Hi! I'm back with another chapter of The Sean Saga. And the episode this one is based on is one of my personal favorites.
Read and Review!
Chapter Eighteen
Child's Play
Los Angeles Mall-11:30 AM
No one had noticed how the blaze started or even when, but soon enough, it was noticeable enough to send every shopper running from the store in a panic.
It didn't take long for the nearby fire department to take notice of what was happening just down the street.
The good news was the fire was detected early. But the bad news...
"Fire!" the fire chief exclaimed as he rushed into the break room.
But to his complete and utter shock, not one person jumped up.
Everyone in that room was otherwise preoccupied... with rolling toy fire trucks on the floor, playing handheld video games, and perhaps most perplexing of all, shooting each other with water pistols.
Beverly Hills High School-3:00 PM
The bell rang, signaling the end of another typical school day.
Sean joined his three friends as they made their way down the steps.
"No way!" Alex exclaimed.
"Way," Clover responded.
"So, then what did you do?" Sean asked.
"The only thing I could."
"No way," Sam said.
"Way."
"You're so cool," Alex said from Sean's left.
That was when they heard a car horn honking.
Behind the wheel was a tan-skinned teen with jet black hair, green eyes and a smile that elicited a familiar, and predictable reaction in Clover.
"Wow!" she said, dazed.
"What is it, Clover?!" Alex asked.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Are you okay?"
"I'm more than okay!" she answered. "I'm in love!"
The other three looked to the boy she was now staring at.
"Rick?!" Sean asked, surprised.
"Ew! Caitlin's brother?!" Alex exclaimed in disgust.
"We really have to get her a blindfold," Sam said.
Clover walked over to the car; confidence plastered all over her face.
"Why hello, Rick," she said, coyly. "So good to see you."
"Hey, Clover!" Rick said, warmly. Sean didn't know much about Rick, but he seemed to be nicer than his sister.
"How would you love to give me a ride home?" Clover asked.
"I can't," he said, apologetically. "Gotta go to the mall. Nice skirt."
He indicated Clover's green skirt, which she had just bought the week before.
Sean cringed at the memory, as she had left her wallet at home and made him buy it for her.
"Hey, where did you get that?" Rick asked, leaving Clover to blush.
"I've gotta get my kid sister a birthday present today."
Clover stopped blushing and now looked outraged.
"Kid sister?!" Clover exclaimed as she came out of the changing room.
After leaving school, she had dragged Sam, Alex, and Sean with her to the mall and into the nearest store that sold clothes for older women.
Clover was now wearing a cream-colored business suit.
"I bet his kid sister wouldn't wear something like this!"
She stepped in front of a mirror, striking several poses.
"My mom wouldn't wear something like that," Sean said bluntly.
"Maybe you should just be yourself, Clover," Alex added.
Clover turned around, hands on her hips.
"Be myself?" she asked, rhetorically. "Hello! Rick's a senior! As in he's used to sophisticated women!"
"Yeah," Sam said. "But if a person doesn't like you for who you are..."
But Clover just brushed them off.
"You guys, we're in the spy business! Reinventing ourselves is what we do!"
The lights around the mirror began to blink rapidly.
Then the mirror itself retracted into the floor, opening the long tunnel through which they were sucked into by a strong air current.
As the four zipped through the chute, Sean yelled to be heard over the girls' screams.
"Speaking of spy business, looks like duty calls!"
The ride ended with all four being dumped out of a hole in the ceiling of a helicopter and onto a pink velvet couch.
"Girls, Sean," they heard Jerry say. They looked up to see him standing in front of a monitor.
"We have a worldwide problem on our hands."
The screen lit up, showing a map of the world with video footage of the problem in question.
"Vital members of society have stopped doing their jobs. They're only interested in playing with toys."
The spies looked at the screen, dumbstruck.
From policemen too busy playing with water guns to catch bank robbers, to doctors not taking their job seriously enough, to firemen so distracted by video games that they were delayed in putting out a fire, it appeared Jerry was right on the money.
"Toys?" Alex asked, confused.
"You're kidding, right?" Sam asked.
"Unfortunately, I'm quite serious," Jerry replied.
"Whoa!" Clover exclaimed.
"I know we've had weird missions before," Sean said. "But this..."
"This chaos will turn to pandemonium unless we nip it in the bud. And so, your mission is to go undercover as buyers."
Jerry held up four plastic cards that were obviously meant as visitor passes.
"Finally!" Clover said. "A mission I can relate too!"
"As we speak," Jerry continued. "There's a toy fair going on in Taiwan. Perhaps you can find a clue there as to who's behind this bizarre phenomenon."
"A toy fair?" Sean asked. "Jerry, that's not much to go on. There are hundreds of toy fairs going on."
"True. But we've traced each toy in these incidents to this particular fair."
He snapped his fingers, the screen now displaying the gadgets to be used for this mission.
"I've assembled some gadgets for you. There's the Magna Belt."
He threw it to Clover.
The belt was white with a yellow buckle with gold stones all around the surface.
"Yeah," Clover said with distaste. "That's a little too 'Elvis' for me."
She handed it to Sean, who put it on.
Next, Jerry held up a heart shaped pendant.
