Book Excerpt for The Power of Todd

The Power Of Todd

By William Travis

Book 1 of the Chronicles of Todd

This book is dedicated to my wife, Dominique, who’s constant requests for more chapters insured that I kept writing this novel despite my inherent laziness.

Special thanks also go out to the following people, without whom this story would have never existed: Krysia & William Cathey, Megan & Ronnie Crafton, Glenn Jessup, Seth Schnuit, and especially Robert Willis.

Authors Note: A variety of super humans are referred to in this novel by the main character and his associates. As such there is a ‘Super-pedia’ appendix in the back of the book to give the reader access to information on the commonly known supers.

For more information, contact thepoweroftodd@gmail.com

CHAPTER 1

“Thanks, Todd!” came Cricket’s voice from behind me, her words dripping with sarcasm as she followed behind me on the heavily wooded path. I turned my head to ask what I had done this time, but before I could speak a branch smacked me in the side of my face and I swore to myself that when we caught up with Stevie, if he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.

Stevie was the reason my friends and I were tromping along what resembled a goat path in a national forest after the first day of school instead of doing homework or playing video games.

Mutt was leading us along the abandoned hiking trail and while he was using a machete to clear the path, he was focusing on speed instead of worrying about getting all the branches out of our way, hence the scratches on my face. Erika was tracking Stevie via the intermittent signal she got from his cell phone. In turn, Stevie was out here hunting for Ilsa, a classmate of ours who may or may not have been kidnapped.

I sighed. Cricket was right, this was supposed to be an uneventful first day of school at Rollmore high; we were all juniors and for the most part things had gone as expected. The freshmen had been clueless; the seniors had been confident and somewhat obnoxious about being at the top of the food chain and the sophomores had been… well they had been present.

I had been forced to take the bus since the school didn’t issue parking permits online for people with learner permits. This meant that I couldn’t ride my scooter to school until I had acquired a permit from the office. I had met up with Mutt, Wes, Sora, Cricket, Emily and her girlfriend Erika on the bus this morning.

Our little gang of eight had been together in most of our classes thanks to Erika’s efforts, her father was a software engineer while her mother was an electrical engineer so with that kind of exposure to tech and hardware she had grown up to be skilled at both hacking and repurposing old electronics into something new. Needless to say, the school’s computers had rolled over and played dead when she accessed them and adjusted our schedules. That change meant we were all in the room when Stevie had acted weird.

For the record Stevie rarely acted any other way, he was the school’s dorkiest dork and while his dad was the richest man in the county, all that money had never bought Stevie any social skills.

During our sixth period Science class Stevie had begged our teacher, Ms. Cole, to let him leave class early after he got a weird alert on his phone. When she declined his request he had squirmed for the last fifteen minutes of class and then shot out of the room the second the bell rang. Within a minute he was leaving skid marks as he tore out of the parking lot in the Porsche 911 Turbo his dad had given him for his sixteenth birthday a couple of weeks before school started.

My friends and I had talked it over on the bus home and figured out he had run off to find Ilsa Hersch. Ilsa wasn’t part of our little circle, but we had taken notice when she wasn’t present for the roll call and it was common knowledge that Stevie had a huge crush on her. During the bus ride home Erika revealed she had a tracking program that could follow Stevie’s phone, which was how we ended up searching for our lost comrade in the Pisgah national forest.

Mutt Thomas had borrowed his dad’s Jeep to get some of us there, and I rode with him and Clarissa ‘Cricket’ Moran. Meanwhile, Wesley Hogan had gotten the keys to his family’s van, although Sora Yukimura had been the one to drive it since Wes didn’t have a full license yet and she did. The van had carried Erika Dawson and Emily Ryder along for our impromptu adventure as well, and once we were Inside the forest, we had located Stevie’s Porsche parked on the side of a dirt road near a riverbank. Since then, we had been hiking along this old trail to catch up with him.

Now here we were, with Mutt leading the way, I followed behind him carrying an emergency kit Mutt had brought along as Erika called out directions whenever she managed to get a ping from Stevie’s phone.

I ducked another branch as Cricket asked, “Hey, does anyone else feel a cool breeze from up ahead?”

