"Okay. I am going to change out of this hideous dress and then proceed to burn it." Maddie begins to make her way out of the set piece, glancing back at Tom as she goes, "We're still having that debate about who's smarter later, just so you know."

"I'm gonna win!"

"Yeah?" Maddie scoffs, "Good luck with that!"


"Hey, Neish." Maddie says, catching up with Aneisha as she approaches the school gate, "How was your weekend?"

"I had to go and visit my auntie."

"I'm assuming that since you used the word 'had', you didn't want to go and visit your auntie." Maddie says, taking another sip of her drink and gagging slightly in disgust, "Ugh! Believe me, my weekend wasn't much better. I was training for most of the weekend."

"Why were you training? You're already in good shape."

Maddie shrugs, "There's always room for improvement. That's why I'm staying away from any other canned or bottled drinks and I'm sticking with healthy smoothies. This one's kale, pineapple and almond milk...and it is disgusting!"

"Why are you still drinking it if you don't like it?"

"I don't know." Maddie looks down at the bottle and shrugs, "I'm kinda just used to the taste at this point. It's still gross, but I've kind of adapted to drinking it. Like how cacti have adapted to surviving in hot deserts."

Aneisha laughs but doesn't push the matter any further, the two of them walking through the front gate and into the school grounds. They make their way through the groups of students, most of whom are flaunting brightly coloured wristbands, and over to Tom, who is wearing a wristband of his own.

"What's with the new wristbands?"

"Didn't you guys see the new Pookie Plumber film?" Both of them shake their heads in response to his question, "They were giving them away at the cinema."

"Some of us had to visit our aunties."

Maddie nods, "And some of us were training all weekend."

"Oh, dear, don't think I can talk to you guys any more!" Tom scoffs, turning away from the girls and back to a group of students who also have the wristbands.

Maddie looks over to Aneisha, who appears to be quite hurt at Tom's dismissal, and pulls her away from Tom and his group, "Don't listen to him, okay? These wristbands are just a fad. No one will care about them by lunchtime."

"I guess you're right." Aneisha nods, but she doesn't seem convinced. Before Maddie can ask her about it, she changes the subject, "What lesson have you got first?"

Maddie pulls out her timetable from her pocket, groaning at the sight of what lesson she has first. Geography! Why does it have to be Geography? It's not that she's not smart enough for the subject, she definitely is, it's just that the subject bores her. She looks back to Aneisha after she's pocketed her timetable, "I've got Geography. Do you reckon Frank'll let me sit down in HQ until first period is over?"

"Not a chance."

"Great." Maddie says sarcastically, "That's just great."


"Neish!" Maddie jogs up to Aneisha, who is currently waiting at the back of the food line in the canteen, "Mind if I join you?"

"Go ahead." Aneisha smiles, "So, how was Geography?"

"Awful! That's the reason I couldn't come sit with you guys at break. My teacher thought that I wasn't paying attention in the lesson and held me back at break. I mean, I wasn't paying attention, but I understand what's going on." Maddie and Aneisha take a couple of steps forward as the line progresses, "Anyhow, what did I miss at break? Anything exciting?"

"Jimmy Jubbly showed up."

Maddie's eyes go wide, "The Jimmy Jubbly? As in the guy who's practically a celebrity?"

"That's the guy."

"That's awesome! I wonder why he'd come here though, of all places." Maddie says. Aneisha shrugs but doesn't offer much else in response, and the two of them chat quietly amongst themselves as they collect their food from the canteen workers.

Once they have their food trays they move to sit at the table in the middle of the canteen, where the others are sat, only for the only available seat to be taken by Byron. Maddie doesn't really mind it, they can just sit somewhere else after all, but this seems to really annoy Aneisha, "Oi! I was going to sit there!"

"Sorry." Tom smirks, "Only people with Pookie Plumber wristbands are allowed at this table."

Okay. That irks Maddie. You can't exclude people over something as ridiculous as wristbands, "You can't do that, Tom. I mean, they're plastic wristbands. It's hardly the Crown Jewels or anything. You're being ridiculous."

Aneisha reaches for one of Dan's chip, but he swats her hands away instantly and motions to his wristband, "Ho-oh-oh! Sorry - no band, no chip."

"Dan! Come on!" Maddie glares over at her brother, "That's the stupidest thing you've ever said!"

"The stupid thing is that you don't have a wristband."

"Alright, that's it!"

Maddie reaches over to Zoe's plate and pulls a chip from it, tossing it right at her brother. He dodges it, which causes it to hit Melissa on the back of her head. Melissa turns around, clearly not pleased that she's been hit, "Ouch! What was that for?"

"Sorry!" Maddie shouts apologetically, "I meant to hit Dan instead!"

That doesn't seem to appease Melissa, who throws a chip right back in Maddie's direction. The chip hits Aneisha instead, and that's when all hell breaks loose. Within moments all of the students are throwing their food at anybody they can hit, burgers, chips and pizza slices flying through the air at rapid speeds. Maddie teams up with Aneisha, the two of them throwing food at as many people as they can. Yes, they shouldn't be having a food fight, but they make quite the team during one.

