Happy belated New Year, everyone! Last chapter was probably my best one yet, so forgive me if this doesn't seem to measure up.
Read and review!
Chapter Thirty-Three
Game Girls
Miami Marina-11:47 AM
Even in December, it was always warm in Miami. Not always sunny, despite its reputation. But it was almost always pleasantly warm. And this particular day happened to be perfect for a water skiing competition.
"And anchoring the Angel Fish team," the announcer's voice echoed through the stands. "Is three time water skiing champion, Sonia Summers!"
The cheers of the crowd intensified as as a beautiful, blonde young woman slid by on a pair of water skis pulled by a sleek white boat, and perched on her shoulders were two other women who in turn supported three more, forming a sort of pyramid.
Through the chaos of the cheering, however, no one noticed a figure in a brown motorcycle outfit, complete with a helmet that obscured their face, pull out an unusual looking camera.
They pressed the button on the side. Only instead of the flash disappearing after a moment, it narrowed into a long beam that enveloped Sonia down below.
As if she knew what was happening, Sonia let out a small scream as she vanished, causing her teammates to lose their footing and collapse into the water.
When they surfaced, they looked for any sign of Sonia. But all they could see was the baffled audience and the boat pulling them slipping further away.
Beverly Hills Mall-10:27 AM
Sean stepped onto the escalator behind Alex, taking a sip of his cherry-blueberry smoothie. After Clover announced there was yet another sale at Beverly Hills Mall, she practically begged her friends to come along with her.
"We were smart to grab smoothies before we started shopping," Alex said as they descended down to the ground floor.
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Remember the last biggest sale of the year?"
Sean chuckled, almost choking on his smoothie in the process.
"How could we forget?" he responded, trying to stifle his laughter. "Clover got so into it that she nearly passed out from dehydration in the dressing room."
Clover, apparently still not over the incident, scowled.
"What I can't understand," she defended. "Is why they hand out bottled water at something as silly as a marathon, but not at the biggest sale of the year."
Sean could only roll his eyes in amusement.
Well, he thought to himself. People in a marathon spend more energy than they do shopping.
The four friends were walking past a TV display on the ground floor when Alex stopped, causing Clover and Sean to bump into her and spill their drinks all over their clothes.
"Alex!" they both complained.
Alex was transfixed on the series of screens behind the window.
"Sorry, guys!" she exclaimed, but sounding apologetic at all. "It's just that Troy is such a hottie, I just can't take my eyes off him."
"Who's Troy?" Sean asked, trying to wipe the blueberries from his smoothie off of his shirt.
In response, Alex gestured to the TV screens. On each of them was a young man with tanned skin, brown hair, and in a dark green camouflage jumpsuit rowing a boat through a swamp surrounded by alligators.
"This week on Troy's Bayou," the TV announcer said.
"Oh," Sean said, understanding. He and the girls just stared while Alex drooled, not caring what her friends thought.
Inside a store, the spies looked through every potential purchase that caught their attention, but Alex's mind appeared to be somewhere else.
"Alex," Clover said, sorting through a selection of shirts. "Every time we turn around, you get a crush on some actor who you think is, like, the greatest guy in the world."
"So, what's wrong with that?" Alex asked, offended.
"Uh, he's just acting," Sean pointed out as he and Sam went behind the curtains of separate changing rooms.
But Alex just ignored them.
"Please! It's, like, so known that Troy is the sweetest, most perfect guy in the whole world!"
"Okay," Sam said, awkwardly peeking out from behind the curtain. "Who says we don't have women in space?"
Sean and Sam came out, with Sam now in a dark pink dress and Sean wearing a green shirt with three black stripes crossing horizontally around it.
"I know you guys are only looking out for me," Alex said, coming over. "But if you could only meet Troy, you'd see how kind and wonderful and gentle he really is!"
"Really?" Sean asked. "Well, have you met him?"
Alex blushed.
"Uh... no, but I have read about him in Teen Dream magazine."
She pulled out a magazine from her purse and held it up to her three friends faces.
"According to this," she rattled off. "Troy rescued three puppies from a burning building, donated his whole salary to a children's hospital, and he spends all his free time volunteering for Project Angel Food."
