The Great Powers Outage (24 page)

“I caught a fish once . . .” Tadpole started to say, but shut up the instant I shot him a dirty look.

“We haven't,” I said, ignoring Tadpole's fishing story.

“I'll admit that I do have a taste for meat,” he said as he began to pace around. “It's a fundamental part of who I am, just as it is true for you. However, an interesting thing happened when I gained the ability to understand all other creatures. In knowing their language it was impossible for me not to know
them
.”

“But you've always been aware of other creatures, haven't you?” I asked.

“Aware, yes,” he agreed. “I was aware of them as a source of food. The amazing thing about speech is that through it you gain understanding. When you truly know another being, it makes it far more difficult to enjoy them as a meal.”

“So what
do
you do for food?” Plasma Girl asked.

“I haven't abandoned meat completely,” Gore continued, “but I can honestly say that no creature has died specifically to provide me with a meal.”

“Then what
is
the main part of your diet?” I pressed.

“Why the same thing that the zoo began feeding us about a week ago,” Gore explained. “In fact we're down to our very last bags.”

My eyes went wide with shock as the velociraptor opened a cabinet to reveal dozens and dozens of jumbo-size bags of Dr. Telomere's Potato Chips.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

All the Chips

The answer hit me like . . . a sack of potatoes! Everyone's powers hadn't gone away because they had
started
eating Pseudo-Chips. They had gone away because they had
stopped
eating Dr. Telomere's. And when no one wanted them anymore, they brought them all here to feed to the animals. Dr. Telomere's potato chips were the cause of everybody's superpower!

It didn't seem possible. Yet the pieces all fit. The chips went away and so did everyone's power. The animals got the chips and began developing powers. And then I remembered something from the very first time I met Professor Brain-Drain. He had served us refreshments—cookies and lemonade, but no potato chips. When Tadpole asked him about it, he replied that he never touched them. No wonder his power was gone.

My mind was awhirl. I had just stumbled on the biggest secret in the history of Superopolis! I knew I had to keep it to myself.

“Wow,” I said with only a hint of the excitement I was feeling, “Dr. Telomere's! Would it be possible for me to take some of these? I ran out of my own just yesterday.”

“Certainly,” Gore replied without hesitation. “As we've used up this supply of potato chips, the animals have begun finding food sources of their own. Regrettably, this has included scavenging as they've roamed through your city. By doing so, they've made my eventual conversation with your mayor a more difficult one.”

“I'm sorry about that,” I replied. “But thank you for offering us some of what you have left, anyway.”

With the help of my friends, I gathered up a dozen bags of the potato chips. Gore himself then escorted us to the front gates of the zoo and then bid us farewell.

My friends were all lively and talkative on the way home, but I found myself slipping into a funk. Now that I finally knew what caused people's powers, I also knew that in all likelihood I would never have one. I had eaten Dr. Telomere's chips my entire life. Even as a baby my parents had fed me Dr. Telomere's Potato Chip Mush for newborns.

The realization was crushing.

When we reached my house, I instructed my friends to take two bags of chips apiece. At least they would get their powers back. I kept the remaining four for my own purposes.

“I didn't think I'd ever see a bag of Dr. Telomere's again,” Halogen Boy said with a big grin on his face. “I wish there was more.”

“I don't think we're seeing the last of them,” I said. “But for now, let's just enjoy what we have.”

Waving good-bye to my teammates, and thanking them once again for saving my behind, I turned and went inside. My parents were in the kitchen preparing dinner, but a syrupy gloom hung over everything.

“Oh, hi there, OB,” my mom said, trying her best to look cheery. But the very fact that she was getting ice cubes out of the freezer to put in her iced tea spoke buckets about her mood. “How was school today?”

“It was a disaster. Every kid in my class is powerless. When we tried to play kickball, it was like they had forgotten how to walk the way they kept tripping over themselves.”

“How'd my little hero do?” my dad asked as he held a match to a gas burner on our stove. As I wondered if my dad had ever done this before, a huge plume of flame whooshed up from the burner answering my question.

“AAIIEEE!” is the closest approximation of the sound he made as his eyebrows were singed off. “How do they expect people to use these things?!”

“I don't think you need to bother with cooking something tonight,” I said to my dad. “I have something I think we should have instead.”

Surprise spread across my parents' faces as I revealed two bags of Dr. Telomere's Potato Chips. At first there was a glimmer of joy in their eyes, and then I saw the Red Menace's power regain control.

“That's sweet of you, OB,” my mom said, “but we have plenty of Pseudo-Chips on hand.”

“That's right, son,” Dad added as he sat down at the table next to me and picked up the bag of Dr. Telomere's. “Don't get me wrong. Dr. Telomere's makes a great product. I should know. But they just don't compare to AI's Pseudo-Chips.”

“What was it like working there?” I asked as I ignored their faint protests and ripped open the bag.

“Oh, it was a huge operation—at least it used to be, anyway. On an average day, we would produce over a quarter million bags of chips—one for nearly every man, woman, and child in Superopolis.”

“People used to love these chips,” I stated as I emptied the bag into the big chip bowl in the center of our table. “What do you suppose it was about them that folks liked so much?”

“That's easy,” my dad said. “It was the crunch! And that's where your old man came in,” he added as he elbowed me.

“It's true,” my mom added. “Your father heated the fryers at Dr. Telomere's to exactly the right temperature. That's how they were able to achieve that distinctive, delicious crunch.”

She sat down at the table and I noticed both her and my father staring at the bowl of Dr. Telomere's potato chips.

“I'll bet they have a far better crunch than those Pseudo-Chips could ever have,” I said nonchalantly as I nudged the bowl in their direction.

Mom and Dad stared at the golden, perfectly fried little beauties. Each one was its own unique creation—no two alike. Simultaneously, my parents reached for a chip. I watched with only a hint of trepidation as they each brought one to their mouths. The sound of a crunch on either side of me was like a symphony.

“I-I had forgotten how good these are,” my mother said with confusion lining her face. “But how could I have forgotten?”

“It wasn't you,” I said with more relief than I had ever felt before. “It was the Red Menace. He's brainwashed everyone into thinking that Pseudo-Chips are better.”

“But they taste awful,” my father said as he finally broke free of the Red Menace's control over him. He shoved three real potato chips into his mouth at one time. “Nothing compares to Dr. Telomere's.”

My parents were back to their old selves. The straitjacket of worry that had gripped me all week was gone as Mom, Dad, and I sat around the kitchen table, talking and laughing and eating chips. I ate sparingly, knowing that I needed to let my parents get the most from them.

While they ate, I glanced once again at the cartoon potato chip on the bag's logo. My dad said that Dr. Telomere was a marketing device, but what about the Ambrose Telomere from the logbook of the S.S.
Befuddlement
?

As soon as I went up to my room, I pulled out my trusty copy of the
Li'l Hero's Handbook
. I flipped first to the Ds, where I saw the entry for the factory itself. But then I paged all the way back to the Ts. My eyes went wide as I found the following entry:

LI'L HERO'S HANDBOOK

PEOPLE

NAME:
Telomere, Dr. Ambrose. POWER: Time will always tell.
LIMITATIONS:
Only those we place on ourselves.
CAREER:
Too many to list.
CLASSIFICATION:
You're invited to see. Your password is
FREE
.

Who
was
Ambrose Telomere? It seemed I was being offered an invitation to find out—and I had no intention of passing it up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Factory

This was one mission I needed to handle on my own, so at the end of class on Tuesday I slipped away before any of my friends noticed. I walked the few blocks to my house and continued past it heading west. I soon came to a vast stretch of potato fields that ran to the north and south of me as far as I could see.