Jack sat silently at the computer console, sipping on a soda while he thumbed through a magazine in his lap, rolling his eyes at the occasional "oohs" and "aahs" he heard coming from the other rooms around him. In addition to this he heard the sounds of several cameras going off.
"So much for having a secret base," he muttered, turning to another page. Suddenly, a red light on the console lit up, causing Jack to look up. "Oh joy. More tourists."
He reached over and pushed a button. "Brainstorm museum, Jack speaking."
"FRANK, IT'S YOUR MOTHER!" bellowed the usual roar of Mother Brainstorm through the speakers of the console. "OPEN THIS DOOR AT ONCE!"
"Uh huh," Jack sighed, pushing another button. He didn't even flinch at Mother Brainstorm this time. He must have been getting used to it.
The elevator dinged as it closed up and began heading to the surface to pick up Brainstorm's hysterical mother. Jack waited for it to reopen, before it revealed the hulking mass that was her, with Sheila and Jacqueline in tow behind her.
"JACK!" Mother Brainstorm screamed.
"Mrs B," Jack nodded.
"THIS LAB IS A MESS! I DON'T SUPPOSE FRANK TOLD YOU WE WERE COMING!"
"He rarely does," Jack said, returning to his magazine. "I believe he's in the weapon facility at the moment. Feel free to make yourself at home."
"I ALREADY HAVE!"
"Mom, I'm hungry!" Sheila shouted.
"THEN GO GET FOOD ALREADY, AND STOP WHINING AT ME ABOUT IT! FRANK, WHERE ARE YOU?!"
And with that Mother Brainstorm stormed off towards what one can only assume was the direction of the weapon facility, while Sheila stormed off towards the kitchen, leaving Jacqueline standing awkwardly in the elevator.
"So...," she said, finally. "What's new?"
"A whole bunch of people broke into the lab this morning, and Frank is giving them a tour," Jack said, blandly.
"Oh," Jacqueline said, blinking a few times. "That's a new one."
"Just a bit. Shall we go watch how this transpires?"
"What?" Jacqueline asked, turning a small knob on her neck. "Hold on, I need to turn my internal speakers up. I'm not used to someone talking to me in a voice under a certain decibel."
"Oh, you turn that down? I just let mine rattle in my head whenever it comes about."
"And you say I'm the patient one."
"That's not patience, that's laziness. Let's go see what Mrs B thinks about Frank's new following."
"Let's," Jacqueline agreed. "I'm sure that will be an interesting train wreck to watch."
"And over here, we have the experimental weapon wing," Brainstorm said, leading the group through a narrow corridor, motioning towards several elaborate gun-like objects laying on display tables lined along the wall. "I come grab things from here on the slow days when I have no other evil plans to work on."
"Oooooh," the crowd collectively gawked, several of them snapping pictures of the different weapons on the tables, some of which were clearly not put together all the way yet.
"What's this one do?!" said a younger woman in the crowd, motioning towards a blue and red rifle with a strange rubber like appearance to it.
"That's the Bounce Gun," Brainstorm explained. "It shoots lasers that bounce... don't really know what I was thinking on that one... It's not the most practical idea, now that I think about it."
"Oooh, what about this one?!" cried a middle age male running up to another table that had another rifle with a red magnet on the end of it.
"That's the Mag-o-Matic, it brings you things that are metal and then shoots them at people... No touching!" Brainstorm scolded as he saw the man reaching for it. "This is all very delicate materials that could be..."
"YOUNG MAN, WHAT IS THIS?!"
Everyone collectively jumped at the sound of Mother Brainstorm's deafening roar. Several of the Brainstorm fan club yelped in blind terror as they spun around and saw the giant that had appeared from the darkness behind them.
"Mother!" Brainstorm gasped, gripping his chest in terror as he leaned against a wall. "When... where did you even come from?!"
"JACK LET ME IN, HOW DO YOU THINK I GOT IN?!" Mrs B growled, glaring at everyone surrounding her. "DID YOU LET YOUR SECRET LAIR GET DETECTED AGAIN?!"
"No, Mother, this is my fan club!" Brainstorm explained.
"YOUR WHAT?"
"You know... That fan club I told you about... The one that started a few years back..."
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE MAKING THAT UP!"
"Whoa!" one of the women said, looking up at Mrs B in awe. "It's... It's actually Dr Bainstorm's mother!"
Everyone gasped in realization as they took out their phones once again to take pictures. The older woman stared in a rare stupefied silence, watching as their phones flashed frantically.
