Johnny B. Fast: The Super Spy
Part 1
By
Tom Doganoglu
This novel is a work of fiction
Copyright © 2011 Tom Doganoglu
Covert Art Mike Motz
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission by Tom Doganoglu.
Smashwords Edition
Contents
Chapter 2: Trouble at School and Work
To you, the reader: For sharing this world with me.
Chapter 1: Super Spies
Johnny Clunker was a normal and average boy. He was about average height and average build, he had average short brown hair, and a generally nice and normal average smile. Except that he wasn’t too normal or average as far as those words meant.
He went to school, tried to do his homework, and did his best to fit in socially during the day. But at night, shy, weak, and timid Johnny Clunker became something else entirely.
He became a super spy.
He became Johnny B. Fast.
He went on important missions to save the world, and they usually went better than the way this one was going right now.
What a mess.
The entire warehouse was surrounded by United Order spies with top of the line gadgets and weapons. It was a rundown, abandoned warehouse, probably used for some type of heavy machinery in the past. There was a partial second floor that looked down on a massive layout of scattered crates and boxes, forming makeshift hallways and rooms. Perfect places for hiding. Nevertheless, this was going to be harder than usual. Johnny looked through his night vision goggles, trying to find all the spies’ patrol routes.
It was his birthday. Johnny Clunker, or Johnny B. Fast now that he was undercover, had just turned fifteen years old. This was not a good thing. Johnny didn’t like birthdays, they were filled with bad memories about bad things that happened to him when he was thirteen. Johnny B. Fast tried to push the thought out of his head.
He forced himself to pay attention to the sentry posts and their routes around the building.
Maybe he had been wrong, this shouldn’t be too hard.
But they sure had a lot of spy agents guarding the warehouse tonight. It would probably take only one of the best spies in the world to be able to snatch the United Order’s Super Chip right out from under their noses.
It would take a super spy to get this Super Chip.
Super was an important word in his business. When you got as good as Johnny was, they didn’t just call you a spy, they called you a super spy. And when you were after a Chip as powerful as the one Johnny was after tonight, it wouldn’t do the Chip justice to call it a regular Chip.
Johnny sighed; he hoped he could live up to the name super.
What a mess.
The radio in his earpiece went off with a burst.
“B. Fast? You okay?”
Johnny whispered back, the microphone in his ear would pick up his words.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” he hissed, with a bit more nervousness than he wanted to admit.
“You haven’t moved from your position in ten years.”
That was Agent Ackers, the most sarcastic field operative anyone could ever hope to have helping them. He was assigned to be Johnny’s ears, eyes, and nose when he was on missions. And if you asked Ackers, he would also add brain to that list.
Agent Ackers was in his early twenties, and always stayed back at base where he was safe. He was really skinny, and constantly seemed to have a bunch of pimples sprouting up all over his face. He was very sensitive about his skin condition, and claimed that was why he always stayed back at base.
But still, Ackers was in his twenties, so at least he had somehow survived fifteen. Something Johnny hoped to do tonight.
“Are you still there?” Ackers hissed in again.
“I’m just checking out where all the sentries are.”
“That’s my job; it’s your job to get the Chip. Now there should be two more guards in front of you, and three directly below them on the next level. I would recommend being highly stealthy, or taking them all out with a loud bang,” Ackers advised.
“Those two options are completely opposite from each other! How can you recommend two choices that are so different?”
“It’s my job,” Ackers informed.
It was his job to be annoying, thought Johnny.
“Now which one is it going to be?” Ackers continued.
“I think I’ll choose the stealthy option,” Johnny said.
After all, that was the more spy-like thing to do.
“Hey! You there! What are you doing?”
From out of the corner of his eye, Johnny could see that he had allowed a guard to sneak up on him while he was talking with Ackers. That type of thing usually didn’t happen to him. It’s just great having a birthday, he thought.
The guard was wearing all black, covered from head to toe in a Shadow Guard uniform. There was a circular insignia on the left side of his uniform that meant the United Order, which also meant bad and evil.
The Shadow Guard uniform had a unique ability to bend light and make the wearer appear to be invisible, but it drained a lot of resources and was generally not used, making the Shadow Guards stand out more than they intended to blend in. Johnny always wanted to point out the irony of the uniform to the guards, but he didn’t think now was the best time.
“Guarding the Chip,” Johnny said instead, trying to answer the guard’s question.
Johnny wasn’t wearing their uniform, so his response was a little suspicious.
“I’ve never seen you before,” the guard responded, raising his gun and pointing it at Johnny.
Johnny slowly got to his feet.
“I’m with the second division. You’ve probably never heard of us because it’s our job to not only guard the Chip, but also to make sure the first division, which is you guys, are doing their job properly. We do our job best by making sure that you guys don’t know we’re doing our job when you’re doing yours.”
The guard got lost in Johnny’s rambling.
“What second division?”
“Ah, you see?” Johnny said triumphantly. “You’ve never even heard of us. We wouldn’t be very good at our job if everyone in the first division knew the second division was watching their every move.”
“There is no second or first division!” the guard said angrily.
Johnny looked distraught.
“You mean you don’t even know you’re in the first division? What division did you think you were in?” Johnny asked.
The guard wrung his hands in frustration.
”There are no divisions!” he hollered back.
Johnny winced at how loud the guard was being. He was pretty sure that he could take down one guard pretty easily. He could probably even take out two, three with the help of some of his gadgets. Okay, maybe even four or five with the help of some of his really advanced spy gadgets. Johnny had a really high opinion of himself, but he wasn’t sure if he could take down every guard in the warehouse singlehandedly.
At least not today; it was his birthday, after all.
“There are always divisions,” Johnny instructed.
