Hi! Sorry if last chapter took so long, but I was distracted by the holidays. To make up for it, here's the next one. By the way, this one helps set up a major arc down the line.
Read and review!
Chapter Twenty
The Fugitives
Phoenix Bank-11:09 AM
On a hot day in Phoenix, which is to say all of them, a bank teller had just finished organizing a large stack of bills.
He had done this so often that it was beginning to feel tedious. Still, somebody had to do it.
Little did he suspect his day was about to be disrupted... in the most shocking way possible.
For that moment, as soon as he put the money away, four shadows came up to the window in front of the teller desk. A rhythmic knocking on the glass snapped him out of his work induced trance.
He looked up to see four teenagers, three girls and one boy. The teller didn't know this, but in Beverly Hills, these four were known as Alex, Sam, Clover, and Sean.
"And how may I help you?" he asked.
"Let's see," Sam said, sweetly. "For starters..."
That was when she and Sean pointed their fists at the window.
"...you can hand over all the cash you got in this dump," Sean finished, harshly.
From the rings both teens wore came a thick cloud of purple smoke, causing the horrified teller to cough.
"Nobody move!" Clover shouted, pulling out a gun as Sean threw down a smoke bomb.
As the four teens put on mouthpieces that let them breathe safely, others were keeling over, coughing.
Alex pulled out a pair of headphones, pointing the speakers at the window.
Two lasers emitted from them before joining together to form one beam.
Upon cutting a circular hole in the window, the teens jumped through, behind the desk and into the bank vault.
All around the vault were stacks upon stacks of dollar bills, enormous gold bars, and sacks of coins so large they could fit into a handbag.
As they grabbed as much as they could carry, they looked up at a security camera.
"Cheese!" they all said, with Sean holding up a gold bar flauntingly.
Then Alex took out her headphones and fired a single laser blast at the camera, destroying it.
Beverly Hills High School-10:35 AM
The next day, the real Sean, Sam and Alex walked out of Physics class unaware of what happened in Phoenix the day before.
"Has anyone seen Clover?" Sean asked Sam.
But he was answered not by Sam, but by Clover appearing in front of them, wearing what had to be the flashiest cowgirl outfit Sean had seen.
Pressing the buckle on her belt, allowing the star on her shirt to light up.
"Ta-da!" she announced.
Her friends looked her over from her spurred boots to her hat.
"So, what do you think?"
"Well," Alex began after an awkward silence. "Your outfit is very... bright."
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "But why the new look, again?"
"I'm hoping it will remind that hot new transfer student of his homeland," Clover explained.
They looked behind them to see a boy in a yellow checkerboard jacket with a hat similar to what a cowboy would wear.
Sean sighed. He'd spent so much time with Clover, by this point he could read her like a book.
"Where's he from again?" Sam asked.
"Texas," Clover said, dreamily.
"Uh," Sean said. "Are you sure he's into that look, Clover?"
Clover scoffed.
"My dad lived in Texas for a while before he met my mom," she dismissed. "She won his heart by dressing like this."
"But didn't you say your parents were divorced? I don't think this is the best way to-"
But Clover was already on her way over to the other boy.
And so was Mandy, who was much faster than Clover. And wearing the exact same outfit as her.
"So, Billy Bob," she said, tapping his shoulder.
"If you're not too busy tomorrow night, maybe you'd like to go line dancing with me. Beverly Hills style, that is."
She winked suggestively.
"Well," Billy Bob said, putting his fingers up beside his head. "That's mighty hospitable of you, Mandy. I'd love to."
"Great!" Mandy said with glee. "I'll pick you up at 8:00."
Billy Bob walked off to his next class, leaving behind Mandy, who was waving at him, triumphant. And Clover, who was seething.
"How dare you steal my look!" she exclaimed, accusingly.
"Please," Mandy taunted. "I was into Texas way before you."
"Yeah," Dominique who came over with Caitlin agreed. "Mandy practically invented the rhinestone.
"Totally," Caitlin added.
"Besides," Mandy continued. "Billy's made up his mind."
As Mandy and her friends left, Clover looked ready to explode.
"That girl is a fashion thief!" she fumed. "And she is not going to get away with this."
"Clover," Sean said, as she opened her locker. "I get that you're angry, but I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. I mean, it's just an outfit."
"It's not just an outfit, Sean. It's the principle."
That was when her locker began to rattle.
"What the hell?" Alex asked.
And then the locker and the ones beside it folded away, sucking down the long chute behind them.
"Terrific!" Clover shouted over the others' screams.
"The last thing I need right now is..."
She was cut off by her landing on the hard marble floor of Jerry's office as opposed to the usual fuchsia cushion.
"...stupid W.O.O.H.P spy mission!" she finished, as Sean crashed behind her, colliding with into her back, followed by Alex landing on her back on the floor and Sam landing on top of her.
Sean looked up to see other W.O.O.H.P agents surrounding him and the girls, wearing black suits and sunglasses. These agents were reserved W.O.O.H.P's internal security.
Them being around him and his friends could not be a good sign. And neither was the look of disappointment on Jerry's face from behind his desk.
Pushing a button, Jerry raised the part of the floor they were on as four spikes came out of the sides of the platform. From these spikes came a shield of blueish-white energy. The spies gasped. They were trapped.
Sam touched the force field, confirming it was electrified went it sent a shock through her body, knocking her to the floor of the cage.
"Ouch!" she exclaimed.
"What's this all about, Jerry?" Sean asked.
"I think you know what this is all about," Jerry answered, voice devoid of emotion.
He snapped his fingers and behind the desk, the screen displayed security footage.
Sean's eyes went as big as dinner plates when he saw what the footage displayed. Him and the girls, robbing a bank in Phoenix, Arizona.
As "Alex" destroyed the camera, the footage ended.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Sam asked.
"That's not us robbing that bank!" Alex protested.
"I am very disappointed in all of you," Jerry said, turning away. "Especially you, Sean."
