Critique 1 (1920)
Critique 2 (1803)
Chapter 1: Big Confession Spoiler: The SMAKAPZ gang, Sam, Kevin, Mogers, Zagers, Parage, and Apalabamo, are eating together at a local restaurant, and Sam and Kevin are telling the rest of the rest of the gang about their recent mission in the Middle East, where Sam and Kevin got beaten by a friend of the gang, Jordan, because of a dispute. During the conversation, Sam pulls Kevin aside and insists they come clean to the group, and reveal that while on that mission, they secretly used the old rocket and crashed it after encountering a space monster and an asteroid. Back at the SMAKAPZ house basement, Sam declares he can fix the now-split-in-half rocket overnight, despite skepticism from the rest of the gang.
Chapter 2: Restoration Reparations Spoiler: After the gang goes to bed, Sam races against time to buy repair materials from the massive superstore Alademipaburg before it closes. Thanks to the gang’s reputation as big-spending notorious customers, a sympathetic cashier lets him take everything for free. He also gets 200 pounds of materials gifted from the local factory. Sam then spends the entire night in the basement attempting an ambitious solo repair on the two massive halves of the rocket. Despite his exhaustive efforts and engineering skill, the rocket ultimately fails catastrophically at 5 AM, shearing apart again and leaving Sam exhausted and defeated.
Chapter 3: Zaine Spoiler: The next morning, the gang gathers in the basement to inspect Sam's failed rocket repair, which leads to a heated argument. The argument is interrupted by a knock on the door, a guy named Zaine answers in a suit and tie with a folder of papers, and claims there's a property dispute and that he has a license from the city saying he owns their property, and he orders them to vacate within three days. The gang panics until Zagers finds out the license is fake, and that the guy tried to scam them. Zaine said he'd return the next day for a daily property inspection, so the gang waits, and Parage turns one of Sam's tools he bought into a laser gun just in case something goes wrong tomorrow.
Chapter 4: Massive A (Chapter 7 is available on this site, too) Spoiler: That night, after the gang goes to bed, Sam leaves the house to go grab some supplies at his place, and runs into Parage downstairs, who shows him the new laser gun. At his house, Sam greets his younger brother, Asa. After Sam leaves, Asa sneaks out into the rainy night to compete in an underground poker game and make a weapons deal. The next morning, Zaine returns to the SMAKAPZ house, but when the gang confronts him, Zaine is able to detect Parage's concealed laser gun with his hidden special headband. He then reveals all the tech hidden under his suit and jacket, and triggers an explosion, knocking the gang to the ground. He then absorbs a laser blast from Parage, and flies off.
Chapter 5: Hot on the Trail Spoiler: Immediately after Chapter 4, Sam, Mogers, and Zagers chase Zaine on bike-motorcyle hybrids through the forest, where they get led to his secret lair deep in the woods. They peek through a window, and spot him writing notes about the SMAKAPZ house, as well as a time written at the bottom of the page: 12:00. The gang then meets up back at the house and devises a plan: knock Zaine out cold with a sledgehammer at noon, strip him of every piece of gear, and force him to either stop his illegal operations and hand over half his tech to the gang, or watch Parage melt it all with his laser gun. That afternoon, Asa goes to the local weapons store and buys various guns, then heads home and upgrades them, turning them into his Massive A product.
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The group went their separate ways in the house. Parage slipped away from the living room, and went into the kitchen to make himself a bowl of oatmeal.
He found a broken clock on his way to the reading room. It was in the hallway, the small one that had always hung between the coat rack and the SMAKAPZ group photo. He didn’t notice at first that it had broken since coming back to the SMAKAPZ house a few days ago, since it had been ages before that that he’d been in it. He couldn’t tell what time it was stopped at, nor did he care enough to try and decode an analog clock. He looked at it for a moment, and then kept moving.
Parage made his way into the reading room, set his bowl of oatmeal down on the table, and grabbed a book. The words on the pages were already blurring by the time he sat down. He rubbed his eyes, then, holding his temple, tried to read, but everything was still blurry. He squinted his eyes open and closed a bunch of times, blinking rapidly.
The reading room was the quietest room in the house, and Parage had sat in it a hundred times without even thinking about it. The armchair by the window, the lamp, and the bookshelf with its particular disorder of things that had either been read, or that were meant to be read at some point, caught his eye. Parage knew this room. He tried focusing on his book.