The guard looked confused.
“For instance,” Johnny continued his lecture while the guard kept the gun pointed at him, “right now you are on one side and I am on the other. It’s a good thing you have a gun, because that at least helps…”
Johnny stopped talking.
Lightning quick, he stepped in close and to the side of the gun, karate chopping a specific nerve on the guard’s neck.
Johnny caught the gun as the guard dropped it.
“…to try and even the odds,” Johnny continued.
The guard fell to the ground, stunned, but still conscious.
“See? Without the gun you would have had almost no chance.”
“You talk too much,” Ackers chimed in through the ear piece.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“I can’t help but hear every word you say. It’s one of the hardest things about my job, and the source of my extremely large therapy bills,” Ackers informed him with an exaggerated sniffle.
“You don’t have to pay for your therapy bills,” Johnny said.
“Still have to make the time,” Ackers quipped back.
“Don’t blame your skin condition…” Johnny tried to add, but Ackers beat him to it.
“Can’t talk about that. Off the record.”
“How come you get to pick what’s always on or off the record?” Johnny asked.
“That’s also my job.”
Right, thought Johnny.
He kneeled down beside the still conscious guard.
“Anyway, the moral of the story is: you were right the first time, there is no second division,” Johnny informed the guard as he knocked him unconscious.
“Did you knock him out with that neck nerve pinch thing?” asked Ackers.
“Yup,” Johnny lied.
“One day you’re going to have to show me how you do that.”
“Nope, super spy secret,” replied Johnny. “I’m going radio silent now.”
* * *
Johnny ran down the stairs leading to the first floor and the area where the Chip was to be exchanged. The United Order was paying a lot of money to get a computer processor Chip from a group of scientists who claimed that they found a way to make CPU Chips faster without burning out from the heat build up. If the United Order was able to duplicate this Chip before anyone else, they would have the fastest computers on the planet. Not that they even needed to do that, it sounded like just having one of these Chips would be enough to dominate the entire world’s technological resources.
There were a lot of guards on the floor, seven to be exact. That was supposed to be a lucky number, thought Johnny. The guards patrolled the floor with a bored and sloppy demeanor, none of them were expecting anything to happen. That would be Johnny’s biggest weapon, the element of surprise.
He slowly snuck around a few crates until he could get a good view of the center of the warehouse. There were three scientists speaking to someone in the United Order, not a guard, someone who actually looked important.
The man turned and Johnny got a good look at his face. He had a big scar that ran down from one side of his face to the other. He was also very, very tall, towering over everyone near him. The three scientists all seemed very nervous around him. And the man, Johnny decided to call him Scar, loomed over everyone, intimidating them with his ugly glower.
“Let me see it,” Scar demanded.
The scientists all motioned to each other nervously. Finally, one of them, the one at the very back of the group, shook his head.
Scar raised his eyebrows in warning.
“We would like to see the money first,” the Brave Scientist spoke with a scared and squeaky voice. “Please,” he added, taking away much of his show of strength.
“Of course,” Scar replied.
Scar raised his hand, palm out, towards the Brave Scientist.
His colleagues around him instantly parted, leaving the Brave Scientist standing all by himself. A blinding white light shot out of Scar’s hand and completely enveloped the Brave Scientist.
Johnny was forced to look away from the brightness, but he heard the scream that followed. When the light finally died down, Johnny looked back and saw a steaming skeleton lying on the ground where the Brave Scientist used to be.
Johnny’s mouth hung open in shock.
The rest of the scientists looked from their dead partner and slowly back to Scar.
“I hope, for all your sakes, that he was not the one carrying the Chip,” Scar boomed.
“No, no, I have it right here.” One of the scientists held up the Super Chip.
Without a word, Scar snatched it from his hand and examined it.
Scar brought out what looked like a small, green lens. He looked through it at the Chip and was able to see the Chip magnified hundreds of times.
“As you can see,” the scientist continued, “the Chip uses light as registers, being able to withstand heat and process computer instructions at speeds of up to ten times or more than the best modern computers. With this Chip you would have a huge advantage over the rest of the world.”
Scar checked the connections and the registers as the scientist blabbed on until he was satisfied that he was holding the right processing Chip.
“This is the one,” he said at last, lowering the magnifying lens.
“And now our payment?” another scientist asked.
Scar motioned to the seven guards around him, who instantly surrounded the scientist and brought up their guns.
“But…we brought you what you asked for, and we didn’t try to double cross you,” stammered a scientist in protest.
“You did,” admitted Scar. “How very foolish of you.”
With an icy cold stare at the scientists, Scar nodded his head.
The seven guards instantly fired white beams from their guns, similar to the beam that came out of the device on Scar’s palm, but without nearly the amount of brightness or power.
The scientists shrieked as they were melted down to their skeletal form, and then they all fell over each other to form a pile of bones.
It was too late to save the scientists, but Johnny B. Fast had to act fast before Scar got away with the Super Chip.
Peeking out from his hiding spot, Johnny planned his attack. All the guards were standing very close to each other, which was the perfect time to strike. Still, he waited until Scar started to walk away. There was something about him that Johnny didn’t like. It wasn’t that he was scared of him, Johnny B. Fast wasn’t scared of anyone, but still, it didn’t hurt to be safe rather than sorry.
Once Scar was far enough away, Johnny bolted.
He came running out of his hiding spot, throwing out what looked like a yo-yo as he ran.
The guards all yelled in surprise, but before they could mobilize, the yo-yo shot out and wrapped around three of the seven guards. As the string started to go around them, it grew in length and stuck to their clothes, creating a sticky web that kept their arms pinned to their sides.
The other four guards would be more of a problem. They were far enough away that Johnny couldn’t use a similar gadget to stop them.