"Jerry, I've never even been to Phoenix!" Sean exclaimed, his voice tinged with fear and anger.
"The footage of you breaking into that vault says otherwise," Jerry countered, sounding almost hurt.
Sean groaned in frustration. "You've known me for three years! You know I wouldn't do something like this! I even put a granola bar back in the vending machine after it gave me an extra!"
But Jerry just ignored him. Snapping his fingers, the force field lowered and the security agents just moved in closer, grabbing them by the arms.
"Throw these agents into the electromagnetic holding tank until we get a chance to reprogram them," Jerry ordered.
"What do you mean, 'reprogram?'" Sam asked, shocked.
One agent came forward, holding up small, gray, metal card.
"We're going to implant behavioral modification chips into your brains," he said, grinning. "You'll never have another aggressive thought as long as you live."
"What?!" Sean shrieked as the agents dragged him and the girls out of the room.
"Jerry, you can't do this! You know us!"
But the doors closed and Jerry looked down sadly.
"Sorry, spies," he said forlornly. "But it's out of my hands."
He closed his eyes, ashamed.
He remembered the moment he first met Sean, a scared, skinny twelve-year-old boy who didn't seem like he could be a W.O.O.H.P agent.
And yet, he turned out to be one of the best he'd ever trained.
Jerry hadn't been surprised. It did run in the family, after all.
But... something else ran in his family as well. Something Jerry had hoped Sean would never get caught up in.
Sean didn't know this, of course. Jerry had promised her that he would be safe.
He just didn't know that it would come to this.
Jerry hated to do it, but prison was the only alternative.
Looking back at the door, he sighed.
"I was hoping that you wouldn't turn out like your father, Sean."
"These gaudy electromagnetic boots are so cyber-repulsive!" Alex complained.
She and the others had been thrown into a huge dome shaped cell with a large metal bench taking up the center.
They had also been fitted with special boots that came equipped with powerful electromagnets.
Combined with the magnetized floor, this made the cell not only difficult to walk in, but virtually impossible to escape from.
"Not as repulsive as getting microchips implanted into our skulls," Sam said, bitterly.
"I can't believe Jerry thinks we became criminals!" Sean said, despairing.
"I know!" Clover agreed, stamping her foot on the cell. "Hasn't he ever heard of innocent until proven guilty?"
She went over to the edge of the cell, banging on the glass.
"We've gotta bust out of here and find those cheap knock-off bank robbers so we can clear our names!"
"Good luck," Sean said, bending his head over.
Then Sam saw the battery pack that powered the lights on Clover's shirt.
Ripping the pack from the cord, she bent down and opened the panel for the boots' circuitry on Clover's boot.
"Hey!" Clover complained. "What gives?!"
Sticking the exposed wires into the circuitry, (and giving Clover a slight electric shock) Sam had knocked out the lights in the cell.
But that's not all she did.
"Wow!" Clover said, smoothing her hair down. "You short circuited the boots!"
"I can move my feet again!" Sean said as he kicked his boots off, followed by the girls.
"Great!" Sam said, before slapping them with a dose of reality. "But we're still stuck in this cell."
"Not for long," Alex said, walking over to Clover.
Picking up the blonde girl's boot, she turned the spur toward the glass.
Running over the cold surface, she drew an "X".
"Huh?" Clover asked, staring at it, then looked back, screaming at what she saw.
Alex and Sean had picked the bench up, and were now running toward the "X".
Using the bench as a battering ram, the glass broke into a shower of tiny shards.
"Bet Mandy's shoes wouldn't do that," Clover commented, getting over the shock.
"Now what?" Alex asked.
"Now we get some gear and bail," Sean answered, running down the steps that led out of the cell.
"There's a gadget storage room not too far from here!"
He took off running, followed by his friends.
Unfortunately, this was when three W.O.O.H.P agents came into the room, pushing a wheelchair with restraints.
Seeing the broken glass and the missing teens, their leader spoke into his lapel.
"They're escaping! Code Nine! Code Nine!"
Then all three pulled out stun blasters and fired them at the closing doors.
The spies narrowly avoided being hit as the doors behind them closed.
As an alarm began to sound, they heard Jerry's voice over the intercom.
"Grab them so I can implant the microchips into their skulls!"
Sean heard several more footsteps rushing behind them, and several more laser blasts coming.
They narrowly dodged the blasts, but it's a little heard to evade enemy fire while running.
Sean knew the blasts were nonlethal, but getting hit with them meant that soon afterward he'd spend the rest of his life as a vegetable.
Mercifully, they reached the gadget storage.
Rushing through the octagon-shaped doorway, they closed the door behind them and looked at the various gadgets on display.
"Quick!" Sean urged. "Grab whatever you can! We're gonna need all the help we can get!"
And with that, the four spies picked up as many gadgets as they could, with Sean singling out a circular blue box labeled "Icetrackers."
"Contains a tracking device that is activated by human saliva," it read.
That might come in handy, he reasoned and pocketed it along with an emerald ring that could emit a cloud of smoke.
"I think we're good," Sam said, sticking a thumb up.
Sean nodded.
"Now we just need some trans-"
He couldn't say the rest as the doors slid open, revealing Jerry and a squad of security agents. And, Sean noted, Jerry was pushing the wheelchair this time.
"Just relax," he said, calmly as he could, considering he thought his best spies had turned traitor. "It will all be over with soon."
But to the four frightened teenagers, that didn't sound very reassuring. Sam darted her eyes back and forth across the room.
Then she picked up a purple device and aimed it at each of the agents, firing a bolo at each group of them, tying them together.
For good measure, Sean put on the ring he found and, as he exited the room, pointed it at the doorway.
The whole room was flooded with green smoke, further disabling their pursuers.
"That should slow them down," he said, before running to catch up with the girls.
"How're we gonna lose them?!" Clover asked, frantically as they reached a door labelled, "Landing Area."
