oiletboy!? Ha-ha!”

Jacko and Rory doubled over in laughter. Micah knew he should have stopped his story at the hose part.

They were hanging out in Micah’s work shed, a little storage hut at the back of the estate where all the old busted equipment got dumped. Doc Plumm let him use it as a machine shop, and Micah had turned it into a wicked hideout. The place was a total sty, of course—just how he liked it.

“Whatever,” Micah grumbled as he tied the lace on one of his work boots. He checked the grime-spattered pockets of his overalls and dug a thumbnail into his fingertips, an ongoing effort to build up some halfway-decent calluses. “You guys seen my wrench anywhere?”

“And you let her get away with that?” Rory snorted.

“’Course he did. The little slave’s gotta obey his master,” Jacko sneered.

Micah threw a lug nut at his friend, who dodged easily.

“Bet you love wipin’ the queen’s butt!” jeered Rory.

“Oh, Toiletboy!” Jacko called in a mocking, singsong voice. “Come hither this instant. My rump needs a scrub and you’re the perfect height. Chop-chop!”

“Cram it!” Micah shouted as he hurled another nut, this time harder. It hit Jacko in the chest with a dull thud. Irritated, Jacko grabbed the first thing he could find, a toy pistol, and aimed at Micah.

“Wait, wait!” protested Micah, gesturing in panic to a tarp-covered shape. “Not around the—”

When Jacko pulled the trigger, the toy fired with a surprising buck. The shot ricocheted off the rear wall, whizzed inches from Rory’s ear, and smashed a hole in a can of oil. Black sludge sputtered out and pooled on the floor.

“Sweet,” gasped Jacko.

“Whoa! Is that the new Snakebite?” asked Rory.

“Naw, just a modifed S-80,” Micah said as he snatched the gun out of Jacko’s hand. It wasn’t much to look at, with lumps of ugly solder holding it together and banged-up rivets pounded in at odd angles. “Replaced the chamber with the slide from an old crane-neck drill press. Swapped the mini-springs for some point-twos, and made a new clip that holds washers instead of BBs.”

“This puppy shoots washers?” Rory asked, a gleam in his eye.

Micah nodded and slid the gun into a loop on his overalls.

“Nice work,” Jacko said. “Midget.” Rory laughed.

Midget, runt, dwarf—Micah had heard them all. His friends knew it set him off, and they loved to see him spaz. Sure, he was a little short for his age, but Micah more than made up for his size with guts.

“Say that again, Jerko, and I swear…” he threatened.

“Yeah, yeah. So you gonna show it to us this year or what?” Jacko asked, gesturing to the tarp.

Micah jutted his chin and made a show of thinking about it, poking through a heap of odds and ends on the bench and savoring their anticipation. “Seriously, guys, what’d you do with all my tools?”

“Get on with it!” groaned Rory.

Micah approached the draped form and paused for dramatic effect. “No touching. No breathing. Don’t even look at it too hard.”

Jacko and Rory rolled their eyes.

With a flourish, Micah whipped off the cover.

The vehicle’s serpentine frame wound around two gleaming wheels made of overlapping platinum plates, and the chrome on the saber-shaped handlebars was polished to a mirror finish. Vents patterned its front hull like devilish eyebrows above the triangular headlight. Its body was deep red flaked with silver, like a sprinkle of snow on fresh cherries.

It was a brand new Cable Bike. They were struck dumb.

Micah reached into an exposed panel in the Bike’s frame. With a mechanical whisper, a pair of hydraulic arms unfolded and swung overhead, creating the signature swoop. At the top of the mount was a torpedo-shaped winch head, which clung to the Link-Way cables and allowed the vehicle to race through the air. Micah got chills just thinking about it.

“No way,” Rory whispered.

“They know you’re takin’ it apart like that?” Jacko asked, motioning to the pile of parts Micah had removed.

“I’m gonna put it all back,” Micah said defensively. “Just wanted to see how it works, is all.” He gave the fingerprint-smeared Bike manual a nudge.

Jacko grabbed one of the handlebars. “I’m ridin’ first.”

“What are you, stupid?” Micah slapped his friend’s hand away. “It’s a birthday present for Queen Stringbean. They’d kill me if they found out I—”

“When they find out,” rasped a snide voice.

