Hello! I'm proud of the reception to the last chapter, (I came up with that last scene pretty late in planning it, by the way). Well, here's the next one, and I hope you enjoy it.
Read and review!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aliens
Somewhere in Iowa-5:25 AM
Iowa had always been a boring state. About the only thing it was famous for was that it produced the most corn out of any place in the county. But for these three farmhands, even that was monotonous.
While two of them carried on, business as usual, the third sat on a bale of hay reading a comic book.
"Hey, Toby," one of them said, looking from behind the wheel of a tractor. "Put that fantasy junk away!"
"Yeah," another said, using a pitchfork to lift some hay off of the cart the third farmhand sat on. "How about the reality of getting the chores done before sunup?!"
"But this is the best part," Toby said in objection. "The aliens are about to land!"
No sooner than those words were said, an enormous, bright streak of fire darted across the sky.
To the astonishment of the three boys, the... whatever it was crashed further away into the cornfield.
As two of them rushed to get a closer look, something else flashed among the flames in the distance.
The farmhands took off as fast as they could when they saw the enormous, yellow spacecraft rise out of the cornfield.
But it wasn't fast enough, for one of them, driving the tractor was caught up in a beam of light, tractor included, and sucked up into the ship above them, leaving his two friends astonished as the ship disappeared into a streak of orange light.
Sean, Sam, and Clover could only cringe in horror as the car in front of them swerved, braked, and crashed numerous times.
Sam and Clover ran out of the way, while Sean jumped backward, landing in a bush.
"Well, she's doing better than last time..." he said to himself, his head popping out of the bush. "And the last five times before that. At least she didn't hit any squirrels this time."
After Sam had gotten her license, Alex declared she was going to be next. And they all supported her, wishing her the best.
The problem was Alex was just bad behind the wheel of a normal car as she was behind the controls of a W.O.O.H.P vehicle.
The dazed driving instructor hopped out of the student driver vehicle, turning to Alex, looking nauseous.
"I seriously suggest you get yourself a bus schedule young lady," he said. "Because at this rate, there's no way you're gonna pass your driving test!"
"But I've got to pass!" Alex protested as he shut the door and walked away through the damage Alex's driving had caused, stepping over an overturned palm tree.
Alex stepped out of the car, looking at the departing instructor over the roof.
"Girls who drive attract three times more boys than girls who don't!" she added desperately, putting her head on the roof in despair.
"Don't worry, Alex," Clover reassured. "We know you'll come through in the clutch."
Alex looked up, glaring at her friend.
"Uh, Clover?" Sean said, dusting leaves off his shirt. "Maybe you shouldn't say things like 'clutch' until Alex passes."
Clover turned back to him.
"Well, I don't see you offering any support!" she fired back. "I've seen you drive a floating bike! The very least you could do is teach Alex to drive!"
"I can't!" Sean countered. "I don't have a license either! And last I checked, you didn't need a license to drive one of those Super-Cycles."
Before Clover and Sean could continue their argument, the hood of the car opened up, prompting the four to look inside.
Four robotic tentacles emerged and gripped them by the torsos, dragging them through a metallic chute.
"You're the one taking Driver's Ed, Alex!" Sam shouted to be heard. "Where are the brakes!"
Just as Sean predicted, the landed on the same cushion in the same office, which they noted was now very dark.
"Is this W.O.O.H.P?" Sam asked, squinting.
"I don't know!" Sean answered. "I can't see anything!"
"I knew I should've bought that glow-in-the-dark tank top I saw at the mall," Clover said.
"Have I mentioned how much I really don't like the dark?" Alex broke in. "I'm not scared! It's just, you never know what's-"
She was cut off by four screams of surprise, including her own, and a familiar face illuminated by a flashlight.
"Hello, spies," Jerry greeted.
"Jerry!" Clover complained. "You know what stress does to my skin!"
"Sorry," Jerry consoled as the lights came back on. "Agent Morrison tripped over the generator cable again."
The screen behind his desk lit up.
"Now, take a look at these satellite tapes from Italy, Russia, and France."
On a clear evening in Paris, a woman stood on the balcony of her apartment, watering plants when a beam of light engulfed her, causing her to vanish.
Sean's eyes widened in confusion as the same thing happened to four teenagers playing soccer in Pisa, and a man walking home in Moscow.
"W.O.O.H.P has reason to believe the people in these videos were abducted by aliens."
Sam, Sean and Clover blinked, then laughed.
"Aliens?" Sam asked.
"You're kidding, right?" Sean added. "I mean, as far as we know, there's only one planet that has life. And we're on it."
"What'd you do?" Clover asked. "Bonk your head in the shower this morning, Jer?"
But Jerry's face didn't even show a smirk.
"This is serious, spies. These abductions occurred in the last two weeks. The first one was in this Iowa cornfield."
A section of a map zoomed in, showing a cornfield not too far away from Des Moines.
"Your mission is to visit the abduction site and look for clues."
In contrast to her teammates' skepticism, Alex looked ecstatic.
"I knew we couldn't be alone in the galaxy!" she exclaimed. "I knew there was life on other planets!"
"Hey, Alex!" Clover broke in. "You sound like you're from another planet."
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Planet Whatever."
"Now then," Jerry continued as a table rose out of the floor in front of him, displaying the gadgets they would be given. "Your equipment will include some old favorites. Jetpack Backpacks, Hairpin Lockpicks, Heat Sensor 6000 Infrared Motion Detector Sunglasses, now with wireless internet and digital camera functions, and some new items. Wrist Mounted Grappler XGs and C.L.A.L.G."