The door opened, revealing a large assortment of air vehicles.
"Time to fly, girls," Sean said pointing at the nearest vehicle he could see: a pink helicopter-jet hybrid that Sean always affectionately referred to as "The Heli-Jet."
Rushing to the vehicle, they hopped into the cockpit faster than they had entered the room.
There were four seats and Alex took the one closest to the flight controls. But once she sat down, she looked confused.
"How do I make this thing go?!" she asked, panicking. "I can't even set my digital watch!"
Clover looked out her side of the window, where she could see that Jerry and the security agents had caught up with them.
"Just do something!" she shouted, not willing to undergo what Jerry had in mind.
Sean pressed a green button on Alex's left, turning the jet on. Gripping the controls, she pulled them up.
The aircraft began to ascend. But not quick enough as Jerry, very agile for a man his age, jumped up and grabbed the edge of the entryway.
He was holding a white harness in his free hand. And judging by the fact that it looked like it could fit around someone's head, it was obvious what the harness was for.
As the jet rose higher and higher, breaking the glass dome it was kept in, Jerry struggled to remain holding on as the spies-now fugitives-tried to shake him off.
Eventually, however, he was able to swing himself in and barge into the cockpit before grabbing Clover's head.
But before he could plant the harness on her skull, Alex tilted jet backward, causing him to fall out.
Jerry's fall was broken by the wheelchair.
"That was close," Sean sighed heavily, as their exit port came into view.
Alex gripped the controls tighter, and the jet hovered through the tunnel... and far away from W.O.O.H.P as she knew how to fly.
The Heli-Jet came out of a hole that had opened up in a canal, and was soon soaring in the brilliant midmorning sky.
Its four occupants were leaning back in their seats, exhausted, scared and angry.
Sean looked at the monitor. According to the GPS, they were in Phoenix. Good. Just where they needed to start their investigation.
"I can't believe Jerry almost microwaved my brain!" Clover said.
Sam looked out the window.
"We'd better get out of the air," she informed the others. "We stick out like a sore thumb."
"I think you're right," Sean agreed with her. Then pointed to a building down below them.
"Put us down next to that warehouse, Alex."
But instead, Alex brought the jet on top of the warehouse roof, destroying it and letting them land in the warehouse itself.
"I said 'next to the warehouse'," Sean said as they exited the jet.
Sean breathed in the air, before immediately holding his nose.
"Something reeks in here," Clover said, mimicking Sean's actions. "And I don't mean Alex's flying skills."
Sean looked in front of them and pointed at an unmoving conveyor belt... one filled with fish.
"Oh, gross!" Sam exclaimed in disgust. "There's our culprit!"
"We must be in an old cannery," Sean said, trying to keep himself from gagging at the stench.
Alex and Clover sat down on crates while Sean and Sam paced the floor.
Messing around with the hairclip she'd swiped from W.O.O.H.P, Alex's face beamed as a round dish emerged from the tip.
"Wow!" she exclaimed in awe. "Look, my hairclip is actually a high-tech frisbee!"
Sam and Sean noticed this.
"That's no frisbee!" Sam said, taking it from her. "It's a mini-satellite!"
"We can use this to link to W.O.O.H.P's mainframe computer system," Sean added.
"Maybe we can use it to get a closer look at the surveillance footage Jerry showed us," Clover added.
Alex pulled out her Compowder, pressing a button to link it to the satellite.
After a loading bar on her screen was completely filled up, a notice popped up that said, "Welcome to W.O.O.H.P!"
"We're in," Alex announced.
"Okay," Sean said, watching the whole robbery all over again.
The footage ended with the fake Clover running out of the bank, past a cactus in a pot.
"Wait!" Sam cut in. "Go back!"
Alex rewound the footage back to where Clover's double smiled at the camera before running out.
"Watch the Clover imposter."
Then Alex zoomed in on the area of the cactus her body had brushed. Embedded on one of the needles was a piece of fabric.
"She left a shred of my shirt-I mean her shirt on that cactus," Clover declared.
"Maybe it's still there," Sean hypothesized.
Alex closed her Compowder, looking dejected.
"Too bad we're not allowed we're not allowed in that bank," she said.
Sam put her fingers under her chin, hypothesizing.
"Maybe there's a way to get inside the bank without raising suspicion," she pondered.
"So much for not raising suspicions," Clover said as she and the others walked into the bank.
Sean had to agree with her. Sam had looked in the back of the Heli-Jet and found a closet full of disguises.
But the problem was that all of the costumes were too conspicuous, more suited for a high-class party than a trip to a bank.
Clover had picked a light purple dress that had a little pink mixed in. Sean's disguise was a black suit with necktie and sunglasses. Alex wore a similar suit without the tie, with round transparent glasses and a driver's cap. Finally, Sam had opted for a cream-colored suit with a matching hat and a fake mustache.
"Just act confident," Sam whispered.
"Easy for you to say," Alex argued. "You're not dressed like a waiter!"
"You're not a waiter," Sean reminded her. "You're our driver. And I'm the bodyguard, remember? Just look for the shirt piece while we distract the teller."
Which was right when he came over.
"Hello, sirs," he said as Alex checked the cactus. "Madam. Can I help you with something?"
"Oh," Clover said, imitating the best posh accent she could. "We're just looking at you're lovely financial place to decide if we want to deposit all of our... stocks and municipal things here."
She let out a giggle. Sean would have facepalmed if he wasn't wearing sunglasses.
"You look very familiar," the teller said his hand under his chin, the other holding a cup of coffee.
"Have we met before?"
"Uh, that would be quite impossible," Sam replied, lowering her voice to sound like a man's. "You see, we just moved here from..."
She trailed off. Sensing that their cover had been compromised, Sean leaned forward into her ear.
"Alaska," he whispered.
"Alaska," she finished.
"Alaska?" the teller questioned.
"Yes. Had to get away from there. Very cold."
She shivered to help get her point across.
