CHAPTER EIGHT
Attach Nog’s Name to Anything
I.
We zipped and zoomed through space like professionals. I counted down the planets until we got to Earth; Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and so on, until Earth arrived into view. We were making excellent time. I kept glancing back at Phil. The smoke continued to swirl off of his body. He better be okay, that’s all I know. If not, I’d kill Homeless Harry again.
“Hold on to your butt cheeks!” I yelled as we plummeted into the Earth’s atmosphere and broke wind through the clouds. The radar system on board the Frog Hopper began beeping, letting us know we were on target for landing back on Nog’s farm.
Once through the clouds, we entered the snowy sky above Kings Town. The city below kept getting bigger as we got closer.
I turned the joystick and guided us north towards Nog’s. We came up on the farm quickly and I hit the brake buttons and our speed slowed to a simmering putter.
The Frog Hopper hovered over the farm for a minute and then I landed it in the driveway, and rolled the ship back into the barn. Everyone jumped out of the way again as I made my unexpected return.
My ship powered down and I shut the engine off. We all unlatched our belts and I ran out of the lowering ramp in the back of the Frog. Marco and Hastings came rushing up to me from the horse stall doors with their guns drawn.
“Scout! Are you okay?” Hastings shouted.
“We need help! Phil’s been hurt!”
“Who’s Phil?”
“Our pal. He snuck onto the ship.”
Hastings looked to Marco, “Does our insurance cover stowaways?”
“Just help!” I yelled.
Hastings got on his walkie-talkie and radioed for medical assistance.
“Scout!” Nog’s voice pierced the air. I looked over and saw him and Dr. Hix rushing up to me.
“Professor! We need help! We need to help Phil!”
Within seconds, a couple nurses arrived with a stretcher. They carried it up into the Frog Hopper and carefully lifted Phil’s charred body onto it. They began to wheel him down the ramp and I was finally able to get my first good look at him. He looked like a really badly burnt piece of toast. His face was blackened and his arms looked like that weird part of a cigarette that always burns away fast. You know, like the ash part? Only they were really black.
As people started to gather around, Nog forced them back. “Give him some space! Back away!”
The nurses bumped the stretcher into Nog by mistake and rattled Phil’s body. Without warning, one of his arms crumbled and littered the floor with dark ashes. I felt like I wanted to hurl.
“For God’s sake, will someone grab a broom!?” Nog shouted and a young intern sprinted for one.
All the commotion dwindled and I stood there breathing heavily. Chuck stood by my side and put his hand on my shoulder. Uncle Jones came walking out of the Frog Hopper sporting his boxers.
“For God’s sake, man, where are your clothes?” Nog questioned my uncle, repulsed.
“I was stripped down to these up there in space, and I couldn’t find -”
“What happened up there, Scout?” Nog rudely interrupted Uncle Jones.
“It’s a long story.”
“Then let’s sit in my kitchen and talk about it,” Nog said.
“Okay. Jakon is in there,” I said, pointing to the Frog. Nog snapped his fingers and instantaneously, Hastings and Marco went in and secured him.
II.
Chuck and I sat around Nog’s kitchen table. Nog served us each a small glass of blue drink and sat down with us. Dr. Hix was leaning against the wall.
“Is Phil going to be okay?” Chuck asked. I couldn’t believe that actually happened to Philly. It was entirely my fault and I was really bumming hard over it. How could I make a call that selfish? That’s not me. Mandy was right. I’d become someone else.
“He’s in the infirmary,” Nog said. “I have my elite staff of paramednog’s doing the best they can. We can only hope from here on out.”
“Someone should let his family know?” Chuck asked.
“No, not unless he actually dies. Then we’ll make something up. But for now, let my paramednog’s do their thing.”
“Is my uncle going to be okay?” I asked, taking a sip of the watered-down blue drink.
“We can only hope, Scout. I have a team giving him clothes as we speak.”
“Poor guy must have been so cold,” Hix added.
“Now, kids, from the top. Explain,” Nog said. He clamped his hands together and rested his chin atop of them.
