The land of digital kids: 2010

This is a random unfinished story I am making for lego.com.

Spy Clops staggered out of the Inferno Main Base, exhausted. He had just taken his most extreme scolding from Dr. Inferno yet. Now, Dr. Inferno's scoldings aren't just a few harsh words and maybe a punch or two, no sirree. Dr. Inferno's scoldings are full on, level 10, zap cannon scoldings. Or at least this one was, and Spy Clops had been afraid that he might short circuit, or his circuits might fry. The reason he had gotten this scolding was the fact that he hadn't paid attention to direct orders from Dr. Inferno, telling him to send 30 henchmen to defense tower 7.

But, liking to double check things, he had checked the computers and seen that defense tower 3 had the least number of henchmen, so he sent them there instead. That was a mistake. But none of that mattered any more. It was all over and done with. I'm getting so tired of Dr. Inferno's senseless orders, Spy Clops thought, walking away from the base, I wish I could just get away from it all, but permanently. Maybe join another team? Bah. Who in their right mind would want me on their team? Suddenly he looked up strait ahead of him, eyes brightening, and ran.

As he ran his mind worked as quickly as ever. How would I get them to know that I don't just want to pretend to join, and then just capture them all when their sleeping? This will be tough. I know how careful they are, ever since I tried to hack into their computers. They had not one, not two, but three layers of defenses and passwords, and all I could do was stare at the screen dumbfounded until they found out where I was. I don't think I could do anything to make them believe me, except... that's it!

Spy Clops jumped over one last log (he was running in a forest) and came into a huge clearing, and in the middle of the clearing stood a big dark blue building with huge, yellow, capital "A"s painted all over it. Spy Clops took a big breath and than let it out again. "This has to work," he said quietly, "it just has to." He then started walking towards the Agents HQ, scanning the walls for any guns pointed towards him and found... none?

He felt like shouting, "Hey Agents! Here I am! An Inferno in a bright orange, easy to see, shirt walking strait towards your base!" at the top of his lungs, just to see whether or not any guns would pop out, but decided against it, knowing it would ether get him shot to pieces or totally ruin his chances of joining the agents altogether. When he reached the door, he hesitated. Should he really be doing this?

If he was still with the Infernos, the answer would be no, but as he remembered what had happened to him right before he left, he decided... and rang the doorbell. Almost as soon as he did, a tiny camera came out of the wall, which he stared at, and then 6 guns popped out of the wall, causing him to take a few steps backwards in surprise. Suddenly a voice came over a loudspeaker somewhere that Spy Clops couldn't see, but he recognized the voice as Chase's.

"Why are you here, Spy Clops? If you’re planning to try to capture us, I think you should wipe that thought right out of your head." Chase's voice said with oblivious disgust. Spy Clops stared at the guns nervously. “I, um,"
Suddenly a new voice came over the loudspeaker. "Hurry up, before I make you!" Then Chase's, saying: "Charge! Get away from the mike! I'm talking here! So, Spy Clops. Get on with it." Spy Clops swallowed nervously. "I want to join."

There! I said it! He thought, now, if they would just let me in...
There was a shocked silence that followed, and when Chase started speaking again, he sounded like he was a bit shocked.
"Why should I believe you? For all I know, you could have been sent here by Dr. Inferno to pretend you wanted to join, and then report everything you hear back to him!" A look of disgust crossed Spy Clops' face. "I can assure you, that's not the case."

Chase still didn't sound convinced. "Dr. Inferno could have told you to say that, too."

Spy Clops looked up from the particularly fast snail he had been watching. "Please believe me! I'm telling the truth! Honest!” “Tell me one reason I should believe you.”

“Well, I could show you something, but you’d have to let me inside to do it.”

“Why couldn’t you do it out there?” “’Cuz I need to be inside to do it” “Well I’m not letting you inside, so your either going to have to think of something else or go back to your own base.”

Spy Clops reached into his pocket for his mini-screwdriver. “I can’t go back to my own base. If Dr. Inferno ever found out I tried this, he’d throw me in the scrap pile.”

Ah. There it was. Charge’s voice came once again. “You’re just saying that so we’ll let you in.” “For the last time, Charge! Get away from the mike!” Spy Clops leaned closer to the buttons that you press to enter the (ever changing) password to get into the base to hide what he was doing, and then started to take the cover off. “I hear you’re having some trouble with your agents, aren’t you, Chase?”

