Mattius the Martian Hunter and the Silver Box

By Rick Zubrycki

What would you do if you were the son of the last great Martian Hunter? You'd save the world from the Martians that are robbing children of their souls, that's what. You probably wouldn't do it with a broken down dog, a faded comic book hero, a lumbering ex-con man-child, two intergalactic seniors and a mysterious silver box left to you by your deceased father. Then again, you're not Mattius...

Earthquakes can't dent it.

Tsunamis can't drown it.

Volcanoes can't melt it.

But Earth meets its match on the day when a flashy red trailer pulls into the orphanage Mattius calls home. The strange couple that come with it take all the children with them. Only Mattius stays behind with his old dog D-Rex, for Mattius realizes these two strangers are the very Martians his father had battled his whole life. Until the day he died.

Mattius embarks on his journey to save the children with a cosmically savy geriatric couple that rescues him from the Martian clutches in a station wagon powered by Plutonian technology. Along the way, they pick up some serious reinforcements including Johnny Jetset, an over the hill television super hero and his biggest fan, a giant man-child who wears an old pair of underwear stretched over his face as a sidekick mask. And then there's Neptune, a chicken with a serious knack for kicking butt.

Woefully outmatched, Mattius has a few tricks of his own, like homemade lasers attached to his wrists and a mysterious silver box his father has left him for his final fight.

As they race toward the Martian base, Mattius learns that the Martians are stripping the earth of its most valuable resource: the souls of its children.

And that's only the beginning of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Zubrycki
• Release date: Apr 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476212999

Rick Zubrycki

Books: MATTIUS THE MARTIAN HUNTER AND THE SILVER BOX (for middle grade readers/young adult) JOHNNY FIDDLETON AND THE RING OF ORION (Young adult - yet to be published) THE THRONE OF FREELYA (Young adult - yet to be published) THE CRYSTAL ANLACE (Still in the works!)

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Mattius the Martian Hunter and the Silver Box

By Rick Zubrycki

Copyright 2012 Rick Zubrycki

Smashwords Edition

Discover other titles by Rick Zubrycki at Smashwords.com

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Dedications

For my Dad…

We never got to say goodbye.

Table of Contents

The Beginning

Mattius

A Bad Feeling

Strange Visitors

The Trailer

A Plan

Johnny Jetset

More Problems

Action!

A Strange Business

Jetset

The Inquisition

Escape

A Car Ride

Help

Team Mattius

Getting Ready

In the Trailer

Other Places

Hero Shopping

United

The Mission

Real Trouble

Walter

Goodbye

The Right Thing

The Silver Box

The Glass Coffin

The Soul Sucker

Back in the Cell

Homing In

Getting There

Falling Into Place

Following the Comet

The Other Glass Box

The Night Before

The Escape

Neptune and the Jabsquat

Final Preparations

Through the Moat

The Showdown

Betrayal

One Last Chance

Rainfall

Guests

The Big Battle

A Final Goodbye

The Big Bang

Cleaning Up

What Happened

Home

The Why

Living Arrangements

A New Beginning

Johnny Fiddleton and the Ring of Orion

Samantha and the Throne of Freelya

The Beginning

Being the most feared Martian hunter in the history of the earth definitely had its downside.

Hendrick Findley, husband of Susan, father of Mattius—not to mention hunter of Martians, Plutonians and any other wayward aliens with a hankering for causing harm to humans—was reminded of this once more as a blast of energy rocked the cockpit of the Dragonwing. The shell of his ship made titanium seem like brittle plastic, but it wouldn’t matter much longer. The Martians were using blong blasters. Enough hits with a blong blaster and a whole planet would implode whether it was made of heat-galvanized nucleonic-mercury or not.

Hendrick had always known this time would come—a moment when the odds would finally catch up to him, where the numbers he faced would be too onerous and the fire power too heavy on the wrong side of the equation. One didn’t become a Martian hunter without knowing he or she would eventually be looking down the wrong end of a vaporizer, cell-imploding charge or, if one was really unlucky, a blong blaster. It was a vocational hazard. More importantly, it was a vocational reality. Raking his eyes over the sea of Martian sniper ships, he came to the cold realization that his moment had come.

We can’t take much more! Hendrick’s wife, Susan, yelled over the sizzle of electric wires that hung in tangles like sparking rattlesnakes. She blasted away from her gun turret. Martian ubercrafts blew up in mushroom clouds of phosphorescent green and purple, but there were just too many this time. The sheer numbers in the sky could mean only one thing; the Martians were finally ready to engage their plan. This was undoubtedly their entire force of earth-bound fighter ships that buzzed through the black sheet of universe around Hendrick’s embattled cutter, the often-feared Dragonwing. They intended to knock the last Martian hunter out of the sky at all costs. He was going to lose today, there was no doubt about that. But he was prepared for it—always had been. The Martians hadn’t seen the last of Hendrick Findley. Not quite. And that was a good thing for earth.