Alex didn't stop gushing even as Sam snatched the magazine away from her.
"You do realize this also says," she informed her friend, reading. "That a kangaroo and a cat had a baby together, right?"
Alex's eyes widened as she took the magazine back.
"Really?! Where?!"
She flipped frantically through the pages until Sean brought his hand down on it.
"What Sam's trying to say is that everything in that magazine is fake," he tried to explain, but knowing Alex, that would likely prove impossible.
"So, your new crush Troy probably is too," Clover quickly added.
Sean scoffed.
"Oh, way to sugarcoat it, Clover."
Before anyone could bring up the issue further, the mirror in the changing room Sean just came out of began to rattle.
"Huh?" Sam asked, looking over at it.
"What gives?" Clover said, just as the mirror opened up and the resulting wind sucked both them and the changing room curtain down the long dark chute.
After another long ride filled with screaming from the surprised teens, they landed in something soft. Not the familiar fuchsia cushion of Jerry's office but instead a large cart filled with clothes, blankets, towels and other things you would typically put in a washing machine.
"I can't believe we're getting WOOHPed," Clover complained as she and the others stood up. "During the biggest sale of the year!"
Jerry, who was off to the side, picking out a dark jacket from a closet off to their left, didn't seem to notice Clover's frustration.
"Good morning, agents," he greeted. "Looks like you've literally shopped till you dropped, eh?"
"All I can say," Clover said angrily. "Is that you better not have pulled us away to do your laundry Jerry."
"Why would he?" Sean asked. "This laundry room is completely automated."
In Jerry's office, he showed the spies footage of Sonia Summers and another athlete, a snowboarder named Sieff Lebon, disappearing in a flash-literally.
"We have just learned," Jerry explained. "That top athletes from around the world are mysteriously vanishing."
"Do you have any idea how this is happening, Jerry?" Sam asked.
"All we have to go on is footage of this racecar driver in Florida."
On the screen, the beam hit the sleek, silver car zoomed over the racetrack as the blue light from the previous footage engulfed it. But unlike the last two incidents, both the car and the driver didn't disappear, although the car itself lost control momentarily.
"That's the same blue flash we saw surrounding the athletes in the other clips!" Clover pointed out.
"But the driver didn't disappear," Sean said, as Jerry stepped behind his desk.
"It's your mission, spies," Jerry informed. "To go to Florida, protect the driver, and find out what's making these athletes vanish into thin air. Any questions?"
"Just one," Clover said, raising her hand, gesturing to the outfit of the driver on the screen. "Do those silver jumpsuits come in a size six?"
Jerry just ignored her.
"The gadgets you'll be using on this mission include," he explained. "Include an Electromagnetic Sensitive Video Camera, Sapphire Hologram Pendants."
He demonstrated that one, pressing a button on the side that made two holograms of him appear on either side of him.
The spies just gasped as Jerry turned the pendant off before continuing.
"Microscopic Retracting Goggles for clues that are invisible to the naked eye, and the latest in Virtual Reality Disguise Belts."
He tossed one to Alex, who put it on.
Pressing a button on the buckle, Alex and her teammates found that her whole form disappeared in a flash of light. When the light died down, she was wearing a different outfit altogether: a tank top with the number 10 printed on the front, athletic shorts and sneakers.
"This is so cool," she said in admiration. "You can go straight from the gym..."
She pressed another button, this time changing her into a dress more suited for the school hallway.
"...to school..."
Then again, this time in a formal dress.
"...to the prom with a push of a button!"
Jerry cleared his throat, indicating that it was almost time for them to get underway.
"Now," he said. "For your transportation to Florida, we're giving you K.I.R.T.T."
"Kurt?" Clover asked, excited. "Is he a chauffeur? I hope he's cute and likes to shop."
"K.I.R.T.T," Jerry corrected explained. "Stands for Klunky Incognito Radical Thought Transporter. I named him- er, it myself."
"So, what does it look like?" Sean asked. Jerry answered by pressing a button on the underside of his desk.
Out from a hatch in the floor behind them rose a brown, unremarkable, and in everyone's opinion, extremely unattractive station wagon.
From Sean's perspective, it looked like the station wagon his grandfather used to drive until it finally died on him. By all appearances, it had a slim chance of even getting to Arizona let alone Florida.