There were breathless murmurs of assent as we hiked, most of us weren’t used to this kind of physical exertion. It was a little over ninety degrees, being an August day in North Carolina and only Mutt was used to hiking and running in this kind of weather. He came from a multi-generational military family and so he worked out a lot to prepare for his eventual enlistment. Emily seemed to have the least trouble keeping up the pace he set, but she was in a gymnastics program until we hit high school so she probably still kept in shape.

Wes panted as he said, “A cool breeze would be nice. I’m gonna have one heck of a sunburn from this outing. I’m gonna need an ice bath when I get home.”

Wes was a ginger kid, with the red hair and pale skin tone he shared with his five older siblings. He was also thin as a rail and always sounded like he was getting ready to break into song as part of a Broadway musical.

“That’s what you get for being Caucasian.” Sora told him, the Yukimuras were from Japan but had emigrated to the USA a few years before Sora had been born, so she was in little danger from the sun with her skin tone.

“Why don’t you ask Todd for some of his sunscreen?” Erika quipped, “He’s gotta be wearing the stuff to be that pale all the time, at least you come by it naturally; he puts effort into being pasty.”

“Hey,” I said between huffing breaths, “A tanned goth is an oxymoron. Yeah, I use sunscreen, SPF 75 for your information. But it’s not like I carry the stuff around with me, the bottle is back at my house. Besides, I’ve probably sweated it all off by now.”

“Thanks, Todd” Wes griped, mimicking Cricket’s tone, “It does me no good there, unless you’re secretly a super human with the power to summon protective creams…” he took a breath before asking, “You aren’t are you? Because if you are I’ll take back every mean thought I’ve ever had about you in exchange for a tube of sunblock, coconut scented if you can manage it.”

I replied, “Sorry dude, I’m not a super, if I were I’d hope to have a better power than conjuring sunscreen. I’d want something cool like Smart Alex’s inventing ability or Mister Djinn’s magic. Heck, I’d even settle for Synapse’s mind reading ability, it would make dating a lot easier.”

Mutt muttered in his faint drawl, “Guys, can you two not talk about the supers for once? I swear you’re both way too obsessed with those people. Besides, I think I see a clearing up ahead. Erika, is there any chance Stevie is up there?”

“Possibly, the last ping showed Stevie close by and north of us, it looks like he’s within five hundred yards or so.” Erika reported as she checked her phones display, “As for superpowers, I think Todd would need more than mind reading powers to improve his dating life, unless he could control minds too, if he could do that then he might get a date for once.”

Cricket griped, “Let’s just find Stevie and Ilsa so we can go home, hiking sucks. Oh, and for the record I’m riding back in the van, my butt is sore as heck after coming here with Todd and Mutt in that rattletrap of a Jeep.”

Wes smirked, “I didn’t realize you three were far enough ahead of us on the road for that kind of thing, did the guys at least buy you dinner first?” Then he had to duck as Cricket tried to smack him upside the head, but he continued to taunt her as he backpedaled toward Emily who was at the rear of the line, “What did they use for lube? Not 10w30 I hope... that stuff stains fabric and never comes out in the wash.”

Mutt sighed, “Enough joking around, we need to focus our efforts on finding Stevie and Ilsa, assuming she’s even out here.” He turned back to the trail and pushed forward the last few yards to the clearing he had spotted. The old hiking path opened into a wide area devoid of trees where we found something no one expected, a small castle made of ice.

We all stared at it, dumbfounded. We were well off the main trails that crisscrossed the camping sections forest and there was the whole summer heat issue but despite all that an ice castle stood before us, taunting us with its shining coolness. I was still pondering how and why someone would construct such a thing out here when I spotted Stevie.

“Holy crap!” I yelped, “there he is!”

As we watched from our portion of the tree line that surrounded the clearing, we could see Stevie emerge from another cluster of trees near the strange castle’s entrance.

He must have missed the trail we had found and made slower progress getting here.

We all jogged across the clearing toward him, calling his name but he didn’t seem to hear us, or maybe he was preoccupied with the freaking ice castle. The entrance was a good hundred yards or more from our location so it would take a minute for us to catch up. We were still covering the distance when Stevie slipped inside the entryway and vanished from sight.