"The T.A.D or Tracking Accessory Device."
He tossed it to Sam.
"It can be activated by your Compowders or Sean's wallet phone."
"Infrared Heat Detector Glasses. The Manicure Kit with Press On Sticky Fingers and Laser Nail File."
"Ooh!" Alex exclaimed. "Does it have Cherry Blossom Red in it?!"
"And Electric Blue."
He tossed the kit to Alex, but it was Clover who caught it.
"And lastly," Jerry said as Clover and Alex walked up to him. "The Ejector Bead Bracelet."
Clover took it.
"Careful with that one," Jerry warned. "It's still in development."
She handed the bracelet to Alex.
"By the way, I like your new look, Clover."
Jerry's compliment caused Clover to smile at her friends as if to say, "In your faces."
"Very sophisticated. My mother has a suit just like it."
At that, Sean, Sam and Alex laughed.
Then, four helmets, three red, one blue, were lowered onto the spies' heads.
A trap door opened, letting them fall through.
Luckily, and very conveniently, they landed on a snowmobile waiting for them on the slope of a mountain.
As they careened down the mountain, they could see snow transitioning into soil and then grass.
The snowmobile's skis became tires and the vehicle itself became a motorcycle.
"Cool!" all four exclaimed.
And with that, the only thing left to do was cruise through the Chinese countryside.
Taipei Toy Fair-04:17 PM
Upon arriving at the convention center the toy fair was being held at, Sean and the girls allowed themselves a moment of awe at the presence of so many toys in one area.
"Look at all the toys," Clover commented, as she and the others walked through the building.
"How..."
"Awesome!" Alex finished.
"Cool!" Sam added.
"Childish," Clover completed.
"Let's just start looking for clues," Sean said to Clover. "Then you won't be here much longer."
Nodding, Clover understood. And all four kept their eyes and ears open.
"Did you see how wonderful the Vladimir Kozyrev line is?" Sean heard a woman ask.
"You really have to see that Vladimir line."
"Vladimir Kozyrev is the most popular booth at the convention."
Sean stopped. With all the buzz this Vladimir Kozyrev was getting, he figured it would be a good place to start.
"Well," he announced. "I think we have our lead."
The Vladimir Kozyrev booth was very difficult to miss. It was, after all, the largest one there. And upon seeing it, Sean knew that what everyone else said about it wasn't exaggeration. There had to be hundreds of people crowding it.
As he looked over the throng of people in front of it, he could see various action figures, dolls, toy vehicles and other things he hadn't picked up since he was ten years old.
"Cool!" the spies exclaimed, including Clover.
"I'd say we're definitely in the right place," Sam said.
"I'll say so," Sean agreed with her. "But how are these toys connected to-"
"Welcome to the Vladimir Kozyrev booth," a voice interrupted.
A large man with greasy blond hair stepped up to them. He was wearing a salmon suit with a pin with the toy line's logo pinned to his lapel. And his eyes were highlighted by the large glasses he wore. A sales representative, if Sean had to guess.
"Thanks," Alex said. "We hear your toys are all the rage!"
"What my associate means to articulate," Clover said, once again trying to sound mature. "Is that we've... observed a positive reaction to your toy line."
"Yeah," the sales rep said. "They're all the rage."
"So, basically what Alex said," Sean whispered to Clover.
Then he tapped Alex's shoulder, subtly telling her to look closely at the toys.
She put on the Infrared Heat Detector Glasses, which Sean explained had another function: dating when something such as when the packaging was made.
"I've never heard of Vladimir Kozyrev before," Alex said, picking up a box. "Are his toys in stores yet?"
"No," the sales rep responded. "We're a brand-new company."
Alex frowned as she looked at the packaging, which the glasses showed her dated back to 1973 at the earliest. And the other toys she checked had more recent but still old years appear above them. But even without the glasses, the other spies still recognized them from the footage Jerry had shown them.
"Really?" Sean asked, seeing Alex's expressions. "No one's had the chance to play with them yet?"
"This is our big debut."
"I see," Alex said, taking off the glasses.
The man grabbed a stack of boxes and shoved them into Alex's arms.
"Why don't you take some toys? Go on, open them. You'll see their appeal instantly. Really."
"Maybe later," Alex gently refused. "Right now, we need to make a phone call."
As they politely waved goodbye, they left the toy fair, unaware of the suspicious glare the man gave them as they walked away.
In the elevator that took them up through their hotel, Sean looked at the pile of toys still in their packaging that they had received from the toy fair.
Clover opened her Compowder, calling Jerry.
"Hello, ladies, Sean," he greeted. "How's the toy fair?"
"We're sending some samples your way, Jer," Clover informed. "They're from the Vladimir Kozyrev toy company."
She pressed a button, sending a blue beam from the device in her hand. The beam engulfed the still packaged toys and they disappeared.
And reappeared on...
"Ow!" Jerry exclaimed as the samples fell from the ceiling and on top of his head.
"The rep said the company's brand new," Alex informed him. "But the packaging's ancient, like from the 70s!"
"Not only that," Sean added. "All the toys in the W.O.O.H.P playback were from their toy line."
"Good work, spies," Jerry congratulated, emerging from the pile of boxes. "I'll let you know what we find out."
