Disclaimer: I don't own Codename: Kids Next Door. It belongs to Tom Warburton.
How on earth: Chapter 6
Father was watching out of a second story window at the battle going at Sector V's Tree House, his pipe in his mouth and his yellow and pink robe worn over his silhouette suite. He had first set his chair there when the ships had starting attacking the structure. There was nothing better to do anyway. Watching as the event unfurled up the street, he was genuinely was impressed with the display. Sector V was holding their ground quite well.
When the fighting had come to a standstill, he went to talk to his Delightful Children, whom had gone back to their room after returning home, to find out what had happened on the Moon Base.
After they'd explained what had happened to themselves they asked him about his confrontation with Grandfather. Instead of answering, he bounced a coin off of their bed and commented on how well made it was. He recalled how, when the children had first been delightfulized, it had made him a little uncomfortable to see that they couldn't separate long enough to sleep separately at night. Now he just saw it as a minor quirk that came with their wonderful behavior.
They didn't push him for the answer to their question, recognizing that he was actually trying to cover up his anger at a touchy subject. Instead, they thanked him for complimenting on their devotion to keeping the room neat. Despite his overall mood, he smiled at their demonstration of good manners. They could be annoying but they had their moments.
The villain was more than a little upset with himself. Part of him had actually wanted to beat his pappy up for being so mean to him but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Grandfather was, after all, his father.
He had decided to order his children to get their spy fly up and running. He figured it would be a good idea to keep tabs on Sector V. Besides, his children needed something to do other than obsess over their defeat by Nigel. How ironic that even when they were supposed to be working with the little snot nosed brat, he still managed to get in a fight with them.
Father ground his teeth at the thought of his Nephew. That boy could convince any child to misbehave, even the villain's own delightful children, a feat accomplished by almost no one else. The man recalled how he had told them that they would help Numbuh Zero and his son stop Grandfather. The whole time they sat there and listened to him. Then they pushed him over and took the gun in an attempt to vaporize the two again anyway.
Father went to his lair and decided to do some dusting. It was always calming to clean and organize his lair. There was something about seeing a clean, neat space that just left him feeling better. Especially when he knew that he'd have that place to himself. He actually felt his silhouette suit fall away as he relaxed.
After a while he sat down in a comforter he had in the room he was working in, setting his pipe on the small stand next to it. He stared out the window, hoping to take in the serene view. Unfortunately, it wasn't as nice to look at with the layer of smog from the factories overhead. He sighed in disappointment.
Then, from outside somewhere, Benedict heard a voice call, "Hi Monty. How is my favorite son doing?" With that, he grabbed up his pipe and rushed back up to his vantage point, once again cloaked in shadow. He had expected the old man to drop by at his brother's but not this soon. He was standing just outside the tree house's defensive boundary, focusing completely on the structure.
Father wondered what his Pappy planned to do to Sector V's base. He'd seen the old man's previous attempt to turn it into a tapioca factory. The memory caused him to smile for the second time in an hour. He knew that the older villain was used to getting his way. It must have been a real blow to his pride when his seemingly unstoppable powers were halted by the Tree House of Coolness.
The being outside continued talking, "I just met your son, or should I say my original self did. It gets awfully confusing, figuring out a way to make the reference, as a duplicate." The old man's smile was absolutely wicked now.
A duplicate? Why wouldn't Grandfather come in person? It clearly had something to do with Nigel but still…
Suddenly, a speaker system cracked to life in Sector V's tree house and a familiar, although unexpected voice echoed over it. "What have you done with my big brother's best friend, you oversized candlestick." Father almost laughed out loud. It was Tommy Gilligan, being a thorn in someone's side as usual. His whole family was amongst the most stubborn people Father had ever had the displeasure of knowing and they had brains and technology to back it up.
Grandfather's duplicate stood there silently, as if the boy's comment wasn't even worth acknowledging. He probably thought it wasn't, considering he didn't know just how much of a threat that particular little brat could be. Well, Father wasn't about to say anything after the way he'd been rejected by the older villain.
Suddenly there was a scuffling noise on the speakers and he heard Hoagie Jr.'s voice in the background, "Come on Tommy, and give it to Nigel's dad already."
"But he's ignoring me,"
"Do you think that's going to change if you keep talking?"
"Well…"
As they argued, Grandfather stood with his arms crossed, looking impatient. Finally, he said, "I don't plan on waiting here all day. Either let Monty on or I'm going to start tearing down the tree house now, rather than after telling him about his son."