They brought up their laser guns and aimed them at Johnny.
Johnny slid to the ground and threw an egg at the floor. As soon as the egg hit the ground it exploded into a strobe of multiple colors, flashing and blinding everyone in the immediate area except for Johnny, who had kept his eyes closed when the egg burst.
Lasers shot randomly over his head.
Johnny stayed low to the ground as he quickly ran toward the nearest guard.
When the lights stopped, Johnny figured he would be taking down the four guards before they would have a chance to recuperate and figure out what happened. He just had to position himself to be at the right spot at the right moment.
That’s what being a spy was all about.
The strobe light stopped, and Johnny was ready to take down the…
Five guards?
Six?
Where did that other one come from?
Seven, no eight guards. Plus the two in the back.
Johnny wasn’t sure what happened. There were only supposed to be four guards, and now he had to deal with ten?
Things were not turning out as they were supposed to. If Johnny could get out of this in one piece, he would have to strongly consider taking a year off the spy business.
The ten guards, who could now see, brought their laser guns up in Johnny’s direction.
He had to think of something, fast.
Really fast.
Johnny froze.
“Uh oh,” he managed to say.
It looked like turning fifteen wasn’t going to work out very well for Johnny B. Fast.
But then she appeared out of nowhere.
Dropping down on the first guard from the half floor above, she knocked him out and instantly sprang toward the second.
Before Johnny or any of the other guards knew what was happening, the young girl had already knocked down four of the ten guards. They looked to be unconscious, and Johnny wasn’t exactly sure what she was able to do to knock them out so fast.
The girl was wearing a black outfit and her brown hair was tide back in a ponytail. She moved so gracefully and quickly that none of the guards had a chance to react.
Reaching into a pouch at her side, the girl threw out a rubber ball at the group of six guards that were left. The ball hit one of them right in the chest and then exploded out into a net that covered them all. One of the guards managed to get out as the net fully caught and then electrocuted the remaining five.
Johnny and the guard looked at her in awe.
“Are they dead?” Johnny asked.
“Just unconscious,” she replied.
Johnny and the last guard looked back at the net. It was at that moment that they both realized they weren’t on the same team. The guard brought up his laser gun, but Johnny quickly knocked it aside and punched him out.
“Nice move,” the girl commented as she looked at the nine guards she had taken out all by herself.
“Thanks. Um, you too, nice move, I mean moves, because you did more than my one.”
The girl laughed at him; it was a nice melodic sound, but Johnny didn’t like the fact that it was directed at him.
The warehouse was now empty, both Scar and the Chip were long gone.
The girl got a closer look at him.
“You’re that boy from school, Johnny something…Clunker! Johnny Clunker.”
Johnny hated his real name. What kind of a name was Clunker? It was the sort of name that guaranteed you wouldn’t get picked for teams, or get to hang out with the cool kids. It practically begged teachers who saw it on test papers to try and find any way they could to give him a failing mark. No matter which way you looked at it, Clunker was not cool. Which is what he capitalized on in school to keep his super spy identity secret, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“That’s not my real name!” he blurted out before he could really think about it. Why did she make him so nervous?
“No, it is my real name. But it’s not the name I’m going under right now,” he tried to correct himself.
“What’s the name you’re going under right now?” she asked the obvious question, her eyebrow arched up in an amused glance.
“I’m Johnny B. Fast,” he said, holding out his hand. “And I’m a super spy.”
The girl looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing again.
Johnny felt really foolish holding out his hand for her to shake while she was laughing at him. He slowly retracted his hand.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
She quickly composed herself.
“I’m sorry. I never met a spy who introduced themselves as a spy before.”
“Maybe I admitted I was a spy to throw you off and make you think the last thing I was was a spy?” Johnny tried.
She looked like she was going to laugh again. He had to get a hold of himself; why was he so nervous?
“Forget it, that just sounded terrible,” he admitted.
She could see he was suffering, and her heart went out to him, “I didn’t mean to laugh,” she offered.
“Yes you did,” he shot back.
“I guess no one ever means to laugh when they laugh. That’s the whole point of laughing, it takes you by surprise,” she reasoned.
What a strange girl she was. Still, Johnny couldn’t deny the fact that she had flawlessly taken out ten guards by herself.
Nine! Johnny had taken care of the last one, even if he was preoccupied at the time, it still counted.
Trying to make up, she held out her hand for him to shake.
“My real name’s Nancy Korrins, but you can call me Seventy-Seven.”
“Seventy-Seven?” Johnny asked.
“Yup,” she offered back, her hand still stuck out between them.
“What kind of a name is that?”
“It’s my spy name,” she replied, taking back her hand.
“That’s not a very cool spy name,” Johnny said.
“Spy names aren’t supposed to be cool, they just are.”
Johnny shook his head.
“What’s the point of having a spy name if it isn’t going to be cool?”
“That’s just guy talk. Guys are always trying to look cool, or be cool, or have cool names,” she reasoned. “Besides, the whole point of it all is to save the world from evil.”
“I think the world would rather be saved by Johnny B. Fast than by Seventy-Seven,” Johnny shot back.
“I don’t think the world cares who saves it, as long as it’s saved,” Nancy, or Seventy-Seven, replied.
As they were talking, a lone guard, the last one left in the warehouse, crept slowly toward them. He had a laser gun in his hands, and he made sure to keep it lowered as he approached. Both Johnny and Nancy were too involved in their argument to notice.
“Spy names aren’t even supposed to be known, they’re supposed to be a secret!” Nancy argued.
The guard got closer. He could have taken the shot then, but he wanted to get even closer so that he couldn’t miss. Maybe he could even take both of them out in one shot?