"Ew," Sam cringed at the last word. "Need a glass of water, Jerry?"
"That's C.L.A.L.G," Jerry said with clarification, as they walked over. "C-L-A-L-G. Combination Laser and Lip Gloss in fruity low-cal bubblegum flavor."
Taking the lip gloss from Jerry's hand, Clover twisted it, causing a white laser to fire and leave a hole in the wall behind Jerry.
Sam took the lip gloss from Clover.
"If there are aliens out there," Alex said, sincerely while saluting Jerry. "We'll show them the best Earth has to offer."
Sam and Clover, getting over another laughing fit, turned to Alex.
"Yay, Earth?" they both said, unsure.
"Goodbye," Jerry said. "And good luck, agents."
Jerry pressed a button on his desk, sending the four teens down a trap door.
Somewhere over Iowa-1:17 PM
Sam looked out the window of the W.O.O.H.P jet, while on her left, Sean was gazing over her shoulder, Alex snacked on peanuts and Clover sipped from a drink.
"This is your W.O.O.H.P pilot speaking," the plane's captain said over the intercom. "We are currently flying over the Midwest at 37,000 feet. If you look out the bottom of the plane, you'll see Iowa."
Four harnesses clamped down on the spies, and four helmets, each matching the color of their spy uniforms, were fitted on their heads.
"'Bottom of the plane?'" Sean asked.
But he was answered by their seats flipping over via a trap door on the jet, letting them hang upside down.
No sooner than the initial stage of panic set in, the restraints to their seats came loose.
Activating their jetpacks, Sean, Clover, and Sam propelled themselves to land safely in the cornfield below.
But Alex...
Their relief was cut short by Alex losing control of her jetpack, soaring over their heads.
"Looks like it doesn't matter if she's driving a car or flying a jetpack," Clover said. "Alex still can't steer."
"I hope she sees that..." Sam trailed off as Alex's haphazard flying caused her to slam straight into a large metal silo.
"...water tower."
Thankfully, Alex's helmet protected her from getting her skull crushed on the tower's hard surface.
Back in the cornfield, Sam's Compowder rang. She answered it, Alex's image showing up on the screen.
"Clover?" she asked. "Sam? Sean? Can you read me?"
"We're in the cornfield," Sean answered. "It's kind of like a maze."
"Oh, yeah. I can see you!"
The three remaining spies turned around, to see Alex waving from the top of the tower.
"Hello!" she called out.
Then she looked at the cornfield, more specifically, the shape it had been cut into.
"The corn's been cut into some kind of pattern. It looks like a giant sandal."
She put on one of the pairs of sunglasses Jerry had given her.
"I'm sending a picture of this back to W.O.O.H.P."
Taking the picture, then sending it to Jerry, Alex dived off the water tower, activating her jetpack... only to lose control of it again.
"We're not coming back from this mission with aliens," Clover said, taking a piece of straw out of her hair. "Just corn dust in our hair."
Alex interrupted Clover before she could begin another rant, crash-landing in between the gap the three spies had created.
"Um, just a tip," Sam spoke up. "Don't try that move during your driver's test."
"Right," Alex agreed, weakly.
All around them, the cornstalks began to rustle. And there was no wind, meaning someone else had to have been in the field.
"Who's there?!" Sam called out as she and the others too combat stances.
"I don't like this," Sean said, feeling uneasy.
"Me neither," Clover concurred.
Before any of them could make a move, the source of the rustling turned out to be two young men, who Sean deduced were farmhands.
"Oh," one of them said, apologetically. "We didn't mean to scare ya."
He smiled, causing Clover to beam in delight.
Here we go again, Sean thought.
"I'm Toby," he introduced himself. "And this is Jed."
"Talk about out of this world!" Clover said, admiring them.
Sam gestured to herself and her teammates, ignoring Clover.
"I'm Sam," she introduced. "And this is Sean, Alex, and Clover. We're... corn inspectors."
Sean gave Sam a look that said, "seriously?" and turned back to the two farmhands.
"Were you here the night there were all those lights?" Sean asked.
"We sure were," Jed answered. "Our buddy Caleb got picked up right into a spaceship!"
"We've been looking for him ever since," Toby added.
"What did the spaceship look like?" Sam asked.
"Well," Jed explained. "It looked like a kumquat."
"Naw!" Toby objected. "More like a big rutabaga!"
Jed elbowed his friend in the side.
"Aw, you got hog slop in your eyes!"
Before anyone could ask any more questions, the wind blew something at Clover's feet.
She picked it up, and upon further examination, she could see it was a bag from a fast-food restaurant, Burger Palace, to be exact.
"Do you guys take snack breaks out here?" she asked, holding the bag up higher.
"No," Jed denied. "The nearest burger place is 40 miles away."
"Then either there were other humans here the night Caleb got snatched," Sean deduced. "Or the aliens went through the drive-thru before getting down to business."
The wind picked up very suddenly, blowing loose cornstalks all over the place, and made everyone on the ground feel like they were standing in a wind tunnel.
"Hasn't my hair suffered enough?!" Clover complained.
"Maybe the aliens have come back!" Alex theorized.
But she was proven wrong by a helicopter hovering just above them.
"Those aren't aliens!" Sean shouted over the noise. "Unless they traded their ship for a helicopter!"
They looked in the direction of where the the helicopter landed, while Clover situated herself between Toby and Jed.
