Read The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back Online

Authors: Christopher Helwink

Tags: #adventure, #action, #kids, #teachers, #first grade, #second grade, #third grade, #fourth grade, #fifth grade, #family, #young adult, #childrens book, #schools, #junior high, #lesson plans, #rainy day, #kid combat, #no violence, #no foul language, #friendly, #safe for kids, #spy kids

The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back (6 page)

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back
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The visions kept running through the members
of SOCKs. They were all startled out of them suddenly when Gears
came running in the room.

“Kid!” started Gears as he burst into the
room. It awakened Kid from his daydream. Kid looked up at Gears,
who was in an obvious state of shock.

“What is it?” Kid asked of him.

“I found out what was wrong with my
computer,” Gears said. He sat down on the table, and started typing
away on the laptop computer on the table. Gears turned the
projector on and attached it to the computer. He then accessed the
surveillance feeds of inside The Playground.

“These images were taken right before we
entered into The Playground – just now,” Gears said. He double
clicked on a file. As it loaded, Kid and the rest of SOCKs turned
and watched the screen.

There, they saw what Kid Combat hoped he
never would see. The images were a bit blurry and fuzzy due to the
darkness of the room, but they clearly showed a figure, inside The
Playground, that was not a member of SOCKs.

“No,” Kid Combat said in almost a
whisper.

“Who is that?” Roller asked. “Can you enhance
it?”

“I already did,” Gears said. He closed down
that file and opened another. It took a few seconds for it to load,
and the members of SOCKs waited in suspense.

The images returned to the screen. It stated
off dark once again, but after a few seconds, things lightened up,
and the Boy in Blue became clear to the members of SOCKs.

“What?” Wedge said. “How did he get in
here?”

Kid Combat couldn’t believe what he was
seeing. Somehow, unknown to him, the Boy in Blue figured out where
The Playground was and worse yet – how to break into it. Kid Combat
sat there shaking his head.

“How did he get passed our security?” Roller
asked.

“I don’t know,” Gears responded. “We don’t
have any external surveillance set up.”

“But, but – how?” was all Rocket could
say.

“This is terrible. How could this get any
worse,” Samantha said. She buried her head into her hands.

Kid Combat sat and thought. Everything he had
worked for seemed to be in jeopardy. Not only was Lincoln and the
rest of the schools in town under attack – now his secret base –
his former secret base – was under siege.

“Did he take anything or find anything out?”
Kid finally asked of Gears.

“All I can find is he downloaded the
blueprints for this place. It seemed he was only here for a minute
or two. I don’t think he got much else,” Gears replied.

“It was a set up,” Samantha said – finally
raising her head from her hands. The boys turned and looked at
here. “Jones. His press conference. This whole thing was a charade.
To get us out of here.”

“I don’t think Jones in that smart,” Wedge
butted in.

“You saw it today, they were together,”
Samantha continued, paying no attention to Wedge. “At the parade –
he sat right next to Jones. They must know something. Do you think
Jones and this boy have known about this place for awhile?”

No one answered. The room was silent and all
the eyes in the room turned to Kid Combat.

“What do we do, Kid?” Rocket asked of him.
Kid looked over to him – and then around the room to the rest of
his band of friends.

“We need to find out who he is. They
obviously don’t know who we are, or they would have come right
after us. We need to find out what this boy knows,” Kid stated. He
then turned to Samantha. It ate him up inside, but Kid knew what he
said next had to be done.

“We have to put off fighting the uniforms for
now. We have to accept Jones’s control of Lincoln for now. We have
to protect ourselves.”

“We can’t!” Samantha yelled.

“We have to. In order to protect ourselves,
we need to let Lincoln fall to Jones for now. We still have time to
save Lincoln, but for now, we must find this Boy in Blue. He could
ruin things for us. We need to find out who he is,” Kid said
harshly back.

“I can’t believe this. I just can’t,”
Samantha said. She stood up from her chair and started to storm out
of the room. She got about two feet from the door, when Kid called
out her name. She stopped in her tracks, closed her eyes, and took
a deep breath.

“I know you are right, Kid, to let Lincoln
go,” she said. She opened her eyes, and turn toward Kid. “Once this
is over, we’re getting it back. We’re getting all the schools
back.”