Clover hung up as the elevator stopped on the top floor, letting them out onto a restaurant.
As their food was served, Sam spoke up.
"Let's go over the mission," she said, picking up her veggie burger. "While we're waiting to hear from Jerry."
"Better yet," Clover interrupted. "Let's go over how I'm going to impress Rick while we're stuck in stupid Taiwan."
"Taiwan's not stupid, Clover," Alex countered. "It's exotic and interesting."
"Good angle! Why didn't I think of that?"
Sean folded his arms.
"Clover," he said. "I really don't think now's the right-"
But he was interrupted by her Compowder ringing.
She answered it, turning on the audio only option.
"Hi, Rick!" she said, coyly. "It's Clover. Oh, nothing much. I'm just calling from exotic and interesting Taiwan."
Sean rolled his eyes as he heard his wallet phone chime off.
"Well, that was fast," he said, opening it. This time he mimicked Clover's actions and turned on the audio only option.
The girls looked curious as the look of surprise on his face grew.
"I see. Well, I'll tell them."
He hung up, looking to his three teammates.
"Jerry says there's no record of a Vladimir Kozyrev company anywhere."
Sam picked up the toy robot dog she took from the fair and held it up to her face.
"Well, somebody has to be making these toys," she pointed out.
No sooner than those words left her lips, two beams of pink light came out of the eyes of the toy dog and into Sam's own.
It stopped and Sam just sat there.
"Sam?" Alex asked. "Are you okay?"
Sam just giggled mischievously. Then she picked up her veggie burger and threw it into Clover's face.
Clover gasped then looked at Sam, furious.
But Sam just pointed and laughed while her teammates looked on, shocked.
Then began throwing French fries at Clover.
"Rick," she said. "I'm gonna have to call you back."
She hung up, then glared at Sam.
"This is so sixth grade!"
"More like six years old," Sean commented. "Sam, cut it out!"
She flung her drink from her cup directly into his face, soaking it.
"Make me!" she taunted.
Sean and Alex got up and moved behind Sam, grabbing her hands.
"Leave me alone!" she shouted. "No!"
They tried to restrain, but Sean didn't know how long they could keep it up. And he was especially worried as people were beginning to stare.
"Do something, Clover!" he insisted, struggling against Sam's flailing.
"Yeah!" Alex agreed. "Make her stop acting like... like a kid!"
"What do I look like?" Clover asked, briefly slamming her hands on the table. "Her mother?!"
"Well," Sean said. "In that outfit..."
He looked down at the business suit she had been wearing since leaving Beverly Hills.
Needless to say, Clover was not pleased.
She stood up, still irate about what Sean said.
"You behave, young lady or you're going to your room!"
"Huh?" Sean and Alex asked, then Sam stopped.
Sean felt his arms go limp, both relieved at no longer having to restrain Sam and dumbstruck that it actually worked.
Clover and Sean stepped off the elevator with Alex, who was dragging Sam by the wrist, followed close behind them.
"Well," Sean said. "Guess now we know what made all those people act like kids."
"We better tell Jerry what's going on," Alex added.
Clover took out her Compowder and dialed Jerry.
Predictably, Jerry was at his desk. What Sean didn't expect was for the desk to be cluttered with toys. Or for Jerry to be playing with a toy fire truck for that matter.
"Hi, Jerry," Clover said.
But Jerry didn't notice Clover... at least, not at first.
"Oh, look everyone!" he exclaimed, finally acknowledging her. "It's Clover! Red Rover, Red Rover, send Clover over!"
That was when six other agents popped up behind him, joining him in a round of childish laughter.
Sean's jaw hit the floor, along with Alex's and Clover's.
"Oh no!" Alex cried out in dismay as Clover hung up. "Not Jerry too!"
"We have to figure out what's up with these toys," Clover said. "Before Jerry and Sam and everyone else are stuck like this forever."
That was when Sean felt something launch itself on his back.
He knew by the red hair that it was Sam.
"What the-" he tried to say, but Sam cut him off.
"Piggyback ride!' she exclaimed.
"And before Sam drives us all crazy," he added.
Tiptoeing quietly through the now abandoned toy fair, Sean could make out the image of the Vladimir Kozyrev booth.
While it had been previously the center of attention at the fair, it was now devoid of activity, much like a hive when every bee decided for one reason or another to abandon it.
Crouching down beside one of the beams holding the booth up, the spies looked at the inside of it with interest.
In Sam's case, more interested in the toys themselves rather than what was in them.
"It's just the same old stuff we saw when we were here before!" Alex whispered.
Sam gasped in delight, picking up a toy robot dog that was identical to the one that regressed her mind into that of a kid.
"The Bark-a-Roo!" she said, very loudly.
"Shh!" Clover whispered harshly as Sean snatched the toy from her.
They crawled along, thinking Sam probably wouldn't be distracted again.
They thought wrong.
"Ooh, Mega-Tronic Action Hero!"
"Shh!" Clover and Sean silenced her as Alex took the next toy, an action figure, out of Sam's hands.
It happened again as they passed another row of toys.
"The Beauty Queen! Yeah!"
The other three zipped over to her, making her drop the doll she picked up.