There was an annoyed grunt from the loudspeaker, just as the cover for the buttons came off. “That’s none of your business!” “Oh, really now?” Said Spy Clops, now starting to hack the buttons, so they would open the door for him. “Yes really! And you better not forget it!” Than there was a girl’s voice in the background and it sounded like Trace’s. “Hey Chase, wutcha doing? What the… is that Spy Clops at the door?” Then Chase’s voice, again. “Yeah, and he says he wants to join.”

Trace started to talk again, this time her voice was softer. “Well you can’t go not letting him in just because he used to be an Inferno, he might actually want to join, and besides, he seems intent on getting in and I think you’ll have a hard time stopping him.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He’s taken the cover for the buttons off, and is hijacking them.”

“WHAT?! Hey, you! Step away from those buttons!”

The guns on the wall suddenly loaded and pointed at Spy Clops, who quickly stepped back from what he has been doing, revealing a mess of buttons and wires.

There was the sound of someone complaining in the background from the loudspeaker, and then Chase saying, “Charge, please shut up. We can fix it.” The complaining stopped. Spy Clops stared at the guns and started inching back. “So, are you guys going to let me in or not? ‘cuz if you aren’t, I guess I’ll just, uh, get moving!” One of the guns fired, and the bullet landed only inches away from Spy Clops, causing him to jump. “Stay right there.” Said Chase, his voice filled with warning, and Spy Clops stopped where he was, shaking a little.

Trace started talking again. “Aw, Chase! You’re scaring him!” “I’m defending our base!” Chase snapped back, sounding grumpy. “Well, did he say anything that could be a reason to trust him?” “Yeah, he said something about showing me something, and that he’d have to be inside to do it, but I think he’s just trying to get us to let him inside the base.” “Well why don’t you let him in and see what he does? It’s not like he has any bombs on him, so he couldn’t do much with all six of us standing close, although once he-”

“Ahem, I can hear you.” Said Spy Clops, a little annoyed because he knew what Trace was about to say. Trace continued talking. “Sorry. Anyway, Chase, why don’t you let him in? We’ll all be standing guard.” “Well, OK.” Chase grumbled. The mike switched off, making a click go over the loudspeaker. A few minutes later, the front door slid open, revealing the six Agents, all with guns in hand, but not pointing them at Spy Clops. He warily walked in while watching the guns, just in case any of them suddenly whipped up and fired.

But, none of the Agents moved to fire at him, so he allowed himself to relax a little.

Chase spoke first. “So, Spy Clops. What is it that you think will convince us to let you join? It better be good, or else you’ll be running away from here as fast as those mechanical legs can take you.” Spy Clops stopped walking now. “With what I’m about to show you, I doubt I’ll be running away.” He then opened a compartment in one of his legs and there was a click as something popped out of his circuitry, and then he held up a small orange and black data chip, the Inferno’s colors.

“Do any of you know what this is?” The Agents all shook their heads no. Spy Clops continued, “This is a state-of-the-art Inferno loyalty chip, and if I were to lose it, or it was to get destroyed in any way, I would never be allowed near any of the Inferno bases again.” Chase looked at it suspiciously. “Then you wouldn’t want to lose it, would you?” Spy Clops didn’t say anything, but instead threw the chip up into the air, the Agent’s eyes following it all the way, and speared it with one of the claws on the ends of his legs.

Chase was the first to respond. “What the… you just… why…?” Spy Clops reached down and took the loyalty chip, now with a perfect hole through the middle, off his claw. “Yeah, I just destroyed it. So what?” Fuse dropped his gun. “So what? All you say is ‘So what?’ and you just did something that makes you unable to go back to the Infernos even if Chase doesn’t allow you to join?! That’s crazy!” Spy Clops just shrugged. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. All I know is that I’m not going back there, ever. And if I can’t join here, I’ll just go free-lance. So, Chase. Can I join or not?”

Chase stared at Spy Clops from behind his glasses. “That, I’d have to say, was actually

pretty impressive. You can join, but on one condition.” Spy Clops just looked at Chase. “And what would that be?” Chase smiled. “Make me a soda, right now.” Spy Clops had to keep his jaw from dropping. “You aren’t serious, are you?” Chase smiled even more. “No, I’m not serious. Come on, I’ll show you the HQ.” So then Spy Clops ran to catch up with Chase as he walked towards a door, which slid open just as Spy Clops thought he was about to crash into it.

In the new room, Spy Clops saw about eight computers, and more types of gadgets then he thought could possibly exist. “Gadgets galore,” he said quietly, just as both Fuse and Trace entered, and then sat down in front of computers. “This,” Said Chase, motioning around the room, “Is the main transmission room. The computers are supposed to be for receiving transmissions, but it appears that someone has put games on one of them.” Immediately after he said this, Trace quit the game she was playing and deleted it and several others.

