The Great Powers Outage Read online

  “So what exactly is it that you’re curious about?” asked a skeptical Miss Marble.

  “I’d like to know what you can tell us about the Red Menace,” I said.

  “The Red Menace?” Miss Marble responded as if she hadn’t heard the name in decades. “The Red Menace is a villain who went away when I was half your age. What could you possibly need to know about him?”

  “He’s free now,” I informed her, “and I think it might be important to know something about him.”

  “Well if he’s free, the Superopolis Parole Board obviously thought it was safe to release him,” she said. “End of story. Now let’s get back to discussing the election.”

  “I have something very important I need to tell everyone regarding the election,” Transparent Girl blurted out. Miss Marble happily took the opportunity to move on from my questioning.

  “Certainly, Transparent Girl.” She nodded. “You have the floor.”

  “As your candidate for treasurer,” she began as she rose to her feet, “I think it’s my duty to alert you all to the fiscal crisis that is brewing right beneath our noses.”

  LI’L HERO’S HANDBOOK

  PEOPLE

  NAME: Transparent Girl. POWER: The ability to make herself nearly invisible. LIMITATIONS: She always leaves a partial outline. CAREER: With motives as transparent as she is herself, we expect her future goals to be readily apparent to all. CLASSIFICATION: You can see right through her.

  We all glanced down to see if there was anything beneath our noses, but found only our desks. Transparent Girl was up to something, and I glanced up at her semitranslucent form as I tried to figure out what it might be.

  “Our class treasury,” she continued, “has been completely depleted thanks to the financial incompetence of my opponent, Ordinary Boy.”

  “What??!!” I shot up from my seat. “I’m not the treasurer. We don’t even have one yet.”

  “Miss Marble,” she huffed as she became even more transparent, “I believe I have the floor.”

  “You do”—Miss Marble frowned—“but you better be careful how you use it if you’re going to make accusations like that.”

  “It’s true,” she insisted. “Just this afternoon, I came back from recess and found our fish food fund completely empty—robbed of everything it contained.”

  “I didn’t take it!” I fumed.

  “I never said you did,” she said as she faded to just a vague outline. “But isn’t it true that you did nothing to prevent the theft?”

  “Neither did you,” I shot back.

  “On the contrary,” she responded smugly, “I am now doing everything I can to prevent you from causing further harm by getting myself elected class treasurer.”

  Just as I was about to blow up again, I spotted the coins in her pocket. Unlike her, they had not faded at all. There was exactly twenty-three cents, plus two pencil stubs.

  “What’s more,” she went on as I began to point and sputter, “if elected, I will create a new fund with money raised by selling all our schoolbooks to buy more cans of AI’s Pseudo-Chips.”

  The class erupted into cheers as I sank into my seat in frustration.

  “Meanwhile, my opponent”—Transparent Girl went in for the kill—“doesn’t even like Pseudo-Chips.”

  The shocked and disapproving silence from my classmates was interrupted only by the final bell. With Transparent Girl’s charges unanswered we filed from class. I was fuming at how this had all been turned against me. How was I going to recover from her charges?

  “So are you going to come with us?” asked Plasma Girl.

  “Huh?” I responded, jolted out of my train of thought. “Come with you where?”

  “We were saying that we wanted to go to the Mighty Mart,” she said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Stench. “Miss Marble took all our Pseudo-Chips and we need to buy more.”

  “Maybe if you get some, too, they’ll help keep you focused,” Tadpole suggested. “Everyone knows that they sharpen the mind.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” I snorted. “They’re potato chips—and barely even that!—not some kind of miracle food.”

  My friends stared at me as if I had made some unforgivable comment.

  “Fine,” Plasma Girl said with a sniff after an uncomfortable pause. “Don’t come with us.”

  As they turned to head for the Mighty Mart, I felt like I was about to lose my best friends. Until I knew what the Red Menace was up to, I needed to give my teammates the benefit of the doubt.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” I said. “It’s not right of me to make fun of something that you all like. I’ll come along with you and I promise to stop insulting AI’s chips—as long as I can still keep insulting AI himself.”

