Eye of Hecate

Leo

The wires spark in my hand. The Cyclopes freeze and turn in my direction. Then Torque picks up a truck and throws it at me.

I roll as the truck steamrolls over the machinery. If I was a half-second slower, I would've been smashed.

I get to my feet, and Ma Gasket spots me. She yells, "Torque, you pathetic excuse for a Cyclops, get him!"

Torque barrels toward me. I frantically gun the toggle on my makeshift remote.

Torque is fifty feet away. Twenty feet.

Then the first robotic arm whirs to life. A three-ton yellow metal claw slams the Cyclops in the back so hard, he lands flat on his face. Before Torque can recover, the robotic hand grabs him by one leg and hurls him straight up.

"AHHHHH!" Torque rockets into the gloom. The ceiling is too dark and too high up to see exactly what happens, but judging from the harsh metal clang, I guess the Cyclops hit one of the support girders.

Torque never comes down. Instead, yellow dust rains to the floor. Torque has disintegrated.

Ma Gasket stares at me in shock. "My son...You...You..."

As if on cue, Sump lumbers into the firelight with a case of salsa. "Ma, I got the extra-spicy—"

He never finishes his sentence. I spin the remote's toggle, and the second robotic arm whacks Sump in the chest. The salsa case explodes like a piñata and Sump flies backward, right into the base of my third machine. Sump may be immune to getting hit with truck chassis, but he isn't immune to robotic arms that can deliver ten thousand pounds of force. The third crane arm slams him against the floor so hard, he explodes into dust like a broken flour sack.

Two Cyclopes down. I'm beginning to feel like Commander Tool Belt when Ma Gasket locks her eye on me. She grabs the nearest crane arm and rips it off its pedestal with a savage roar. "You busted my boys! Only I get to bust my boys!"

I punch a button, and the two remaining arms swing into action. Ma Gasket catches the first one and tears it in half. The second arm smacks her in the head, but that only seems to make her mad. She grabs it by the clamps, rips it free, and swings it like a baseball bat. It misses Piper and Jason by an inch. Then Ma Gasket lets it go—spinning it toward me. I yelp and roll to one side as it demolishes the machine next to him.

I start to realize that an angry Cyclops mother is not something you want to fight with a universal remote and a screwdriver. The future for Commander Tool Belt isn't looking so hot.

She stands about twenty feet from me now, next to the cooking fire. Her fists are clenched, her teeth bared. She looks ridiculous in her chain mail muumuu and her greasy pigtails—but given the murderous glare in her huge red eye and the fact that she's twelve feet tall, I'm not laughing.

"Any more tricks, demigod?" Ma Gasket demands.

I glance up. The engine block suspended on the chain—if only I had time to rig it. If only I could get Ma Gasket to take one step forward. The chain itself...that one link...I shouldn't be able to see it, especially from so far down, but my senses tell me there's metal fatigue.

"Heck, yeah, I got tricks!" I raise my remote control. "Take one more step, and I'll destroy you with fire!"

Ma Gasket laughs. "Would you? Cyclopes are immune to fire, you idiot. But if you wish to play with flames, let me help!"

She scoops red-hot coals into her bare hands and flings them at me. They land all around my feet.

"You missed," I say incredulously. Then Ma Gasket grins and picks up a barrel next to the truck. I just have time to read the stenciled word on the side—kerosene—before Ma Gasket throws it. The barrel splits on the floor in front of me, spilling lighter fluid everywhere.