“You know, I didn’t ask for your help,” Johnny stated.
“But you needed it.”
“No, I had everything under control,” Johnny replied.
“I’m sure that’s what you thought, before you jumped in the middle of that group of, was it ten people?” she asked, feigning not knowing how many guards there had been.
“I was right about to take care of them.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“I had several ways of doing it!” he practically screamed at her.
“I’d like to see one of them,” she stated coolly. “And until I do, I’m going to assume that I saved you and that you need to thank me.”
The guard was in position, he wasn’t going to get a better shot than this. He raised his laser gun up high, set it for an explosive blast, and aimed it at the two of them.
“Well, for one thing, I could have done this.”
In one quick movement, Johnny leaned sideways and threw a handful of marbles past Nancy.
At the same time, Nancy turned around and brought a whistle to her lips, letting out a sharp trill that caused the guard to drop his laser gun and grab his ears in pain as he was lifted off his feet from the blast.
Meanwhile, the marbles Johnny threw reached the guard and exploded, drenching him in a kaleidoscope of multicolored extra sticky paint.
The guard passed out.
Johnny and Nancy turned to look at each other.
“I got him first,” Johnny stated.
“You did not,” Nancy replied.
* * *
The moon cast a soft glow on the perfect looking neighborhood street. The houses were all lined up in an orderly fashion down a straight road, and even the sidewalk was immaculate, with no cracks or chips that could be seen. Large, overgrown trees dotted the landscape, creating dark leering shadows over the houses.
Johnny and Nancy walked along the sidewalk. Every third house they passed was the exact same model, leaving only three distinct types of homes in the neighborhood. Most of the houses on the street had their lights off, hinting at the lateness of the hour.
“That one is mine,” Johnny pointed to a house that looked mostly like all the others. “Looks like dad’s asleep.”
“Your father lets you stay up this late on a school night?” Nancy asked.
“I’m a spy, staying out late is part of the job description, Seventy-Seven.” He used her spy name in a mocking tone, trying to get back at her for making fun of his own.
“Besides, he usually goes to sleep early. Lots of stress at work gets him tired.”
As soon as he had said it, a light went on in the house.
“Guess he’s up; going to have to sneak in again,” said Johnny.
“What about your mom?” she asked.
Johnny looked down at the ground as they walked, suddenly getting quiet. Nancy realized that something was wrong, and thought it would be wise to give him his space.
They stopped walking and stood in front of his house. Johnny looked over at it. The house was small, as houses go, but it looked comfortable and cozy.
“My mom passed away a couple of years ago,” Johnny finally said. “When I was thirteen.”
“I’m sorry,” Nancy reached out her hand and placed it on his shoulder.
“It’s been me and my dad since then. He does what he can, but sometimes he doesn’t really know how to be a mom. Especially at dinner time,” Johnny said as he watched his house.
Nancy finally took her hand back. “Does he know what you do?”
Johnny almost laughed out loud.
“No way. If he found out I’d never be able to keep doing it. Being a spy isn’t exactly a normal thing for someone still going to school.”
Johnny turned to look at her. “Do your parents know?”
“No. Well, I don’t really know who my real parents are,” Nancy admitted.
“How can you not know who your real parents are?”
“I was adopted,” she informed him. “There’s no way they would be able to sleep at night if they knew I was out fighting crime.”
Johnny nodded in silence.
“I guess we’re a lot like each other,” Johnny thought out loud.
“In your dreams,” she informed him.
“I was trying to make you feel better. Like you could almost be in the same league as me,” Johnny shot back.
“We didn’t do that great tonight, the Super Chip got away,” Nancy said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get it back. Besides, it’s just a little Super Chip, no big deal.”
“It is a big deal if you consider that with something that powerful, a normal computer could hack into and overrun any security network on the planet, giving the user access to funds, secrets, weapons, even nuclear weapons,” Nancy said, a worried expression coming over her face.
“Like I said, it’s no big deal,” Johnny tried to lighten the mood.
She smiled uneasily back. It was such a small thing, the Super Chip. It couldn’t outright attack anyone, or be used to physically harm anything. It was hard to believe that it presented much of a danger at all. But that only increased its deceptive threat. The Super Chip would act like a cancer, starting small and unnoticed, and slowly growing and tightening its hold until there was no way to separate it and no way to stop it. From a small nothing to a world shaking monster, the United Order would use the Chip to make all technological security obsolete. They would be in every corporation, every network, and inside every home. They wouldn’t be hacking into the system, they would be the system, and everyone else would be at their mercy.
Nancy stepped away, getting ready to leave.
“Hey, where are you going?” Johnny asked.
“Home.”
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Just a few streets down,” she motioned with her hand.
Johnny looked down the street, at the shadows and the swaying tree branches.
“It’s late, I should walk you.”
“I walked you home today, you can walk me home next time,” she informed him.
“But it’s late, and you’re a girl, it’s not safe,” he pressed the issue.
“You mean it’s not safe around me. Are you already forgetting how I saved you back at the warehouse?” she asked.
“I would have taken care of all of them,” Johnny started.
“You would have, I’m sure of that beyond any doubt, but you didn’t have to because I was there,” Nancy stated boldly.
She reached behind and pulled out an odd looking device. It had a small handle, with three tubes extending out of it, and a large trigger just off the handle.
“That looks like a cool gadget,” Johnny stated, his eyes instantly drawn to the technological wonder in her hands.
“Being a spy isn’t about cool gadgets and names,” she said again.
“It’s half of it, or most of it anyway,” Johnny insisted, never taking his eyes off the device. “How does it work, what does it do?”
