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Zachary Taylor and his friends were sitting on the floor in
Zach’s bedroom. They were listening to CDs and reading comic books.
Zach, Annie Johnson, and Moose Jacobs were on their summer
vacation, looking forward to starting eighth grade in the fall. They had just
returned from their weekly visit to Mags, the local comic book store. The three
of them were emptying their sacks of this week’s stash.
“See what I picked up in the back-issue bin?” Annie
asked her friends. She had her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, and
wore a yellow tank top, white shorts, and sneakers. “A full-year’s run of Daredevil
from the 80s. The good Frank Miller stuff.”
Moose Jacobs seemed unimpressed. He gave a short grunt as
he pulled his copy of Videogame Monthly from its plastic bag. Moose was
the largest of their group, and the least talkative.
“Comic books are for kids,” he said, settling
back against the wall.
“Yeah, and videogames aren’t?” Zach replied.
Zach was lean and lanky, and had an unruly mop of
strawberry-blonde hair above his freckled face. Today he wore a gray t-shirt
with a Superman logo on the front, along with a pair of blue jeans and white
high-top sneakers. He dumped the contents of his sack out onto the floor and
started picking through the stack.
“What’s that?” Moose asked. He pointed to something
in Zach’s pile of comics.
Zach picked up a shiny disc from the middle of the pile. He
held it up to the light and looked at it.
“Who put this in my bag?” he asked his friends.
Annie looked up from her copy of Daredevil just long
enough to eyeball the disc in Zach’s hand.
“Looks like a CD,” she said. She turned her attention
back to her comic book. “Maybe Maggie put it in your bag by mistake. Why
don’t you play it and see what’s on it?”
“No harm in that,” Zach said.
He stood up and placed the disc in the tray of his CD
player. He pushed the Play button—then immediately covered his ears! A series
of loud shrieks and buzzes came from the speakers.
“Hey!” Moose said, making a face. “Turn that off!”
Zach reached out and pushed the Stop button. The noise
immediately ceased.
“Man, what was that?” he said, louder than was
necessary.
Annie was shaking her head back and forth, like she was
trying to shake the ringing out of her ears.
“That sounds like what happens when you play a computer
CD-ROM in an audio CD player.”
“So maybe it’s a computer disc?” Zach responded.
“Okay.... let’s give it a try in the computer, then.”
Zach ejected the disc from his CD player. Then he walked
across the room, and sat down at his desk. He powered up his computer and
inserted the disc in the CD-ROM drive. After a few seconds the drive started
spinning, and the green light on the front of the drive was blinking on and off.
“Looks like we have something here,” Zach said over his
shoulder to his friends.
Annie and Moose looked up from their reading. They were
both curious as to what was on the disc.
As the three of them watched, a window opened on Zach’s
computer screen. Then a picture of a distinguished gray-haired man snapped into
view.
“It’s the Director!” Zach cried, waiting for the
onscreen video to begin.
“Good afternoon, Agent Zed,” the voice from the
computer began. “If you are watching this, I will presume that you discovered
the disc that was placed in your bag of reading materials. Hmm?”
“How did he know...?” Zach started to ask.
The gray-haired gentleman onscreen chuckled to himself. He
was wearing a perfectly tailored light-gray suit, white shirt, and gray
patterned tie.
“Don’t be so surprised, Agent Zed. We are aware of your
habits — including your Friday afternoon visits to Glen Ellyn’s sole comic book emporium. It was a simple matter to arrange for you to
receive this disc along with your standard purchase. Batman, Action,
and The Flash this week, hmm?”
Zach looked down at his pile of comics.
“That’s right,” he said to himself.
“Now for the purpose of this communication,” the
Director continued. He spoke in a crisp upper-class British accent, even though
he ran a secret American spy organization known as the Agency. “Agent Zed, we
have an assignment for you—and for your friends, whom I assume are also
watching this video. Good afternoon to you, Miss Johnson. And to you too, Mr.
Jacobs.”
Annie and Moose nodded to the man in the video, as he
continued speaking.