There were some shuffling noises on the speaker and the sound of Hoagie and Monty saying something to each other before the Uno's voice came over the speaker system. "Where is he?" The sentence, as short as it was, was full of emotion. Benedict couldn't begin to picture the fear his big brother was feeling. Even he felt a little edgy at the thought of what their pappy might have done to Nigel, although he would have loved to see the look on the boy's face when he was brought before Grandfather.
"Why, he's safe at home, or perhaps I'm still taking him there. I couldn't leave the boy somewhere so exposed as the Convention Center. If you want, I could take you to him. I'm sure he'd appreciate having you around, especially in his current condition." The moment that followed was deathly silent. Father was desperately hoping that his Pappy wasn't implying what he thought he was. He was sure Monty had the same suspicion he did.
"What have you done to him?" Numbuh Zero finally asked.
"I activated his powers of course."
"Oh Pappy, No!"
"Oh yes, Monty. Not that he wasn't a little spitfire before. From what I saw, I think they'll go well with him."
Suddenly there was a groaning sound from the tree and a large number of missiles launched right at the old man. They hit the duplicate, which Father knew from personal experience was far weaker than the being who had summoned it, causing it to flinch.
As for Father himself, he now had more important things to do than watch what happened here. He could not afford to sit on the sidelines. He stood up and turned to see his children standing behind the chair, looking greatly disturbed. "Is it true, Father? Does Numbuh One really have powers like you now?"
"I'm going to visit my dad and find out," he said before marching past them and down the stairs. "Jenkins," he yelled, "I'm going out and I want the limo ready to go, now."
He glanced back to see that he had left scorch marks where he stepped on the rug that covered the stairs. That had to be the third time he'd done that in the last year. He'd have to order another one later, if the company was still running.
The tree house was alive with activity. More so than it had ever been before, Tommy suspected. Now that it was occupied with not only the people who had come here seeking asylum but also the KND members whom had been freed during the previous attack roughly an hour ago. Most of the vehicles had held between three and five operatives in them, one for maneuvering the vehicle and the others to fire weapons or prepare to secure prisoners. They'd also gotten two DOH-DOHs which held six kids each and a COOLBUS full of would be invaders. People were now rushing around. Most of them were heading to the newly freed ships or to the guns.
They had been lucky to get more people who had enough understanding of technology to grasp how to build his big brothers lasers after looking at the diagram. So they were able to get some more guns set up, although there was really so much people could do in such a short amount of time.
He shouldn't have been surprised that so many of the operatives were able to help; recalling how it was two by four knowledge was one of the major things that were focused on during KND training. There would be few KND agents who wouldn't at least have a minimal grasp of what they saw. He had personally excelled in that field beyond anyone else in his class. He had even heard that his scores in that field had been similar to his brothers.
Hoagie had assigned him the task of making a device that the hamsters could use. It sort of worked like the original birthday suit design, only it covered an area around the hamster about a foot in diameter. Some of the hamsters had actually surprised him by starting to build their own after watching him. Others took the devices and rushed down several holes in the building. He recalled Numbuh Two mentioning one time that the KND scientists had bred the animals so that they were different from normal ones. Watching them, he was willing to believe it.
Still, at first he had been annoyed at being told to make stuff for hamsters while everyone else was doing more important things. Now, seeing as the population of hamsters had tripled over the last hour and were working full time on their wheels in the generator, he felt differently. The task Hoagie had given him was extremely important. At one point, he had even seen an agified hamster sneak into view only to be jumped on by one of the hamsters wearing his device.
Then Grandfather showed up, or his double or whatever it was. Darn it, why did their powers have to make things so confusing. It was easy to see where Father learned to be such a big, rude Meany.
Tommy had been closer to the speakers than anyone else when the older being started talking about Numbuh One. He didn't like the tone the old man used when he referred to the Leader of Sector V. Tommy liked the boy almost as much as his older brother. He recalled that originally, he had actually disliked Nigel because Hoagie spent all his time with the boy but that had changed, starting when the bald child had come to him for help. Then, keeping his end of the deal he'd made to enlist his help, the older boy had pulled some strings to get him into the Kids next door. Then he learned more about Numbuh One during his training. It was already an impressive record at that time. It also revealed that, in order to even consider asking Tommy for help, even in the most desperate of circumstances, Numbuh One must have had a good opinion of him. By the time that Tommy became Numbuh T (oh, how he wished he was still Numbuh T), he was nearly as excited to work with Numbuh One as with his big brother. Too bad it didn't pan out that way.