I began to explain that we had been cruising the stars and came across the space café. “That reminds me,” I said, reaching into my backpack which I had sitting next to me on the floor. I pulled out the small satchel and removed the tube of dark blue goo.
“Some alien at the café gave us this for safe keeping,” I said. “I figure the E.I.A. can do some experiments on it or something.”
Dr. Hix Blossom came over and grabbed it. He looked at it closely. “Hm. Interesting.”
“What happened after the café?” Nog was growing impatient. I proceeded to explain everything from Blorf, to Phil’s explosion, to the murder I’d committed, to running into Radar and his soul patch, finding Uncle Jones, to the cosmic wedgie (which he winced at), to Radar escaping and Blorf dying – again.
“Sounds like quite an adventure,” Nog said. “So you have reason to believe Radar might be coming after the E.I.A. next?”
“That’s what Jakon said.”
“We’ll need to track where his pod may have landed,” Hix said.
“We’ll have to be ready for anything. I’ll call in an order of some soldier units from Washington. Let’s hope Radar doesn’t show up before the solider units have time to -”
KABOOM!
The house rattled and things fell off the shelves and shattered on the floor. Hix stumbled to the corner and fell on his butt. Nog fell off his chair and rolled under the table.
KABOOM!
Another thunderous explosion shook Chuck and I right off of our seats too and we crashed to the floor. I pulled the tablecloth down with me for dramatic effect.
I managed to bounce to my feet and I made a quick dash to the kitchen window and pulled back the rooster drapes. I saw the barn – the entrance to Fort Nog’s – on fire, and a single person was responsible for it. Lord Radar the Great stood out in the driveway surrounded by the swirling snow globe effect that the winter storm was giving off. He held a giant gun in his arms and had it aimed for the barn. He appeared to have his head back and was laughing a very villainous laugh. He pulled the trigger and fired his weapon again, sending a giant fireball of green energy hurling towards the barn and it exploded on impact.
Nog’s house shook again.
“It’s Radar!” I exclaimed.
The Professor quickly rolled out from under the kitchen table and grabbed something from the counter and tossed it to me. I caught it and looked at it.
“Look through my binogulars, just to make sure,” he said.
“But it’s him, I just saw him.”
“Make sure, Scout!”
I humored Nog and looked through his ‘binogulars’, and just as I suspected…and already knew and told everyone…it was Radar.
“We have to do something!” Chuck shouted.
I turned to my buddy, “This is what we do, Chuck. This is what we do.”
Some standard issue laser phasers were hanging on a gun rack in the living room – I remembered seeing them when we walked in and wondered why Nog would be so careless to leave some top secret weapons out in the open.
Chuck and I armed ourselves with them and ran for the back door. I ripped the door open and out of nowhere, Jakon piled into the kitchen with a laser pistol in hand.
“He escaped!” Hix stated the obvious.
“It’s about that time, Scout and friends,” Jakon spoke very ominously. “Time for the final showdown.”
“I’ll ‘show’ you ‘down’ to the floor!” I came up with that off the top of my head. I grabbed Jakon to toss him to the ground, but he pushed me down instead. I crashed into the cabinets and dropped my gun. I looked up just in time to see Jakon rush Nog and deliver him a wallop. Nog was instantly throttled and down for the count.
Jakon moved onto Hix next and roughed him up a tad and settled his face into the kitchen floor. I stood up and ran at Jakon, shoving him back into the stove. If I could light him on fire or something, that’d be perfect.
“Let’s light this fire…” I said reaching for the burner knobs, but Jakon threw me across the room again. Crap, what a waste of a good line.
I saw Chuck leap about five feet off the ground and hop onto Jakon’s back and ride him into the living room. “Giddy-up you sucker!” Chuck kept shouting.
I followed the Jakon-bucking-Chuck to the living room and saw Chuck get thrashed into the old giant television set, which was so old I was almost positive it must have been in black and white. It had knobs!
I aimed my laser phaser at Jakon and told him to “Stop right there!” He did as I instructed and stared at me. Chuck scrambled to his feet and held out his gun too. We were all catching our breath.
