The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume One: A Secret Lost Read Online Free PDF

over his face, covering his eyes. He was
in deep thought and deep concern.
    “What does he know?” questioned Kid as he
turned back to his friend, who was in the back corner dropping
papers into a large cardboard box.
    “Not much, but definitely enough to cause
problems. We can’t afford too many mistakes right now—not when
we’re so close,” she said.
    “Okay, okay, I’m on it. You just get The
Playground ready. I’ll do the rest,” Kid said.
    “We’re almost done. The boys have been
working their tails off, but we’ll need more recruits when The
Playground opens,” Samantha said as she stopped packing and looked
up. Kid’s mind went immediately to Ricky. He would be perfect. He
could help Samantha and the boys get The Playground up to speed.
Kid so wanted to mention this to Samantha, but he didn’t.
    “We’ll worry about that when the time’s
right. Adding recruits right now would only add to our problems. We
need to focus on keeping SOCKs a secret. Then we’ll figure out who
we can trust,” Kid said, not knowing if he was trying to convince
Samantha or himself. He seemed to do both.
    “You’re right,” Samantha said, nodding her
head. “I’ll get everything moving from here. Go meet the boys.”
    “You know what this means though,” Kid said
to Samantha. There was a small pause as the two friends stared at
one another. “You’ll need a nickname now, too.”
    “I don’t need one of those,” Samantha said
with a sly smile. “I’m too smart to get caught.”
    The two friends shared a quick laugh before
Kid went home and radioed the boys.
    They set up a meeting for eight o’clock that
night.
     
     

Chapter Three:
    Tree House Meeting
    8:00 pm
     
     
    Among a few blades of grass and near the root
of a large tree, a small, round, red ball started to flash. No
bigger than a pencil eraser, the red LED flickered on and off.
Below the light was a black ball that contained a very small
camera. It swiveled back and forth on its base, patrolling its
designated area.
    There was a security breach.
    Someone or something had tripped the alarm.
Security was tight, and it wasn’t the first time an alarm of this
nature had been seen. Going in and out of focus, the camera tried
to find something approaching.
    Images produced by the camera were sent
fifteen feet up the tree into an elaborate house. Inside, a larger
red light started flashing on the main control panel and got the
attention of a small boy sitting at a laptop across the room. He
gazed up from his typing to see the alarm. He glanced at the
monitors and went back to his work.
    A few seconds later, the alarm cleared. All
systems were normal. This guest was expected.
    Kid Combat was the first one to reach Gears’s
tree house. Gears lived on the other side of Maple Forest. A quick
walk through the forest and a cut between two backyards led Kyle to
Gears’s backyard and the tree house.
    The boys always held secret meetings there to
discuss their next steps on whatever adventure they were working
on. The meetings were strictly for SOCKs members, and the utmost
care went into securing the area. Motion detectors were all over
Gears’s backyard, as were low-cost security cameras that the group
found in an abandoned building. Secret compartments lining the tree
house held secret documents, small gadgets, and important data.
    To an untrained eye, the tree house was
nothing more than a typical boy’s playhouse. It was built in an elm
tree about fifteen feet up. Seven wood planks nailed into the tree
acted as a ladder to the main entrance. The house itself was made
from mismatched planks of wood that were left over from various
projects at the Gears household.
    The inside was painted dark red, and both
side walls had a window. An empty crate in the center of the room
acted as a table, and small chairs surrounded it. The security
monitors were set up on a side wall and were covered on non-meeting
days with a large fake speaker. Comic books littered the