The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume One: A Secret Lost (10 page)

“Kyle?”

“Yes, Mrs. Jameson?” Kyle said, turning
back.

“Let me know if there’s anything wrong,” she
said in a soft, worried mother voice.

“I’m sure it’s nothing. I probably told her
to meet me at the field or Gears’s tree house and forgot. Don’t
worry, she’s fine,” Kyle said and walked off.

He still didn’t know if she bought his story,
but he knew he was the only one who could find Samantha. He also
knew that if she was missing, something had gone terribly wrong.
And just like that, in a matter of minutes, his day of bliss was
gone. Kyle didn’t know for sure, but his gut was telling him that
Jones was behind this.

On the other side of town, Samantha was just
waking up. As her eyes went in and out of focus, she soon realized
that she had no idea where she was. She also realized that she was
sitting up, tied to a chair. Her hands were pinned down, one at
each side, and tied to the frame. Her legs were fashioned the same
way to the chair’s legs. She was also gagged with a piece of cloth
tied around her head.

Within seconds, the events of the night
before spilled back into her thoughts. She remembered the
industrial park and her fateful fall, then her encounter with
Jones. He then brought her here, but where exactly that was, she
didn’t know.

Samantha looked around the room and didn’t
see anything familiar. She cursed herself for hurrying off and not
taking a locater or anything else that would help the boys track
her. She was all alone.

Suddenly, the door to the room opened.
Samantha looked up as a man dressed in black entered. It was Two.
He approached her with a grin as he carried a silver tray holding
various breakfast items—a short stack of pancakes, fruit, a glass
of orange juice, and a small rose in a crystal clear vase, all
elegantly arranged. Two put the tray on a small end table just to
the right of her. He then turned back to her, smiled, and left
without a word.

Samantha gazed in wonderment as the door
closed. Her focus then shifted to the plate of food.

Man, I’m hungry, she thought. Her mouth
watered as she looked at the beautiful spread.

But there was one problem—there was no way to
reach the food. She wiggled back and forth in her bindings,
struggling to free herself. But it didn’t help. She wasn’t going
anywhere. The mere thought of the food only increased her
hunger.

Minutes passed as slowly as hours, and
Samantha was determined to free herself—if only to eat. She was
sure she was being watched, and she knew there had to be guards
outside the only door into the room. She knew the second she was
free, she would be swarmed. But she also knew that in those few
seconds, she could get at least two pancakes down. Maybe three.

Again, the door opened. This time, there was
a pause before anyone entered. Then, in walked Jones with a smug
look on his face. Wearing a black suit of his own, fashioned with a
white shirt and tie, he swaggered over to Samantha and stopped
short of the table with the food. He bent down, picked up a single
strawberry, and took a bite.

“Mmm. Now that’s good,” Jones said in a very
satisfied way. He took another bite, polishing off the piece of
fruit. “Care for some?”

Samantha looked the other way.

“I see we’re still not talking,” Jones said.
“What a shame that is for you, my dear. All this will be over if
you just tell me his true identity. That’s it—that’s all I want.
Tell me, and I’ll let you go.”

He circled around Samantha, walking slowly
and methodically. On one of the passes behind her chair, Jones
loosened her gag. The cloth slipped down around her neck.

Samantha just stared at the same spot on the
floor. She wasn’t going to crack. No way, no how. Nothing Jones
could do would make her give up her friend. And certainly, it
wasn’t worth a plate of food. Jones knew this, of course, but he
wanted to play a game.

“You know, he’s probably not even looking for
you. Probably off reading a comic book or playing with his
friends,” Jones said, still circling the small girl. He made his
way around Samantha one last time and stopped in front of the
chair, staring at her.

Samantha finally looked up and acknowledged
his presence. Jones bent down and went face to face with his small
captive. The two stared at each other for a long second.

“I will catch him,” Jones said in a low
voice. His brow rose, and the lines in his face became more
pronounced. “You have no hope. All of you have no hope. This is the
end of Kid Combat.”

“That’s what you think,” Samantha retorted.
“He will come for me, you’ll see.”

“My dear,” Jones said, leaning in closer to
whisper into her right ear, “I’m counting on it.” He put his hands
behind her neck and refastened her gag.

Samantha was furious and tried to scream at
Jones, but her words were muffled by the gag. Jones laughed as he
turned around and left the room. The door once again closed, and
Samantha was left to sit and wait for her friend to come save her.
If he could find her.

Meanwhile, Kid was searching the town. He
quickly checked Maple Forest and the park, but he knew she wasn’t
there. She wasn’t at Gears’s house, either. Not wanting to alarm
his friends, Kid kept the fact that Samantha was missing to
himself. But when he really thought about it, there was only one
other place she could be—The Playground.