As we approached the frosted opening to the castle, we could hear a loud humming noise coming from inside which might explain why Stevie didn’t answer us. A quick peek into the entry revealed a hallway of ice leading down into the ground at a moderate angle.

Cricket sounded nervous as we entered, “Maybe we should turn back and call the police or the League of Champions or someone like that.”

Sora agreed, “Why aren’t we slipping?”

I said, “I think we stumbled across a super’s lair! This is freaking awesome!” I turned to Sora, “It must not be normal ice, that’s why we aren’t slipping, just look at the walls, they aren’t melting in the heat either.”

Sora said, “Seriously. We should call the police, for real guys, this is too weird for me.”

Mutt said, “Or the army, and Todd’s right, this has got to be some kind of super villain thing. A hero would have made his presence known in town instead of hiding out here.”

Wes ‘hmm-ed’, “Maybe not, but yes, the real question is whether this is the lair of a superhero or a super villain. Given that Ilsa is almost certain to be in here and I can’t believe she would willingly skip the first day of school, I’m betting on it being the latter.”

Erika looked at her phone, “I’ve got a single bar now, maybe I can call the cops.”

Mutt nodded, “You try that, meanwhile we’ll go find Stevie and Ilsa and then we can all get the hell out of here. Now I need to ask, who here knows how to use a gun?”

He took the orange emergency bag from me and set it on the floor, then he squatted down and unzipped it. Inside was an assortment of first aid supplies along with a soft case that held three semi-automatic pistols and a half dozen full magazines.

“I was carrying guns?” I asked, stunned at the revelation.

“Of course,” Mutt told me, “It’s my dad’s emergency kit, not something off the shelf from Costmart. Dad might be a prick but he’s a prepared prick.”

Emily raised her hand, and we all stared at her. She shrugged, “What? I like to go to the range now and then. Shooting is very soothing for me.”

Mutt nodded and handed her a pistol and a magazine of ammunition which she slapped into the weapon before popping the slide back and forth, chambering a round. She checked the safety and held the weapon in both hands with the barrel pointed at the floor. I was impressed, I mean I knew nothing about guns outside what I saw in movies, but she acted like she knew what she was doing.

“Who else?” Mutt asked as Erika pulled Emily’s phone from her pocket and set it up on the floor in the entryway pointed outside.

“For security,” She informed us, “I’ll link the camera’s feed to my phone and this way we can see anyone coming. Oh, and my call dropped before it connected so I guess the ice is giving false signal reflections. We’re on our own out here.”

“I’ll take a gun,” I said without thinking. My lizard brain was telling me I needed a weapon and before I could change my mind, Mutt handed me the last pistol. It was a lot heavier than it looked. I copied Emily’s actions although I didn’t share her fluid motions and hoped no one realized that this the first time I had ever held a real gun. I’d played plenty of shooters on my Gamestation, though, so how hard could it be?

Mutt took the last weapon and loaded it, then cocked it and checked the safety on the pistol, holding it one handed. “People with guns up front for a clear field of fire.”

We moved to comply as Mutt led the way with Emily on his right staying back half a step and me on his left trying to do the same.

Despite the obvious danger I couldn’t help but marvel at what we were doing, invading a super villain’s lair was sooo cool. Pun intended.

The humming noise got louder as we moved downward, and the air was getting colder the deeper we went. The hallway corkscrewed down what felt like thirty or forty feet before it opened into what looked like a laboratory with the walls, floor and even furniture made of ice.

Stevie was there fiddling with some kind of metal chamber which had a lot of hoses and cables running into it. It looked like one of those cryogenic sleeping pods you see in some science fiction movies.

“Stevie!” Cricket scolded, “What the heck are you doing?”

“She’s in there!” He called back in his nasal whine over the hum of the device. “Ilsa is in this thing! I have to save her!” He pounded on the chamber’s door and yelled, “I’m here Ilsa, I’ll get you out!” Then he punched buttons on the device seemingly at random which I knew could not be a good idea.

We crossed the lab to the weird chamber where Mutt wrapped an arm around Stevie’s waist and pulled him back from the machine saying, “Hold up buddy, you’ll just make things worse like that.”