“I promise you, Sam,” Kid said. “We
will.”

“Hey, I just thought of something,” Rocket
spouted. “If this kid just left here, maybe he’s close by?”

“That’s true, lil brother – we can go after
him then!” Wedge said with excitement. He jumped out of his seat
and almost ran for the door.

“If he did just leave a few minutes ago,
Gears and I should be able to find him pretty quickly,” Roller
said.

“We’ll get topside, radio us when you find
something,” Wedge said as approached the door of the room. “Don’t
worry, Kid, we’ll find something. Let’s go little brother!”

“Ugh. Here we go again,” Rocket added as he
got up from the table and tried to follow his brother down the hall
and out of The Playground.

 

 

Chapter Nine

The Chase

 

 

Finding a boy, dressed in all blue, wearing
silver sunglasses, and a hood half covering his face, was
surprisingly an easy task for Gears and Roller. Following the heat
signature as he left The Playground, Gears and Roller were able to
plot out an estimated course for the twins to follow.

As the twins popped out of the trees in
centerfield, Gears came over their communicators – nestled deep in
their ears.

“South. Head south,” Gears told him. “He went
into the forest. You’ll have to follow him. The path should lead
you towards the mill.”

“Roger,” Wedge said back to Gears. He turned
to Rocket. “We’ll take the four-wheeler.”

Wedge referred to the all-terrain
four-wheeler that was stashed in a secret storage area at the
entrance of Maple Forest. With access to The Playground limited to
just the small elevator, the bigger equipment was stored outside of
The Playground. A lot of it was in Samantha’s parent's garage, but
some items were hidden around town to help the members of SOCKs on
their missions.

As Wedge and Rocket entered into Maple
Forest, they followed the trail for twenty feet. Then, they veered
off to the left of it and approached the banks of Pepper Creek.
There, on an unmarked tree, Wedge pressed a hidden button and a six
foot wide patch of the grass retracted in front of them.

As the secret entrance was opened, Wedge and
Rocket descended down the small ramp and onto the four-wheeler.

“Been awhile since we are on this, huh,
partner?” Wedge said as he started their ride up.

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. I just about forgot
how bad you drove this thing…”

The two boys started up the ramp and with a
push of a button on their handlebars, the secret entrance closed.
They made their way over to the path and started to follow it.

“Keep your eyes open back there,” Wedge asked
of his brother.

“You just keep your eyes on the road,
smarty!” Rocket rebutted. His head went from side to side looking
through the dense forest trees for the Boy in Blue.

The path followed the winding Pepper Creek.
The fifteen foot wide creek was about three to four feet deep at
the deepest parts and only a few inches deep in its shallowest
points. It would have been easy for the Boy in Blue to cross at any
time – if he felt the need to.

Within a half of mile the two boys caught up
to the Boy in Blue. It seemed the Boy in Blue thought he eluded the
members of SOCKs when he left The Playground and wasn’t in too much
of a hurry as he walked down the path deep within Maple Forest.

Wedge and Rocket came around a sharp turn and
spotted the Boy in Blue not more than twenty feet in front of
them.

“Holy cow! There he is!” Rocket exclaimed to
his brother. Wedge saw the Boy in Blue right away too. On instinct,
he revved the four-wheeler up, and headed right for the Boy in
Blue.

Big mistake.

“What are you doing? No! No!” Rocket yelled
out from behind. But, it was already too late.

Hearing the revving engine, the Boy in Blue
was startled by the noise and turned around and spotted the two
boys. Within an instant, he took off running.

“See! See! He heard us, you dummy!” Rocket
said, smacking his brother on the back of his helmet.

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch him!” Wedge
responded.

The Boy in Blue continued down the path as
the set of twins approached. He knew there was no chance of out
running them, and knew he couldn’t stay on open land. With a sharp
right turn, the Boy in Blue ducked off the path and deep into the
forest.

“We’re going to lose him if we stay on the
path!” Rocket yelled at his brother. “Stop this thing! We need to
chase him!”