“Let me show you,” she leaned in close, very close, Johnny noticed as he felt a flutter in his stomach, and showed him the device. She then pointed it at the trees and said, “Go go gadget…” she stopped short, noticing the look on his face and burst out laughing.
“Actually, you just push this button,” she managed to say, after she got control over her laughter.
“That’s what I thought,” Johnny returned, doing his best to look and act as cool as possible after she was done laughing at him, again.
She pointed the small, hand held device at the branch of a nearby tree.
She pushed the button and a small grapnel shot out of the three tubes and attached itself to the tree trunk.
“See you at school, Johnny Breakfast.”
With a whoosh, Nancy zipped up off the ground and disappeared into the depths of the trees.
“It’s B. Fast!” Johnny called after her.
* * *
Johnny quietly opened the door to his room and slipped inside.
His room looked like an average enough room, in keeping with his secret identity; there was a desk, computer, chair, and all his clothes dumped wherever there was a spot on the floor.
His walls were all white, and there wasn’t a single thing on any of them, and his bed was up against the wall directly opposite from the door, nothing you would expect from a super spy.
Johnny quickly changed out of his spy clothes and into a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He picked up his cast-off clothes from the floor and rummaged through them. Johnny pulled out an assortment of spy gadgets and weapons. He put them down in a drawer in his computer desk, removed the ear piece out of his ear and tossed it in with everything else, then slid the drawer closed.
Johnny looked at the computer and sighed. It looked like it was older than he was, with a monitor so small that laptops had bigger screens.
The computer was turned off.
He leaned over and started typing on the keyboard: ‘Johnny is the best spy in the world!’
As soon as he hit the exclamation mark, a small humming noise came from all over the room. Panels in the wall slid up to reveal multiple display screens, the ceiling opened up slightly and a projector slipped out, turning on and displaying a holographic display of even more screens and a keyboard, all hovering in the air before him.
Johnny walked over to the floating keyboard and started typing in midair with furious speed. One of the monitors against the wall lit up with an image of an irate Agent Ackers. Pimples covered his entire face.
“I’m going radio silent now,” Ackers started mimicking Johnny with heavy sarcasm. “Gee, that was only, I don’t know, a million years ago!”
“We weren’t alive a million years ago,” Johnny said.
Ackers froze him with a look. Johnny glanced apologetically at Ackers’ face. There was a two way video connection with them, so they could both hear and see each other.
“I’m sorry Ackers, something came up,” Johnny explained.
“Something is supposed to come up!” Ackers explained. “You’re on a mission, things are supposed to come up and I’m supposed to help you deal with them.”
“I know, it was an oversight.”
“Oversight? What’s that? I think it was more like an over-mind, as in it was over and out of your mind to think about keeping me in the loop. How am I supposed to help you if you don’t let me help you?”
Johnny shrugged.
“If it wasn’t for this,” Ackers gestured to the pimples all over his face, “I’d be out there with you in the field. Instead, I’m locked up here in a basement, nurturing my skin condition and wondering what happened to the agent I’m supposed to be backing because he put me on radio silence!”
Johnny had to lean back and listen to Ackers yell. Ackers didn’t mean to get so upset; he was really a good guy. Johnny could understand the frustration he must have felt at not knowing what was going on. Still, Johnny didn’t understand why pimples on a face would keep someone from being out there in the field. Johnny suspected it had more to do with Ackers’ courage than his pimples.
“I’ve been thinking,” Ackers continued. “They shouldn’t even allow you to be able to put me on radio silence. It shouldn’t even be an option that you have. I’m supposed to advise and guide you during missions, and if I think you not being advised or guided by me is a bad thing, then you shouldn’t be able to do it.”
His rant should be coming to an end soon, thought Johnny. They usually lasted a certain amount of time, and Johnny could tell that Ackers was beginning to slow down and run out of things to say.
“I think I will put in a request for having that option removed before your next mission,” but Ackers kept going. Maybe he had a bit more left to complain about.
Johnny liked Ackers. How could he not? He knew Ackers meant well.
There was a knock at the door. It was his dad!
Johnny sprang into action. He couldn’t let his dad see all the computers and gadgets.
“Sorry Ackers, have to go.”
Johnny had two choices, he could type in his password into the old keyboard lying on the desk, or he could hit enter and put the whole system into sleep mode.
“Son, can I come in?” his father asked from behind the door.
There wasn’t any time to type in the whole password.
“Just a moment dad!”
“I suppose you’re going to go radio silent again?” Ackers asked sarcastically.
Johnny didn’t even bother to reply, he slammed the Enter key on his old computer as hard as he could.
All the panels slid down covering the monitors, the projector from the ceiling turned off, killing the holographic displays. The projector then slid up, allowing the hole in the ceiling to close. Within moments Johnny’s room looked just like an ordinary room again.
Johnny jumped onto his bed and grabbed a comic.
“Okay Dad, come on in,” Johnny called.
The door opened and his dad, Henry Clunker, walked into the room.
Johnny’s dad was about medium height and slightly pudgy. His hair always looked a bit uncombed, and his glasses were always a little crooked. He was easy with a smile and quite clumsy, getting into accidents more often than he cared to admit.
“What was taking you so long?” Henry asked.
“I had to clean up my room a bit,” Johnny answered.
Henry looked around the messy room; there were clothes still on the floor and things still out of place. Henry would have hated to see what it looked like before Johnny cleaned.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get to it,” Johnny said, seeing his dad’s bemused look.
“Oh, of course,” Henry said.
Henry wasn’t big into discipline, so he usually made a small attempt, and then ended up giving in with an, “oh, of course,” to whatever reason Johnny had for not doing what he was supposed to be doing.
“It’s kind of late, isn’t it?” Henry asked.
