Brainwashed! Read online

  “Wh-who’s there?” Arty gasped.

  “I’m every bad dream you’ve ever had.”

  The misshapen new mayor of Sitting Duck hobbled from the shadows, glowering at them with his googly eyes.

  His thin lips contorted into a nasty smirk. “Or should that be ‘every Goode dream’?”

  * * *

  Other Stuff in Dr. Goode’s Base

  • A big laser

  • An even bigger laser

  • A rabbit with crab legs

  • A crab with no legs

  • A detailed plan for creating an unstoppable army of ducks

  • A Supervillain of the Year runner-up trophy from 2003

  • A lake of acid filled with acid-resistant killer penguins

  • A World’s Best Dad mug

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A buffoonish big lump of a shape wrapped around Priscilla just as she opened fire on Sam. The shot went wide, freezing one of her own guards to the spot.

  Priscilla growled and wriggled as Jesse hoisted her off the ground. The gun clattered to the floor at Sam’s feet. He snatched it up quicker than it took you to read this sentence.

  “I love you, Priscilla,” cried Jesse. “I love you, you big power-crazed maniac, but I can’t let you do this!”

  “Let me go!”

  “Not until you stop being a crazy person,” Jesse said. “And when you do, will you marry me?”

  “Of course not!” Priscilla growled. Jesse’s shoulders sagged.

  “Oh, right. That’s a pity,” he said, then he dropped her. She had just enough time to let out a little yelp of panic before her face smacked off the concrete floor. Before she could get back up, Sam had the gun pointed at her face.

  “Don’t move,” he warned.

  Priscilla’s eyes closed and her shoulders began to shake. At first, Sam thought she was crying, but then he realized she was doing just the opposite.

  “Idiot boy,” she laughed. “Look around you.”

  Sam’s eyes darted left and right. The townsfolk loomed around him, their weapons raised and at the ready. There was no way he could take them all on, even with the gun.

  “You’re vastly outnumbered. Even if you do manage to freeze me, you won’t accomplish anything. Face it.” She sniggered. “You’ve lost. One push of one little button and the whole world will fall at my father’s feet.”

  “Okay. You’re right,” Sam admitted. “I give up. You win and … LOOK AT THAT PUPPY!”

  Even through their hypnotic haze, the crowd was powerless to resist the urge to turn and look, because everyone loves a puppy.

  Grabbing Jesse, Sam barged his way through a knot of Sitting Duckers, scattering them like bowling pins. The boys were barely halfway to the tarp when everyone realized there was no puppy, and that it had all been a cruel trick.

  “AFTER THEM!” screeched Priscilla.

  Mrs. Winkins made a desperate lunge for them, twirling one of her electric wigs above her head. Squeezing the trigger of his stolen gun, Sam froze her to the spot.

  The deputy mayor came at them next. He grabbed for the gun, but a right hook from Jesse sent him spiraling to the floor.

  On they went, zapping and punching their way through the throngs, clearing a path to the exit. “Under, quick,” Sam urged, firing randomly back at the closing crowd as Jesse ducked out below the tarp.

  Dropping to the floor, Sam rolled out after Jesse, and they both set off at a sprint before the mob could give chase.

  “So you weren’t brainwashed?” Sam asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

  Jesse shook his head. “Only by Priscilla’s beauty,” he sniffed, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I loved her so, so much.”

  “Bleugh,” said Sam, pretending to vomit. “You’re gross.”

  They realized no one was following them and slowed to a stop. Something was happening to the tarp. It seemed to be billowing upward like one of those Chinese lanterns that keep causing fires everywhere.

  “Oh, what now?” muttered Sam, and then the tarp rose up and was carried off on the wind.

  With a series of clangs and boings the townsfolk toppled the scaffolding, and the transmitter was revealed in its full glory. It towered like a towering thing, all shiny metal and satellite dishes and wires poking out here, there, and everywhere.

  “Hey, where did that come from?” wondered Jesse.

  “Seriously?” sighed Sam. “You were helping to build it five minutes ago.”