Another blast and the Dragonwing lurched to one side, flying on an angle and jittering so that the shooter stick in Hendrick’s hand rattled like a hand-blender in a jar of marbles. Something in the wing was hissing.

Wing’s coming off! called Susan.

Fix it, Suze! he yelled, his blaster knocking two more ubercrafts off the face of the universe.

"It’s coming off, Honey! I’m coming up front."

It could only mean one thing. Hendrick shut his eyes tight.

Then Susan’s thin arms were around him, squeezing from behind. He powered all energy to the Dragonwing’s shields and took her soft hands in his. She nodded at the communication switch.

Time for goodbyes.

He’ll be alone, Hendrick said.

I know. A tear slid down Susan’s cheek. We’ve always known.

The sky lit up as several blasts were absorbed by the shield. The universe danced with the ubercrafts that hovered before them like a swarm of locusts. He could make out the Martian pilots in the front line, their faces covered by dark visors.

He pressed the com-link switch and the speakers cracked to life. There was the buzzing of the line on the other end, and then the connection was picked up.

Dad? the voice came.

Hendrick swallowed. Yes, son. He tried to be strong even as he felt fate’s steel grip crushing the cockpit like an empty beer can.

Where are you? asked the little voice.

We’re in the middle of it. The lump in his throat ached all the way up into his head.

We love you, Mattius, said Susan, her hands tightening on Hendrick’s shoulders.

When are you coming back, Mom? Dad? When are you coming back?

We’re not coming back, Mattius, said Hendrick, the words squeezing and pushing past that lump.

Why not?

The Martian ships had become black metal spiders. Their gunner arms extended like metal legs. Their tips glowed red as they charged. The Dragonwing was their last obstacle and when those spider-legs went off, it would be blasted off their to do list once and for all. Then earth would be in their sites. Hendrick had things in place and he had done all he could. It would be up to others now.

And the silver box. The silver box was the one important thing. That and Mattius.

Hendrick flicked the glass casing off a red switch labeled The Mantis. His hand hovered over it and he watched those floating spiders charging, their glowing eyes growing and throbbing with power.

The Martians, he said. There’s too many of them, son. We have to use the Mantis.

But Dad—

Mattius would know the Mantis meant the end.

Take care of D-Rex, Hendrick said. We love you, son.

The metal spiders shuddered with energy, the red lights glowing hot and bulging. Hendrick knew there was no more time. He also knew that this goodbye had been a tawdry scrappy thing made of ripped rags and held together by tattered threads. Most likely Mattius would not even realize it was a goodbye - a final one - one that would have no follow-ups or hugs or tears or kisses, until it was already a wispy phantom of his foggy past. But it would have to do. Susan’s hand closed over top of his and their eyes met.

Goodbye, son, he said again and closed his eyes against the pain that throbbed behind them.

Mattius said nothing. He didn’t understand yet.

Regardless, they were out of time. As those metal spider legs exploded with red light, Hendrick and Susan, Mattius’s mother and father pressed the button labeled The Mantis. The sky disintegrated in a white flash and Hendrick felt his soul being sucked away before his skin melted and his bones splintered and exploded into nothingness.

* * * * * * *

Too many miles away to bother counting, Griznox Bobriksnog smiled at a glowing monitor. He had had to shield his eyes from the explosion, and his sight was only just coming back.

It is done, said the little green scientist on his right.

It is, agreed Griznox. And it was he who had done it. Perhaps the ubercrafts had forced the last hunter to use the Mantis, but they were dispensable pawns. It was Griznox who had drawn up the plans to remove the last obstacle to final invasion. There was one more slight problem—a child—the child of the lately-reduced-to-ashes greatest Martian hunter in earth’s short history. But children were hardly something to worry about at this juncture. When he needed him, he would have him. He would have the silver box too.

Shall we begin phase two? droned the little needle-faced Martian at his elbow.

Of course, snapped Griznox.

Phase two would take years, but years meant very little to a Martian. But before you do, Griznox purred, find the boy.

It wouldn’t be easy. He was shielded from their sensors. It would take some time, but they would find him eventually. It was a matter of perseverance.

And when we find him? said the little green man. It was Griznox’s bane that he had to deal with such small-minded drivel, but such was the cost of greatness.