“Yeah, I was just going to do some homework before going to bed,” Johnny offered, before realizing he was holding a comic. He quickly shoved it aside.
Henry nodded and beamed. That was his son, always staying on top of his school work.
“That’s great to hear son, I’m so happy you take your school work so seriously.”
Johnny smiled weakly. He was going to have to put more time into some of his subjects. Truth be told, being a super spy was a difficult business, and he didn’t always find time to fit school into his schedule as much as he liked, especially when it came to Ms. Sniders and her English class.
“I just got this note from school,” Henry continued, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a paper on school letterhead. “It’s from Ms. Sniders. I believe she’s your English teacher?”
Johnny swallowed uneasily. How bad could it get? He thought of the woman, and she somehow reached out from across space and time to torment him.
“Uh, yeah, she’s my English teacher,” was all Johnny could say.
“Are you having some trouble in her class?” Henry asked, a concerned look on his face.
Johnny’s dad would believe anything he said, and it was because of that very reason that Johnny hated lying to him.
“I just don’t get some of the things she teaches very well,” Johnny said.
He didn’t tell his dad the part about her being a lousy teacher who couldn’t teach a newborn baby how to breathe if she had to. Or the fact that she could suck all the happiness and motivation out of a classroom just by giving students her evil glare.
Henry leaned back against Johnny’s computer desk and accidentally hit the Enter key on the keyboard as he was settling down to read the note.
Instantly, all the panels slid up, the projector came down from the ceiling and projected the three dimensional keyboard right behind where Johnny’s dad was leaning.
Ackers’ angry and impatient face came up on the screen at the far end of the wall on a screen almost as big as the wall itself, magnifying every aspect of his pimples and his disgruntled scowl.
Henry missed all of this as he was studying the note.
“Yes, it says here that you haven’t been handing in all your assignments, and that you don’t do very well on some of the essays,” Henry continued.
Johnny had to do something! He couldn’t let his dad see all the super spy equipment that Johnny had installed in their house.
“I’ll try harder dad,” Johnny started to say as he tried to move, without drawing too much attention, to get near the keyboard with the Enter key that would hide all the advanced technology.
“She just doesn’t explain some of the concepts of English very well, like all those words and sentences and things,” Johnny wasn’t even thinking about what he was saying, he was just trying to find a way to get to that keyboard.
Henry put the note down and looked at his son. Johnny froze.
“I just wish you would have come to me sooner about all of this. I’m pretty good at English. I used to do well back in the day before we had all these computers to do our spellchecking and thinking for us,” Henry patted the monitor of the ten year old computer he was leaning beside.
Johnny looked from the old, antique computer beside his dad to the three dimensional keyboard and super flat monitors behind him, not to mention the larger than life display of Ackers on the far wall who was still glowering and scowling and looking generally put out and neglected.
Henry put his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Son, we’ll do what we can to bring your mark up. Don’t worry about this, your dad is on the scene now, and together we can do anything!”
Henry was always super optimistic about everything. Not that that was a bad thing, but sometimes Johnny felt that his dad, as much as Johnny loved him, was a bit naïve about how the world worked.
Johnny felt guilty as soon as he had the thought. His dad was just trying to help.
“We’ll start studying together tomorrow,” Henry said as he turned to walk away.
“Dad!” Johnny cried out.
Henry turned back in alarm, having just missed seeing the advanced computers behind him.
The giant display of Ackers shook his head in the background, and slapped a supersized hand against his supersized head. It made a small noise and Henry almost turned around again.
Johnny grabbed his dad’s shoulders and spun him around to face him again.
“What! What is it son?” Henry asked in alarm.
“I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate what you’re doing for me. And that I won’t let you down. Math might be a hard subject for me, but I think that with your help I’ll be able to get through it.”
As Johnny spoke, he slowly made his way around to get closer to the keyboard of his ten year old computer.
“Are you having trouble in Math as well?” Henry asked.
“I meant English,” Johnny corrected himself.
Ackers just shook his head in the background, exasperated.
“It makes me really proud to hear you say that,” Henry said, beaming. “I know that if your mother could see you and your dedication, she would be proud too.”
Johnny finally made it to the keyboard and quickly hit the Enter key. All the computer screens were instantly covered with a panel sliding down. Ackers opened his mouth to say something, but he was shut out before he could make a noise.
The projector in the ceiling retracted up and out of sight, the three dimensional display of the keyboard disappearing along with it.
Johnny let out a sigh of relief.
His father turned around then, to see what had troubled Johnny so much. Seeing an ordinary looking messy room, Henry turned back to face his son.
“Don’t worry yourself so much, you don’t have to clean your room tonight. I can see that this is a big commitment from you,” Henry said, holding up the letter, not knowing the truth of Johnny’s distress.
“We’ll start first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t you worry, we’ll get a tutor, several if we have to! This seems to mean a lot to you, and I won’t let you down!” Henry’s father clamped a hand down on his son’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Now it’s late, get some sleep,” Henry turned and made his way out of the room, but not before he ran into the desk and door on his way out.
“Excuse me,” Henry said as he exited. Johnny’s dad was very clumsy; it somehow fit with their last name: Clunker.
Johnny fell back on his bed and closed his eyes in despair.
He hated English class.
* * *
In a darkened room with a single light source sat a woman with jet black hair. The Widow Black was her spy name, and she was watching a computer monitor which showed the fight at the warehouse over the Super Chip.
She was dressed all in black, with a single zipper that ran up the front of her skin-tight suit. The Widow Black moved her hand in the air, and the monitors changed to show a different perspective of the fight. She was wearing a glove on her right hand with blinking lights all over it. With gestures from her hand, she was able to control the computers in the room.
