Chapter 7
THE SHRINK-WRAPPED SQUADRON leaped back a half step when Joe, Willy, Dana, and Emma vanished.
“Take a hint, guys,” I said to the small army circled around me. “Do like my friends just did. Disappear.”
“I said on your knees, son,” grunted the lead goon through his helmet radio.
Interesting. He called me “son,” but I knew he wasn’t my dad, because when my father pops in for a surprise training seminar, he seldom travels with a posse of weapon-toting thugs.
And just to get you up to speed: my father, my mother, and my little sister, Pork Chop, have something in common with my four best friends—they exist only as living, breathing creations of my very vivid imagination.
“Son, let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be,” said the robot-voiced squad commander.
Okay, he did that “son” thing again. I knew that none of Number 2’s battling barbarians would bother politely addressing me like family.
Who are these guys? I wondered.
Fortunately, a storm trooper to my left made a seriously stupid move with his weapon that sent my personal danger alert plummeting to DEFCON Zero.
The doofus was carrying his double-barreled benzene-powered vaporizer backward! If he squeezed the trigger, he’d fry himself to a crispy, crackly crunch. These guys weren’t aliens. They were amateurs.
“Who are you people?” I asked.
“FBI. On your knees. Now.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not big on bowing down before people, especially when they’re dressed up like oversized FedEx envelopes.”
“I repeat: We are with the FBI.”
“Really? I guess that makes sense, if FBI stands for Freak Boy Institute.”
“You want me to cuff the smart mouth?” barked another one of the guys in what I now recognized to be hazmat suits, those Tyvek outfits people wear to clean up nuclear meltdowns, biological waste, chemical spills—that sort of thing. Tough Guy slung his weapon over his shoulder and brandished a pair of FlexiCuffs so he could hog-tie my hands behind my back.
I focused on the plastic straps.
And turned them into strawberry Twizzlers.