"Shh!" they all whispered, but this time, she mimicked them.
"Will you keep it down?!" Sean whispered. "You're gonna get us caught!"
But Sam ignored him and ran over to the center display.
There, she picked up a doll with strawberry blonde hair, a pink dress and bow and an apron.
"It's Mommy's doll!" she exclaimed as the other three ran over. "They have Mommy's doll!"
Sean looked at the doll, recognition lighting up his eyes. After all, he'd seen that doll countless times whenever his mother showed him old pictures of her childhood.
"Hey!" he said. "My mom had a doll like that one too. The Little Ann. According to her, they were the hottest thing back then!"
"Why?" Clover asked. "It doesn't even light up."
Alex took out her Compowder, typing into it.
"Let's see who manufactured this baby. The Little Ann."
Sadly, Alex's attempt to find answers was interrupted. For at that moment, a bright light shone directly on them.
No doubt being generated by a flashlight.
"Hey!" a tough voice shouted.
"Run!" Alex yelled.
And they took off, Sean clinging on to Sam's hand all the way.
As they left, the light dimmed revealing the same sales representative from before.
He spoke into a radio hidden somewhere in his collar.
"Trespassers are headed for the alley. Get rid of them... permanently."
He gave an evil smile as he hung up.
The spies exited the building to see five helmeted figures on motorcycles.
As their lights kicked on, the riders began to rev up their bikes.
In the light, Sean could see that their helmets resembled clown faces.
"I don't suppose that's the welcoming committee," Clover said.
All four remembered their own vehicle parked close by. Putting on their helmets, they quickly hopped on and started it.
The spies' bike sped off into the night, the other motorcycles zooming closely behind them.
As they sped through the city streets, Sean's hearing was assaulted by the sound of a chorus of car horns, people shouting and numerous sirens.
He looked all around him, seeing cars stuck in traffic, fires raging all over, and most disturbing of all, emergency service workers acting too childishly to do anything.
"Jerry was right!" he shouted to the girls. "Chaos is turning into pandemonium."
They rounded a corner, disappearing into an alley.
An alley, that, unfortunately, was a dead end.
"Great," he complained. "We're stuck."
"Time for a manicure!" Clover announced, as they all took off their helmets.
"Do you really think there's time?" Alex asked, as Clover took out a blue bottle from the kit Jerry gave them.
"Because that Electric Blue is awesome."
The sounds of the other motorcycles caught up to them, and before anyone knew it, they were surrounded.
"Press On Sticky Fingers," Clover said, squirted a handful of blue, gel-like fluid onto each of the spies' palms.
"Right," Alex said in affirmation.
All four got to the wall in front of them and thanks to the gel, stuck to it like a spider.
Climbing it with relative ease, it wasn't long before the motorcycles chasing them were only noise in the background.
As the four leapt over the rooftops, they felt confident that they had lost their pursuers.
It wasn't until Alex's Compowder went off that they finally stopped.
As she took it out, Alex opened it.
"That must be the info on the Little Ann doll," she said.
On the Compowder's screen was a picture of the doll and a long text that included the year 1974.
"It says it was manufactured by the Little Ann toy company in Russia in 74. They stopped production a few years later."
"Well," Sean said. "That makes sense, given how bad Russia's economy was back then."
"Didn't you say the packaging on the Vladimir Kozyrev line was from the 70s?" Clover asked. "See who owned the Little Ann toy company."
Alex typed further, her eyes beaming as the result came up.
"Vladimir Kozyrev!" she exclaimed. "Of course! They're one and the same! He's still using his old factory to make these new toys!"
"Speaking of that factory," Sean broke in, opening his wallet phone. "I wonder where it is?"
He began typing in his query.
"Got it!" he announced. "According to this, it's in St. Petersburg."
"Guess we know where we're headed," Clover said to the others.
Somewhere over Russia-1:15 AM
The spies' jet flew over the Russian countryside. While Sean, Alex and Clover focused on either ground below them or the sky in front of them, Sam was too preoccupied playing a game on her Compowder to be of much help to them.
Sitting to the right of Alex, Sean knew he could only hope they'd find a way to bring Sam back to her normal self.
It wasn't long before they reached the Little Ann toy factory.
Sean couldn't help but notice that for a toy factory, it looked... less than inviting.
The guards in front didn't help.
"A lot of security for a toy factory!" Alex observed.
"We need to get inside," Clover said.
"You're right," Sean agreed. "But how?"
Then the spies saw a forklift loading at least four life-sized Little Ann dolls into a train car.
"Oh, look!" Sam said, excitedly. "I want one!"
"Shh!" the others silenced her.
Then Clover and Alex looked at the dolls.
Turning around, they both had the same look on their faces.
"Yeah!" they said in clarity.
"What is it?" Sean asked.
"I think I have an idea on how we can get past those guards," Clover informed.
"That's great. What is it?"
But when she indicated the dolls with her head, then made a gesture toward each of them, he knew what she had in mind.
And he did not like it.
"No," Sean stated, eyes widening. "No, no, and no. Not happening. Forget it. I'm not doing it."
But unfortunately for Sean, he was overruled.