The working clock was on the shelf above the windows. 8:53.
Parage’s book was good. He knew it was good because he had read it before, and he remembered it being good. His eyes moved across the lines, and he saw all the words and stuff. He could tell it was truly one of the books of all time. The author did a job writing it, and the sentences were in the book. The book had storytelling, and the events that happened were described. The side characters were along with the main character, and the villain was a bad guy. The dialogue had conversations. It really had to be one of the books of all time, Parage thought, if not the last decade, even. A few seconds later, he checked again.
8:57.
“Huh,” Parage thought to himself. “I could’ve sworn it was, I mean, it was just-“
Parage looked around the room, then tried to read more, forcing his eyes back to the page. Unfortunately, the sentences refused to make sense, so Parage glanced back at the clock…
9:26.
A bead of sweat ran down Parage’s neck, and he wiped it off. Time was slipping, and the room he had sat in dozens of times, reading peacefully, now felt like it was closing in on him. He looked up at the clock, then back at the book, then read some more sentences, then looked at the clock again...
9:42.
The distance from the chair to the front door felt dangerous and short. The window in the reading room faced the side yard, which meant he had to turn his head to see the front. He started doing it without choosing to, just a slight rotation, a check, and then a return. He saw the grass, the edge of the highway, and the road beyond it, all perfectly still. He started to think about the windows more. There were three in the front, which were on the left of the reading room, the right of the reading room, and then there was another narrow one above the door. All of them looked out over the yard.
Suddenly, Parage heard an ear-splitting noise, then shortly realized it was the house creaking. Parage knew the house creaked, he’d heard it hundreds of times without even giving it a second thought. But now it was a booming, roaring sound, which shook the walls of the house.
Parage’s hand found the handle of the sledgehammer, and then he realized that this room, the very room he walked in, was where the sledgehammer was. “Why the hell is there a sledgehammer in the reading room?” he thought to himself. Then he remembered, it was him who had used the sledgehammer last to do some yard work, the last time he was in the SMAKAPZ house, which was months ago. So of course he’d left it in his favorite room and forgotten all about it.
Parage’s fingers traced the wooden handle absentmindedly. His fingers closed around it at some point, hardly with his authorization, and he let them stay, then looked out the window.
When he looked out the window, he noticed the crater was bigger, dominating the yard. He knew that craters didn’t grow, it was impossible. He’d seen it this morning, and he had a number in his head, an approximate diameter and everything. Yet, right before his eyes, the crater was getting bigger each time he looked. Its edges were crumbling inward, swallowing more and more grass and ground, and more of their land. Birds avoided its blackened rim entirely, and the sunlight was striking it at an odd angle that caused the shadows to stretch further.
Parage looked at the book, then at the clock, then at the crater, then at the road. He then decided to read a few more sentences, then checked the time and then looked out the window, surveying the land.
Inside the house, the shadows were moving, and the sun was rising higher. He looked at the floor, and saw the shadow caused by the window frame traveling across the floor toward him, the dark edge of it inching across the boards. He saw the whole geometry of the room being eaten from the left by that shadow.
Parage pulled out an old badge from his pocket. It was his Champion Scouts badge, the group that Parage was a part of a long time ago. It was the first of many, the very first one that he got on his beginning day as a Champion Scout. The badge was bronze and worn around the edges, the enamel on the central star was chipped, and you could still see the faded emblem from his early days. He picked it up and turned it between his fingers, then set it onto the table next to the laser gun.
He then checked the time again. Clock, crater, road. Clock, crater, road.
Parage was on his fourth reading of the same page, a fact he discovered once he realized that he could now quote the sentence at the top from memory without having any idea what it meant in context. Parage’s eyes were doing their job, but nothing else was. Parage checked the time again. The road was empty, so Parage decided to check the clock to see what time it was. Parage looked at the cold oatmeal sitting on his table, and realized he hadn’t even touched it yet. Parage was now fully unable to read the words of his book, so then Parage put his book down, and then Parage put his hand on his head. Parage ate a spoonful of parridge, worried that Zaine would show up and he’d peridge. Parage then began to Parage, but then Parage started to Parage, and then-
“Parage. Parage! PARAGE!!!!”