"You've got to be kidding," he said in disbelief.
"Not to worry," Jerry reassured. "K.I.R.T.T is in incognito mode, by simple voice command.
The spies stepped into the station wagon, with Sean and Sam taking the back seat while Clover hopped into the driver's seat. That left Alex with the front passenger seat.
Sean leaned back in his seat... and then noticed how close to Sam he was.
Okay, he thought. Maybe this ride won't be so bad after all.
"Well," Jerry said. "You four better get on your way."
At that moment, the spies seatbelts automatically strapped them in, a door opened up in the wall in front of them, and a large launching device, not unlike the kind found in pinball machines, lowered from the ceiling behind the car.
Pulling back and then releasing, the device sprung the car forward, leaving behind only a waving Jerry.
"Good luck, spies," he said. "Or as they say in Japan, Ko Uro Inoru."
Outside the building, K.I.R.T.T had gained enough speed for the spies to start their journey to Florida.
Florida Circuit-2:15 PM
As she drove the station wagon alongside the pits of NASCAR's Florida racetrack, Clover still grumbled about their... less than stylish ride.
"How embarrassing!" she groaned, her hands gripping the wheel so hard she almost broke it. "We need to lose this clunker and get something a little more sporty!"
As if it understood her, outside the car underwent a drastic transformation.
The color went from brown to green, with white stripes crossing vertically on the top. But the most obvious change was that of the shape of the car, having gone from a shabby station wagon to a sleek, up to date sports car.
Not only did look better, but it could reach higher speeds as well.
Sean looked out the back of the car, impressed with how fast they were going.
"I don't know about you girls," he said. "But I'm really starting to like K.I.R.T.T."
After they pulled up to the pit where the driver, Dale Parks he was called according to the file Jerry had sent them, and walking out, Alex was complaining into her Compowder.
"Who are you calling a groupie?!" she yelled. "Listen, Miss Whoever-You-Are!"
But all she got was the tone that signaled the call had been disconnected.
"How rude!" she scoffed. "The studio just turned me down for tickets to the taping of Troy's show!"
"Okay, shh!" Clover urged, zipping over. "Remember, we're journalists. So, act professional."
They walked up behind Dale, who was working on his engine. Sam took the opportunity to speak up.
"Mr. Parks?"
Dale turned around at the sound of her voice.
"We're journalists from Teen Racer magazine."
Clover, who apparently didn't listen to her own advice about acting professional, zipped over to Dale and winked suggestively.
"Would you be a dear and tell us what you remember from the incident the other day?" she asked.
"Sure," Dale replied in a slight Southern accent. "I really don't remember much... except of course for the flash of light that made me lose control of the car. Almost hit that photographer."
"What photographer?" Sean asked.
Dale shrugged. "He came and left on a motorcycle. That's all I know. If y'all will excuse me, I got a publicity photoshoot in about five minutes."
And he walked away from the car, the fake interview now over.
"Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Sam asked her friends.
"That Dale's accent totally reminds me of Troy?" Alex asked, drawing irritation from the other three.
"Alex," Sean scolded gently. "Please. Now's not the time."
"I'm thinking," Sam continued as if Alex didn't say anything. "That the photographer Dale mentioned might have something to do with this."
Sean nodded, agreeing.
"I think you're right," he said, putting on the Microscopic Retracting Goggles. "We should check the track for clues."
When they reached the racetrack, Sean and the girls looked it over as thoroughly as one might look at a painting. But there was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Well," Sean spoke up as his goggles scanned the area. "If that photographer had anything to do with this, he sure didn't leave any clues."
"Great," Alex said as Sean took the goggles off. "Now what do we do?"
"Let's stick close to Dale during the photoshoot," Sam replied. "And keep an eye out for that photographer on the motorcycle."
"I'll tell you what," Clover said, running a hand through her hair. "I'll stick close to Dale," she indicated herself then pointed to her three friends. "While you keep an eye out for the motorcycle guy."
Sean, Sam, and Alex found themselves frowning in exasperation.
At the photoshoot, Clover was among the many photographers flashing their cameras around Dale, who in turned flashed numerous poses for them.