"You guys better check that out!" she said. "I'm gonna stay here and, you know, protect the corn."
But Sam walked over and grabbed her wrist.
"Someone should protect them from you," she said, exasperated.
Undaunted, Clover just waved at the two young men behind her, giggling.
The spies reached the helicopter just as it landed. Out of it stepped a slender young woman in a light blue jumpsuit with long, silky hair that was obviously dyed purple.
"Who are you?" she asked, sounding annoyed. "And what are you doing here?"
"We're..." Sam began. "...relatives of the people who disappeared. We're trying to figure out what's going on."
The woman nodded, narrowing her eyebrows in suspicion.
"Ah," she said, coming over, shaking Sean's hand. Despite it being covered by a glove, he could tell that her hand was very cold.
"Well, I'm Dr. Sagan Hawking," she introduced herself. "I'm an astronomer."
"Cool!" Alex exclaimed. "I'm a Virgo!"
"Astronomer, Alex," Sean corrected her. "Not astrologer."
Dr. Hawking ignored the mistake.
"I'm studying the abductions as well," she explained. "If we're facing an alien invasion, I want to know just what we're up against."
She scanned the four teens carefully.
"Anything you've learned might be helpful."
"Oh, we'd love to help!" Clover agreed.
"Well, then hop in," Dr. Hawking gestured to her helicopter. "I'll fly you to my little workshop in the Rockies."
Rocky Mountains-3:45 PM
The helicopter flew to a large, elaborate base that Sean reasoned was Dr. Hawking's laboratory.
She led them to a large, round, metal door and took out a keycard. Sticking it into a slot, she caused the doors to split in two, revealing a large workspace that could only be described as a cross between NASA and the bedroom or basement of a UFO conspiracy theorist.
"Awesome!" Alex beamed as she jumped excitedly around the room. "Everything in this place has to do with researching aliens!"
"Awesome or completely insane," Clover said. "You make the call."
"This way," Dr. Hawking beckoned to a large table in the middle of the room.
All but Sam took a seat around the table, since one chair had a stack of books- presumably journals- in it.
Sam picked the stack up reading the the title on one of them.
"Hey," she said to Dr. Hawking. "What does GOOPER-"
"I'll take those," Dr. Hawking said, removing the books from Sam's hands and putting them on the floor beneath the table.
"Now, then," she continued as the table lit up, displaying a map of the entire world. "If you'll pay your attention to the table, the stars indicate where the abductions have taken place."
Multiple white lights dotted the screen, each one indicating the site of an alien abduction.
"My theory is that aliens are capturing members of different cultures and studying them, so they can decide where to start the full invasion."
"Well," Sean said. "If you're right, then there are a lot of countries they haven't hit yet."
"I sure hope they won't visit Beverly Hills," Alex said, almost worried.
"And," Dr. Hawking went on. "My computers are predicting that the next abduction will take place right here."
Another section of the map lit up.
"At a bazaar in Saudi Arabia."
The map projection turned off, prompting the spies to get up.
"Well, thanks for your time, Doctor," Sam said as they prepared to leave.
"Wait!" Dr. Hawking called out after them. "You promised you'd tell me what you've learned, remember?"
The spies looked at each other, unsure. They knew as much as she did, after all.
"We've learned the alien ship may look like a kumquat!" Alex informed. "Or a rutabaga."
Dr. Hawking looked confused.
"The farmhands we got the story from had different ideas on what it looked like," Sean explained.
"I see," Dr. Hawking said. "Well, I trust you'll contact me if you find out anything else. And I'll do the same for you, of course."
With that, the spies walked out of the lab entrance, donned their jetpacks and took off... unaware of Dr. Hawking watching them from a window.
Djeddam Bazaar-10:03 AM
Sean looked around, both at the people flooding the bazaar and the sky above. But the bright desert sun made it difficult to see even a bird, let alone an alien spacecraft.
Not that he was surprised. Contrary to what Jerry had said, so far this mission had seen a complete lack of aliens.
"Well," he droned out of boredom. "Either we're late, or Dr. Hawking was wrong."
"Tell me about it," Alex agreed, almost disappointed. "What a rip-off!"
"Just in case," Sam said. "We should stay a little longer."
"What for?" Sean asked. "If there any aliens, I don't think we're gonna find them here."
"Why not?" Alex asked. "I mean, who knows? The aliens might like shopping! Probably not as much as Clover, but.."
Sam raised a hand, signaling Alex to be quiet. "Speaking of Clover, where is she?"
Sean pointed over his left shoulder with his thumb.
"This is so my kind of mission!" Clover said, picking up a T-shirt from a stand behind them
"Undercover in bargain city!"
Sam came over and grabbed Clover's wrist and dragged her away from the stand, causing her to drop the shirt.
"Hello? Focus!" she said, as they rounded a street bend. "You never know what might be around the next..."
But before she could say any more, they were confronted by three men in brown camouflage, with cloaks draped over their backs and turbans covering their heads. Each one brandished a scimitar.
"Something tells me they're not here for the sale," Alex said.
They turned around, seeing at least four more men dashing towards them.
Pressing their wrists, the spies fired cables from the bracelets Jerry had given them, firing grappling hooks attached to steel cables.
The hooks latched onto a beam a few stories above them. Zipping up the lines, they narrowly avoided the men attacking them, causing them to crash into each other.
The spies dropped down, using their attackers limp forms as a landing pad.
"Now that's what I call falling for a girl," Clover said.