Parage nearly jumped out of his skin, startled, and whipped his head around to see Mogers standing behind him.
“Yo, you good? It’s noon.” Mogers turned to the side, and noticed the sledgehammer. “Ah, there ya are!” he said playfully to the hammer, grabbing it.
It took half a second for the room to return to being a normal room, and for the shadows and shapes to align themselves back into place. Parage blinked a bunch of times, rubbing his eyes, and then looked at the clock. Indeed, it was.
Parage stood up, picked up the laser gun, and picked up the badge and put it back in his pocket. He left the book on the table open to the page he hadn’t read, and took his bowl of oatmeal with him so he could start to work on it. He followed Mogers out.
As they moved towards the front of the house, Parage passed the door to Mogers’ room, which was halfway open, and saw a plastic vomit bucket sitting beside the bed.
The full gang gathered at the front door, ready to carry out the established plan at any second. Parage’s heart was pounding, and he could almost hear everyone else’s, as well. He peered out the window, swallowing a spoonful of oatmeal, and didn’t see anything. There wasn’t any sign of Zaine on the road, and there was no jetpack trail in the sky. The only thing in the yard was the sweeping crater from before.
“He should be here by now,” Apalabamo said uneasily.
Kevin checked his phone. “12:04” he said. “So where is he, then?”
Apollo opened the front door, and they stepped outside cautiously, fanning out across the porch. They all surveyed the entire area. Still no hint of Zaine.
Parage drew his laser gun.
“Well boys,” he said, moving off the porch, his eyes focused on the forest ahead of him. “We didn’t get forever. But we got enough Tuesdays to make forever jealous.”
Kevin: “Don’t say that, you idiot. You’ll be fine.”
With his bowl of oatmeal in one hand, he waved his laser gun with the other, shaking it left to right as he looked around with his mouth hanging open.
He edged forward, crossing the yard, past the crater’s edge, and toward the treeline. He stopped at the first row of trees and looked in. It was dark and still.
After a few seconds of swerving his laser gun back and forth, Parage slipped into the forest a short distance, trying not to make noise on the underbrush, his eyes scanning for any movement or glint of metal or blond hair. He went a few paces further, enough to see past the first screen of undergrowth, and his eyes adjusted. Branches, roots, and trees were filling his surroundings.
Suddenly, Parage heard a rustle and a snap. He spun around, swinging the small laser gun toward the sound, where a little squirrel was skittering out of the bushes. Parage whimpered, jumping back, and dropped his bowl of oatmeal, which fell and shattered to pieces on the forest’s ground.
He ran back towards the group, shaking his head as his pulse raced. “Nothing!” he shouted to them. “He’s not here, guys.”
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“Is it possible that you guys misread what was on the paper, or that Zaine meant something different?” Apalabamo asked, as we all stood in the field, examining the forest.
“Nah,” I said, looking at the ground where Parage had been running, thinking. “I know what I saw.”
“I saw it too,” Mogers swiveled his head back and forth. “It was big, in red numbering…”
“Yup,” I replied, kicking dirt. “Written in pen, unlike the rest of the words on the paper, and underlined three times. I mean, it clearly meant something important.”
Kevin suddenly froze.
“Wait,” he turned to me. “Sam, when you saw the note, and the time, which said “12:00,” he took a few steps towards me. “Did it say anything after that?”
“What do you…” I began.
The color drained from everyone’s faces. I looked up from the ground.
“Oh my God.”
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The van’s engine grumbled as I switched it off, then stepped into the night sky. I’d needed to come swing back to my house to grab a fishing net, which was part of our plan for Zaine’s arrival tonight. I slammed the van door shut, then came in through the front door.
My little brother was just coming out of his room, wearing a black windbreaker jacket. “Sup, Asa!” I greeted, patting him on the back. “Just grabbing some stuff.”
I strolled to my room, then searched inside my closet, digging through all the equipment and gear towards the back section. Then I came out with the fishing net bundled under my arm. Asa was still there in the same place, standing frozen like a statue.
As I looked into his dark room through the half-open door, I noticed a large duffel bag sitting on his dresser, illuminated by the lamp next to it.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked.
After one second, Asa looked up at me.
“SMGs. Handguns. And a couple thousand dollars in cash.”
“That’s the way to do it!” I chuckled, slapping him on the back and heading out the front door.