The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed (21 page)

“Welcome to my secret headquarters,” he said, smiling rather pleasantly for a criminal mastermind. “It’s always nice to have visitors—especially children. Please, come and sit down while I call for some refreshments.”

It was difficult to see his expression through the enormously thick glasses he wore, but so far, he wasn’t acting anything like an evil genius. Either he wasn’t remotely as dangerous as AI made him out to be, or he was plotting something.

As we were ushered into the heart of his lair, our eyes nearly popped out. This wasn’t just a single floor of an office building. The entire top of the skyscraper, all the way up into its spire, was completely hollow, reaching up as high as a hundred feet. At the very top were a series of catwalks that connected to a docking area for the enormous Brain-Drain blimp. A figure was moving about on the walkways, too far away to identify. My attention returned to the immediate surroundings. The entire space was jammed full of the most amazing array of machines and devices I had ever seen.

“You’re looking at a lifetime of work,” Professor Brain-Drain announced proudly as we all stared up at an enormous model of the solar system. It was actually revolving around the center of the space, apparently unconnected to anything. “Come, have a look.”

He led us past what looked like a large steam pipe organ, except in place of the pipes there were a series of fireworks rockets. The Professor saw that I was looking at it and stopped to talk about it.

“I call that my Combustible Calliope,” he said with a chuckle—not a chortle or a cackle, like on TV, but a chuckle. “So far I’ve been reluctant to play it since I fear the first time could be the last.”

“Why’s that?” asked Tadpole. “It looks pretty cool to me.”

“The problem is all the explosives,” the Professor said. “I’m convinced that they’ll add a marvelous quality to the music, but who wants to be the one to try it out?”

I could tell from the look on Tadpole’s face that he would
love
to try it out.

“What’s that?” Halogen Boy asked, pointing to a contraption that looked like a bicycle equipped with wings.

“Oh, that’s the Icarus III,” answered the Professor with a wry smile. “You don’t want to know what happened to the Icarus I and the Icarus II.”

By this time we had reached the middle of the expansive space and we all caught sight of an enormous machine that dominated the center of the room.

“What does
that
thing do?” Halogen Boy asked,

wide-eyed. From the floor all the way up into the spire of the building stood what looked like a gigantic barber pole, at least ten feet wide. As the red-, white-, and blue-striped pole slowly turned, electrical bolts and currents flashed and sparked all around the top, making it look like the pole was spiraling up through the ceiling. On the floor, a series of chairs surrounded the pole, each with a metallic dome placed above it. Each dome had something like a gauge or a clock face set into it. More than anything, they looked like hair dryers from a beauty parlor.

“That’s one of my hare-brained schemes.” The Professor laughed. “No need to concern yourself with it just yet.”

I hated to say it, but Professor Brain-Drain really seemed like a fairly nice guy. He led us into a sitting room in the corner, which had incredible views of the ocean to the east and downtown Superopolis to the north. There were also about half a dozen statues placed around the sitting room. They all looked like variations of Professor Brain-Drain himself.

“What are these statues?” I asked.

“Oh, just one of my hobbies,” the Professor responded. “I’ve been through my painting stage and my pottery stage. Now I’m trying sculpture. I’m practicing first with self-portraits.”

“They look so lifelike,” Tadpole said, poking one of them in the stomach.

“Why thank you,” the Professor said, seeming genuinely pleased as he ushered us to sit down and then took his own seat.

“First of all, what can I get you?” he asked. “I believe I have some lemonade and some homemade cookies. Does that sound suitable?”

We all nodded, confused by his hospitality.

“Excellent.” He smiled. “The refreshments should be here soon. While we wait, let’s discuss these pesky cards that seem to be causing you so much trouble.”

“So you do know about them!” I said in a more accusing tone than I intended.

“Of course I do.” The Professor smiled pleasantly. “The same way I knew you would be showing up here to discuss them with me. Here, please help yourselves to the cookies.”

I noticed that a tray of cookies and a pitcher of lemonade had just appeared on the table as if out of nowhere.

“You see,” Professor Brain-Drain continued, “I’ve had you observed since the moment you showed up at Indestructo Industries two days ago.”

“By who?” I tried to ask casually. I had suspected as much myself, but I was surprised that he would come right out and admit it.

NAME:
Sneak, The.
POWER:
Like a chameleon, the Sneak can blend into any background.
LIMITATIONS:
Being difficult to see is not always an asset. As an infant his parents lost him numerous times. This may have contributed to his antisocial criminal tendencies.
CAREER:
Briefly attempted a legitimate career as a traffic cop with disastrous results. Turned to crime thereafter.
CLASSIFICATION:
As an information gatherer, the Sneak is a master.

“By me, little onesss,” a familiar voice suddenly hissed from right next to me.