Sam, Clover, and Alex lifted their heads up from behind a row of boxes, their faces made up to resemble the human sized dolls more. Well, Sam's make up was a little messier than the others. But that could be chalked up to having the mentality of a six-year-old girl.
In addition to the makeup, they each also wore a wig that resembled the hair of the doll they were trying to impersonate.
For the finishing touch, Clover had gotten the doll's dresses and accessories off of them before anyone even noticed.
After glaring at Sam for applying her make up too childishly, Alex and Clover looked to their left.
"Come on, Sean!" Alex insisted.
Sean was hiding behind a box that no one had bothered to use yet.
"No," he replied defiantly. "You'll laugh."
"We're on a mission, you big baby," Clover said. "I promise we won't laugh."
Then she curled up her lips in amusement.
"Although, I like to think of this as payback for insulting my new mature look," she said to herself, but Sean still heard.
Sean sighed in frustration.
"Fine," he relented. "But after we're finished here, no one says anything about this."
He stood up, revealing himself to be wearing the same kind of dress, wig, and makeup the girls had put on.
Clover, Alex, and even Sam blinked in shock at his appearance.
Sean was just lucky enough that his face could easily pass for a girl's with the right amount of makeup.
His figure was another thing. While slender, it was slightly more muscular than his teammates'. But the dress was large enough that it obscured it.
The only problem was that Sean was suspiciously taller than the dolls they had gotten the dresses from.
Hopefully the guards wouldn't notice.
"Huh," Alex said, before turning away. "Not half bad."
Then they began to make their way toward the fence.
"Well," Sean said to himself, still embarrassed. "At least they didn't laugh."
Clover used the Laser Nail Fail cut through the gate, leaving an opening that they could easily slip through.
As they quietly walked between two rows of boxes, they could see a searchlight up ahead.
Panicking, Sean, Alex, and Clover dove for cover.
But Sam just kept walking, moving like a five-year-old just learning to practice ballet.
"Sam!" Alex exclaimed. "Stop!"
"Sam!" Sean added urgently.
"Simon didn't say!" Sam replied in a singsong voice.
"Simon says 'stop', Sam!" Clover whispered harshly.
And Sam froze.
But not soon enough as the searchlight hovered over her, shining directly on her left foot.
The light expanded, exposing Sam and her three teammates, as an alarm began to sound.
"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"
Five guards surrounded the now still as statues teens, who had deliberately frozen themselves in various doll poses.
The guards lowered their guns when they saw what they assumed were four life-sized dolls.
"Who put these here?" a foreman said, coming onto the scene. Sean noted that, like the guards, his face was painted like a clown's.
"They're for the next shipment. Rodney, help me get these inside."
He picked up the limp Alex, then Clover.
Another clown-faced man did the same to Sam and Sean.
Things were going smoothly... until Sam decided for no apparent reason to knock of the man's hard hat.
Alex, Clover and Sean could only gasp softly in shock.
"Hey," the man carrying them said, indicating Sam. "There's a malfunction in this doll."
"Then trash it," his partner said.
Sean gulped. He knew what toy factories did to toys they considered defective.
As they were brought inside, Sean, Clover and Alex were placed in a row of dolls clad in the exact same dress.
But Sam was dragged away.
"Grab three more for the next shipment," someone said as two other workers came into the room.
One of them tried to pick up Clover and Alex before they returned the favor, holding him upside down.
They threw him into the other man, knocking them both to the floor, unconscious.
Clover and Alex gave each other a high-five.
"Alright!" Alex said.
"Don't celebrate just yet," Sean reminded them. "We still have to find Sam."
They came to a pair of black doors that opened automatically.
Sean considered himself lucky that Sam was still wearing that tracking pendant Jerry had given them.
"The T.A.D says that Sam's somewhere in here," he said, looking up from his wallet phone.
"This is almost as big as Clover's closet!" Alex exclaimed.
Indeed, the room, filled to the brim with conveyer belts, was so large that Sam could be anywhere.
Logically, Sean reminded himself, she would be on a belt that led to an incinerator.
He deduced where it was upon seeing numerous dolls stuffed into a small vase-like container, placed on a belt and escorted into a machine that spewed smoke and flame with each doll it swallowed. He looked closer.
And sure enough, Sam was there, waving.
And from the looks of things, she was next.
"Sam, quick!" he yelled.
"Get out of there!" Clover shouted.
"Simon says 'get out of there now,' Sam!" Alex added.
But either she didn't hear them or was oblivious to the imminent danger she was now in. She giggled as her pot was about to fall into the mouth of the furnace.
But it never did.
Sean, running as fast as he could in a dress, hopped up onto the conveyor belt, reached into the furnace and gripped Sam's pot by the bottom.
Soon enough, he felt another set of arms around his waist. Either Alex or Clover.
Whoever it was, they pulled with him, hoisting Sam out of the furnace just as the flames spewed forth.
They landed on a platform next to the belt, panting.
"That was fun!" Sam shouted excitedly. "What else can we play?"
"We really need to get her a leash," Sean said, out of breath.
Leaving that room, they came upon another. In this one, there were dolls on an assembly line of some sort, hanging upside down from a belt, their ankles suspended.