Sean looked around to see two more pairs advancing toward them from both sides of the street.
Through a nonverbal agreement, the spies split up, Sean and Alex heading left while Sam and Clover went right.
"Nice meeting you guys," Alex said, while trying to keep up with Sean. "But I gotta go."
They stopped a motorcycle hooked up to a cart that was carrying a large assortment of dates.
Alex took the motorcycle's controls while Sean found himself in the cart.
"Wait!" he said to her, remembering Alex's driving wasn't the best. "Maybe I should-"
But it was too late as Alex already started the engine.
"See ya!" she called out, as she drove off with Sean clinging to the edge of the inside of the cart.
Meanwhile, Sam and Clover were still on the run from their own pursuers.
Rounding another street corner, they were sure they would lose them... until the huge wall in their way proved them wrong.
"Uh-oh!" Clover exclaimed, as the men were getting closer to them. "I don't care how good the deals are here. Next time, I shop online!"
The one directly in front of Clover twirled his sword so fast, one would almost mistake it for a helicopter blade.
He swung it at her, who dodged, causing him to wedge his sword in the wall behind her.
Clover, however, did lose a hair to the blade.
As someone who knew Clover as long as she did, Sam knew it was never a good idea to mess with her hair in any way.
The blonde showed why when she picked up the man, who was trying to free his sword, and hurled him into the opposite end of the wall.
The impact was strong enough to leave a crack in the brick surface.
"Nobody touches my hair!" Clover yelled, outraged.
Sam, in the meantime, was being cornered by two others. Running to the wall, she used it to vault herself into the air, landing on her hands and doing a spin kick, knocking them off their feet.
Once Sam returned to a normal standing position, Clover walked over to her.
"I could swear I saw that in a movie!" she said to her friend.
"Just remember Driver's Ed," Alex said to herself as she drove through the crowded bazaar streets.
She honked the bike's horn, prompting several pedestrians to jump out of the way. When she was clear of them, they glared at her in anger.
"Sorry!" Sean called out, apologetically.
"Plan ahead when steering," Alex continued. "Identify hazards, signal turns..."
She parked behind an alleyway, allowing her and Sean to jump out.
The two men chasing them had finally caught up to them, but a fist to the solar plexus to each of them from Sean knocked them out.
"...never, ever tailgate!"
Sean picked the two men up and stowed them into the cart, throwing a tarp over it to keep anyone from becoming suspicious.
"I've gotta admit," he said to Alex. "That was better than the last time you drove."
"Really?!" Alex asked, elated.
"Uh-huh," Sean confirmed. "But you forgot one rule."
Alex raised an eyebrow, questioning him.
"Keep your eye on the road."
Alex blushed. "Oops."
Later, Sam and Clover walked up to them.
"Sean, Alex," Clover said. "Are you alright?"
"Well," Sean said. "I had to ride with Alex and I'm not puking yet, so yeah, I think we're good."
He looked over at the cart, and at the unconscious form inside it.
"These guys knew we were gonna be here. I think we were set up!"
"You're right!" Sam agreed. "But who would do that?"
Sean rubbed the underside of his chin, thinking.
They rounded another corner, where they saw another man dressed in the same type of garb as the ones who attacked them. He was eating out of a fast food bag.
Ducking behind a stand that sold fruit, the spies observed him carefully.
Clover picked up a papaya and threw it at the man's head, knocking him out cold.
Sam saw the insignia on the man's hat and armband.
"GOOPER again!" she exclaimed, then looked at the bag he had dropped. "And look at that burger bag. Just like the one Clover found back in Iowa!"
"I think you're right," Sean agreed with her, taking out his wallet phone. "And I get the feeling Dr. Hawking is connected."
He called Jerry.
"Afternoon, agents," Jerry said as his face lit up Sean's screen.
"Hey, Jerry!" Sam said over Sean's shoulder. "Does the name GOOPER mean anything to you?"
"Sorry, it doesn't, but I'll check on it."
"Okay," Sean said. "Well, maybe there's something else you can help us with. We need some information about a Dr. Sagan Hawking."
Jerry typed into his computer.
"Hmm," he hummed after a while. "Yes, I think I've found something. Apparently, Dr. Hawking was once a respected astronomer. But about five years ago, she claimed to have seen a real UFO, even capturing a video of her sighting. She hoped to sell her findings, but the footage turned out to be fabricated."
"Fabricated?" Clover asked. "As in faked?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, there's nothing else about her. However, I do have some information about that pattern you found in the cornfield."
"Is it an alien message?" Alex asked.
"I'm not sure," Jerry responded. "But those shapes represent numbers. They're latitude and longitude coordinates for an isolated mesa in Mexico. You'll fly there in this new transport prototype. I'm sure you'll love it!"
The spies beamed at Jerry's announcement.
Mexican Mesa-11:23 PM
Flying over the mesa, everything was going as smooth as possible. Well, as smooth as it could be with Alex behind the controls.
It wasn't long before the Sky Skimmer, as Jerry had called it, skidded to the ground, severely damaging it.
The spies crawled out of the glider.
"Everyone alright?" Sean asked.
While Alex and Sam nodded, Clover just scowled.
"Iowa, Colorado, Saudi Arabia, Mexico," she said. "I mean, I wish we got frequent flyer miles for all the places we go!"
'Tell me about it," Sam concurred. "If there were aliens, we could go visit them on their planet."
The mesa turned out to be home to a set of Aztec ruins, the fallen pillars of which turned out to be a good vantage point for a stakeout.
