Brady Carmichael and the Poodle of Mass Destruction - The Kachina Shaman Read online



  Brady Carmichael

  and the

  Poodle of Mass Destruction

  In

  The Kachina Shaman

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Written by David Carnes

  Illustrations by Christopher Park

  Cover Design by Nicholas J. Longtin

  Copyright © 2013 by David Carnes and Christopher Park

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  * * * * *

  The phone rang, and it wasn’t the regular phone. It was the red one.

  A teenage boy wearing dark pants, a buttoned-up white shirt with a skinny tie and a pressed black lab coat answered the phone. He pushed back his horn-rimmed glasses and set down an old-fashioned clothes iron. It hissed loudly, releasing a puff of steam that smelled like clean laundry, burnt circuits, and wet dog.

  “Carmichael here,” said Brady Carmichael as he picked up the red phone. “Uh huh. Slow down, Mr. President. OK, OK. Really? Sure we can handle it. Sorry, the usual fees apply. Nope, no more patriot discounts. Deficit, schmecifit – we gotta eat.”

  “Alrighty then, agreed?” Brady paused, waiting for an answer. “Good. Give us forty minutes.”

  He clicked off the phone and shouted, “Yo Fifi! We got a job...”

  --

  Fifi took the headphone bud out of her ear. She thought she had heard Brady say they had a job, but she wasn’t sure.

  She paused the Jessie J. track she had been listening to and delicately stepped off her yoga mat, avoiding a patched and battered boxing bag that was still swinging in the air, creaking softly.

  Her painted purple claws clicked on the hardwood floor as she trotted over to the top of an iron spiral staircase. In her high pitched, barky-growly voice she called down, “Brady, you talking to me?”

  “Yeah Feef, we’ve got a job. Just got a call from the President himself.” Brady yelled to her, craning his neck to look up the winding stairs.

  “Ooo did you ask about Bo? How’s he doing?” Fifi shouted down.

  “No I didn’t ask about the President’s dog.” Replied Brady, “I didn’t think you liked Portuguese Water Spaniels. Did something change?”

  Fifi had been having a hard time in the love department. Her current infatuation was with celebrity dogs. Other dogs might not be able to talk like she could, but her doggie boyfriend should at least be unique. She was, after all, a one-of-a-kind poodle. She had genuine alien-modified DNA that gave her the strength of one hundred saint bernards and the smarts of ten Einsteins. She felt that it would be right and proper to also have a one-of-a-kind doggie boyfriend.

  Bo might be a Portuguese water spaniel, thought Fifi, but he is the president’s dog and his butt smells delightful.

  “Maybe we could see him when we’re done with this mission?” she asked as she zipped down the stairs.

  “It’s a deal, Feef, but we’ve got to roll, OK?”

  “Good, let’s suit up,” growled Fifi, “I’ve got a date with the first dog and I don’t want to be late….”

  --

  Together Brady and Fifi headed down to the secret complex hidden under their house.

  They stepped off the elevator and were blasted by the smell of jet fuel, hot electronics, and Burma for Him aftershave.

  Fifi and Brady walked purposefully into the big lab next to the hangar where they kept their gear, the majority of their testing equipment, their collection of ships, planes, souped-up cars and Grampa.

  Actually, Gramps spent most of his time there by choice. He was always tinkering with the equipment and coming up with new gadgets. Brady definitely got his engineering genius from Grampa’s side of the family. It didn’t hurt that Brady’s DNA was also modified during the same strange event that changed Fifi – but that’s another story.

  “Headin’ out Gramps. Got a call from Barack. It’s a recovery gig,” Brady said as they saw Gramps leaning over a workbench, up to his elbows in a tangled nest of wires and circuit boards.

  “Sounds good Brady. Wait - before you go,” Gramps waggled his bushy caterpillar eyebrows at Brady. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “New toys, Gramps?” Fifi asked in an excited tone.

  “Yep, something special for each of you. Follow me.” Gramps walked over to the wall, punched a combination into a keypad, and held up his palm for a hand scanner.

  A polite sounding woman’s voice issued from the speaker, “User identified, access granted.” Drawer handles popped up along the surface of the wall, making a satisfying “chi-kung” noise. The old man pulled the drawer open and reached into the dark compartment.

  “Here, try this on...” Gramps held out a shiny silver chain with a black and silver medallion swinging from the end of the loop.