We shall have to be careful. Griznox knew there would be meddling intergalactic peacekeeping types watching the boy. They couldn’t bring attention to themselves by hunting him too aggressively. But eventually... One day, he will die too.

The little Martian bobbed his head. Very well, sir.

But before you begin? said Griznox, extending a finger in the air.

Sir?

Bring me something to eat, will you? All this killing has made me hungry.

Shall I bring you sustenance? said the little green Martian.

No. Griznox leaned back in his chair, slipping his head into a long-fingered hammock. Today is a celebration. Bring me one of the children.

But there are only seven left, sir.

Bring me one anyway.

Griznox was not worried about running out. There would be more. Many, many more.

Mattius

Mattius was a boy with no last name, or at least none that he could remember. In fact, it seemed Mattius remembered very little at all. It wasn’t that he’d never had memories; he was pretty sure he had. It wasn’t even the fact that he had lost them that concerned him; it was how he had lost them that bothered him most.

Most people, people who had not had such a strange and unusual upbringing as he had, still forgot things with the passing of time, their memories becoming cracked relics shelved in dusty cob-web lined storage bins in the dark recesses of the mind, eventually fading and collecting dust and then, in a final unnoticed shudder, vanishing altogether—bits of their lives escaping through time’s porous hide.

But Mattius’s memories had not faded in any such haphazard manner. Mattius’s memories had been taken from him. Now those stolen memories were slowly coming back, as if squeezing through the wires of a shifting sieve to drop into his mind one at a time. And with each new memory that hatched in his head like a perky chick—feathers still sticky with pre-natal goo—with each recollection of how he had ended up as he had, Mattius’s life became more and more difficult. He imagined that soon it would become downright dangerous.

He was right.

This is exactly what he was thinking as the engine of the red and silver trailer roared like a giant dragon, smoke belching from its innards in black plumes. Its wheels silently navigated the potholes scattered along the dirt road. Floating. Just enough it was barely noticeable, but somehow the trailer was floating. Standing in the settling dust was Mattius, a bent old woman and a dog haggard from years that had kicked it in the side, yanked at its whiskers and dragged at its muscles as they had passed. Part of Mattius was leaving with that glinting trailer; that unseen bit of him was being drawn through the dirt and dust and bits of stone and pebble, getting bruised and ripped and torn along the way.

The rest of him was staying right here.

There was something dreadfully familiar about that trailer and those two that had come with it, but Mattius couldn’t quite grasp it.

It’s not going to be the same, said the old lady, Ma Sunshine, wisps of gray hair blowing around her plump tomato-head. But I still have you, Mattius. She placed a hand on his mop of hair. For that I’m thankful. Come along inside. There’s no more we can do.

Mattius didn’t follow Ma Sunshine as she climbed back up the stairs of the slowly crumbling orphanage. Instead, he watched the trailer pull further and further away, swaying with the uneven grade of the road.

There’s nothing more we can do.

The words hung in the air. There was nothing more they could do. Mattius didn’t like it.

D-Rex whimpered and lay on the ground, placing his heavy shaggy head on two massive paws.

D-Rex knew it too.

Something was wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong.

They didn’t know the half of it.

A Bad Feeling

Mattius was the oldest resident of Delbrook’s Home for Wayward Children, an ancient dilapidated castle, each fallen stone a reminder of its tumble from a time of wealth and glory. Secretly, the children called it Last Chance Place, for it was the last chance for all the orphans there, each one hoping that some nice couple would come and rescue them, take them home, love them, play with them, sign them up in baseball leagues, take them to movies and playgrounds and carnivals and the like.

Mattius sighed, thinking about how wrong things could go.

Now, now, said Ma Sunshine, who sat across from Mattius in a cold bare room. The bony rods in the rickety chair stuck into Mattius’s back and the seat drooped under his bottom. It isn’t so bad, Mattius. We still have each other, and D-Rex. And I suppose the children have all gone to a nice family and they will be happy too.

I don’t know, said Mattius.

After all, Ma Sunshine had not seen what Mattius had seen. The thought of the children gobbled up by that shining metal trailer made him shiver. He closed his eyes. When he did, he saw his parents smiling at him through a time-generated fog.

