The Rendering

  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  First published by Egmont USA, 2011

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Joel Naftali, 2011

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Naftali, Joel.

  The rendering / Joel Naftali.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Thirteen-year-old Doug relates in a series of blog posts the story of how he saved the world but was falsely branded a terrorist and murderer, forced to fight the evil Dr. Roach and his armored biodroid army with an electronics-destroying superpower of his own.

  eISBN: 978-1-60684-276-8

  [1. Science fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Blogs—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.N13354Re 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010036640

  CPSIA tracking label information:

  Random House Production • 1745 Broadway • New York, NY 10019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Is Anyone Out There?

  A Comment on Comments

  The Regular Spot

  With the Soul of a Garbage Disposal

  Such a Nice Town

  A Meltdown in Art Class

  Free Fire

  The Girl Next Door

  Don’t Mess with the Barbie

  Rise of the Root Canal

  An Ordinary Day

  The Dragonfly

  An Ordinary Day, Continued

  The Center Cannot Hold

  A Biodigital Interlude

  Back to the Center

  Eyes Everywhere

  The Bad Doctor

  Graybar and Gunfire

  The Vocab

  Ready, Fire, Aim

  An Unfortunate Introduction

  Everything’s a Blur

  Back up

  The Detonator Fired

  Get with the Program

  Falling Down

  My Cubist Period

  Saved by the Barbie

  Five, Four, Three …

  Have a Nice Day

  Target Practice Makes Target Perfect

  Surrounded by Cats

  Into the Fire

  Too Young to Die

  The Silver Lining

  Balanced on a Knife Edge

  You are Here

  Faster, Stronger, Bigger

  A Ball of Fail

  What, No Ice Maker?

  A Short Break for a Brief Meltdown

  Chilling Like a Villain

  Completely 10010000

  Chamber of Horrors

  The Loneliest Number

  He Could’ve Just Adopted a Hamster

  The Creeping Doom

  Anfscd

  Happy Birthday to Me

  Excruciating

  Paging Dr. Mandible

  Raging Blue

  Take Two

  High Score

  Apprenticed Like a Dentist

  Well, My Middle Name is John

  Weeks or Days

  Double Click This

  Dropping the Eaves

  Plan B

 

  Nobody Reads My Blog

  I Got the B-Minus!

  Catching the Bug

  An Eruption of Corruption

  Another Countdown

  Spin Down

  Shopping Trip

  My Science Experiment

  A Girl

  Where was I?

  A Girl, Continued

  Three Blocks Earlier

  Surrender

  At Least They’re not Little Yappy Dogs

  Suburban Recon

  A Case of Viral Infection

  The Ferrari’s in the Shop

  Too Cruel for School

  You Don’t Know Jack

  How About a Calculator and a Flashlight?

  Babies Don’t Shoot Back

  With His Teeth

  Our Robot Overlords

  Some Days You Need to VENT

  Fuzzy, was He?

  No

  Soda Pop

  Humdrum

  The Gruesome Twosome

  And Know When to Run

  Doesn’t Feel Like Victory

  The Big Lonely

  And Wash Behind My Ears

  Help

  Border Patrol

  Cyber-Wha?

  Cartoon Spittoon

  Because My Jaw Aches from Yawning

  Skunk on a Stick

  With a Battering Ram

  Shut Your Trap

  Chute ’Em Up

  And Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street

  Do not Pass Go

  Plan B? What Plan B?

  Truckin’

  The Ratio of a Circle’s Circumference to Its Diameter

  In Which Nothing Explodes, For Once

  Next Time Maybe Try “Avoid It”

  Mr. Nobody

  On the Grid

  Off the Cliff

  Share the Stealth

  I’ll Take that as a Yes

  Next Time, Digitize Flying Squirrels

  Maybe a Lot More

  The New Industrial Plant

  Commonly Used Terms

  About the Author

  IS ANYONE OUT THERE?

  Well, I guess you’re reading this.

  Would you do me a favor and leave a comment saying how you found the blog? You probably searched for my name, except this Web site isn’t even in the top three thousand search results for “Doug Solomon.”

  Unlike a hundred other blogs, all written by people pretending they’re me. But I’m the genuine article:

  the kid with the $100,000 reward on his head, even though he’s only got $40 to his name.

  the kid featured on America’s Most Dangerous, even though he’s not guilty.

  Maybe that’s why you’re here. You think I killed my aunt. You think I’m a fugitive from justice, a homicidal maniac, or a domestic terrorist.

  A thirteen-year-old driven crazy by video games.

  Or maybe you’re not sure. Maybe you’re one of those conspiracy theorists who don’t believe everything they see on TV. Maybe you think I’m innocent. That I didn’t bomb the Center, that I didn’t kill anyone.

