6:00 A.M | Teen Ink

6:00 A.M

December 9, 2014
By abelih BRONZE, Linden, CA, California
abelih BRONZE, Linden, CA, California
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

6:00 A.M.

There were two thirteen year old boys tied to a nuclear warhead that was counting down from twenty minutes.
One of  them asked, “How did we get ourselves in this mess.”
Six days earlier
Adrian is a thirteen year old with black hair, brown eyes, and light tan skin. He walked out of the bathroom and went to the living room to turn on the T.V and turned the channel on to the news.
“Welcome to the 6:00 news on …” the news man started to say before he was interrupted by a short looking man.
“Is this thing on?”the man asked.
“Yes,”answered a man in the background.
“Hello my name is….”the man started to say, looking away from the camera, before he was interrupted.
“Excuse me Dr. Archibald,”the man in the backround said.
“What do you want Jack!?”Dr. Archibald asked with anger in his voice.
“I was going to tell that you're not looking at the camera,”said Jack.
“Oh, thank you,”said Dr. Archibald.
“You’re welcome,”Jack replied.
“I’m here to tell you very tragic news,”Dr. Archibald said.
Three to four minutes passed and Adrian thought What's taking him so long to tell us this tragic news. Its already been like four minutes and eight minutes before that he and this man name Jack  were talking about  the camera. Man, if these two were bad guys their terrible at it.
“Um…. Dr. Archibald,” Jack said.
“Yes Jack,”said Dr. Archibald.
“The tragic news,”Jake said.
“Yes, what about it?”Dr. Archibald asked.
“Are you going to tell the world about the tragic news?”Jack asked, starting to get a little irritated.
“Oh yes, thank you,”replied Dr. Archibald.
“Whatever,”Jack said angered.
“In one week time nuclear warheads that I placed in the earth’s crust are to explode and destroy the world in the process,”he said continuing with,“While me and my fellow scientists, mechanics, my assistant Jack, my cat Archibald II, and my experiments are in a space station. Until then we are in a secret place.”
“Where is this secret place Dr. Archibald?” Jack asked.
“Oh, it’s in abandoned warehouse in Los Angeles,” Dr. Archibald replied with a smile.
  Adrian was thinking  Man, these two guys are dumb enough to tell the whole world about their secret hideout. Even I’m not stupid enough to do that. When is this guy going to notice his mistake. He ended his thoughts by laughing to himself.
  “Is the camera still rolling?” Dr. Archibald asked.
Jack replied,“Yeah.”
“We told the whole world our hideout!”Dr. Archibald yelled.
“Yes,”Jack replied with a smile on his face before he got hit in the head with a book Dr. Archibald threw at him.
“You idiot, turn off the camera and change it back to regular TV!”Dr. Archibald said angered.
It switched back to regular and the newsman came back on with a confused look on his face,“Okay that was um. . . . well anyway like he said they’re in an abandoned warehouse in Los Angeles.”
Adrian thought to himself  In Los Angeles… I might show this to Drake when we get back here after we ditch 6th period. The good thing is that I was recording this. I always record Wednesdays because something funny always happens five minutes into the news. I wonder how he will react to the recording. He’s going to... before he was able to finish his thoughts his watch started to ring, meaning that he has to get ready for school. As he got ready for school he was thinking what will happen in one week and he wondered what was going to happen to them all. He was so last in his thoughts that it was 6:40 already. He sprinted out of his apartment and started to run to school. When he got to school it was already 7:10 and he was two minutes late. When he got to first period nobody noticed he was late.
When he got to his seat he asked Drake something,”Did you watch the news this morning?”
“No I never watch the news, and you’re the only person I know that watches the news,”Drake answered with a smile on his face.
“Well anyway, I’ll tell you later when we skip 6th period,”Adrian said.
6th period
When the bell to 6th period rang they headed to the entrance to the school and walked off campus. They always do this one Wednesday per month so it doesn't look suspicious. They arrive at a building that was three stories high. They went inside and went straight to the elevator. Adrian called the elevator to the lobby. When the elevator got there, they went inside. Once they were inside Adrian pressed the button with a three on it. When they got to the third floor there were in a long hallway. They pass every door except for the one with 3E on it. Adrian opened the door with a silver key that led them to a small apartment. The room they walked into was connected to three rooms; a kitchen, a bathroom, a living room dining room, and two bedrooms. They went into one of the bedrooms and Adrian put his stuff on the bed. He turned on the T.V in the room and looked for the news recording.