“None of this is going to end well for you, Scout,” Jakon said with his patented lisp. “Lord Radar the Great is going to blow Fort Nog’s apart one room at a time. Disintegrate every employee one at a time – now including your crispy fried Philly – and then he’s going to blow you and Chuck to smithereens.”
“What happens after that?” I asked.
“Him and I are going to find a way back to the Behemoth, destroy this galaxy, and move on to others.”
“Don’t you think that’s just a tad bit much? I mean, c’mon, dude. You own a comic book store,” I said.
“I won’t even look back. There’s nothing for me here. Only greatness with Lord Radar.”
“He’s a kid, brotha! You’re like a grown guy. Shouldn’t you be in charge?”
Jakon thought about what I just said. It kind of made sense though. Why would an adult like Jakon want to follow orders from a fifteen year old? I think he just got caught up in the anger and epicness of all this.
Nog’s house shook again and Jakon looked out the living room window. We all did. It appeared Radar had made his final blast at the side of the barn and started walking towards it. Within minutes, he was going to blast his way through the fort and destroy everything we’ve worked so hard for. And kill everyone.
“Make a choice, Jakon. You can make the right one. You feel me?” I said, calming my voice and extending my hand. Jakon looked at me and in his eyes, I saw he had made his decision.
“I am going to miss my comic book store,” he said. “But oh well…”
Jakon lifted his laser pistol and aimed right for me. Chuck pulled his trigger first and a blast of laser shot through Jakon’s back and out his front. He dropped to the ground, steaming from his wound, and was gone.
Chuck’s mouth opened wide with a hint of a smile. “I did it! I saved the day!”
I shot a quick smile back at Chuck. It hadn’t sunk in for him yet, but he just murdered someone. He was going to need some help.
A saw a bright flash of flames shoot past the living room window from the barn, and we could feel the heat. “Chuck, we need to stop Radar – now!”
We ran back through the kitchen, hopped over Dr. Hix and Professor Nog’s unconscious bodies, and out the back door.
III.
Chuck and I covered our faces from the blinding winter storm and then shielded them from the flames as we ran through the burning hole in the side of the barn.
Everything was on fire; the hay bales scattered about; the electronic equipment against the walls, portions of the idle Frog Hopper.
We looked around and saw about a half dozen employees sprinkled around the ground, moaning and beaten up. It didn’t appear that anyone was seriously hurt, so that was good news.
We dashed up to the horse stall and saw Hastings and Marco leaning against the wall. Their uniforms were singed and they had cuts and scrapes all over their faces, necks and hands.
I knelt down and slapped Marco across the face, “Marco, wake up!”
“Ow!” he cried. “What’d you do that for, Scout, I’m awake! God!”
“Oops, sorry bro,” I said. “Where’d Radar go?”
“I’m assuming you’re talking about that neon red mohawk psycho that just burned through here…”
“I am.”
Marco pointed over his shoulder to the elevator behind the horse stall. “He went inside – level 3, I think. There’re dozens of people down there, Scout. You need to help them.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” I said. I stood up, but before I could step forward into the stall, Marco grabbed my pant leg. I looked down at him.
“What?”
“Why did the arsonist go to the gym?”
“Huh?”
“To burn some calories.”
I about lost it! I cracked up so hard, as did Chuck. Even in highly intense situations, Marco could crack a joke.
“That was another good one! You’re on fire, dude!” I said, sending Marco into a laughing/coughing fit.
It was time to get serious. Chuck and I hit the elevator button and waited for it to come up from downstairs. We hopped in and rode it down to level 3 – that’s were most of the people would be.
Chuck and I caught our breath on the ride down and prepared ourselves for anything. Radar was blasting his way through Fort Nog’s and it was up to us to stop him.
The elevator came to a stop and after a loud ‘ding!’, the doors opened. Level 3 seemed to be quiet…something wasn’t right. Chuck and I held our laser guns out in front of us and slowly moved down the hallway, glancing in each of the rooms as we passed by.
“Do you think he’s in here? I don’t hear a thing,” Chuck said.
“He’s got to be. Marco said he took the elevator down to this level. He’s around here somewhere.”
We continued to inch down the hallway, waiting for something to jump out at us.
