Read Online Attack the Geek by Michael R. Underwood - Free Book Online Page B

the hoary days of smoking pot in college, though that might have been inspired by the Hookah shape as much as the existential tugging of the machine.
    A Space Samurai freightermodel came soaring over toward the bar, then dropped out of the air like an anvil when it crossed the plane of the machine’s nozzle. Grognard dove forward, dropping the glaive to catch the model. He hit the ground with an “oof!” but kept the ship aloft.
    He sidestepped back out of the beam’s path and set the mini on the bar. “That thing costs $900.”
    Ree watched as more creatures, props, and game pieces wobbled under the power of Drake’s machine. Plastic fighter squadrons clattered to the floor, war game figures holding skirmishes on Styrofoam terrain went still, and summoned creatures vanished back into the boxed sets, comics, and game books that were their origins.
    For a moment, the room was still again.
    “Thank fucking God,” Ree said.
    Grognard walked over to the store section, running his hand over broken pieces, crumpled boxes, and mangled comics. Ree trotted over to join in as he surveyed the damage.
    The devastation was near-total. Some of the weapons were still intact, but most had nicks, burns, or gouges taken out of the blades. The neat rows of comics had been mauled, trampled, burned, and scattered. Shelves and shelves of games had been wrecked, turned into a ruined mound of plastic sprues, torn cardboard tokens, and stained rulebooks.
    Hundreds of games, figures, statuettes—each designed to bring joy, hone the mind, or celebrate passion for a story or a beloved character. All ruined. Ree felt sick to her stomach.
    Grognard didn’t talk, he just walked up and down the rows, taking it all in. Ree knew he did most of his inventory by memory, his mind an epic-level spreadsheet that rivaled the Overstreet Comics Price Guide.
    The storeowner stopped at the end of a row, beside shattered glass cases with ruined busts and maquettes of superheroines, cyborgs, and starship captains. “I’m going to kill her,” he said finally.
    “Boss?” Ree asked.
    His eyes were damp, shot through with red. “I’m going to find Lucretia, and I’m going to kill her myself. I can’t recover from this,” he said, opening his hands to the room. “At least two-thirds of the stock is completely ruined. And there’s no way any insurance company is going to accept a vandalism claim when there’s no evidence of forced entry, there are no suspects, and it took place while we were all here.”
    “When we find Lucretia, we can make her fix it,” Ree said, even though she knew it was crap as she said it. “Or at least make her pay you back.”
    Eastwood joined them in the store. He looked at Grognard, the bags under his eyes even heavier when he was mostly back lit. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Grognard. If I’d known . . .”
    Grognard cut him off. “You didn’t. It’s her fault, no one else’s. Help me get everyone out of this and find Lucretia. That’s all I need right now.” The bearded geek nodded, and the two men shared the silent solidarity of the stoic male. Or something. Neither of them were the talk-about-our-feelings type.
    Ree looked back to Drake’s machine, which was vibrating and looked like it was being lit from within. “Do we need to worry about that thing exploding?” she asked.
    “Of course not,” Drake said. “Probably. Probably not. It might be best to find another use for this energy, just to be certain.”
    Grognard chuffed. “Just put it in the closet for now. We’ve got a bullfight to finish first. He picked through the piles of ruined merch and pulled out the Hulk hands he’d asked Ree to fetch before the store had gone mad. He picked them up, squeezed the foam a bit, and nodded. “Still good. You all can cover me, and I’ll put this thing to bed. Then we can hunt down that haughty Nabokov fetishist and settle the books.”
    Grognard looked in turn to each of the geeks. “When I built this