Kid headed back to Maple Forest and to
SOCKs’s new secret base, code named The Playground.

About six months earlier, construction had
started on the permanent base for SOCKs. It was a place to have
meetings and work on gadgets away from prying eyes, where grownups
couldn’t find it.

Only Kid and Samantha knew how it was
constructed, and the location was an easy pick for the two friends.
Once the courts deemed Maple Forest protected property, it became a
symbol for what SOCKs secretly fought against. That’s why when Kid
needed a base, he knew it would be here, just beyond centerfield of
the baseball field. It would be hidden deep within the tree
line.

Kid walked through the park and onto the
baseball field. The cleaning crew was done for the day, and he
didn’t even notice the newly cleaned field as he crossed the
infield out into centerfield. There, nestled up to the back fence,
was a clump of twenty or thirty huge trees. The trees were tightly
grouped in a semicircle, and they made a perfect wall in
centerfield. The trees were bunched in rows, and their branches
extended in every direction, creating a maze. With so many branches
in so many different patterns, it would be nearly impossible for an
adult to make his or her way through them. It was the perfect place
for a kid’s hideout.

Kid reached the tree line and, without
hesitation, entered into them. He made his way into the cluster
fairly easily. He needed to duck only once before he came to the
center and stopped. In front of him stood the largest tree. In the
center of that tree, about four feet up, there was a patch of small
holes. Kid placed his right hand it one of the empty knots, and a
quiet buzzing sound could be heard as he hit a tiny button in the
secret compartment. At that instant, the ground underneath Kid’s
feet began to shake. And with a final jolt, he began to
descend.

Kid was entering his new base. From here, he
hoped to grow the alliance and help the children of the
neighborhood. But for now, he needed to help his friend. He needed
to find out what happened to Samantha.

The small disc-shaped platform descended. The
hydraulics and the small engine used to lower the platform made a
small buzzing noise that was muffled by the small elevator moving
up and down via a series of pulleys. It was silent aboveground as
the opening in the ground closed to conceal the secret entrance.
Kid slowly made his descent and stopped in front of a silver door
labeled, “Sub Level 3.” With a push of a button to the right of the
door, it opened.

Kid stepped off the elevator and into a
bright, shiny hallway. Fluorescent lights attached to the six-foot
ceiling lit up the passageway, giving it an off-green glow. The
walls were silver and had no markings, disguising what was at the
end. The hallway itself was short, about ten feet long, and seemed
to lead nowhere.

As Kid headed down the hall, his footsteps
echoed. The end wall he approached had no knobs, no cracks, no
edges, and no control panels- to the untrained eye it would appear
that the hallway led nowhere. Kid knew otherwise. He touched an
area on the wall to his right and gave it a slight press.

Nothing happened for a few moments. Then,
with a dinging of a bell, the back wall opened up. Sliding to Kid’s
left, the wall came apart and revealed another room.

This room was built in a semicircle and,
again, there were no markings on the walls. The lights and walls
matched the hallway, and in the middle of the room was a pole made
of clear plastic. On top was a silver keypad with the digits 0
through 9. It was the last line of defense between the outside
world and the secret base.

Kid walked up to the keypad and entered his
code. As he typed, the keys made a very faint beeping sound.
6–5–7–3–1. Kid put his hands in his pockets and waited for the
secret door on the back wall to open.

It didn’t.

Kid rolled his eyes in frustration and tried
again. 6–5–7–3–1. Again, there was no result.

“Huh,” Kid said out loud to no one. He stood
there for a few seconds and finally gave the unit a quick whack.
For a third time, he entered the code. Finally, to his delight, the
wall directly behind the key pad and directly in front of him
started to open.

He made a mental note to talk to Gears about
fixing the keypad.

Scrolling from left to right, the wall opened
up into a massive room. He could hardly see, as there were no
lights on, but he made his way through the main room with no
problem. He made his way over to the wall and flipped the lights
on.

The room came to life as the lights started
to flicker on. The bright white lights illuminated the heart of the
SOCKs organization. Deemed room “RD1” by Samantha, this room would
mostly be used by future recruits to research and develop
assignments. The new recruits would have workbenches and
workstations all over the place. Computer stations would be used to
research projects online. There would also be stations where Gears
and Samantha would try out their new gadgets designed to help Kid
with his assignments. RD1 would be the main base of operations
within The Playground.

It was an open and airy room, like a small
gymnasium. The ceilings were much higher in this room, about ten
feet tall, and boasted the majority of the lights. This time,
though, there was no green glow.