His father had been a big man. Mattius hoped he would be like that one day. At thirteen, he was still thin and frail. He wasn’t short, but he wasn’t tall either. His dad had been tall. A giant really. He stood at least twelve feet, with dusty scuffed shoes the size of trashcan lids and a huge head that could almost fill a room, or so it had seemed to Mattius. His laugh had been booming and bursting with happiness. Mattius remembered other things too: his dad had been an astronaut or a policeman—well kind of both at once. He flew a spaceship and saved the world from Martians. He fought the Plutonians and Venusians as well, but they were small potatoes compared to the Martians. The Martians had a ray blaster that could blow up entire planets if fueled properly. The only person standing between them and that fuel had been Mattius’s father. Only he didn’t stand between them anymore.

Mattius didn’t know what the fuel was, only that it wasn’t oil or gas or anything one might expect. It was far worse than that. He did know that it could only be found on earth and that the Martians could never be allowed to get at it. Never. Ever. Ever.

Mattius’s mother had been beautiful, with hair like strands of gold and deep dark eyes you could almost swim in. She could have won world beauty competitions, but instead she stayed home and took care of Mattius. Most of the time. Sometimes she had to help out his father like the time with the Mantis... But most of the time she was home with him. She taught him to read and write and tell time and hold his breath underwater so that one day he could live deep under a lake when the Martians eventually took over; his dad could only fight them for so long after all.

His parents had died years ago and the memories had only begun to come to Mattius over the last few months. His parents had been in their spaceship when they had been attacked by a whole fleet of Martians. His mom and dad had fought them all. His father had radioed Mattius in the middle of things.

He had run into trouble. So much trouble he had had to use the Mantis. There was no escaping the Mantis. For anyone.

The explosion had roared like a giant life-changing lion before breaking up into the scattered pop pop popping of static.

Mattius had lost the signal.

He had lost his parents too.

Mattius squeezed the lids of his eyes together and thought so hard it hurt, but he couldn’t remember anything else. His parents were counting on him for… something. But what? The shiny red and silver trailer had something to do with it. That much he knew. He could sense it.

Somehow, he didn’t think it a coincidence his memories were finally coming back to him now after all these years. It was purposeful that he was remembering things again. He was certain of it. People were counting on him. He just didn’t know what for.

He opened his eyes to gray floors that crept up to gray walls at dark corners. He smelled the stale air of the orphanage where he had spent the greater part of his life. Ma Sunshine had left him with his memories. He closed his eyes again and thought back to the trailer.

There was something he had missed...

The trailer had come in the morning, a looming metal beast shining in the bright sun.

"What is that?" Walter had said, chubby face twisting up, his bright blue eyes suddenly alive with curiosity. Walter was ten and had a problem with bed-wetting. He also drank a lot of soda. It was a fatal combination in the life of an orphan.

Don’t know, Mattius had said.

They were looking for toads and frogs and other creepy crawlies that fed the hunting instinct in young boys. They were in the long grass by the trees. They hadn’t found anything except some string and a dirty magazine with pictures of naked pouty looking women. Mattius figured he could use the string for something so he slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. He left the magazine lying on the ground.

It’s cool, said Walter, his cumbersome belly shifting in a tee shirt that had become too tight a few months earlier. His eyes were riveted to the trailer that seemed to glide along the bumpy road as if on a cushion of air.

What’s so cool about it? said Mattius. He was throwing the magazine into the bushes now. Something about it was bad and foul and best hidden away from the other children, he thought.

Well, it’s shiny for one. Walter was scrunching his face in thought, his eyes trained on the trailer as it rambled by. Only it didn’t ramble by at all. It was stone silent as it floated over the potholes and rock-laden path. And it’s red and silver, he concluded, crossing his arms officiously.

Real cool, said Mattius. He began rooting around in the grass again. He wanted to forget the silent trailer that made a strange feeling gurgle in the pit of his stomach. His legs felt suddenly weak and soft.

Look! exclaimed Walter It’s got a big dishy thing on it, too!

That got Mattius’s attention. He pulled his head out of the weeds. Perched on the back of the trailer was a gigantic radar dish. It was just like the one he remembered his dad using for radio transmissions. Maybe these people were fighting the Martians also! Maybe they were coming for him, to train him, to carry on where his parents had left off! He had been waiting for this moment a long time.

He took off at a run.

Where are you going? called Walter.

To fight Martians! yelled Mattius over his shoulder.

Mattius was right and wrong at the same time.

More wrong really.

Strange Visitors

The doors of the trailer had swung open and a set of stairs had slid to the ground with the snake-hiss of hydraulics. One foot had stepped down and then another—great big shoes that were perfectly polished and gleaming in the sun. Mattius had never seen shoes in such splendid shape, the polish so shiny, the soles so smooth and unmarred. The shoes were met by crisp pants followed by a stiff button down shirt. The man’s face was sharp featured and pink. He wore a tan brimmed hat with a purple band. He tipped it at Mattius and smiled a perfect white smile that flashed brightly in the sun.

