“I — My —” he stammered. Oh, sure — that was brilliant.
“You forgot the food, didn’t you?” Mairi said. “I can’t believe it. You said you would bring snacks.”
“Right. I know. I forgot. I screwed up. I’m sorry.” There were six candy bars, a baggie full of peanuts, two small bags of potato chips, a plastic container of carrots, and two yogurt tubes in his backpack, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
Mairi sighed. “Fine. I’ll go see if anyone else has anything.”
She tossed the backpack aside, stood, brushed grass and dirt off her pants, and marched up the hill to where Miss Schwartz and the other students had wandered.
Whew! That was close!
Kyle couldn’t believe how he’d almost had his identity exposed! He couldn’t just carry his costume around in his backpack. It was too risky. He would need to come up with a better solution.
He dug into the backpack and pulled out the food, spreading it on the ground in front of him, then zipped up the backpack securely. When Mairi came back, he would say that — Oops! Dummy me! — he’d forgotten that he had packed food after all. Sorry about that, Mairi. So silly of me …
A little ways away, Mairi turned back to him and waved, just to show there were no hard feelings.
Kyle waved back and then returned to the food, arranging it on the ground so that it looked like a gourmet spread. He’d done a good job packing, he thought.
“Oh, my God!” Miss Schwartz screamed. At the same time, a chorus of shrieks and cries went up from the other students.
Kyle looked up. A second ago, Mairi had been maybe ten yards away from him, about halfway between him and the group on the hill. Now she was …
She was gone.
And in her place was a giant sinkhole.
Kyle blinked. What had —
Just then, the sinkhole erupted, a geyser of dirt and rocks and grass fountaining up into the sky. And in that geyser …
Mairi.
She screamed. Miss Schwartz screamed — again. Everyone, basically, screamed.
Except for Kyle.
Spontaneous earth eruption? he thought. That’s impossible!
The geyser twisted and rotated in the air. Mairi struggled, but bands of soil had wrapped around her and now dragged her out of the sky and back underground.
It was alive. The ground was alive.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Kyle stared, but only for a second. He didn’t have much time. How long could Mairi survive underground, without air?
Not long. He could calculate it exactly. Take her lung capacity, based on her size…. Consider that she had been screaming a moment ago…. Multiply. Divide….
He decided he didn’t want to know. It would be a small number. A small amount of time Mairi had left to live.
He grabbed the backpack. Everyone was busy watching the sinkhole, so no one saw him run at top speed toward the cornfield, where the tall stalks hid him from sight. He switched clothes in less than two seconds, plugging in Erasmus.
“Don’t forget MiMi,” Erasmus said immediately.
Right. MiMi. Of course. This couldn’t be a coincidence. The ground just wouldn’t happen to open up and come alive here. This field was where the plasma storm hit. The same radiation that powered Mighty Mike — the same radiation that powered Kyle — had to be causing this. MiMi might be able to help.
Kyle launched himself into the sky, MiMi clutched in one hand. Her screen lit up. Data streamed across it.
Just then, the ground belched again. Mairi hurtled up into the air, almost as high as Kyle, surrounded by tendrils of soil and rock. She screamed again, struggling and writhing against the earthy tentacles that gripped her.
Down below, kids gathered in a group pointed up at him. “Look!” someone shouted. “The Blue Freak!”
“It’s the Azure Avenger,” Kyle muttered under his breath. He clipped MiMi to his belt and dived straight at the heaviest, thickest tendril of dirt.
SMACK! The tendril undulated, crashing against Kyle. It was like being hit with a brick wall. An angry brick wall.
Kyle shook his head. Other than being punched by Mighty Mike, he hadn’t felt pain since his exposure to the plasma storm. And now.
He decided he didn’t like it.
He marshaled all his strength and flew at the tendril again. It whipped around. Mairi somehow found the breath and the energy to scream once more.
Kyle plowed right through the tendril, severing it. Now Mairi was only held by two other tendrils.
He pulled up and spun around, breathing hard, satisfied by his success —
Oh. Oh, no.
The tendril re-formed almost instantly, more dirt flowing up from the ground.
Kyle gritted his teeth. How could he —?
Just then he noticed something: The dirt was changing its direction. It was flowing down now. It was collapsing back toward the ground again….
“Stop screaming!” he yelled at Mairi. “Hold your breath!”
She looked at him, her eyes wide with terror. At the last possible instant, she closed her mouth, just as the tendril once again collapsed into a sinkhole, dragging Mairi underground.
Kyle itched to blast a path through the soil, tunneling down to find Mairi. But he stopped himself. That was no good. He didn’t know where she was under there, how close to the surface. With his speed and strength, he could smash through the ground … and right through Mairi, if he wasn’t careful.
Besides, brute force wasn’t how Kyle did things. He had to use his brain, not his brawn. He wasn’t Mighty Mike, after all.
Even though he knew Mairi’s life was slipping away with every moment he did nothing, he forced himself to think as he hovered over the sinkhole and the group of kids who had been ushered away by Miss Schwartz. They all pointed up at him like this was his fault.
He unclipped MiMi from his belt. “Give me some good news,” he said.