The rest of the day pretty much went like this, with Chase showing him around and telling him all about the team he had just joined. But for reasons Spy Clops didn’t understand, Trace was shadowing them almost all the time. Later, Spy Clops had put on an Agents shirt and was laying in his bunk in the bunk room, as were all the other agents, but because of his long legs, Spy Clops preferred a bottom bunk, while the others all liked top bunks. There was a TV mounted on the wall, and Chase had informed him that the Agents watched a movie almost every night.

Chase opened a compartment in the wall and rolled out a rack with a bunch of CDs on it. “So, which movie do we want to watch tonight?” Almost at once, everyone except Spy Clops and Chase shouted, “THE ADVENTURES OF CLUTCH POWERS!”

Causing Spy Clops to clap his hands over his ears, and Chase to raise both of his hands and yell, “OK! I get the point! You all want to watch The Adventures of Clutch Powers!” Then he took a CD out and pushed the rack back into the wall and closed the compartment, then tossed to CD to Charge, who threw it like a Frisbee towards the CD player and it actually went in!
After the movie, Chase turned off the TV. “Time to go to sleep everyone!”

Swift looked over at Fuse’s bunk.

“It looks like Fuse is one step ahead of you, Chase.” She said, smiling a little.

Fuse was fast asleep on his bunk with his mouth open, drooling a little.

When the other Agents saw this, a giggle fit started up.

Spy Clops just dropped his gaze to his covers and sighed.

“Missing the other Infernos?” Spy Clops jumped and looked to see who had spoken.

Trace was standing at the head of his bunk.

“It’s OK if you do,” said Trace when Spy Clops didn’t reply. “It’s only natural to miss the people you’ve been with almost every day if you’re suddenly away from them.”

“I suppose.” Spy Clops replied.

“I’d better get back in bed or Chase will be wondering what I’m doing…” And with that said, Trace half ran, half jumped back over to her bunk and climbed up only in the way that someone who had been doing it all her life could, which triggered memories of when Spy Clops was just a seven year old kid, racing his sister up the ladder of their bunk beds.

Spy Clops layed down and pulled the covers over his shoulders just as someone turned the lights off. His life had changed so much since the fire that had forced him to become an Inferno, and now his family thought he was dead, his body destroyed by the flames. On second thought, it was probably better that they didn’t know. They wouldn’t recognize him anyway, with his cyber implants and all. Even his sister wouldn’t know him, and she probably wouldn’t want to talk to him anyway, just because he had joined the Infernos… and that was his last thought before falling asleep.

Spy Clops woke with a start and sat up. Where was he? This wasn’t the Inferno bunkroom! Then it all came back to him. The zap cannon, running away from the Infernos, joining the Agents, and that awesome movie… he remembered it all. Spy Clops leaned back against the wall. So much had happened in the last day… Then, quite suddenly, pillows started flying and one hit him full force right in the face.

“Hey! Watch it!” He shouted, his hand darting up to check if any of his eyes had cracked.

They hadn’t.

The pillows momentarily stopped flying just long enough for someone to say “sorry!” and then started flying again.

“Crazy Agents,” Spy Clops said under his breath as he got up and made a mad dash for the door, getting himself outside just before a pillow smacked into him, and then he made his way to the kitchen. The only one there was Chase, who was drinking something minty. Chase looked up from what he was drinking. “Got caught in a pillow fight?”

“Yeah,” Said Spy Clops.

Chase chuckled and looked at his drink. “You might want to learn to wake up early. You get less sleep, but you don’t get clobbered.” “Good idea,” Said Spy Clops, “I’m starved. Anything to eat?” Chase looked up from his drink yet again and nodded his head in the direction of the cupboards. “Look for yourself. After all, you are an Agent.”

Spy Clops grunted in agreement and headed towards the cupboards, and about fifteen minutes later was sitting at the table eating breakfast. Then, the door to the bunkroom burst open and all five of the Agents who had been pillow fighting tumbled into the room.

Immediately after everyone landed, the squirming begin.

“Charge, get off of me!”

“Trace, you’re standing on my foot!”

“Would you stop pulling my hair?!”

Chase sighed and went over to help them all get back on their feet.

About half an hour later, everyone was seated around the table.

Fuse was the first to speak. “Spy Clops, why did you leave the Infernos, anyway? ”