King of the Mutants (16 page)

“Yeah, how about that? Totally twists my melon you and I are brothers.”

For one nanosecond, I’d actually spaced on that fact with all that had transpired. Now I knew what Serafine had meant when she said that Freddie was going to have a big family. Little did I know that it would include me, Freddie, two thugs, and twenty or so wildly mutated ten and eleven-year-olds. I put my arm around Freddie’s slender shoulders.

“Too bad I hogged all of the good looks, huh?” I teased. “Now, let’s go meet the rest of our brood.”

Freddie nodded and muttered, “I really don’t want to get up-close and personal with that octopus lady. It was bad enough from the viewing station. If I barf again, it’s your fault.”

I pressed the button and the doors opened. “It’s now or never.”

“Yeah, about that, I’d, um, prefer never,” argued Freddie.

I pushed him into the elevator anyways and pressed the button. Truth was, I was a little nervous about walking into that room alone. Who knows what those freaky kids would do? I mean, Greizenheimer said they were super mutants. Which meant they might have super powers. We didn’t have anything to protect ourselves in case they attacked. But I didn’t want to meet my relatives in a threatening manner. Like it or not, this was my family now.

Freaks like us? We only had each other.

The elevator doors opened and my pulse raced to an unhealthy level. Timidly, we stepped into the pod-filled room. Like one of those life coaches on TV, or a guidance counselor at a school, would tell you to do, I kept repeating, “I can deal,” in my head.

At first nobody noticed us. The Fly kid buzzed around, his giant bulbous eyes blinking rapidly on the side of his triangular shaped head. Kangaroo Girl hopped around, punching pods. A gorilla-like boy shook his pod. A girl covered from head to toe in fur with pink bows tied around her long ears alerted the mutant kids to our arrival. She barked loudly and the room fell silent. Freddie backed up, ready to book it into the still open elevator.

One of the pod-kids yelled, “Careful of Dog Girl, she bites!” And then they all hid in their egg shaped capsules, peering at Freddie and me with a mix of curiosity and fear. I took a deep breath and tried to think of something to say. At a complete loss for words, I blurted out, “Hello, I’m Maverick Mercury, your brother, and this is Freddie
, uh,
your other brother.”

At once, the mutant kids started chanting, “Maverick, Maverick, Maverick, the first of our kind. Maverick, Maverick, Maverick, our king has arrived.”

It was beyond spooky and intense. Not just the chant, but also, the fact these kids, at least the ones able to do so, bowed down in front of me.

Freddie burst out laughing. “Dude, you are so King of Mutants. They, like, worship you.”

My mutated siblings chanted, “Maverick is soooooo King of the Mutants.”

I stood stunned. I was royalty—master of the mutant domain.

For a moment it felt great. Until the octopus lady’s soft voice filled the room. “Please save me, boys, save the kids. Children should eat fruits and vegetables, not chemicals. Undo the tentacles from all my pods. Please, I’m in so much pain and my body can’t take much more.”

Freddie’s laughter quickly subsided and my smile faded.

We turned to face her.

“So much pain…” wheezed the woman. The mutant kids repeated her words over and over, getting louder and louder.

There was no way Freddie could do what was being asked of us. Hunched over with his hands on his knees, he was about to hyperventilate. The chanting was driving me insane and I couldn’t take it anymore.

Unsure of what I was doing, I ran from pod to pod, ripping out the tentacles. Turns out, they weren’t exactly part of her, but really long, black tubes—the kind you’d find on a vacuum cleaner. This woman wasn’t a mutant at all—just another of Doctor Greizenheimer’s messed up experiments. And the mole I’d seen on her face? It was some kind of electrode plate with wires sticking out of it. Its purpose I’ll never know.

I found the main plug and I ripped it out victoriously, holding it high in the air. And then the grossest thing happened. The tubes sprayed a thick fatty like substance everywhere. All over me. All over Freddie. Everywhere. Even more disturbing was the fact that mutant kids were running around licking up the gelatinous ooze, yelling, “Yummy, yummy, super food! Yummy, yummy, super food!”