  The only problem is, if you think that, you probably also think the explosion originated from an alien mother ship.

  Yeah, the only people who believe I’m not a killer also believe in flying saucers.

  Well, I’m not an alien and I’m not a psycho or a terrorist.

  Sure, I’m living under a fake name now, in an undisclosed location, but I’m just an ordinary kid.

  At least, I was.

  A COMMENT ON COMMENTS

  No comments yet. Maybe because nobody’s reading this.

  Or maybe you’re scared.

  Maybe you heard about someone who disappeared: a random guy online, a fellow gamer, an aunt. That’s why I’m writing this: to tell you what’s really going on. To explain what really happened to my aunt—and to the others who vanished.

  Don’t worry about commenting. Nobody can track you from this site.

  If they could track you, they would’ve caught me in the past few months since my whole life blew up in my face. Good thing those pictures on America’s Most Dangerous were taken when I was in the first grade. And they’re the most recent photos, because all dig
ital images of me were altered or destroyed. For my protection.

  Anyway, I’ll post as often as I can. That is, when I’m not running from monkeybeasts or wrestling with my homework.

  THE REGULAR SPOT

  I guess I’ll begin at the regular spot—the beginning. Back when I was an ordinary kid, my days started like this:

  Wake twenty minutes late and throw on some clothes. Preferably not the same ones as the day before. Well, preferably not all the same ones as the day before.

  Wait at the bus stop, playing my GamePod. Sit in the middle of the bus. Not in front with nerds, not in back with bullies.

  Math: Beat level twelve while playing under desk. GamePod confiscated.

  English: Stare outside at the playing field.

  Social studies: Revolutionary War again. Still boring after all these years.

  P.E.: Run back and forth on the basketball court, trying to blend in. Shoot twice, score once.

  Art: The kiln goes haywire and melts the sculptures. Pretty cool.

  Science: Nothing goes haywire. Boring.

  Play Arsenal Five after school while my best friend researches our social studies project.

  Dinner and TV, more games, and bed. Oh, and homework. Maybe.

  That was my life, in ten easy steps. Probably not all that different from yours.

  At least, back then.

  But now I’m posting from an anonymous server and routing my messages across the world a million times. And I left that school; I left that town; I left everything behind. I even have a new name now, one I can’t tell you.

  Because I don’t want to look up from my desk in math class one day to see a biodroid swivel its plated head around the room scanning for me.

  On the list of things I don’t want, that rates pretty high.

  WITH THE SOUL OF A GARBAGE DISPOSAL

  Still no comments, so I can only guess what you want to know. Let’s start with, what’s a biodroid?

  Think vicious and armored: a cross between a pit bull and a tank. Some are the size of your average ninth grader, others the size of your average dump truck.

  Oh, and they have missile launchers.

  And flamethrowers.

  And bad attitudes.

  And they’ve hacked into every security camera, database, and computer system in the country.

  Before all this started, my biggest problems were passing tests and beating video games, not an army of killer cyborgs hunting me down. But now? I might look like an ordinary kid, but according to VIRUS, I’m Public Enemy Number One.

  That’s the bad news.

  The good news is I’ve got friends.

  SUCH A NICE TOWN

  Wait, I meant to tell you about my normal life first.

  I lived in a small town not too far from a small city in—you guessed it—a small state. A nice little town exactly like every other nice little town.

  With one difference.

  Well, you found this blog, so you already know parts of my story. You know where I’m from, and you know about the smoldering crater I left behind.

  But you don’t know this: tucked away in the outskirts of my nice little town, behind security fences and minefields, you would’ve found the Biodigital Research Center.

  Not the “Center for Medical Innovation,” despite what the signs said. Not an organization that developed cutting-edge medical technology. Not a building guarded by layers of security to keep the experimental germs inside.

  No, you would’ve found the Biodigital Research Center, funded by a government program so secret that even the CIA didn’t know about it.

  Because it should’ve been called the Biodigital Top Secret Weapons Development Research Center.

  Get the idea?

  Yeah, I thought you might.

  My aunt Margaret used to work there. She was an expert in tachyon mapping, subatomic interfaces, stuff like that. I’ll skip the technical details, but—

  You do not understand the technical details, Douglas.

  Thanks for the vote of confidence. That was my aunt—or what’s left of her—hacking my Net connection again.

  Only to monitor the security of your link and ensure your safety. You know the searchbots never stop hunting for you.

  I’ll explain later how Aunt Margaret hacks the Net, if she can manage to keep from interrupting.

  I will try to restrain myself.

  Thanks.

  Back when life was normal, Aunt Margaret worked at the Center, doing high-tech top secret stuff. Of course, she never told me exactly what she did other than “medical research”—that’s why it’s called top secret—but I’ve learned a lot since then.

