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Chapter Forty
The Iceman Cometh
Fiji Island-11:43 AM
Typical for early January, Fiji's tourist season was doing very well thanks to its continuous tropical climate. And no other island could be any busier than this one. The small beach was packed with tourists sunbathing, swimming, and children playing in both surf and sand. As was usually the case for this island, the weather was warm and sunny.
But not for long.
A young married couple, who had been on the island for some time now had just settled into place when they heard the rumbling and felt the tremors. At first they thought it might have come from the volcano that their guidebook back at their hotel said was on the island, but that same book had also informed them that it had been dormant since the 1970s.
It only got stranger when the woman felt something wet and cold land on the back of her neck.
"Did it burn you?" the man asked, noticing his wife's wincing.
"No," she clarified, holding out what had touched her. "It's cold."
The substance in her hands was light, soft, wet and white. And it began to reduce itself to liquid in the heat of her hand.
If she didn't know any better, she would have said it was...
But neither she nor her husband had time to fully register the incident before the volcano erupted. And curiously enough, this volcano did not spew forth lava or smoke as was expected by others of its kind. No, this volcano let out a barrage of snow and ice, sending large ice boulders crashing down on to the beach and prompting every tourist there to run back to their hotel or other choice of residence as quickly as they knew how.
The couple narrowly avoided being crushed as they were left to ponder how this island could have gone from tropical paradise to frozen wasteland in the span of fifteen minutes.
Beverly Hills High School-10:37 AM
Sean walked out of the science classroom rubbing his neck in exhaustion. Meeting up with the girls, he joined them on their walk to Clover's locker.
"Can you believe that killer pop quiz Mr. Benson sprung on us in science class?" Alex complained.
"It was pure evil!" Clover agreed.
"I thought it was easy," Sam countered.
"Well," Sean said. "I don't think 'easy' is the word we're thinking of. More like 'torture.'"
When they finally reached Clover's locker, they saw a piece of paper taped to the door. It had her name written on it.
"What's this?" she asked, peeling it off the locker. The paper turned out to have been made into a card. Clover opened it.
Sean could see her face flush and he had a good idea what it was going to lead to.
"'Dear Clover,'" she read. "'Roses are red, violets are blue, I'd like to go to the movies with you.'"
"Oh, a love poem!" Alex cooed.
"Or an attempt at one, anyway," Sean said, trying to contain his laughter.
"Who's it from?" Sam asked.
The blush on Clover's face lightened, then disappeared altogether when she read the name at the bottom of the poem.
"Darrel," she gritted.
"The president of the chess club?" Sean asked. He'd seen Darrel around but at Clover's insistence, he never talked to him personally.
"He's been following me around all week," she answered, balling up the paper.
"Clover, what are you doing?" Alex asked as she threw the poem into a nearby trashcan.
"Please!" Clover said like it was obvious. "You don't think I'd actually date the president of the chess club?!"
"Why not?" Sam asked.
"I just happen to like guys who, you know-cooler."
"But didn't you date Arnold when he got you elected Homecoming Queen?" Sean asked, furrowing his brow in disgust at his friend's actions.
Clover's face went blank, then furious before grabbed Sean by the front of his shirt and lifted him two inches off the ground with a strength no one, including her, knew she possessed.
"What did I say about that time?" she snarled.
"Uh," Sean stuttered. "Never to speak of it again?"
Clover dropped him.
"That's what I thought."
"Hi, Clover!" a male voice said. A boy came up to them, wearing a cream-colored shirt and glasses that were bigger than Arnold's. He was blond with green eyes and looked very hopeful.
"Did you get my note?" Darrel continued.
"Um," Clover fumbled. "Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm not free."
Darrel looked confused as well as hurt.
"But I didn't even tell you what night I wanted to take you out."
"My schedule's kind of tied up... indefinitely."
"Oh," Darrel said as Sean finally managed to pick himself up off the floor. "I get it. Well, I guess it's true what people say about you."
"What do they say?" Clover asked, hoping for something about how popular she was.
"That you're an ice queen," Darrel replied coldly.
Clover gasped in shock as he left.
Sean felt a smile creep across his face, amused.
"Ice queen?" he thought. With her temper, I'd have said "Volcano queen."
"An ice queen?!" Clover asked, outraged. "That's ridiculous! He obviously doesn't know that I was voted Little Miss Sunshine in second grade!"
"You crowned yourself Little Miss Sunshine," Sam pointed out, remembering watching the home video of Clover ripping the tiara off the other contestant.
"Whatever," Clover said, obviously not caring.
"You know," Sean said. "That kind of sounds like something an ice queen would say."
Clover just glared at him.
"Keep pushing it, Warren," she hissed. "I dare you."
All at once, the lockers slid apart, revealing a circular hatch that sucked the four teens into a vortex of wind and down the W.O.O.H.P tunnel.
"Looks like Jerry's taking a cue from Mr. Benson!" Sean screamed as they slid down the chute.
"I don't know what's worse!" Clover added. "A pop quiz or a pop mission!"
Once again, the ride ended on the fuchsia cushion in Jerry's office, where the man himself stood above them.
"Hello, spies," Jerry greeted. "How well do you know your eco-biology?"
"I'd say it's a tie," Alex whispered, referencing Clover's statement on the way down.