So he jumped to the speaker to ask what Grandfather had done to him.
And now Grandfather was ignoring him while his brother was trying to take the speaker away. For a few moments, he and Hoagie fought over the mike but when Grandfather threatened to attack right then, Tommy looked around and knew, watching everyone run around, that they needed the time. He released the mike to Hoagie.
"Here you are Numbuh Zero," The older boy said.
"Thank you Numbuh Two," He said but his mind was clearly elsewhere. He looked really scared. He picked up the megaphone and asked, "Where is he?"
Tommy couldn't help but feel disgusted that anyone would try to scare their own family members like this. He suddenly felt a little understanding for why Father turned out the way he did. Thus far, Tommy had only dealt with Grandfather indirectly for a few hours. The person living down the lane had to spend a large part of his childhood with him. It was enough to mess up anyone. The real wonder was that Nigel's Dad wasn't as affected by the constant exposure when he was younger.
Hoagie put his hand on Tommy's shoulder and said, "come on, we need to get ready for when Grandfather gets bored of talking."
Tommy glanced at the adult talking into the speaker system one more time before he followed his brother. A couple moments later, there was a noticeable silence, he listened to Numbuh Zero finally ask, "What have you done to him?"
"I've activated his powers, of course."
At the comment, both Tommy and Hoagie stopped in their tracks, completely shocked at what they'd heard.
Numbuh Three was doing a last check on HIPPIE-HOP (Hare Inspired Piston Powered Ingenious Exoskeleton Hops Over Parents) when she heard the same announcement that had caused the Gilligan boys to momentarily freeze up.
Nigel's grandpa wasn't being very nice. She was glad her grandparents weren't like Numbuh One's. They weren't even good at giving gifts. His grandma on his mom's side gave him a hair dryer and now his grandpa from his dad's side gave him a scary suit. What was with them and clothes, anyway?
Poor Numbuh One, she thought as she listened to Zero's response, he must be scared, all alone with Grandfather. He didn't even have the rainbow monkey he kept hidden under the floorboard at the top left corner of his bed, which she knew about because she'd smelled it one time while she went in to talk to him. She wished he was here instead.
Hearing Grandfather say that Nigel would be well suited to the powers, she suddenly stopped feeling sad and started feeling angry. As she heard the Missiles launch, she took comfort in the fact that the order to fire them could only have been given by Numbuh Four in the artillery room. She realized he must have been angry, too. Good. If she couldn't be with him in this fight, at least she could be sure that they were feeling the same emotions.
As she climbed into the cockpit she said, in the tone that caused not only Villains but her own teammates shivering in fear, "HIPPIE-HOP, We have a code N-11!"HIPPI-HOP might jump right over parents, but it was going to land right on Grandfather's duplicate.
The other people who were setting up their machines looked up as she yelled only to see the cockpit close and the giant bunny launch itself through the ceiling. The Senior Citizen Squad all looked at each other. Sheldon, the taller man, asked, "Weren't we planning on attacking as a group or something?"
Maurice, the dark skinned member of the group queried, "What was that about chicken and dumplings?"
Jackson called out from behind, "he didn't say anything about chicken and dumplings, you deaf, forgetful old..."
Lydia caught a glimpse of the baby's mouth and cut him off by saying, "You know, shortly after you showed up here, our spare dentures disappeared. You wouldn't happen to know where they are, would you?" She asked very pointedly. "If I come out and check those things in your mouth right now and they turn out to be them, I'll give you a punishment you won't forget even if you reach my age."
The baby's face paled at the comment and he said, "I think we ought to be preparing for the fight right now."
"Good. And this evening, when I go to bed, if my dentures are still missing, I'll pull them straight out of the mouth of the thief who has them. Do I make myself clear?"
The baby gulped and said "I'm sure they'll be there when you look at bed time."
The old Lady Nodded and said, "Well, what are you waiting for, we all know that rabbit's not going to last long, we better get out there fast."
Grandfather's Duplicate melted away the outer perimeter defenses as he moved forward slowly. He wanted to draw this out in order to scare all the defiant brats that were hiding in that tree house. Their missiles, while a little irritating, had done no real damage. The smoke that they left behind had almost been worse.
Suddenly, he heard a roaring sound which preceded the sight of a giant machine launching out of the building. As it landed, spun, and took up a more stable position, Grandfather realized it was a giant rabbit.
"Really! You're going to defend yourselves with a giant bunny?"
