The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys (10 page)

Mr. Thompson funded everything for the
members of SOCKs, but in true Kid Combat fashion, took none of the
credit. The only members of SOCKs that knew about Mr. Thompson were
Kid and Samantha. None of the other boys knew of Mr. Thompson, and
he preferred it that way. He would have preferred that Samantha
didn’t know either, but Kid convinced Charlie to let her in. Since
Kid trusted her with his life, Charlie knew it was the right
thing.

Charlie, Kid Combat, and the rest of SOCKs
carried out mission after mission in secrecy. Little by little they
tried to free their town of their greatest ill, Phillip Arthur
Jones. Over time, Charlie became less involved in the day-to-day
operations, like the missions when Samantha was kidnapped by Jones,
or even the mission a few days prior involving the Science Museum.
He was more of a mentor now, someone Kid went to for advice and
help. Today was one of those days.

The two old friends made it down the old
wooden stairs of Mr. Thompson’s basement. The uneven and unfinished
stairs that led down into the dark basement fit the rest of the
room perfectly. As Kid hit the bottom of the stairs and the cold
cement slab, Mr. Thompson pulled the chain to light a single bulb
that hung from the rafters. The bulb danced around as it sprung to
life and made a clicking sound as it hit the chain with every
move.

The room was splashed with light. It revealed
a bunch of work benches buried by thousands of papers, a small
junkyard of electrical parts, and enough wire to run electricity
for half the town. There were two stools at one of the work
benches, and Charlie and Kid walked over and sat at them. Mr.
Thompson was the first to speak.

“So, what’s up, Kid?” he said in a thoughtful
manner.

“I’m worried,” Kid said, not too sure of
himself.

“Worried?” inquired Mr. Thompson. “About the
store?”

“Yeah, that,” answered Kid. “We can’t lose
the store.”

“We won’t. I’m sure of it,” Mr. Thompson
reassured Kid.

“How could you be so sure?” Kid asked
abruptly. “And why did you wait so long to tell me about your
threats?”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me. You
needed to focus on your missions and getting Jones,” Mr. Thompson
said. “If you heard about the curator, you would have dropped
everything and come to help me.”

“As I should have. The store is in ruins. I
mean, we all know the curator is behind it, but I don’t see how we
can pin this on him. Not without any evidence.”

There was a pause as Kid got up and walked
about ten feet away. His head hung low and a fragile Kid Combat was
exposed. “I’m afraid he might have us beat.”

“Kid,” Mr. Thompson said softly. The young
boy turned around to face him. “Come over here and sit back down.”
Kid, disgruntled, turned and walked back over and took a seat on
the stool. Mr. Thompson continued.

“My boy, don’t beat yourself up. Everything
is not as bad as it seems. And quit doubting yourself. You are an
amazing child. Look at all you have accomplished. Look at all you
and your team have done. You have gone well beyond my expectations
for any of this. You have built up a team that is better than I
could have dreamed. You have brought back hope to me. Hope for this
town. You have taken Jones down a few notches, and I know we can
take him down even more.”

“Yeah, but …” Kid interrupted.

“No “buts.” Look at what you have done with
The Playground. That place is amazing. And it was all your idea. I
would never have come up with that. And you will come up with
something for this, Kid Combat,” Mr. Thompson said and lifted Kid
Combat’s fallen chin up. “I have faith in you. You will come up
with something.”

Kid Combat paused for a moment, then looked
up. “That reminds me—Samantha is having problems digging the
trenches to Pepper Creek. She says with her tools and man power, it
would take forever to reach the banks of the creek. I don’t know if
the PCAV’s will be useful or not anymore.”

Mr. Thompson looked at Kid in amazement. “You
see, this is why you were born to be Kid Combat. Even when you are
down, you still are thinking of other people. You truly are
amazing.”

Mr. Thompson paused as he mulled over Kid’s
dilemma. “Don’t worry about the tunnels, KC. I still have some
connections in this town. I will get my men on it. I will have them
start at the banks of Pepper Creek and dig within ten feet of your
perimeter. We’ll say it’s for electrical work for the park.
Samantha should be able to knock out the rest in only a few hours.
Good enough?”

“Good enough,” Kyle responded. “Well, now
that that’s solved, I better get to work on that curator.”

Chapter Nine:

Roller In Trouble

6:00 pm

While Kid Combat was at the Thompsons’ house,
Roller was on the other side of town. He was just down the street
from Spring Road Toys, making what lately had become his weekly
visit to It’s So Easy Computer Shop. He had gone there to buy up
old electronic devices, fix them, and use them at The Playground or
on missions.

As he whizzed down the sidewalk in his
modified chair, Roller didn’t feel right. He almost felt as if he
was being watched. He approached the store cautiously, and with one
last glance over his shoulder, he disappeared into the alcove
leading into It’s So Easy.

Off in the distance, across the street, and
concealed behind a young elm tree, a boy in blue watched Roller’s
every move. He stood there wearing sunglasses, his head partially
covered by his hoodie, and took pictures of Roller.

Minutes later, Roller appeared from inside
the store and made his way back down Spring Road. Heavily modified
by himself, and now Gears, his chair went close to twenty miles per
hour. That made it easy for him to get from place to place. Today,
Roller was weighed down by a few electronics he had picked up at
It’s So Easy, but the chair was still easily cruising down the
sidewalk. Across the street, and keeping a safe distance, the boy
in blue whirled along on his modified trek. Keeping always a half a
block of distance, the boy in blue tracked Roller’s every move.