  “Was I?” Jesse frowned. His chest puffed up with pride. “I did a pretty good job of it, too.”

  A wobbly droning sound began to emanate from somewhere near the base of the transmitter. Circles and spirals of pink light popped and fizzed from the antenna’s tip, lighting up the sky and making the clouds glow.

  “Oooh,” Jesse whispered. “Did I do that, too? Because that’s really impressive.”

  “It’s started,” gasped Sam. “She’s turned on the transmitter. Goode’s going to start his broadcast to world. Everyone will be under his control!”

  “Goode is good,” droned a hundred voices from worryingly close by. Sam and Jesse turned to find a crowd of townspeople had crept around behind them as they watched the light show.

  Sam opened fire, freezing half a dozen of them before they could move. Emmie’s Great Aunt Doris came shambling out of the ranks. Jesse swung with a powerful uppercut, but Doris moved surprisingly fast for a largely housebound older person. She dodged sideways, then whanged a frying pan across the side of Jesse’s head, knocking him to the ground.

  Two figures made a grab for Sam. He turned, finger on the trigger, and came face to face with his mom and dad. He hesitated, just for a moment, but it was a moment too long. The crowd closed in. The gun was torn from Sam’s fingers.

  And in a frankly terrible turn of events, he was trapped.

  * * *

  World-Conquering Gadgetry

  What? You want to take over the world? Brilliant! We can work together. With our combined skills no one will be able to stop us. Those fools won’t know what hit them! Mwahahahahaha!

  Oh, wait. You just wanted to find out about the sort of gadgets someone might use to take over the world? Ahem. Yes. Sorry. Just my little joke there …

  1. Hypno-Ray: It’s a classic, but it’s a classic for a reason. All will bend to your will with this mesmerizing bit of hardware.

  2. Freeze Ray: Again, a well-established piece of equipment. Freeze your enemies so they can’t escape! Just try not to drop them afterward or they might smash.

  3. Speed Shoes: Heroic types giving you problems? Take care of them at lightning speed with the help of this super-speed-granting footwear.

  4. Hat of Lightning: The enormous metal rod on this cast-iron hat will act as a perfect conduit for bolts of lightning. One blast and you’ll gain powers far beyond those of mortal men! Or third degree burns. It’s 50/50, really.

  5. Solar Drill: Want to carve a hole right through the sun, doom us all to eternal darkness, and plunge us into a new ice age? The Solar Drill is what you’re after! (Requires solar panels to function.)

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Despite being the prisoner of a deranged scientist bent on world domination, Arty was having the time of his life.

  After Dr. Goode had discovered Emmie and him, he’d marched them toward what would turn out to be his control room. Arty and Emmie stood there now, Emmie glaring at Dr. Goode, Arty gazing around in wonder.

  Twelve enormous TV screens covered the walls, each one the height of a double-decker bus. In the center of the room, a hologram of the Earth just floated there, minding its own business, happy as you like. Arty really wanted to ask how it was done, but he thought now probably wasn’t the right time.

  A small red light blipped on and off roughly above where Sitting Duck would be on the globe, and Dr. Goode did an embarrassing little dance of delight when he spotted it. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes! My global hy
pno-relay is finally complete. Priscilla and the worker-drones of Sitting Duck have done me proud! Now I am free to transmit my message all over the world.”

  “Let me guess.” Emmie seethed. “Would that message be ‘Vote Goode’?”

  The villain let out a burst of snorting, snuffling laughter, like a badger with a scratch ’n’ sniff sticker. “Vote? Vote? Why would I bother with a vote?” He giggled. “The election was merely a test to see if my technology worked and to keep this little town under my control.”

  Madness blazed behind the doctor’s goggly eyes. “And it did! The hypno-relay will beam me into every electronic device in the world. From now on there will be no voting. There will be no rules but mine, no rulers but me. The people of the world shall become my slaves—just like the inhabitants of Sitting Duck—and they will love me for it.”