"This is the island of Fiji," Jerry continued as the screen behind him lit up. Sean's jaw went slack. The island itself was unmistakably covered with tropical vegetation but the image of snow beginning to blanket the whole place looked so wrong to him.
"Fiji?" Sam asked, as if sensing his thoughts. "Looks more like Alaska!"
"They've had some unusual weather conditions lately, including a volcano that spews ice."
"Freaky!" Alex exclaimed as her friends each gasped.
"My sentiments exactly," Jerry agreed. "And now the phenomenon seems to be spreading to other equatorial islands as well."
"Like the greenhouse effect, only backwards," Sean said.
"The igloo effect," Alex added.
"Exactly," Jerry said as he cut the feed. "And if these anomalies continue, it could mean disaster for the ecosystem. And eventually for mankind."
He walked over to his desk, which split open to reveal the assortment of gadgets he would be giving out for this particular mission.
"You'll start your investigation on Zanzibar Island, one of the once tropical locations where this strange occurrence is currently happening. You'll be posing as reporters for Geography International."
"Cool!" Alex exclaimed in awe. "Do we get those tiny tape recorders?"
"No," Jerry answered. "But I've got you some lovely ballpoint pens."
He held one up.
"These are Super Flying Dual Cartridge Heat Seeking Sleep Darts. They can hit any target in a 100 foot range."
"Nice," Sean said.
"And," Jerry continued as he held up more gadgets. "You'll also be needing these: Steel Reinforced Polo-tech Para-brellas, Thermo Dynamic Cold Sensitive Temperature Bracelets, Precision Lip Balm Lasers-cherry flavored, and these A.W.F.U.L Boots."
He held up a pair of boots with a fur trim around the ankles.
"No kidding," Clover said. "Fur is so last year. Plus, I don't think they'll match my earmuffs."
"A.W.F.U.L," Jerry clarified. "A-W-F-U-L. All Weather Fleece Ultra-Light Boots. A.W.F.U.L."
To demonstrate this gadget, he pressed a red button on the sole. An ice skating blade came out from the bottom of it.
"Cool!" Alex said excitedly. "Skates!"
"Cool only if you can skate, you mean," Sean pointed out. "I'm terrible on ice!"
"You've been skating before," Sam pointed out.
"Yeah!" Sean argued. "Roller skating! This is completely different!"
"Don't worry, Sean," Jerry reassured. "It has another option"
He pressed the button again, this time the skates disappeared and a giant flat board, one that looked like a cross between a snowboard and one half of a pair of skis took its place.
"Awesome!" Clover said with glee, contradicting her earlier opinion of the boots. "I'll get new earmuffs."
As much as he wished he could share the girls enthusiasm, Sean found himself dreading this mission more than any of the others. Having been born and raised in a city where the temperature rarely, if ever got below 48 degrees, he had never developed a taste for cold weather. And the last time he went on a mission in an extremely cold climate, he nearly lost three fingers on his right hand. Understandably, Sean was determined not to get frostbite this time.
Zanzibar Island-1:22 PM
It wasn't long before their jet reached Zanzibar, which was normally more tropical than this, but the frigid winds blowing outside the plane and the chunks of ice floating in the sea all around it gave it more the impression that they were in Antarctica.
"Everything looks so peaceful," Alex sighed in awe. "It's like a winter wonderland!"
"I think you mean 'frozen wasteland'," Sean said, shivering already.
"You alright?" Sam asked, noticing that he had looked a little uncomfortable since leaving W.O.O.H.P. Well, more than a little uncomfortable, actually.
"I'm fine," Sean denied. "I just don't like the cold."
"Really?! How come?"
Sean crossed his arms tighter across his chest. "You've lived in L.A a few months; I've lived there my whole life. I'm used to it being a little hotter than this."
"Hey, it's not that bad," Sam tried to reassure him, remembering her own childhood growing up in Minnesota.
"When Darrel said that everyone says I'm an 'ice queen'," Clover said. "Who do you think he means by, like, everyone?"
"Um," Sean said, forgetting about the cold for a minute. "Everyone at school?"
"You're at school," Clover retorted.
"Hey guys," Alex broke in. "I forget, which clouds cause storms, cumulus or cirrus?"
"I think it's cumulus," Sean responded. "Why?"
"Will you guys forget about that quiz for a second?" Clover snapped. "We're trying to discuss my reputation here!"
"I wasn't talking about the quiz," Alex said, pointing at the sky. "I was talking about that!"
Outside the jet, dark storm clouds were beginning to gather, lighting struck the sea and the waves began to rise as high as trees and the winds battered the plane relentlessly.
The turbulence outside knocked the four spies backward as Clover covered her mouth, her stomach churning.
"I really don't want to see my lunch again!" she exclaimed as Sean helped her get back on her feet.
Alex and Sam regained control of the plane as Sean and Clover regained their positions behind them.
"What was that?" Alex said, referring to a loud clanging sound outside the aircraft. Something had just hit the fuselage, something big.
"Looks like hail," Sam answered. "We've gotta land this thing."
"Land how?!" Sean asked. "The wind's too strong!"
The wind was so strong, in fact, that it blew open the hatch on the side of the plane.
"Don't worry," Clover reassured. "I've got it!"