Sean had suggested to use one to hide behind while waiting for any signs of the alien ship.
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And in spite of his training to see this through to the end, Sean fell asleep along with the girls.
They were roused very quickly by bright light shining over the ruins and an unusual noise that sounded like an engine... albeit no engine Sean had ever heard before.
The spies looked up to see a flat, disc shaped space craft with a glowing yellow dome land a few yards away from them.
"Look!" Alex exclaimed, pointing.
A ramp opened, letting them see three silhouettes in the bright light of the ship's interior.
"Aliens! For real!" Alex shouted excitedly.
"Maybe," the other three said with less enthusiasm.
They were cut off from further discussion by a large, yellow craft, that to Sean was shaped like the sun, almost.
It hovered directly over the smaller craft, extending a beam of light down on it.
As the smaller ship was sucked up into the larger one, Alex leapt over the pillar.
"Cover me!" she shouted to the others. "I'm checking this out!"
"Cover her?!" Clover exclaimed as she ran further into the ruins. "Against the Starship Enormo-prise?!"
"We can't let her go alone!" Sean insisted, running off after her.
"Come on!" Sam said.
"Got a plan yet?" Clover asked.
"I was hoping maybe you did."
Clover sighed, unaware of two small, green figures coming up to them.
One tapped her on the shoulder.
"Just a second!" she lightly scolded. "We're talking."
Then she and Sam did a double take.
In front of them were two figures about half their height. Their skin was green and their heads were larger than that of a human.
And they both wore white jumpsuits.
At sight of real, live aliens, Sam and Clover fainted.
Sean and Alex snuck behind another pillar, this one standing upright, directly under the larger spaceship.
"Well," she said partially to herself, partially to Sean. "Here we are, now what?"
Sean observed the ship closely.
"We have to find a way to get on board," he whispered to Alex. "It's our only way to rescue those people."
Alex nodded in affirmation as a hand tapped both of their shoulders.
"Huh?" they asked, turning around. At first, there seemed to be no one behind them.
Then they looked further down to see an alien of the same species that Sam and Clover had just seen.
"I don't believe it," Sean said, awestruck.
While Sean just stood there, frozen in shock at what he was seeing, Alex got over her initial surprise.
"Woah!" she exclaimed. "Okay, no pressure, Alex. Just your first communication between our two planets."
After touching up her makeup a little, she cleared her throat.
"Um... hey, what's up?!" she said, doing a Vulcan salute.
The alien blinked.
"Excuse me?!" he asked in confusion.
Sean snapped out of his shock induced trance.
"Did you just speak English?" he asked.
"Actually," the alien explained. "I'm better with French. But I'm pretty good in English and more than 25 intergalactic dialects."
Before either of them could ask him about the abductions, a beam of light shone down from the sky, and all three were sucked into the alien craft above them.
When Alex and Sean came to, they sprang into action, ready for battle. But to their shock, the room they were in, which had walls that looked more like the inside of someone's stomach than the inside of an alien ship, was empty except for the alien they had met on the mesa.
"Why have you been abducting people?!" Alex asked him as she and Sean walked over.
"We've never done that," the alien defended. "It's the GOOPERs."
"You know about GOOPER?"
"There was a distress message carved by our friends in the wheat fields saying they'd been captured by evil GOOPERs. We came as quickly as we could to save them but the GOOPERs were waiting for us."
The alien looked away, as if ashamed.
"We'd better let the girls know what's going on," Sean said, taking out his wallet phone.
To his disappointment, he wasn't getting a signal.
"Damn it!" he swore. "It's jammed!"
Alex, remembering her sunglasses had internet capabilities, took them out, putting them on.
"Clover and Sam," she said. "Sean and I are trapped in an alien ship. Hope you can track us, come quick! Love, Alex."
She took them off, then turned back to the alien.
"So, tell me more about the GOOPERs," she requested. "Are they evil aliens?"
"Not quite," a familiar voice said.
They both turned around to see...
"Dr. Hawking!" Sean exclaimed.
She was accompanied by the same man who had attacked them in Saudi Arabia and another alien whose wrists were bound with high-tech handcuffs and had a strange device on his head.
"Have the GOOPERs captured you too?!" Alex asked her.
Dr. Hawking just laughed.
"Captured me? They're working for me!"
Then she pointed at the two teens.
"And you, little spies, are my prisoners."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sean denied. "We told you we, we're just-"
"Oh, that's right. 'Concerned relatives.' Please, I saw you land your jetpacks in that cornfield. I made up that whole astronomer story to find out how much you knew."
"So," Alex said, cautiously. "Who are you, exactly?"
"I'm the leader of GOOPER," Dr. Hawking answered.
Back on the mesa, Clover and Sam slowly opened their eyes. Sitting up, they rubbed their heads, still disoriented.
"Woah," Clover said to her friend. "I had the freakiest dream."
"Me too," Sam agreed. "Thank goodness it's over."
But they gasped upon seeing the two aliens standing in front of them.
The two girls backed up, scared.
"Don't be afraid," one of the aliens said. "We won't hurt you."
Not bothering to ask how they knew English, Clover sighed in relief.
"Finally!" she exclaimed. "Someone who doesn't want to hurt us."
"Wait," Sam stopped them. "Did you just speak English? Freaky."
"Cool, but yeah," Clover agreed. "Freaky!"
Sam's sunglasses beeped. Putting them on, she turned to Clover.
"It's Alex!" she announced.