“MiMi can’t talk,” Erasmus reminded him. “She doesn’t have an artificial —”
“Shut up, Erasmus. Or I’ll toss you into orbit. I’m serious.”
Erasmus shut up.
MiMi’s screen lit up with data. Kyle read it as quickly as it came up, calculating….
He was right. This wasn’t a coincidence. The sinkhole was chock-full of the same radiation in Mighty Mike’s body. The radiation in Kyle’s body.
The radiation from the plasma storm.
Worse yet …
Wait. How long had Mairi been underground? Less than thirty seconds so far. She was probably still alive, as long as she was still holding her breath….
Stop thinking about that, Kyle! She needs you to focus on figuring this out!
The radiation wasn’t just in the area of the sinkhole. There was a radiation trail from the spot where Mairi vanished, leading all the way to the exact spot where Mike touched down during the plasma storm.
And now … he calculated fiercely. This couldn’t be…. It wasn’t possible!
But it was.
According to MiMi and Kyle’s own calculations, the lingering radiation from the plasma storm was spreading. The sinkhole was only the beginning. Soon the “living soil” would be everywhere … and the entire town of Bouring would be in danger!
And then, maybe … the world.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
For a single, terrible second, Kyle couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything at all.
The enormity of it was stronger than anything he’d encountered yet. The entire world could be in danger.
Why was this happening now? It was awfully convenient that it happened right when Kyle was around….
Unless … unless maybe he somehow triggered it? He hadn’t been to the field since the plasma storm. Maybe the radiation in his body somehow activated the lingering radiation in the ground….
It didn’t matter! He had to do something. But what?
Below him, the group of kids
started applauding and cheering and generally going nuts. But Kyle hadn’t even done anything yet.
Then he saw the true object of their affections: Mighty Mike swooped in from the east, just as the sinkhole erupted again, spitting Mairi up into the air, still snared within tendrils of dirt and rock. She looked exhausted beyond all belief, but Kyle could tell that she was still breathing.
“Now what have you done?” Mike asked as he blew past Kyle on his way to Mairi.
“I didn’t —” But Mike was already out of earshot.
Of course Mike would blame him….
Kyle watched as Mike had exactly as much success fighting the dirt monster as Kyle had. In other words, none. The tendrils batted Mike around, all while deftly maneuvering Mairi out of the way every time Mike came close to snatching her from their clutches.
Police cars and fire trucks rumbled onto the scene, their sirens blaring and obnoxious.
You idiots, Kyle thought, hovering above them all. You can’t shoot dirt. And all your hoses will do is make it mud. Morons.
If this was going to be resolved, it would have to be resolved by Kyle.
While Mairi was aboveground, she could breathe, and that meant Kyle could think without panicking. He made a slow, deliberate circle around the tendrils, keeping MiMi pointed down at the source of the radiation, scanning. He needed as much information as possible in order to think his way out of this.
Just then, Mike broke off his attack and did something that Kyle had to admit was slightly smart: Instead of attacking the tendrils directly, he dive-bombed them at their source, plunging directly into the ground.
Kyle kept scanning, but he kept an eye on the crowd below. They were all watching in silent amazement as the ground bucked and rippled where Mike had tunneled in. The cops and firefighters were pulling kids away from the area and setting up a perimeter, as if that would help once the radiation spread to the ground under their feet … and beyond.
The ground exploded into a roiling wave of earth. Mike came streaking out of the ground like a bottle rocket, tumbling head over heels through the air. More soil was coming alive and fighting back.
After getting his bearings, Mike drifted over to Kyle, mud and dirt streaming off of him. His face was black with soil, his eyes bright white stamps.
“Look, whatever you’re doing, you have to stop it,” he told Kyle. “That’s an innocent girl over there.”
Kyle waved him off. He was too busy thinking. The radiation was fanning out at a geometric progression. If he didn’t hurry, pretty soon the whole area around the school would be engulfed. And it would keep going.
“Erasmus, start thinking about what we would need to do to clean up this radiation, okay?”
“Right.”
Mighty Mike came closer. “Did you hear me? Whatever grudge you have against me, fine. But don’t take it out on innocent people.”
“Look, punk. I don’t have time to mess with you, okay? I’m busy. There’s a radiation —”
“Give me that thing,” Mike ordered, pointing at MiMi.
Kyle drifted back a couple of feet, cradling MiMi protectively. “Forget it. No. You can’t have her.”
“You’re using that thing to control the ground. I’ve been watching.”
“No, I’m using her to analyze —”
Mike burst forward, getting in Kyle’s face before Kyle could react. “Give it to me!”
Kyle batted Mike’s hand away, holding MiMi out so that Mike couldn’t grab her. “Get back, you idiot! I’m trying to help! ”
“You’re going to kill that girl and who knows how many other people!”
Mike spun around Kyle, reaching out for MiMi again. Kyle pulled her back just in time.
“I don’t have time for you, Mike. I’m trying to save her life! And maybe everyone on the planet, too!”
“I’ve seen what happens when you lose control of your toys. Hand it over and let me fix things. Again.”
Kyle punched him.
