The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys (11 page)

“But …” Kid tried again. It still wasn’t his
turn.

“And he isn’t even the worst one,” Sam
concluded. She opened more files on her laptop. Kid tried to keep
up. “Here’s ‘The Katchy Kid.’ And ‘Kid Fabulous.’ Oh, don’t forget
about ‘Little Warrior.’ But, finally, someone had the nerve to call
himself ‘Eric, the Evacuator of Evil from Elmcrest.’” Samantha sat
back and took a breath. “’The Evacuator of Evil.’ What does that
even mean?”

“But …” Kid tried one last time. His
frustration started to turn and he found the situation comical.

“But what?” Samantha said, finally looking up
from her computer screen. She was still not amused. Kid stood there
with a puzzled look on his face.

“Ah, um. I forgot what I was going to say
midrant.” Kid joked.

“Nice. You don’t see these as a possible
threat to us? It seems like this is going to get worse before it
gets better,” Sam said back.
“Oh, I remember,” Kid said, snapping his fingers. “While it is a
minor threat and an inconvenience for you to weed through all this
garbage, the fact remains that the longer the press and everyone
are distracted by these false reports, the easier it is for us to
operate. You’ll have to admit that it’s been nice and quiet for
us.”

“Well, it has been,” Samantha conceded. She
sighed and continued. “I still don’t like it. I mean, no good can
come from ‘The Troublesome Duo,’” she said, clicking one last
image.

“Hey, isn’t that the two Johns from gym
class?” Kid questioned.

“Heh. It is,” Samantha responded.

“Huh. Weird. Makes you think,” Kid replied.
The sarcasm was thick.

“Stop it!” Samantha said smacking Kid on the
arm.

“Forget it, Sam. We might as well stop now.
We can’t compete with ‘The Troublesome Duo!’” Kid said, barely
holding back his laughter.

“You done?” Samantha said, hands on her hips
and getting less and less amused by Kid and his antics.

“Yes ma’am,” Kid came back. He tried to
compose himself. “So what’s going on around here? Anything good?”
he said, looking around.

“Gears is still working on the SIM card. He
should have something shortly. That’s about it. We’re all just
waiting on him,” Sam said, typing away on her computer.

“I’ll go check with him. Want to come?” Kid
asked.

“Nah, I’m still looking over these reports.
You go ahead; I know you’re not interested in this.”

“You’ve got that right,” Kid said with a wink
as he exited the room. Sam just glared and mumbled. Kid smiled and
walked across the room and out to Research Lab B. He made his way
through the lab and over to Gears. Gears sat at his computer
hacking away at the SIM card produced from the boy’s phone from the
mall. He saw Kid enter and greeted him.

“How is it going, Gears?” Kid asked.
“Samantha said you may be close.”

“Oh, I’m close,” Gears concluded. He hacked
away on his keyboard some more. “Shouldn’t be more than a few
minutes before I can read the full card. I’ve been going through
their phone book and phone logs, but that didn’t prove too much.
They did call the curator a few times, and there are some ancillary
calls in there that may be of some interest, but nothing too
promising. I’m just waiting for the algorithm to finish so I can
read their date book. Should only be a few more seconds,” Gears
said as he turned back to his computer. The screen flashed a few
different windows, and a status bar grew in size. The two boys
waited in silence for the bar to reach its maximum size and produce
the data. After a few minutes, it did.

“There we go,” Gears said. The screen
produced a new window that resembled a calendar. The current date
was highlighted, but there were no entries. “Doesn’t seem like much
data is in this book, but, I guess, how many appointments do sixth
graders have?”

“Yeah. That’s a good point,” Kid said in
disappointment. He then got an idea. “Click on the monthly view tab
there on the right,” Kid said, pointing at the screen. Gears moved
the mouse over and clicked on the month view icon. The screen
changed to produce a few notes. The first one they noticed was from
a few days prior. It was their meeting with Alfred E. Scott, the
night Samantha broke into the museum. Kid then noticed there was a
note on the next day’s date.

“Click on tomorrow. What does that say?”

“’Meeting with Scott. 8:00 pm at the
museum—during party.’”

“Party? At the museum?” Kid questioned.

“Let me do a search,” Gears said. He brought
up a new window and a search engine. Gears quickly ran some
queries, and a newspaper report from the Elmcrest Times appeared on
the screen.

“Here we go. ‘Annual Museum Costume Ball.
Alfred E. Scott will be hosting his yearly costume party to help
raise money for the museum,’” Gears read from the article. “It says
it’s this Sunday. That’s tomorrow, Kid. What do you want to
do?”

“Crash the party, of course,” Kid said
confidently. It was the break he had been looking for.

“Sounds good!” Gears came back.

“Get the troops together in Main Conference
1, Gears,” Kid said. He patted Gears on the shoulder and then
walked toward the door.

“Sure thing. What’s our plan, Kid?” Gears
asked.

A confident Kid stopped and turned back.

“Our plan? Oh, I’ll think of something,” Kid
Combat said with a sly smile on his face. “Gather the troops. We
don’t have much time. And it seems we’ll need some costumes.”

