The Strike Trilogy (69 page)

Surrounded by the cement walls of his dorm, Tobin placed his hands on his legs and looked out into the crowded hall. It was still very loud out there, with kids and parents talking and laughing and dragging suitcases across the floor, and every few moments Tobin would see some new stranger walk by his room and look in.

He didn’t know anybody. Out of everybody out there, he didn’t know anyone.

Tobin thought about his mother. He thought about how she wasn’t going to be there when he woke up in the morning. He thought about how different this was going to be compared to the first day of high school, when he, Chad, and Jennifer had gone through the scary day together. Now, he would no longer be talking to them every day and spending over six hours with them every Monday through Friday, nine months out of every year. And, worst of all, Tobin didn’t know if he would ever see Orion, Keplar, and Scatterbolt ever again.

For the first time that he could remember since he was a little boy, Tobin placed his hands against his face and began to cry. Not because he was scared or sad or in pain. But because he was alone.

Then, suddenly, there was a
CRASH!
in the hallway. It sounded like at least three of the plastic totes filled with school supplies had fallen to the floor.

“I’m sorry!” a boy’s voice said from down the hall. “Excuse me, I’m so sorry! I was just trying to get by, I’m sorry!”

Tobin sat up on the edge of his bed and wiped his tears, startled. It sounded like the boy in the hallway was coming his way.

Then, there was another
CRASH!
in the hall
,
followed by the sound of pencils and pens rolling down the floor and a girl swearing.

“Oh man, I am sorry,” the boy said again, now closer to Tobin’s room than before. “If that’s broken I will—oh man, I am so sorry, I’m so sorry. Just let me know if—oh, man…”

“It’s okay,” a girl said angrily, right outside Tobin’s room. “Just let me clean it up.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy said again. “I didn’t mean…I’m just—just let me know if that’s broken. I’ll pay for it. In payments, or something.”

Then, a second later, a boy appeared in the doorway to Tobin’s room. He was a chubby, short boy with brown hair that was big and bushy and pushed across his forehead, like he was trying to comb it stylishly but not succeeding in the slightest. He was also wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses on his face and a blue coat that was way too small—and way too warm for the end of August. At the moment, he also had the handle of an overstuffed suitcase in one hand, a massive pillow in the other hand, and a long plastic bin tucked underneath his arm, which stuck out over three feet behind him. It was this bin, Tobin realized, that had been causing all of the destruction in the hallway.

Tobin also realized this moving tornado of clumsiness was his roommate.

“Oh man, this is crazy,” the boy said, dropping the pillow and plastic bin to the floor. “I knew this was gonna be crazy, but I didn’t know it was gonna be this crazy. This is the craziest thing ever.”

Tobin quickly wiped at his tears, embarrassed to have been caught crying, but the boy across the room was completely unaware. He simply began unpacking his suitcase and plastic bin.

“My dad just dropped me off,” the boy said, “but I realized I forgot all this stuff in his car, so I had to go back and get it when he was driving away. Imagine if I forgot all this stuff? That would suck so bad. I wouldn’t have any of my bathroom stuff or conditioner or deodorant. And worst of all I wouldn’t have my Q-tips.” The boy looked up at Tobin. “I have an earwax thing. I have earwax. Well, I guess everyone has earwax, but I seem to have it more than most. But maybe I shouldn’t tell everyone that on the first day…”

The boy’s voice trailed off. As he sat cross-legged on the floor, he reached for his suitcase and unzipped it, taking out the clothes inside and piling them onto the bed.

“Did you hear me coming down the hall?” he asked. “Oh man, I feel like such an idiot. I was carrying this stupid bin and I walked right into this girl and knocked her stuff out of her hand. I’m not sure who she is, but I’m pretty sure I broke her iPad. Not good. I’ve made some bad first impressions in my time, but I think that one takes the cake.”

Tobin laughed, sitting on his bed. With a confused grin, he watched as his new roommate continued unpacking all of his stuff. Tobin hadn’t said a word yet, but it seemed his roommate was too fired up and excited to notice.

“Did you get everything unpacked?” the boy asked. “Did your parents just drop you off? My dad was here earlier but he left already. We went to Papa Gino’s for lunch. Have you ever been there before? My cousin from Providence always told me about it and it is so good. I’m so glad there’s one around here. But hopefully I don’t get fat. Do guys usually gain the freshman fifteen? I don’t know. Maybe I should ask that iPad girl as an icebreaker. But then again maybe I should just leave her alone and she’ll forget it was me that broke her iPad.”