Said Bunny suddenly sprouted weapons over every inch of its body and said, "We are ready… TO PLAY!"
Okay, this wasn't as pathetic, the duplicate thought, wishing that he was able to use the agification powers that the being that'd willed him into existence was had at his disposal. It would have been nice to have one of these attacking the base. Oh, well. Wishing won't get a person very far anyway. It was almost as annoying and pointless as hope.
The Bunny began its assault by launching missiles. This time, the villain blew the weapons up before they reached him, some by launching fire from his eyes and others by using his telekinetic abilities to trigger the inner mechanisms of the explosives. He was even able to set a couple of them off close enough to the robot to cause it to sway from the blasts.
Before the flames he'd shot had even completely faded, the bunny had launched itself at him. It bounced off him, feet first. He gave it an angry look as it landed and almost immediately launched itself at him again, this time he shape shifted, looking like a floating black blob with tendrils coming off of the edges rather than a human being. As the Machine landed in the middle of the floating dark mass, the villain wrapped around it like giant octopus and looked in at the cockpit. He was met by the sight of angry Asian girl very real flames for hair and in her eyes.
He'd heard rumors of another group of people in japan with a completely different set of fire powers, but had never personally seen them before. The duplicate would report that he may have confirmed their existence when he was done here.
As he glared at the girl, he heated up the metal surfaces that he'd attached himself to. Anywhere where he could get a grip, he started pulling the machine apart. He lifted the Rabbit into the air as he tore holes in it and reached deeper, destroying its inner workings as he went.
The duplicate was suddenly distracted as a beam from the tree house hit him, almost causing him to lose stability from its effects, causing his body to appear to vibrate and momentarily fade. He knew that the results were visible to the people in the tree house and dropped the machine so that he could dodge the next round that was shot at him.
As HIPPIE-HOP fell to the ground in pieces, Numbuh Three was launched from the cockpit, her parachute opening while she was still in the air for once. She suddenly felt calm again as she floated through the air. The breeze took her right past the duplicate. "Hi Numbuh One's Grandpa" she called out in her usual cheerful voice as she floated by.
The duplicate watched her float, clearly confused by her behavior. Was she…what was that word psychologist's use… bipolar? He didn't have much time to think about it, as several other machines launched out of the building. "You've got to be kidding me!" Grandfather's doppelganger exclaimed as the machines all fell into place in front of him. They weren't all KND either. The smallest ships were so tiny that they either lacked pilots, or people weren't giving toddlers enough credit.
Three mechanical shuttles came together just in front of him forming a single robot. They were being operated by people around his age and that was without agificatication. He recognized the woman in the top section of it, too.
"Hello Lydia," He called out. "How are you doing?"
"I was doing just fine until you used your powers to mess things up."
"Oh, come now. You're not being fair. You'd actually benefit from this you know, you are older than me, if only by a year or two. If you were turned into a citizombie, you'd actually regain some of your youth."
"I have better methods for chasing after my youth." Then she said, "How about instead, we defeat you and then go after your original and remind him that he is not the center of the universe?"
"You and what army?"
"Clearly you have no idea of what's really going on. That's totally typical of you."
Below her, Maurice asked, "The retirement home's serving pickles and juice?"
Grandfather looked at the other senior and said, "That's just sad."
"You weren't much better before your youngest used that recommissioning device on you, Mr. Memory Mix Up."
Grandfather's duplicate looked ticked. "There's no need to be like that."
"Then keep your comments to yourself."
Suddenly, from one of the vehicles above a child's voice yelled through a speaker, "Do you old geezers plan to talk each other to death or what?"
Grandfather's duplicate shot flames at the ship, hitting it and causing it to spin to the ground.
As if it were a signal, all of the other ships fired their weapons on him, including the ones that had been used to reverse the effects of Grandfather's agification powers. Although the lasers were not enough to completely defeat the doppelganger, they again caused the being to vibrate and became insubstantial. It also was more heavily affected when the missiles exploded against it.
He was also unprepared to be hit by a pair of giant canes from the robot operated by Lydia and her fellows. They nailed him square on in the face immediately after that. On top of that, the little brats started staggering their beams, ensuring that there was never a break where the duplicate could reestablish itself. He tried to summon a fireball to lob at his opponent but was unable to summon more than a tiny spark to his hands in his destabilized form and even that just ended up burning him.
