Welcome to The Adventures of Captain EJ.
This is a moment from Captain EJ vs.
The Knucklers,
Episode 2.
The command center that is hidden behind two locked doors in the garage has an even more secret room,
The Stronghold.
Though we don't go in there often,
We do when it's necessary.
Mr.
Honeybee silently hands you a flash drive that shows a new string of numbers every few seconds.
Along with facial recognition,
This is what will allow you to enter The Stronghold.
You enter the current code,
0831,
And stand in front of the vaulted steel door with your head held high.
As the red laser scans your face,
Take a slow,
Deep breath in through your nose.
Feel the safety of this fortified place,
Then slowly breathe all the way out through your mouth.
The numerous locks click open and the vacuum-sealed door releases.
With Captain EJ and Mr.
Honeybee at your back,
The motion sensor lights flicker on one by one as we take slow,
Careful steps through the threshold.
Right foot,
Left foot,
Right foot,
Left foot.
With each step,
Another fluorescent light buzzes on.
What you think is a small,
Dark room hidden behind a wall in the garage reveals itself to be a command center within a command center.
It seems you are now underground.
The echo from your footsteps fade out the further you go into The Stronghold.
When Mr.
Honeybee closes the door behind us,
You feel the hum of perfect silence in your ears.
Then he hands you a pair of heavily padded headphones that are identical to a pair he puts on.
Captain EJ doesn't appear to need these like you two do.
Here,
Put these on,
Just in case.
They are snug but very comfortable and must have some kind of soundproofing built in.
The only thing you can hear now is your own breath and heartbeat.
Captain EJ,
I know you don't want to ever think it's necessary,
But the type of force these knucklers have may require your full strength.
If it comes to that,
Then it does.
For now,
I have to believe there is another way.
We can appeal to the knucklers' human side,
Their compassion,
Assuming they have any.
First and foremost,
We need to understand the problem before we go about erasing it off the face of the earth.
That's a short-term solution to a potentially enduring problem.
I understand.
Who's to say there aren't more knucklers out there,
Ready to appear out of nowhere when we defeat these ones?
Exactly.
I won't use full strength until I know for certain that there's no other way.
That's right.
We don't operate from a place of fear.
Mr.
Honeybee takes your flash drive to keep it with the rest of our keys and hands you a little remote instead.
Without thinking,
You point it at the first thing you see and click the glowing button.
A loud buzz rumbles in the remote.
It's so powerful that it shakes your hand uncontrollably.
Fearful of what you've just done,
You fling the remote from your hand.
It spins in the air.
Time seems to slow down.
The seconds drag on with each spin of the remote.
Captain EJ realizes what's happened and jumps to action.
The entire stronghold seems to shake violently.
Through blurred,
Hazy vision,
You're able to see Captain EJ open his mouth as if to shout at the spinning remote.
Though you cannot hear anything,
It looks like he's shouting at the top of his lungs.
You can feel an immense pressure closing in around you,
Pressing on your inner ears.
He strains his eyes closed and balls up his fists,
Still shouting silently.
A flash zips through the air straight to the remote and it levitates,
Held up high and steady with nothing but air beneath it.
Captain EJ continues to silent scream and the remote goes on dangling,
Frozen in time and space.
You are mesmerized,
Held in place just like the remote.
You wonder how this is happening.
This must be Captain EJ's superpower,
But what is it?
You feel like you've entered another realm where gravity doesn't have much sway.
With quick reflexes,
Mr.
Honeybee reaches up and simply grabs the remote from the air.
With that,
Captain EJ's silent shout is done.
He rests his hands on his knees,
Exhausted.
You are in shock,
Wondering if he's okay,
But Mr.
Honeybee breaks all the tension with a giggle that he's trying his best to hide.
Captain EJ stands back up after a moment of rest and joins Mr.
Honeybee with a big smile.
Oh,
My apologies,
Hero.
That was totally my fault.
Totally my fault.
I should have told you what this was before handing it to you.
I accidentally press this button all the time.
We've had to rebuild that wall over there twice because of my butterfingers.
It's true.
If possible,
We'd like to avoid another construction project.
I really like how that wall came out this time.
Me too.
It really makes it feel like a stronghold,
You know?
Here you go,
Hero.
This remote has a special holster that you can wear on your hip,
But it has a built-in lock so you don't accidentally press the button.
No one acknowledges what just happened,
So you focus on keeping calm,
Keeping cool,
And keeping up.
With your remote and its holster,
You look down to your waist for something to hook it onto.
You try to put it in one of your pockets but struggle to find one that fits it comfortably.
The sound of yet another door opening brings your attention to what appears to be a mirror in front of you.
You look up just as the mirror doors slide open and your reflection splits in half.
A robotic arm with a metallic hanger for a hand unfolds and extends all the way to you.
It is carrying a silver-plated suit that is almost as shiny as the mirror,
But when you look closer you see that the surface of this tactical gear is not smooth.
It's actually made up of individual fibers that look like a fur coat of silver.
Mr.
Honeybee explains that he had to look across the globe far and wide for a way to combat the type of light and heat that the knucklers are giving off.
That led him to the Sahara Desert,
Where the extraordinary Saharan silver ants manage to survive temperatures up to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's,
Uh,
70 degrees Celsius,
If my math's correct.
His math is indeed correct.
Armed with a dense array of uniquely shaped hairs on the top and sides of their bodies,
Just like the fibers on our suits,
These ants scurry across the scalding desert sand unfazed.
The fibers on your suit will keep you cool in two ways,
Just like the Saharan silver ants.
These fibers are highly reflective under the visible and near-infrared light,
But they're also highly emissive in the mid-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
That's how they'll keep us cool.
They'll create an anti-reflection layer that will help us combat any extreme heat the knucklers try to wield.
If we stand any chance of defeating these nefarious foes,
We will need to get closer to them in a couple different ways.
For that,
We will need to meet them face-to-face on their turf.
If all goes according to plan,
On our next trip to Dormir,
We will go undercover to talk to the townspeople that know them best.
Well,
Best that anyone can know two anti-social nocturnal brothers.
We will know more about our opponent without them knowing we know.
That is a strategically strong position for us to be in.
They won't know anything about us,
But we'll know everything there is to know about them.
Then,
Armed as we are,
With information,
Wisdom,
And armor,
We will confront them from this place of power,
Never from fear.
Honeybee Hero,
Join me for this 10-episode adventure.
Let's start at the beginning.
Meet me at Captain EJ vs.
The Knucklers Episode 1 for the full story.
We need to fight for what's right.
Captain EJ,
Over and out.