The boy snapped his head up, his eyes wide.

“Oh! I’m such an idiot. I just came in here and didn’t even introduce myself. I just felt like we already knew each other from Facebook. I’m Lucas, obviously. But you already know that.”

Tobin laughed and stood up. They shook hands. “Yeah, I figured. I’m Tobin.”

“Yes!” Lucas said, pumping his fist. “Awesome! Oh man, this is gonna be so awesome! I knew it was you when I walked in since we only have a double. Have you ever had a roommate before?”

“No, actually,” Tobin said. “I’m an only child.”

“No way!” Lucas replied. “Me too!”

They high-fived.

“Oh man, this is gonna be awesome!” Lucas said, clapping his hands together. He raised his eyebrows. “Can you believe we are gonna be, like, living with girls and stuff? Seriously, the hottest blonde girl I’ve ever seen in person is literally right down the hall, I saw her earlier today. She’s just gonna be living there, with us, in this building, for the rest of the year! Have you ever had a girlfriend before?”

“Yeah,” Tobin replied.

“Oh, me too,” Lucas said quietly, obviously lying.

“Is Broken iPad Girl the one that’s the hottest girl ever?” Tobin asked.

“No,” Lucas replied. “Broken iPad Girl is
another
hot girl! They’re everywhere! Can you believe it? This is so awesome!”

Tobin laughed. He noticed something in Lucas’ suitcase. “Is that the new Larry Bird book?”

“Yeah,” Lucas replied. “Even though I’m from Pennsylvania, I love the Celtics. Do you?”

Tobin reached to the nightstand near his bed. He unrolled one of the posters he had brought from home. It was a poster of Larry Bird. “Check this out,” he said with a smile.

“No way!” Lucas said. He quickly unzipped his jacket. Underneath he was wearing a vintage, faded, Celtics T-shirt. It read: 1986 NBA CHAMPIONS. “Dude,” Lucas said, pointing to the shirt, his face completely serious. “This is gonna be awesome. This is already awesome.”

Tobin laughed. Behind him, another boy knocked on the door. Tobin knew this was Max, the building’s R.A., because they had met briefly earlier.

“Hey, guys,” Max said. “The first event of orientation is starting in a few minutes, in the tent near the enrollment building. You should head there now.”

“Okay,” Lucas said. He turned to Tobin. “I think it’s like an ice cream social or something. You wanna go?”

“Yeah,” Tobin said. “Sure.”

Five minutes later, Tobin and Lucas were walking across campus and toward the large, yellow-and-white striped tent set up in the main section of the tree-lined university.

“Dude,” Lucas said, as they walked along the cement walkway that cut across the green grass. “I have a confession to make. Did you see all those cardboard bins in our room near my desk?”

“Yeah,” Tobin replied.

“Most of those are filled with, like, comic books and stuff. Do you like superheroes?”

Tobin laughed. “Yeah, I do, actually.”

“Great,” Lucas said. “That’s a relief. This is seriously gonna be awesome.”

Tobin looked ahead. He could see that the tent was already filled with over a hundred other students, and there were also dozens of long tables underneath it, which were lined with ice cream and all kinds of hot fudge, strawberries, and other sundae toppings. A DJ in the middle of the tent was playing loud, bumping music, and some of the new students—both guys and girls—were standing on the dance floor and chatting.

“Maybe,” Tobin thought to himself, “this won’t be so bad after all.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

O
rion walked into his bedroom in his apartment in Quantum City and opened the closet near his bed. After quickly sorting through the clothes hanging there, he picked out his outfit for the day: a white polo shirt and dark jeans. There was also a long, red coat in the back of the closet, tucked away behind all of the other clothes, but Orion hadn’t worn the coat in a few months.

Twenty minutes away, Orion pulled up to a small, one-story house in the suburb of Viera, right outside of Quantum City. He was just about to open his car door and walk to the front of the house when he realized, as usual, Ida—the former leader of the Rytonian Rebels—was already walking across the front yard and toward his car.

“You ready?” Ida asked, opening the car door and getting in.

“Yeah,” Orion replied. “I was thinking we could stop and get some breakfast before we go. What do you think?”

“Sure,” Ida said with a smile. “That sounds great.”

After their breakfast at Ida’s favorite diner, Orion parked his car and he and Ida walked into the front entrance of a large, warm, welcoming building in the southern section of Quantum City, nestled between a park and a high school. The sign above the building read:

QUANTUM CITY HOME AND LEARNING CENTER FOR GIFTED CHILDREN.