Mattius did not smile. Somewhere in the back of his mind, alarm bells were ringing. Something was wrong.

Hello, little person, the man said, his voice deep and sonorous. What a perfectly fine gentleman.

The man’s voice was soft and comforting, but there was something sinister underneath that voice too. In his mind’s eye Mattius saw a butterfly twist and writhe and fold itself into a yellow jacket wasp, its stinger sharp and deadly. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, he thought to himself. That’s what these people are… they’re wasps disguised as butterflies!

Mattius was clenching his fists tight so that his knuckles had lost their color. He tried to relax.

A lady stepped out of the trailer, well slid really, for she was far more graceful than seemed humanly possible. She was smartly clad in a trim red dress with a design of black spiders all joined to one another at the extremities of their eight spindly legs; she looked like a spider herself, the way she trailed her fingers along the shiny metal of the trailer. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, the curls extending and retracting like tentacles. Her smile was radiant, her eyes crystal blue. She took the man by the arm with delicate pink fingers.

Maybe we’ll take him with us? said the man, still looking at Mattius, sizing him up. Mattius thought he could hear the man sniffing. Was he trying to smell him? Mattius backed up a step.

You’re scaring him, giggled the lady. Only the giggle felt like termites trying to wriggle into Mattius’s ears and right into his brain with their prickly feet. What a silly darling little boy. Yes, I think we should take him.

We have many nice things, purred the man. "And we have space for many, many boys and girls. Would you like to come with us, Mattius?"

The lady smiled again, her tongue licking softly across smooth white teeth.

No, Mattius did not like these two one bit.

And he wondered how they knew his name.

* * * * * * *

We’re looking to start a family, the man was saying to Ma Sunshine.

A great big beautiful family, said the woman.

Ma Sunshine had met the two at their impressive trailer and had led them to her tiny office. Mattius stood hidden around the doorway of the room, watching them. They were like vultures the way they leaned forward in their chairs. The old wooden furniture had not even creaked when they sat down, like the two visitors were made of air.

Well, said Ma Sunshine, perhaps you should start with one child? Then you could try more, couldn’t you? If parenting took, that is?

You don’t want families for all these children? asked the man, his eyebrows crawling together a bit. His deep voice filled the room.

But of course— began Ma Sunshine.

"Then you don’t think we are fit to be parents?" The man crossed his arms over his chest. There was no rustle of fabric as he did so, and Mattius noticed there were no wrinkles in his shirt or pants.

I’m not saying that— said Ma Sunshine.

"Then what are you saying?" asked the lady.

"Exactly what are you saying?" added the man.

It’s just that—

The man leaned forward. He had bright green eyes. But hadn’t they been blue before? Or was that the woman? Mattius was confused. And wasn’t there something his father had said once… something about the eyes? He snatched at a thought that scurried by only to flutter expertly through the loose netting of his memory. More and more he felt drawn to that man’s eyes, like he was drowning in them, being pulled and sucked and stuck in them. He was swimming in those languid green pools, then he was drowning… losing himself.

When Mattius finally pulled himself out of his daydream, something about swimming, he thought, Ma Sunshine had been signing something.

I’m sure you’ll do very well with these children. She smiled, pushing the papers back across the desk where they vanished into the man’s pant pocket or shirt. Actually, Mattius wasn’t sure what he did with them. They were just gone. There was a dull throbbing between Mattius’s ears, like someone was knocking against his brain with a rubber hammer dressed in cotton.

You won’t be disappointed. The man slid a finger along the brim of his hat.

But remember— Ma Sunshine was getting up from her chair, extending a hand towards the man who took it in his pink fingers —you can only take the children who wish to go. It is the only way I can accept this request.

Her words came thick and slurred, like she had just woke from a nap. She seemed unsure of herself.

My good woman, said the lady who had also risen from her chair, we would have it no other way. We will only take the children who want to come. Those that don’t are of no use to us. It is hard to imagine wanting to start a family with unwilling participants.

It seemed like an odd thing for new parents to say, Mattius thought. He did not think he liked this smiling man and woman who flowed about as if her arms were made of something fluid and not arm-like at all.

Just then, the lady’s eyes flashed towards Mattius, and he darted back out of sight.

Come along now, the man was saying. Let’s show the children the trailer and see who wants to come start our family.

Yes the trailer, the lady agreed. A good idea.

Mattius hadn’t thought it was a very good idea at all.

That evening, after the