She was in her late forties, but it was almost impossible to tell her exact age because of her extreme beauty and wild, flowing hair. Her face resembled a classical statue; it was both beautiful and cold. Her lips made a determined, thin line as she watched footage of Johnny and Nancy fighting the guards.
“Poorly executed. Sloppy,” she commented.
It was hard to tell whether she was talking about the guards, or the way that Johnny and Nancy were able to beat them.
The Widow Black watched as Johnny and Nancy talked.
“Never speak to the enemy, and never during a hot zone,” she said to herself.
She waved her hand in the air, and the image froze on Johnny. The Widow Black stared at the image, studying it.
“You are in over your head, and there will come a time when you will regret these actions.”
She lingered on the image a bit, before finally tilting her finger and allowing it to continue playing.
The Widow Black brought her other hand up to her ear and pressed a button on a device. A voice came through on the other end; it was Scar’s.
“Yes?”
“You have the Chip,” the Widow Black told as much as asked.
“We have it.”
“Good. I will meet with you. I will give you the coordinates.” There was a measure of malice in the Widow Black’s voice. “Don’t let anything happen to that Chip.”
Chapter 2: Trouble at School and Work
The school looked just like a regular school, so naturally Johnny didn’t feel like going inside. It wasn’t that he disliked school, he just felt that he didn’t apply himself enough, which usually brought up feelings of guilt. He wanted to apply himself more, but with his regular spy job it was becoming harder and harder to sleep, let alone study.
Still, as Johnny went through his usual excuses in his head, he knew that he had no one to blame but himself. School was important, and it was doubly important to a super spy who had to know everything he could about the world.
“I’ll do better,” he promised himself.
A passing kid heard him say it and turned to look. Seeing that there was no one else around, the kid realized that Johnny was talking to himself.
Slightly embarrassed, Johnny gave him a weak smile. The kid looked away and shook his head.
I have to make sure no one thinks I’m crazy while I do better, Johnny thought, wanting to avoid any further stares and head shakings. At least it helped with his identity, making it even more likely that he was unlikely to be a super spy.
He also wanted a chance to try and talk to Nancy. Johnny was interested in how she became a super spy, and found out about the Chip and where it was being traded, and how she learned how to fight like that, and where she got all those cool gadgets.
His mind thoroughly off of his school subjects, Johnny headed into the school without much prospect of doing better at it.
* * *
“Nancy!” Johnny whispered as loud as he could while still being able to call what he was doing whispering. She sat just ahead of him, and currently had her back to him while she was listening to their English teacher talk about English.
“Nancy,” Johnny tried again.
Ms. Sniders, their English teacher, swooped her beady eyes around the room from the front of the class.
“Did I hear someone talking?” she asked.
Johnny lowered in his seat and kept his eyes down.
Ms. Sniders was an old, strict woman. She liked her class to be absolutely silent while she taught. She had been known to throw students in detention, make them write extra essays, and even create entire extra projects just because they were found talking in class.
Johnny did not want to have to write any essays or create any projects. He waited while she passed by his desk, looking for another sound from the culprit.
She was a tall, thin woman. Every single student in her ninth grade class had to look up to her, and every single student was also scared to death of her. She had really thick glasses that looked like they went out of style sixty years ago, and the dresses she wore always had polka dots on them.
“I know I heard talking. You might as well come clean now before it gets worse for you,” she said as she stalked down the aisles of desks.
“If there’s one thing we all hate, it’s talking.” Ms. Sniders always included the entire class in on what it was she hated. She passed by Johnny’s desk again, adjusting her glasses as she stared in his direction.
Johnny kept his eyes down to the ground. She must have developed very strong neck muscles by having to keep her head up with those really heavy glasses on. Johnny bet that if she took off the glasses, her head would whip back with the tremendous force of years of straining muscles.
“If the culprit refuses to come clean, if they insist on hiding, in spite of how much we all hate cowards, then I have no choice but to continue the lesson.”
That didn’t sound like much of a threat to Johnny, in spite of the fact that he hated her lessons. She turned her back to them and began to write on the board. It didn’t seem like Ms. Sniders liked being a teacher.
“Nancy!” Johnny tried again.
Nancy turned her head back to look at him slightly.
“Are you insane?” she asked.
“I wanted to ask you some more questions about last night.”
“Now?” Nancy hissed back.
Even though they were both super spies, neither one of them wanted to mess with Ms. Sniders.
“I wanted to ask how you became a spy,” Johnny pressed.
“No, we’ll talk later,” Nancy turned around and faced the front again. But Johnny wasn’t finished.
“Don’t worry, she’s old and probably as deaf as…”
“As deaf as what?” boomed Ms. Sniders’ voice.
Johnny froze. She was standing directly beside him, hands on hips, stern glare directed straight down on him. Johnny thought she had still been at the front of the class; he hadn’t even noticed her make her way over to his desk.
He tried to answer her, his mouth moved, but for some reason no sounds were coming out.
“Out with it Mr. Clunker, we all want to hear what you have to say.”
Johnny looked around the room. All of his classmates, including Nancy, were looking at him. It certainly seemed like they all wanted to hear what he had to say. Johnny wanted to hear it also, because he had no idea what it was that he should say.
“I was just thinking,” Johnny started.
What else should he say?
That he was wondering how someone else managed to become a super spy?
“I was just wondering,” Johnny stammered.
“Yes Mr. Clunker, you were thinking and wondering what? The condition of my deafness?” Ms. Sniders leaned down and sneered in his face, waiting for his answer.
Her breath smelled foul and old, like the air from a long sealed tomb. Johnny actually had an experience with a tomb and mummy, so he knew exactly what that smelled like.
