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 (9 page)

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back
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“No time for a great plan here, Sam,” he said
back to his friend. He went back and turned to his friend.

“We’re gonna have to run,” he said. Samantha
knew there wasn’t too much more of an option. They were pinned down
in the alley and would be found for sure if they stayed here.
Samantha nodded.

“When I say go, we run,” Kid instructed
Samantha. He reached down and grabbed her hand. Clasping it hard,
Kid went back and looked around the corner again. He waited for a
time where most of Jones’s men were not looking or inside a
business.

“Go!” Kid finally rang out. Samantha, took a
deep breath, closed her eyes, and pushed off against the wall. The
two friends sprung up and exited their hideout.

Their legs pumped, their hearts raced, and
they never looked back. Kid, holding Samantha’s hand the whole
time, was just hoping they could make it to the intersection and
turn before anyone saw them.

“There he is! I can see him!” one of Jones’s
men rang out. He pointed in the direction of Kid Combat and
Samantha. Jones turned around, and to his surprise, he saw a boy
running around the corner of a large brick building with a
girl.

“Get them!” Jones yelled out to his men. The
men, leaving what they were previously doing, all started towards
Kid and Samantha. Jones never started to run, though, and grabbed
one of his men as he tried to go by.

“No,” Jones said with a smirk, “not that way,
come with me.” Jones retreated the way from which he came, hoping
he would be able to outwit and trap Kid Combat.

Kid and Samantha continued to run. They ran
down the sidewalk, through the street, and between parked cars,
hoping to elude and evade their chasers. None of it worked. While
it bought them some time, the men never lost sight of Kid and
Samantha. As they ran, one of the men’s communicator went off.

“Yes, sir,” he said, tripping the switch on
his earpiece.

“Lead them west,” the voice said. “I will cut
them off.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

The man turned to his men. “Spilt up. Head to
the east, flush them to the west,” he told them. At the next
intersection, the one large group of six became two groups. One
headed straight towards Kid and Samantha. The other, turned left
and headed east.

Kid finally looked back. “They’re splitting
up!” he told Samantha as they fought their way through a group of
business men.

“Next intersection, turn right,” Kid said.
The friends turned right and proceeded down Jackson Street. Kid and
Samantha tried to keep their pace up, but they began to tire. Kid
breathed heavily and could barely see. He looked over at Samantha
and she was in the same shape. Kid returned his eyes to the street
in front of him, and that’s when he saw Jones rounding the corner
with a group of his men. Samantha saw it too.

“Kid!” She said between breathes.

The next intersection was LaSalle and it was
about fifty feet away. Jones and his men, to this point, had not
seen Kid. Luckily, they were looking the other way down the
street.

“We can make it, Sam!” Kid exclaimed out.

The two friends picked up a shot of
adrenaline and their speed increased. Kid split his vision between
the intersection that loomed closer and Jones and his men. Ten feet
away. Five feet away. Kid and Samantha started to make the
turn.

“There!” one of Jones’s men rang out. Jones
turned and looked and saw the blurry image of a boy running around
the corner of a building again. This time, though, he saw who he
was running with. A girl. A girl he remembered.

I knew she was one of them.
Jones said
to himself. “Go!” he rang out to his men.

The 400 block of LaSalle was a narrow, two
lane road. On the east side of the street, old brick buildings that
housed offices of hundreds of companies stood. On the right, was
the epicenter of the financial district. The entire block was one
building long and home of the worlds largest bank. Four stories
tall, a lot of money ran through this building as stock brokers and
traders conducted most of their business from inside these walls.
It was such a powerful building that many people would stop by and
take a tour of the building and its workings.

Jones could feel that he was close to
capturing his nemesis.
He can’t run forever.
Jones thought
to himself as he led his group across an intersection.
He will
be caught.

“I know this place very well,” he said to his
men. “This street is a dead end. There is no way out on the far
end. I want a group of you to stand guard at the intersection. The
rest, come with me.”

Jones knew right around this corner, he would
find out who Kid Combat was. There was no escape. The road ended,
the street was narrow, and even if Kid did sneak into one of the
buildings, Jones had connections all over the place and would find
him.