She went to close the hatch back, but the handle for it was too high to reach. And she couldn't risk jumping. The wind was shaking the plane so much that it was dangerous just to stand there.
As the jet swerved, Clover found herself falling out of the doorway. She had been planning to reach the handle, but she didn't think it would happen like this.
Her teammates heard her screams from the cockpit and rushed to her aid.
"Don't worry, Clover!" Sam said, turning on the autopilot. "We got you!"
But when they reached her, the plane hit turbulence again, sending all three tumbling out, with Sam gripping Clover's foot, Sean dangling precariously from Sam's hand, and Alex clinging for dear life to Sean's right ankle.
"Oh, no!" Alex screamed.
"Well," Sean said. "At least it can't get any worse!"
That was when a hailstone smashed through the cockpit window and hit the control panel, turning the autopilot off and sending the plane hurdling toward the island below.
"Haven't we all learned by now never to say that?!" Clover shrieked, glaring down at Sean.
"Alex, Sean!" Sam shouted. "Pull out your Para-brellas! We're going down!"
Alex and Sean did so as Sam looked back up at Clover.
"On three, Clover! One, two, three!"
Reluctantly, Clover let go of the handle, causing her and all three of her teammates to fall from the plane. Alex managed to activate her Para-brella. The pink umbrella opened up, revealing an additional smaller umbrella just above the main one. Sean, Sam and Clover pulled out similar devices, only with Sean's being blue instead of pink. And the spies parachuted safely down to the island as their plane exploded somewhere on the southeast portion of it.
"Close one!" Clover said.
After a few seconds of slowly falling back to solid ground, Sean, Sam and Alex fell onto a flat area that had once been the beach. Clover, on the other hand was still being carried by the wind.
"Clover look out!" Sean yelled as she disappeared over the tree line.
He and the other two girls winced when they heard a loud thud! somewhere behind a cluster of frozen palm trees.
Clover was currently on her back in the snow on top of pile of leaves, which were so frozen by this point that they had they consistency of glass.
"This is not my day," she grumbled as a dark skinned man came over to her. He was dressed in jeans and a Hawaiian floral print shirt. And he stood in front of a yellow jeep.
"You journalists always seem to seek out danger," he said, rubbing his torso due to the cold.
"Actually," Clover said. "Danger seems to seek us out."
After they had caught up to Clover, the spies introduced themselves to the man who found her, who turned out to be the mayor of a local beach town.
They all got into the jeep, which in addition to being stuck in a snow drift wouldn't start.
"Thanks for agreeing to show us around," Alex said. "Mr. uh... Your Mayorness.
"Call me Kemba," the mayor said.
"And what are your thoughts on these bizarre weather conditions, Mayor Kemba?" Sam from the passenger seat beside him, while Sean, Clover and Alex were huddled in the backseats behind them.
"If things don't change soon," Kemba said. "Zanzibar won't be an island; it'll be an iceberg. And you can quote me on that."
"Then we better get this mission-" Clover was cut off by Sean elbowing her on her left side. "-I mean article started."
Kemba turned the key again. This time, the car started. But it was so buried in snow that it could only sit there as its wheels spun in place.
The mayor sighed in defeat, banging his head against the steering while as a pile of snow fell on the roof.
Hearing this, Sean's face brightened.
"I think I have an idea," he said.
Sean's idea turned out to involve the roof of the jeep, which was removable anyway. Using some welding equipment that Kemba had kept in the back, the spies had affixed the roof to the front of the car in order to use it as a makeshift snowplow.
And although it did make them a little colder, they could move across the island with less difficulty.
"I'm glad you journalists know how to adapt to every situation," Kemba said, impressed.
"I just wish I could adapt to all this," Sean shivered, his breath now the most visible it had been in his whole life. "Any ideas where we should start looking?"
"Well," Alex said, opening her Compowder. "It's been getting colder as we move further inland."
"Perfect," Sean said, though his thoughts kept returning to warm and pleasant Beverly Hills. "As much as I hate it, I guess that's where we're going."
Clover was just as cold as Sean, and clearly not adapting to it any better than he was.
"To bad this car doesn't have a heater," she complained, with Sean nodding in agreement. "I feel like I'm coming down with something."
With those words, Sean scooted further away from her.
"You know, you're right, Clover," Sam said. "You're not an ice queen. You're a drama queen."
After a while, the car stopped and the mayor and four teens got out, looking down a small hill at a field of geysers; geysers that had been completely frozen over.
"This geyser field is the furthest point inland," Kemba informed. "Normally, it's a bit of a tourist hotspot, if you'll forgive the pun. We get bursts of steam over seven feet high!"
"Well, I'd kill for a little steam right now," Sean said, looking out at the frozen field.
"I think I'm beginning to understand what's happening here," Sam said as she knelt down.
"You are?" her teammates asked.
"Yeah. Think about it, ice from volcanoes. Ice from geysers. It's all coming from down below. From the center of the earth."
She pulled up a chunk of ice that had been at her foot and ran over bracelet over it.
"But I thought the Earth had a molten core," Alex said, confused as Sam awaited her scan results. "Boy, I really messed up on that quiz."
"No, Alex," Sam said as the scan was finished. "You're right. In fact, according to my analysis this piece of ice is actually a chunk of frozen magma!"
"So something or someone has changed the temperature of the Earth's core," Clover said.