Wedge hit the brakes and the four-wheeler
came to a sliding stop. Both boys jumped up and off the vehicle
almost in unison and started chasing after the Boy in Blue.

“Kid, we are in pursuit on foot. Heading
south.”

“Roger, keep going,” Kid said back over the
communicator in both their ears. Back at The Playground, Kid turned
to Gears and Roller who were at their computer stations within Main
Computer Room 1.

“Where are they heading?”

“If we superimpose their locator device on
the map of Maple Forest – it looks like they are heading right for
Grauer Mill,” Gears answered back. “They are taking a long path,
but that looks like the end point.”

“Boys, you copy that?” Kid asked back to
Wedge and Rocket.

“Grauer Mill, got it!” Wedge said as he
puffed.

The chase was long and hard, traveling
through some of the more dense parts of Maple Forest. It seemed
that Wedge was faster than the Boy in Blue, as he had no problems
keeping up with him. Rocket was a bit slower, but followed his
brother’s trail.

The Boy in Blue had about a hundred foot lead
as the exited out of Maple Forest and onto the grounds of Grauer
Mill.

Grauer Mill was an old mill that was built in
the late 1800s that was used to grind wheat, corn, and other grains
that were produced by local farmers.

The mill was about six stories tall and was
constructed using bricks made form clay taken from the Grauer farm
and fired in a kiln. The support structure was made out of white
oak timbers that were abundant on the grounds.

Water from Pepper Creek rushed into the
millrace and the wooden waterwheel that was constructed on the side
of the mill would turn. That would in turn move the machinery
inside the mill that would grind grain for the better part of a
century.

The mill was shutdown now, but served as a
major center of the economic life for young Elmcrest during the
nineteenth century. Inside now, you would find an extensive museum
about the mill and local tourists would flock by the hundreds here
each day to get a look at the old mill, buy some apples from the
apple orchard on the premise, and see the beautiful waterfalls that
Pepper Creek formed in the back of the mill.

Pepper Creek opened up as it hit the Grauer
Mills property. Instead of the small, fifteen foot wide creek as it
emerged from Maple Forest and onto Grauer Mill, Pepper Creek
expanded to nearly two hundred feet across.

As the water rushed through Maple Forest and
onto this new large area, they water was greeted with a ten foot
high drop in elevation. The mill workers, back in the day, made a
dam to help funnel the water to the large waterwheel that the mill
used to power its machinery. That dam, made for some gorgeous
waterfalls as the water descended over the apex.

The Boy in Blue knew he had to lose these two
kids following him. He wasn’t too sure who they were, but he
figured out for himself they must have been apart of the base that
he had found out in centerfield of the ballpark in Maple
Forest.

He barely looked back at his chasers. The Boy
in Blue was focused and looked as if he had a plan.

Being late in the season and approaching
fall, Grauer Mill was full of tourists. They loved to come here in
the late summer and fall months to watch the leaves change on the
trees and walk up and down the walkways that led around the mills
grounds.

Most tourists wouldn’t even stop in the old
mill, but those who did were treated to a great history lesson on
the place and could watch the mill work as it did in the old
days.

The pathways and walkways were full of people
looking at the sites today. They were two, three thick in some
places. Others huddled under different trees around the grounds –
taking pictures of themselves for memories.

The Boy in Blue made a beeline passed as many
as he could, without making too much of a scene, and aimed right
for the mill. The twins, still hot on the pursuit, were now
starting to have troubles tracking the Boy in Blue. With the
crowds, the noise of the people, and the distractions all around
them, it would be difficult for anyone to follow.

“We’re losing him,” Rocket puffed out.

“He’s heading for the mill,” Wedge responded.
“He’s going to try and lose us in there. Just head for it.”

Wedge was right. The Boy in Blue ducked into
the entrance of the mill, skipping out on paying his entry fee. The
twins were right behind him, and unfortunately followed suit.

The inside of Grauer Mill looked nothing like
it did in the late nineteenth century. Though it was still
functional, the mill served as a prop for the tourists that now
occupied its halls.

Most of the machinery was taken out and those
rooms gutted and replaced with the museum, gift shop, and ticket
counters. What machinery was left, served only one purpose – to
spin the wheel.

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back
4.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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