Dr Brainstorm cleared his throat. "Yes, well… no need for all of this, folks. This is my mother. She's visiting for a short while."
"Hang on," one man said. "Need to get the wide angle on this one…"
"I BEG YOUR PARDON!"
A young woman grabbed a small pistol. "Ooh! Ooh! What's this?!" she shouted, waving it around.
She pulled the trigger, and it aimed at Mrs. Brainstorm, who suddenly found herself lifting off the ground slowly but surely. "HEY! STOP THAT! FRANKLIN, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"
Dr Brainstorm quickly yanked the gun away from the girl. "That's the Gravi-Tron 500! It cancels out the local gravity of individual objects!" He eyed his mother floating towards the ceiling. "Or… individuals."
At that instant, Sheila entered the room. "All right, you jerk!" she shouted. "You knew we were stopping by today, so where are the dang Nutty Bars?!"
"Sheila, for crying out loud! I'm trying to look impressive here! I can't look cool in front of these people with my accursed family existing in the same room as me!"
It was then that Sheila noticed that a bunch of random people were taking pictures of her with their phones. "Who the heck are these losers?!" she demanded.
"My fan club!"
"This is your fan club? You've got to be joking!"
A young man walked up to her. "Who are you?" he asked.
Sheila glared at him. "I'm this idiot's younger sister, nimrod! Sheila Brainstorm – future ruler of all!"
"… Who still lives with our parents," Dr Brainstorm said smugly.
"I'm in a transitional stage!"
The young man cleared his throat. "I'm Devon," he said, holding out a hand.
Sheila looked at him like he was nuts. "So?"
"So do you want to get a drink sometime?"
There was a really long pause as everyone stared at him incredulously. Even some of the fan club seemed a little disturbed.
Sheila came out of her shock and began pretending to think really hard. "Hmmmmm… no!" she snapped, shoving him violently.
"YOUNG LADY, JUST BECAUSE I'M ON THE CEILING DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN GO HANGING AROUND WITH RANDOM BOYS!"
"She said 'no', Mother!" Dr Brainstorm called up.
"ALL THE SAME…!"
A middle-aged woman in a floral dress spoke up. "Say, what does this do?"
Before Dr Brainstorm could turn around, there was an explosion of smoke and flame from that direction that engulfed him and half of his followers. They all started coughing and waving it away, trying to find her.
"For crying out loud, don't embarrass me in front of my already embarrassing family!" he shouted, reaching helplessly through the plume.
As this devolved into yet another shouting match between Brainstorms, Jack and Jacqueline observed this from the doorway.
"Should we be doing something in service of mankind?" Jacqueline asked.
"Nah, let's not break the spell," Jack replied, smirking as his master grabbed the offending weapon away from the woman.
The image of Calvin and his stuffed tiger being forced into a vehicle was one that Calvin's parents were unequipped to deal with. They sat in the kitchen, staring at the image on the policewoman's laptop, still in absolute shock. How could this be happening? How was this reality?
Andy had told them about Calvin, explaining that he'd obtained the security footage that served as evidence. They were still trying to figure out how an eight-year-old boy had obtained something like that. The police had questioned it as well, but they all agreed that solving the mystery of who had kidnapped Calvin was more important. All they had at the moment was Max standing behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders.
"Does your son have any enemies?" the policewoman asked, leaning towards the handheld voice recorder on the table.
"None that we know of," Dad replied evenly.
"And you're sure this isn't the person who kidnapped him last time?"
"Absolutely. The last guy was too much of a showman, clearly. Plus, he had that accomplice dressed as a robot."
The policewoman tapped on the laptop a few times and showed a black-and-white photo of Dr Brainstorm and Jack when they were returning Calvin. She pressed 'play', and a video started that showed Jack's arms extending so as to pass the boy over to his parents.
"We still haven't found these characters, but I'm not one hundred percent certain that's someone 'dressed up', as you say," she said.
Calvin's parents stared at the video, very disturbed.
"In any case," Dad said, "this doesn't look like the last guys. Doesn't look like he's the right height."
"Agreed," said the policewoman. "Too short. Demeanor is totally different."
"Have you found the car yet?" Mom asked, gripping her husband's arm.
"We're on the lookout for the make, and we've managed to get a hold of the license number. Tracing it back to the dealership, but it doesn't seem local. Came from Montana."
"So?"