Meanwhile
In Dr. Archibald’s lab they keep track of whoever is watching the broadcast again by looking through security cameras, laptop cameras, and TVs. While looking through the cameras they saw a very peculiar thing. Two teenagers watching the recording of the news around the same time Dr. Archibald was doing the broadcast.
“Dr. Archibald!” Jack yelled.“You better come see this!”
“Yes Jack,”Dr. Archibald said.
“There’s two teenagers watching the broadcast,”Jack replied.
  “What are they saying?”Dr. Archibald asked.
“Let me raise the volume,”Jack said.
Back at the apartment
“Well one thing for sure is these two are idiots,”Drake said.
“I know, so what do you think about this Dr. Archibald guy?”Adrian asked.
“Well… um… um… I got nothing.”Drake replied.
“We could try and stop them.” Adrian suggested.
“How?”Drake asked with a skeptical look on his face.”Were only thirteen and how are we going to get to Los Angeles?”
“Were going to go to Los Angeles by … um…um,,, foot, Were going to Los Angeles by foot,” Adrian said.
“You have to be crazy to do that,”  Drake said.
“I’m not….” he started to say before a man interrupted.
“How dare you call me a idiot!”Dr. Archibald yelled.
The boys screamed because of the man popping out of nowhere in a TV. There was silence in the room before a phone rang in Adrians pocket. When he checked who it was it was his mom.
He answered and said,”Hello.”
“Adrian!” his mom yelled on the other side of the line.”You skipped 6th period!”
“Maybe,” he replied.
“Don’t maybe me. I just got call from the school saying you your absent for 6th period!” she yelled even louder.”When I get…
Adrian grabbed a piece of paper and crumpled it near the phone and he said,” Hey mom, you're breaking up. I have to go bye.”
He quickly hanged up and put his phone in his pocket. For a moment he forgot he wasn’t alone. It took him a few minutes to realize there were two pairs of eyes on him.
“May I help you,”he responded.
“No,” Drake and Dr. Archibald said at the same time.
“Well okay,” Adrian said.”Why are you in my t.v?”
Dr. Archibald said”Something interested me.”
“What?”Draco asked.
“The things that you were saying about trying to stop me.”Dr. Archibald replied with a smile.”How can you stop a man like me. You must be crazy.”
“That’s what I told him,”Drake replied.
“Shut up,”Adrian said before adding,”Why are you interested in two teenage boys saying stuff about trying to stop you?”
“You're the only one today that watched the broadcast again and started saying stuff about trying to stop me. There’s a ten percent chance of you stopping me.”said Archibald with a smile on his face.
“Whats the other 90%,”Drake asked.
“You die,”said Archibald.
“Can’t we just stay until the world ends?”Drake asked.
“Listen to your friend,” said Archibald.
“We’re going to stop you and there is nothing that can change my mind!”Adrian yelled.
“It’s your funeral,” said Archibald.
His face disappeared from the TV and everyday tv went back on. There was complete silence for four minutes until Adrian started to empty his backpack and started packing it with clothes for six days.
Drake asked”What are you doing?
“Packing clothes for 6 days,”Adrian said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to stop him.”
“He’s all the way in Los Angeles.”
“I know.”
“How do you know it takes six days to get there?”
“While he was talking I looked up the distance on foot and how long it will take.”
“Can’t we take the bus?”
“Too expensive.”
Drake tried to stop him but Adrian pushed him away. Looking confused he thought to himself Why is he doing this he knows its suicide? Why is he doing this? When will he realize what he is doing will get him killed? He must have… he started to say before he was interrupted.
“Are you coming or not”
“Fine I’ll go.”
“Let me get my knife and….”
“Why do you need you knife?”
“Just in case we’re in trouble.”
Meanwhile…
Dr. Archibald gets his security staff together and told them,”You are looking for two boys that formed the idea of trying to stop me. Your jobs are to set up two traps along the way that will move them closer to here. The reason being is that the closer they are I could have more access to the cameras in cities so I could see what they are up to. When they get to the edge of Seattle knock them out and place them in a ‘metal death trap’. The day after Adrian gets a call knock them out and place them in the puzzle room. Once they have escaped take them to my lair and tie them up to one of the warheads. I already have 12 of you setting up the first trap. 4 of you will knock them out and carry them two the puzzle room. Now go before it is too late. Jack the day they escape from the first trap make the call and give them three choices. I’ll tell you what they are when the time comes.