"Looks that way."
"But how's that even possible?!" Sean asked.
"I don't know," Sam replied. "If we're gonna find out, we need to find a way to get below the Earth's surface."
"If you can make my car do that," Kemba said. "I'll be really impressed."
Suddenly, the ice beneath Sam began to crack as a jet of scalding water came up from underneath her, sending her flying and causing her to land over on the other side of the field.
Forgetting the cold, Sean ran over to the scene of Sam's misfortune.
"Sam!" he shouted as the others joined him. "Are you okay?!"
Sliding down the snow bank, he caught up to her, helping her up.
"I'm fine," she insisted. "Embarrassed, but fine."
"Hey!" Alex said, pointing at something beside Sam's foot. "Look at that!"
A small piece of cloth lay in the snow. It was reddish-brown, and embroidered with the initial "G".
Sean picked it up.
"It feels like some kind of synthetic fabric," he said, running a finger over it. "It's not frozen solid, so maybe it's temperature controlled."
"Perfect!" Clover said happily, snatching it from him. "A high-tech tissue!"
She blew her nose into it, much to Sean's disgust.
"Is it me?" Clover asked, now starting to sound very congested. "Or is it getting colder out here?"
"It's not you," Alex informed, holding up her bracelet, which displayed both the temperature around her and her own body temperature. "The temperature has dropped ten degrees since we got here!"
"We've got to investigate the Earth's core, and fast!" Sam said with urgency. "Sean, call Jerry!"
Sean nodded before turning back to the mayor.
"Kemba," he said. "We need to have a teleconference with our editor, but we'll call you if we need anything else for the interview."
"You journalists are very dedicated," Kemba said before running off. "Let me know when the article comes out!"
As soon as Kemba was out of sight, Sean pulled out his wallet phone. Jerry answered in an instant.
"Hello, agents," he greeted, his face looking very severe. "I'm glad you called. There's something I need to show you. I'm afraid the situation has become quite grave."
On the wallet's screen, a map of the world showed up, and every continent displayed turned from its neutral green to a cold white.
"The cold spell is now spilling out from the equator. Temperatures are now dropping all over the world. If you don't hurry, the Earth will ice over completely. All life will be destroyed!"
The spies were horrified to hear the news.
"Then we need to get beneath the Earth's surface!" Sam informed.
"The best way would be to go down to the ocean floor and through the Marianas Trench," Jerry said. "I'll have a W.O.O.H.P submarine meet you at the beach A.S.A.P."
Then Sean remembered something else.
"Clover," he said. "Show him that cloth with the weird insignia you used as a tissue."
Embarrassed, Clover held it up for Jerry to see.
"Scan it in. I'll run it through our database and call you when I know more."
As Sean hung up, Clover sneezed. They didn't expect her to sneeze so loud, but the echo combined the snow on the mountains could only be the recipe for one thing.
"Uh oh," Sean said.
"Uh oh?" Alex asked. "What do you mean by-"
That was when she heard the rumbling, and looked around to see the immense amount of snow cascading from the mountaintops down toward them.
"Uh oh," she repeated Sean's earlier statement.
"Quick!" Sam said as they knelt down. "Activate your boots!"
The spies did so, and the snowboard attachment sprung out from the soles.
With no time to catch their breath, the spies rode down the slopes, trying not to look back at the white wall that was rapidly catching up to them.
"We've gotta get to the beach!" Sean shouted, pointing at a small pier just below them.
Judging by the amount of snow that was about to crush them, there wouldn't be enough time to actually look for the submarine. So, they would have to settle for aiming for the dock and hoping it would be there.
"Once again!" Clover exclaimed. "Trouble finds us!"
When they got close enough, a red and purple submarine surfaced from below the formerly tropical waters right by the dock.
"Look!" Alex said, noticing it. "There's the submarine!"
The four teens finally managed to get off the slope, slide across the wooden surface of the pier and into the submarine hatch.
Thinking quickly, Sam pressed the "dive" button and the sub went back underwater.
They all breathed a sigh of relief, but this was no time to relax. They changed into thermal versions of their spy uniforms in anticipation for the next step of their mission.
But Clover was just sitting on the sub's nearby couch, wrapping herself in a blanket and shivering even though the sub's interior was heated.
"I could really use some hot soup right now," she sniffled.
"Would you settle for a breath mint?" Alex asked as she pulled a small bag of them out of her back pocket. "It's all I've got."
Reluctantly, Clover took the bag... and almost dropped it when she read the label on the front.
"Oh, great," she said sarcastically. "'Winter Fresh.'"
Then she sneezed again, which prompted Sean to jump.
"Careful where you point that thing, Clover!" he exclaimed. "If there's one thing I hate more than the cold, it's catching a cold."
Marianas Trench-3:33 PM
Known as the deepest oceanic trench in the world, the Marianas Trench was the spies' intended point of entry for getting beneath the Earth's crust. It took them nearly two hours to reach it via sub, but it wasn't long before the ocean around them began to grow darker. And colder.
"We're heading into the trench," Sam announced from her seat at the controls.
"What's that rock formation up ahead?" Alex asked, pointing at the window. Outside the sub, on the face of an underwater cliff was a flat formation that didn't really look like rock. It didn't feel like it either, judging by how hard it felt when the sub collided with it.