Jones let out a small grin, and turned the
corner. It quickly vanished.

“No. No. No!” Jones exclaimed. “It can’t be.
No!”

A sea of people. A dozen school busses and
hundreds of kids greeted Jones as he made the turn. Being such a
high profile landmark in downtown, dozens of schools took field
trips to this location daily. It seemed today, was no
different.

Hundreds of kids, and their teachers trying
to control them, were all up and down the street. Making their way
through the madness, were Kid and Samantha.

As he made his way through the pack, Kid
snatched a hat from the back of one kids backpack and put it on his
head. “Catch your breath, Sam. We should be able to hide in here,”
he said to his friend. The two friends stopped in the middle of a
pack of kids from a school.

“Why? Why are there so many kids here? It’s
summer,” Sam questioned. She stood up tall, with her hands on her
hips, taking deep breaths. She looked around the crowd and was
surprised by the amount of young traffic.

“I don’t know, Sam,” Kid puffed. He
eventually caught his breath. “Summer school?”

“Maybe,” Sam said. “Poor them, lucky us.”

Jones stopped and looked at the crowd. He was
very angry and very disgusted at the sea of people in front of him.
He turned around in disgust to his men.

“Find them. Now!” he said. The men dispersed
in every direction – looking for a boy and a girl, ones they didn’t
have any description on, in a sea of kids. It was like looking for
a particular fish in the sea full of fish.

The men searched long and hard. They walked
up to each pack of kids and tried to identify Kid and Samantha.
They would ask each class questions if they saw two kids running
down the street towards them or if they knew of any kids that
didn’t belong here. They didn’t receive any promising leads.

Kid and Samantha continued to move through
the group of kids, pretending to be on a field trip. The closest
the men came to finding Kid Combat is when one of the men ran into
Samantha.

Going from group to group, one of the men
backed up right into Samantha. She stood there, pretending to not
understand what was going on. The man looked at her for a brief
second and went on to the next group.

Kid and Samantha just waited in the crowd of
people. After awhile, the men started to get frustrated, and gave
up the chase.

“Sir,” one of the men said approaching Jones.
“We, we can’t find them.”

Jones just looked at the man, then at the sea
of people. He then turned and retreated. After a few minutes,
Jones’s men followed suit.

Kid Combat and Samantha saw the men leaving
and took a collective sigh of relief.

“That was close,” Samantha said to Kid.
“Let’s get out of here.”

“We need to meet up with the gang,” Kid said.
He pulled out his communicator and radioed back to Gears. Kid told
Gears about the chase and that they needed to meet up.

“Sounds good, Kid,” Gears said over the
speaker of Kid’s communicator. “I’ll get the troops rallied and
we’ll meet you at The Playground later.”

“No,” Kid said back in defiance. “Not there.
It’s not secure.”

Kid paused for a moment to think. “Meet us at
your tree house.”

 

*********

 

“Why are we meeting here, Kid?” Rocket asked
out loud. The five members of SOCKs sat in Gears’ tree house. The
mood was very gloom in the room and there was a lot of anxiety. The
set of friends had been through a lot over the past week, and it
was all starting to set in.

First, Jones had returned to Elmcrest. Then,
Lincoln and the other schools in town fell to Jones. Not only did
they fall, it would appear they would have a new dress code. The
Playground was broken into – and no one knew the extent of it. And
finally, it appeared that Maple Forest and other parks in town were
in jeopardy of being turned into another financial business for
Jones.

It was almost too much for Kid Combat to take
in. He and his team fought so hard to keep Jones under control and
to limit his power. It seemed in the few days since he returned to
Elmcrest – Jones’ power only increased.

“The Playground, it’s been compromised,” Kid
answered. “Until we figure out who or what people know – it’s not
safe for us to be there. I have Roller there now – shutting things
down. I don’t want
any
of you going near it for now.
Understand?”

Kid looked around at his four friends. Each
one simply nodded.