"Yes!" Alex shouted, eliciting a gasp from her friends.
"I found it!"
"F-found what?" the teller stuttered. "I'm sorry, found what?"
"Oh," Clover said, moving in front of Alex. "Our driver seems to have found the lost... keys to our limo."
"We simply must be going now," Sam said nervously. "The country club awaits."
But then her mustache fell off, prompting them to all walk of as quickly as they could
"Ta-ta!"
"Sir!" the teller called out. "You forgot your... mustache?"
He picked it up, puzzled.
That was when a security guard came over.
"Wait a second," he said. "They were the bank robbers!"
He ran out of the bank, baton at the ready.
But Sean and the girls were gone.
Back at the cannery, Sam was looking over the shirt piece they had found.
"This is weird!" she said, awestruck.
Sean nodded, taking it from Sam and opening his wallet phone.
"It almost feels like flesh."
He placed the piece on the scanner below the screen.
After a moment, his results came up.
"It gets weirder," he said. "The fabric contains traces of human DNA! No wonder it feels like flesh."
"Why would someone wear a shirt made out of flesh?" Alex asked. "I can't imagine that would breathe very well in warm weather."
She opened her Compowder, looking back at the surveillance footage.
"Wait a minute," Sean said, looking over at her screen. This time, looking from a different angle, they could see that...
"She didn't rip her shirt, she ripped her... skin."
"Ew!" Alex proclaimed in disgust.
"There's something else here," Clover pointed out. "Writing."
Alex zoomed in further on the skin piece, showing the molecules that it was composed of. On it were the words...
"Replatech Industries?" Sam read aloud. "What does that mean?"
Sean looked back down at his wallet phone.
"Let's check out the W.O.O.H.P database," he said, typing.
"Apparently," he continued, reading the results. "They're the medical lab that created this material."
"I think it's time we pay Replatech a visit," Sam said, standing up. "Uh, I'll drive this time."
"No arguments here," Sean said.
Replatech Island-3:20 PM
Further research by Sam and Sean determined Replatech's main lab was on an island in the North Pacific.
As Sam flew the Heli-Jet, her teammates kept an eye out for the island. Well, Sean and Clover looked. Alex was too busy filing her nails.
Finally, it was in view. The island itself looked like a mountain in the middle of the ocean. And the whole place was dotted with structures that were obviously man-made.
Maneuvering underneath the cliffs, Sam began adjusting the controls on the console.
"I'd better cloak the Heli-Jet," she said to the others. "So we can make a stealthy landing on the roof."
But instead, the craft began to swerve. Then spin at a rapid pace, causing all four to scream.
"Whoa!" they all shouted.
"Oops," Sam admitted, before pressing more buttons.
The jet was stable again and was now invisible to the naked eye.
The island itself could still be seen by the spies, though.
As could the massive building that looked to be built into the island.
"Check it out!" Clover announced, gesturing to a screen. "Some sort of force field."
Sean looked in front of them, where he saw dozens of birds flying through the invisible fence, apparently unharmed.
"Whatever it is," he said. "Those birds didn't set off the alarms. It must be set to detect any metal that breaks its field."
"How are we going to investigate the building without giving ourselves away?" Alex asked.
But the other three staring at her seemed to suggest they'd already thought of an answer.
To say that Alex wasn't happy was an understatement. After all, who would be happy if they were dangling over 90 feet above the ground from a jet suspended by only a rope?
"Why do I always get the cruddy jobs?" she asked herself, as she was lowered into the force field.
Pushing open a skylight, she was dipped lower into the building.
The room she found herself in was bathed in an unnatural green light. And indented into the wall everywhere were glass tanks filled with some kind of fluid.
Alex pulled out a tube of lipstick, which she remembered to really be a periscope that could transmit video images to the others.
Extending it, she moved it around the room, granting her teammates a closer look at the lab.
"We're getting a picture," Sam announced to Clover and Sean.
Unfortunately, what they saw, Sean wished he could unsee.
The tanks contained giant... he didn't know any word for it: embryos attached to various tubes inside the tanks, pumping them full of vital fluids.
"Okay, ew!" Clover exclaimed in disgust. "What is that? It looks like someone is farming... humans."
"But who?" Sean asked. "And why?"
Clover and Sam could only shrug
As Alex continued to film the room, she was unprepared for the pair of hands grabbing her from behind.
"Aah!" she screamed. "Bring me up! Bring me up!"
Hearing her cries, Sean pressed the button that lifted the rope back up to the jet.
"What's wrong with Alex?" Sam asked.
Then they heard the shots.
"I think you should ask, 'What's wrong with us?'" Sean said, trying to remain in his seat.
Seeing no point in keeping the Heli-Jet cloaked, Sam turned off the device that rendered it invisible.
"We've got company!" Clover exclaimed, point out the window.
A whole group of helicopters had suddenly materialized in front of and behind them, and all were firing bullets at them.
"Then let's lose them!" Sean said, as Sam gripped the flight controls.
"Hello?!" Alex shouted over the speakers. "Girl on a rope down here! Pull me up!"
"We're working on it!" Sean said, pressing the button to speed up the process of pulling Alex back up.
Unfortunately, it was a little too fast and the rope holding Alex up was cut by the blades of a nearby helicopter.
She screamed as she was about to fall into fall into the ocean.
Her teammates noticed this and watched with shock until Clover pressed a button that swapped out the Heli-Jet's helicopter blades for jet wings. And it's engines became ten times more powerful.
Swooping down as Sam pressed another button that opened the roof and shifted an empty seat below it, Alex fell safely inside the jet, her seatbelt automatically buckling.
Her seat retracted back to the flight console.
"Need a lift?" Clover asked.
Then Sam performed more evasive flight maneuvers, ducking under a stone arch before flying sideways then straight again.
"No," Alex denied. "I need a barf bag!"
"Make that two!" Sean said, holding his stomach.
