Agent Darcy and Ninja Steve in...Mecha-Mole Mayhem! Read online

  Agent Darcy

  &

  Ninja Steve

  in...

  mecha-mole mayhem!

  By Grant Goodman

  Copyright © 2017 Grant Goodman

  Paperback Cover Art by Tristan George

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1977751324

  ISBN-10: 1977751326

  Edition 1.0

  Disclaimer: The following story is a work of fiction. Regarding the events in this book, any similarity to any person, living, dead, or undead is merely coincidental.

  For Heather

  STEVE

  “I never should have gone to Botsylvania,” said Steve, as he lay on his thin, roll-out mattress in his prison cell.

  He had said the same thing every morning since he had been put in jail, twenty days ago. He had a feeling that he’d be saying it every day for the remaining forty days of his imprisonment.

  Every time he said it, he thought back to the judge putting a ridiculous white wig over his ninja hood, banging a nunchaku on the desk, and proclaiming, “Sixty days of prison for Ninja Steve.”

  It was lonely here, mostly because he was the only ninja who was in the juvenile prison. Samurai Sam faced no penalty because he wasn’t involved in using a fart bomb on the police, directly defying President Ninja’s orders, or using a technique before he was thirteen.

  Ninjastoria didn’t have a crime problem, so the jail for juveniles only had three cells and the adult prison building down the road only had five. Nora had been sent to the adult prison.

  He wasn’t totally lonely, though, as his parents stopped by every day to give him the school work he was missing. Steve actually found that it was easy to get all of his homework done when he had fewer distractions. For the first time in his life, he had an A in every class.

  In his cell, wearing the red uniform that all jailed ninjas had to wear, Steve did a hundred jumping jacks to warm up, then knocked out a few rounds of push-ups, burpees, and jump-squats.

  By then, he had worked up a good sweat.

  He started some stretches, only to be interrupted by the voice from the ceiling speaker.

  “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! THE MECHA-MOLES HAVE APPEARED IN NINJASTORIA! DON’T PANIC! THERE IS NO NEED TO PANIC! AHHHHHHHH!”

  Steve was close to panicking when he remembered the first chapter of the book that Sensei Raheem had given to him to read in prison: Sensei Raheem’s Guide to Supreme Ninja Skills (and Tomato Gardening). Steve had been reading a chapter a day…and had been learning good stuff from it, to his surprise. The first chapter had been all about fear. The way it crept into your mind, the way it unraveled your strength, the way it could twist your life into a miserable little shadow. Then, Sensei Raheem taught you how to fight it.

  “Admit that you feel fear,” Ninja Steve told himself. “Then, face it.”

  He heard the sounds of battle. The shouts of ninjas, the clang of metal striking metal, the thumps of heavy footsteps. Steve backed himself into a corner and then jumped up onto the ceiling. The mecha-moles were fond of the ground, so Steve reasoned that they might come up through the floor.

  The noises got louder and louder. The fight had reached his hallway.

  Steve’s cell gate was torn off of its hinges. A pack of five scout mecha-moles came surging through on all fours. Their bodies were green like avocados and their pointy snouts all pointed at Ninja Steve. The metal claws that coated their real claws were extra bright, and even though the moles were only about three feet tall when they chose to stand on their hind legs, their bodies were wide and heavy.

  There was no sign of anyone coming to help him.

  “You can do this,” Steve told himself. “You’ve fought them before.”

  That time, however, he had been with Sensei Raheem. When you were with Sensei Raheem, there was no way you were going to lose. The book, however, specifically said that you didn’t need Sensei Raheem in order to win, but that it was tremendously helpful to have him there.

  Steve swooped down from the ceiling like a hawk-squirrel and thrust a kick into a mecha-mole’s chest. The squat creature went flying.

  Two more came charging.

  “Surrender,” one of them barked at Steve.

  Steve looked at them. Many against one. More in the hallway. Could he win?

  “What do you think, Ninja Steve? Would you like to surrender?”

  Steve looked up at the ceiling behind him. Standing there was the man in the gray mask with three red slashes across it.

  “I’m not surrendering,” Steve said. “Especially if I have to surrender to you.”

  Steve had never trusted him. The first time their paths had crossed, the man had been talking with Toran the Tiger. The time after that, he had flung Nora through the kitchen window of their house.

  The man in the mask laughed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I’d rather fight than surrender.”

  “Good,” said the man. “I don’t believe I’ve ever properly introduced myself. My name is Three.”

  Three jumped off of the ceiling. Steve dipped low, ready to throw an uppercut. But Three leaped over Steve, and punched a mecha-mole so hard that it broke through the bars of the prison cell across the hall.

  “Let’s fight them together, Ninja Steve,” Three said.

  Steve didn’t have time to ask questions. He got ready to kick some mecha-mole butt.

  DARCY

  Darcy lay on her bedroll, staring at the cream-colored wall. She had the covers pulled up to her chin. The sun would be rising soon and she hadn’t slept well.

  After Darcy had been kicked out of the Bureau of Sneakery for being part of the Botsylvania battle, Gertie and her husband, Morris, had taken her in, given her a room of her own. The trade was simple: a place to stay in exchange for becoming a serious ninja.