I peered into one of the laboratories and saw one of Nog’s paramednog’s crouched against the far wall.
“Hey, bro,” I whispered loudly. The guy looked up at me. “Where’d he go?”
“He gathered everyone up and moved them down to level 4.”
“How’d you get away?”
“The kid put his gun to my face and I told him that I didn’t want any trouble. He said, ‘you’d better not’, and then turned away and left the room. I was the chosen one, saved by a God that I could only imagine has the power to -”
“”Ok, thanks, man,” I said cutting him off. I didn’t care what that guy had to say. I needed to stop Radar like right now.
Chuck and I moved swiftly down the hallway and felt the floor rumble. The lights on the ceiling flickered. Chuck and I made eye contact and knew that Radar must have blown something else up.
“Scout,” Chuck said, worried, “the infirmary is on level 4.”
“Phil…”
We quickly made it to the elevator and rode it down one more level. The doors opened and it was an entirely different scene.
It was chaos. Flames shot out from some of the rooms; people were running up and down the hall. A few people were face down on the ground with burn holes through their lab coats.
At the other end of the hallway, I could hear Radar screaming. “Bow to me! Bow to Lord Radar the Great!”
His big honkin’ gun he had, had a flamethrower app on it, and he then sprayed some hot flames down the center of the hallway. People jumped out of the way and ducked to avoid the fire.
That’s when Radar made eye contact with me and held his gun down to his side. “Scout! There you are…”
“Here I am,” I needlessly added.
“And Chuck Taylor!” Radar said, “Remember when I hoisted you up on the flag pole? That was classic.”
Chuck aimed his weapon, but I quickly calmed him down. The people in the hallways scattered and took cover in the rooms that weren’t ablaze.
We were in a standoff – the final, final showdown – ignoring what Jakon had earlier declared. We were about to make an example of Radar. He just didn’t know it yet.
“Scout,” Chuck said nudging me and pointing to the door that Radar was standing next too. It was the entrance to the infirmary. Radar noticed our interest in the room and he creepily smiled as he took a peek through the glass window.
“What the heck happened to Phil?” Radar laughed. “Looks like someone turned up the broilers on that sad sack of ashes.”
Okay, that angered me. I could feel my teeth grinding together as I took a few steps down the hallway in Radar’s direction. Chuck followed close.
“What? Did I strike a nerve?” Radar continued to laugh. “Do you like your Philly well done? Blackened? Charbroiled?”
I picked up my pace and held my gun out. Radar’s smile disappeared quickly and he raised his gun as well. Chuck and I stopped about fifteen feet away from him.
“Where’s Jakon?” Radar asked, getting his serious on.
“He met his fate. Chuck killed him.”
Radar moved his gun slightly to the left and gathered up Chuck in his crosshairs.
“So, you guys killed Jakon and Homeless Harry…my goons!”
“Sure did,” I said. It was starting to sink in how dark this whole situation was. I mean, Chuck and I were only sophomores in high school and we each just killed someone. Granted my kill was more original, but either way…we were going to need some serious counseling after this for sure. Hopefully the E.I.A. had someone for that.
“You guys are history. You’re whole organization is literally burning to the ground.” I could hear Radar’s gun charging up and getting ready for another plasmic blast.
“You’re so angry…” I said.
“Well obviously, ya jerk face! You left me for dead! How the heck would you feel! You took EVERYTHING FROM ME!” Radar’s face was turning red and his eyes were starting to tear up. This dude had some anger, and I guess I was partially to blame.
I needed to end this once and for all. I was contemplating ideas: Should I kill him? Send him off into space? Detain him? I mean he was just a kid…a fifteen year old who should have been a sophomore in high school with us. His family cried for months before moving on after his search was called off.
But on the other hand, he was nuts. He was blazing through Fort Nog’s burning everything in sight. Who knows how many of Nog’s employees were seriously hurt or killed. He3 abducted Uncle Jones, built a Slimeborg army with the intent to kill us, he was threatening the destruction of the universe…
It would be totally justified to wipe him off the face of the Earth. But to be fair, maybe I’d let him determine his own fate. It would just depend on his next move. Calm? Or hostile?