Samantha, making a rare appearance in the
tree house, was the next to speak. “He’s showing up there tomorrow,
isn’t he?” She referred to Jones – and Maple Forest.

“If not then, soon…” Kid said.

 

 

Chapter Twelve

The Playground Unsheltered

8:00AM

 

 

Kyle laid in his bed. He was still asleep in
the early morning and dreamed of better days. His small body was
under the covers and a slight fidget went through him as his
two-way radio went off.

“Kyle, Kyle,” the voice said over the
speaker. It was Samantha. Her voice was low at first, but as she
kept saying his name – her tone increased. “Kyle, Kyle, Kyle!”

Kyle awakened from his sleep and rolled over.
He grabbed his radio and answered with a simple “Yea?”

“Kyle,” Samantha said again. Her voice was
very calm and almost nurturing. To Kyle, it sounded as if something
bad had happened. “It’s starting. You need to get to Gears’s tree
house.”

Kyle could tell by the tone in Samantha’s
voice and her demeanor – she meant the work on Maple Forest. Jones
certainly wasn’t wasting any time to get his plans – whatever those
were – started.

The next thing Kyle heard was a large
rumbling out of his bedroom window. The noise was extremely loud
and Kyle got out of bed and opened his blinds. There, he saw – what
he estimated – was five or six dump trucks rolling down his street
toward Maple Forest. The large, yellow trucks lumbered down his
street, one after another, right for the main gate to Maple
Forest.

“Oh, no,” Kyle said. He turned around, got
dressed in a hurry, and headed towards Gears’s house.

The main gate that led into Maple Forest was
opened by a large man wearing a yellow hard hat and the trucks
proceeded into the park. Their large wheels cut up the grass below
them and they trampled everything they came in contact with. The
trucks rolled through the gate, made an easy left turn, and settled
right on top of the baseball diamond in Maple Forest.

“Where should we start, sir?” a man driving
one of the trucks yelled out his window. Just to the left of the
trucks, and standing over what was once home plate, Phillip Arthur
Jones swung around and answered the man.

“There,” Jones said and pointed, “with those
trees past centerfield. Get rid of them.
All of them
.”

Kid Combat made the three block walk over to
Gears’s house. He made his way up the tree house, where he found
Samantha and Gears waiting for him. The twins and Roller were not
present.

“How bad is it?” Kid said as he climbed into
the tree house.

“KC,” Samantha answered. She handed Kid
Combat a pair of binoculars which he could use to see out to Maple
Forest from the tree house window. “I’m not going to lie to you,
it’s pretty bad…”

Kid took the binoculars and went over to the
window. He pointed the device towards Maple Forest and adjusted the
lenses to focus. He first noticed the massive trucks lumbering
through his beloved baseball field – tearing it up along the way.
The trucks made their way out to centerfield and headed for the
secret entrance to The Playground.

He then moved to his right, and noticed that
workers also began tearing up the fence that lined the forest.
Turning back to his left, he found Phillip Arthur Jones, standing
on his baseball field, barking out orders to workers.

“My, God,” Kid stated in shock. “I can’t
believe this…”

“Even if they tear down the trees, Kid, The
Playground
should
be safe. Roller says he closed off the
elevator shaft pretty good. Unless they start to dig too much, we
should be okay…” Gears said. Either his plight landed on deaf ears,
or Kid Combat was too enthralled with what was going on in Maple
Forest to answer.

All three friends stood at the windows in
Gears’s tree house and looked out in horror at what was going on in
Maple Forest. The trucks reached centerfield and workers started to
cut down one of the trees. Within about five to ten minutes, the
first tree went crashing down. Workers quickly went over to the
fallen tree, started to cut it into smaller pieces, and machines
carried those pieces into the back of the waiting trucks.

Kid Combat and his friends sat there in
agony, unable to do anything. Kid knew that if he or any of his
crew tried to stop what was going on – or go anywhere near Maple
Forest – Jones would spot them and link them back to Kid Combat.
Kid knew, just as he did with Lincoln, he would need to let Jones
take control.

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat 3: Jones Strikes Back
10.6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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