He hadn’t meant to. It just sort of happened. His temper had been flaring the whole time because Mike was distracting him when he was trying to save Mairi’s life. Right now she was still aboveground, but the sinkhole could recollapse at any second. And this time she might not come back. He didn’t have time to debate with an inferior intellect.
So he punched Mike right in the face, sending him careering through the air. The crowd booed.
“I have some thoughts …” Erasmus said.
“Give me a second,” Kyle said. “But keep talking.” He clipped MiMi to his belt again and made himself a missile, headed straight at Mike. Before Mike could recover from the sucker punch, Kyle body slammed him at Mach 1.
He hated to admit it, but it felt good to pound Mighty Mike. So he hit him again, punching him right in the face.
“You idiot!” he railed. “You moron! You ignoramus!” And then he threw in some really bad words, mostly ones Dad had used last summer when he’d slammed his fingers in the freezer door.
“I’m trying to help and you won’t get off my back, you jerk!”
Mighty Mike blocked the next punch, his teeth bared, his eyes alight with anger. “You wouldn’t know how to help if your life depended on it.”
“Bite me,” Kyle said, and kicked Mike between the legs. Then he grabbed Mike by that stupid cape, swung him around in a circle, and let go, tossing him toward the water tower.
“That’s gonna be wet,” Erasmus said.
“Don’t care. Don’t have time for him. We’re outta here.” He put on the speed and flew off toward his house, moving so quickly that he’d just be a tiny blur to anyone watching.
“Far be it from me to judge you,” Erasmus said, “but Mairi’s still in danger and —”
“We have a bigger problem than that. Mike won’t let anything happen to Mairi. That’s the one good thing about do-gooder punks — they’re dependable. But in the meantime, someone has to figure out how to stop the radiation from spreading and save the whole world!”
“Oh,” Erasmus said. “That. Right.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
The flight home took less than a minute, so Erasmus talked fast, keeping up a steady stream of ideas, suggestions, and plans. By the time Kyle had flown through the basement door, he already had the schematics designed in his head.
He moved through his lab at top speed. Unfortunately, he had to dismantle the partly completed nuclear reactor and the time machine; he needed the parts.
“Kyle!” his mother yelled from the top of the basement stairs. “What is all that racket?”
“Nothing, Mom!” He prayed that she wouldn’t come downstairs and see him in his Azure Avenger outfit. He really didn’t want to zap her brain again.
“Try to keep it down! Your father and I are watching TV.”
Of course you’re watching TV. What else would you be doing?
“I’ll try!” He pried open MiMi’s case and gingerly connected her battery terminals to the portable dampening rod he’d scavenged from the nuclear reactor. If he slipped, he would probably blow up the house and let loose a cloud of radioactive particles that would kill everything in the county.
“No pressure,” Erasmus whispered.
“Shut up.”
“Shutting up.”
Kyle teased the wires together, sweat gathering under his mask. No biggie. Only life on Earth hung in the balance. Nothing to worry about.
Success! He had the dampening rod connected and nothing had blown up.
“Good job,” Erasmus said, sounding serious for the first time ever.
“It’s your design,” Kyle told him. “I just built it.”
“Let’s hope it works.”
Kyle threw open the basement door and blazed into the sky. Then he broke the sound barrier again, heading back to school.
And the field.
And Mairi.
Mighty Mike thrashed in the grips of the living ground. There were now more tendrils than before, and the
y were larger and stronger. The area of danger had grown dramatically, spreading out to the perimeter the police and firefighters had established. As Kyle neared the field, he noticed the cops beginning to move their equipment and personnel back. They were just beginning to get an inkling as to what was really going on here.
But they didn’t seem too worried. They trusted Mighty Mike.
Pinheads.
You can’t beat up the ground. Duh.
Mairi was still alive, still struggling and screaming as Mike tried to fight his way through the endlessly shifting columns of earth. Occasionally he would blast forth with a beam of black, laserlike light from his eyes. It sliced neatly through the dirt, but the tendrils just re-formed moments later.
The enhanced MiMi showed the radiation slowly leaching throughout the ground, spreading. But it was most concentrated just over the hill, at the exact spot where Kyle had seen Mighty Mike touch down on Earth for the first time.
He would have to start there.
He darted over the hill, moving so fast that no one could see. Not that they would have noticed him even if he had ambled calmly up the grade in full view of everyone — the entire crowd was captivated by Mighty Mike’s useless combat with the living ground.
Kyle hovered over the spot where Mighty Mike had landed. He punched in a new code on MiMi’s ancient cell phone pad.
“Wait a second,” Erasmus said. “Think about what you’re doing.”
“I can’t think long. Any minute now, the ground around the school will become alive, too.”
“This is an opportunity to have a sample of the radiation in its purest form. Without Mighty Mike’s DNA or your DNA complicating things.”
That was true, Kyle had to admit.
He spared a moment and skimmed the ground quickly, scooping up some of the dirt. He dumped it into a belt pouch. MiMi whined and chittered at her proximity to the radioactive soil.
“Okay, now to get to work!”
He flew straight up so that he had a good vantage point. Then he pointed MiMi at the ground. Her antenna had been replaced with the dampening rod and a bewildering array of wires.