Read Online Action Figures - Issue One: Secret Origins by Michael Bailey - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Bailey
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scramble madly and I think she’s going to fall, but she finds some traction and clambers to the top of the boulder and sits in one of the holes.
“Beer me!” she says. Matt puts on his gloves and tosses a cold can of root beer up to her, then passes cans to the others (I get cream soda in a glass bottle, thank you), and completes the human concession stand routine by producing a huge bag of Doritos. Stuart grabs it and tucks in.
“Time to dance, monkey!” he says. “Show us what you got!”
“Are we good here?” I ask. “We are in the middle of the woods.”
“Exactly. Don’t worry, we have our earlywarning system,” Matt says, pointing at Sara. “She’ll pick up on anyone who gets close.”
“Good enough,” I say.
Showtime.
I power up. The light engulfs me and that alone generates some gasps, which are the only sounds besides the sounds of nature. I don’t hum when I’m powered up or when I fly and my energy blasts are silent, which is wicked disappointing. They’d be way more dramatic if they went FWASH or FTYOO or ZWAMP, some kind of cool George Lucas lasery noise.
For my next trick, ladies and gentlemen, I shallrise up into the air until I am eye-to-eye with my lovely assistant Missy, sitting high atop the Bowling Ball.
“Cooooooool,” my lovely assistant says. “Ooh! How fast can you fly? Could you, like, fly to Canada and bring back a snowball before it melts?”
“I’m not GPS-equipped,” I say, and that there is the biggest problem with flying: it can be a real pain in the butt to find my way back to where I started. If I can identify a recognizable landmark, something I can spot easily from the air, I’m okay. Back home— back on the Cape —I had a huge mall to use as my anchor point, but I made sure never to fly so far away I couldn’t find my way back to it. Even if I did, it’s Cape Cod; it’s a ginormous peninsula shaped like a flexing arm, which makes it way more recognizable than Kingsport here in the middle of the South Shore.
“That’s a good question, though,” Matt says. “Have you ever tested how fast you can go?”
“I wouldn’t know how.” Do they make portable speedometers?
“Hm. Have you tried to break the sound barrier, then? That would mean you could hit at least 768 miles per hour at sea level.”
“Did you make that number up?”
“No. That’s really what mach one is. Can you do mach one?”
“I’ve never tried before,” I say, and Matt spreads his arms as if to say No time like the present . There’s no tree cover immediately overhead, which means I could shoot straight up and come right back down, which means no worries about getting lost.
All right. Let’s do this.
I climb maybe a hundred feet to get well clear ofthe woods, then I gun it—not that I can tell you what it is, mind you. It’s not like I think Carrie fly fast and off I go. I consciously think about flying as much as I consciously think about walking or breathing.
I can’t help but look down as the woods fall away beneath me, the detail of the treetops mushing together into a green blob. The wind roars in my ears, stings my eyes. Always happens. I should start wearing goggles.
When I look down again I’m looking at a realistic map of Massachusetts, including my sorely missed Cape Cod, in its entirety. A slight adjustment on my way down and I could land right in the middle of Barnstable and go pay Dad a surprise visit. I seriously entertain the idea, until I fail to come up with a remotely believable story for my parents explaining how I made a 120-mile round trip in a single afternoon with no car.
I stop climbing. I’m higher than I’ve ever been before. The sky is a radiant, crystal-clear blue like I’ve never seen before. It’s amazing. I could stay up here forever. Or until I pass out from a lack of oxygen.
I wonder if that’s what happened to my dead alien? Did he come to Earth for some reason and suffocate because he couldn’t breathe our air? No,
“Beer me!” she says. Matt puts on his gloves and tosses a cold can of root beer up to her, then passes cans to the others (I get cream soda in a glass bottle, thank you), and completes the human concession stand routine by producing a huge bag of Doritos. Stuart grabs it and tucks in.
“Time to dance, monkey!” he says. “Show us what you got!”
“Are we good here?” I ask. “We are in the middle of the woods.”
“Exactly. Don’t worry, we have our earlywarning system,” Matt says, pointing at Sara. “She’ll pick up on anyone who gets close.”
“Good enough,” I say.
Showtime.
I power up. The light engulfs me and that alone generates some gasps, which are the only sounds besides the sounds of nature. I don’t hum when I’m powered up or when I fly and my energy blasts are silent, which is wicked disappointing. They’d be way more dramatic if they went FWASH or FTYOO or ZWAMP, some kind of cool George Lucas lasery noise.
For my next trick, ladies and gentlemen, I shallrise up into the air until I am eye-to-eye with my lovely assistant Missy, sitting high atop the Bowling Ball.
“Cooooooool,” my lovely assistant says. “Ooh! How fast can you fly? Could you, like, fly to Canada and bring back a snowball before it melts?”
“I’m not GPS-equipped,” I say, and that there is the biggest problem with flying: it can be a real pain in the butt to find my way back to where I started. If I can identify a recognizable landmark, something I can spot easily from the air, I’m okay. Back home— back on the Cape —I had a huge mall to use as my anchor point, but I made sure never to fly so far away I couldn’t find my way back to it. Even if I did, it’s Cape Cod; it’s a ginormous peninsula shaped like a flexing arm, which makes it way more recognizable than Kingsport here in the middle of the South Shore.
“That’s a good question, though,” Matt says. “Have you ever tested how fast you can go?”
“I wouldn’t know how.” Do they make portable speedometers?
“Hm. Have you tried to break the sound barrier, then? That would mean you could hit at least 768 miles per hour at sea level.”
“Did you make that number up?”
“No. That’s really what mach one is. Can you do mach one?”
“I’ve never tried before,” I say, and Matt spreads his arms as if to say No time like the present . There’s no tree cover immediately overhead, which means I could shoot straight up and come right back down, which means no worries about getting lost.
All right. Let’s do this.
I climb maybe a hundred feet to get well clear ofthe woods, then I gun it—not that I can tell you what it is, mind you. It’s not like I think Carrie fly fast and off I go. I consciously think about flying as much as I consciously think about walking or breathing.
I can’t help but look down as the woods fall away beneath me, the detail of the treetops mushing together into a green blob. The wind roars in my ears, stings my eyes. Always happens. I should start wearing goggles.
When I look down again I’m looking at a realistic map of Massachusetts, including my sorely missed Cape Cod, in its entirety. A slight adjustment on my way down and I could land right in the middle of Barnstable and go pay Dad a surprise visit. I seriously entertain the idea, until I fail to come up with a remotely believable story for my parents explaining how I made a 120-mile round trip in a single afternoon with no car.
I stop climbing. I’m higher than I’ve ever been before. The sky is a radiant, crystal-clear blue like I’ve never seen before. It’s amazing. I could stay up here forever. Or until I pass out from a lack of oxygen.
I wonder if that’s what happened to my dead alien? Did he come to Earth for some reason and suffocate because he couldn’t breathe our air? No,
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