"OI!"

The sound of McNab's booming voice is what stops all of the pandemonium. Everyone who has a chair quickly moves back into it, whilst Maddie moves rapidly to pull any loose fries from her hair. McNab seems to mutter something to the man he is stood beside before he addresses the students, "Children, this is Jimmy Jubbly. He's going to give you some Jubblyade, which is "a refreshing, nutritious drink," apparently."

"Now, who's feeling thirsty?"

Part of Maddie is tempted to run over and grab a bottle of Jubblyade, but two things stop her. One: she promised herself that she wouldn't have any other bottled or canned drinks other than her health drinks and water, no matter how healthy they claim the drinks to be. Two: her communicator is buzzing in her pocket, meaning that she and the others have a mission to get to.

"Mission on, let's go."


Maddie runs at a steady pace through the facility alongside Aneisha, the others running at a slightly faster pace just ahead of them. Aneisha calls to them to wait up, but they either don't hear or don't listen and continue running at their current pace towards the nearby door, which Dan holds open for Zoe. Zoe smiles warmly over at him in thanks, "Thanks, Dan."

Maddie and Aneisha reach the door moments later as it slams in their faces, Dan and Zoe both already on the other side and heading up the staircase. Aneisha is far from pleased at this and speaks with a bitter sarcastic tone, "Thanks, Dan."

"Don't worry about it." Maddie sighs as she opens the door, "Those two are in their own world half the time. The best thing to do is to just let it happen."

The two of them run through the door and catch up to Dan and Zoe, the former turning to the two of them to give his orders, "Aneisha and Maddie, you check out this floor. Zoe, you and I will take upstairs."

"Sure."

The two of them continue heading up the stairs, leaving Maddie and Aneisha behind without another word. Aneisha speaks up first once again, her voice even more sarcastic than before, "You and I take upstairs. Sure!"

"They are quite sickening, aren't they?" Maddie nods back down towards where they came, "Come on, let's go check out the floor. We might find something."

The two of them turn around and run back down the stairs, running back through the door and continuing down the corridor in the opposite direction from where they came. They find nothing out of the ordinary as they head down the corridor, but pause at the sight of a door at the end of another small corridor. They walk down to the door and are surprised to find it unlocked, but they walk inside anyway to find a dimly lit and unoccupied room.

"Are you guys okay?" Tom asks over the communicator.

"We're fine, Tom." Aneisha replies, flashing her torch down at the floor, "Is that a rat?"

"A rat?!" Maddie screams, quickly moving to hide behind Aneisha, "Where?!"

The rats scuttle off; Maddie can hear Tom laughing down the communicator, "I know that we should be acting seriously, but your reaction was priceless!"

"Tom, you are so dead when I get back to HQ!"

"That's weird." Maddie hears Aneisha's voice coming from the other side of the room, where she is looking closely at numerous vials of some kind of red liquid, "I think I've got something."

"I'll go and get the others. They need to see this." Maddie begins to make her way for the door, being cautious not to step near any rats as she goes, "I'll be back in a second, okay, Neish?"

Aneisha doesn't respond, but Maddie only assumes it's because she's too busy examining the red vials, so she brushes past it. She walks back through the door and back down the corridor. As she walks around the corner she notices that Dan and Zoe are coming back through the door to the stairwell and she quickly calls them over, "Dan! Zoe! Aneisha thinks that she's found something!"

Dan and Zoe jog over to Maddie, the latter the first to ask her questions, "What's she found?"

Maddie opens her mouth to respond to Zoe's question when she hears a loud explosion come from where she just came and freezes, a feeling of dread rising in her chest. Aneisha's still over there! Without even really realising it she breaks off into a run and sprints back the way she came, stopping abruptly when she finds red liquid all over the floor and walls. Zoe and Dan run up behind her with puzzled expressions on her face, and Maddie's about to run into the room to try and find Aneisha when the girl in question stumbles through the door, coughing fiercely as her clothes squelch as she walks. She's completely soaked in the red liquid.

"You OK?"

"I feel sick." Aneisha replies, letting out a loud burp a few moments later, "Sorry."

Maddie carefully steps through the liquid and moves towards Aneisha, "We need to get you back to HQ if you feel sick. Come on."


"Sorry I can't keep anything down, Frank."

Maddie sits at the centre table opposite to Frank and Aneisha, the latter finishing up being medically assessed by the former. There's something majorly significant that's out of the ordinary, but Aneisha hasn't been able to eat anything since she swallowed the red liquid. Frank hasn't been able to find out why though, not just yet.

"Apart from stale bread."

"It seems, if that's the only side effect, it's likely to be temporary but as a precaution, I'm taking you off active duty." Frank says.

"That's not..."

Aneisha's protests are cut off by Stella, who contacts the team via video call and gets right to business, "Do we know what KORPS were up to in there?"

"I'm still running tests on the stuff Aneisha swallowed."