What they saw looked the most suspicious of anything seen in that factory thus far. Each doll had their foreheads opened up to reveal an intricate network of circuitry. Once at a certain point on the belt, they stopped before a small robotic arm that placed something in the center of their foreheads before closing them.
Whatever it was, it was too small for Sean to see. But if he had to guess, it was a microchip. Once it was planted, two cylinders extended from the arm, shooting two beams of light into the dolls' eyes.
Afterwards, the dolls were dropped into their boxes, which, Sean noted, the factory workers did not seal.
"I wonder why they don't close the boxes?" Alex echoed Sean's thoughts.
"I'll go ask!" Sam exclaimed loudly, prompting her teammates to drag back behind the boxes they used as a hiding place.
"I have a better idea," Clover said, clearly hoping to get Sam to be quiet. "Let's play 'I Spy.'"
Sean and Alex rolled their eyes.
"Like we don't do that every day," Alex said, sarcastically.
But Sam seemed too enthusiastic to care.
"Me first! Me first! I spy with my little eye... something that is big."
They followed Sam's gaze to where the chips were being inserted into the dolls. The robotic arms were connected to a large, black, square machine with hundreds of lights running across the metallic surface. Below it where two consoles.
"A computer!" Sean said.
"You're good!" Sam complimented.
Sean's face heated up.
Sure, Sam wasn't... quite herself at the moment. But it did feel good to hear a compliment from her.
Jumping down from the boxes, the spies landing in front of the computer.
Clover looked up at the dolls being conveyed around the room, and at the beams hitting each one in the eyes.
"I bet that beam has something to do with everyone acting like kids," Clover said.
Sean walked over to one of the consoles.
"We just have to figure out what the computer chip is and reprogram it," Alex said, as Sean continuously tried to get into their systems.
But...
"I can't log on," he said. "It's asking for a password."
"Here," Alex said, moving Sean over. "Let me try."
Sean stepped aside, letting Alex take over.
"Password's usually obvious, because they think no one will go for the obvious, like 'toys'."
But the monitor just buzzed. Alex had obviously inputted the wrong password.
"Guess not," Sean said.
"Okay," Alex continued, before typing again. "'Little Ann?'"
But the monitor buzzed again.
And again.
And again.
"Obviously he doesn't know the rules."
"What rules?" Sean asked rhetorically. "Why would someone make their password too easy to guess?"
But before either could say anymore, all machinery and noise in the room stopped.
"Now what?" Clover asked.
Sean shrugged in confusion. Then he noticed Sam crawling out from behind the large console, clutching three plugs.
"Works for me," Clover said.
Sean smiled.
"At least it'll slow them down while we-"
"We have intruders!" a loud voice interrupted Sean.
He gasped as he and the girls looked down to see multiple guards, each masked with clown makeup, advancing up the platform on which the computer rested.
It didn't take long for them to be completely surrounded.
But while Clover and Sean looked on in worry, (and in Sam's case, excitement.) Alex donned the Ejector Bead Bracelet.
"Take that!" she shouted, letting dozens of beads go flying into the air, tripping many guards.
"Run!" she shouted to the others, who nodded.
Well, Sam stood still, until Clover had to drag her by the arm.
"Last one out is a rotten egg!" she told her friend.
The spies ran across the conveyor belt below the first one, knocking off at least three robotic dogs, before stopping at a hook.
Nodding in nonverbal agreement, they all grabbed onto it, swinging back down to the factory floor.
They thought they were in the clear.
But the presence of a brown-haired man in a disco dancer outfit proved them wrong.
He was smiling. But this wasn't a welcoming smile. It was the same kind of smile Sean saw on Mandy whenever she gloated about something. Which was often.
"How lovely," he said in a deep Russian accent.
"Let me guess," Sean said with a sigh. "Vladimir Kozyrev?"
The man in front of them nodded.
"What are you thinking?" Clover said, shocked.
"Revenge, of course," Vladimir responded. "Children who once adored my Little Ann have grown up and forgotten the joy, the simplicity."
He clenched a fist.
"They're only interested in high-tech gizmos and silly electronic toys!"
"Uh, dude." Alex broke in. "I think she was talking about the outfit."
She indicated Vladimir's disco outfit. Sean breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he was no longer the most badly dressed one there.
"Totally," Clover said in agreement.
"Look," Sean said, pleadingly. "I can see where you're coming from. But this whole revenge thing? It won't bring back the Little Ann."
"Of course, it will!" Vladimir denied. "Adults across the world will be forced to remember the joy of the Little Ann!"
He pointed to a large, orange aircraft that, to the spies, resembled a sleigh.
"As soon as I regress them to the children they once were."
While Sean, Alex and Clover looked a little shocked, and frankly, disappointed by motive of their latest bad guy, Sam just responded with her microchip induced, childlike enthusiasm.
"Oh, please, oh, please, oh please, oh, please," she begged. "Can I go with you, please?!"
Two guards came by and donned Vladimir in a parka and hat with aviator goggles.
"Now why can't you have attitude like that?" he asked the other three.
Then he began to walk to the sleigh, looking over his shoulder at Sam.
"Hop aboard, my little elf!"
"No, Sam!" Sean objected as she happily skipped off after Vladimir. "Simon says, 'no,' Sam!"