"I don't know," Sean said, regaining his balance. "But I think we just hit it."
Sam stopped the sub to gaze at the rock formation in front of them. It was a flat, circular surface that looked more like metal than rock. And it had a very familiar insignia on it.
"There's that symbol again," Clover said as she came over. She was still wrapped in a blanket from the time they left Zanzibar.
Sam took out her Compowder the minute it started ringing.
"That'll be Jerry," she said, answering it.
Jerry's face appeared on the screen instantly.
"I've got the information on the sample you've sent, spies," he informed. "The insignia appears to be the trademark of a research scientist named Dr. Gelee, the world's leading authority on global warming."
An image of a man in a tan suit with brown hair and a goatee appeared on the screen.
"He took a leave of absence last year, and he hasn't been seen or heard from for months."
"That's strange," Sean commented.
"Indeed," Jerry agreed before turning his direction behind them. "Oh, and Clover, make sure to drink plenty of liquids. Seems you have a bit of a cold."
"Thanks for the tip," Clover said, now sounding even sicker. And then she sneezed again, this time on Sam's Compowder.
Jerry was unfazed.
"Now, hurry spies," he urged. "The fate of the world is depending on you."
The screen went dark.
"Boy, he really knows how to lay on the pressure, doesn't he?" Alex said as Sam put her Compowder back in her pocket.
"You have no idea," Sean agreed.
All at once, the sub began to rumble and everyone began to fear it was in danger of imploding
"What's that?!" Clover asked.
Sam ran back to the controls, where she read multiple points of contact on the sonar screen.
"It looks like we're being attacked!" she reported.
The spies looked around, hoping to find any sign of their attackers. Sean gasped and pointed to a nearby window.
Outside was a man in a blue bodysuit with a pointed hood that almost made him look like an icicle. He carried a device that looked like a jackhammer except with an enormous flat stamper instead of a chisel.
And it didn't take very long for the spies to guess what his intentions were.
In an instant, the device pounded on the window, cracking the glass and letting water stream in.
"He's trying to sink us!" Sean exclaimed.
"What are we gonna do?!" Alex asked, panicking.
But they didn't need to anything, or so it seemed. Outside, the man took a look around and began to swim away from the sub.
"Hey, where'd he go?" Clover asked.
When the four reached the window, they got their answer. Behind and all around the sub was an advancing wall of ice rapidly taking the place of water in the sea around them.
"The sea's turning to ice!" Sam realized.
"We've gotta hurry or we'll be crushed!" Sean said.
"Hurry where?!" Clover asked. "We can't go anywhere with this big rock in front of us!"
That was when another huge rumble occurred, this time outside the sub.
The flat rock formation in front of them split open to reveal a dark passageway.
"It's a door!" Alex exclaimed.
Sam moved the sub further in just before the exit could ice over completely.
The doorway, it turned out, led to an underwater cave. One that was glazed over with ice.
"Come on!" Sam exclaimed, as she opened the hatch. "Let's get out of here!"
The other three nodded in agreement and hopped out of the sub, only for Alex to lose her footing and fall.
"What do you think this place is?" she asked, rubbing her tailbone.
Four scraping sounds coming from the direction of the cave interior kept them from pondering any further.
Four men dressed identically to the one who tried to sink their sub appeared before them, ice skates attached to their feet.
"I think we should worry about where we are later," Sean said, as he and the other spies activated the skating function of their boots.
Okay, Sean, he tried to reassure himself. You can do this. It's just like roller skating but with ice.
But he wasn't so sure himself. With each thrust he took forward, he almost lost his balance several times, at one point narrowly avoiding impaling himself on an icicle. But with Sam's help, he quickly stabilized himself. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to shake their pursuers.
Soon, they slid further into a cave and down a sloping tunnel. Sean briefly lost control and wound up skating on the cave ceiling before getting back on the ground.
He sighed in relief, but it wasn't over yet. He turned around and saw that the four icicle men were still behind them.
One charged at Sam, but she leapt into the air and delivered a double kick to his back, knocking him down. The man landed facedown on the ice and slid down on his stomach pathetically.
Sam struck a triumphant pose, but she forgot about the other three.
Luckily, Clover didn't. But she wasn't in much position to do anything about them as she lost her balance due to another sneeze and then dropped something round and pink, which landed on the slippery floor of the cave.
"My Compowder!" she exclaimed as one of the men skated up behind her and grabbed her wrist.
Sean and Alex saw this and reversed their direction, with Alex breaking off an icicle from the ceiling on the way back.
Using the icicle like a hockey stick, Alex ducked to avoid being grabbed by another one of the men and hit the Compowder like a puck, causing it to collide with the face of Clover's captor and freeing her.
"She shoots she scores!" Alex boasted victoriously, oblivious to two more of the men crouching up behind her.
"Alex, look out!" Sean warned as he skated into action.
Leaping up into the air, he performed a spin while kicking his legs into both of their chests, knocking them out cold.
As he landed back on the ground, he was given a painful reminder that he was still inexperience with ice skating and landed face first on the frozen floor.
"Thanks, Sean," Alex said as he got back up.
"Well," he said, rubbing his jaw. "At least that knocked that crooked tooth of mine in place."