  He smiled wistfully and crossed to a leather chair that was positioned in front of a video camera. He rested both hands on the chair’s curved back.

  “All the world’s resources will be mine. Think of the stupidly elaborate gadgets I can build. Think of the needlessly cruel experiments I can conduct. Think of the ridiculously expensive secret lairs I can construct in pointlessly dangerous places!”

  “Sounds terrible,” Arty lied. He actually thought it sounded kind of cool.

  “Once you are under my thrall you will come around to my way of thinking,” Goode said. He patted his coat pockets. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a broadcast to make. I just need to…”

  He patted his pants pockets.

  He felt the top of his head.

  A look of panic tried to navigate across his badly arranged face, got lost, and ended up at his elbows instead.

  “What’s up?” asked Emmie innocently. “Lost something?”

  “My … my glasses. Where are my glasses?”

  “Wait, I know!” said Arty, then he yelped when Emmie kicked him in the shins. “I mean … no idea.” He grimaced.

  Reaching into his lab coat, Dr. Goode pulled out what looked like a ray gun. He took aim at Arty’s head, which was freakishly large and so not a difficult target. “You know,” he barked. “You know where they are.”

  “He doesn’t,” said Emmie, as Arty babbled incoherently in complete and utter terror. “But I do.”

  Dr. Goode shot a glance in Emmie’s direction and let out a gasp of despair when he saw she was wearing the glasses. “No!”

  With a flick of a switch, the little antenna popped out of the frame and the lenses began to swirl. Dr. Goode felt a tingly lightness creep through his retinas and up into his big mad brain. He tried to turn the ray-gun on Emmie, but his arm would no longer obey. His eyes glazed over as he stared into the swirling vortex of the hypno-lenses.

  “Put it down,” Emmie commanded.

  Dr. Goode put the weapon down.

  “Slap yourself in the face.”

  Dr. Goode slapped himself in the face.

  “Quack like a duck.”

  “Quack, quack, quaaaaack!”

  Emmie laughed. “These are brilliant,” she said. “I’m so keeping these when we’re done.”

  Arty, who had just about recovered from his fright, smiled weakly. “Sh-should we save the world first?”

  Emmie gave a shrug. “Yeah, might as well,” she agreed. She turned to Dr. Goode and the swirly pattern of the spectacles’ lenses seemed to swirl even faster. “It’s time to make your broadcast, Doctor Goode.”

  “It’s time to make my broadcast,” Dr. Goode agreed.

  “But I’m going to tell you exactly what you’re going to say.”

  “Tell me exactly what I’m going to say,” the scientist chimed.

  “And make him do something embarrassing,” Arty added.

  Emmie sucked air in through her teeth. “Arty, that’s a terrible thing to suggest,” she said. “As if I’d be so cruel…”

  * * *

  Two minutes later, Dr. Goode sat in front of the video camera, broadcasting his message to the world and wearing a pair of polka-dot underpants on his head.

  “People of Earth,” he droned. “I am now broadcasting on every electronic device across the globe. My name is Doctor Noah Goode … and I have been a vewy naughty wittle boy.”

  Behind the camera, Emmie and Arty exchanged a high five, then went back to watching Goode’s brainwashed broadcast.

  “I have placed the people of Sitting Duck under hypnotic command in order to make them elect me as their mayor, even though I look funny and smell and am completely evil and everything,” Goode continued. “I now relinquish all control and free them from my brainwashing badness.”

  He stood up, revealing to the world that he was wearing nothing below the waist but a pink tutu and some badly fitting tights.

  “And now,” he said, “I shall dance for your amusement.”

  As the evil scientist began to twirl and spin and pirouette with the grace of a hippo on stilts, Emmie and Arty turned to one another and smiled.

  “Well,” said Arty, “I’d say that all went really rather well.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Emmie, as they watched Dr. Goode skip and dance around the room. “I just hope Sam didn’t get himself into too much trouble.”

  * * *

  Other Uses for Hypno-Glasses

  • Persuading parents to keep you home from school.

