Thor grunted angrily.
“You ungrateful little toads!” Miss Information said, fighting off Grandma Tina. “I turned you kids into gods, and you haven’t stopped boohooing for a second. When we get back, you’re all going into the tiger cage.”
“Then I quit!” Loudmouth shouted, and without a word she jumped into the ball pit and vanished.
Ruby was soaked, and her wet, poofy hair fell into her eyes. “Heathcliff, I can’t see a thing. What’s happening?”
“They’re all abandoning her,” Brand replied. “I just saw Snot Rocket and Funk use the time machine. Heathcliff, you need to stop them. Ruby and I will stay here and stop Lisa.”
“Um, reminder here! I don’t have any powers,” Heathcliff cried.
“But you’re one of us,” Ruby said. “Do the best you can!”
Heathcliff took a moment to muster all his courage, and then he sprinted through the mob and leaped into the ball pit.
Miss Information stood her ground. “Benjy, how about a hand?” she shouted.
“I’m afraid I do not have hands,” Benjy said. “But I will do my best.”
The little orb darted into action, floating above the crowd and firing tiny blasts of electricity at everyone.
“Why would she do this?” Sarah cried into Francis’s arms. “She ruined everything.”
“No, she hasn’t,” Ruby said to her mother. “If you want to be in this family, you have to have an appetite for chaos.”
Francis laughed. “You know—she’s right.”
Sarah grinned. “I’m sorry, but do we know you?”
“Not yet,” Ruby said.
“C’mon,” Brand shouted. He raced into the crowd and Ruby followed. She watched as he got beneath the robot orb Miss Information called Benjy. He swung his cane at it, attracting two nasty bolts of electricity just before he connected. When it fell into the sand, he stomped on it, cracking it into three pieces. The purple light faded.
“Nice shot, boss,” Ruby said.
“Yeah, did you ever play any baseball?”
Ruby turned to see who owned the voice and found Jackson, Matilda, Flinch, and Duncan standing behind her.
“You’re back!” she said, pulling them all into a group hug.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but I’m pretty sure this hug is weird,” Matilda said.
“We’ll explain later,” Brand said. He pointed at Miss Information, who was crawling into the ball pit and disappearing. “She’s given up on you, Ruby, but she’s off to cause trouble somewhere else.”
“We’ve got to go after her,” Matilda said. “It feels like I haven’t socked someone in the jaw in like forever.”
“No. Heathcliff needs you. Figure out where he went and stop the BULLIES,” Brand commanded as he walked to the pit. “I’ll go after her.”
“But—” Ruby said.
“That’s an order,” Brand said as he climbed into the time machine. A moment later he was gone.
“What are we doing back here?” Funk asked as Snot Rocket led them through the empty corridors of Miss Information’s lair.
“It’s a week before we first left the time stream. The boss abandoned us, Tessa betrayed us, and I’m tired of getting my butt kicked by a bunch of nerds. If they come looking for us, they’re going to regret it,” Snot Rocket cried.
When they got to the upgrade room, he pressed the button to open the door and dragged the others inside with him. A moment later, the door closed and a bank of laser lights scanned their bodies.
“Didn’t we already do this?” Loudmouth cried. “It hurt like the dickens.”
“We’re doing it again. If it made us strong the first time, imagine what it will do to us when we go back for seconds,” Snot Rocket said. “We’ll be unstoppable.”
“SCANNING FOR STRENGTHS,” an electronic voice said. “ENHANCEMENTS AVAILABLE INITIATE UPGRADE?”
“Do your worst!” Funk shouted.
The needles and tubes dropped down around them.
Heathcliff emerged from the ball pit inside Miss Information’s lair. He figured by now there must be ball pits all over the timeline. He’d have to remember to deactivate them all when he returned to his original time. If he returned. He hoped Ruby and Brand would come find him when they were finished with their timeline. It would be no fun living a life where he was a week behind himself.
He heard the BULLIES’ footsteps echoing down a hall and so he followed them, catching up just as they entered the upgrade room. The metal door closed tight, sealing them inside. He shuddered at what he knew was coming next. Upgrade rooms granted incredible powers. No one, however, had ever gotten a double dose of nanobytes. He dreaded finding out how it would change the BULLIES. He also knew there was nothing he could do to stop them. The door was locked, and even shutting off the power wouldn’t stop the upgrade process.
So he waited, and tried to come up with a plan. How was he, the shrimpiest of the agents, with zero powers, going to stop four hulking freaks? And then it dawned on him. If Miss Information’s secret lair was just like the Playground, there had to be gadgets in the science lab. He dashed through the halls, past the control room, and into the science center. Racing up and down, he eyed one dangerous-looking contraption after another.
He grabbed what looked like a laser gun from a low-budget space movie. He had no idea what it did, so he aimed it at the wall and fired. A second later everything in the laser’s path was encased in a thick layer of ice.
“This could come in handy,” he said, taking off his backpack and unzipping it. He planned on stuffing it with the laser and anything else that would fit inside, but his eye caught something silver.
Benjamin! He would know what to do. The orb had been the greatest ally the NERDS ever had.
Carefully, Heathcliff laid out the pieces of the broken orb. Then he got to work. It wasn’t long before the charred copper wires were gone and fresh ones had taken their place. He double-checked his work, not wanting to repeat the tragedy of his last attempt. Then, he snapped the two sides together and pressed the on button.
As before, the ball glowed red before it turned blue. Spinning around on the table, it clicked and beeped, finally rising upward until it was inches from Heathcliff’s face.
“Benjamin?”
“Heathcliff Hodges,” it replied. There was something tentative in its voice. “I’m having some difficulty accessing my satellite link. I need to reboot for time and date and hop onto the data stream—”
“Don’t do anything unnecessary, Benjamin,” Heathcliff said. “We could mess up your internal programming. We’ve gone back in time.”
“I see …,” the robot said with even more hesitation.
“I’m so happy you’re back! You were damaged by Ms. Holiday,” he said. “I’ll explain more later, but right now we have a bigger problem. There are a bunch of thugs inside an upgrade room and they’re getting a massive dose of nanobytes. I have no idea how to stop them. I’m powerless and—”
Suddenly, Benjamin was zipping around Heathcliff’s head like an angry hornet. “I suppose this is part of another one of your diabolical schemes.”
“No, I—”
“You might be able to fool the others, but I’ve been around a long time, kid.”
Heathcliff’s heart sank. “What did I do?”
“Huh?”
“I have no memories of the year and a half before I woke up in the Playground. No one will tell me anything. I know it’s bad, Benjamin, but I have a right to know.”
The orb spun around and clicked. “Heathcliff, is this some kind of trick?”
Heathcliff shook his head. “The last thing I remember was Jackson joining the team. You know what happened, don’t you?”
“An analysis of your heartbeat indicates that you are telling the truth.”