Adam Powerhouse Episode 1: Birth of the Double Zero Read online

Adam Powerhouse Episodes 1

  Birth of the Double Zero

  By Kevin T. Goddard

  Copyright 2010 Kevin T. Goddard

  Table of Contents

  Episode One: Birth of the Double Zero

  Author's Note

  Prologue

  Scene 1: Two to One

  Scene 2: Super What?

  Scene 3: They Grow Up Too Fast!

  Adam Powerhouse: Episode One

  Birth of the Double Zero

  A Story by Kevin T. Goddard

  Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Brothers and Sisters of Adam Powerhouse,

  You have in your hands my brainchild. Adam Powerhouse is a character to whom I have given life—but I need your help making him grow. When I read a good book with riveting characters, I do not want that book to end. When the book ends, I hope for a sequel. When the sequel ends, I hope for a series. When the series ends, I reread it wishing the characters could live on forever. Well, what if they could? What if you and I become Adam’s family and guide him along his way?

  Adam has almost died once already. I created him in 2001 and he sat in a file in my computer for nine years! I had helped Adam invent a phone that could use the internet. He created a video game to help him practice karate moves and how to play the guitar for his band. Adam had many other inventions—all of which have since actually been invented and you probably take them for granted and use them every day. So I’ve had to rewrite much of the book since these things Adam made are neither cool nor surprising anymore.

  I am asking for your help in this. I am promoting you from reader to producer. As you read each episode, help me by telling me what Adam means to you. Help me by telling me what you see Adam becoming. What inventions he needs to build. What choices he needs to make!

  Email me at [email protected] and give me feedback. If I use your ideas, I will acknowledge you in the first episode in which I incorporate your idea. If we are lucky, Adam will stay fresh and interesting and he will live forever. With your help, I will try to bring you more of Adam and his friends’ and enemies’ lives one to two times a month. As Adam grows, watch for a website and he might even begin tweeting. Adam will be as big as you let him be.

  Finally, Adam is superhuman. Not to spoil anything, but every superhuman has to decide which path to take: superhero or super-villain. And even once Adam decides, his path isn’t clear or easy. Temptation will continually try to lead him down the darker path where only his self-interest is important. It is up to you to help Adam stay on the right path…whichever one that is!

  Enough jibber-jabber. Let’s get to Adam’s story.

  Gratefully,

  Kevin T. Goddard

  Prologue

  On Adam’s tenth birthday, much to his mother’s displeasure, Mr. Powerhouse (a.k.a. Mr. P) gave Adam a skateboard.

  “Honey, he’ll hurt himself,” Mrs. Powerhouse (a.k.a Mrs. P) exclaimed.

  “Nonsense, the boy could walk a tightrope he has such good balance, he plays football all the time, and you’re worried about a little board with wheels?” Mr. P gave Adam a wink. Mrs. P pursed her lips and didn’t say anything else. Adam could tell his parents would talk about it later, but he was pleased to have something to replace the modified bike he’d stowed away until he could use it more safely.

  Later that day, his mom asked him to go to the corner store and get a gallon of milk. Adam grabbed the five dollar bill from her hand, then his skateboard, and rode out the door before she had a chance to tell him to walk.

  On the way to the store, he enjoyed the sensation of gliding along the sidewalk, feeling the little bumps as he hit each crack between squares of concrete. The sun seemed extremely bright and the trees vivid green. Adam breathed in the cool May air, tasting the neighborhood’s flowers, noticing the honeysuckle was starting to bloom. Robins and sparrows called from tree to tree adding to the feeling of just a great day to be alive.

  As Adam pulled up to the store, he slowed just enough to let the automatic door slide open and then glided to the back where the milk was in the coolers. The teenaged clerk called a half-hearted, “Hey” as Adam went by, but didn’t really care, as long as Adam didn’t break anything.