After losing those four men, the spies skated down the cave at a much more leisurely pace. And once in a while, they would stop to admire the natural beauty of the cave, even Sean. As much as he hated the cold, he couldn't deny that the cave was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Of course, that didn't mean he wanted the whole world to be like this.
Close behind him, Clover was the only one not enjoying herself. She was shivering wildly, and she looked even sicker than she had been on the sub.
It wasn't long before they reached a dead end.
"What do we do now?" Alex asked.
"I don't know how much further I can go," Clover complained as she crouched down and looked her bracelet, which displayed her body temperature very prominently: 99.5. "I'm running a fever!"
"You're probably the hottest thing on our planet right now!" Sean joked.
"If I weren't so sick, I'd totally take that as a compliment," she returned as she resumed a standing position and skated over to an ice wall, hugging it.
She sighed in pleasure as the cold ice made contact with her hot skin. "This ice feels good."
But while she was leaning against the ice, the floor beneath them began to rumble. It seemed that Clover's attempts to cool her fever had inadvertently triggered a hidden pressure switch, and sent the spies tumbling down a trap door.
The trap door, it turned out, led to a hidden lab that had to be hundreds of miles beneath the Earth's surface as Sean and the girls discovered when their ride ended with them sliding out from behind a panel onto a cold metal floor.
They looked up and saw hundreds of video screens displaying live footage of various locations around the world being turned into a frozen tundra. From Paris to Cairo to New York and even Miami, the whole world was rapidly being plunged into a new ice age.
"Looks like Dr. Gelee's been busy!" Clover said, forgetting about her cold for a minute.
Sam and Sean stood in the center of the room, where an enormous blue laser was being focused and emitted down toward a hole below it. A hole that doubtlessly lead to the Earth's core.
"This must be what he's using to cool the Earth!" Sam observed as Sean went over to the controls.
"We've gotta figure out how to reverse it," he said as he reached for a knob.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," a man's voice came from every direction. And soon enough, the same man Jerry had shown them was on every screen in the room. He spoke with a cold, smooth British accent and his face was frozen in a smug grin.
"Dr. Gelee?!" Sean guessed.
"The one and only," Gelee confirmed. "I suppose you four are here to save the world."
"Well," Alex replied. "That was the general plan."
"How caring and decent of you. It's too bad you won't succeed. Allow me to introduce to you my research assistants."
The spies turned around and saw the same four men who chased them in the caves standing behind them.
"I think we've already met," Clover said just before they grabbed all of them.
A pair of doors slid open, revealing Dr. Gelee himself. He wore a maroon longcoat with his logo embroidered on either side over a pair of thermal pants and blue sweater.
"You're not gonna get away with this, you know!" Sam said defiantly.
"On the contrary, I already have," Gelee said coolly. "If you look at the monitors, I think you'll see that world is experiencing a bit of a cold snap."
"Why are you doing this?!" Alex asked.
"I've spent my career researching the damage humans have done to this planet. Pollution, the depletion of the ozone, destroying Earth's natural resources. And I've come to realize that you people don't deserve it. So I'm taking the planet back to the ice age."
Though Sean could understand where Gelee was coming from, it was still the wrong solution to a very real problem.
"And you don't think you're being just as destructive?!" Sean asked. "You're causing more damage than the rest of us! Besides, you'll freeze along with us!"
"Well, your concern is touching, young man," Gelee responded. "But not to worry. I have a little safehouse tucked away where I'll sit out the storm. Then when everything has been destroyed, I'll use a remote control to reverse this device and rewarm the Earth."
"Won't you be kind of lonely living on the planet all by yourself?" Clover asked.
Gelee eyed Clover.
"Well, I'm a bit of a loner by nature," he said. "But now that you mention it, a little companionship couldn't hurt."
He leaned in closer to her, almost prompting Sean to warn him about her cold. But he quickly changed his mind.
"Do you play chess?" he asked, eliciting a gasp from Clover. "No matter. I'll teach you."
He turned back to the laser.
"Boys," he addressed his henchmen. "Bring the blonde. She seems like the perfect ice queen."
Clover gasped again at being called a label she had been trying to lose all day.
Then Gelee looked at Sean, Sam and Alex.
"As for you three," he continued. "I'm afraid you'll be spending the rest of eternity in deep freeze here at the center of the Earth."
Gelee's research assistants threw the three remaining spies to the ground before they each pointed a gun-like device at them.
"No!" Clover tried to object. But contrary to what she expected, a beam came out of the guns instead of bullets, encasing her friends in ice.
Luckily for them, the ice didn't freeze all the way through and was still hollow. But this didn't stop the three from being in danger of freezing to death.
Gelee adjusted the dial on a remote he was carrying with him, intensifying the strength of the freezing device.
"Now, we must hurry," he said to his henchmen. "In 20 minutes, the Earth will be completely frozen over."
They left, dragging a reluctant Clover with them toward a vehicle that looked like a cross between a bobsled and a monorail.
"Sam!" she shrieked hoarsely. "Sean, Alex! Help me!"
The roof to the vehicle closed as it sped off through a tunnel. Seconds later, another empty one took its place.
As soon as both Gelee and Clover were gone, Sean began pounding on the ice as hard as he could, but to no avail. It was just too thick.
