The flares from the missiles' rockets were so bright, they bleached out the TV screens and bathed the entire control center in a pale, eerie light.

Orica looked to me. I wasn't used to seeing her worried, but she was worried now. "How long will it take those to hit their targets?"

"About eight minutes," I said, feeling sick to my stomach. After all, the reason I knew this was because I'd done the math that had allowed The Oddfather to program the missiles. When they struck and did their damage, I would be partly responsible. I had naively gone undercover, hoping to defeat THE ORGANIZATION, and had instead been manipulated by them into doing their dirty work.

This wasn't a very good feeling.

But then, I still had eight minutes to fix things.

On the TV screens, cameras mounted on the missiles themselves tracked their progress across the city. The landscape flew past beneath them at rocket speed: farms and suburban communities and clumps of forest. It looked weirdly like the images from the video games Outlaw had spent all of his time playing: the view from a pilot as his plane hurtled into battle.

I turned my attention to Oshleigh, because unlike Outlaw, she was making eye contact with me. And because I suspected she wasn't really evil at heart. "Put down your gadgets," I said. "Please. You can still abort the missiles. If you don't, you're going to have the blood of thousands of innocent people on your hands."

Oshleigh shook her head. "You don't know what we're really doing here . . . ."

"I know exactly what you're doing," I replied. "You're taking out every Odd Squad Director in the world so you're moles can get promoted to directors, destroy precincts from the inside, and get paid billions to repair them."

Oshleigh's eyes widened in surprise.

"Holy cow!" Murray cried from the couch. "You figured our whole plan out yourself?"

"I saw a Lew Brothers construction site earlier," I told him. "A big one, building something underground. Which meant THE ORGANIZATION's construction company was much bigger than I realized. So we Shmoogled the company. They do work internationally. And they have all the construction tools necessary to do underground construction"

"Nice work." Murray grinned, revealing several rainbow sprinkles stuck in his teeth. "To be honest, THE ORGANIZATION didn't even see the potential of the construction company at first. We originally started Lew Brothers as a money-laundering scheme, but then found that being evil was standard procedure in the large-scale construction business. In fact, we were shocked by how corrupt and deceitful some of our rival companies were—and we're terrorists! To get jobs, everyone uses bribes, blackmail, kickbacks, and threats. We started to do the same thing, and we were good at it. Before you knew it, Lew Brothers was bringing in more money than our illegal schemes. So then we started thinking, why wait for the people to come to us with construction jobs? Why not create the jobs ourselves? I mean, if I dunno Garvy Gravy or someone paid us to destroy a precinct, we'd get paid a few million, tops—while The Odd Squad paid some lucky construction company billions to rebuild it. The real money isn't in knocking things down; it's in putting them back up again. So why should we let some other sleazeballs make big profits from our terrorism when we could be the sleazeballs making the big profits ourselves?"

"You're creating a fake terrorist attack just to cash in on the emergency rebuilding funds?" Orica asked.

"Yes!" Murray crowed. "And a real doozy of an attack, too. Hundreds of precincts around the world all having their self-destruct sequences activated by our operatives at the same time! The way we figure it, if you only knock out a couple of precincts, it's a crisis, but the Odd Squad can still get by. But if you take out hundreds globally, you cripple the whole Squad. Doomsday will have nothing on this. The Odd Squad will be desperate to get everything rebuilt as quickly as possible, and they'll have to pay through the nose to do it. It just so happens that Lew Brothers is perfectly prepared to handle such a cataclysmic event, with all the connections, personnel, and raw materials on hand necessary to rebuild quickly—and for maximum profit."

I kept my eyes locked firmly on Oshleigh's. " What you're doing here is going to lead to death and mayhem and agony, just so you can make some money off the Squad's misery."

Oshleigh shook her head violently. "No, you've got it all wrong."

"I don't," I told her. "And deep down inside, you know that's true."

"No," she said again. "You are wrong. We're not going to just make some money off the Squad's misery. We're going to make an incredible amount of money off the Squad's misery."

The moment she said this, any trace of doubt or concern in her eyes faded. So did any trace of the sweet, good-hearted girl I thought she was. Instead, she showed her true self—and it was evil. As though all the death and destruction THE ORGANIZATION was about to cause was thrilling to her.

"You think those people are going to suffer?" she asked. "Well, no one's suffered like me. I trained my whole life for the team! I gave up my entire childhood to practice sixteen hours a day! I never had fun! I never had any friends! I never had a single piece of candy! And for what? So that some stupid judge could make a mistake on my score and keep me from my rightful place on the team!"

