Chapter 3: "TO THE ISLAND!"

The four kids all stared in amazement at Goddard's screen. Had Commander Baker really said that BTSO's top spy had defected to Beautiful Gorgeous's side?

"Jet Fusion?" Libby repeated.

Sheen held up his hands and gazed at the lab ceiling tragically. "Why must the good succumb to the forces of evil?!"

Cindy glared at Sheen. "Quiet!"

They turned back to the recording, where Jimmy sounded even more stunned than Libby.

"Jet Fusion?!"

"You remember when they were almost married?" Commander Baker responded. "Well, he still hasn't gotten over it."

He hit a button on the controller he was holding and an image of Jet Fusion appeared on the screen behind him. Jet was clutching a picture of Beautiful Gorgeous and holding his hand over his heart dramatically.

"Why did she have to leave me?" Jet wept. He dropped to his knees and cried out to the heavens. "I'll love ya forever, baby!"

Captain Baker froze the image so that Jet Fusion was left with his mouth gaping open idiotically. "Uh…ahem! You get the picture."

Libby glanced over at Cindy. "Hmmm…is it just me, or does Jet remind ya a little of Sheen?"

On Goddard's screen, Commander Baker continued talking. "From the signals we've been getting from the tracker we installed in Beautiful Gorgeous, we've discovered she's headed toward a remote island in the Pacific. Our guess is that she is going to stay there until she's perfected her evil plans. Then she'll begin once again to steal from banks, try to take over the world, and impersonate men. And this time, she'll have the help of Jet Fusion…until she decides to eliminate him."

Commander Baker hit a button on his controller again and a map replaced the image of Jet. A flashing red dot with the label "Beautiful Gorgeous" was in the middle of the area marked "Pacific Ocean" and slowly making its way toward a small, unlabelled island.

"We'll need you to go to that island, stop her, and bring Jet Fusion back to our side," Commander Baker informed Jimmy. "And, you'd better do this alone. This mission is too dangerous and we don't want to endanger a lot of people. You can have your friends search for you if you don't return in a few days, but…those two probably won't be able to do much. So, do you accept this mission?"

The recording ended abruptly, and an instruction manual for the Hover-Sub took its place on the screen.

"It looks like the rest shouldn't be too hard," Libby said as she studied the instructions. "I guess we'd better get to work."

"Yeah!" Sheen exclaimed, lifting a wrench and banging it against the Hover-Sub's side.

"Unless, of course," Cindy told her friend, "those two twerps destroy it before we're done."

That evening, after spending hours working on the Hover-Sub and going home to get food and supplies, the kids met back in the lab.

"Well, that wasn't so hard," Sheen declared. "I just told my grandma I was going to hunt down a deadly but extraordinarily beautiful villain-ess and I wouldn't be back for several days. She told me to remember to take my medicine."

"My mom said I could go only if I packed extra foot fungus cream...and underwear," Carl announced.

Apparently trying to ignore them, Cindy changed the subject. "OK, I've got the coordinates for the island; let's just go and get this over with."

"Yes! TO THE ISLAND!" Sheen shouted.

"Get in!" Libby ordered impatiently.

Carl, Libby, Sheen, and Goddard hopped in the back of the Hover-Sub 9000 and Cindy took the controls. As she steered them out of Retroville, Goddard curled up in a corner, looking lonely without his master, and Libby listened to her CD player. Sitting beside her, Carl pulled a little weenie out of his back pocket and started munching on it contentedly. Libby stopped singing along to her music long enough to glance at Carl—then Sheen, who had the plastic hand of his Ultralord doll…ahem, action figure…stuck up his nose.

"This is gonna be a long trip," she muttered.