Mortified, we watched the giant woman getting smaller and smaller. Her swollen body shrunk to the size of a regular woman and her skin hung loosely off it like melted ice cream. Besides the obvious grotesqueness, I could tell at one time she’d probably been a regular woman. As the last drops of goo trickled out of the octopus lady’s tubes, Freddie stumbled up to her and grabbed her frail hand. “We’ll get you the best doctors around—”

“No, no, dear. Absolutely, positively no doctors. That’s what got me here in the first place. Please, just stay by my side,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, exhaled a deep sigh, and fell asleep. Her eyelashes fluttered.

In my heart, I knew it would be the kind of siesta she’d never wake up from. We’d released her from her pain. A lump formed in my throat and I couldn’t swallow.

I looked around the room at the scene in front of me and wondered what to do. It was total madness. I didn’t want to bug Freddie, but I needed something from him. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. Like he could read my mind, Freddie reached into his pocket and handed me the iPhone.

“Thanks,” I said, hoping we wouldn’t have any issues. The battery was almost dead, there was only one bar on the signal display, and I prayed with all my heart there was enough juice left. I found the number and made the call. My tail tingled (in a good way) when, finally, the familiar voice said hello through the earpiece.

“Darling, it’s Maverick, we did it, but I don’t know what to do now.”

“Honey, I knew your mission would be a success,” said Darling. “Serafine saw everything in her visions. We’ll try and get up to the city to help you sort things out, but until then, maybe pay a visit to my friends on Coney Island. They’ll help you out as much as they can. You’ll know who they are and how to locate them.”

“But, Darling, there are like twenty or so crazy kids running, flying, and splashing about—”

“Maverick, you’re a smart boy. You’ll figure everything out on your own. Trust me,” she said. “I’ve got to run now. Customers are waiting, but, I promise, we’ll see you soon. Now go have yourself a good time. It’s time to celebrate.”

The line went dead.

Numb, I stared at the phone.

A boy with rodent-like features scampered up to me and smelled my shoes. His nose twitched excitedly. He sat in front of me, crouched down on his legs, and groomed himself, wiping his furry ears with his hand.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Rat Boy,” he said.

“No, not what are you. What’s your name?”

“Rat Boy,” he repeated. He shot me a confused look, and then scampered back into his pod.

I couldn’t believe that Greizenheimer didn’t even name these kids, let alone give them anything resembling a life. Now it was up to Freddie and me to give them back what they had lost. I couldn’t think of better people fit for the task.

Maybe we could even find their parents?

Except for the ones submerged in water, like the kid with the flippers, one by one the mutant kids greeted me. They pushed their faces up to mine, eyeing me with curiosity. Freddie started laughing at me in another one of his inappropriate fits and then the whole room shook with mutant laughter. I stood silent, looking at the scene playing out before my eyes, not quite believing it was real.

Whoa!
was the only word that came to mind.

HOW TO SURVIVE A MUTANT ATTACK

About a half an hour later, the novelty of meeting Freddie and me had worn off with the kids. I came to the sudden realization the being King of Mutants wasn’t going to be easy…or fun. It was going to be a total nightmare, and possibly quite painful.

Lucky me. This was my destiny.

First, this gigantic headed kid with rubbery arms and legs came creeping up to me, his body movements, undulating and springy like Jell-O. Now his strange approach wasn’t the problem with Octopus Boy, which was what he was even though he didn’t have eight arms. My predicament occurred when he jumped up on me and wrapped his legs and arms around my body. I couldn’t get him off. While I struggled to release myself from his suction cup grip, I also found out that Dog Girl really does bite. She ripped right into my ankle and drew blood.

A Wolf Boy cornered Freddie in the back of the lab, growling, while Gorilla Boy and Grizzly Girl threw threatening gestures in his direction. Meanwhile, the rest of the mutant kids tore around the place like they’d just escaped an insane asylum.

Out of the entire crew, only one of the kids wasn’t acting like she needed an extra-large dose of Ritalin. I recognized her small hands as being the ones waving from the Kangaroo Girl’s pouch earlier. The tiniest, standing at about nineteen inches tall, she hid in a corner and flinched as if she was afraid she was going to be stepped on. Her butt glowed firefly orange and she had little gossamer wings.