On the far side of his and Sam's icy prison, Alex had begun to slump over. Sean and Sam began to panic, as they both remembered that to be a sign of hypothermia in these conditions. But Sean's fear soon gave way to weariness as he too began to crumple to the floor.
As the only one still standing, Sam knew she had to act fast before her friends succumbed to the elements. She took out her Lip Balm Laser and cut a hole in the ice that separated her from the rest of the room.
Kicking her way out, she repeated the process for Sean. She pulled him out and was taken by surprise when he collapsed very close to her legs, wrapping his arms around them. Blushing, she moved away before thawing freeing Alex too.
Freed from the ice, Sean and Alex quickly regained consciousness.
"Th-thanks, S-Sam," Sean shivered.
"Talk about chilling out!" Alex said, her teeth chattering.
"Yeah," Sam agreed, holding up her lip balm tube. "Thank goodness for these Lip Balm Lasers."
Alex's face brightened. "No kidding?! My lips are seriously chapped!"
She took the tube from Sam as her friends got back on their feet.
"Come on!" Sean urged. "We've gotta find a a way to shut that machine down!"
He rushed to the control console, pressing every button he could find and hoping it would do something.
But nothing seemed to happen. Every screen still displayed nearly the whole world as being frozen solid.
"Oh, no!" he despaired. "It won't budge!"
"It's like the dial's locked in place or something!" Sam added, coming over.
Then every screen turned to static.
"Guys, look!" Alex exclaimed, pointing at them. "We're too late!"
Sean had to fight to keep himself from hyperventilating.
"No!" he steeled himself. "We can't give up! Gelee said we have 20 minutes before Earth freezes over completely."
"We've got to find him and Clover!" Sam declared, walking away from the console.
She walked over to the bobsled pod that Gelee had used to escape and abduct Clover. Opening the roof, she jumped in, followed by Alex and then Sean.
"Any idea how this thing works?" Sam asked.
Sean shrugged.
"Maybe you need some kind of key or something," Alex suggested, pressing a green button.
In response, the roof to the pod closed and the vehicle itself sped through the tunnel ahead faster than a bullet.
"Whoa!" the spies shrieked in fear as Sean looked at the controls.
"Looks like we're preprogrammed to go straight to the North Pole!" Sean exclaimed.
"I hope there's no loop-de-loops!" Alex said hopefully. "Those things make me sick."
Sean found himself silently agreeing.
"I think we might have a more serious problem," Sam said, reading a notice that came up on the screen. "According to this, the exit is iced over!"
"We could use our lasers," Sean suggested.
"I've got a better idea."
She pulled a lever downward.
"Hold on to your hat!"
The pod's speed accelerated even further, now travelling at the speed of sound. It moved so fast that the momentum shattered the frozen exit and catapulted the pod into the open air.
Outside, a blizzard was taking place, but Sean couldn't tell if it was an ordinary blizzard or one caused by Gelee.
In any case, the pod plummeted back toward the ground and landed in a snowbank, knocking the three spies out of the cockpit.
"If I knew we were visiting the North Pole, I would've brought my Christmas list," Sean joked.
"Yeah," Alex added. "And you could have delivered it directly to Santa's workshop."
North Pole-5:48 PM
After getting back on their feet, Sean, Sam and Alex trudged through the snow for what felt like an eternity, looking for any sign of Gelee's hideout.
Soon enough, they saw an imposing mountain-like structure in the distance. It looked very much like a fortress made entirely of solid ice.
"This must be Dr. Gelee's ice hideaway," Alex guessed, before tripping on the hill that served as their vantage point.
"You okay?" Sean asked, helping her up.
"Yeah, fine," she said in return. "I just tripped over this snowbank."
But her relatively calm demeanor dissipated when the snowbank behind her growled.
Wait, Sean thought. Snowbanks don't growl.
They certainly didn't move either, but this one was rising up behind Alex. Indeed, it turned out she had tripped over a sleeping polar bear, one that looked very angry about being woken up.
The spies screamed as the bear swung its massive paws at them.
"Run!" Sam shouted. And they were off, with the bear in hot pursuit.
"I thought everything was supposed to be frozen over!" Alex shouted to be heard over the bear's snarling.
"I guess he didn't get the memo!" Sam guessed as they came up a slope.
"Polar bears can withstand temperatures like these!" Sean added. "So it makes sense!"
The bear in question was gaining on them just as Alex tripped again and rolled down the slope... right in the path of their pursuer.
Alex lifted a hand and felt a large, furry presence behind her. She smiled sheepishly as the bear snarled at her again, eliciting another scream from her.
"We've gotta do something!" Sam shouted.
"I'm on it!" Sean replied, pulling out their last gadget: one of the pens that fired Heat Seeking Sleep Darts.
Clicking the pen, the tip fired a flat dart straight at the polar bear and upon making contact with the dart, the bear slumped over and went back to sleep.
Alex quickly scurried away from the bear's sleeping form and rejoined her friends.
"Nothing like the power of the pen," Sean said, with Sam nodding in agreement.
When the episode with the polar bear was resolved, the spies approached the ice fortress ahead of them. At long last, their trek came to an end in front of a massive wall of ice.
"Now we just have to find a way inside," Sam said, gazing up at the seemingly endless monolith before them.
Using their Bungee Belts, they were able to grapple up to a higher level of the structure, before sliding on the icy surface to collide with a wall.
