F U T U R E B A R R I E R
( The 3rd Novel )
Secret Technology, Unrequited Love, Absolute Vengeance
© March 2017 Written by David Wicker
Please do not reprint without permission
CHAPTER 3 - "A Feeling Of Uneasiness"
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This chapter is Rated: EVERYONE
I changed the subject with Scant, "Is Marty going to be here ?"
"Who is that ?" Scant asked.
"You know, Marty ! My best friend from math class ! My Mom gave everyone an invitation at school right ?" I was getting a little confused at who would actually show up at this party.
"Oh ! Marty. Sure. Yeah, he got an invitation. A bunch of other people did too. You may not know all of them. But I'm sure they're all here to wish you a Happy Birthday, too." he smiled. Once again, it was not a pretty sight.
I sighed and looked around. There certainly was a lot of food on a large table and a bright pink tablecloth !"
Just taking in what was on the table alone there were snacking chips of all kinds. Cookies, candy, cupcakes, sandwiches of 3 kinds, including egg-salad, my favorite, hamburgers, french fries, the works ! There was a little card on the table that read, "Ice Cream and popsicles are in the freezer."
I decided to investigate that and awaited the other party members.
Meanwhile back home my Dad answered the door and both Dempsey and Pritchart were dressed back in their fake police uniforms and smiled toothily as they walked in.
My Dad relayed the strange message and Dempsey was about to ask where I was now, for safety, when a strange bracelet on Dempsey's wrist beeped.
He asked to be excused for a second and left the room to answer it.
As he tapped a button in it, a voice spoke, "This is Arkos, the Director. Your message was relayed. Stefani is - detained. Cancel bringing Dev in until she is - ready to return back to work."
Dempsey replied back in his burly voice, "But sir. We were just about to find where he went."
Arkos replied back crisply, "I know perfectly well where Dev Borne is right now. After all I developed the Ampotheoric device your team used earlier. We will get him, but LATER. There has been a change in our plans. Return to Arkos at once for an updated mission. That is all." and then the line went silent.
Dempsey returned back to where my parents were sitting and hurriedly took the information they said about the mysterious pizza truck and then said they were on it and headed out. Back in the police car Pritchart tore up what he wrote and sighed, frustrated. Dempsey gave him an understanding smile. But orders were orders. Abandon the search for Dev.
Just then the phone rang again at my folks and Dad went to answer it.
Back at Scant's I was looking in his freezer. I hadn't really given it much thought but apparently his folks made a lot more money than my own. There were 6 different kinds of ice-cream in there including an ice-cream cake and frozen pizzas. It was indeed going to be a wonderful Birthday feast when everyone arrived !
I looked in the refrigerator and saw a box big enough for a cake. I reached down to take a peek certain it was my Birthday cake but it was taped and sealed. Hmm ... I glunched. I closed the freezer door to hear the front doorbell ring again.
Then I heard Lilly from there, "Dev ! It's your parents !"
I went to the front door and saw my Mom and Dad and they both had a bedroll and a suitcase.
My Dad was the first to speak, "Dev ! I didn't know it was a sleepover party ! That's fine. Theodore called to let us know the details."
I thought about how Scant could call my parents without my phone number but clearly all he had to do was hit 'redial' after I got through speaking with them. But why didn't he tell me earlier it would be a sleepover ?
Then Dad handed me a bedroll and a suitcase. The bedroll was from camping, when I was a little younger and had the Captain Circumference logo on it.
My Dad looked around and then spoke to Scant who was standing next to me, "Say. There is going to be a babysitter here, isn't there to keep track of things ?"
Scant spoke in his best mature voice, "No problem, Mr. B. There will be adults here."
Dad nodded. "Good, good."
Then my Mom added, "That's fine. Okay, we've got reservations at the restaurant so we have to scoot. Dev, you behave, and do as you're told !" and then she kissed me on my face.
Scant's eyes got wide and he smiled at seeing something so embarrassing I was subjected to in front of him.
"Aww Moom !" I said trying to pull away. I was clearly getting too old for this.