  • Convincing teachers you really did hand in your homework, and it was excellent.

  • Convincing school lunch ladies you don’t have to eat … whatever that stuff is.

  • Making everyone think it’s your birthday—every day.

  • Convincing toy shop owners you won all their stock in a competition.

  • Making bullies beat themselves up for a change.

  • Keeping the sun out of your eyes.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You killed Sam!” bellowed Jesse, lashing out at three men who were struggling to hold him down. “You monsters, you killed Sam!”

  “No, they didn’t,” said Sam, who was at that moment being pinned to the ground by a broad-shouldered woman who worked in the school cafeteria.

  “Oh, right,” said Jesse, calming down almost immediately. “Who am I thinking of, then?”

  Firm hands hauled at both boys’ arms and legs, holding them in place. A shadow passed above them, and there was Great Aunt Doris glaring down, twirling her frying pan in her hands. From that angle, Sam could see right up her nostrils, where a whacking great clump of hairs sprouted like a rain forest.

  “She’s going to smash us in the face with that frying pan, isn’t she?” sighed Jesse.

  “Probably.” Sam nodded.

  “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  “Probably.” Sam nodded.

  Jesse’s voice became choked with emotion. “Listen, if you get out of this and I don’t, I want you to pass on a message to my little brother for me.”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  With a sharp twist, Jesse wrestled an arm free. He thumped Sam on the upper thigh, giving him a dead leg. “That,” Jesse said.

  “You’re all heart,” Sam groaned, and then Doris was bringing the frying pan up, up, up …

  And then down, down, down …

  And then Sam’s mom was there, her hand grabbing for Doris’s arm and spinning the old bat around to face her.

  “No one clangs my son in the face with a frying pan!” snapped Mrs. Saunders, and Sam saw a flicker of something pass across her face.

  In fact, it was passing across all the faces in the crowd. Life was returning to their expressions and the light was returning to their eyes.

  The weight on Sam’s limbs eased off (although the throbbing in his leg would hang around for days afterward), as everyone stood up and began muttering in confusion.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What were we doing?”

  “Where’d my frying pan come from?”

  Sam let out a laugh of relief. “They did it
. They actually did it!”

  “Who did what?” asked Jesse. He and Sam helped each other to their feet as the crowd drifted away in dribs and drabs.

  “Emmie and Arty, they canceled out the brainwashing,” Sam cheered. He pointed up to where the hypno-transmitter was doing absolutely nothing at all. “See?”

  “Wait,” Jesse frowned. “So Arty saved us from a lifetime of servitude?”

  Sam nodded. “Yup!”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. I’ll never hear the end of that.”

  Through the thinning crowd they spotted Priscilla making a run for it. Sam began to hobble after her. “Stop! Get back here!”

  A blast of cold air gusted past him and Priscilla froze to the spot. Sam turned to see Jesse wielding the freeze ray. “Not so fast. You’re not getting away from me that easily!” Jesse hollered, then he trotted over to Priscilla’s side.

  Beneath the veneer of ice, her eyes swiveled until they locked on his big grinning face. “Now that you’re frozen, you’ll have to listen to why we should get married. I’ve written a poem about how I feel.”

  Jesse reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded up sheet of paper. Priscilla let out a muffled groan of dismay.

  “Priscilla, Priscilla, you smell like vanilla,” Jesse began, “but you’re scary and violent, a bit like Godzilla…”

  Sam wandered away, nodding and smiling at the people he passed, who were no longer making even halfhearted attempts to kill him. Which was nice.

  He passed through the fence, which had been trampled by the angry mob, and into the shadows beneath the transmitter. The pink lights still fizzled and flickered across the antenna’s tip. Clearly it was still broadcasting some sort of message, just not the one the Goodes had been planning, he guessed. He wondered what it was. If he knew Emmie, it would be something pretty spectacular.

  Sam kicked around in the dirt until … yes, there it was, just where he’d dropped it. He picked up his cell phone. There were two texts from Emmie. One had come earlier in reply to his half-finished one.