"Don't blame the rest of the world for your failure," Orica said coldly. "That judge was right."

"She was not!" Oshleigh roared. "She was blind!"

"I saw the trials," Orica informed her. "You blew that landing."

"I did not!" Oshleigh was trembling with rage now, her arms shaking, her face twitching. I half expected fire to explode from her eye sockets. "I stuck that landing! I stuck it!"

I was terrified that, in her fury, she would blow Orica and me away. And she very well might have, if O'Cyrus and Oshton hadn't shut the power down at that moment.

We'd planned that part. The idea was, Orica and I would try to deal with THE ORGANIZATION via negotiation while the others would try to simply stop the missiles by hitting the power supply. The entire room went dark in an instant as every light, TV screen, and piece of electrical equipment went out.

Orica and I were prepared for this, while the others were caught by surprise.

From beside me, I heard the distinct sound of Orica going on the attack, followed by the wheeze of Oshleigh getting punched hard somewhere painful, and then the clatter of her gadgets on the floor as Orica disarmed her.

Then the backup generators whirred into action. The lights and TVs and electronics came back to life and the room looked almost exactly the same, save for a few small changes.

Instead of holding us at gadgetpoint, Oshleigh was now fighting Orica. And despite having started at a severe disadvantage, she was fighting well. Normally, Orica would have knocked her opponent unconscious by this point, but Oshleigh had proved more formidable than expected. She was using her personal combination of gymnastics and martial arts, blocking Orica's attacks and launching her own.

Outlaw and Murray were exactly where they'd been before. Outlaw hadn't moved. Murray had spilled his sundae down the front of his sweatshirt. For the first time since our arrival, he looked peeved. "Aw, great," he muttered. "Now look what you guys made me do!"

The one other thing that had changed was that, on the TV screens, the landscape was still hurtling past, but now an emergency message was flashing in big red letters: AUTOPILOT DISENGAGED. The missiles began to drop from the sky, moving toward homes and schools, rather than the bridges.

"The navigation systems are blown," Outlaw said, the first words he'd spoken all day.

"Guess it's up to you, then," Murray told him.

Outlaw flicked a button on the side of his customized joystick.

The emergency message disappeared, now replaced with the words MANUAL OVERRIDE ACTIVATED. The missiles straightened up and resumed their flights.

Suddenly, it was evident what Outlaw had been doing on the couch all those hours. He hadn't been playing video games. He'd been training to pilot multiple high-speed missiles to their targets at once. It couldn't have been easy, but he was doing it perfectly. As usual, he was also giving a mumbling commentary on what he was doing. "Adjustaltitudeonmissilefivereorienttrajectoryonnineincreasethrustfortwo.".

I lunged toward Outlaw, but Murray moved faster, producing a gadget from under a throw pillow and aiming it at me. "Oh no," he taunted. "It's not gonna be that easy, Ben."

"Just shoot him!" Oshleigh shouted, launching another flurry of kicks at Orica. "Kill OJ before he thwarts us again!"

"He's not gonna thwart us," Murray said coolly. "It's out of his hands."

"So what?" Oshleigh screamed. "Do it anyhow! He's the enemy!"

"You actually had a crush on this girl?" Orica asked me, fending off Oshleigh's attacks. "She's psychotic."

"Apparently, I misjudged her," I said sheepishly.

"Gee, you think?" Orica asked.

I tried to keep calm, but my head was spinning. I was reeling from discovering Oshleigh's true colors and desperately trying to figure out what I could possibly do to stop the missiles.

Without the forcefield generator, there was nothing standing between THE ORGANIZATION's missiles and their targets.

Except the kid who was still controlling them.

Now that Oshleigh had proven to be more evil than I'd realized, I turned my attention to the other Villain Academy student, hoping he might be more reasonable. "Outlaw, think about what you're doing. This isn't a game anymore! When those missiles strike, it will happen in the real world."

"And you'll make real money!" Murray cried. "Tons of it!"

"No, you won't," I warned. "THE ORGANIZATION only told you guys that to get you to do their dirty work for them."

For the first time, Outlaw took his eyes off the screens in front of him. It was for only a fraction of a second, a fleeting glance my way, but there was concern in it.

"Don't listen to him!" Murray warned. "No one at THE ORGANIZATION conned us! They wouldn't do that to me!"

"Then where are they?" I asked. "I haven't seen them anywhere around here tonight. The Oddfather told us himself that THE ORGANIZATION was going to get away with this because all the evidence would point to some fall guys. Well, you're the fall guys."