  Adam stopped and glanced at a car magazine, then opened the cooler door and let the fan blow the cool air over him. He grabbed a gallon of milk then started to turn around when he noticed the curved security mirror. In the reflection, he saw someone at the counter who was waving something around.

  Adam quietly set the milk on the floor and began rolling down the aisle that ran parallel to the front counter. As he built up speed, he could hear the clerk arguing with the robber. Adam heard a gun cock and remembered the robbery he’d seen on his computer where the clerk was shot. Rounding the corner, Adam ollied into the air, grabbing a hold of the skateboard and yelled, “Hey!” as he shoved his feel out in front of him into a flying kick with the skateboard out flat. The thief turned just in time to get a shot off into the ceiling before Adam drop kicked him in the chest and rebounded onto his feet to look down at the robber who was groaning.

  Adam and the clerk, who had leaned over the counter, watched as the gunman grabbed his head and tried to get up. “You’d better get out of here kid,” the clerk said helpfully.

  Adam jumped onto his skateboard and took off through the electric door as he heard the clerk shout, “Watchout!”

  He looked back just in time to see the bad guy stagger to his feet and lunge for the door. Adam began pushing with one leg to gain speed, racing for his life now.

  Adam cut through an alley and ended up heading toward one of his favorite places: an old junk yard. He had found plenty of cool items there and knew his way around so he figured he could lose this guy among the piles of junk. As he came upon the gate into the junkyard, Adam noticed the gate was shut and the latch was fastened. Just like when Adam was preparing for a play during a football game, he envisioned himself leaning forward and flipping the latch open as he crashed through the gate.

  Adam could hear the robber gaining ground as he slowed slightly to make sure he could flip the latch and not be knocked from the skateboard. The adrenaline pumped through his body and it was all Adam could do to keep from just trying to plow through the fence. He reached forward, and as he flicked his fingers to flip the latch, the metal fork holding the door closed moved just ahead of his fingers so that he never touched it. The gate swung open in front of him, never slowing him down as he barreled through, still fleeing for his life.

  Slightly bewildered, Adam shook off his surprise in order to maintain his focus. He cut around a pile of old car parts and shot straight into a corrugated metal sewer pipe. The rata-tat of the skateboard’s wheels vibrated Adam’s bones. Sensing the crook behind him round the corner and raise his gun, Adam pushed off hard at the wall of the pipe, his momentum causing him to ride up one side, squat into the centrifugal force, and ramp down the other in a tight, corkscrew spiral. Never slowing down, Adam let his speed carry him into one more tight turn, the entire time bullets whizzing through the air around him as the bad guy unloaded his weapon at Adam.

  During a third turn around, Adam ran out of pipe and shot into the air upside down, finishing a flip, and landing hard on the concrete of a sidewalk on the other side of the junkyard. Adam sped down the hill and around the corner, finally finding his way home, his heart pounding from the excitement of the chase.

  But there is much to Adam’s story that you’ve missed, so maybe you should start at the beginning…

  Scene 1: Two to One

  A tall, slightly ru
ffled man with blonde, unkempt hair and a slender, athletic woman paused at the top of a small hill to catch their breath. “You okay honey?” questioned the man with his arm around her shoulder.

  “Yes,” sighed the woman, her shoulders sagging. “But I can’t believe we’re going to have twins!”

  “I know what you mean, but we’re going to have the most beautiful babies St. Louis has ever seen!”

  The woman looked up at the man, “I guess you’re right. Just the thought of two babies wears me out though.”

  The man led her under an oak tree and spread out a blanket. He opened a picnic basket and began setting out a celebration dinner. The couple sat for a bit in the quiet, chilly afternoon enjoying their food. Every once in a while, one of them would sigh and smile at the other one.

  “The air sure is getting colder,” Mr. P worried. A dark bank of clouds was rolling toward them.

  “Maybe we should pack it up?” Mrs. P asked.

  “We’ve definitely had enough excitement for