Sam punched the jet's turbo button, but not soon enough as one of the helicopters managed to land a hit.
But this was no bullet. This projectile attached itself to the tail end of the jet, a blinking yellow light at its tip.
"Phew!" Sam exhaled sharply. "That was close!"
"Close?!" Alex exclaimed. "Hello, in case no one noticed, I just got tossed around like a human yo-yo!"
"Please don't mention tossing, Alex!" Sean said, looking a little pale. "I'm queasy enough as it is!"
Opening a compartment in front of him, he took out a bottle labeled "Antacid" before opening it and popping a pink tablet into his mouth.
Then he saw something on her leg.
"Hey! What's that?"
Alex took note of it too, picking it up. It was small, seafoam green, and very sharp.
"Looks like a fingernail," Clover said.
"I have a hunch," Sam broke in. "Use the jet's computer to check its composition."
Placing the fingernail on the scanner in front of her, Alex waited for the results to come up.
"It's made of the same substance as the skin we found!" she announced. "And get this: the DNA matches Clover's DNA!"
"Okay, no way!" Clover denied. "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that cheesy seafoam nail polish."
"Not you," Sean said. "The other you."
"Huh?" the girls asked.
"This is gonna sound crazy, but I think we've been cloned."
Clover blinked. Then laughed.
"Come on, Sean! This is real life, not some lame sci-fi movie!"
"In case you haven't noticed, Clover, our whole lives are pretty much sci-fi by this point."
"Maybe Sean's on to something, Clover," Sam agreed. "I mean cloning's not impossible. They did it with sheep a few years ago."
"Who in their right mind would wanna copy this?" Clover asked, gesturing up and down her figure. "I'm an original. You can't imitate me."
"Well, looks like someone did," Alex said.
"And not just you," Sean added. "All of us. But there's one thing I don't understand."
He leaned back in his seat, deep in thought.
"Whoever cloned us, then framed us, just how did they get our DNA?"
The girls just looked blankly ahead, unable to answer.
Elsewhere, at Replatech Island, a pair of steel automatic doors split apart.
Into a dark room walked the four copies of the spies.
"The intruders have escaped, sir," they all said in unison, completely monotone.
"So," a sinister male voice said from beneath a cloak. "The spies are on to me. I underestimated them. It won't happen again."
Sitting on a crate between Sam and Clover, Sean looked around the cannery, wondering how long this would be his and his friends' sanctuary.
"So," Sam said once they'd finished reviewing everything they'd found out. "What's the connection between the DNA, the robbery, and Replatech?"
"I don't know," Clover said, holding her nose. "But I hope we figure it out soon. The prospect of spending another minute in this disgusting warehouse is like-"
But that sentence was never finished, as all around them, the building began to crumble.
The airspace over where the ceiling once sheltered the building was now filled with helicopters. And they all had the letter "W" painted on the side.
"W.O.O.H.P must have tracked us!" Sean shouted, as a helicopter landed between them and the door.
Several W.O.O.H.P agents flooded the warehouse, accompanied by Jerry and another agent with a white coat pushing an all too familiar wheelchair.
"Girls, Sean," Jerry called over a loudspeaker. "Give it up. We have the place surrounded."
"Scatter!" Sam called out urgently. "Quick!"
And the four teens ran off in different directions, with Sam and Sean disappearing into the smoke, Clover climbing up a conveyor belt and Alex slipping into a wide sewer grate.
Jerry narrowed his eyes.
"Keep a tight perimeter." he shouted into the loudspeaker. "Don't let them get away."
But he was unaware of a pair of blue eyes watching him from behind the shadows.
Clover ran behind the building as fast as she could.
While thankful to be out of that warehouse, she wasn't happy about being chased by the same organization she worked for.
Used to work for? She didn't know.
Turning down an alley, she narrowly missed a squad of agents rushing by.
Placing her back against a parked van, she sighed in relief.
But her relief became panic again when the van door opened and a pair of gloved arms pulled her inside.
"What the-"
No one heard her, as the door closed.
Peeking her head out of a manhole, Alex looked around, searching for Jerry or any of the agents he brought with him.
Instead, she heard a soft yet sharp sound.
"Psst!" a voice whispered.
She looked straight ahead and saw Sean and Sam crouching behind a dumpster.
"Sean!" Alex proclaimed with joy. "Sammy, you made it!"
She rushed over, hugging them.
"Have you seen Clover?"
Before either could say "No", another voice said, "Right here!"
Turning a corner before crouching down, was Clover, cowgirl outfit and all.
"Are you feeling alright?" Sam asked, noticing that the other girl's face twitched.
"Of course," Clover said, nonchalantly.
"What now?" Alex asked, looking around to check if the coast was clear.
"We have to get back to Replatech and figure out what is going on," Sean replied. "Before Jerry turns us into vegetables."
"But how are we gonna break into Replatech?" Alex brought up. "That place has tighter security than Fort Knox!"
They ducked down further to avoid being seen by three more helicopters.
"I can get us in," Clover said suddenly.
Sean looked at her in shock, barely missing another facial twitch.
"I mean I think I saw a secret entrance in the forest."
"Okay," Sam said slowly, not sure what to think. "It's worth a shot."
She got up, followed by the others.
"How're we gonna get back to the island?" Alex asked. "The Heli-Jet is swarming with W.O.O.H.P agents!"
"Leave it to me," Sam reassured, gesturing to a black private jet on the other side of some railroad tracks.
Jerry's jet.
"I am so fired," Sean said with resignation as he and the girls ran toward it.
When it was clear Sean and the girls had fled the warehouse, Jerry called the other agents to attention.
"They must have slipped past us," he said to a sergeant. "Pull our agents out."
Then he and the sergeant turned and gasped.
The jet they'd flown in on, the one they had parked on the other side of the building was gone.
"Where is my jet?" Jerry asked.
But the sergeant didn't need to answer; his boss already knew.
"Sir!" a W.O.O.H.P agent called out.