At the front desk of the learning center, Orion and Ida were greeted by Barbara, the dark-haired, heavy-set woman who ran the orphanage.

“Oh, hi Orion! Hi Ida! How are you? Thank you for coming again, the kids will be so excited to see you. How was the drive in?”

“Not too bad,” Orion said. “I think we missed most of the morning traffic. Who do you have for us today?”

Barbara looked down at a folder on her desk. “Well, Ida, I thought you could meet with Sarah again this morning, since you two hit it off so well last week. What do you think?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ida said, taking Sarah’s folder. “That’d be great.”

Barbara grinned as she handed Orion another folder. “And Orion, I have a new boy I’d like you to meet today. His name’s Andrew. He’s six years old and just arrived two days ago. He’s having a bit of trouble settling in and is not too happy to be here.”

“Okay,” Orion said, looking down at the paper in the folder. “I can do that.”

“Are you sure?” Barbara asked. “He’s a real handful, I’m warning you.”

Orion smiled. “I think I can handle him.”

On the third floor of the orphanage, Orion walked down the hallway, looking for the room number on the file Barbara had handed him. However, he didn’t need to look for long: ahead of him, only a few doors away, he heard a loud
CRASH!
, which was shortly followed by a ball of ice shooting out of an open door and shattering against the wall.

“I don’t want to be here!” a boy’s voice shouted from the open room. “I don’t want to be here!”

After carefully looking out for more ice projectiles, Orion stepped into the room. He immediately noticed the room was forty degrees colder than the rest of the orphanage, and its walls and furniture were also covered with a thin coating of snow. On the bed in the middle of the room, there was a small dark-skinned boy, about six years old. He was jumping up and down on the bed, and pounding his fists against his legs. His fingers and hands were blue, and coated with ice.

“I don’t wanna be here!” the boy yelled again. It was so cold Orion could see the boy’s breath when he spoke. “Someone call my mom! I wanna go home!”

Orion walked toward the boy. When he got closer, he saw that the boy’s dark skin and lips were tinted blue.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on in here?” Orion asked. “Why are you so mad?”

“’Cuz I want to go home!” the boy shouted, his face scrunched up in anger. “My mom left me here but forgot to come pick me up! Someone needs to call her and have her come get me!”

Orion looked down. Near his feet, there was a broken toy dump truck, stuck inside a ball of ice.

“We can settle all that in a minute,” Orion said, “but I don’t think you need to be breaking all of your toys, do you?”

“That’s not my toy.”

“It’s not? Barbara told me that she gave it to you. It’s a pretty nice truck.”

“I don’t care!” the boy said, beginning to cry. “I don’t want her stupid toys. I want to go home!”

The boy reared his arm back, and a ball of ice formed in his hand. After he tossed the ice across the room, forcing Orion to duck out of the way, the boy dropped onto the bed and sat with his back against the headboard. He crossed his arms across his chest, angry.

“Okay,” Orion said, looking back at where the ice ball had dented the wall, “but there’s no need to yell at me. I just wanted to come and hang out with you for a while.”

The boy didn’t answer. He just stared ahead, with his eyebrows narrowed and his lips pouting.

“Is that okay?” Orion asked.

The boy didn’t answer again.

Orion pulled up a chair next to the bed. “Are you gonna throw any more ice balls at me? Do I need to wear a helmet?”

“No,” the boy said, his arms still crossed.

“Okay. Good.”

A moment passed.

“Why are you here?” the boy asked, looking at Orion suspiciously. “Who are you? Do you work here?”

“No, I don’t. My name’s Orion. Barbara—do you know Barbara?”

“Yeah.”

“Barbara asked me if I’d like to come meet you, and I said I would. She also told me you don’t like it here very much.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s boring. There’s all these old people here and they make me eat all this yucky food. And my mom’s not here. I think she forgot to pick me up.”

“Well, I think the food here is pretty good. I heard they are having bremshaw pizza tomorrow and I also heard bremshaw pizza is your favorite. Is that true?”

“Yeah.” The boy looked up at Orion, for the first time unclenching his brow. “Are they really having that tomorrow?”

Orion shrugged. “That’s what I heard. And I know it can’t be boring here. I just walked by the movie room, and I saw all these kids watching a really funny movie. That didn’t look boring to me.”

