PART 9 — RAGE
"Uh! Oi 'ate birthdoys." A heavy hand slammed the off button of the alarm clock, almost shattering the old device. And it could do that, too, despite it being rather small, as it belonged to a boy who had just turned nine today.
Wallaby Beetles crawled off his bed, grumbling to himself. Perhaps it was the condition of his dilapidated bedroom, or of his dilapidated house, or the fact that he lived right under a high-tension electric tower, but he hated birthdays with all his heart. Or maybe it was because when he turned 5 he had the worst birthday party his pathetic parents could throw, if it in fact could be CALLED a "party".
He didn't want to dwell on what had happened before, but the bright side of that last birthday party was that it was what made him decide to join the Kids Next Door.
Still, even as Operative Numbuh 4, he didn't like birthdays. It turned out that on his 13th birthday all his memories of him in the Kids Next Door would be erased. He hoped that his never actually mentioning his birthday would help him be decommissioned quietly and without fuss, but his lack of deep intelligence made him forget that all his data was in the KND computers and that all of his superiors, and consequently, everyone in his sector, Sector V, knew when his birthday was, even if today he only turned 9.
He got dressed in his typical jeans and orange "hoodie" shirt, and his white sneakers that never seemed to get dirty; thanks to a spray that the Kids Next Door invented that would keep them clean and keep his parents from getting suspicious about where he'd been.
Normally he slept in the Sector V base, an enormous treehouse on top of an enormous tree on another part of town, and he did so whenever he was sure that his parents wouldn't notice his absence (it was sad how many parents never did), but on this occasion, being his birthday, it was best not to raise suspicions and so he slept in his house. Still, having the pathetic parents he did, he stepped out without anyone noticing.
He hurried to the treehouse, hoping he wouldn't be late for the morning briefing by his commander, Nigel Uno, a.k.a. Numbuh 1—
—when he stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a gigantic bird on the sidewalk in front of him. The menacing look on its face was startling and Wally just stared into its eyes. The brown feathers fluttered and that made him jump back, surprising himself. He was never afraid of birds before, but this one seemed different. Its wingspan must have been longer than a car was long. The beak was curved and looked like a hook, and he could just imagine what would happen if it flew at him and tried to poke his eyes—
At that thought, the courage and anger he was known for quickly returned to him, and he decided to take a step forward—
—until he noticed the razor sharp talons it was standing on. He could also see that it was clutching something in its claws. Edging closer and closer to the bird, he saw that it was a small stuffed doll. It looked like it used to be something that Kuki Sanban, a.k.a. Numbuh 3, would play with…
There, a faint smile came to my face as he thought of her—
Suddenly, the bird took off; its huge wings creating a gust of wind strong enough for him to feel it and snap him out of his reverie. He had never seen anything so amazing as that creature taking off into the sky, and as it did, it dropped the small doll, probably realising that it wasn't food.
Wally shrugged and continued toward the treehouse. Three blocks later, however, he saw that same bird again just standing in the road. He stopped to look at it, and the bird stared right back as if it were trying to tell him something.
Numbuh 4 shook his head, realising that it all seemed stupid, despite it being what it looked like—
BAM!
Out of nowhere, a truck drove by and smashed the bird, right in the middle of the road. Odd, that giant bird of prey must have been able to see AND hear the truck coming…
So why didn't it move?
Not having much intelligence meant he didn't ponder on that too long, so instead he hurried to the treehouse. He was late NOW and he could very much expect Nigel to give him a good scolding—
—the treehouse was dead quiet.
Even just walking up to the house that the tree was planted in, he would normally be able to hear the hum of generators, power tools, music, or television, but not today. Huffing, he realised that perhaps Numbuh 1 had checked his file and found out that today was his birthday, so everyone was waiting for him to arrive and then jump out and scream "SURPRISE!" at him.
Lucky for him, though, when he walked into the briefing room, there was no one there. He was about to sigh with relief when he realised that there was something weird going on because he was the first one to arrive, when normally at least one operative slept in the treehouse overnight.
Wally went to the main computer and was about to call the others when he noticed that the main screen had a small message blinking on the bottom right corner.
URGENT
"Urgent"? Then why had no one replied to it? He pressed a few buttons on the console to open the message and suddenly jumped back when Numbuh 1's face appeared on the screen.
Wally stiffened when he saw him. Nigel's red sweater was tattered and his glasses were half off his face.
"Numbuh——r!—ate night miss———out you——————bein—————ture———trap!—Get—————trap!———"
Then, static.
And perhaps it was by mere chance, or maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a very faint ghostly image of Numbuh 3, behind Numbuh 1, against a wall, unconscious—
It took him less than a minute to trace the message, get the coordinates, board a S.C.A.M.P.E.R., and blast off toward the coordinates. And with him gunning the throttle, it didn't take him long to arrive at the location where Numbuh 1's transmission had come from. Numbuh 4 gasped when he saw a crumbling and smouldering building on his approach—
Kuki is in there…
He pushed the throttle.
