As the spy-sub continued its rapid descent, there was a terrific jolt as the craft exited the syringe and entered Alex's vein. Fighting the terrific force of gravity pushing her into her seat, Clover moved her hand to the control panel and hit a button, which activated the sub's reverse thrusters. Within seconds, the submarine slowed its descent and the push of the g-force subsided.
"Phew, that's better," sighed Clover as she managed to get the vessel under control. "Now which way do we need to go, Sammy?"
Sam moved over to the sub's various monitors and examined the one depicting their current course of passage.
"Oops! We've taken a wrong turning!" she exclaimed. "The current of Alex's blood caused us to take the direction leading to her brain."
"Yuck, I don't want to have to fly around someone's brain again! Let's turn this bucket of bolts around and go back down the other way," said Clover. She was just starting to turn the sub around to head back up, when there was a red light among the controls that began to flash frantically and give off a frantic beeping sound.
"Oh great, now what?" asked Clover.
"It's the proximity alarm," said Sam as she checked the external monitors. "We've got a load of white blood cells heading our way!"
"Not again," grumbled Clover. "Don't these guys ever learn?"
She tried to swerve the sub out of the way, but the blood cells were surprisingly fast and quickly moved to intercept the mechanical intruder. Within seconds, one of the blood cells had managed to catch up with them and wrapped itself firmly around the tiny vessel. Clover quickly jabbed at the thruster controls to try and break free, but the blood cell had a firm grip and refused to let go of its prey.
"Oh, it's no use! This blood cell is a lot more determined than the one we encountered in Jerry's veins!" said Clover, gritting her teeth as she tried to pull the sub free from the giant glob attempting to consume them. As she looked out of the window, she could see the other white blood cells getting nearer, surrounding them on all fronts.
"Well let's try out some of the new defences that Jerry had installed," said Sam frantically as she dashed over to the main controls. She quickly flipped a switch on the panel and the sub's inbuilt forcefields immediately generated a large electromagnetic pulse which blasted the blood cells away from them.
Back in the lab, Alex bolted upright on the couch with a cry as she felt the effects of the energy pulse.
"Ouch! My arm feels like it's just been stung by a bee! What's going on in there?" she complained.
"Nice going, Sammy," said Clover as they watched the disoriented blood cells float around them. "Now let's get out of here before round two starts!"
She quickly hit the thrusters again and the sub rocketed back through the passageway of the vein, away from the deadly cells that had almost devoured them. As Sam looked through the porthole, she could see the cells already recovering and thankfully going off in the opposite direction away from them. It took a while for the girls to get the sub back on course, but at last they managed to reach the route that would take them to Alex's stomach.
"Phew, that was a close one," breathed Sam. "Let's hope the sub didn't suffer any damage as a result."
There was a sudden beeping sound from the communication terminal. Clover hit a switch on the panel and a hologram of Jerry and Alex's faces appeared before them.
"Are you all right in there, girls?" he asked in concern. "Alex felt a sudden electric jolt and the radar shows that you were a bit off course. You haven't run into any trouble have you?"
"Just a bit of a run-in with some blood cells," explained Sam. "We did have a bit of a wrong turn, but we should be back on course now. We had to blast off the cells with an electromagnetic pulse. Sorry if that all hurt, Alex."
"That's okay," said Alex. "Just give me a bit more warning next time you do that."
"Well, we should be reaching the stomach shortly," said Clover. "Hopefully there won't be any more surprises waiting for us in there."
Clover was going to be in for a colossal disappointment. Unbeknown to her and Sam, the white blood cell that had tried to engulf them had managed to cause a small tear in one of the sub's fuel pipes, which was now slowly leaking. The small sized fuel was in no way dangerous to Alex's health, as her cells would quickly get rid of the oily substance. But if the gradual leak continued unchecked, Sam and Clover would not have enough juice left in the engines for the return trip. They would be trapped floating about in Alex's organs forever.
Oblivious to the predicament of their vessel, Sam and Clover continued to steer the sub down the dark tunnel of the vein, illuminated only by lights from the sub. Clover blanched a little at the weird and slightly disgusting outlines of the fleshy passageway, feeling as though they were currently flying through some strange alien world.
"Hey look ahead," said Sam pointing ahead. "I think we've reached the opening into the stomach."
Clover looked forward and sure enough, she could see the end of the tunnel ending into a round hole that presumably led into the main stomach.
"So that's the opening into Alex's tummy," remarked Clover. "But have we any idea how we're going to get out again?"
"We'll get out through the lower sphincter," explained Sam. "That's the passageway that food particles go through before entering the stomach."
"But doesn't that only open up when there's actually food going down? Won't we be left trapped in the stomach once that thing closes?"
"Nah, we managed to get out of Jerry's stomach with no probs, remember," answered Sam. "All we have to do once we're inside is wait for the sphincter to open again and fly through before it closes. We'll then simply head up Alex's throat, before exiting through her mouth."
"In that case, full speed ahead!" cried Clover as she activated the thruster controls again and sent the sub rocketing ahead. The sturdy craft flew right through the end of the vein and into the main stomach, where Sam and Clover could not help but look around with a mixture of wonder and nausea. Although they had been through this before when they had to go through Jerry's stomach to catch Vomesa, they had forgotten just how vast the stomach was at their current size. It looked to them like a vast round chamber, filled with various pieces of icky misshapen organic matter, that often splashed against the main window of the sub, like giant red blobs of muck.
"Eew!" groused Clover at the sight of the rapidly dissolving globules around them. "it's a good thing Alex can't see any of this. She'd end up feeling sickly for weeks!"
"Just concentrate on finding the bad guys' own sub," said Sam steadily, trying to hide how repulsed their surroundings were making her feel. "The sooner we catch them, the sooner we can get out of here."
Fighting the urge to each grab a barf bag, the two spies carefully began to scour every part of the stomach, searching for any trace of Vomesa and Smalls' own craft. But as the hours went by, they had no luck in their search and were both beginning to feel that this was one mission they were not going to be able to complete.
"Oh, this is getting us nowhere," sighed Clover. "We've been searching for ages and have come up with zilch for all our troubles."
"I'm beginning to think you're right," agreed Sam dispiritedly. "Still we can't afford to give up now, not with Alex's life on the line. Let's take another look across that ridge there."
Wearily, Clover steered the sub across the bottom of the stomach and over the rim ahead of them. Suddenly, the sub's scanner gave an excited buzz as the inbuilt metal detectors managed to locate something.
"Hey, the scanners are picking something up," exclaimed Sam as she studied the instruments. "Clover, I think we may have found them!"
"We sure have," said Clover with an elated smile. "Look down there!"
They looked through the port window, where they could see the unmistakable configuration of the villains' own micro-sub, buried under a pile of muck. The main window was just about visible and through it they could see the familiar figures of Dr Vomesa and Diminutive Smalls bellowing at each other inside.
"Whoa, have they been busy having one massive slanging match this whole time?" remarked Clover. "These guys really need to learn to chill out a bit more."
Nodding in agreement, Sam moved over to the gadget cabinet and got out a pair of Heat Sensor 6000 Infrared Motion Detector Sunglasses. Slipping them on, she looked out of the window and made a quick scan of the micro-sub below them.
"Uh-oh, this can't be good," she said worriedly. "It looks like their shields have almost run out of power and some of the stomach acid is getting through. If something isn't done soon, the shields will give way completely."
Clover's face paled. "So then the acid will get to the nuclear battery and it'll be ka-boom time for us all!"