"So it seems this guy came all the way down from Montana for the sole purpose of kidnapping your son."
Calvin's parents reeled from the implications of this. Someone had actually come a very long way to kidnap their son. The very idea chilled them. Max clearly picked up on their horror as he began rubbing their shoulders consolingly.
Outside the house, Andy, Sherman and Socrates were watching all this through the window while the MTM transmitted the conversation.
"Well, they've eliminated Dr Brainstorm as a suspect," Sherman sighed.
"Nobody tell him," said Socrates. "He'll feel so disappointed."
Andy thought for a few moments. "Okay…," he said slowly. "We need to help the police in any way we can. If we were kidnappers, what would we do once we had our target?"
Socrates and Sherman stared at him for a long moment.
"… It's kind of reassuring that we don't have an answer for that," Socrates said at last.
Andy rubbed his temples. "Guys, come on! We've got to figure this out! You saw how upset his parents are! For their sake, we need to find him! MTM – you said you have a vague idea where he's located?"
"Sort of," MTM replied. "They're several miles from here, and I could follow the car, but the teleporter is still a bit scrambled. The box probably won't be able to home in on them. I don't know how else we can reach them."
"We could walk."
Everyone stared at the boy incredulously.
"… Walk?" Sherman repeated.
"Like… primitives?!" Socrates added, looking a tad petrified by the idea.
"It would take a long time," MTM pointed out.
"I don't care! We're out of options! We need to find this kidnapper and save our friends!"
What would've been a rousing heroic speech was then cut a bit short by something absolutely no one was expecting. It was the sound of people screaming. Lots of people.
Taken by surprise, Andy, Sherman and Socrates looked at each other in bemusement before running around to the front yard to see what was happening. They saw people running out of their houses and staring up at something on the skyline that was steadily getting bigger and headed straight for them.
It was a spaceship. A massive spaceship was flying in low over the town and heading in their direction.
"Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?" Socrates asked.
Sherman looked around. "I see it, all right, but you want to know what I'm seeing?"
"What's that?" asked Andy.
"I'm seeing everyone else seeing what we're seeing."
The reality of this began to dawn on them. People in the streets were actually looking up and noticing that a gigantic spaceship was flying in low over the town. They were panicking, screaming and taking selfies – the ultimate sign of the end of the world.
Socrates cleared his throat. "Well… we always did want people to notice when we saved the world," he said awkwardly.
"Yeah…," said Andy. "Of course, we never really took into account that it would involve mass panic and hysteria."
"Not to mention potential loss of life," Sherman added.
Andy pulled the MTM out of his pocket. "MTM – scan the ship! Find out who it belongs to!"
MTM sent a pulse of energy in the direction of the ship. "Processing… Processing… Processing… Oh dear."
"What? What is it?"
"It's a Zokian battle cruiser. Rupert's on his way."
Within the massive control room of the battle cruiser, the alien crew were working away, responding to commands given to them by their captain.
"Lenny, stop fooling around with the pilot's controls! We need to stay on course!"
"Okie dokie!" Lenny replied. "Do you want us to speed up?"
"No! For crying out loud, we need to be careful! We are not screwing this up!"
"We're doing our best!" Biff complained. "But this isn't as fun as the way we usually do things!"
"You think I'm enjoying this? This goes against all the rules!"
"So why are we doing it?"
"Because – "
"Because I say so!" thundered a voice.
They all jumped and turned to see Rupert slithering down the ramp into the control room. His compound eyes looked around frantically, wide and fierce.
"We are going to take over this planet, and we're going to do whatever it takes!"
"But aren't the humans going to… you know, see us?" asked Erne. "I mean… you guys are kinda weird about them not seeing us…"
Earl cleared his throat. "We don't want them to see us because then they might start to fight back," he said, hoping he was also reminding Rupert of this.
Rupert just glared at him. "I am sick of all these dumb rules," he snarled.
"They're your rules!" Upon receiving a glare, Earl quickly added, "Your Highness."
"That was back in the day when the planets we took over were sensible! They were easier to infiltrate! The rulers and potentates were easier to topple! They didn't have some idiotic mastermind looking out for them like this planet! Some tiny little child to save them time and time again!"
"But we've scanned, sir. The boy is officially missing."
"But for how long?! We have to move quickly before he returns!"
"What about the Earth's defenses?! They've got missiles everywhere! Nuclear bombs! They're willing to drop those on their own people! Imagine what they'll do to us!"
