The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed (20 page)

“Who is smart enough to hire others to do his dirty work?” I asked. “Who has the intelligence to create a device that can amplify the Multiplier’s power? Who has the ability to sap the intelligence of someone to the extent that he would spend ten years of his life plotting a crime involving traffic cones? Even the Multiplier couldn’t have been that naturally stupid. And finally …”

They all leaned in toward me.

“Who has every reason to be mad that only three cards were made with his picture on them?”

“Professor Brain-Drain!” they all said in unison.

“Precisely,” I said. “And now it’s time we confronted him directly.”

“Are you kidding?” said Stench.

“We can’t take on Professor Brain-Drain,” agreed Tadpole.

“O Boy, even the Amazing Indestructo barely triumphs over the Professor,” Plasma Girl fretted. “What could
we
be expected to accomplish? We couldn’t even take on the Multiplier!”

“That’s just because we played dead,” Hal responded, sticking up for us all. “We could have taken him in a second, if O Boy hadn’t thought it was more important to get information out of him.”

“That’s true,” Plasma Girl agreed. “But Professor Brain-Drain is different. How do we stop him from draining our intelligence? You saw what happened to the Multiplier.”

Plasma Girl didn’t have to direct our attention to the hundreds of thousands of traffic cones stacked throughout the warehouse. We all got her scary point.

“I may not have a power like you guys,” I said, “but I know that a hero doesn’t run away from danger. Professor Brain-Drain is up to something and we’re the only ones who know about it. Would the Amazing Indestructo give up? Of course not. So are we going to fight or not?”

My four teammates looked guiltily at each other. Sure, they were afraid of going after the most dangerous supervillain of all (heck, so was I!), but they were superheroes first and foremost. As they looked to each other for silent encouragement, I knew they would come to the right …

“No way,” said Tadpole. “You saw what the Multiplier tried to do to us. What do you think BrainDrain would do?”

“Fine,” I said, letting them all see how disappointed with them I was. “I’ll go after him myself.”

I pulled out my copy of the
Li’l Hero’s Handbook
and looked up Professor Brain-Drain in the appendix. It said that his secret headquarters were located on the top floor of the Vertigo Building. I slammed the book shut, slipped it into my back pocket, and turned to leave the warehouse.

I only made it a few feet before I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“I’ll go with you, O Boy.”

It was Halogen Boy. That was all it took. By the time I had made my way to the door, the other three Junior Leaguers had caught up with us.

“We won’t desert you, either,” Plasma Girl said.

“You’re right. We’re either heroes or we’re not.”

Tadpole and Stench nodded in agreement. I was incredibly proud of my teammates.

Unfortunately, things were about to get more complicated.

“Do you guys see what I see?” I asked them as we stood on the street outside the Multiplier’s warehouse.

“What is it?” Tadpole asked.

“Take a look.” I nodded my head toward Lobster Boy’s bike, which was still leaning against the building.

“What about it?” said Stench. “It was there when we came in.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It was ridden down here by the mysterious person who stole the second card and sold the duplicates to our classmates—the one we overheard threatening the Multiplier. Obviously he’s still here.”

A shiver ran down our spines and we all looked around. Of course, there was no one to be seen. Whoever this stranger was, he had a remarkable ability to remain inconspicuous. Suddenly, I began to get a strong sense of who it was. I whispered in Stench’s ear.

“Go and round up some help. I think we’re going to need it,” I said. “The rest of us will go to the Vertigo Building. If we’re not waiting outside for you, come in with everything you’ve got.”

“You got it, O Boy,” he responded and headed off.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure how much of a threat Professor Brain-Drain would actually be. Apart from what we saw on the Amazing Indestructo’s TV show, the Professor seemed to keep a pretty low profile these days. Nevertheless, I thought it made sense to have backup in case this situation was more dangerous than I suspected. And I knew I could count on Stench.

“Let’s go, team,” I said to the rest of them, and we headed back toward downtown. I didn’t turn around to check on Lobster Boy’s bike as we left. If I had, it wouldn’t have been nearly so shocking twenty minutes later when we arrived at the entrance to the Vertigo Building and found the bike parked outside.

THE VERTIGO BUILDING

Located in the heart of the Superopolis financial district, the Vertigo Building is perfectly situated to provide office space for hundreds of criminals and accountants. Owned by the nefarious Professor Brain-Drain, it is abundantly clear how he earned at least one of his many nicknames, the Landlord of Crime. Seventy-five stories high, it is the tallest building in Superopolis.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Rising to the Challenge

“How did that get here?” Plasma Girl asked in alarm.

Sure enough, Lobster Boy’s bike was now leaning against a lamppost in front of the Vertigo Building. Only this time it had a huge padlock on it—which in this case made perfect sense. You see, the Vertigo Building is home to hundreds and hundreds of supervillains. At seventy-five stories, it’s the tallest building in Superopolis, and for some reason it became the spot of choice for villains looking for office space. Personally, if I were a supervillain, I would want something more … well … villain-ish than space in a skyscraper. But it’s probably a good thing I don’t think the same way as a criminal.