But she didn't hear him, as Vladimir's sleigh was already in the air... and Sam was onboard.
"You'll never get away with this!" Alex shouted after him.
But she lost confidence in those words as they looked to see eight guards surrounding them.
And all their guns were pointed at them.
"On second thought," Alex said, upside down. "Maybe he will."
She was hung by her ankles on the conveyor belt carrying the life-size dolls. Clover was suspended in a similar position on her right and Sean on her left.
But more importantly, they were each headed in the direction of the beams that activated the microchips.
"Once those beams hit us," Clover said, panicking. "We're doomed to a life of immaturity! Rick will never know the joy of me!"
"Really?" Sean asked. "We're about to regress back to childhood and that's your first concern?!"
Clover scowled.
Sean gritted his teeth in anxiety. If he and the others didn't escape, it would be kindergarten all over again.
And his voice finally broke four months ago.
But before they could reach the beams...
"Hey, it's not my fault!" Alex shouted in protest.
He looked over to her, seeing her swing back and forth like a pendulum.
Clover had pushed her.
"Push me!" Clover exclaimed.
Sean smiled, seeing where Clover was going.
"Don't forget about me!" he said to her.
Then Alex pushed him forward, letting him swing like Clover and Alex.
Once he gained enough momentum, he held on to his knees, directing his face up to the ceiling.
And to any observers, like the guard assigned to watch over them, it looked like he and the girls had disappeared.
"Where'd they go?" he asked. Then he saw their position... out of the way of the beams.
Reaching down, they thrust their hands forward, knocking off the platform and into a pit filled with opened and unopened toys.
He looked at the robot dog he landed next to, two beams of light hitting his eyes.
He began to laugh uncontrollably.
"Hey," Sean said. "What do you know? It worked."
"Hey, little boy," Clover said, in a sing-song tone. "I'll give you a lollipop if you untie me."
"Well," the guard said, looking up to them. "Okay."
In the spies' aircraft, after changing out of the doll disguises, much to Sean's relief, they changed their focus to looking for Vladimir.
Clover, who was piloting the jet, looked grim.
"No sign of Vladimir's sleigh," she said.
"We don't need to see it," Sean reminded. "Sam's onboard that thing. And she's wearing the T.A.D. We can track her and the sleigh."
He opened his wallet phone, seeing the blip on the map.
"Got it."
Sam looked out at the countryside below her, her childlike nature eliciting a gasp of joy from her.
Vladimir, at the controls, smiled, preparing to press a button.
Sean looked at the map closely, feeling his heart skip a beat.
"Sam's just ahead of us," he informed Clover and Alex.
Up ahead, the back of the sleigh opened, letting dozens, perhaps hundreds of toys, fall out.
And one of the figures that fell out happened to be wearing a red, heart-shaped pendant.
Sean's relief turned to terror as the map indicated that Sam was falling out of the sleigh, hundreds of feet to the ground.
"He threw her overboard!" he shouted.
After the toys landed on the pavement below, their boxes cracked open, like eggs hatching.
Out of them spewed the dolls, equipped to carry out their mission.
Or, more accurately, Vladimir's mission.
Sean's jaw dropped with fear as a pink-clad figure fell through the air. And with Sam's mind... in the state it was now, she probably wouldn't notice or care.
"We've gotta catch her!" Clover said, urgently.
She gripped the plane controls.
"Hang on for hyper speed!"
And the plane accelerated faster than Sean knew it could fly.
He even felt his teeth rattling a little.
The plane flew back up, it's hatch opening, letting the figure that had fallen land inside on a cushion.
But...
"He tricked us!" Alex said, looking back. "It's just a doll."
Sean followed her gaze to see that was indeed the case. The doll was wearing the T.A.D.
"He must have found out we were tracking him."
"Look!" Clover exclaimed. Alex and Sean turned to a screen on the flight controls.
On it, they could see people running, flames spreading throughout the city, and the toys from the factory at the heart of it all.
"Kozyrev's dolls aren't turning people into kids anymore!" Alex said.
"Now he's using them as an army!" Sean confirmed, before sulking in defeat. "We're too late."
"Maybe not," Clover said, an idea taking form in her mind. "What does Vladimir care about most in the world?"
"Bell bottoms?" Alex asked.
But Sean caught on more quickly.
"The Little Ann," he realized.
Clover nodded. "His pride and joy. We've got to beat him at his own game."
"Oh!" Alex exclaimed, before looking confused again.
"I don't get it."
"The old Switcheroo!" Clover announced holding up the robot dog they got from the fair.
"Don't you mean Bark-a-Roo?" Alex asked.
Clover opened the toy's nose, taking out the microchip that had caused the whole mess.
"Try to stay with me. We put the computer chip from the Bark-a-Roo into the Little Ann."
She held up the doll in question.
"It's so obvious, he'll never suspect a thing."
"Not a bad idea," Sean said, impressed. "One of us has to get close enough for it to work on him, though."
"Sounds like you're volunteering," Alex asked, pushing him to the back of the plane.
She handed him the doll and a rope, which was attached to a hook.
A hatch opened, and Sean rolled the rope out of it, putting the doll into a pouch on the back of his suit.