"Can you skate a figure eight?" Sam asked her friends.
"No," Sean said.
"Sure," Alex said at nearly the same time. "Why?"
The answer to that question was given in the form of Sam skating in circles on the ice and Alex joining her very shortly afterward. Since Sean couldn't skate a figure eight, he held Sam's hand as she guided him in the correct motions.
"I sure hope this works," Sean whispered to himself.
"Checkmate," Gelee said for the fifth time in a row. Since taking Clover to his Arctic retreat, he had insisted on doing nothing but playing chess with her. Since she hated chess, she had no idea how to play it. The results were predictable, with her being trounced every single time.
The hideout itself was warmer than outside, with a layout resembling a tropical rainforest. And for some strange reason, it also had two thrones on which Gelee and Clover sat playing their game.
"This is gonna be a long ice age," Clover said miserably.
But her hopes rose when the ceiling caved in a few feet away from the thrones, letting Sam, Sean and Alex fall in.
"Sorry to interrupt your game!" Alex called out.
"That's okay!" Clover reassured with a thumb's up. "I was losing anyway."
"No!" Gelee exclaimed, gesturing at the state of his hideout, more specifically the roof. "No, you've ruined everything! Don't you understand that we'll freeze in here?!"
"Unless you deactivate your freeze ray," Sean countered.
But Gelee was still defiant as he rose from his throne.
"Not my life's work! I won't do it!"
And then, his four henchmen came into the room.
"Get them!" he ordered, clenching his fist.
Sean and Alex sprang into action, each delivering a kick to the torsos of two of them, using the snowboard attachments to their boots to boost the effect. Sam, in the meantime, had managed to bring down another with a well placed kick of her own.
A third came charging in, focusing his attention on Sean, who activated the ice skate function of his boots to perform a leg sweep and chip off some ice that had formed on the floor.
As the man was blinded, Sean delivered another kick to his opponent's leg and sent him flying across the room.
Back at her position on the thrones, Clover threw chess pieces at another one. And then the board. And then the table the board rested on, knocking him unconscious.
"Checkmate, Dr. Gelee," she said with triumph.
With his henchman fallen, Gelee stood before the four teens in shock.
"No!" he said adamantly. "I refuse to give u-"
But he was cut off by a sneeze, allowing Sam to take the opportunity to throw her Lip Balm Laser at him, knocking the remote out of his hand.
"No!" he shouted as he and the other spies dove after the remote.
The five collided with one another before falling over a railing and landing in a pool that Gelee was using for decoration.
Clover's hand shot out of the water, holding the remote.
"Got it!" she announced.
Sam and Sean dragged Gelee away as the disgraced scientist glared at Clover.
"You evil little germ spreader!" he said angrily. "You've given me your cold!"
Clover paid him no mind as she pressed the button that turned off the freeze ray. Sure enough, temperatures were returning to normal all over the world.
"No one can call you an ice queen now, Clover," Alex said with admiration. "You're warming up the entire planet!"
"No!" Gelee sobbed as Clover grabbed him by the collar while Sam called Jerry to pick him up,
"Look on the bright side," Clover reassured him. "You'll have plenty of time to work on your chess game... in prison."
Beverly Hills High School-9:05 AM.
Clover's cold had turned out to be relatively minor as she was well enough to go back to school the next day. And the four teens walked down the school hallways wearing a gift from Kemba on Zanzibar.
"It was sweet of Kemba to send us these shirts," Sam said, referring to the floral print Hawaiian shirts that the four were now wearing.
"He didn't even care when I told him the article was cut," Sean agreed. "He was just happy to have the warm weather back. Actually, I am too."
Alex gripped Clover's arm before pointing to a figure in front of them.
"Look, there's Darrel!" she said. "Maybe he's writing you another poem."
Darrel was standing in front of his locker, but it didn't look like he was writing anything from where Sean was standing.
Still, that didn't stop Clover from going over to him.
"Where are you going?" Sam asked.
Clover stopped.
"To ask Darrel out," she answered.
Her friends were taken aback.
"I thought you said he wasn't cool enough for you," Sean teased.
"Okay, I've had it with the cool and cold and freezing! And I plan to end this 'ice queen' thing here and now."
The other three looked on, impressed.
"Hi, Darrel," Clover greeted as he went up a vending machine.
"Um, hey, Clover," Darrel replied as a cup of coffee came out.
"Listen, Darrel. I'm really sorry about what I said the other day, and I'd love to go out with you sometime!"
"Sorry, Clover," Darrel consoled. "But my schedule's kind of tied up."
As he walked away, Clover stood there, completely dumbstruck.
"Wait!" she called out as she ran off after him. "Darrel! You don't understand! I'm really good at chess now!"
She continued her pursuit, unaware of her friends laughing behind her.
But Alex and Sam went quiet as Sean's laugh turned into a sneeze.
Sean put his hand to his mouth as his nose rapidly became congested and the implications dawned on him.
"Oh, no," he said in a weak voice.
"Uh oh," Alex said. "Looks like Clover gave you her cold."
"We'd better take you to the nurse," Sam suggested as they led him down the hall, while Sean looked in the direction Clover had gone and clenched his fist.
"When I get better," he growled, sounding more congested than Clover was. "You're so gonna get it, Clover!"