She was not going to be put off, "Now Dev, you've got a clean change of underwear in there and a nice suit. I didn't know it was going to be such a formal event so you need to change out of your school clothes. I included a camera too. Make sure to take lots of pictures so we can put it in the family scrapbook."
She gave me another hug, "My sweetie's growing up so fast !"
Scant now clearly sniggered and I wiggled free giving her a discouraging look. Please, not in front of my friends, or even enemies for that matter !
Dad pulled her back. "C'mon, honey. We don't want to miss our reservations. Be good, Dev. We'll pick you up 9am tomorrow." and then they were gone.
I was frozen in place. This was a sleepover party ? I didn't know that. Apparently I was numb because when I turned I saw Scant, or Theodore, his real name, going through my suitcase being delighted at what he was finding.
There was a Captain Circumference toothbrush, bubble-gum flavored toothpaste, and one of my old stuffed animals from years back. Not Teepo, which as you remember, was still back at Stefani's place.
"You don't need this old thing, do you ?" Scant teased and held up one of my older Teddy Bears. I felt the muscles in my arm tense up. I wanted to punch him so hard right now for messing with my stuff, but I knew I couldn't make a dent in that fat belly of his and he was so much taller than me too.
With no reply from me he added, "You're a big boy now ! You don't still sleep with - dolls, do you ?" and he laughed cruelly with the tone I was familiar with.
"It's not a doll. That's a - friend." I countered back angrily and then I looked down at the floor for a moment, lost on words.
"Sure it is." he said not convinced and then he took it away and tossed it in the kitchen trash so hard the top lid spun around like it was on a motor. I watched while he laughed cruelly and then headed to the garage to look for something.
I sneered and retrieved it, taking a bit of cellophane from the trash off his leg. It clearly wasn't Teepo but one of my older Teddy Bears but he had no right to do what he did. Scant walked around me as I quickly held the bear behind my back to hide it from sight. Lilly noticed I was hiding something and asked what happened.
I told her.
She was holding onto a pink bedroll that Scant had retrieved from the garage and gave me a soft smile. "Dev, I didn't know it was a sleepover myself. I'll hang on to this, okay ? They can't say anything about a girl having a Teddy Bear, right ?"
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I nodded. She gave me a quick hug and jammed it up in the center of the sleeping roll. Then returned to the living room. Suddenly Scant re-appeared with my camera and snuck a quick snapshot of the two of us holding hands, and I have to admit, she looked really nice right now with a shy smile, not at all expecting the flash.
"Beautiful !" Scant said and then walked out, still holding my camera to take more pictures.
"Let me see if I can get your camera back." Lilly said and then walked after him. As she left I realized there was someone else in the house too but they refused to leave their room.
It was a wallpapered pink door with a single heart in the center that looked like it was pasted from years past from Valentine's day and looked rather frayed around the edges now.
I tugged on the door and found it was locked. There was a light on but the moment I tugged on the door the light went out suddenly. So clearly there was someone in there not wanting to be part of the party, apparently.
"Hello !" I said in my best friendly voice. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin thinking I was still alone in the hallway.
"That's my creepy little sister." Scant offered innocently. "She's on the internet all the time when she's home. She probably won't come out until you leave."
I puzzled my lip for a bit. "I didn't know you had a sister, Scant ?"
He smiled back at me, "Yeah, well, don't worry about it."
"What's her name ?" I asked genuinely curious now.
Scant got cross and growled, "I said not to WORRY about it, dweeb !"
"Okay okay." I said defensively, certainly not wanting to get Scant back in bully mode, and we returned back to the living room. There was a nice couch there so I sat down on it for a second to look around. There was a big flat-screen TV ahead with huge speakers to the side of it.
I wondered if we were going to watch any Captain Circumference but just then the doorbell rang.
In stepped Scant's cronies. I recognized all of them. And they, too, oddly had smiles on their faces. One spoke gruffly, "Happy Birthday, Dev." and handed me a gift.
The first gift I saw of the evening. It was a square box, a perfect cube, a foot across, and light-weight, wrapped in some Birthday paper clearly designed for a young girl. I shook it and it didn't rattle so I wasn't certain.