Through lenses, she could see the room inside the spaceship, an alien that looked exactly like the two they had just met slumped against the wall, and in the corner of her eye, Sam could see the blue glove of Sean's spy uniform.
"Sean and I are trapped in an alien ship," Alex's voice said. "Hope you can track us. Come quick! Love, Alex."
Sam took off the sunglasses.
"She and Sean are trapped on that ship!" she exclaimed.
"The GOOPERs got them!" the other of the two aliens exclaimed. "Just like they got our friend! Why would they do this?! We would never hurt anyone!"
"GOOPERs, huh?" Clover asked. "Sounds like we've all got a reason to get to that big spaceship."
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "But how are the four of us gonna follow Alex and Sean with just two Jetpack Backpacks?"
"Leave that to us!" one alien said with another holding up the jetpacks.
"Alright," Sean said, crossing his arms at Dr. Hawking. "Just what is GOOPER, anyway?"
"Global Organization of Pilfering Extraterrestrial Resources," Dr. Hawking replied. "I tracked this ship over Iowa, then jammed it's equipment. Now, this ship and its crew work for me. And thanks to the distress message we left in that cornfield, I have two ships to aid in my plan."
"What plan?" Alex asked.
"To create fear," the so-called astronomer said, spreading her arms. "And when Earth is completely terrified of an invasion, I'll force the aliens to make 'their' demands: the abductions will only stop if the world's government hand over all their wealth."
"What happens to the people you've already abducted?" Sean asked, knowing he probably wouldn't like the answer.
"Oh, yes," she mused. "That is a situation. I guess they'll have to be disposed of."
Sean gulped in fear.
"In fact, you two will be the first to test my Obliterator!"
"Okay, it's official," Sean said. "You're crazy."
Dr. Hawking just scoffed. "That's what those idiots in NASA said about me when I turned in that UFO footage. That would have made me the wealthiest woman on Earth! Well, thanks to our friends here..."
She gestured to the alien beside them, then to the one she was holding captive.
"...I will be."
She turned to the man at her right side.
"Report to me when you're finished. I'll be in the control room."
The wall behind her opened up, allowing her to walk out of the cell and allowed Sean a glimpse of the hallway outside.
Multiple aliens bound by similar restraints, as well as the people Dr. Hawking had abducted, were being ushered through the halls by men dressed in the same Arabian garb as the ones who attacked the spies in Saudi Arabia.
When she was gone, the man pressed a button on a pentagon-shaped remote.
The alien they had brought with them broke free from his shackles, and the device on his forehead began to glow red.
Scowling, he advanced toward the other alien and two humans, the latter two cringing in fear.
"Wow!" Sam exclaimed, looking over their new and improved Sky Skimmer.
Thanks to combining the technology from the Jetpack Backpacks, as well as technology from their own planet, the aliens had assured the spies that the glider would now be able fly higher and faster than it could previously.
"You gave our Sky Skimmer a major upgrade!" she said, impressed.
"And it has tracking equipment," one of the aliens explained. "So we can find our friends."
"Like, how do you know how to do all this?" Clover asked.
"Back on our home planet, we're an elite team of spies," the other alien responded.
Sam and Clover looked at each other, stunned.
"Let's go!" the alien gestured for them to follow.
Once all four were in the craft, the Sky Skimmer rose into the night sky, zooming off in the direction of the alien ship.
Dr. Hawking's henchmen led Sean, Alex, and the captured alien through the ship.
Everywhere on either side of them were scientists and captive aliens working at computers.
She might have been insane, but Sean had to give Dr. Hawking credit for coming up with a plan this elaborate so quickly.
"Truss me up in veils, huh?" the lead guard said, bitter about his defeat in Saudi Arabia. "Well, look who's laughing now?"
Carefully running her fingers through her hair, Alex pulled out the Hairpin Lockpick she had received back at W.O.O.H.P, then began to use it on the lock of her handcuffs.
"That would be me!" she declared in triumph once the cuffs were off.
Putting on the sunglasses, she pressed the button activating the flash function on her camera, blinding the guards.
"That won't stop them for long," Sean said as Alex picked up the alien.
Alex nodded before running off.
"Come on!" she shouted to Sean.
He nodded, doing his best to keep up with her in handcuffs.
"Get 'em!" the head guard shouted after recovering his vision.
And more guards as well as aliens under Dr. Hawking's mind control devices gave chase.
Outside the ship, Sam and Clover, as well as the two aliens they had befriended, came directly under the spaceship.
"How will we get inside?" one of the aliens asked.
"We'll just walk in the door," Clover said as if it were simple.
"What door?" the other alien inquired.
In reply, Clover pulled out the lip gloss Jerry had given them. Pointing it at the hull of the ship, she twisted it and just like in Jerry's office, it emitted a white laser that allowed her to cut a hole in the metal.
"That door," Sam responded in place of her friend.
Running through the ship, Sean barely had time to thank Alex for picking the lock on his cuffs before they could start moving again.
"This place is huge!" he exclaimed as Alex and the alien came up beside him. "How're we gonna find those hostages?!"
"Uh... Sean?" Alex tapped his shoulder and pointed behind him.
Looking back, and down below a balcony, he could see a line of people surrounded by guards. They vaguely matched the description of the people he remembered seeing from the W.O.O.H.P footage of the abductions.
They stood in front of a large machine that had multiple appendages with saws, scalpels, and laser cutters all over.
"That must be the obliterator!" Alex said.
"No!" a voice shouted. "Let me go!"