The Big Office finally came into view. A large structure with ten sides with a geodesic sphere in its center. It had been painted purple in honor of BOSS-CON.

Orica and Oshleigh were still battling for the upper hand.

Murray shook his head, though it seemed like he was trying to convince himself I was wrong as much as he was trying to convince Outlaw. "THE ORGANIZATION's blaming loser villains for this."

"No. THE ORGANIZATION's framing you," I told him. "The Oddfather will make billions—and you'll end up in juvie. Unless you abort those missiles!"

Murray suddenly didn't look so sure of himself anymore.

Instead, it was Oshleigh who yelled at Outlaw. "He's lying to you! Stay on course!"

The missiles were approaching the lower tip of the Big Office. The ten of them suddenly veered in different directions, some going for the sphere while others aimed for the exterior.

"Outlaw," I pleaded, "I know you have trouble fitting in at the Odd Squad and that makes you angry, but this isn't the solution. The people at THE ORGANIZATION aren't your friends. They're using you. If you want to make real friends, you don't do it by being the bad guy. You do it by being the hero. And this is your chance. You can be the hero right now. You can save the Odd Squad!"

The missiles were bearing down on the southernmost sections of the building now, so close that we could see the outlines of the directors. And then close enough we could see the various non-alcoholic beverages they were drinking. And then . . .

The missiles glided along the roof of the building at the last second, missing their targets.

Outlaw had barely moved. He'd made only a few subtle flicks of his wrist. But it had been enough.

For the first time since I'd met him, he was smiling.

"Noooo!" Oshleigh cried. "You idiot! What are you doing?! Bring them back around!"

"Ben's right," Outlaw said. "THE ORGANIZATION set us up. The Odd Squad has us surrounded. We'll never get away. But The Oddfather and all the other leaders will."

The missiles—whether they had just avoided their targets or were still en route—suddenly angled sharply upward, rocketing high into the cloudy sky, away from the Big Office and all the people in it.

Oshleigh unleashed another flurry of kicks at Orica. "So we'll get caught. They'll find a way to spring us!"

"Why would they?" Outlaw asked. There was a confidence in his voice I'd never heard before. "Then they'd just have to share the money with us. And they're not going to do that. After all, they're evil."

The missiles were still climbing, rising through the atmosphere, leaving the earth far behind.

Murray's eyes went from the screens to me and back again. He seemed so stunned by THE ORGANIZATION's betrayal that, for the first time in his life, he was speechless.

Oshleigh grew even more apoplectic, however. She redoubled her attack on Orica while screaming at Outlaw the entire time. "You can still fix this! Even if you only hit a few of the targets, we'll still be rich! Don't let OJ confuse you! THE ORGANIZATION isn't the enemy here! He is! He's—"

She didn't finish the rest, because Orica punched her in the stomach. Oshleigh gagged in pain, bending forward, and then Orica nailed her in the jaw with an uppercut, sending her flying. Oshleigh slammed into the wall and crumpled into a pile.

On the screens, high above the earth, nine of the missiles exploded. There was a huge flare of fire and then their feeds disintegrated into static.

But the tenth missile didn't blow. Instead, it arced around and started hurtling back for earth.

Murray looked concerned, but he still kept his gadget on me. "What's happening there?" he asked Outlaw. "What are you doing with that one?"

Outlaw jiggled his joystick, concerned. "I'm not doing anything with it. I don't have control over it anymore."

"Then where's it going?" Murray asked.

"Here," I said.

Everyone turned to me, worried.

"I did the math for this, too," I explained. "It was for extra credit. There's a fail-safe built into that rocket in case things go wrong. A homing device."

Murray's eyes went wide. "Why would they send a missile here if things went wrong?"

"No loose ends," I told him. "You all know too much. But the Odd Squad can't make you talk if you're dead."

"You mean they're going to kill me?!" Murray gasped. "Me? That's not possible! They promised me a house! With a Jacuzzi tub!"

"They lied to you," Orica said. "They are the bad guys."

Murray looked as though he'd been punched in the gut himself. "How much time do we have?"

"Eight minutes," I told him.

"Then let's get out of here!" Murray dropped his gadget and ran for the exit. Outlaw, Orica, and I fell in right behind him.

We made it only a few steps.

Then we noticed Oshleigh. She wasn't crumpled on the floor anymore. She was blocking the only exit and she'd recovered her gadgets, which she was now pointing at us.

"No one's going anywhere," she said.