"Thank heavens for the boy genius." Tom turns to the group with a smug grin on his face, placing a spinning hamster wheel on the middle of the table, "I've figured out the source of the original audio wave."

"A hamster wheel?"

Tom nods, "But not one, thousands of them all turning at once."

"There were a lot of cages in that room, but I don't think there were thousands of them." Maddie says, "But I mean, it was dark in that room, so it could be possible."

Zoe shakes her head, "That's impossible, even with that many hamster wheels. To generate a signal like the one you detected would require all the mice to work together in perfect sync."

"Which is more than can be said for you four." Stella says sternly, "You're supposed to be a team, what happened in there?"

Aneisha glances over at Dan and Zoe, "Romeo and Juliet went off and left me."

"Hey!" Maddie shouts, "I was there, you know!"

Aneisha looks over at Maddie apologetically before turning back to Stella, who still looks far from pleased, "And you were supposed to wait for a backup."

"Once again, I was there!" Maddie scoffs, "Do I even exist anymore?!"

"You went to find the others and let Aneisha on her own, agent! That decision was a severe error in judgement!" Stella scolds, the harsh tone in her voice making Maddie quickly become silent, "That was stupid and reckless. You got away with it this time, but next time you might not be so lucky. I'm very disapp

ointed. You are MI9 agents, I expect more from you."

The video call cuts off and leaves the room in complete and utter silence, all of the agents too shocked by Stella's rant to say anything. Maddie's tempted to try and crack a joke to lighten the mood, but by the looks on everyone's faces she knows that now is not the right time. She also knows that something has to change - they need to work better as a team.


Maddie walks down the school corridor with the intention on heading down to HQ when she finds Aneisha walking towards her, a pale and distant look on her face. Maddie looks back at her with concern as she approaches, "What's up with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Aneisha shakes her head, "Not a ghost, but you're not all that far off."

"What's going on, Neish?"

"Everyone's been acting all off. Zoe's hanging out with Melissa, Tom's socialising and Dan's fixing his tie to how it's supposed to look."

"Okay. I know my brother, and I know that he'd never do that." Maddie replies, "Where are they?"

"I think they were heading towards the art room."

Maddie nods and begins to make her way towards the art room alongside Aneisha, the two of them reaching the room in a matter of minutes thanks to the uncrowded and silent corridors. Upon walking in, they find that all of the students are stood in front of their own individual canvas', painting away silently and calmly.

Hello, Aneisha." All of the students say in unison, speaking in monotone, robotic voices, "Hello, Maddie."

Maddie and Aneisha wave awkwardly back at the students, who turn straight back to their canvas' and continue painting. Maddie makes her way straight for her brother, pulling away at the front of his tie and making it loose like usual, "See, that looks normal."

Dan straightens up his tie and fixes it back to what it was before, looking back at Maddie with a calm smile, "Thank you, I like it this way."

Maddie glances back at Aneisha, who simply shrugs back as she moves to try and talk to Tom. Maddie moves to stand in front of her brother, blocking him from his canvas, and waves a hand in front of his face in an attempt to get his full attention, "Dan, what's going on? You were fine this morning before Mum drove us to school. What happened to you?"

"Nothing, Madison. I'm just fine."

Maddie freezes at his statement. Dan never calls her Madison. Never. He knows that she can't stand being called Madison; he's called her Maddie for as long as she can remember. It's as if he's been abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone. Whatever the case, Maddie knows one thing for sure: that's not her brother.

Maddie backs away from the canvas and walks towards the door, Aneisha moving over from the other side of the room to join her moments later. They both seem to be thinking the exact same thing, but Aneisha is the one who voices it first, "We should go and talk to Frank about this."

Maddie nods back and follows Aneisha out of the art room, the two of them walking back through the silent corridors and towards the broom cupboard. They reach the entrance to HQ and Maddie scans them in, the two of them moving inside of the cramped cupboard and deep underground into HQ. When they walk inside they find Frank kneeling down at the centre table, studying a torn up rat cage with vivid interest, "What do you notice about this?"

"It's been torn to bits."

"Which is oddly not the strangest thing we've seen today." Maddie scoffs as they move to stand beside Frank, "Dan, Tom and Zoe are acting really weird."

"How do you mean?" Frank asks, drawing his attention away from the battered cage and towards the two girls instead.

"Zoe's suddenly best pals with Melissa, Dan's being all neat and tidy and Tom is actually engaging with other kids for once."

"Plus, Dan called me Madison." Frank still looks confused at Maddie's statement, so she elaborates further, "He never calls me Madison! He knows that I can't stand it! Even when we argue, he doesn't call me Madison. It's just one of those lines that you don't cross."

"It sounds like they've taken on board what Stella's said." Frank says as he begins to walk away from the two girls, "Maybe you two should too."

Maddie turns to Aneisha once Frank is out of earshot, "Trust me, I know my brother, and that guy upstairs isn't him. It's not even a small fraction of who he is...like, I'm talking not even a dystopian future version of him."

"You're right. Something's going on around here." Aneisha sighs, "I just don't know what."

"Which is why we investigate."