  While she lay there in the early morning darkness, she thought about how easily she had been thrown away. How she had been so emotionally empty even after Ninja Steve’s parents told her they’d found her a place to live in Ninjastoria, a village where she had more friends than she’d ever had at the bureau.

  At sunrise, Darcy’s door opened.

  “Get up,” Gertie said, and the iron in her voice made Darcy jump. Although Gertie was tiny and old and wrinkled, she had incredible posture and poise. “We have work to do, and there won’t be any time to feel sorry for yourself.”

  That morning, Darcy chopped logs with an axe until she was sure that someone had set her limbs on fire. That afternoon, she helped Gertie prepare a garlic-studded rib roast and whipped sweet potatoes with autumn spice butter. And that evening, she began her meditation sessions, where she had to tell herself that the past was done.

  Sure enough, it brought her back to life.

  Every single day after that started with combat in the training room, even school days.

  It was a long, rectangular room in the backyard, attached to the main house by an open-air hallway. The walls, floors, and ceiling were covered in thick, black pads. Gertie and Morris had removable hooks in some parts of the walls so that they could hang up punching bags if they wanted.

  Today was not a punching bag day.

  Darcy dove a half-second before Gertie’s kick would have caught her in the face. She landed facedown on the training room’s bamboo floor, flipped over onto her back, and sprang up to her feet before the next strike came in.

  Sweat was dripping down into her eyes and there was no time to wipe it away. If she diverted her attention, she’d get hit. />
  Duck. Roll. Swerve. Bend.

  Each strike came in and each time—barely—she managed to evade.

  Hop. Shift. Turn.

  She let the punch slide past her, grazing her shoulder ever so slightly, and when she thought she had an opening, she threw her punch.

  “Too slow,” Ninja Gertie said.

  She caught Darcy by the wrist, and whirled her in a circle so that Darcy tumbled to the ground.

  Darcy gritted her teeth together and pulled herself up. She bowed to Ninja Gertie. The tiny, old woman bowed back.

  “You’re still hesitating,” Gertie said.

  “Yes,” Darcy said. “However—”

  “No excuses,” Gertie told her. Despite being the village’s oldest ninja, she was as tough as chromega. “The more breath you waste making excuses, the less you have for fighting.”

  Darcy bowed low. “Yes.”

  “Wash up, change your uniform, and meet me in the kitchen so I can teach you how to make my famous blue curry stir-fry. The perfect balance of flavor and spice is hard to get right.”

  Darcy bowed yet again. “Yes.”

  Ninja Gertie walked away and Darcy did some cool-down stretches before she went back to her room.

  It was the exact same room she had shared with Serena when they had arrived on their first mission. Even though Serena wouldn’t have been her first choice of roommate, Darcy sometimes found herself wishing that someone from the bureau was there to talk to her.

  “That was the past,” Darcy told herself. “The past is gone and this is your life now.”

  Gertie had made her repeat that over and over. At first, it had made Darcy upset, having to constantly confront the reality of her expulsion. Eventually, though, it started to become calming.

  After Darcy was done showering and had changed into her casual ninja uniform—she still couldn’t tell what made it different from the training ninja uniform—she went upstairs to the kitchen.

  Along the way, she wondered how Ninja Steve was doing. Darcy had been at Steve’s trial following the Botsylvania incident. When it was all over and Steve had been sentenced to prison time, she had watched President Ninja pick Steve up and literally throw him in jail.

  Nora’s sentencing had been different. No one was going to throw her anywhere. When Darcy had learned that Nora had actually punched President Ninja in the face, she had assumed that Nora would be in jail for at least ten years. Instead, she got six months in the adult prison. President Ninja had argued that because Nora was already a college graduate, she needed to be tried as an adult.

  Neither Steve nor Nora were allowed visitors other than immediate family for the first month, but Darcy planned on going the first day that she could. Until then, she was writing letters to both of them. In her most recent one, she had told them about Gertie’s kitchen tips for making fluffier pancakes.

  When Darcy reached the kitchen, Gertie threw a black apron across the room and it landed perfectly around Darcy’s neck. Gertie had done this pretty much every day and it never ceased to be impressive.

  “Marcy, the first step is the same as always: locate and organize all of your ingredients.”

  Her fake name, which had only been meant to last for a few months while she was an exchange student, was now permanent.

  Gertie handed her an index card that contained a list of everything she needed. The handwriting was crisp and neat, as if it had come from a printer.

  Darcy was picking up a bottle of cooking oil when Gertie leaped over the table and threw a jump kick. Darcy dodged, but dropped the bottle.

  “Not good enough,” Gertie said. “Now, get back to work.”

  Darcy did as she was told.

  While they prepped ingredients, Gertie put on one of Ninja Bruce’s famous songs. He was a classic ninja rock star, although Darcy had never heard of him. The song was all about a regular ninja trying to get by, making and selling his own shurikens, and how it made him very tired, but it was honest work. Darcy hummed along, because she still didn’t know all the words.

  “They never taught us cooking at the b…at my old school,” Darcy said.