He swooped down toward the ground and past the bases defenders, momentarily escaping the beams from both the machines out front and the defenses from the base itself and finally approaching the tree house. Then, there was a hamster with a spray bottle in front of him. Despite the situation, he chuckled as he flew over the thing. The idea of even a duplicate of Grandfather considering a rodent a threat was absolutely ridiculous.
Before the ancient thing finished its laugh, the tiny hamster squirted the bottle, catching the lowest tendrils on his suit as the being passed by. To everyone's shock, there was a loud popping noise and a flash of light. When their eyes readjusted, Grandfather's duplicate was nowhere to be seen or heard. Most people didn't even understand what happened, as they never really paid attention to the world of the playful little rodents that usually powered the tree house and occasionally defended it.
Joaquin looked at his water bottle and then back to where Grandfathers duplicate had been. He glanced behind him to see a couple of agified hamsters staring at him in shock. He smiled and pointed the spray bottle at them as they made a dash back into the house below their home. He was having more fun than a day spent chasing Numbuh Four with a soda can.
Numbuh Four rushed to the hanger bay as the ships flew back in. He hoped Kuki wasn't hurt.
He'd been worried when he saw HIPPIE-HOP leap out into the field by itself. He knew Numbuh Three had to be very angry, he had been too but that didn't mean that she should face Grandfather's… whatever it was… all by herself. Then, when it grabbed the robot up like a doll and started tearing it apart, he'd fired a beam from one of the guns Numbuh Two had modified at it.
Everyone was surprised to see how major the effects had been and he was overjoyed that Grandfather had dropped it and that, for once, the parachute had successfully opened when it's pilot was launched from the cockpit. Grandfather had even let her float to the ground without bothering her but Numbuh Four couldn't tell if she was hurt or not.
Numbuh Five, who had been in charge of communication between the ships and the base, came up to him and he asked, "What have you heard about Numbuh Three?"
"She's been picked up by one of our ships, she scraped her knee when she landed but other than that, she seems to be fine. I don't think we can say the same about the kids in the ship that Grandfather shot down though."
Numbuh Four felt guilty, he hadn't even really thought about them because he was so concerned about her, "Are they…"
"They're alive but it sounds like they're hurt like we were that time we had to deal with the pianos." She looked up as the ships started unloading. "Numbuh Three can double check to be sure but if it's true, we don't have anyone skilled enough to help them here."
Numbuh Four turned to see Numbuh 44B approaching him, the other twin was still a citizombie, probably in the camp across the street. The boy saluted him and he nodded, giving him permission to speak. "Sir, we have retrieved the casualties and need help moving them to the medical center in the building."
Numbuh Four glanced past him to see Numbuh Three step off of a ship. Then he looked back at the boy. "Ask Numbuh Three to help you. No one knows our medical stuff better than her and we have at least a couple of wheel chairs that we can use to help move the soldiers but I don't know where they are."
The other boy nodded and ran toward the girl.
Then, Numbuh Two came rushing over. He rushed over and said, "We've got a couple problems."
Numbuh Four looked at him and asked, "I know that, we have a bunch of kids that were injured in a crash," Numbuh Four said.
"No, I mean with the base. I've got some bad news and some really, really bad news."
Wally felt a head ache coming on. He was starting to get an appreciation for some of the stress that must come with being a Supreme Leader. "Alright, what's the bad news?"
"Grandfathers duplicate damaged a large percentage of our security on the front lawn. We'll have to put people on watch and put a group in the artillery room, just in case."
"And the really, really bad news?"
"Before it showed up, I was talking with my grandma and she told me that, even with both the tapioca and increasing number of hamsters that are being used to power the base right now, we only have enough power to keep everything running through midnight."
Numbuh Four grimaced, that was cruddy news. It was already starting to get dark. He thought for a moment and then had an idea. "What if we put the base on lockdown tonight?"
Numbuh Two thought about it for a few moments running numbers through his head in ways that Numbuh Four suspected he could never dream of doing himself. Finally, he said, "that might work to get us through to tomorrow morning, even if we set the guns to automatically shoot at anything that moves on the front lawn. But we'd need power immediately upon opening the base up.
Well then we'll have to get a team to get more, won't we? Didn't the SCS say they had an entire truck load of tapioca?"
"Yeah and we should have at least some more hamsters freed, although I'd imagine that the agified ones are getting wise to what the others are doing by now."
"If we can distract the citizombies somehow, maybe we could get a team out safely. We might even be able use it as an opportunity to go to the elementary school. We could drop some people off there and pick up another load of fountain of youth water. You remember the type of problems they had when Gallagher Middle School tried to attack them. They could use some help over there." He glanced at Numbuh Five and said, "I know you keep track of the skill level of the KND members Numbuh Five, do you think you could assemble of team who have decent skills but won't be missed much here."
