The Great Powers Outage by William Boniface Read Free Book Online Page A

vegetables tonight. The thought of a meal of only Pseudo-Chips wasn’t a pleasant one. But that was apparently what was on the menu as Mom poured an entire can into a bowl for my father and then another for herself. As she reached for a third, presumably for me, I stopped her.
    â€œI’ll just have these,” I said, holding up one of my bags of Dr. Telomere’s.
    My parents looked at me as if I had just announced I was quitting school to become a mime. Unsure how to respond, they grudgingly let me proceed. We all sat down at the dinner table with our preferred brands of chips. There was an uncomfortable silence that I decided to break with a question I had been trying to get an answer to all day.
    â€œMom? Dad?” I began. “Do either of you know anything about the Red Menace?”
    â€œIs that a brand of chewing gum?” my father asked. “It’s cinnamony, isn’t it?”
    I shook my head as both he and Mom stared at each other blankly. It was beginning to dawn on me that nobody in this city had much knowledge or interest in history—unless it directly involved them somehow.
    â€œHe’s a villain,” I supplied them the answer. “He was put in prison fifty years ago and they’ve just let him out.”
    â€œWell, that was nice of the city,” my mom responded. “He must be very old by now and obviously can’t cause any harm. What is his power?”
    â€œHe can convince people to do anything he wants them to do,” I said looking them directly in the eyes.
    Their vacant expressions told me that I hadn’t gotten my point across. “Like switch to a new kind of potato chip, even if it isn’t any good,” I added.
    â€œWell, he’ll never get anywhere with that.” My dad laughed. “No one could ever convince people to switch from AI’s Amazing Pseudo-Chips.”
    I dropped my head in exasperation. How was I going to convince my parents that Comrade Crunch/the Red Menace was up to no good? I finished off the small bowl of potato chips in front of me and then excused myself.
    â€œI think I need to go up to my room and lie down for a while,” I announced, only partly feigning exhaustion.
    The truth was, I was completely baffled. What was going on with the Red Menace and AI’s Pseudo-Chips? I went into my room and flopped onto the bed. Absentmindedly, I picked up a knitting needle that was sitting on my nightstand. It was my one souvenir from my recent trip back in time, and I began tapping it against the side of my head as I thought things through.
    What had me flustered was the realization that the Red Menace hadn’t broken any laws. He had been paroled from jail, and the Amazing Indestructo had legitimately hired him to promote his new line of potato chips. There wasn’t anything prohibiting the Red Menace from using his power to advertise a product. Single-handedly driving Superopolis’s most successful company out of business might not have been nice, but it wasn’t illegal.
    Clearly this had to be a far tamer use of his power than the events of fifty years ago that got him sent to prison for 1,636 years. But what had he done to deserve that sentence in the first place? I needed to know more about him. If only there was someone I could turn to for information.
    And then it hit me—literally. I stopped tapping the knitting needle against my head and looked at it. Not only did I know the person best able to reveal the Red Menace’s criminal past but I also had the perfect excuse to pay him a visit.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    On Pins and Needles
    â€œOkay, I know you guys think I’m overreacting about the Red Menace,” I said to my friends as we left school the next day. “But I think there’s someone who can give us all the information we need about him.”
    â€œIf you’re talking about Comrade Crunch , I don’t know what your problem is,” Tadpole replied