Erika handed her monitoring phone to Wes and then looked through a small window in the pod, “Yep she’s in there. I can see her through the funny-colored vapors.” Then she examined the controls and made a face. “None of these controls are marked! What kind of scientist or engineer doesn’t mark the controls? Lame!”

“A mad one.” I said, then added, “Guys, I’ve seen this kind of pod before. Dr. Styx uses them to give people powers. There are photos of similar devices on Super-pedia.”

Emily perked up at that, asking, “Ilsa is getting super powers?”

Wes shook his head, “Not if it kills her. According to some of his clients who talked about it later, the pods kill the person about as often as it enhances them. It’s really a crap shoot, except in this case the craps roll means you lose your sanity or your life instead of your cash.”

Stevie struggled in Mutt’s grasp. “Ilsa!” he whined.

Sora asked, “Can’t we shut it down or break it open or something?”

Emily looked over the machine, “These hoses and cables must come from somewhere, maybe we can track them back to the source and shut off the power?”

Before we could act, we felt the ground vibrate as something heavy moved across the ground somewhere above us.

“Ummm” I said, “That sounds bad, we might not have time to do this the safe way.”

Wes looked at the screen of Erika’s phone and informed us, “Whoops, sorry, the shiny magic pod distracted me. It seems we have company coming for a visit. There is a large ice monster stomping its way across the clearing toward this mansion of solidified aqua. Oh, hey, there’s a little guy and a furry fella behind the monster… carrying takeout boxes. I guess no one delivers out here, which is fair, the gas cost alone would eat up any tip the driver would get.”

Cricket squinted at the screen, “Yeah those look like pizza boxes from Cassandra’s Pizza and takeaway cartons from Nacho Mama.”

Emily asked, “Nacho Mama? The Mexican soul food place? Ewww their food is gross.”

Mutt pinched his brow with his thumb and forefinger, “Guys, can we focus on the problem at hand and worry about where these guys like to eat later?”

Wes answered, “Yes, that would seem prudent, the two gentlemen look rather unpleasant and I’m guessing we’ve got about a minute before they arrive. Now that I figured out the zoom controls, I think those guys behind the ice monster are Brine and Sasquatch. Two of Doctor Styx’s hybrids and according to the people that have met them, they’re all around not-nice people.”

Mutt released his hold on Stevie who had stopped struggling by this time and we all crowded around the pod trying to find some kind of release switch. After a moment of fruitless searching, we heard Stevie cry out behind us, “Outta my way!” as he charged at the pod with a fire axe.

Part of me wondered just where he had found a fire axe down here. It made no sense, why have a fire axe in an ice castle? It’s not like it can burn down. Pretty much everything about this situation confused my rational brain.

My lizard brain pointed out that Stevie was headed right for me wielding an axe, so I dodged out of the way as he swung at one of the unlabeled panels on the pod. The casing shattered and sparks erupted as he turned and swung his axe at the hoses with little skill and less of a plan.

We all yelled at him to stop which blended into a cacophony of shock-filled shouts.

Purple gas spewed from one hose he sliced through while another released a yellow mist that crawled along the floor, and a third belched red smoke that rose toward the ceiling. To my surprise, the pod door ‘shu-shunged’ open and a bright light flooded the room bathing us in a silvery glow.

Inside the pod Ilsa was strapped to a padded platform and reclining at a modest angle. She was wearing a metallic silver leotard which in any other setting would have looked pretty hot on her. Right now she just looked drugged and unconscious.

“Ilsa! I’m here!” Stevie cried while he fumbled with the straps before he attempted to pick her up like he was some macho hero from a movie. He failed of course, Stevie had no muscles to speak of and Ilsa slid off the platform onto the floor when he tried to lift her.

We were all coughing at this point from one or more of the gasses that were venting into the room but Mutt and Emily worked together to hoist Ilsa off the floor and they held her between them.

“Guys,” Wes called out between coughs, “that ice monster and his backup singers are almost to the entrance.”

Mutt shifted Ilsa and got her over his left shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then headed back for the ramp to the surface. Coughing and cursing we followed him out of the lab. As we ascended the ramp, we heard something explode down in the lab, but at least we didn’t have to worry about a fire in here.