The voice belonged to a young man in overalls and a wide brimmed hat.
"Help!" he cried out. "HELP!"
"Look!" Alex exclaimed, pointing.
Sean followed her gaze.
"That must be Caleb!"
"The guy who was abducted from the cornfield!" Sean added.
He was ushered in front of the blades, which looked especially sharp at the moment.
"They're going to use it on those people!" the alien said, shocked.
Sean shook his head.
"Not if we can help it," he said, determined.
"But how can the three of us stop all those goons?!" Alex asked.
"Not to mention us!" the voice of the head guard said.
Looking around, Sean saw that, yes, he was back, along with several other guards.
"Fantastic," Sean said, sarcastically. "You again."'
"There's no where to run," the guard said, flashing a smirk.
Sean considered fighting, but they were outnumbered.
And apparently, Alex knew it too.
"Okay," she said. "I'm ready to be rescued now."
That was when Sam jumped down from the ceiling, carrying another alien of the same species.
She delivered a powerful kick to the head guard, knocking him back along with the two flanking him.
Sam rose to a standing position, her hair bouncing slightly.
Sean remembered the first time it happened, when she saved his life on their first mission.
How it made him weak in the knees, every time her soft, silky hair bounced perfectly along the frames of her perfect face...
Focus, Sean, he reminded himself.
Behind them, Clover, carrying another alien, took out two more guards.
"Are we glad to see you!" Alex said in relief, Sean nodding in agreement.
"Dr. Hawking's behind all this," he informed Sam and Clover. "We'd tell you more, but it looks like we still have company."
As he spoke, the guards recovered from Sam and Clover's attacks, ready to land a few of their own, by the looks of things.
"Now it's our turn to help you," one of the aliens said as he and the other two pulled out dozens of small, metal discs that would have reminded Sean of quarters if not for the fact that they were ovular instead of perfect circles.
The aliens threw the discs at the guards, releasing a gray, slippery substance that, once the guards ran over it, caused them to trip, knocking them unconscious.
"Neat toy!" Clover said, impressed. "Where'd you get it?"
"From our spy supervisor," one of the aliens replied. "Ja-Rey."
"Jerry?!" Clover asked, shocked.
"No," the alien denied. "Ja-Rey."
Sam and Alex looked at each other, confused.
"Okay," Sean said. "I'm gonna assume you're talking about a different person. I mean, there's no way Jerry would have aliens working for him... right?"
He scratched his chin, confused.
"HELP!" Caleb cried out from the room below them.
Sean turned to the girls.
"Let's go," he told them.
As they picked up the aliens, the spies jumped down into the torture room.
Landing in front of the Obliterator, they made a run for it.
Alex did a dive kick to two guards, while Clover performed a backflip before kicking another in the solar plexus, knocking him back.
Sean landed a blow to another's face, accidentally knocking a few teeth loose, and Sam picked up another by the cape and flung him into a nearby guard.
"You guys free the aliens," Clover said, pointing with her thumb to the Obliterator. "I'm going for that big, nasty... thingamajig."
Dodging several laser blasts, she leapt behind the controls.
Sam picked up a device, that one of the guards had dropped. Based on the look of it, it appeared to be the mind control device keeping the aliens enslaved.
"Let's see," she muttered to herself. "Pulse magnitude. Strength indicator."
As she studied the device, she was unaware of another guard charging her from behind.
Taking action, Sean jumped up and kicked the man in the chest, sending him flying across the room.
"Here it is!" Sam announced, pressing the button to turn it off.
All at once, the aliens looked around, confused, then grateful.
"Merci beaucoup!" they all said, shaking Sean and Sam's hands.
"They speak French, too?!" Sam asked, amazed.
"And more than 25 other intergalactic dialects," Alex added.
Apparently, this also included nonverbal communication, for two aliens had given each of them a high-five.
Back at the Obliterator, Clover was struggling.
"Why don't these things come with an off switch?!" she asked, frustrated.
That was when a huge pair of hands grabbed her by the shoulders.
Before she could process it, the head guard had thrown her off to the side.
"You again?" she asked, as he charged at her.
Using his shoulders, she vaulted over him.
Gaining a sense of where she was, he tackled her to the ground.
"Sorry!" Clover complained as a saw blade got closer and closer to her head. "I just had my hair cut!"
Kicking him off of her, the head guard flew backwards... landing onto the Obliterator, which had produced five manacles, four across the wrists and ankles, the fifth across the midsection, restraining him to the slab on the machine.
With the aid of Alex's Hairpin Lockpick, Sean was finally able to free the last hostage.
"Dr. Hawking's in the control room!" he informed them.
Inside the control room, Dr. Hawking looked out over Mexico City, a scowl on her face.
"Don't touch another button," Clover's voice rang out.
She looked behind her to see that the four spies as well as three aliens had entered the room.
Her scowl growing, Dr. Hawking turned to her two guards.
"Get them!" she ordered.
The two men beside her charged, missing the spies, but one managed to grab two of the aliens.
Thanks to Clover putting the guard in a headlock, the two were able break free.
In the meantime, Alex and Sean confronted Dr. Hawking.
"Give it up, Doctor," Alex said with disdain. But in response, Dr. Hawking just reached for another button.
"Hurry up, girls!" Alex pleaded. "She just programmed-"
"Stay back!" Dr. Hawking barked. "Or I'll crash this ship into Mexico City! If I can't have this technology, no one can!"
Sean grabbed her wrist.