Jerry turned to his left, where another uniformed agent was carrying blue-eyed boy with dirty blond hair, dragging him by the arm.
"Looks like this one was too slow," he said, throwing the boy at Jerry's feet.
Jerry looked at the boy closely. He knew his face, his hair, his eyes.
"Sean," Jerry said as other agents swarmed around him, pulling him up by the arms, so that he was on his knees, looking up at Jerry.
"You have a lot to answer for, young man," Jerry scolded, pulling out the harness that would implant the microchip into his brain.
"Wait!" the boy yelled, fear imprinted in his eyes. "You don't understand!"
"I understand perfectly," Jerry said, with a hint of remorse.
"No, you don't!"
The boy stood up.
"I'm not Sean Warren."
Jerry, having been an agent for years, knew that sometimes a second look was advisable.
Scanning the boy closely, he could see that while he did have Sean's face and voice, he was wearing an outfit identical to Sean's spy uniform.
And Sean wouldn't have had time to change his clothes that fast.
"Sir," the agent with the white coat said. "He has to be lying."
"How can I know you're telling the truth?" Jerry asked.
"Aside from the different outfit?" the fake Sean asked. "Here."
He took off his left glove, holding it up for Jerry and every other agent their to see.
Everyone present gasped.
The nails on his left hand were a clear, seafoam green.
"I don't much about the original Sean Warren," he said. "But I'm guessing he doesn't wear nail polish."
The stolen jet was racing back to Replatech Island.
While Sean did appreciate that it was faster than the Heli-Jet, he didn't feel comfortable with the fact that he'd stolen it from his boss.
"You don't think Jerry will miss this, do you?" Sam asked.
"I hope not," he answered her. "We're in enough trouble with him already."
Then Alex looked over at Clover, who was checking her makeup.
"Oh," she said in sympathy. "Clover, it looks like you chipped your nail!"
Closing the compact, she spoke calmly.
"Must have happened when the warehouse collapsed."
"Hmm," Sean hummed to himself.
That's weird, he thought. Clover usually freaks out when her manicure is ruined.
The jet landed away from the building on the island, in a clearing next to the forest.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Alex asked Clover as she led them through the trees.
"I know I spotted some sort of hidden entrance around here somewhere," she answered.
"I don't know how you could have spotted anything in this dense forest," Sam countered.
"Yeah," Sean agreed, lifting a branch out of his way. "And how do you know where we're going?"
But the ground gave way beneath them, as he had accidentally activated a trap door.
Landing in a dark room on a hard floor, Sean and the girls took a moment to dust themselves off.
"Okay," Alex said. "I guess you were right about the secret entrance."
Then she looked at Clover's hands again, the color of her nails, to be exact.
"Hey, wait a second!" she exclaimed. "I thought you said you wouldn't be caught dead wearing cheesy seafoam nail polish."
Standing up, Clover turned around, her face twitching again.
"That's ridiculous," she said. "I love seafoam nail polish."
She walked off a little further, her speech becoming less and less coherent.
"Love it, seafoam. Seafoam. Seafoam, love it, seafoam."
Then she started shaking.
"Okay!" Alex cried, rushing over. "Take it easy! I like seafoam too."
But that was when Alex removed her hand from Clover's shoulder, leaving it covered in a sticky ooze the same color as her nails.
"What the-"
"Uh, Alex," Sean spoke up. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, that's not Clover!"
At those words, "Clover" turned around, flashing a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame.
That was when she started to melt.
Sean couldn't believe what he was seeing, neither could Sam and Alex.
As her smile faded away, all that was left of the fake Clover was a pile seafoam-green foamy substance.
"Okay," Sam said, trying to keep her cool. "That's disgusting."
Then the lights came on.
They were in a room similar to what Alex had seen earlier. The only difference was that the tanks now contained specimens that were fully mature.
And perfect copies of the spies.
"Well," Sam said. "This proves Sean's cloning theory."
"I was hoping I'd be wrong!" Sean exclaimed, transfixed by a clone of him in a tank.
Then they heard footsteps behind them.
"What the fu-" Sean said before being grabbed by a familiar pair of arms.
He looked down and saw that the arms restraining him were his own.
Well, they looked like his. And the face his captor had was his also.
But it was like looking at a mirror in a nightmare.
Sean's doppelganger had the same dirty-blond hair and the same sparkling blue eyes.
But on his face was the kind of smile that Sean only ever saw on the criminals he fought.
Sam had similar troubles, being restrained by double of Alex and Alex herself had been caught by another Clover clone.
"Let me go!" Sam growled. "You... phony!"
As the three struggled to break free, Alex was the first one to actually ask the question.
"Who... what are you?"
"Impressive, aren't they?" a voice said from above them.
They looked up. On a catwalk above them was a man wearing a dark hood, one that he lowered.
One side of his face was what you'd expect of a normal human, with fair skin, blond hair, and a very dark eye.
The other half... well, looked like that of a cyborg. The most noticeable artificial features were a glowing light that served as a prosthetic eye, a torso halfway covered with machinery connected to a clawed arm, and a metal leg that looked as if had been recently polished.
"I made them myself," he continued. "Nurtured them, since they were little more than strands of DNA. Incredible likeness, don't you think?"
"'Incredible' isn't the first word that comes to mind," Sean answered. "More like 'creepy'."
"And to think that Clover was upset when Mandy stole her look," Alex said, trying to downplay the gravity of the situation.
"Now that's really stealing her look."
"Wait a second!" Sam said suddenly, looking at the man closely.
"You look... familiar."
Flashback
The spies cornered the man with the blowtorch on the highest level of the room.
It was a relatively easy mission: stop a master thief from robbing the U.S Federal Reserve.
Sam rammed herself into him, causing him to lose his balance and slip over the railing
But he gripped the four spies by the hair with both hands, his left hand holding onto Sean and Sam's hair, his right, Alex and Clover's.