When we reached the entryway, Mutt signaled for us to line up on either side of the door and gave orders. “All right, I have no idea how we are going to get out of this, we have three guns against an ice giant and two super-villains. I think our best plan would be...”

He didn’t get any further with his plan since at that moment a motor roared outside and we heard shouts of surprise.

I peeked around the corner and saw a person wearing black body armor and a high-tech helmet racing toward the villains on a black motorcycle. The dude on the bike tossed a pair of objects into the air which unfolded into what looked like micro-drones which arced toward the ice behemoth that Wes had showed us on the phone. The monster was twenty-five feet tall and humanoid with long icicle fingers and feet the size of small tree trunks. When the micro drones impacted they detonated with a lot more force than I would have expected from devices so small. The explosions caused the behemoth to stumble backwards and crash to the ground. As the creature fell, the rider closed on the two villains who had now recovered from their initial shock. The bad guys dropped their pizza boxes and take-out containers and raised their arms to point their hands at the rider. The furry guy who Wes had recognized as Sasquatch threw a stream of white mist which failed to hit his target and caused ice to form on the ground where it struck instead. Meanwhile, the guy wearing what looked like a neoprene scuba suit made a motion with his hands and bits of the behemoth that had been blown off its body rose into the air and shot toward the rider at high speed.

“Huh, I didn’t know Brine could control water in its frozen state.” I commented as Emily jerked me back behind the front wall of the ice castle.

Mutt and Erika peeked around opposite sides of the entryway and then ducked back inside.

“Okay then.” Mutt said, “New plan, while the guy in the armor fights the hybrids, we rush for the tree line to the west of this place and make our way back toward the river and get to our vehicles.”

Emily spoke up, “Can you carry Ilsa the whole way? I can take her for a while if you get tired.”

Mutt nodded, “She’s not that heavy but I won’t make good speed with her over my shoulder. So I’ll need Todd and you covering me.”

Emily and I nodded and Mutt peeked outside again, “The hybrids are down for the moment and the new guy is fighting with the ice thing, so now looks like as good a time as any.”

With that he slipped out the entryway and headed for the trees with the rest of us following as close as we dared.

We had gotten about thirty feet from the castle when the rider in black did an arcing acrobatic flip over our heads and landed between us and the tree-line. He was in a fighting stance and wielding a pair of batons that were flat black and crackling with electricity. I felt certain that getting hit by one would be painful and wanted to avoid confirming that theory if at all possible. As he stood before us I noticed a familiar-looking icon of a diving bird of prey on the armored vigilante’s chest and I filed that bit of information away for later.

“Hold it!” A deep and distorted voice said from inside the helmet, “Put the girl down and surrender.”

“Whoa! Dude!” I told the man in the helmet, “We’re her friends, we came to rescue her!”

The rider looked us over and then seemed to conclude that despite the pistols; we weren’t minions of Dr. Styx. “Do you have a vehicle nearby?” The voice asked as the ground shuddered behind us. I glanced back to see that behemoth on its feet again and was coming our way.

Wes pointed across the clearing, “Three of them, about a mile back that way, by the river.”

“Go then” the rider commanded, “Get her to a hospital while I deal with these miscreants.”

With that the rider turned and leaped into the air toward the ice monster, pulling an object off his belt and throwing it at the ice creature’s chest before landing beside Brine who had just gotten back to his feet. The black rider proceeded to play a drum solo across Brine’s chest and head with those batons and as the blows landed, the frosty Behemoth seemed to lose focus.

We veered across the clearing to enter the forest back where we had first emerged and as we made our escape; I heard a horrendous shattering sound. I hoped this meant the behemoth was no longer a threat, but I wasn’t going back to check.

We jogged for the first quarter mile then Mutt slowed to a fast walk, then a normal walk. We were all huffing and puffing by the time we got near the river, except Mutt and Emily, who both seemed to be doing some kind of breathing thing that helped them keep pace without wheezing. I made a mental note to ask one of them to teach me that trick.