“I don’t wanna watch a stupid movie,” the boy said. “I don’t wanna see these stupid kids. I wanna go home.”

“Why, you don’t like movies?”

“No, I like movies, just not those movies.”

Orion thought it over. “Well, how about a book then? They have a really cool library here. Or maybe I could tell you some good stories. I know some pretty good ones.”

“I don’t like stories,” Andrew said. “Stories are for babies. I’m not a baby.”

“Oh, okay,” Orion said, sitting back in his chair. “I didn’t know that you didn’t like stories. My stories aren’t for babies, you know, but if you don’t wanna hear it, that’s okay. It’s probably too scary for you, anyway.”

“I doubt it,” Andrew said. “I’m not scared.”

“You sound scared to me. You didn’t wanna hear my stories, so you must be scared. They’re true stories from my life, too, about stuff that happened to me. But you don’t wanna hear about them. They’re filled with stuff you probably don’t wanna hear about.”

Andrew looked up at him. “What kind of stuff?”

“Superheroes,” Orion said. “Monsters. Dinosaurs. Super-villains. Giant bugs. Robots. But you don’t wanna hear about any of that, so it’s okay.”

Orion sat in silence. Andrew watched the old man from the corner of his eye, thinking.

“I might wanna hear about it a little bit,” Andrew said.

Orion chuckled. “Are you sure?”

“Maybe. Did you say one of them had dinosaurs?”

“Yes, I did. A lot of them do, actually. Do you wanna hear one of those?”

“Yeah.” Andrew turned toward Orion.

“Okay. I’ll tell you one about a boy who reminds me a lot of you. How’s that?”

“Okay.”

Orion thought a moment.

“Once,” the old man said, “there was a boy named Tobin Lloyd.”

In the Museum of the Heroes, Scatterbolt walked out of the building’s elevator and across the floor of the sky-ship garage, which was located on one of the lower levels of the museum. Keplar was there in the middle of the garage, laying underneath the Sky-Blade and working on its underside. His blue fur and leather jacket were smeared with grease.

“Hey, Keplar,” the little robot said.

Keplar looked up at him. “Hey, Scatterbolt. What’s going on, buddy?”

“Nothing really. I was just working on something in the computer lab and thought I’d ask you something.”

Keplar tightened a bolt on the ship’s engine with a wrench. “Okay, shoot.”

“Do you really think we’ll ever see Tobin again?”

Keplar slid out from underneath the ship. He thought it over, wiping the grease from his forehead. “Gee, I don’t know, Bolt. I’m not sure. But I think it’s definitely possible.”

Scatterbolt’s eyes widened. “You really think so?”

“Sure, anything’s possible. If there’s anything I’ve learned in my life, it’s that. Anything’s possible.”

“Okay. Cool.”

Keplar slid back underneath the Sky-Blade. “You wanna help me take the ship out for a spin in a bit? I’m gonna try the new thrusters I picked up yesterday from Wakefield’s shop.”

“No, that’s okay. I think I’m just gonna hang out here in the museum for a bit.”

“Okay, bud. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

After traveling back up the elevator, Scatterbolt stepped out of its doors and into the museum’s main gallery. As he walked across its marble floor, he made his way to a quieter section in the back of the first exhibit area. There was a small duck pond here, along with a few wooden benches and three bronze statues, each of which represented a different member of the legendary superhero team known as the Guardians.

There were also three new statues in the room. As Scatterbolt sat down on one of the small benches, he looked out at the new statues in front of him.

The first statue was of Scatterbolt himself. It showed him standing with one fist on his hip and the other fist raised in the air. The inscription on the statue read:

SCATTERBOLT.

BRAVE AND KIND. INTELLIGENT. POKER CHAMPION.

The next statue was of Scatterbolt’s friend, Keplar Costello. The statue showed the husky with his plasma cannon slung over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised, and a grin in the corner of his mouth. Its inscription read:

KEPLAR COSTELLO.

ANNOYING. RECKLESS. BAD BREATH. BUT THERE’S NO ONE ELSE YOU’D WANT BY YOUR SIDE.

The last statue was Scatterbolt’s favorite. This was the one he liked to come visit the most. It was of his friend, Tobin Lloyd, dressed in his Strike uniform, but without his mask. Tobin had both hands on his hips, his bo-staff on his back, and, as always, he was smiling.

The inscription read:

TOBIN LLOYD. A.K.A. STRIKE.

THE GREATEST HERO OF THEM ALL.