I spun around and looked right at where the voice had come from. There was nobody there! And then the wall moved. Well, actually the wall didn’t move. A figure moved who was the same color and texture as the wall. He stepped away from it and stood in front of one of the windows. Within seconds, the figure began to change to a pale blue identical to the color of the sky outside the window.

“I’d like to introduce you kids to the Sneak,” Professor Brain-Drain explained as he poured each of us a glass of lemonade. “He already feels like he knows you after spending most of Monday with you on your scavenger hunt.”

“I knew it,” I shouted. “You stole the second card from us at Aunty Penny’s Arcade.”

“Exsssactly,” the ominous figure confirmed. “And I mussst give credit where credit isss due. I would not have dissscovered the card without you. I had ssspent all day hiding in the Tycoon’sss offissse without finding out where the cardsss were. Even with the clue he provided, it wasss only by following you that I wasss able to get the sssecond card. I’m very pleasssed that you were able to find the third for yourssselvesss.”

“I was most impressed, as well,” Professor BrainDrain added as he handed around the cookie tray.

“Don’t you have any potato chips?” Tadpole asked.

I thought it was sort of impolite of him, but the Professor didn’t seem to care.

“I never touch them,” he replied. “I feel as if they numb my mind.”

We all looked at each other in astonishment. Halogen Boy, however, wasted no time in helping himself to a sugar cookie that was shaped—and frosted—to look like the Amazing Indestructo. In fact, as I glanced down at the tray, I saw they all looked like AI.

“I have an immense appreciation for intelligence,” the Professor continued as he set down the tray and picked up a cookie for himself. “I’m well aware of how rare it really is in this city,” he added, before biting the head off the AI cookie he was holding.

“That card was unbelievably valuable,” I pointed out. “How smart was it to make more of them?”

“Yes, yes, I know,” the Professor said, waving about the headless cookie. “But some things are more important than money—things such as self-respect.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! What kind of a crook talks like that?

“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t need money. I have plenty of that. I own this entire skyscraper, after all.”

“So why did you have the Multiplier create all these duplicates? And how were you able to increase his power?”

“I
am
a genius,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I’ve been working on a device for quite some time that would enhance the power of anyone who used it. I gave a small handheld prototype of it to the Multiplier as a test—which just goes to show that even geniuses can make mistakes.”

“He’s not very bright,” Halogen Boy added. “Did you drain his brain?”

“Well, truth be told, there really wasn’t much there to drain,” said the Professor with a grandfatherly laugh. “But I did take what little I could.”

“And then you gave him that idiotic idea about the traffic cones?” Tadpole asked.

“Yes, I suggested it to him almost a decade ago. I figured it would keep him busy in a harmless sort of way until I had a use for him.”

“And then the card situation came up,” Plasma Girl concluded.

“Exactly.” Brain-Drain beamed. “You kids really are quite smart.”

With that, the Professor calmly clapped his hands twice. I jumped up immediately, but I felt a hand push me back down in my chair, I tried to scream a warning to my teammates, but another hand had covered my mouth.

Thanks to the Sneak, I couldn’t move or speak, but I could see everything as the motionless figures that we had thought were statues suddenly came to life and went after Hal, Tadpole, and Plasma Girl. I expected them to use their powers, but they were each easily subdued by the silent, hulking figures. From the strained looks on their faces, I could tell that both Plasma Girl and Halogen Boy were trying, but nothing was happening. Tadpole was sticking out his tongue, but it wasn’t extending more than a few inches. The Professor Brain-Drain statue he had poked in the stomach a moment earlier had gone straight for him, clearly looking for a little payback. That’s when I noticed that Tadpole’s attacker had a mole on his nose, exactly like the last actor I had seen play the Professor on TV.

“I hope you enjoyed your lemonade. It’s a recipe of my own invention and has the wonderful side effect of briefly nullifying your powers. It’s a shame that you’ll be losing your intelligence so soon as well,” Professor Brain-Drain continued in the friendliest tone, “but I promise you, I’ll make much better use of it than you ever could have.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A Collectible Catastrophe

“Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to my latest invention,” Professor Brain-Drain commented pleasantly, as he indicated the animated figures that had just taken us captive. “I call them my Deadly Dumbots. It’s not an entirely accurate name since they’re neither robots nor completely dumb. But I liked the name—and they
can
be deadly.”

“You mean they’re not statues?” Halogen Boy asked.

“No. I’m afraid that was a little fib,” confessed Professor Brain-Drain. “My sculpture period ended over a decade ago. These days I’m more into mobiles.”

I watched Tadpole, Hal, and Plasma Girl struggle against the mindless-looking Dumbots. Without their powers, my teammates were helpless. I was being restrained by the Sneak. His hands and arms kept changing to look like either my shirt or my skin, depending on which part of me he was holding. It was pretty creepy.

“You see,” the Professor continued, “these individuals all made the same mistake. They assumed that they were qualified to play me on that infernal television show. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong.”