Micah’s older brother Randy lingered in the doorway, a smug look on his acne-splattered face. Even though the school day was over, he was still wearing his navy blue and gold cadet uniform. Ever since he’d been accepted into the Military Institute of Meridian, Randy was so full of himself that his head barely fit through the door.

Micah wanted one of those uniforms. If it could make a jug-eared, zit-faced goon like Randy look good, it’d turn Micah into a genuine badass.

“No one invited you,” he grumbled.

“I don’t need an invitation, short stack.” Randy grinned.

“Heh, short stack,” repeated Rory.

“Shut up,” Randy snapped. He shoved past Rory and Jacko and peered into the opened hatch of the Cable Bike. “You’re dead when the Doc sees this.”

“Well, he won’t, ’cause I’m gonna put it together before he gets back.”

“Too late, buttercup. The Doc’s here.” Randy cracked his long goose neck with a quick jerk. “And he’s askin’ for you.”

“Yeah, right,” snorted Micah. “Like I’d fall for that.”

“Fine.” Randy shrugged. “I’ll tell him you’re too busy tearing apart his little girl’s birthday present to be bothered.” He spun on his heels as if he had just received marching orders.

Micah couldn’t take the chance.

“Okay, okay,” he relented. “Just gimme a sec.” He grabbed one of the parts he had removed from the motor and fit it back into place. He looked around again for his wrench.

“Did you borrow my tools, Randy?”

“Pffft. I don’t touch your stupid crap.”

“Why can’t I find anything, then?”

“I dunno—’cause you’re a retarded pygmy?”

Jacko and Rory chuckled. Micah sifted through the junk pile. Nothing. Must have packed everything away in his tool chest and forgotten about it. He whipped the lid open.

Twang. SPLAT!

A blast of white paint exploded into Micah’s face.

The work shed rang with screams of laughter. Randy collapsed against the door frame while Rory and Jacko rolled on the grimy floor. Micah coughed up heaps of paint and tasted the bitter stuff trickling down his sinuses. His eyes stung as he tried to wipe them clean.

Beneath the splatters of white, his face burned red hot.

 

Micah stomped into the foyer of the manor, still fuming. He had tried to clean himself up, but paint still filled the folds of his ears and clung to his reddish hair. He was a total mess, but he couldn’t keep the Doc waiting.

Worried servants were gathered near the closed study door.

“Make way. Comin’ through,” Micah said, elbowing to the front. He heard voices coming from inside. One was Tennyson, but it took Micah a second to place the other—he had never heard the Doc sound angry before.

“Where is she?” roared Dr. Plumm.

“I—I went to pick her up at school,” Tennyson answered. “But sometimes she avoids me, like it’s some sort of game. She always finds her way home, sir.”

Micah nervously dug a thumbnail into his budding calluses. He cracked the door open and poked his head inside. Tennyson and Micah’s burly sow of a mom faced the Doc, who stood silhouetted before the fireplace. Micah wondered why he had a fire going on such a hot day.

“Take an Auto. Find her,” Dr. Plumm commanded.

“But sir, how am I supposed to—”

“I don’t care how. Just go find her!”

As Tennyson took his leave, they spotted Micah lingering in the doorway.

“What in the burning hells?” his ma shrieked as she rushed up and snatched his forearm with one meaty hand. She yanked him so hard he thought his shoulder might pop out of its socket, and then scoured his paint-smeared face with her apron as if he were a dirty dish.

“Just look at yourself. And how dare you make Dr. Plumm wait around for your sorry carcass!”

She drew back her hand. Micah pinched his eyes, bracing for the impact.

“Deirdre!” the Doc interrupted. “I need you to pack a suitcase for Phoebe. Enough for a week.”

She paused. “Of course, Dr. Plumm. Anything else?”

“Leave Micah with me.”

With a huff of indignation, Micah ripped his arm free from her grasp and rubbed his shoulder. She fixed him with a threatening stare and grumbled as she departed.

Dr. Plumm had always been a lean man, but now he was a scarecrow. His long, sharp face was sunken and his glasses framed desperate eyes. It was as if he had aged a decade since Micah had last seen him.

“Do you know where she is?” Dr. Plumm asked, his voice hoarse and weary.

“You mean Phoebe? No, sir, I don’t.”

“Please.” The Doc bent down to look Micah dead in the eye. “Think. How else would she get home from school?”

“Prob’ly Zip Trolley.”