"Stop being a wimp, Earl! We are Zokians! We rule planets! I am not about to let the universe fall from my grasp because we're too scared to take a stand and hang onto it!"
"I understand the frustrations, sir. I just… We've never actually done anything like this before! We don't know what the humans will do when they recover their wits!"
"These primitive fools have been aware of our existence all summer and have done diddly! Now get to work! The next part of the plan! Get to it!"
Earl sighed with frustration but obeyed all the same. He looked over at Luke. "Present location?"
"We're over the Earth Potentate's neighborhood!"
"Good. Scan for the appropriate life forms."
The ship was slowing down over Calvin's neighborhood. Andy, Sherman and Socrates stared in stunned silence amongst the crazed crowds that were either running in circles or out of town. Cars were peeling out of garages and hurrying down the road.
They were dimly aware of Calvin's parents and Uncle Max running out of the house, followed by the police officers that had been interviewing them. They were watching in horror as the ship came down low over them.
"Oh my gosh…," Mom was saying. "Oh my gosh! What is that?!"
"It can't be a…!" Dad stuttered. "I mean, it's…! It just can't be, can it?! Can it?!"
"Just say the word 'spaceship', bro," Max said, trying to keep a cool head. "It's here, it's queer, get used to it."
The police were already talking into their communicators, hoping to find someone who could help them. They ran to their cars and began paging for back up, but they were greeted by several more officers' voices with similar requests, all at various stages of panic.
Andy, Sherman and Socrates observed all this, unable to help being fascinated by all this.
It was out in the open. Aliens were real, and they were coming in for a landing. The world was watching. The world was aware. The world was awake.
And it was terrifying.
The ship made a loud rumbling noise that sounded like a lot of jet engines as a plane was taking off. It shuddered and came to a halt, hovering in position above the street.
Socrates cleared his throat. "… Tell them we're not home," he whispered.
Andy noticed a strange yellow glow enveloping his hands. "Bit late for that."
With all the running around, nobody noticed that the boy, the hamster and the tiger on the sidewalk were turning yellow. They didn't notice that they became transparent. They didn't notice them completely disappear.
Max glanced around a moment later. "Hey, what happened to that Andy boy and the other tiger? Could've sworn they were right there!"
Calvin's parents looked at the spot he was pointing at, but saw nothing. "Probably ran home," Dad said. "Come on, we need to get inside! Come on!" He grabbed his wife by the arm and dragged her inside.
Max took one last glance in case he saw the boy, but seeing nothing but the crowd, he glanced up at the ship worriedly before hurrying after them.
Teleportation was always a weird sensation for the person involved. Having your molecules broken down, transmitted across a great distance and then reassembled elsewhere was like going out and getting drunk without the interesting bits.
Andy, Sherman and Socrates were deposited unceremoniously on the floor in a strange room. They knew immediately they were on Rupert's ship, but it was a part of it they'd never seen before. They rubbed their headaches away as quickly as they could, hoping to find something that could help them.
Andy pulled the MTM back out of his pocket. "MTM – where are we? What part of the ship?"
MTM scanned for a moment. "Seems to be a transport room."
"Transport room?" Socrates asked.
"A place for docking shuttle craft. A docking bay, if you will."
The room was large and cavernous, and almost totally empty, save for a single spacecraft that sat in the middle. It was so small, you could be forgiven for not seeing it right away. It was tiny and dumpy, almost the space alien equivalent of a rundown old jalopy.
From behind, they heard a hydraulic door hiss open, and they turned to see Rupert and Earl standing in the hatchway with a pair of large fierce-looking guns and an even fiercer-looking pair of snarls.
Andy, Sherman and Socrates all smiled winningly at the duo.
"Well!" Socrates said faux-cheerfully. "Long time no see, strangers! How ya been?"
The two tall imposing aliens slithered into the room, glaring at them from behind their weapons.
"Right then," Rupert hissed. "Time to take care of you three…"
"Now hold on a second there, Tex," Andy said, keeping his hands visible. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves here."
"Yeah," agreed Socrates. "I mean, there's every possibility that we're about to teleport out of here right now! Right, MTM?"
They all looked at the MTM, waiting for something interesting to happen, but nothing did.
Trying to speak without moving his lips, Andy whispered, "MTM…? Any day now…"
The CD player cleared his 'throat' and explained. "I can't seem to actually… teleport right now… or much of anything else. Seems most of my features have been disabled."
Earl smirked. "Gee. Wonder how that happened?"
