“Suit up, kids. You too, Heathcliff. You’re going with them,” the principal said.
The boy’s grin was as wide as Texas.
Ruby couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” the principal growled. “Suit up, kids.”
Margreet Zelle Detention Center for the Incorrigible looked like Alcatraz prison’s baby brother. It had an electrified fence lined with barbed wire, four guard towers, and bars on all the windows.
“Well, it’s not Sugarland Academy,” Ruby said as she eyed a door with a sign that read SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.
Duncan had his nose buried so deep in the screen of his handheld tracking device that he nearly walked into the wall. “I’m using sonar. There’s definitely something deep beneath us. A cave.”
“How do we get to it?” Heathcliff asked.
Flinch reached into his pocket and took out a couple of candy bars, which he ate without unwrapping. “I’ll just smash through the floor. Give me a second.”
“Or we could use this.” Duncan opened a locker door.
“No way!” Matilda said.
“Yes way,” Duncan said. “Just like ours.”
Matilda and Jackson fought to be the first to take the entrance. Ruby followed them, and in a flash she was whisked down a mile-long tunnel and abruptly deposited into the remains of a secret bunker that looked oddly familiar.
“She copied the Playground,” Heathcliff said when he landed next to her.
“It’s identical,” Ruby said.
The walls, columns—even the ceramic tiles—were the same. There was a command center and a desk where Benjamin would hover.
“Ms. Holiday has really taken a leap off the high dive,” Jackson said. “She’s got her own team of superpowered kids, her own Playground—it’s like she’s trying to re-create what she once had.”
“Could this be a result of the villain virus?” Matilda asked. “Could some of the evil nanobytes have survived and adapted inside her?”
Ruby wasn’t sure what to tell Matilda. The information Agent Brand had shared with her and the principal felt private. At the same time, the others deserved to know that their Ms. Holiday was an invention. She decided to tell.
The news seemed to break their hearts as much as it had broken hers.
“Maybe the virus made her crazy,” Flinch said.
“Huh?” Ruby replied.
“When you guys were infected with the evil nanobytes, all of you took on new personalities. You also got really smart and invented things you couldn’t possibly have created before. Ms. Holiday already had two personalities: her real identity as a Russian spy, then as our librarian. Actually, if you think about it, she had to pretend to be an American spy, too—”
“This is getting confusing,” Matilda said.
“No, I think I understand,” Duncan said. “Ms. Holiday was juggling three unique personalities. When she was infected, she took on the fourth—Miss Information. Maybe she couldn’t handle another one and something broke.”
“So she really is sick?” Jackson asked.
“Maybe,” Duncan said. “But it would explain why she didn’t go back to normal when Flinch destroyed the virus.”
A flicker of hope sparked in Ruby’s chest. If their former friend was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, perhaps she could be treated.
“What’s this?” Jackson said. On the blackened floor there was a large pristine circle.
Duncan removed a device from his backpack. He flipped it on and a needle on its screen bounced around erratically. “The radiation here is off the charts.”
“Probably one of her doomsday devices. Think we got lucky and it blew up in her face?” Matilda asked.
Duncan shook his head. “Only if it vaporized her. This circle is completely free of dust or ash. No, it’s like something was here … and then it wasn’t.”
“Maybe it’s a teleportation device,” Heathcliff suggested.
Duncan shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll have to turn these readings over to the big brains. They might be able to make something of it.”
“Tell them to make us some pizza, too,” Flinch said.
“I say we split up and search this place,” Heathcliff said. “Miss Information and her goons might have left something behind we can use.”
Ruby bristled at Heathcliff’s overstep, but it was a good idea.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Just stay on the com-links.”
The children went their separate ways through the expansive facility. Every room seemed so familiar. It was both creepy and sad for Ruby, since she knew they’d never be able to return to their own headquarters.
She came to what appeared to be an upgrade room. She knew that Miss Information’s BULLIES had upgrades, and it made her sick to her stomach that the very thing that made her special could be twisted into something so ugly and dangerous.
“Find anything?”
Ruby jumped. Heathcliff was right behind her.
“Geez …”
“Didn’t mean to scare you, boss,” he said.
Ruby searched her allergies for signs of duplicity. Even though she didn’t find any, she was still suspicious. Nanobytes had turned Heathcliff into a terrible monster. Brainstorm, as he once called himself, could literally change reality with a single thought. She didn’t like seeing him so close to an upgrade chair.
Ruby sneezed and heard Duncan’s voice in her head.
“Hey, guys, I found something!”
“C’mon,” she said to Heathcliff, and breathed a sigh of relief when the boy followed her.
They found Duncan hovering over one of the science stations.
“What’s that?” Jackson asked, pointing at a huge drawing tacked to a corkboard. It looked like a Frisbee with a wheel in the center. There was also one of the most complicated math equations Ruby had ever seen written alongside it.
“Think that’s what caused the explosion?” Flinch asked.
“I have no idea,” Duncan said, gesturing to Heathcliff. “But I know someone who might understand it.”
Heathcliff studied the drawing.
“What is it?” Jackson said. “Some kind of death ray? An atom smasher? A dinosaur-cloning device?”
Heathcliff scratched his head, then said, “These are the schematics for a time machine.”
“A time machine!” Jackson cried. “Evil or not, that’s cool!”
“Flinch, pull that down and we’ll take it back to the base,” Ruby said.
“Who?”
Ruby turned to Jackson. “Flinch.”
“Who’s Flinch?”
“Jackson, he’s standing right—”
Ruby turned to where Flinch had been standing, but he was gone.
She turned her head back and forth, searching the room for her missing teammate. All the while the pressure in her head grew. The ache was intense. What was causing the swelling?
“Where did he go? You can’t just get up and leave during a mission. Flinch! Flinch! ”
“Ruby, are you feeling OK?” Matilda asked.
“Where’s Flinch?” she said.
Everyone looked at her as if she were smacking herself in the face with a flyswatter while singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”
“Ruby, there’s no one on the team named Flinch,” Duncan said.
Ruby wondered if she was in the middle of a prank but quickly ruled it out. She was allergic to pranks, and besides her fat, agonizing head, she wasn’t experiencing any other allergic reactions.
“None of you remember Julio ‘Flinch’ Escala?” Ruby asked. “Strong kid, eats a lot of candy?”
The other agents looked back at her with mystified expressions.
“Duncan, he’s your best friend!” Ruby said.
What was happening? Did her friends really not remember their hyper teammate? No, that wasn’t possible, unless …
“She’s built a time machine!” Ruby shouted, suddenly realizing what her swollen head was trying to tell her.