He could do this. Just think of something to say that would get her far away from him.
The problem was that her breath was so bad that it was driving out any other thought that Johnny might have had.
His eyes strayed to the board. Ms. Sniders was writing the chapter homework for the week. It was all Johnny had, so he grabbed it.
“I was just wondering, just thinking if we could move on ahead, beyond the assigned chapter, and do extra work for the week.” It wasn’t great. It wasn’t even good; in fact, it was pretty bad, but at least Johnny had thought of something.
Ms. Sniders looked at him a moment longer. Johnny had to put up with that foul breath for just a few more seconds and then he would be fine. He wondered what it was in her mouth that could take normal smelling air and turn it into such a brutal weapon in the time it took someone to inhale and exhale.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Ms. Sniders straightened up.
Johnny breathed in fresh air. He hadn’t noticed, but he had started holding his breath.
“You were thinking, using all your little brain power to ask me if you could do extra work?” Ms. Sniders asked as she stalked down the aisle and back to the front of the class.
Johnny couldn’t understand it, but a lot of the other students were looking at him with a grim attitude. Why? What had he done?
“As you know class, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a stupid question. You have to learn, the government pays me a meager salary to make sure that you do, so questions are part of your expected job requirement,” she continued.
Johnny had a nagging feeling in his stomach, like he had just done something that he was going to regret. And then, it slowly came to him. He realized what he had done.
“Asking me if you can do more work is, in fact, a stupid question,” Ms. Sniders proclaimed as she looked straight at Johnny.
“Not only is more work encouraged in most classes, it is expected in mine. So thanks to Mr. Clunker, we are all going to do three chapters, instead of one, for the week. We are all very grateful for Mr. Clunker’s insight.”
Johnny started sinking down in his chair. There she went using that we word again. Johnny was pretty sure she wouldn’t be doing any chapters at all.
The grim faces around him turned to angry glares. Johnny tried to smile back weakly.
Nancy just looked at him blankly, and then shook her head. He didn’t feel much like a super spy at that moment.
* * *
Johnny stood glumly in line at the cafeteria. He stared at the cold looking food waiting for him when he finally got to the end. Johnny always tried to remind himself to make his own lunch at home, to spare him the fake looking and tasting food that the school always offered, but he never found the time to make it when he remembered.
“Next time for sure,” he promised himself.
The line shuffled forward.
The Cafeteria Lady plumped a nice helping of fake mashed potatoes and gravy on the next student’s plate, not looking too happy while she did it. No one at the school really knew her name; she never looked at anyone and never initiated or responded much to conversation. Because of that, she was just known as the Cafeteria Lady.
“Next,” she droned in her bored, tired voice.
The line shuffled forward again.
The Cafeteria Lady plunked the next helping of fake food down onto Nancy’s plate, weighing it down considerably and forcing Nancy to compensate to keep her tray up.
“Thank you,” Nancy said.
“Next,” replied the Cafeteria Lady.
Johnny really wanted to talk to Nancy, but he didn’t want to give up his place in line. He looked behind him and saw how far the line stretched back. Johnny would have to start all over again if he lost his place. No one in the line behind him looked very happy; they were probably all thinking the same thing about making their lunches next time.
Maybe missing lunch wasn’t the worst thing in the world? Nancy weaved her way around students and tables, looking for a place to sit.
Johnny decided he had to talk to Nancy. He left his place in line, much to the dismay of the student behind him who would now be served his lunch that much faster.
Johnny trailed Nancy, trying to quickly dodge the students faster than she was so he could catch up to her.
He wasn’t really looking in front of him and ran straight into a student who purposely moved to block his way. The student was really big; it was like running into a soft wall.
Johnny looked up, way up, to see Bob looking down, way down at him. Bob didn’t look very happy either; it must have been something that was contagious at school that week.
Two other students appeared on either side of Bob: Frank and Jim. The three of them were always around each other because no one else in the school was big enough to survive their rough behavior.
“You weren’t watching where I was going,” Bob said to him.
“A mistake I will never make again,” Johnny quickly replied as he tried to side step Bob, Frank and Jim.
The three of them all shifted over to block his way again. Johnny had completely lost sight of Nancy now, but then again he pretty much lost sight of everything except the three of them at the moment.
“You made the mistake again,” Bob leered down at him.
Johnny didn’t understand. He never really did anything to bother Bob in the past, and while he always saw the three of them picking on other students, Johnny was never one of their targets. He always felt guilty that he never helped those students stand up to these bullies, and he pretty much knew without a doubt that no one would be coming to help him now. It served him right for turning a blind eye.
“Looks like you’re surrounded by the Fourth Wall,” said Frank while he hit his fist into his palm.
Johnny almost laughed out loud. They called themselves the Fourth Wall because they thought they were all so big that if they had one more member they could hold a roof over their heads. At least that’s what Johnny thought they meant. It was hard to tell when each one of them was already as big as a house.
“I don’t have time for this right now,” Johnny tried as he moved to the right to slide past them again. Predictably, the entire Fourth Wall shifted with him, once again blocking his way.
Johnny was nervous. Worse, he couldn’t understand why he was nervous. He was a super spy, and could take out entire platoons of guards, sneak past high tech security, and single handedly save the world from evil. Yet here he was being confronted by three bullies and he was at a loss as to what to do. He’d like to think it was because now he was Johnny Clunker, and Clunker kept a low profile, stayed out of people’s way, and didn’t save the world on an almost daily basis.
“You just made time,” Bob said.
By now all the students in the cafeteria were watching them. Johnny looked uncomfortably around at everyone, trying to remember how he got into this mess in the first place. It seemed that every time he wanted to talk to Nancy, he was running into people trying to stop him.
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