At the edges of Seattle...
“What do you think will happen next?”Drake asked
“I don’t know,”Adrian replied.
“Hey Adrian how much money do we have?’
“Like $180.”
“You have…”Drake started to say before he got knocked out.
“Hey…”Adrian started to say before he got knocked out as well.
Three days later…
Adrian and Drake woke up in a metal looking room. All they saw was 4 metal walls. Adrian tried to stand up but fall right back down. Drake tried to stand but the results were the same.
“Where are we?”Drake asked.
“I don’t know”Adrian replied.
“How long have we been in here?”
“I think maybe three days.”
“How do you know?”
“My watch says the date.”
“Is your phone working?”
“It’s at 100%, maybe somebody charged it for me while we were in here.”
“Do you think we can try to stand up again?”
“Maybe.”
Adrian and Drake tried to stand up again and fell. The third time they tried they succesfully stood up without falling.As they were walking aound the walls started to close in on them.
Adrian ran to one of the walls and said,“Help me.”
Drake ran to one of the walls to stop it them from closing in on them. But then they stopped. Deep in his thoughts Adrian thought Why did the walls stop? Is somebody trying to scare us, to keep us alive, or if we try to escape  will we die? He kept on thinking till he got a idea.
“Drake boost me up”
“Why”
“Just do it.”
Adrian stepped on Drakes hands and got lifted up to the ceiling. He started touching the ceiling til part of it started going up. Adrian went through the opening and lifted Drake up. When they started looking around they started to notice where they were at.
“We were in a box for three days that was in the middle of nowhere!”
“How did they knock us out, stuff us in a box, and drag us to the middle of nowhere?”
“All I want to know is who put us in the box?”
“Where are we?”
“Well all I know is that we’re around San Jose.”Adrian said when his phone started to ring.
He answered and said,”Hello.”
“Hello to you, too,” said a familiar voice.
Noticing who it was, he asked,”What do you want Jack?”
“I’m to deliver a message to you and just you. You have three choices to think about by tomorrow 1. you can save the world 2. you can save yourself by leaving with us 3. die trying. You have till tomorrow.”
Later that night he couldn’t sleep, thinking of the choices he had. He stayed up thinking of all the choices he had I could always do the 2nd one leave with Dr. Archibald and his associates but all the people I care about will die. I could do the 3rd one to I could save the world and die trying to save it. At the same time the 1st one sounds more reasonable I could save the world without dieing that would be good. Yeah when Jack calls tomorrow I’ll tell him my decision. He kept thinking until it was dawn. When he realized it was dawn he woke Drake up and they started walking south. All morning he waited for the call. Once at 11 he got call when he answered he realize it was just his mom asking where he was but he couldn’t answer because the line disconnected. At noon he finally got the call and told Jack his decision. A little while later they were hit with a small dart and collapsed on the floor.
3 days later…
Adrian and Drake woke up in a room with three things: a computer, a chair, and a door when they went to the computer it started to say something.
“Hello and welcome to the puzzle room. You have two ways to escape. The first is to solve the puzzles and the second is to hack the computer. If you failed to hack the computer you are forced to do the puzzles,”it said before it turned itself off.
“Let me try to hack this,” Adrian said.
Once Adrian sat in the seat his fingers started to fly across the keyboard. Drake was so amazed that he asked about it and Adrian said that it was a gift. Minutes later Adrian finished typing and he heard a buzz coming from the computer.
“You could not hack the computer. Now you must do the puzzle.”the computer said.
“Dang it! I must have the wrong button.” Adrian said.
“I guess we have to do the puzzle.”Drake said with a tone that suggested that he was blaming Adrian.
“Hey! Its not my fault I pressed the wrong key.”
“You type too fast”
“What does have do with anything?”
“When you rush through something you make too many mistakes.”
“When have I rushed through something?”
“Um… um… when you.. um. Oh yeah! When we were doing that group assignment for history you were going through it so fast you got most of the facts wrong I had to fix most of it.”
“That was just one time.”