"You guys actually remembered to disable our defenses?" Socrates asked. "Dang, that's a first."
"And a last," Rupert replied, leveling the gun.
The trio swallowed, absolutely terrified, and they braced themselves for the end.
"… Okay, get in the shuttle."
They stared at the massive alien in front of them in surprise.
"Sorry, what?" Sherman asked. "You want us to get in the shuttle?"
"Yes."
Andy blinked. "Now… not to sound like I'm complaining, but couldn't you just shoot us?"
"Apparently, that's not how we do things around here," Earl mumbled, but he subsided at his king's angry glare.
"I don't want to just kill you. I want you to suffer. I want you to know true agony. And the best way to do that is waiting for you back at home on Zok."
"Whoa, time out, we're actually going to your planet?" asked Socrates. "I don't think we've ever been there! What're all the fashionable Zokians wearing this time of year?"
"Mostly radiation suits around the area we're sending you," Earl replied. "At this precise moment, we're in a bit of a lull during a rather intense intergalactic war. A war that your leader started."
"In the interest of fairness," Sherman said, "I think it's worth pointing out that you're the ones who decided to enslave the universe."
"Yeah, nobody holds onto that kind of power forever!" Andy agreed. "You guys should've prepared for this years ago!"
"Set up a 401k, invested in some property, have something to fall back on," Socrates added.
Rupert sneered. "That's right, keep doing the comedy routine. It's not going to help you. All of you – in the shuttle."
Sherman spoke up again. "Or what? You just said you aren't going to shoot us! Why should we do anything you say?"
There was a pause as Rupert considered that point. He shrugged and tossed his weapon aside, letting it clatter on the floor. Even Earl was rather startled by this.
"A very good observation," he said calmly.
There was a long pause where no one was really sure what he would do next.
Without warning, Rupert's front three tentacles sprung forward like eels and coiled around Andy and Socrates, and the third plucked Sherman from Andy's shoulder. All three yelled out in horror as they struggled to wrench themselves free.
Rupert, however, was largely unfazed. "Earl? Get the shuttle door for me, will you?"
"Yes, sir," Earl replied. He slithered down the ramp ahead of his king and made it to the small ship. He pressed a button on the side, and a small door hissed open. He moved aside, and Rupert tossed the boy, the tiger and the hamster inside.
Andy, Sherman and Socrates all crashed against the far wall and slid down to the cold metallic floor. They looked up just in time to see Rupert's bored expression as the door slid shut again.
Staggering to their feet, they took in their surroundings. The shuttle was very small – so small they could see the whole interior without having to travel much. A small cockpit, a couple of chairs and a window were all they were allotted.
"Not even room for an air stewardess," Socrates remarked.
There was a crackling noise from the control panel, and they spotted a small intercom grille in the middle of it. Rupert's voice rang out from it.
"You are now on a nonstop faster-than-light flight to Zok," he announced. "I hope the ride is as unpleasant as possible. You have no food or water, but I have no doubt you cockroaches will somehow survive."
"But why are you doing this?" Andy demanded. "What's the point?"
"Because if you're not here, then you can't save the Earth Potentate."
They all stared at the intercom.
"Wait… what? You mean… did you have something to do with…?"
The boy never got any further because at that moment, the rumbling of the rockets coming into life interrupted him. He and Socrates immediately ran for the two chairs and fastened their seatbelts. Sherman burrowed himself in Andy's shirt pocket with his little hamster head poking out to watch.
"Not even a complimentary bag of peanuts!" Socrates complained. "They'll be hearing from my travel agent!"
The shuttle rumbled louder and louder, and then a moment later, the view of the landing bay out of the window was replaced by the dark cold blackness of space.
"Oh great!" Andy complained. "How the heck are we going to get out of this shuttle?!"
"Considering that the only thing outside the shuttle right now is outer space, I'm actually okay with staying in the shuttle," replied Sherman. "MTM – how far would you say it is to Zok?"
"Indeterminable," replied MTM. "Although, given our current velocity, I'd wager about a day."
"How the heck are we supposed to survive in space for an entire day?!" demanded Andy.
"My hypercube is stocked with snacks and bottled water. Calvin prepares for these things, you know."
"Lucky for us, he's also forgetful," Socrates added. "I don't suppose your radio is working?"
"Afraid not."
"I see… Got any powdered doughnuts?"
"Only jelly-filled."
"My god, it's worse than I thought."
The three friends could only sit tight and brace themselves for a really long flight.