“Then go with Tennyson. Check all the stops.” He crossed to his desk and snatched up a stack of documents.

“’Scuse me, sir. But I’d be faster on foot.”

Dr. Plumm tossed the papers into the fireplace and turned back to Micah.

“There’s only one stop nearby,” Micah explained, “and I got the perfect shortcut to the park. Plus, Tennyson drives like a granny, sir.”

“Go,” the Doc said. Micah whipped his hand up in a military salute, then bolted through the door and down the hall.

A legitimate excuse to leave Plumm Estate was not to be taken lightly. And it was all the more important since it was a chance to help the Doc out.

Micah burst onto the front porch, and the humid dusk wrapped around him like a blanket. He raced down the steps toward the Baronet, which was just pulling out of the driveway. Micah dove onto the hood and slid across it in a jumble. Tennyson screeched the Auto to a stop and rolled down the window to scream at him, but Micah was already halfway across the lawn. He bounded over the hedges, ducked into a somersault, and drew his modified Snakebite in one motion.

Almost perfect. He had been practicing that move.

As Micah hurried out the front gates, the manor glowed to life. Light danced across the hexagonal towers topped with bronze turtle-shell domes, and it blasted out through tall triangular windows to reflect on shining metal walls. There wasn’t another place quite like it. Micah remembered the first time he saw Plumm Estate as if it were yesterday.

Three years before, the Tanners had come to Albright City from Oleander, a farming town in the Mid-Meridian state of Sodowa. When their father up and ditched them, Ma had been forced to support the family. Barefoot and broke, they hit the road in their beat-up old Auto and trekked to Albright City—he, Ma, Randy, and Margie.

It was right around then that Mrs. Plumm kicked the bucket.

None of the servants knew what had happened to her, or if they did, they weren’t allowed to talk about it. And whenever Micah asked, he got his ears boxed. Whatever it was, it must have been bad.

But it was a good thing for the Tanners, ’cause the Doc was in sore need of help. Ma answered his ad, and the next day they were pulling up at Plumm Estate. Holy moly, were their jaws on the floor! At the time, Micah thought this place was the best. He didn’t realize that working as a servant meant always getting treated like one.

And of course he didn’t know about Li’l Miss Freaky and her stupid bag of tricks.

The Baronet pulled out of the driveway, and Micah slammed himself up against the gate to hide. He wasn’t gonna let that creep Tennyson beat him to his target.

Commence Operation Seek the Freak.

Shimmering Crest was the main boulevard that zigzagged down the steep hillside to the park at the base. That’s where the Zip Trolley stop was. Instead of taking the winding road, he was going straight down the hill, a gnarly drop that cut through all the switchbacks.

Micah thought about Maddox, hero of the absolute best Televiewer show ever. He was a hard-boiled Special Ops soldier who didn’t take crap from nobody. Right about now, the Greinadoren Kommandei would be everywhere, leagues of deadly shadows shifting in the trees. Maddox wouldn’t even sweat. He’d just smirk and say:

“No guts, no glory.” Micah growled it in his best Maddox voice and cocked his gun.

He leaped into position among the birch trees, pressing against the trunks. Nodding a command to his imaginary strike force, he hurtled out and fired his gun wildly. One washer missed, but two hit their mark, thudding into a tree.

Direct hit. Go, go, go!

Micah dodged imaginary fire and ran deeper into the clump of birches. He slid down a steep embankment, clung to exposed roots, and scrabbled down to the road below, tumbling the last few feet awkwardly.

The enemy’s right on our tail! Watch your six!

Margie was the one who had turned him on to Maddox. His older sister was a hard act to follow with her perfect grades, a scholarship to MIM, and immediate recruitment into a special engineering corps. She was pretty much the only one who gave two spits about Micah.

He wondered where she was nowadays. They hadn’t heard from her in more than a year. Apparently, she was on some sort of top-secret mission. With all the threats of war and stuff on the news, he bet it was super important.

Micah raced across the street, crawled through the underbrush, and jumped onto the roof of a garage below. He clung to the rain gutter and shimmied to the ground.

The homes on this lane were nice, but nothing like Plumm Estate and the other mansions at the top of the hill. These houses were packed close together and made from cheaper alloys.

The sky was growing darker. He had to hurry.

They’re closing in. It’s now or never.