  “Do as much of that as you want,” Halogen Boy said with a grin.

  When we got to the Mighty Mart, the place was mobbed with customers, and they were all there for one purpose—to buy even more of the Amazing Indestructo’s Amazing Pseudo-Chips. My friends rushed off to do likewise.

  Having no interest in Pseudo-Chips, I wandered over to one of the aisles that held the entire Dr. Telomere’s line to pick out some real chips for myself. I arrived just as the last jumbo-size bags of Dr. Telomere’s X-tra Crispy Potato Chips were being boxed up.

  “What happened to all the Dr. Telomere’s?” I asked incredulously as I grabbed the final two bags off the shelf. Mr. Mister, the store manager, was supervising the switchover and turned around at my comment.

  “Nobody wants any of those relics of the past.” He sniffed dismissively as a fine spray of moisture drifted down onto my head.

  “I do!” I blurted out.

  “Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” he replied. “You seem to be the only one who wants them. The Dr. Telomere’s factory has already ceased production, and we’re dumping what we have in order to make room for more Pseudo-Chips.”

  I glared up at Mr. Mister. I assumed he was equally irritated with me based on the amount of mist that was gathering around his head. Before I could say something I shouldn’t, I heard a familiar voice from the next aisle over.

  “But how can I not tell people how incredible they are?”

  “Dad?” I followed my father’s voice to the snack cake aisle where he was stationed in front of a huge display of Maximizer Brand products. Only he wasn’t holding any Maximizer cakes but rather a can of Amazing Indestructo Pseudo-Chips. His boss, the Great Garbanzo, was standing there, too, and he clearly wasn’t happy.

  “I don’t gives a monkey’s butt how much youse likes dem chips,” fumed the giant chickpea. “Youse guys woik for me, not de Amazin’ Indestructo.”

  “But nobody is buying anything but PseudoChips,” my dad insisted. “Nobody’s even paying attention to us.”

  “Den clearlies I hired myself de wrong team a heroes.” The Great Garbanzo dropped his voice to a menacing level. I just knew this wasn’t going to be good. “So it’s times I gets myself a new one. Youse, and yer whole team, is FIRED!”

  The expression of surprise on my father’s face turned to utter humiliation as he looked over and saw that I had witnessed the whole thing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When the Chips Are Down

  My dad put on a brave face as we walked home, but I could tell he was devastated at having been fired. That it had happened in front of me just made it a hundred times worse.

  “It’s not really a big deal, Dad,” I said. “Everybody is spending so much of their money on Pseudo-Chips that nobody has any left to spend on Maximizer snack cakes, anyway.”

  “Maximizer Brand snack cakes,” he replied out of force of habit. “But we finally had an endorsement deal. Do you know how hard they are to get?”

  “I know. But the Great Garbanzo is a jerk,” I said. “Even worse. He’s a joik!”

  That got a small laugh out of my dad.

  “Something will come along,” I continued. “Besides, it’s not like you’d be any be
tter off if you’d remained at Dr. Telomere’s. They’re out of business entirely.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day.” My father sighed as he shook his head.

  “How long has the company been around?” I asked.

  “Forever.” He shrugged. “Or at least for as long as I can remember. Dr. Telomere’s chips have just always been there.”

  “Until now,” I concluded his thought. “But who owns the company, anyway? Is there really a Dr. Telomere?”

  “Oh, no.” My dad laughed—this time a little more genuinely. “Dr. Telomere is just a marketing character. Look at the bag.”

  I pulled out one of the bags of Dr. Telomere’s X-tra Crispy Chips that I had managed to buy. Framed in a circle, within the overall brand logo, was a smiling potato chip wearing pince-nez glasses, a bow tie, and a derby. He was winking as if he were sharing a secret with me.

  “That’s Dr. Telomere.” My father chuckled. “Does he look like he could be a real person?”