We all stared up at the enormous building. None of us had ever been this close to it before. What we saw at the top, however, confirmed that we were in the right place, for tethered to the spire of the building was the Brain-Drain Blimp.

There was an incredible amount of activity going on around the building. All over the place villains were either coming back from crimes or heading out to commit them. Of the ones returning, some were carrying items they had stolen. Others appeared empty-handed. I recognized one of them; a guy dressed in ratty-looking clothes named Mr. Rotten, whose power was to spoil anything he touched. He was running toward the entrance carrying what looked like a bag of cash, but just before he reached it, a hero called the Jackhammer came pummeling out of the sky feetfirst, knocking Mr. Rotten to the ground. The bag of cash fell open, and we saw little crumbled pieces of bills blowing away. They had already rotted to almost nothing, which I’m sure had to be pretty depressing for a villain.

As the Jackhammer wrapped up Mr. Rotten in a garbage bag to avoid touching him, the rest of the villains around the Vertigo Building scattered like cockroaches. We figured this was our chance to make our way inside.

In the lobby we found a directory that must have had two hundred names on it. First we looked under
P
for Professor Brain-Drain, but there was no listing. Next we tried
B
, but still no luck.

“Jeesh,” complained Tadpole, “what’s the point of keeping a low profile when you’ve got a blimp with your name on it tied up to the building?”

“Good point,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t matter. We know he must be on the top floor. How else could he get into the blimp?”

We hadn’t noticed, but Hal had wandered off toward a guard who was posted over in a corner of the lobby.

“Hal, stop!” Plasma Girl whispered as loudly as she could. The last thing we wanted to do was draw any attention to ourselves. But Hal didn’t hear her. He walked right up to the guard.

“Where can we find Professor Brain-Drain?” he asked innocently.

“Seventy-fifth floor, kid,” the guard said without even blinking. “Take any elevator. He’s always happy to have guests.”

As the guard said that, he started laughing in a way that made me very nervous.

Just then we heard a buzzer, and the door to one of the elevators slid open right in front of us. Sitting on a high stool by the controls was a guy with three arms. I noticed it right away, as one tends to do when encountering someone with an extra limb.

“Where to, kiddies?” he asked. Apparently he was the elevator operator.

“Seventy-fifth floor,” I said as I ushered my reluctant group inside.

“Professor Brain-Drain, huh?” he grunted. “That’s a
great
idea.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. But he was already pulling the door shut with one hand, punching the button for the seventy-fifth floor with the other, and pulling a lever to start the elevator rising with the third. There was a clank and a harsh metallic groan, and the cage slowly began to rise. It was not going to be a fast trip.

The elevator operator’s third hand stayed on the lever, but his other two hands were now free. One of them fished a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, and the other retrieved a match. He puffed a big cloud of smoke into the enclosed space of the elevator.

“Hey, that’s illegal,” Plasma Girl complained.

“Oh, no!” he said, acting nervous. “I guess that makes me a … a criminal!”

Then he burst out laughing.

I guess there’s not a whole lot you can do about someone breaking the law in a building filled with criminals. Nevertheless, the guy was really annoying us.

“Besides, if you’re so worried about your health,” he continued, “you shouldn’t be heading up to see Professor Brain-Drain.”

Then he started laughing all over again. I had to admit I was getting more and more nervous about what we were getting ourselves into. But it was too late now. We had finally reached the seventy-fifth floor and the door was opening. The operator was still laughing as we stepped off the elevator, but that stopped as Tadpole’s tongue darted out, wrapped itself around the leg of his stool, and yanked it out from underneath him. As he tumbled onto the floor with all three of his arms flailing in the air, Tadpole retracted his tongue, and the door closed once again. The operator’s cursing faded quickly as the elevator descended.

The four of us found ourselves in an outer lobby. In front of us was a blank double door. I reached to grab one of the handles, but before I even touched it the doors swung open to reveal a person standing just inside.

“Welcome, my junior do-gooders. I’ve been expecting you.”

Even if he hadn’t looked exactly like the picture on his card, there would have been no mistaking Professor Brain-Drain this time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Brain-Drain’s Lair

I knew that we were facing the genuine Professor Brain-Drain because he looked quite a bit older than he ever did in episodes of the
The Amazing Adventures
of the Amazing Indestructo
(and the League of Ultimate
Goodness)
TV show. Plus the chill in my bones told me that this was the guy. The costume, of course, was just like it was on TV and in the comic books. He had on a brilliant white lab coat that came down to just below his knees. Underneath the open coat he was dressed completely in black. And, of course, on top of his bald head, he had on his trademark steel colander. I couldn’t help but wonder for a moment if he ever took it off and used it to drain pasta.