With the exception of little Glow Girl, I feared for my life. These kids were freakishly strong and they showed no signs of slowing down. A Cheetah Girl ran around the room as fast she could, round and round and around again. A Monkey Girl swung off the lights.

It was like being hit by a rogue wave of chaos. There was nothing I could do. Octopus Boy was on me like a sticky, rubbery straight jacket.

An alarm went off, its blare so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. It sounded like one of those old air raid sirens that alerted the public to bomb attacks. Most of the mutant kids scurried into their pods as quick as they could.

“Get back in your pods now,” bellowed a harsh voice. “If not, you know what’s headed in your direction. Octo and Wolfy that means you.”

At first I thought Dr. Greizenheimer escaped his confinement, but then I recognized the deep voice. Richie had returned, and not a moment too soon.

One by one, Octo’s suction cups released themselves from my neck, my arms, and my body. His tentacle like arms nearly strangled me to death and I could barely breathe. The kid stood in front of me, glaring. I couldn’t believe his nerve. But what he did next left me flabbergasted. He hocked up a gigantic loogie and spit a black ink cloud right into my face. Then, he eyed me over his shoulder and bounced back to his pod.

I looked down at my forearms, finding the beginnings of raised, circular bruises the size of silver dollars. This kid and I were going to have some serious issues getting along.

“You’re lucky I didn’t spray you with my toxins,” he threatened before submerging himself up to his eyes in his water-filled pod.

“You’re lucky I didn’t bite your arm off,” I yelled. I knew I acted immature, but you know how it is. Sometimes you couldn’t control reactions. Hey, I’m only human.

Freddie rubbed his bleeding arm, his face twisted with pain. Wolfy had gotten him pretty good, too. I wondered why these kids lashed out at us when they seemed to have welcomed us before.

“Didn’t anybody tell you never to enter this room without protection?” asked Richie. It wasn’t a question. “These kids can’t be controlled. And there’s a group of them that are really bad.”

“I wish you’d told us that before you left,” I said, wheezing.

“Tony and me didn’t think you’d do something as crazy as this,” said Richie. “Figured you’d take a swim or do something fun.”

“Yeah, but I thought they were like me.”

“You’re normal compared to them. Greizenheimer messed them up in a major league kind of way.”

He was right. This room had bad vibes written all over it. Plus, the tingle in my tail told me some of them were going to be a lot more than trouble. Add to that, some of the mutants looked at me like I’d just murdered a kitten in front of them. And the ones that weren’t glaring at me trembled in their capsules, watchful of the angry pod kids.

Freddie turned toward Richie. “How’d it go with Ashby? Is he suspicious of anything?”

“He’s really mad at the doc. Said something about teaching him a lesson. But I don’t think he’ll be coming around for a while, taking a little vacation he said.”

“Good, don’t need him getting into our way,” said Freddie. He took off his t-shirt and wrapped it around his bloody arm. “Mav, I told you those kids were super mutant strong. Man, did that kid dig into me. Maybe we could start up some kind of rehabilitation program?”

“We’re going to have to do something,” I agreed, daring not look Freddie in the face. I’m sure he scowled at me or gave me one of his brainiac-told-you-so-smirks. His hunch about avoiding this room at all costs was dead on. But he brought up a good point.

What kind of program could we create for these kids? Sending them to a middle school in New York City was not an option. I sighed with uncertainty. “This is just so completely messed up. I don’t know where to start. Speaking of which, what are we going to do about the Octopus Lady? She’s not breathing…at all.”

Nobody uttered a word, but Richie understood right away. His large shoulders began to quiver. Then he crouched down and balanced his weight on his big square knees, sobbing. Freddie put his hand on the big guy’s back. “Richie, she’s in heaven now. Her pain is gone.”

Richie nodded with big tears streaming down his face.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but did you know her real name?” Freddie asked.

“Maybe we can drop her body off at her house?” I suggested.

“So that her real family can give her the proper respect she deserves,” said Freddie.

Richie puffed out his barrel-sized chest and looked proud, like he couldn’t believe he was about to offer a clever solution. He wiped some drool from the corner of his mouth. “It could be in the room where Greizenheimer kept records of all his experiments.”

“I want to go there right now,” said Freddie. “In addition to Octo-Mom, I want to know what that maniac did to
my
mom.”