  I used to hang at her office sometimes, just in the public areas, not the archives or the tech-development labs. And if you’re expecting to hear that I followed in her footsteps, that I’m some boy genius, let me disappoint you right now: I’m barely passing science.

  I’m not an athlete; I’m not a gifted student; I’m not a singer or an artist or a poet.

  I’m a regular kid. Just like you.

  A MELTDOWN IN ART CLASS

  Well, except for one little quirk.

  Remember that kiln that went haywire and ruined all the sculptures in art class? I guess I wasn’t completely ordinary, even back then. Things like that sometimes … happened around me.

  The first time I remember, I was six years old. My remote-control car smashed itself into pieces against the fridge, ignoring the controls completely. Then cell phones stopped working and cameras malfunctioned. Not always, but often enough that I learned not to stick around for group photographs. When a camcorder bursts into flames every few years, you start to notice.

  Other than that, though? Call me Mr. Ordinary.

  FREE FIRE

  You want to know why I’d hang around an office building instead of watching TV at home? I mean, considering I’m not exactly the Einstein Kid, eager for some alone time in a science lab. And considering they didn’t let me into the top secret areas, just the parts that looked like any other boring big business.

  Video games.

  An entire wall of them, a long line stretching down the length of the employee lounge in the Center. All flashing, beeping, whirring, and absolutely free:

  ARSENAL FIVE

  SMASH AND GRAB III

  XTREME RACER 500

  The employee lounge smelled of microwave popcorn, and sometimes my aunt’s coworkers chatted at me, but still: free video games.

  Heaven.

  So that’s why I was there that day.

  And, um, I don’t want to get all Movie of the Week, but sometimes I don’t like being alone. The thing is, my parents died in a car crash when I was a little kid, so I lived with Auntie M, just the two of us. I used to call her that, to make her laugh. Auntie M. And because, you know, there’s no place like home.

  I guess I’m supposed to be depressed about my parents, but I don’t even remember them. So Auntie M is my whole family.

  Well, she was. Whatever.

  At least I still have Jamie.

  THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

  Looking back, I realize that living with my aunt was great. And that was how I met Jamie, because she lived next door. I don’t want to give her a big head or anything, but … you know how I keep saying I’m a regular guy?

  Jamie is different. Irregular.

  Well, maybe she’s not that bad, but she was a little too rich and way too smart to fit in at our school. She wore designer clothes while the other girls wore chain store stuff. She rode a Diamond Royce bike instead of a Huffy. And I’m not sure if she’s officially a genius, but she took calculus in the sixth grade.

  Plus she’s one of those kids who, for some reason, deal with adults better than they do with other kids.

  For example, my aunt’s the one who introduced us.

  DON’T MESS WITH THE BARBIE

  When I was in elementary school, I came back from dirt biking one day and shoved through the front door. “I’m home!
”

  “In here,” Auntie M called from her study.

  I poured a bowl of cereal in the kitchen and found them in the study: my aunt and this girl wearing a floofy pink dress and pink tights. Jamie denies this, but I swear there were at least three bows in her hair. All pink.

  “This is Jamie from next door,” my aunt said. “She’s helping with my filing.”

  “Why?” I asked, crunching my cereal.

  “Because you didn’t want to.”

  “No, I mean, what’s in it for her?”

  “When I grow up,” the girl told me, “I’m gonna be a scientist. I’m gonna be just like your aunt.”

  I ate another spoonful. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my aunt doesn’t look like an explosion in a Barbie factory.”

  So Jamie hurled a book at my head. Not much aim, but plenty of power.

  RISE OF THE ROOT CANAL

  My aunt had the window repaired, and Jamie outgrew her pink phase. Mostly. And over the next year, we became best friends. I’m still not exactly sure how; it doesn’t matter anymore.

  I just knew that clearing a level on Arsenal Five was more fun when Jamie was at her laptop, memorizing the periodic table or whatever she did before VIRUS destroyed our lives. Kicking back and watching TV was better with her, too.

  Plus, in her post-pink phase, Jamie was willing to get her hands dirty. For example, she was up for going to these empty lots near our street to race dirt bikes and light firecrackers and rebuild an old laser printer.

  Well, that last one was Jamie’s idea. I’d wanted to smash the printer with hammers.

  Anyway, I went poking around one day and found the basement of a house that used to be there. A dark, mildewed, slimy cave. I was ten years old at the time and thought it was the best thing ever.

  My aunt found out and didn’t care. Told you she was cool. In fact, she gave the place a nickname: the root canal. Because it was like a root cellar, but painful as a toothache. Don’t get me started on my aunt’s sense of humor.

  For two weeks that summer, Jamie and I worked on the basement: shoveling, laying down a plywood floor, dragging an old couch into the hole.