"You'll need it." he said cryptically and smiled in an odd way. I set it aside and Scant took it and put it on a 2nd table that was apparently for all my gifts. It held pink lace on it.
His other crony handed me a present. It was much smaller and felt like it was blister-packed, like a small video-game or something, but clearly it wasn't.
"You'll want this." he said mysteriously. It too was decorated inappropriately. This time it was with Polly Rocket wrapping. I handed it to Scant and he put it on the table.
There was definitely something sinister going on here but I couldn't put my finger on it yet.
I was handed another present from Scant's next-to-last crony and it was also blister packed, but bigger than the last and felt sorta squishy inside. I shrugged, tired of trying to guess wrapped presents.
"You'll like this." he said with a mystic air. As he handed it to me I looked it over. This one was wrapped in paper like you give at a baby shower. I just handed it to Scant. So it was 3 presents in all so far.
Scant then held his hands out when I looked to him, also expecting a gift. "My present to you, Dev, of course, is the evening to follow." and he held his hands out to show the buffet table.
I smiled. It really was going to be great. He patted me in a macho guy-to-guy fashion on my back.
Suddenly the doorbell rang again and he went to answer. A deep voice called out, someone clearly older than 20, "Scant ! You devil ! I just got your invite from PMail. I know it's a party but what's up with your message ?"
Scant looked at me with a serious expression and I knew I wasn't going to be able to find out the big secret without angering him. So I left so they could talk and I explored more of the house and found I guess it was like a storage room but it was all clearly cleaned out, perhaps for the party.
And it had no outside windows or even a closet so the only entrance and exit to the room was the doorway I was looking at, which was oddly metallic and had like a little thick glass portal so you could see inside it.
I noticed it also had a lock on the inside of the door, not on the outside of the room. I fingered the lock for a moment, curiously. The door also wasn't free flowing but on a horizontal track in a thick metallic groove. Something you might see in a large elevator.
I pushed the door open and went inside. There was a little viewing screen raised up on a table and a fancy video player I recognized from the store that could consecutively play 12 discs one after the other without requiring a remote control.
Beside it was a fat pink pillow, apparently for someone to sit on and there was a short and squat table that held 12 discs of Polly Rocket, an easy 36 hours of videos, but the rest of the room was perfectly empty. Whoever was in here must enjoy this show, I thought to myself.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Scant was looking to find where I went to. I pointed to the screen and he explained, "This is a storage room we were going to convert over to a bomb shelter but never got around to it. So far the walls and door are lead-lined and it's soundproof, but that's as far as we've gotten."
I was going to ask about the videos but he quickly added, "It's not important. Look. Why don't you get dressed in the suit your folks brought ?" and showed me the bathroom. As big as his place was it appeared this was only one in the house, which was also odd.
I went inside the bathroom and locked the door behind me and then it sounded like busy whispering going on outside between Scant and his cronies. I looked around where I was dressing.
The bathroom was certainly bigger than my own. It had a nice shower, a high-tech silver sink, big wooden cabinets, a laundry hamper, and of course a toilet, which was clearly spotless and clean with the lid down.
I also noticed there wasn't a towel on the rack by the sink so I looked in the cabinet and while I found some pretty white towels, I also found 3 rolls of silvery duct tape apparently purchased at a hardware store and tossed casually aside, not yet opened.
Odd, I thought to myself, but dismissed it and got dressed. During that time, the doorbell rang 4 more times. When I stepped out, holding my school clothes to tuck up in my sleeping roll, I was greeted clearly by a mob of teenagers. Not my age, but well into their 20s now !
The guys were dressed like for a club and looked rather sinister and the girls were in seductively short skirts, and revealing blouses also like they were going to a concert or a club. But I recognized no-one from my own school !
One woman almost twice my age leaned down to smile at me. "Hi there, cutie ! You must be the reason we're here !"
Scant was right. There WERE going to be adults here, the party guests in fact. But no parents to supervise this at all. What the hell was going on here !?
(To be continued) ...
END OF CHAPTER 3
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