Kuki is TRAPPED in there…
The computer warned him that there were five people on that floor, armed, but that didn't faze him one bit. Easing up on the throttle, he pressed a few buttons and the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. was now on autopilot. Jumping out of his seat, he braced for impact right next to the hatch. Moments later, the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. crashed through the dilapidated roof and slammed into the floor of the topmost story. As that happened, the main hatch opened and Numbuh 4 jumped out with a defiant scream.
Normally he would say something like, "Who wonts some?" or "It's 'bout toime t'give out some butt-whoop!" but Kuki's image was still embedded in his brain, so all he did was knock out the boy he landed in front of with one swift uppercut. Immediately, the other four boys charged at him at the same time. Almost mechanically, he jumped on the end of a concrete beam, which had another concrete beam lying on its other end, so as he fell, he catapulted the concrete beam on to the faces of his attackers, knocking them out. At once, Wally charged to the nearest door, jumped, and kicked it down. Another boy was waiting for him there, but Wally was running so fast that an uppercut was enough to knock out his opponent. As he continued running down the long hall, others noticed how no one, and nothing, was slowing him down, so they began firing lasers at him.
Bad move on their part, he thought, as the lasers lit the dark hall so he was now able to pinpoint their locations, and he jumped from one wall to another, almost like a frog, and one by one he smashed his foot on their heads.
Oi 'ave t'elp Kuki… he thought.
Punch, another one fell.
Kick, another one fell.
Reverse elbow, another one fell.
Jump, grab, and body slam, two more fell.
Finally, he reached the last door, and with a mighty jump, he kicked it down, and hollered, pale-fisted, with the angriest voice he had ever mustered—
"SURPRISE!"
"WHARE'S KUKI? OI SWEAR IF YEW DON'T TOLL ME OI'LL—"
He stopped, finally, huffing, looking at what seemed to be a birthday party in a large room, filled with lots of kids, including all his fellow operatives of Sector V.
"I'm right here, silly," said a sweet Japanese-accented voice on his right. "What are you all worked up for? It's just a birthday party—"
Wally grabbed Kuki and hugged her as tight as he could. "Oi was s'worried about yew."
She started to blush and said somewhat strained, "You don't have to worry about me Wally, but thank you—and—you're sorta crushing me, silly—"
"Sorreh," he blushed as well, easing up his grip.
Numbuh 1 walked up to him, looking at his palmtop computer, "Numbuh 4, the treehouse logs say that you barely left the treehouse ten minutes ago. You must have been booking to get here that fast."
Slowly, the small rational segment in Wally's brain came on line. Seeing that this was a party, his party, full of kids, then—
"Woit a minute, Numbuh 1, who worr all those payple thet Oi beat up juss new?"
As if on cue, they started filing into the room one by one, many of them groaning in pain. Now that Numbuh 4 wasn't in a blind rage, he saw that they weren't adults, or teenagers, or enemies of any sort, but fellow Kids Next Door operatives instead! They all looked like they needed to file right into sickbay, too, with all their bloody bruises and injured limbs, and a few needed help walking. And they kept filing in, more, and more, until Wally lost count, feeling somewhat surprised, sheepish, and stunned.
Had he actually done that all by himself?
A groan was heard under the downed door, and other kids ran to pick it up, revealing another kid lying under it, sporting a bloody nose.
Numbuh 5 walked up to me and said, "Numbuh 4, you must have really torn through all of these girls and guys if you flew here and made it through all the TRAINED operatives in ten minutes. I knew that you were a good fighter, but I didn't know that you were THAT good."
"Yeah," Numbuh 2 chimed in, "You may even be better then Numbuh 5 here, and she's supposed to be the best fighter in all the Kids Next Door."
Wally shook his head and finally released Kuki, "B—but—whoi did ya 'ave me beat up awl these operatives? Arr y'goys nuts or somethin'?"
At that, Numbuh 86 limped inside and said in her shrill Irish drawl, "Well y'weren't suppoos'd t'mekk it through'em; we were suppoos'd t'kepture ye n'tie ye up wit th'others. Ah cain't believe how hard ye hit, Wolley." She carefully took off her now-dented colander-helmet and rubbed gently on a bump on her head. "T'is a good thin' that yer n'our seid…euch," she winced.
Numbuh 4 was still quite steamed that they would do something like this to him, but he calmed down when he realised that EVERYONE got a little punishment, including the ever-annoying Chief Decommissioning Officer Francine Fullbright, a.k.a. Numbuh 86.
Moreover, he was happy that everyone in his sector was okay, but he was even happier that Kuki was okay.
Still, he hated birthdays.
Though he didn't hate what the birthday included, namely, all his presents and all the ice cream and cake he could eat, and he ate PLENTY of it.
There was one minor interruption, unfortunately. As the party was progressing, the boy's bathroom door was suddenly kicked open by one of the Kids Next Door's most pathetic enemies: The Toilenator.
"All right, kiddies! This time, there's no escap—"
"Yeh, yeh, we 'eard et awl befower," said Numbuh 4, stepping up to him, eating a piece of cake. "Now, lissn' moit, Oi'm not 'avin' a groit doy roight new, so Oi'm given' yew one chance t'go flush yerself outta 'ere befower Oi start kicken' yer butt!"