Chapter Eleven:

The Masquerade

8:00 pm

It was the following night. Darkness started
to descend on Elmcrest as the sun began to set on this late summer
day. The skies above became a maze of colors, from the glowing
orange as the sun’s rays were reflected high into the cloudless
skies, to a dark sea of blue as the moon started to come out and
play. Eventually, it would all fade to black and galaxies of stars
would appear high above Elmcrest.

It was a perfect night to be an astronomer,
to sit out high above the lights of Elmcrest with a telescope and
watch the endless supply of wonderment come alive.

It was also a perfect night for the Science
Museum’s yearly party, the Costume Ball. Dubbed the biggest party
of the year, it was the highlight for Elmcrest. Everyone with any
kind of elite status in the community would show up. Politicians,
mayors, television people—anyone important.

For such an event, the whole museum, inside
and out, was decorated in a theme. The museum spared no expense,
and each year, the decorations became more and more elaborate. This
year’s theme marked the arrival of what would become the museum’s
biggest attraction.

The outside of the museum was lit up with
different colored lights on every side of the building, making it
glow a deep green in some areas and a marvelous purple in others.
Yellows, reds, and blues were also found, making the sides of the
building a rainbow of wonderment.

There were also flags strung about. Massive,
ten-foot-long white flags adorned the walkways leading up to the
main entrance of the museum. As the flags flapped in the wind, the
colors from the lights bled on to them, making a magical site.

The neighboring trees on the property were
also lit up. Holiday lights of green and red hung on every tree,
and some even had streamers hung from them. They too flapped in the
wind, making the light bend into different forms.

But this, after all, was a costume party, and
meant to be a little bit scary, so Alfred E. Scott also had the
museum buried in a thick, artificial fog. Dry ice arrived by the
truckload, and fog machines were strung all about outside. The
lights, the flags, and everything else engulfed the museum, making
for one eerie scene.

Inside, partygoers found anything but the
usual. The date of this year’s costume ball coincided with the day
the Egyptian exhibit arrived in town. A whole wing was segmented
off for this exhibit and would become the museum’s busiest display.
Everything Egyptian was already inside and regulated to that
particular wing, except for the main attraction, the mummies.

By the dozen, they littered every hallway,
every entrance, and every crevasse. Real ones, fake ones—it was
impossible to tell the difference, and no one really asked.

Skeletons, cobwebs, dust, and even fake
jewels also littered every entrance, every corner, and every
hallway.

The lighting was also changed on the inside
of the museum. On the average day, the museum was lit up like the
Las Vegas strip and it was hard to find any shadows, but tonight it
was just the opposite. The house lights were brought down to a
minimum and black lights were used in their place.

The walls, hallways, and pillars were covered
with a new art of their own. Every wall displayed images of
Egyptians, hieroglyphics, and scary beings. Once on, the black
lights showed the massive amounts of glow in the dark artwork
around the museum.

To Alfred E. Scott, it was perfect. The
design came out better than he had hoped. He stepped down every
inch of the museum, looking over every detail to ensure everything
was to his liking. So far, he was very impressed.

He made his final laps. Within minutes, he
found himself in the main foyer of the museum, starting to greet
his guests.

Hundreds of them, all dressed up in different
outfits, started to pour in the front doors. There wore scary masks
and playful masks. The women in gowns and men in tuxedos all wore
unique masks.

One by one, they filtered into the main room
on the first floor of the museum. The grand foyer, where small
exhibits once were, now was home to hundreds of tables. The tables
were adorned with white tablecloths and each seated between six and
eight guests. Each featured a lavish centerpiece of skeleton bones
arranged into different patterns and held together by roses
twisting around them. In the center of each design, a skull sat
with a lit red candle sticking out of it. The wax dripped down the
sides of every surface, resembling fake blood oozing out.

Each guest was assigned a specific chair. The
chairs themselves were white in color and crafted of very
distressed material. Each has an assigned number etched on the back
in a dark red, bloodlike shade.

The guests arrived, and the night started off
without a hitch. They gathered in groups around their tables and
talked. At the many different bar stations, they gazed in
wonderment at all the artwork around. Music pumped in from a back
room, and a dozen monitors displayed various scary images all night
long.

Dinner approached, and the guests filed
toward their assigned seats. As they started to settle in, the
waitstaff came out and began to serve them their appetizers.

The waitstaff was also dressed up in costumes
of their own. They wore black bodysuits from head to toe with a
skeleton painted on the front and back. They all wore black hoodies
and skeleton masks with deep, black eyeglasses over the sockets.
The staff, mostly consisting of teenagers, numbered about fifty.
They waited tables, refilled drinks, and greeted guests as they
arrived. Among them were four kids who hadn’t been officially hired
by the museum.

Kid Combat made his way around one of his
three assigned tables. He refilled some glasses of water and looked
around the museum floor. He scanned up, down, left, and right for
Ace and Tommy, the two boys connected to the vandalizing of Spring
Road Toys. He also kept an eye out for the main man himself, Alfred
E. Scott. To his dismay, he found nothing.

Off to his right, was Samantha. She too was
assigned three tables, and she too was attending to them. In
typical Samantha form, she did it with her usual charm. Paying more
attention to her mission than to her customers, Samantha spent most
of her time spilling water on the guests and giving them quick,
short answers. Samantha’s future as a waitress was in doubt. Her
real mission, though, was not to fill someone’s glass with water,
but to find the two boys.