Shortly afterward, the Admiral called again. This time Infantor was in the living room, scribbling crayon pictures in a notebook, and mom and dad were sitting on the couch adoring him. Betty ran back to the bathroom and activated her bracelet. "Atomic Betty here!"

The moment she saw DeGill, she knew something was wrong. His uniform was disheveled and his cap was askew. "Admiral, what is it?"

"I regret to say your cohorts didn't do so well on the mission. Sparky got distracted when the ship passed a Galactic Gourmet A-Go-Go restaurant and couldn't resist stopping for a bite, despite X-5's warnings. It was a trap--a whole battalion of Maximus' soldier robots were inside waiting for him. Your crew members barely got away with their lives, and the robots chased them all the way back to base."

Betty listened in silence. "Back to base? The--uh--secret base?"

"Yes. The enemy did a lot of damage to it before they left. Meanwhile, Maximus took the Lode Star system and launched a mass-assembly of destroyer robots--thousands of them--millions of them! And he's still making more! Atomic Betty, surely you can get away somehow!"

Betty cringed; the screaming had begun again from the living room. "Want BET-TY! WAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

"Betty!" her parents cried.

She fought back tears. "Admiral, I..."

A resigned look settled over DeGill's face. "Very well. If you cannot, you cannot."

"No! I'll find a way somehow, I promise! Betty out."

But it was no good. She racked her mind for every possible excuse, asked to go visit Noah, volunteered for errands, even tried to take out the garbage--nothing. The moment she started for the door, Infantor would start his infernal squalling.

"I'll go tonight," she told herself. "Even he has to sleep sometime!"

Unfortunately, so did she. She was awakened the next morning by the chiming of her bracelet. Betty lifted her head, blinking, still in her rumpled dress, hair a tangled mess, lying stomach-down on her bed.

She lifted an arm, tried to salute. "Atomic Betty... reporting...for..."

She let her hand drop. Who am I kidding?

She had never seen DeGill look more frazzled. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cap was missing. In the background she heard a pandemonium of explosions, laser cannons and shouts.

"Atomic Betty, I beg you! Maximus is this close to taking over the galaxy! He's eluded our tracking systems, and now he's launched his new destroyer robots, controlling them from an unknown location. They're everywhere--it's all we can do to hold them off!"

Betty's eyes flared. She sprang from the bed. "I'm on it, Admiral! This time there's no stopping--"

A WAAAAHHHH! from down the hall cut her off. She winced, and her heart sank. The hologram went dead.

She buried her face in her hands. No. No, NO!

Betty got to the living room to find Infantor bent over a piece of paper, marking it up with purple crayon. Several more drawings lay scattered around him. When the brat saw her, he shoved his artwork under the couch and held out his arms, gurgling with delight.

Well! Betty raised an eyebrow. Why doesn't he want me to see those?

As soon as Betty could get away, she found Purrsey. He was curled up in the hall, looking miserable. Betty bent down and petted him, and he gave her a grateful look.

"Poor Purrsey. Listen, what if I said you might be able to help us both?" The cat's eyes lit up. "That's it! I can't promise anything, but I think it's worth a try. Here's what I need you to do..." She whispered in his ear.

Betty returned to the living room and forced herself to pick up that little green creep. "Want to go outside in the sunshine, and I can show you the garden?" He stretched his face into his ugliest smile, goo-gooing and ga-ga'ing.

When she carried him out the door, she glanced over her shoulder. Purrsey was slinking into the living room. Betty gave him a wink.

Five minutes later, Betty handed Infantor to her mother, who was lounging in a lawn chair. "Gotta use the bathroom real quick." She took off. In the hall she met Purrsey, who was clutching Infantor's drawings in her teeth. "Good job!" She took them, patted him on the head and retreated into the bathoom. Infantor's wailing rose up again from the backyard.

"All right! Let's see what we've got here..."

The drawings were in purple and red: tiny stick-figures with pointed ears, surrounded by what might have been either weird gadgets or toys. In other pictures, a taller figure, also with pointed ears as well as a pencil mustache, rubbing its hands.

Betty leaned in closer. In one picture, the mustached figure stood inside a circle with an antenna sticking out the top, and a row of little triangles along the bottom. Well. She glanced at the other pictures--yes, there it was again, the same Maximus-figure inside the same circle with the antenna and triangles. And another one.

There was also a sketch of a girl cowering before a huge self-portrait of Infantor, who held a whip. Another picture showed the girl with a KICK ME sign on her back, and Infantor gleefully doing so. Another had her wearing a dunce cap with GALACTIC GOOFBALL written on it. But Betty hardly noticed these.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, she smiled.

She set her bracelet to a new frequency. Time to make another kind of call.

Drastic times called for drastic measures.