"Numbuh Five'll see what she can do, Numbuh Four."
"We'll meet up in the situation room in twenty minutes to discuss our plan. I want a strategy in place and the team to be ready to roll in the next hour." Then he looked around and asked, "Hey, where's Numbuh Zero. I know he's an adult but I'd figured he'd want to get in on this discussion, especially considering we just defeated Grandfather's copy thingy."
"Numbuh Five hasn't seen him."
Numbuh Two added, "the last time I saw him was just before the fight, when I allowed him to use the speaker system to…" his voice trailed off, recalling that the last words they'd heard from him had been his response when Grandfather had told him that he had awakened Nigel's powers.
Under normal circumstances, Numbuh Four would have volunteered to look for Nigel's dad, himself. As things were, he had to lots to do, including establishing communication with other resistance groups, finding out the amount of weapons and supplies they had left and authorizing a schedule for when people when eat sleep and work. He glanced at Numbuh Two and asked, "I don't suppose you could try to find him."
"Yeah, I'll look."
"I still want you to be at the meeting, though."
The other boy nodded. Then the team broke up to work on their individual tasks.
Numbuh Zero looked back at the tree house. The organization had come a long way since he had restarted it a generation ago. Things were very much in control here. The fact that they had fought off and destroyed one of Grandfather's duplicates was proof enough of that. He doubted that they'd lose much in his absence. Even the emotional aspect of losing him would be counterbalanced when they got in contact with those other resistance groups.
As he turned and looked at the main camp that the citizombies had set up across the street from his home, his thoughts turned to family. His dad was back in power and now had his son hostage. His brother had proven to be about useless for facing his pappy directly and his wife was probably a citizombie.
Monty had a duty to his wife and his son. By turning himself in, he could definitely make things easier for Nigel and possibly for his wife, wherever she was.
The thought of his son going through having his powers awakened and having only Grandfather around to tend to him during that made Monty sick. He recalled what happened when his brother's powers had started and those were triggered by his own emotions, not forced on him by their dad.
Well, Nigel wouldn't be alone for much longer. Monty would make sure he was there for his son. He didn't need to read the parenting section in the newspaper to know that the boy would need his support.
Maybe he could even convince Grandfather to find Katherine and release her from her citizombification, too. His dad might very well agree to it too, as having his favorite son staying with him would no doubt put him in a good mood.
Monty cringed at the thought, recalling how Grandfather had talked to him today. He was clearly one of those parents who refused to acknowledge that their kids had grown up, based on their conversation. He had a feeling that it was going to be nearly unbearable to be treated like that, especially considering he was in his late thirties.
As he stepped into the lights of the camp, he heard an old man shout the order of "Freeze."
He complied and lifted his hands in the air to show he was unarmed.
"Identify yourself."
"I am Numbuh Zero, dad of Numbuh One, Brother of Father and Son of Grandfather. I've come to turn myself in."
There was some talking that was too quiet for Monty to make out. Then the man who had told him to freeze called out, "I'm sending some soldiers in to restrain you, don't try anything funny."
A group of elderly ex-KND agents stepped forward. One of them cuffed his hands behind his back. He felt the barrel of a weapon in the small of his back shortly after that. "Move," he was commanded.
As he was lead into the camp, he saw an elderly redhead. By the way the others reacted as she approached, it was clear that she was running the show.
"Numbuh Zero," she said with an Irish accent, "Grandfather will be very pleased to see you."
The Uno looked at the ground and said, "I know."
I wanted to thank everyone for the reviews, favorites and alerts. I'm glad you enjoy my story.
I would like to mention that there might be a few discrepancies between what we see the delightful children doing in the series and what Father thinks they are doing in my stories. These are not accidental. I figure that the delightful children would try to twist stories around so that it sounds like they are always in the right. They clearly don't always do everything they are supposed to and are willing to attempt to cover it up (such as neglecting their homework, as revealed in Operation ROBBERS) and aren't always willing to tell the whole truth in the hopes of avoiding getting in trouble with Father (such as the reason that the KND put mashed potatoes in the sprinkler system during Operation PARTY). I didn't see any reason why they wouldn't try to get away with other things that they might have done, like starting a fight with Numbuh One when they were supposed to be helping him.
With no available name for Numbuh One's mom, I decided to call her Katherine.