All four grit their teeth in pain. But the hair ripped and he fell, blowtorch and all.
"Macker the Safecracker!" Alex said in recognition. "It took my hair forever to grow back after that mission!"
Reaching into his back pocket, Sean took out the blue box of breath mints he swiped from W.O.O.H.P. Carefully opening it and taking one out, he brought it close to his lips under the pretense of yawning, before his clone restrained his hands again.
Soon, it was in his mouth.
By this point, Macker was at face level with them.
"As you can see," he said as he moved closer to them. "The fall took it's toll on me. After some time in hiding, I created those clones using DNA from your hair."
"So that's how you got it," Sean said, trying not to sound like he had something in his mouth.
"Indeed," Macker confirmed. "And they are totally loyal. Well, almost. There was one who had an obedience problem. But I sent him away."
He stroked Sam's chin, bringing out a growl in Sean's throat.
"He's more than likely dead now."
"What do you mean?" Alex asked.
Macker smiled at her.
"The cloning process makes their DNA unstable," he explained. "You no doubt saw an example of that earlier. They never last more than a week, but that's all the time I need them for. That little derelict clone of your boyfriend there has been gone for six days."
Sean, taking the only opportunity he had, spat the mint out, causing it to stick to Macker's cape.
"Now I will destroy your lives the way you tried to destroy mine."
He led them to another door, opening it.
"I will use my army of clones to rob the central bank of every country in the world at the exact same moment."
He led them through the room, which was lined with clones, standing around military style, awaiting inspection.
"Of course, everyone will think you kids perpetrated the crimes!"
"Yeah," Sam said. "Like you'll actually get away with that."
"Watch me!" Macker shouted, raising his arms up in the air.
Then, several spaces of the walls around them opened up, revealing several fighter planes.
"To your planes, my children!"
And the clones rushed to their stations.
One by one, each of those planes took off, disappearing into the atmosphere.
"If you'll excuse me," Macker said. "I must get to my command center."
"Take them away!" he added with a swish of his cape.
No sooner than Macker had left, he had his remaining clones escort Sean, Sam and Alex to an enormous prison block.
As they were shoved inside their cell, sitting on one of the bunks, looking miserable was...
"Clover!" Alex cried out. "You're alive!"
She rushed over, hugging her.
"Yeah," Clover responded. "Me and a hundred cheap knockoff Clovers. Did you see those things up there?"
"Unfortunately," Sean answered, remembering seeing the Clover clone melt.
"That's why we've gotta get out of here and stop Macker!" Sam said, rushing to the door.
Sean opened his wallet phone, checking the map that indicated where the breath mint tracker was headed.
"But how?" Clover asked. "We don't even know where he's going!"
"He's headed for the Alps," Sean said.
Sam turned back to face Sean.
"How do you know that?"
Sean showed them his wallet phone.
"Did I forget to mention that I placed a tracking device on him before he threw us in here?"
"Oh," the girls said, understanding.
"Well, it still doesn't matter," Clover reminded. "We're stuck in here!"
"No we're not," Sam said, as she and Alex picked up her leg allowing Sean to take off her boot.
Like what Sam did back at W.O.O.H.P, Sean ran the spur through the glass surface of the wall, leaving a crack all around the edges.
"It's a good thing I decided to go with diamond-tipped spurs after all," Clover commented.
It didn't take long for Sean to finish.
He kicked the glass down.
"Let's get to the Alps before it's too late!" Sam said as she ran out the door.
Sean and the others weren't far behind her.
Somewhere in the French Alps-8:23 PM
After landing their stolen jet, the spies crouched down on a snowbank to watch what was happening down below them.
Macker's command center was almost as big as Replatech. Almost.
In the center of the large, outdoor complex was a giant satellite dish. Some sort of transmitter, Sam had deduced.
"There's Macker," she observed. "Looks like he's using the transmitter to control the clones."
As she had described, he sat before a large assembly of them, seated behind a vast control desk.
"How're we gonna take out the transmitter?" Alex asked.
"We have to figure out something," Clover said. "And fast. It's already started."
"I think I have an idea," Sean spoke up, having remembered seeing snowboards in the jet.
"Get into position, children!" Macker commanded, turning on a screen in front of him.
Then another. And about a dozen more.
Each one showed a clone of the four spies, getting ready to rob the bank that had been their primary target.
"It's almost time!"
Before he could celebrate the success of his plan, two streaks, one red, the other green, came shredding down the slope toward the command center.
Clover braked her snowboard, blanketing the several clones below her with snow.
"Okay," Sam said, seeing their anger. "So maybe you have our looks."
"Let's see if you have our moves," Clover added.
Accelerating their boards further, the two girls jumped in the air briefly before sliding down the handrail, dodging laser blasts from several clones.
Back on the snow, their speed picked up as their clones grabbed several pairs of skis.
Sam and Clover continued their race down the slopes with their doubles in hot pursuit.
A little further down, Sam saw a small ravine. She smiled. That could be their chance to lose them.
Jumping up, she and Clover were able to land safely on the other side.
The clones, however, weren't so lucky, having fallen into the ravine.
But the girls didn't have time to celebrate, as at that moment, a huge, black snowmobile began careening towards them.
And they didn't have to see the W.O.O.H.P logo on its side to know who was driving it.
Kicking, they shredded faster down the mountain, as Jerry looked on, a determined look on his face.
While Sam and Clover were keeping the clones busy, Sean and Alex had volunteered to take out the transmitter.
Tiptoeing through the snow, they dove, sliding down the slope toward the base of the transmitter, with Alex hitting her face on the wall.
"Ouch!" she cried.
Sean helped her up.
"You okay?" he asked.
Alex nodded. "My forehead's a little bruised, but I'm good."
Sean smiled.
"We better keep an eye out. Macker wouldn't leave the transmitter unguarded."
As they rounded a corner, Alex ran smack into two bodies. She looked up to see an Alex and Sean clone in front of them.