Drake started to say other incidents like that. This angered Adrian and he realized how much Drake remembered about his past. He got so mad that was on the verge of punching Drake in the mouth. Until he said one memory Adrian always wanted to forget.
“There was that time you were going so fast on that bike of yours so you wouldn’t be late for that big game of the year that you rammed into that lady and you almost killed her. You were lucky she didn’t press charges,”Drake said.
This pushed Adrian to the breaking point. He grabbed Drakes shirt and slammed him into the wall. The last few words he said to Drake with tears was,”Leave me alone.”
He let go of his shirt and went to the computer and said”Computer. We’re ready to do the puzzles.
“Okay, here are the rules. There are two riddles you need to solve. You have three chances for each riddle. If you failed to guess the answer for one of the riddles you still have a chance to escape, but if you fail all two riddles you die a very painful death,” the computer said.
“Riddle number one: There are two people with the same beverage. One drinks it slowly and the other drinks it fast. The one that drank it slowly died the other didn’t. How did the person who drank it slowly died?”said the computer.
“Drake help me out on this one,” said Adrian but there was no answer.”Fine I’ll do it myself.”
Adrian thought to himself  If they both have the same drinks how could the other one die. They could’ve had ice in there beverages. Wait the other one drank slowly and there was ice in it. The poison could’ve been the ice. The ice melted which released the poison into the the drink. So thats the answer to the riddle. He went over to the computer and typed in his answer. There was a bing and the computer said,”Congrats! You solved the first riddle. Riddle number 2: There is a man that lives in an eighteen- story building. On days that aren’t raining he goes to the eighth floor and walks the rest of the way. On days that are raining he goes to the eighteenth floor. Why does he only go to the top floor on the rainy days?”
Adrian thought Well the man can be short and he has a umbrella on him only on rainy days. That could be the answer. He typed in his answer and the door opened. He sprinted out of the room. It took him a few moments to notice Drake was still in the room. When he went back he saw that Drake was asleep. Adrian went over to him and slapped him right across the face.
“What was that for,”Drake said rubbing his cheek.
“We’re getting out of here,”Adrian said. But as soon as they got out both of t arms were grabbed. They were carried to a room with computers and lab equipment. Five minutes later Dr. Archibald came in.
“Welcome to my lab,” Dr. Archibald said.
“What are we tied to?”Drake asked.
“One of the nuclear warheads,”Dr. Archibald saying adding,“Nothing too serious.”
“Why do you want to destroy the world?”Adrian asked.
“Well I have many reasons …”from there Dr. Archibald kept rambling on all his reasons Adrian blocked everything out until Dr. Archibald said,”In twenty minutes time the world will be finished.”
Dr. Archibald left with everybody else following him.
“How did we get ourselves in this mess?”Adrian asked.
“I know we…”Drake said recapping the whole entire period from when they first watch the recording together to now ending with,”Thats how we got ourselves in this mess.”
“Thanks for the whole recappe, but we only have five minutes left.”Adrian said.
“Don’t you have your knife with you?”
“Oh yeah I do.”Adrian said while cutting the ropes after he got the knife out of his pocket.
“What are we going to do?”Drake asked.
“I’ll have to hack into the system and stop the warheads from going off.” Adrian said, going to the biggest computer in the room.
He started hacking into the system for two minutes and stopped. He was in the desktop menu and started looking for the shut off switch. When he found it again and started hacking into the system. With one minute to spare he stop the bombs from going off. For 20 minutes they were looking for the exit when they found a FBI agent. They told everything that happened and the agent took them outside and had someone escort them to the airport.
“Do you think we’ll get grounded by our parents?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think it was worth it?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been quiet for a while.”
“I was thinking.”
“How much longer til we get home?”
“30 minutes.”
“Oh, okay.”
Thirty minutes later
“Hey mom,”Adrian said.
“Hey, are you going to say bye to Drake?”said mom.
“No.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Lets go home. I’m tired.”
“When we go home we have to talk first.”
“Ok.”
     At home
“You’re grounded for three weeks,”said mom.
“But why I saved the world.”
“I know but you left without my permission.”
“Fine!”
     Dr. Archibalds space station
“Why didn’t the world explode?”Dr. Archibald asked.
“I don’t know.”Jack said.
“My plan didn’t work.”
“There is always plan B.”
“Plan B?”



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