  LI’L HERO’S HANDBOOK

  THINGS

  DR. TELOMERE

  Despite his fragile nature, Dr. Telomere is one potato chip that has long avoided being crushed or consumed. Earlier, more realistic versions of the popular advertising icon have steadily changed over the decades into the simple cartoon figure everyone is familiar with today. Despite once being able to sing and dance, the character has been mute now for some time, making it impossible to glean any of the secrets he may possess.

  Considering that Dad had just been fired by a guy who looked like a giant chickpea, I wasn’t certain that the answer to that question was so obvious.

  “Who owns the business, then?” I prodded.

  “The Telomere Trust,” my dad said as we continued to walk. “It’s a fund that uses the profits from the business to pay for things for the community.”

  “Like Telomere Park,” I said.

  “Exactly. The Telomere Trust has done all sorts of good things for the people of Superopolis.”

  “I’m sure the Amazing Indestructo is going to be equally generous with his profits,” I suggested sarcastically.

  “He’s going to make a fortune,” my father agreed with a sigh. “How could he not with such a phenomenal product.”

  I cringed as Dad retrieved one of the cans of Pseudo-Chips we had also bought, popped off the lid, and started eating them. How was I going to break him free from the Red Menace’s hold? As we arrived home, I remembered that he wasn’t the only one I was going to have to rescue. My mom was in the driveway with her own grocery bags full of PseudoChips.

  “Thermo! OB!” she shouted. “You’re just in time to help me unload the rest of my groceries. I found a roadside stand on my way home that was selling PseudoChips. I figured we could use some more.”

  There had to be another hundred cans of chips in the car. With a shrug of resignation, I grabbed a few bags and helped my parents haul them into the house. Dad had put on a big phony smile and I realized that he wasn’t ready yet to tell Mom what had just happened to his endorsement deal. I gave him a wink to let him know that she wouldn’t hear it from me.

  “How was work, Mom?” I asked.

  “Oh, the usual,” was all she said.

  I’ve never understood exactly what my mom does at the Corpsicle Coolant Corporation. Whenever I ask, she always just says something about frozen vegetables, which usually is enough to end the conversation.

  As I set the bags of chips down on our kitchen counter, I actually hoped we would be having some frozen vegetables tonight. The thought of a meal of only Pseudo-Chips wasn’t a pleasant one. But that was apparently what was on the menu as Mom poured an entire can into a bowl for my father and then another for herself. As she reached for a third, presumably for me, I stopped her.

  “I’ll just have these,” I said, holding up one of my bags of Dr. Telomere’s.

  My parents looked at me as if I had just announced I was quitting school to become a mime. Unsure how to respond, they grudgingly let me proceed. We all sat down at the dinner table with our preferred brands of chips. There was an uncomfortable silence that I decided to break with a question I had been trying to get an answer to all day.

  “Mom? Dad?” I began. “Do either of you know anything about the Red Menace?”

  “Is that a brand of chewing gum?” my father asked. “It’s cinnamony, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head as both he and Mom stared at each other blankly. It was beginning to dawn on me that nobody in this city had much knowledge or interest in history—unless it directly involved them somehow.

  “He’s a villain,” I supplied them the answer. “He was put in prison fifty years ago and they’ve just let him out.”

  “Well, that was nice of the city,” my mom responded. “He must be very old by now and obviously can’t cause any harm. What is his power?”

  “He can convince people to do anything he wants them to do,” I said looking them directly in the eyes.

  Their vacant expressions told me that I hadn’t gotten my point across. “Like switch to a new kind of potato chip, even if it isn’t any good,” I added.

  “Well, he’ll never get anywhere with that.” My dad laughed. “No one could ever convince people to switch from AI’s Amazing Pseudo-Chips.”

  I dropped my head in exasperation. How was I going to convince my parents that Comrade Crunch/the Red Menace was up to no good? I finished off the small bowl of potato chips in front of me and then excused myself.