As they each took a battle stance, the thought they would have to fight them quickly disappeared as a large pile of snow collapsed on top of the clones.
"Okay," Sean said. "Let's take this thing out."
And he and Alex rounded the corner to the transmitter's circuits.
"Now is the time, children!" Macker announced, smiling with glee.
But his ecstasy was short lived as his screens turned to static.
"What's going on?"
He looked surprised. Then furious.
"Why aren't you robbing the banks?!"
He ran around to the base to see Alex and Sean using the headphones, which turned out to emit a laser, to cut the wires of the transmitter's circuits.
Needless to say, they weren't surprised to see him.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.
"Stopping you," Sean replied. "That's what."
Angered he dove at him, but Alex jumped in the way, sending them both diving over the railing.
"Alex!" Sean shouted, leaping over the rail himself.
Sliding on his stomach, he pursued Macker and Alex who slid further ahead of him, Alex being gripped by the man by the hair.
"Ouch!" she complained. "Let go of my hair!"
Their descent was stopped by a snowbank. Well, Alex's was, anyway.
Macker was catapulted over it and fell into a crevasse... right into a net that held aloft by a helicopter, which also carried dozens of other clones.
Sean slid down to Alex.
"Well, that takes care of him." he said to her, smiling.
Then they turned around to see a snowmobile pursuing Clover and Sam... with Jerry behind the wheel.
"Oh no," Sean said.
"Girls!" Jerry shouted.
But Sam and Clover kept shredding like their lives depended on it.
"Girls!" he repeated. "Wait!"
He drove faster, further ahead, before stopping in front of them and right beside Sean and Alex.
Clover and Sam tried to stop themselves, but did it too suddenly, flying off their boards and into the snow.
Opening the door, Jerry hopped out... only to be greeted by a snowball to the face.
"Get away from us, Jerry!" Sam, the one who threw it, exclaimed.
"Girls, Sean," he explained. "It's okay. We realize that we were only trying-"
Another snowball hit him, courtesy of Sean, but Jerry managed to shield himself just in time.
"-to clear your names," he finished.
"Oh," Clover said, stepping forward confrontationally. "I guess we're lucky you figured it out before you gave us lobotomies!"
"Which reminds me," Alex broke in. "How did you figure it out?"
"A Sean clone tipped me off," Jerry answered.
Flashback
Back in Phoenix, the clone of Sean had just finished explaining everything.
He handed Jerry a slip of paper.
"These coordinates are where you'll find Macker... and Sean and the girls," he explained.
Reluctantly, Jerry took it.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Jerry asked.
"You don't," the fake Sean replied. "But do you really want to lobotomize your best agents?"
Jerry said nothing. Then looked down, regretting.
"I suppose I have no other choice but to trust you. But why are you helping me?"
The clone smiled, sad.
"Let's just say I don't have long," he responded. "And my last moments, I don't want to spend them being a slave to some maniac."
That was when he began to melt into a pile of green foam.
"I'm glad I got to something good in my short life," he finished. Then he was gone.
Jerry looked at the clone's remains, then the slip of paper.
"What have I done?" he asked.
"And that's how," Jerry finished.
Sean looked at him. Part of him wanted to dismiss it as a lie, but Macker said there had been a clone with obedience problems.
That had to have been him.
Sean felt a pang of sympathy for the clone. He'd wanted to do good, but wasn't given a lot of time to do so.
Of course, none of this detracted from the anger he and his friends felt toward Jerry.
"I hope the four of you will accept my sincerest apology," Jerry said, remorsefully.
'APOLOGY?!" the four teens asked, appalled, with Sean scooping up a bigger snowball.
"You'll be collecting your pension by the time you're done making this up to us!" Sean said angrily.
Then he threw the snowball, pelting Jerry right on the nose.
"Spies!" he protested, being forced to the cold ground. "Please, listen!"
But the spies continued their attack.
"Sorry!" Jerry exclaimed, pleading.
Beverly Hills High School-10:35 AM
The next day, Sean felt grateful he and his friends weren't on the lam anymore.
Sitting in the school courtyard, he watched as Clover place a poster with Mandy's picture in the center with the words "Thief" and "Wanted" on the bottom respectively.
Clover had changed into a different cowgirl outfit, one with a black an white pattern, like a cow's.
"Now that we've taken care of those stupid clones," she said. "It's time to win back Billy Bob and expose Mandy for the thief that she is."
"Thief?" Sam asked.
"Don't you think that's kind of harsh?" Sean added.
"Well, that's what she is," Clover retorted. "But she won't have a chance to steal this new outfit!"
She gestured up and down her body.
That was when Alex looked up from her magazine.
"Um," she said. "I don't know how to break this to you, Clover, but..."
She showed her the cover of the magazine. And Sean could see that the girl on the cover was wearing the exact same outfit as the one Clover had worn the day before.
"Oh!" Clover shouted in realization. "That must be where I got my design ideas!"
She rushed over to the wall she'd stuck the poster on, ripping it off.
"Guess Mandy's not a thief, after all. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I owe her an apology."
But once again, she saw Mandy walk by... wearing the exact same outfit.
She rushed right over to her.
"You thief!" Clover accused.
Then both girls gasped.
"Billy Bob?" Clover asked.
He was standing with another girl, one who wore an outfit that looked like it came from a 1960's sci-fi show.
"Oh, hey girls," he said. "I'd like you to meet my new steady gal, Alfre. Isn't she so original?"
Clover's mouth opened in shock.
"Steady gal?" she asked. "But Billy Bob, I just designed this new outfit for you."
She gestured to her clothes.
"Oh," Billy Bob said, gently. "Well, honestly, I never really liked that whole cowgirl look. That's why I left Texas."
Both girls just stood there, speechless for a while. Then they turned to each other, hurling arguments and insults at one another so fast, that Sean couldn't tell who was saying what.
Sean smiled, glad this was all he had to worry about right now.