Roller flew down the sidewalk. He approached
Fairview Drive, the street that led into the heart of Maple Forest
and back to Roller’s final destination, The Playground. Right
behind him, the mysterious boy in blue followed.

Minutes went by as Roller made his way down
the paths and back into the clearing where the baseball field and
the secret entrance into The Playground lay. Roller, still feeling
uneasy, made a dash for the tree line in centerfield. Still behind
him, the boy in blue paused, hid behind a tree, and produced a pair
of binoculars.

Roller coasted up to the trees in centerfield
and stopped. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t
right. He looked around for what seemed to be the hundredth time
and still saw nothing.

“I must be getting paranoid,” Roller said out
loud to himself, and with one final look around, he entered the
tree line. Upon seeing this, the mysterious boy in blue took out a
digital camera and started taking pictures of the boy entering the
trees. Roller made a terrible mistake that day. He should have
trusted his gut.

Roller made his way through the honeycomb of
tree limbs that had been modified to accommodate his wheelchair. A
few branches were cleared, and others had been actually sawed off.
Still more had been placed on hinges that were controlled by a
panel on Roller’s wheelchair. This allowed the entrance to be
concealed to the naked eye yet remain accessible for the boy. As he
approached, Roller hit a button on his chair, and a few of the
branches bent in not so natural ways, allowing him access to the
disk-shaped elevator leading down into The Playground.

The actual entrance into The Playground was
modified too. It still was a round shape, but the hole was enlarged
and a platform had been added so Roller could wheel his way onto it
and then descend. Another modification to the secret compartment
within the tree allowed Roller to type in a predetermined
eight-digit code from his chair that would open up the secret
entrance.

Roller completed all these steps and
descended into The Playground.

Still waiting far off in the tree line of
Maple Forest, the boy in blue sat. He waited for ten minutes for
Roller to reappear from the tree line, but he never did. The boy
waited thirty minutes, and Roller never once came out of the trees.
The boy in blue started to get suspicious. What would a boy in a
wheelchair be doing in a small clump of trees for so long?

An hour went by, and still nothing. The sun
by this time was starting to set, and it became dusk. With a small
hint of darkness to aid him, the boy in blue left his hiding spot
behind the tree and approached the set of trees in centerfield.

Down below, the only two people at The
Playground at this time were Roller and Gears. They both sat within
Main Computer Lab 1, working on separate projects concerning the
Spring Road Toys case.

Gears was looking up details on the two boys
and trying to find out as much information on them as he could. He
was also waiting for the twins to show up with Ace’s cell
phone.

Roller, on the other hand, was piecing
together electronic parts from the devices he had picked up at It’s
So Easy. He was engrossed in his work, and his earlier paranoia had
started to fade away.

Outside, the boy in blue reached the tree
line. He peered into the darkness and the maze of branches and
looked for Roller. He crept, almost on his tiptoes, into the trees.
Within seconds it became obvious that Roller was nowhere to be
seen. The boy made his way in further and examined very
suspiciously every detail he could see, but there was nothing out
of the ordinary.

Kid and his crew spent countless hours making
sure there was no way anyone could make out the entrance to the
secret base. Every detail was checked and then checked again, and
then Kid came back and checked them again. It was secure. But the
boy in blue knew something was going on here. A boy in a wheelchair
just doesn’t enter a segment of trees and then vanish into thin
air.

The boy in blue continued to look for any
sign of something out of the ordinary, but he never found one. Kid
had taken another risk in order to keep this place a secret and
ensure that no one would find anything—there was no external
surveillance. Only infrared was monitored by a secret satellite
dish installed on a neighboring house. Those sensors, however, were
only checked upon exiting.

The boy in blue, frustrated for now, gave up
his search and retreated out of the tree line. The boys inside of
The Playground continued on with their work, never knowing how
close they had come to being exposed.

Chapter Ten:

Learning the Truth

8:00 pm

It was nighttime in Elmcrest when Kid Combat
made his way back to The Playground. He walked through his park,
which had grown dark in the evening hours. On his way, he was in
deep thought on how to catch Alfred E. Scott and the two boys, Ace
and Tommy. For the life of him, he still couldn’t think of a
plan.

He crossed the baseball field, and with a
quick glance around, disappeared into the tree line. He rode the
cylinder disk down, punched in his usual access code, and entered
the main room of The Playground.

By this time, the entire SOCKs team was back
and working on various projects. Kid crossed through the main room,
and Samantha was the first person he saw. She was working in
Research Lab B on her computer. Kid walked up to her and asked what
she was doing.

“I’m going through all these bogus Kid Combat
reports. Seems like there is a new one everyday now,” Samantha
said.

For several weeks, copycat Kid Combats had
been springing up throughout the neighborhood. All of them tried to
imitate Kid Combat, and most of them claimed to be the real Kid
Combat. The news loved reporting on these children, the new batch
of “heroes” in the neighborhood.

Samantha, though, was less impressed with
them. She saw them as a distraction and a very big risk to the
SOCKs organization. The damage they could cause could bring the
whole alliance down, just by bad reputation alone. Samantha was
very frustrated by the time Kid got to her.

“I mean, really, what do these people think
they are doing? They’re pathetic,” she continued.

“I know Sam, but …” Kid started. Samantha
wasn’t done with her rant.

“I mean, come on. Some of these are so
ridiculous. Here, look at this one,” Samantha said, clicking on a
file on her computer. “He calls himself ‘The Child Conqueror.’
Isn’t that the exact opposite of what he was trying for?”