” Flinch said, but when the man took a candy bar from his pocket and unwrapped it, the boy changed his tune. “Though he has excellent taste in chocolate.”
Flinch looked at Duncan. “Didn’t you say the guy at the bank in Scotland was overweight and had red hair?” Flinch asked.
Duncan stared at the figure. When he tried to imagine Albert in a black-and-green supersuit, he realized the resemblance was uncanny.
“Flinch, I think my neighbor is a supervillain,” Duncan whispered.
Mama was very surprised to get visitors so late at night, but when you open the door and find the most handsome man you’ve ever seen standing there, it’s OK to let him in and answer his questions. Of course, she could have done without the blonde who came with him.
“Is Albert in some kind of trouble, Agent.. . ?”
“Brand. Alexander Brand, Mrs. Nesbitt,” the agent said.
“Oh, it’s Ms. Nesbitt, Alexander. I’m not married,” she said as an excited giggle escaped her mouth.
“We’re just curious about where he might have been yesterday, say, around two o’clock in the afternoon?” the blonde woman said.
Mama frowned at the woman’s question and kept her focus on Brand’s rugged face as she answered. “If I had to lay money on it, I’d say he was locked up in his room with his funny books. Such a shame, really. I had hopes he’d be a great scientist. He had such a way with computers and machines when he was young. But what’s a mother to do? The poor boy needs a father figure, you know.” She smiled at Brand.
Brand cocked an eyebrow. “I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask him.”
Mama thought. “On second thought, he’s probably at the comic book shop. He spends all his money on those silly things. Can you imagine? A grown man reading such drivel.”
“Is there any chance we might take a look at his room?” the blonde asked.
Mama frowned. Why couldn’t this woman leave them be? She and the handsome agent were really hitting it off. “I don’t think I should without him here. I tossed out some of his things once when he was a kid and he’s been locked down there in the basement for twenty-two years. Maybe when he gets back. He’s usually home around ten o’clock.”
Brand stood up and his companion followed. “We’ll come back then, Ms. Nesbitt.”
“Please, call me Gertrude,” Mama said.
Brand nodded and then he and his partner left. Mama watched them get into a black sedan and drive away. Once they were gone, Mama rushed to the basement door and pressed her ear against it. Albert was down there. She could hear the annoying beeps and buzzes of his silly movies about wars in space.
She knocked but there was no answer.
“Albert, this is your Mama. I want to see you right now.”
“I’m sleeping,” his lazy voice complained.
“Albert Nesbitt! You better march your behind up those steps and open this door on the double!”
There was no sound and, after a few moments, Mama knew more drastic measures were needed. She rushed to retrieve her toolbox, hefted it onto the table, and opened the lid. She took a hammer and returned to the door. With all her strength, she smacked the doorknob as hard as she could. Again and again she swung until eventually the knob broke off, taking the lock with it. The door opened. A wave of body odor and stale pizza rushed up the stairs to meet her. Mama hesitated, then ran back to the sink cabinet, found a can of disinfectant spray, and blasted a cloud down the stairs. She hurried down the steps and found her son hunched over a desk, working on an odd device that looked like something out of a science fiction film.
“Albert!” she shouted.
Her son started and spun around.
“Mama! This is my room!”
“Someone from the FBI or the CIA was here asking about you, Albert,” Mama said.
“Which one? The FBI or the CIA?”
“Does it matter?” Mama cried. “They told me they think you’re in trouble. They want to know what you’ve been doing with yourself.”
“It’s no one’s business but my own.”
Mama scanned the room. There were computer parts scattered everywhere and the walls were lined with schematics for a strange machine. There was a bizarre black-and-green suit lying on Albert’s bed and comic books were thrown about willy-nilly.
“Tell me,” she said. “Are you in trouble?”
Albert tilted his head back as if pondering her question. “Yes, I guess I am.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Albert took a deep breath. “I’m working for an evil genius who is bent on destroying his former friends and then taking over the world using a machine that can hypnotize other machines.”