Wes caught his breath long enough to say, “Well this has all been terribly exciting, Please feel free to forget to invite me next time, since I’m certain I will be busy re-roofing my doghouse or donating my time to help the blind solve puzzle cubes. I’ve decided that I want to avoid getting mixed up in battles with super villains when I can help it.”

Stevie, who had somehow kept up with Mutt despite being about as athletic as a garden slug, said, “All that matters is that Ilsa is safe. Now we need to get her back to my house.”

“Your house?” Cricket asked, incredulous, “She needs a doctor, hell we all should get checked out thanks to you smashing things with that axe and letting all that weird gas loose! We’ve got no idea what it was we were breathing down there.” She paused for a second as a thought occurred to her, “Where did you find a fire axe in that place, anyway?”

Stevie looked confused, “It was on a wall, beside the fire extinguisher.”

Sora narrowed her eyes and asked, “Why would an ice castle have a fire extinguisher? Nothing about this makes any sense.”

I cut in, “Super villains can be strange sometimes, Dr. Styx experiments on humans, robs banks to finance his work and he tortures people who cross him, but he’s called a mad scientist for a reason. Maybe he has a thing about obeying fire codes.”

Erika gave me a withering look for that comment, “Forget about the axe thing for a minute. Stevie, I want to know how you knew where to find Ilsa.”

Catching his breath Stevie said, “I helped Ilsa set up her phone while she was at my birthday party. While I was at it I installed a panic button app for her.”

Erika kept walking, “That doesn’t explain how you were tracking her. Those apps call the police and transmit the phone’s location to them so they can... Oh.” She stopped talking and glared at Stevie. “You changed the defaults from 911 to your own phone number, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Stevie said in a half whisper, “I wanted to know if anything happened to her.”

Mutt somehow face-palmed despite the fact that he was still carrying Ilsa and then griped, “Man, I know you have a thing for her but that has to be one of the dumbest things you’ve ever done, and I’ve known you since we were both in kindergarten.”

“That means her app never contacted the police, and no one knows she was kidnapped.” Erika informed us as we reached the river and everyone paused long enough to remove their shoes and socks before we crossed the river where everyone re-dressed their feet before moving back to the vehicles.

Mutt moved to put Ilsa in the back of the Jeep but Stevie tried to intervene by suggesting, “Put her in my car. I’ll take her home. My current nanny is a trained nurse and a former nun, she’ll know what to do.”

“Dude.” I interjected, “A nurse won’t cut it, she needs a hospital and real doctors, like Cricket said.” Then I helped Mutt put Ilsa in the back of the Jeep and used the seat belts to help secure her to the padded bench seat Cricket had complained about. The bench had no springs so it would be a rough ride but Mutt was the best driver available and his Jeep was the most reliable vehicle.

Wes waved his hand at the van and announced, “Those of you who wish to evacuate the war zone should find a seat. I for one have had enough excitement for one lifetime.” He smiled at Sora, “If milady would care to drive us out of this nightmare of natural splendor and malicious pollen? I’d do it myself but I am yet unlicensed and might pass out from all the excitement.”

Emily removed the clip from her gun and cleared the chamber before she handed the weapon and ammo back to Mutt. As he packed it away she got into the van along with Erika and Cricket. I followed her example with my gun even though I had more trouble with the weapon than I would have liked.

Wes looked at the van full of girls, “Well Todd, it looks like I have a harem now, I shall try to prove worthy of this honor and promise to...”

Sora leaned on the van’s horn, interrupting him before he could elaborate. He shrugged and decided that the moment had passed before he waved at us and hopped into the ‘shotgun’ seat of the vehicle which began making a three-point turn on the dirt road. About eleven points of turning later it was facing back the way it had come and departed in a cloud of dust.

Stevie told us, “I’ll follow you guys to the hospital, I want to make sure she will be alright.”

“No.” Mutt said, “Todd and I will do that, you go home and wait for me to come see you afterward. We need to talk about this fiasco, you endangered a lot of people with this stunt. Ilsa most of all.”

Stevie looked like he wanted to protest but Mutt chose that moment to pull out his own weapon and he unloaded it with speed and precision that implied he was someone well versed in using it. This seemed to give Stevie pause. “Okay,” he said in a reluctant tone before getting into his own car and turning it around to head back toward the entrance to the national park.