“Two nights ago, Agency operatives arrested a man
suspected of delivering classified information to a foreign power. This courier,
unfortunately, is unavailable for questioning, due to a serious head injury
incurred during his pursuit and subsequent capture.”
Zach smiled to himself when he heard that.
“However, we were able to obtain a roll of microfilm that
the courier was delivering to his superiors. The data contained on the microfilm
confirmed that certain confidential information is finding its way into the
hands of a rival government—the Chinese government, we believe. The secrets
pertain to the government’s new technology weapons program.”
The Director focused his steely gaze squarely at the
camera.
“If the Chinese were to continue to receive information
regarding this project, they would have the means to construct a deadly new
weapon. This weapon — code-named Project Death Ray — is capable of
projecting a concentrated beam of energy that obliterates any biological life
forms in its path. Imagine an army equipped with portable versions of this death
ray. Or a larger version of the ray wiping out all human, animal, and plant life
in a one hundred kilometer-wide swath. Any country controlling this type of
destructive power would be an unstoppable threat to global stability.”
The Director paused, waiting for the enormity of the threat
to sink in.
“It is imperative that we halt this theft of classified
information, before worse comes to worst, hmm? Agency intelligence tells us that
technical data from this project is being leaked from the campus of Northwestern University, here in Chicago. A team of researchers at Northwestern have been developing key components
necessary to the construction of this new weapon. Apparently one of these
researchers is the source of this unauthorized information flow.”
“But how can we help?” Annie asked.
As if he were responding to her question, the Director
continued.
“The Northwestern connection is where the three of you
enter the picture. Commencing Monday morning and continuing for the following
week, Northwestern is hosting a science camp for gifted middle-grade students. I
have taken the liberty of enrolling all three of you in this science camp.
Which, in the case of Mr. Jacobs, involved a slight falsification of scholastic
records. Apparently our Mr. Jacobs has not yet developed a love for the
sciences, hmm?”
Moose grinned shyly.
“I didn’t do too good in science class last year,” he
said to his friends.
“Well,” Annie corrected him. “You didn’t do well.”
Moose scowled back at Annie. “Whatever.”
The Director continued, in a very business-like
fashion.
“Your mission is to go undercover as students in the
Northwestern science camp. There you will have access to the researchers
involved in Project Death Ray. You are to use this proximity to the secret
weapons program — and to the potential suspects — to stop the
illegal flow of classified information. You are then to apprehend the person or
persons responsible.”
Zach looked at his friends. They were both nodding their
heads.
Onscreen, the Director looked away from the camera. He
referred to a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him.
“Agent M2 will be contacting your parents regarding this
mission, using the science camp cover story. He will also arrange for your
transportation to the Northwestern campus Sunday evening. Once you arrive on
campus, Miss April will provide an additional briefing and the equipment for
this assignment.”
The Director paused, then again looked straight into the
camera.
“Agent Zed, Miss Johnson, Mr. Jacobs — I trust I have
impressed upon you the seriousness of this assignment. I appreciate your best
efforts in executing this mission, and wish you the best of luck. God speed to
the three of you.”
Onscreen, the Director started to stand up. Then he thought
of something else he had to say.
“By the way, Agent Zed, you should now remove this disc
from your computer. It will self-destruct in ten seconds. Hmm?”
Zach stared at the screen for a moment, then jerked to
attention.
“Self destruct?” he gasped.
Quickly, he grabbed the disc out of his computer and tossed
it into the trash can. Mere seconds later there was a small pop!, a puff
of smoke, and the disc shattered into hundreds of little pieces.
“Wow,” Annie said. She stared down at the remains of
the disc at the bottom of the trash can. “It must’ve released some sort of
chemical agent. Probably triggered by the disc drive’s laser beam hitting a
specific track on the disc. That’s pretty clever”
“Right,” Zach said. He closed the disc tray on his
computer. “You guys okay with this?”
“You bet!” Annie said. “A week at science camp—and
a top-secret mission, too. What’s not to like?”
Across the room, Moose furrowed his thick eyebrows and
frowned.
“A whole week at science camp—that’s what!” |