Mama blanched and started to cry. “You’ve finally gone crazy.”
Albert rose from his chair. He snatched his ray gun off the desk and gave it to her. “No, Mama. I’m fine. This is what I’m building. It’s a computer disrupter. It can literally control anything. Televisions, computers, cell phones—anything with a processor. If you aim it at an ATM, it will happily cough up all its money. Even the price scanner at the grocery store can be forced to obey you.”
“And what does this evil genius of yours intend to do with it?” Mama demanded.
“He wants to control the world’s computer technology,” Albert said. “But he’s after some old teammates first. He’s kind of obsessed with destroying them.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
Albert stammered.
Mama could see the answer bouncing around his brain. She knew she would not like what finally escaped.
“Superpowers.”
Mama screamed. “Albert, for the love of Pete! Superpowers? How are superpowers going to pay your bills?”
“Well, I’m sure—”
Mama would not hear another word. “No, it’s time to be practical. For a device that can take over the world, you should be getting a lot more than eye lasers. What else has your boss offered you?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s some great negotiation, Albert. Way to make sure you don’t get taken advantage of by the boss! Well, lucky for you your mama is here to help. Pack your things, Albert. Pack everything you’re going to need to build this machine and every penny you have lying around. We can’t stay here anymore. Those agents know you’re up to something and they will be back.”
“Where are we going?” Albert said as he scooped up a laundry basket of semiclean clothes.
“To talk to your boss about the terms of your partnership,” Mama said.
The goon did not intimidate Mama. She had faced down Jennifer DiDomizio at the neighborhood bake sale last summer. Jennifer had the audacity to bake lemon squares when she knew full well they were Mama’s signature dessert. The two women had screamed at each other so loudly that Bonnie Fuller’s chocolate bundt cake collapsed in on itself. If Mama could handle Mrs. DiDomizio’s dry and tasteless lemon bars, a guy with a hook for a hand wasn’t going to intimidate her.
She climbed right up the rope ladder with her son following sheepishly behind and found Simon sitting in his chair surrounded by squirrels.
“Are you the one taking advantage of my son?”
Simon set down his bag of nuts and sat up in his chair. He eyed her cl
osely. It was clear to Mama the boy was not used to being confronted.
“Excuse me?”
“My son, Albert, says you hired him to build a doomsday device and all you’re offering him are some silly superpowers,” Mama said.
“I’d hardly call superpowers silly,” Simon replied. “When all is said and done, your son might be able to fly or lift a car over his head. He might have heat vision.”
“Albert does not need heat vision. What he needs is a future.”
“Mom, you’re embarrassing me,” Albert whined.
“Hush, honey. The grown-ups are talking,” Mama snapped, then turned her attention back to Simon. “My son has squandered the last twenty years of his life on comic books, and now he is finally doing something that could turn it all around.”
Simon frowned.
Mama reached over and snatched Albert’s machine from his hands. “Let’s be honest. You can’t take over the world with that little pop gun he built.”
“That’s the prototype, Mama,” Albert cried.
“Albert, it’s clear that your mother understands exactly what is going on. So, yes, Ms. Nesbitt, now that we know it works, I intend to have Albert build one a thousand times bigger that we can aim at the planet from space. One little zap and every machine from here to Australia will be under my control.”
“That should be worth more than being able to leap tall buildings.”
“What are you proposing, Ms. Nesbitt?” Simon asked. One of the squirrels climbed up in his lap and then onto his shoulder. It hunched forward as if it too wanted to hear what the strange woman wanted.
“Call me Mama,” she said.
“OK, Mama,” Simon replied.
“Let’s just say that Albert builds you something that lets you take over the entire world.”
“Let’s say that.”
“The world is a big place. It would be hard to manage it all by yourself. You might want to give some of it away just to avoid the headaches. Who better to take that problem off your hands than my son?”
Simon frowned. “When you say ‘some of it,’ I assume you have specific places in mind.”
“I’ve taken the liberty of making a list,” Mama said, handing Simon a slip of paper.