Micah made a break for it. He let loose a flurry of rounds as he sprinted down the block, plugging imaginary Greinder Kommies left and right.

CLANG!

He froze. One of his shots had nailed a nearby mailbox mobile. It was a pointless doodad, a few dinky brass propellers and dangling baubles. As Micah hurried over to inspect the damage, he noticed that the center pinwheel was held on by a platinum hex grommet, a size eight.

Just the kind he had been looking for.

With a quick glance around, Micah spit on his hands and used his newly developed calluses to unscrew the grommet. He crammed it in his pocket and continued on his way.

It was the Doc who had first encouraged Micah to build stuff, noticing that he had a gift for the gears. “When a worker finds a spare part, he thinks it’s the missing piece of an old machine,” Dr. Plumm once told him. “But when an inventor finds a spare part, he imagines it’s the perfect addition to something new. Which one do you want to be?”

He didn’t have to think too hard on it: neither. Being a worker was as lame as being a servant, and being an inventor sounded like doing math with a bunch of losers. No, he was destined for bigger things. And as soon as he was old enough to get into the Military Institute of Meridian next year, he’d prove it.

Micah hurdled over a steel picket fence, dashed across the yard, and scrambled down into the undergrowth, scaring a couple squirrels out of hiding. It was a sheer slope packed with thorny shrubs and thistles, but he muscled his way through it, feeling the brambles poke through his pant legs.

After a few steep drops, the heavy brush opened up to reveal the park. Gold and silver lampposts sculpted to look like metal dandelions illuminated the walking trail. The fireflies were out as well, flickering like copper pennies in the dark. A few folks hung around the silver fountain, while others jogged along the path.

None of them noticed the filthy soldier watching them from the shadows.

Hugging the outskirts of the park, he snuck from tree to tree and approached the Zip Trolley stop. He figured that Tennyson was at least five minutes behind, the way he drove. Micah huddled near some boulders so that he would have Freaky in his sights as soon as she arrived.

Unless he had already missed her. Or did she take a different route home? That would be annoying—just like her, come to think of it.

Minutes ticked past. Micah picked clumps of white paint out of his hair and waited. If he didn’t find her, at least he had managed to get a whiff of freedom. And he got the size-eight hex grommet, so it wasn’t a total loss.

He was just thinking about the long trek back up the hill when a familiar lanky shadow came loping down the trail.

Target sighted!

Seeing her again brought his anger back to a rolling boil. She had made him look like a moron in front of his brother and friends. Plus, she’d gotten paint all over his stuff. He whipped his gun out and closed in on his prey.

She looked nutty, hugging herself and throwing glances over her shoulder. Good, she was already nervous, here all alone.

Micah lunged out from his hiding place and ran at her pell-mell.

“BLAHHHH!” he screamed. Phoebe screamed louder. She got about four feet of air. Her reaction was even better than he had hoped. Micah took aim with his Snakebite and fired—click, click.

Dang! Outta ammo.

He squealed with laughter anyway, stomping and running around in little circles. She was white as a stinkin’ ghost, and her eyes were big as eggs, though they narrowed to mean little gashes when she saw who it was.

Mission accomplished.

“I hate you! I hate you!” she hissed, and punched him all over his back and arms. Her weak little blows made him laugh louder, even though her bone-sharp knuckles kinda stung.

Oh man, this was too good. Micah had never seen her so raw. Maybe he could even get her to cry. That would be a first.

“Gotcha!” Micah cackled. “That’s for the paint!”

Her nasty little mouth puckered, and she stubbornly jutted out her pointy chin. She tossed back her stringy mop of hair and marched away from Micah like a peacock on stilts.

“You little maggot,” Phoebe snapped. “Next time I’ll load it with bleach.”

“Aw, come on!” Micah said, bouncing along behind her. “Don’t be a sore loser. Hey! Wait up, Freaky!”

“That’s Miss Plumm to you, Toiletboy.”

“Pffft!” Micah scoffed. “Fine, be that way. I was gonna show you my secret shortcut back home so you could go cry to your daddy, but…”

“Oh, go unclog something, you—” She stopped abruptly. Her mouth hung open as his words registered. A firefly drifted past her face, lighting her eyes.

Then she broke into a full-tilt run up the hill.

“Hey, you can’t go back alone!” Micah shouted after her. “He’s gonna think I didn’t do my job!”