"Well, you definitely can't have it!" he exclaimed, only for her to throw him backwards into the girls.
Alex attempted the same, but she broke out of the girl's grip, pressing the button.
With that action, the ship began to decline in altitude.
Gripping on to a piece of railing behind them, the spies and aliens hung on for dear life while Alex stood at the controls.
"We're going down!" she exclaimed.
"Tell us something we don't know!" Sam called back. "Steer us clear of the city!"
"Me?!" Alex asked in surprise. "Steer?!"
"There's no one else!" Clover said, her grip becoming looser and looser by the second.
"Come on, Alex!" Sean called. "You have to try! I know you failed your driver's test six times, but don't let that stop you!"
"Not exactly inspiring, Sean!" Clover reprimanded.
"Wait!" Alex said to herself. "These controls look kind of familiar! It's almost exactly like the car from my Driver's Ed class!"
"Then start driving!" Sam grunted.
"Maybe if I do this?!"
Alex pressed a button on the console.
The resulting turbulence sent two unconscious guards, three stunned aliens, and four screaming teenagers sliding all over the room.
Not to mention almost caused Alex to crash into a mountain.
"I can't keep her up anymore!" Alex cried out, urgently. "I got to set her down!"
She looked out of the cockpit window, seeing a strip of land that was just wide enough for what she needed.
"There's just enough room there. I'm gonna park it like a pro."
"NO!" Sam and Clover screamed.
"We're gonna die!" Sean called out in fear.
As the ship began its descent, Dr. Hawking regained her balance, and tried to wrestle Alex away from the controls.
However, the ship jutting against the canyon wall made it difficult for her, allowing Alex to throw her forward.
Hitting the window, Dr. Hawking's limp form fell to the floor.
"Excuse me!" Alex exclaimed. "Driving is hard enough!"
Steadily standing up, the other three spies stood behind Alex.
"You got it?" Sam asked.
Before Alex could respond verbally, the ship roughly hit the canyon floor, perfectly intact.
"Please return your seats to their upright positions," Alex said in celebration. "We have landed!"
Sam and Clover went over and hugged her.
"I sure hope I'll pass my driving test after that."
The girls smiled, but their grins dropped when they noticed two people missing from the picture.'
"Hey!" Clover exclaimed. "Where's Dr. Hawking?"
"And where's Sean?" Sam asked.
Their questions were answered by two moans coming from behind them.
Near the cockpit window, Dr. Hawking lay on the floor, unable to get up.
Apparently, the force with which Alex had thrown her caused her to break her leg.
Sean was still standing, but judging by the look on his face, he wasn't in the best condition either.
"Good job, Alex," he said, sticking his thumb up. Then his smile disappeared as he groaned in discomfort.
"You alright?" Alex asked.
"Yeah," Sean replied, but his face was already turning green. "I'm just a little motion-"
His speech was cut off by him placing his hand over his mouth.
Knowing what was coming, he leaned over the other way and closed his eyes, not knowing Dr. Hawking was on the floor at his feet.
The disgraced astronomer widened her eyes in shock and fear.
"You wouldn't dare!" she said, her voice shaking.
The girls cringed in disgust as the sound of Sean's retching filled the room.
"Okay," Clover said. "Can I just say EW?!"
"I'd hate to be her," Sam said turning away.
"As if jail wasn't bad enough," Alex said, shielding her eyes.
Outside the ship, after arresting a very soiled Dr. Hawking and her henchmen, W.O.O.H.P offered to transport the hostages home. Of course they would have to erase their memories afterwards.
But this didn't stop Clover drooling over Caleb.
"If you ever need your corn inspected," she said. "Here's my number."
"Bye guys!" Alex called out to the departing alien ship, as she, Sean and Sam waved them goodbye. "Have a safe flight!"
The ship took off, its lights getting dimmer and dimmer until it was unrecognizable among the stars.
"Maybe someday we can visit them on their planet," Alex suggested.
"Maybe," Sam agreed. "But right now, you got a test to take."
Alex's jaw dropped.
"And now that you've flown an alien spaceship," Sean said. "I think it's pretty safe to say you can drive a car."
The Student Driver car pulled up in front of Sean, Sam, and Clover, as smooth as it had ever been with Alex behind the wheel.
As the car parked, Alex turned to the passenger seat, where her instructor held up a certificate.
"I've never seen a student make such quick progress!" he said, impressed. "How did you do it, Alex?"
"I practiced on a giant alien spaceship," she replied.
The instructor gasped. He considered asking further, but he quickly dismissed it as a joke.
Getting out of the car, Alex walked over to her three best friends, giving Sean a high-five.
"So," he said. "Where do you want to drive first?"
"Definitely the mall," she answered. "I wanna see if I can attract three times as many boys now that I can drive."
She leaned on the car... causing it to zip forward and hit another car.
The driving instructor, looking at the wreckage of both cars, broke down in tears.
As her friends laughed, Alex smiled in embarrassment.
"Oh, man. I guess I still need practice with the parking brake."
After their laughter calmed down, Clover spoke up.
"Hey! Now that you have your license, maybe you can teach Sean to drive?!"
Sean's mouth went dry as he thought of the times Alex had difficulty with vehicles both civilian and spy in the past, not to mention the most recent incident that caused him to throw up on the latest villain.
Alex may have mastered driving itself, but teaching?
He knew better.
"Uh," he stammered. "That's okay, I'll just ask my mom to teach me. Besides I don't have a permit yet!"
He walked off quickly, hoping to avoid the discussion further.