  Gertie grinned. “That’s simply not fair. Everyone should learn how to cook and how to bake, girls and guys.”

  Darcy started chopping onions and bright blue pow-peppers. She continued humming. The bureau never would have let her do anything like this. Meals were prepared for them so that they could spend more time studying. The only exception had been the café where Matilda worked.

  “Marcy, I hear someone walking toward the front door. Please go answer it,” Gertie said as she sliced up green beans.

  Darcy got to the door as their visitor knocked.

  She opened it and found Ninja Steph there. They were both in Sensei Poh-Shen’s chemistry class. Steph wore a shiny, black ninja uniform and red tabi boots. She kept her wavy hair in a bun and was always chewing strawberry bubblegum. The two of them had been randomly paired for an upcoming project on how to make rainbow smoke bombs. She and Darcy hadn’t exactly gotten along.

  “Hi,” Darcy said.

  “Hey, Marcy,” Steph said. “Nice apron.”

  “Oh, we’re making blue curry stir-fry,” Darcy said.

  “Wow,” said Steph, chewing loudly on her gum. “I thought Gertie was supposed to be toughening you up, not teaching you how to open a restaurant. In fact, shouldn’t you be practicing standing on the ceiling? That must have been really embarrassing in class yesterday when you couldn’t do it.”

  Darcy frowned. All of the other ninjas had been able to stand on the ceiling since they were toddlers.

  Darcy let it go. “What can I help you with?”

  Steph blew a bubble and popped it with her teeth, then handed over a scroll tied with a ribbon. Darcy opened it.

  “Both of you have been summoned to Sensei Poh-Shen’s office at 7:00 PM.”

  She looked at Steph.

  “I’ll meet you there. You read the postscript at the bottom of it, right?” Steph asked.

  Darcy glanced at the very bottom of the scroll.

  “P.S. It’s bad news.”

  STEVE

  Surrounded by mecha-moles, Steve threw a power punch at one of them. The mole used its silver claws to grip Steve by the wrist and fling him onto the floor. It tried to drop a knee on Steve’s stomach, but Steve rolled away and kicked that mole right on its rear end, stunning it.

  He saw Three running on the wall, two mecha-moles in his path. Three spun like a tornado and drove his feet into the first mecha-mole, who went crashing back into the second. They hit the ground and ran away.

  “If you’re strong enough, Ninja Steve, you don’t have to worry about striking a weak point,” Three said.

  Steve thought about that, then decided to stick with his own strategy. He knew an effective way to fight, the way that Sensei Raheem had taught him: kick their butts.

  Steve dispatched one more mecha-mole with a spinning back-kick. Three drove the last of the mecha-moles out of the room, leaving Steve alone with him. The room itself was wrecked. Holes in the wall. Gouges in the floor. Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Steve asked the masked man.

  “Calm down,” Three said. “I’m not here to start a fight with you.”

  “I’m not going to be calm. In case you didn’t notice, we’re under attack!” Steve said, the meaning of it fully sinking into his brain.

  “It happens,” Three said. “Anyway, isn’t your sister supposed to be in one of the nearby buildings?”

  Steve pounded one of his fists into his own palm. “You’d better stay away from my sister. She’s gotten stronger since last time.”

  Three shrugged. “Once again, I’m not here to fight her. Which building would she be…?”

  The man trailed off and looked at his watch. Steve noticed that it was very similar to the one Darcy used to wear.

  “What does that watch do?” Steve asked.

  “It
reminds you that time’s always running out,” Three said, tapping on his watch. Neon ones and zeroes came pouring out of it and formed a puddle on the floor. Three stepped into it, and the puddle vanished the moment he was gone. Steve knelt down and touched the floor. It was freezing cold.

  When Steve stood back up, he was facing a female ninja in a red uniform. He gave a quick shout and hopped away from her.

  Ever since he had used Queen Trissa’s spell of melted time in Botsylvania, Steve had received occasional visits from the red ninja. She never spoke, and Steve hoped that it would stay that way.

  Her uniform told him enough about her. In the earliest days of Ninjastoria, Overlord Ninja Winthrop had issued a decree that all criminal ninjas would have to wear crimson uniforms as a sign of their criminal status. The rule had stuck around, and if a ninja “went red,” it was a big deal.

  The red ninja stood with her arms crossed. As usual, Steve did his best to ignore her. He found his copy of Sensei Raheem’s book and read a page on why every ninja should learn to play soccer because it would improve kicking skills while building teamwork.

  Steve looked up from the book, and the red ninja motioned for him to get up and walk down the hall. Then she disappeared.

  There was no way he was walking out of his cell. He wasn’t about to risk being labeled a runaway. Sooner or later, one of the guards would come by. The fighting, from what he could tell, was over.

  His curiosity was building, though. If he got up and poked his head out, what would be there?

  No. He would not give in. He was going to be a better ninja from this day forward. He was going to obey the law. He was…

  “Ninja Steve!” barked Sensei Raheem’s voice from the intercom.

  The speaker box had been damaged in the fight; it was dangling from the ceiling.

  “Why are you sitting there? Get yourself to the cafeteria right now! It’s a clear path.”