Gripping the rope as tightly as he could, he slid down carefully, seeing Vladimir's sleigh below him.
Reaching down, feeling the buckle of the Magna Belt.
Pushing a button on the side, the buckle shot forward like a bullet, attached to a cable, sticking to the side of the sleigh.
"Yes!" he said to himself in celebration.
"I'm on!"
Then the sleigh began tilt downward, as if trying to shake him off.
"Uh oh," he said before being pulled downward, holding on to the cable like a lifeline.
Finally, he stopped, landing on one of the fins.
"Good thing that magnet is so powerful," he said to himself.
He climbed the side of the sleigh, never doubting he'd find Vladimir... and Sam.
He could see the edge of the cockpit. And he could see the fur of Vladimir's hat and Sam's wig.
But he was stopped by harsh pressing sensation on his fingers.
"Ouch!" he cried out, looking up.
Vladimir, who apparently had no interest in fighting fair, had stepped on his hand.
Sam gasped, then her look of infantile joy was replaced with fury.
"Hey!" she shouted, jumping up from her seat. "Don't be mean!"
She dragged him away from the edge, allowing Sean to climb into the cockpit.
In seconds, they both had him in a headlock before throwing him into the back seat.
Though Vladimir did lose his balance, he momentarily regained it.
Then he pulled a gun out of his sleeve, taking aim at Sean's head.
Let's see if Clover's theory is right, he thought, reaching into the pouch on his back.
He pulled out the Little Ann doll.
Vladimir's face softened.
"My Little Ann," he gasped as Sean waved the doll tauntingly and dangerously close to the edge.
"She's the last one, Vlad," he said as calmly as he could. "And if you throw me overboard, she goes too!"
Groaning in frustration, Vladimir threw his gun over the side, pushed Sam out of the way, and grabbed the doll before stroking it tenderly.
Sure enough, the beam from the doll's eyes hit him.
"My Little Ann!" he exclaimed, childishly. Then he snuggled it affectionately.
"What do you want to do today, Little Ann?"
"Vladimir," Sean said, sternly. "You have to go back to the factory and turn things back to normal!"
"I don't want to!" Vladimir said, immaturely. "I want to play!"
"You do it right now, young man!" Sean said in a similar tone his mother used when he was younger. "Or you're grounded!"
"Vladimir's in trouble!" Sam sang, teasingly.
"Alright," Vladimir said in defeat.
Sean laughed to himself briefly.
"So that's what it feels like."
Beverly Hills High-11:10 Am
With that mission over, Sean was glad school was the only thing he had to worry about.
The regression beam Vladimir had used had, thankfully, been reversed. So, Sam, Jerry and everyone else were back to normal with no memory of what had happened.
As the bell rang, signaling the end of their class, they walked out into the hall, explaining everything Sam had been through.
"No way!" she exclaimed in disbelief.
"Yes way," Sean and Alex countered.
"Clover," Sam asked. "Did I really act like a kid?"
Clover, who was wearing another business suit, this one navy, turned to her friend.
"Only slightly more than usual."
"Slightly? She jumped on my back," Sean said.
Sam lowered her head.
"I'm so embarrassed."
"If it makes you feel any better," Sean reassured. "I kind of liked it."
He clamped his mouth shut with his hand.
Why did I just say that? Now I'm the one who's embarrassed.
Before Sam could say anything, thankfully, Clover noticed Rick passing by.
She walked briskly over to him, pulling out two red slips of paper from her violet purse that came with her new outfit.
"Hi Rick!" she said. "I have two tickets to the opera. Would you care to join me?"
"Opera?" Rick asked, confused. "Clover, what happened? You look like my mom now!"
Clover's face flushed just as Mandy zipped over.
"Hey, Rick!" she said, seductively. "Are we still going to the street fair tonight?"
"Sure, Mandy," Rick responded.
Then Mandy turned to Clover.
"Nice outfit. PTA meeting?"
Then, her arm linked with Rick's, she walked off, laughing obnoxiously.
Clover groaned, frustrated.
"Excuse me, professor?" a boy said, walking up to her. "Could you tell me where the administration office is?"
Clover turned around, her face contorted in fury.
Terrified, the boy let out a scream and ran off.
After calming down, Clover took of the suit's jacket and tied it around her waist.
"Being mature is so overrated," she said, having had enough.
Then she pulled out the opera tickets.
"Looks like I wasted my allowance on these."
Then Sean saw the title on the ticket.
"Hey, Tosca is my favorite opera," he said taking them from her.
The girls, particularly Clover and Alex, looked at him in surprise.
"You like that kind of thing, Sean?" Alex asked.
Sean froze, fumbling for an explanation.
"Jerry goes to these things all the time. When I was in basic training, I went with him sometimes."
"Well," Clover said, untying her hair. "Good luck finding someone to go with you."
"I'll go!" Sam said excitedly.
"You will?!" Sean, Alex, and Clover said in unison.
"I've always wanted to see an opera," she continued.
Sean swallowed. "Sure. Meet you at 7:00? My house?"
Sam nodded eagerly.
"Great."
He turned away, trying to hide the redness on his face.
Now I just have to find where Clover bought that outfit, he thought to himself. I don't have anything that formal.