The adult looked down at the child, then at the other children, and laughed, "Oh, please! Do I look like some WIMP that you have to send your SHORTEST, STUBBIEST, DUMBEST, MOST PATHETIC kid in ALL of the Kids Next Door to THREATEN ME?" Looking around some more, he noticed that a few kids were still receiving medical attention from the nurses, "What, did Father stop by and give you some trouble and Shorty here was the only one who didn't get hurt? Well, then, this should make MY job a lot eas—"
A sudden crack of his right leg shut him up quite swiftly.
Wally stepped aside to let him fall over, swallowed his last piece of cake, and proceeded to beat the whey out of the Toilenator.
And since Wally was still feeling a trifle upset about the trick that the others pulled on him earlier, he decided to vent his frustrations on the adult. As he did, the other kids decided to watch and began cheering him as if they were watching a wrestling match or something similar. Wally, naturally, didn't mind, and as he continued to kick and punch at the squirming adult on the floor, he felt elated as they cheered for him—
"Num-buh four! Num-buh four!"
—as if he were a superhero.
"Go, Wally!" and it seemed that Kuki's cheers elated him most of all. He put more effort into his venting and cracked a few more ribs and limbs, and the imp of an adult became more and more helpless. Finally, Wally stood behind the Toilenator and pulled him into a chokehold, thinking about what his superhero name would be, if he were indeed one. Black Hawk? Red Falcon? The Tasmanian Devil? He chuckled at the last one—
"What—are you—laughing at———stupid?" groaned the adult in his grasp.
"Yer styupid fois." And with that, he passed out from the chokehold. Numbuh 4 proceeded to cuff him and then dragged him to a corner so that the guards could take him to the Arctic prison.
With a sigh, he straightened his orange hoodie, shook his blonde hair back into its bowl cut, and went to get more cake, amid the cheers and comments of how strong and fast he was—
"You were great, Wally!" but there was something about being cheered on by Numbuh 3 that just seemed to send him to the clouds.
"Uhm—thank yew—thanks av'ryone—" She grabbed him tightly by the arm and the two went for more cake. As they did, Numbuh 5, a.k.a. Abigail Lincoln, best female fighter of the Kids Next Door, just stared at him under the brim of her red cap. After a while, Numbuh 4 noticed that, so as he was stuffing cake down his mouth, he walked up to her and asked, "Ess this wot yew 'ave t'put up with awl th'toime?"
She adjusted her cap to look at him in the eye, and replied in her typical third person jive, "Not really, but then again, Numbuh 5's startin' to wonder if you're as good a fighter as her. One day we'll have to spar to find out."
Spar? Together?
Numbuh 4 normally only sparred with the robots that Numbuh 2 designed for him, and the last time he sparred with a non-enemy, that is, a fellow Kids Next Door operative, was back when he was in boot camp at the Arctic Base.
"Yeh, wotevah…" he mumbled. Numbuh 5 didn't insist on her proposal, so Wally dismissed it and didn't think about it again.
The rest of the party continued without a hitch, and as the day wore on, the kids began leaving, and a few required medical escorts back to their bases. Kuki suggested to Fanny to also have a medical escort, but the stubborn Irish lass insisted that she did NOT need an escort, but instead would escort the Toilenator to the Arctic Base AND she herself would return alone to the Moon Base and treat her own injuries, given that she used to be the Chief Medical Officer for Sector W.
Sector V shrugged and let her be.
That evening, at the Sector V Treehouse, Wally walked out to sit on the highest roof to watch the sunset. He wanted to watch it alone, but two minutes later, Kuki walked out to join him. If it had been anyone else, even the others of Sector V, he would have said a thing or two to them, but there was something about Kuki that just GOT to him so deeply, so he accepted her presence and both enjoyed the sunset.
Numbuh 3, despite her bubbly and talkative self, didn't say a word to him, didn't bounce around, or even offer him a Rainbow Monkey™ plush toy.
Instead, she just sat down next to Numbuh 4, gently put her arms around him, and laid her head on his shoulder.
He wasn't sure what drove him to do it, but he, too, put his strong arms around her, and the two watched as the sun sank down the horizon on Wally's 9th birthday.
Overall, it had been pretty much a good day, as far as birthdays go, not too disappointing, compared to the birthdays he had before he joined the Kids Next Door. Twenty minutes later, the Japanese and the Australian walked hand-in-hand to their respective houses.
Wally dropped her off at her house, and before she went inside, she gave him a big hug and bounced inside. The Aussie stood dumbstruck for a moment before coming to his sense, and he headed off towards the high-tension towers, where his house was.
As he thought about this day, he realised that it had been a good birthday after all, not a bad one at all. Perhaps he would have to give more thought on how he felt about them.
But still, there was that one dark cloud in his future.
He turned 9 today, which was fine, but in four more years, he would be decommissioned, and everything that happened before would be forgotten. Despite all the fun he would have, that was ALWAYS the worst part about birthdays that always lingered in the back of his—
THUD!
He tripped over an untied shoelace.
He hated birthdays. There was no doubt about it.
TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED