“Three minutes, kids,” the principal shouted from the cockpit.
“You better suit up,” Duncan said to Ruby. He handed her a duffle bag full of black clothing.
Matilda opened the rocket’s hatch and the wind blasted into the cabin.
Ruby peered out into the great blue oblivion as she pulled the flight suit over her school clothes.
“Um, aren’t we forgetting something very important … like parachutes?”
“If you pull the cord on your waist, you’ll release something better—wings!” Duncan shouted over the noise.
“Wings?” Ruby cried.
Duncan sighed. “Folks, we’re all given instruction manuals for this stuff. Am I the only one who reads them?”
Jackson nodded. “Yes, you are.”
“This is the ALZ-14 Aerial Assault Flight Suit. You pull the cord and two wings will extend from your shoulders, turning you into a human bird.”
“One minute!” the principal cried from the cockpit.
“And don’t forget the electromagnetic-pulse gloves,” Duncan said as he extended his hand to point out his special glove. It was black and covered in thin, silver wires that connected to a red disk on the palm. Ruby knew what an electromagnetic pulse could do to electronics. One blast and those robots would stop working.
“All right, kids! We’re over the target!” the principal shouted.
Flinch slurped down one very long red licorice rope like a little kid might eat a strand of spaghetti. “Fight robots! Aggghhhooo!” he cried as he leaped out of the rocket.
Soon Ruby and the others were plummeting toward earth at skin-stretching speeds. Below her, and getting bigger by the second, was the Hoover Dam, one of the most impressive structures ever built by human hands. A long time ago, when Ruby actually went to classes, she had written a report on it. It was built between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression, and it provided electricity for cities hundreds of miles away. It was 660 feet wide, stood more than 726 feet tall, and held back 9.2 trillion gallons of water. It was so massive that some said an asteroid might not even topple it. If Ruby knew how tough the dam was, Miss Information would certainly have to know. She was a librarian, after all. Even if these chickenbots managed to destroy it, the nearest big town was 125 miles away, which meant it wasn’t an imminent threat to anyone’s safety. So what was Miss Information’s plan?
When they were a quarter-mile over the dam, Ruby could squint and see tiny red explosions on the surface of the dam’s wall. She guessed the robots were already hard at work on their task. She checked her EMP glove to make sure it was powered and then squeezed her nose.
“All right, Duncan, I’m ready to turn into Big Bird.”
Duncan giggled. Gadgets always made him happy. Explaining how they worked was as fun as Disney World. “Do your best to level out of a nosedive. You want to be parallel with the horizon when you launch the wings.”
Ruby and the others did as they were told.
“Now, pull the rip cord and the wings will extend. Once they unfold, your fall will slow, and ropes will drop from each wing. Grab them to help you steer. Just remember two things: One, don’t get too close to the ground, and two, don’t get too close to the dam.”
“Splat!” Flinch cried.
“Splat,” Duncan said.
“All right, here I go.” With the wind slamming into her stomach, Ruby pulled the cord and felt the wings unfold. Her fall came to an abrupt stop. She found the ropes Duncan mentioned and snatched them both. At first, the slightest pull sent her flailing, but she quickly learned how to make subtle adjustments. She could fly! With a slight tug to the right she soared along the dam, approached one of the robots, and aimed her glove. It fired with a screech. Unfortunately, she missed, and the skull-faced robot was undamaged.
“Fudge!” she growled, steering back for another pass. This time she pulled closer to get a better shot, but as she approached, her target turned and blasted a stream of fire directly at her. She narrowly avoided getting a barbecued face and had to pat out a small fire on her leg. Worse, she missed her second shot.
“Gluestick, this is a lot harder than you described,” she said over the com-link.
“I agree,” Flinch said. “I gave up and went old-school.”
Ruby scanned the sky for the hyper hero. She found him dive-bombing one of the robots. He walloped it with a power punch and it exploded in a blast of fire and steel. What was left fell into the river below.
“The wings were getting in my way, too,” Matilda said, rushing past Ruby, fueled by her rocket-powered inhalers. When she got close to one of the robots, she destroyed it with a fiery blast.
“C’mon, Pufferfish. You’re missing all the fun,” Braceface said. Two long tentacles made from his orthodontic implants emerged from his mouth, snatched a couple of Miss Information’s robots, and smashed them together. They crumbled and joined the others in the river.
“This is too easy,” Gluestick said, soaring past Ruby and firing his EMP device at one of the robots. There was no explosion. With all its internal electronics fried, it just fell off the wall and into the water.
“You better hurry while there’s one left,” Flinch said, kicking another robot so hard that it slammed into the side of the dam and exploded.
Ruby pulled on the wings’ ropes to head back toward the metallic fiends. When she was close, she raised her EMP glove and fired. The robot turned its head to blast her, but this time she delivered an exact hit and it froze with a jerk. Then it fell off the dam and tumbled end over end into the water below.
“Only three left, people,” Ruby said.
“This was hardly worth the trip,” Matilda said, aiming her inhaler at one of the remaining robots. A hot blue flame came out of it and melted a hole in the robot’s skull-painted head. It exploded like the others.
Ruby agreed. This was too easy. The chickenbots were barely hurting the dam wall at all, and aside from the flamethrowing they weren’t putting up much of a fight. Not all of Miss Information’s schemes were brilliant, but this one seemed downright dumb.
“Uh-oh,” Gluestick said.
“What’s ‘Uh-oh’?” Ruby asked. “I hate ‘Uh-oh.’”
“They’re doing something,” Flinch said.
Ruby looked at the three remaining robots. Their eyes had turned red, and a loud, pulsing beat came from within their metal chests. It sounded like a countdown.
Suddenly, Ruby’s fingers felt swollen and her neck itched like crazy. She was allergic to bombs, and even more allergic to getting caught in an explosion.
“Everyone!” she cried. “Go!” But she was too late. The three remaining chickenbots exploded at the same time. Ruby and the other agents were thrown backward. Her wings were shredded, making it impossible to stay airborne. She crashed into the cold, churning river below. As she sank deep into the water’s darkness, struggling to hold her breath, she unfastened what was left of her flight suit and swam with all her might toward the dim light above her. She broke the surface and gasped for air, and saw all of her teammates doing the same.
“Is everyone OK?” Ruby gasped.
“It was some kind of concussion bomb,” Gluestick said. “Look, it didn’t even hurt the dam.”
Ruby turned and eyed the surface where the robots had once clung. All that remained was a charred stain.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “What kind of lousy diabolical plan was that?”
Suddenly, all five of the NERDS sneezed. The com-link was open and Heathcliff was waiting.
“Guys, we need you back here pronto,” he said. “There’s trouble at the White House.”
“How much money do you want to put on it being Miss Information?” Jackson asked.
“These stupid robots were just to keep us busy,” Ruby said. “She wanted us far away from Washington, D.C., and we fell for it. Heathcliff, tell the principal to pick us up pronto. We’re going to kick some serious supervillain butt.”