  “I think I need to go up to my room and lie down for a while,” I announced, only partly feigning exhaustion.

  The truth was, I was completely baffled. What was going on with the Red Menace and AI’s Pseudo-Chips? I went into my room and flopped onto the bed. Absentmindedly, I picked up a knitting needle that was sitting on my nightstand. It was my one souvenir from my recent trip back in time, and I began tapping it against the side of my head as I thought things through.

  What had me flustered was the realization that the Red Menace hadn’t broken any laws. He had been paroled from jail, and the Amazing Indestructo had legitimately hired him to promote his new line of potato chips. There wasn’t anything prohibiting the Red Menace from using his power to advertise a product. Single-handedly driving Superopolis’s most successful company out of business might not have been nice, but it wasn’t illegal.

  Clearly this had to be a far tamer use of his power than the events of fifty years ago that got him sent to prison for 1,636 years. But what had he done to deserve that sentence in the first place? I needed to know more about him. If only there was someone I could turn to for information.

  And then it hit me—literally. I stopped tapping the knitting needle against my head and looked at it. Not only did I know the person best able to reveal the Red Menace’s criminal past but I also had the perfect excuse to pay him a visit.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On Pins and Needles

  “Okay, I know you guys think I’m overreacting about the Red Menace,” I said to my friends as we left school the next day. “But I think there’s someone who can give us all the information we need about him.”

  “If you’re talking about Comrade Crunch, I don’t know what your problem is,” Tadpole replied stubbornly.

  “Yeah, O Boy,” agreed Stench. “We know you don’t like the Pseudo-Chips, but that’s no reason to believe that Comrade Crunch is up to anything evil.”

  “That’s not all . . .” Plasma Girl started to speak but then hesitated. She glanced nervously at the other members of the team.

  “What is it?” I demanded. Clearly there was something they were afraid to tell me.

  “Well,” she continued haltingly, “it’s just that everyone loves AI’s Pseudo-Chips—except you.”

  “And?” I pressed.

  “Everyone thinks there’s something strange about you because of it,” Halogen Boy added softly.

  “And it’s messing up our chances in the election,” Tadpole felt compelled to add.
>
  I was struck silent for a moment. All my life people had thought of me as different—for the simple reason that I am different. My lack of a power had marked me that way from birth. But I’d had years to get used to it, and so had my friends. So the fact that even they were now expressing doubt really hurt.

  “Fine,” I said as calmly as I could. “Just come with me and keep an open mind. If you still feel that way after our next stop, I’ll concede the point.”

  “Where exactly are we going?” Hal asked.

  “We’re going to visit the leader of the League of Goodness,” I announced as I produced the knitting needle I had been keeping in my backpack all day.

  “The Amazing Indestructo?!” they all exclaimed in unison.

  “Why would he do anything to help us?” Plasma Girl said in exasperation.

  “And when did he take up knitting?” asked Hal.

  “Not the leader of the League of Ultimate Goodness,” I corrected them. “I’m talking about the original League of Goodness—before AI took control and turned the group into a bunch of bungling boneheads. We’re going to go see Lord Pincushion.”

  My teammates had never been officially introduced to the legendary hero, and were excited to meet him. Their mood improved dramatically as I led them to the base of Needlepoint Hill.

  “How are we going to get up there?” Tadpole asked as his eyes followed the thousands of stairs that crisscrossed their way up the hill to the mansion that sat atop it. “It would take forever to climb it.”

  Tadpole was right, of course. I had climbed it myself just a week earlier. Since then, I had learned of a simpler way.

  “Follow me,” I said as I led them around to the other side of the hill. There, partly obscured behind some bushes and trees, was an elevator door. Once inside I pressed the button for the main entrance to Pinprick Manor.

  The car rose quickly up the interior of Needlepoint Hill. When it finally came to a stop, the doors opened to reveal a beautifully wood-paneled foyer. And standing there waiting for us was the founder of the League of Goodness himself.