"I've always wanted to be a paparazzi!" Clover said excitedly to Sean and Sam, who ignored her and just kept looking and listening for any sign of that photographer.
The sound of a motorcycle told them that their wait was at an end.
"Sam, Sean, look!" Alex shouted from behind them.
Sean and Sam turned back to see a red motorcycle zooming toward them. The driver took something out of their pocket and threw it at the cluster of people ahead of them.
The spies couldn't quite figure out the point until the cloud of smoke rose up from the device.
The smoke filled the air quickly, leaving everyone present choking on it.
"The smoke bomb's a diversion!" Sean coughed, struggling to be heard. "Clover, watch Dale!"
Clover nodded and took out her camera, refocusing her attention on the racecar driver before her.
"Dale's right here," she affirmed. But that was when the figure on the motorcycle shot a camera of their own, letting a blue flash of light engulf Dale, who started to look like a chalk drawing on the verge of being erased.
"Hey!" Clover tapped her camera. "There's something wrong with this camera. It's making Dale look all faded!"
"Uh, Clover?" Sean said, nervously. "It's not your camera. I'm seeing it too!"
Dale struggled over to the spies, coming to kneel between Alex and Sean, who propped him up by his underarms.
"Dale's disappearing!" Alex exclaimed. And he did, but he was not the only one. As soon as Dale was gone, the flash that engulfed him now spread around Sean and Alex. By just touching him when the light hit him, they realized, they were experiencing the same affect as him.
"So are we!" Sean shouted as he began to fade away himself.
"Clover, Sam!" Alex cried. "Help!"
But there was nothing either of them could do. In a literal flash, Alex and Sean had vanished completely.
Once the initial shock of losing their friends wore off, Sam and Clover turned to the motorcycle driver, who was now revving their engine, clearly about to drive off.
And they did, almost hitting the girls in the process.
"Watch out!" Sam shouted, shoving Clover out of the way.
The motorcycle sped off the racetrack as the two glared after it.
"Talk about major road rage!" Clover complained. "Who is that guy? And what did he do to Alex and Sean?"
"That's what we're gonna find out," Sam replied, gritting her teeth.
They jumped back into K.I.R.T.T, and took off.
Speeding along the roads outside of the racetrack, Clover was careful not to let the motorcycle out of her sight, driving through intersections, under overpasses, and even running the occasional red light. Normally, Clover was a much more careful driver than Alex was, but this was an emergency.
At one point, they were ahead of the motorcyclist, but that didn't last long as whoever they were, they turned off into an alley... a relatively narrow one at that.
Because Sam and Clover were so occupied with driving, they didn't see the motorcyclist take out their camera and aim it at a brick wall between two buildings. Once they flash of light dimmed, the wall began to look as faded as Sean and Alex had been before they were abducted. But to the girls, it still looked pretty solid.
They screamed as their car drew closer to it. But rather than a loud impact and a sudden fiery explosion, both the car and the girls passed through the wall unharmed, as if they had just driven through a cloud.
"Alright!" Clover said. "This is getting weirder by the second! We just drove right through a brick wall!"
Then she turned to her left to see the red motorcycle and its as of yet unknown driver in the lane over.
"Okay, pal!" she barked. "Pull it over!"
But the motorcyclist just ignored her and went faster, further disappearing into the crowd of traffic on a bridge that the girls found themselves crossing over.
Clover zipped through the busy streets, dodging car after car until she once again caught up with the motorcyclist.
They were neck and neck briefly, with Clover even coming close to pushing them off the road and into the water below. But the motorcyclist just took out their camera again and aimed it at a stretch of bridge in front of them.
The resulting flash, as it did with the wall and so many people including Sean and Alex, made the road disappear, allowing the more nimble motorcycle to jump over the gap.
And to Sam and Clover, it looked very much like a dead end that they couldn't just go through like with the wall.
"I think it's time for last requests!" Sam said fearfully.
"A jet rocket pack would be nice!" Clover added, just as scared as her friend.
And K.I.R.T.T apparently understood her request, as outside behind the car, the truck lid flipped over to reveal three powerful jet engines.
Smiling in astonishment, Clover floored the gas pedal, and thanks to the jet afterburners, they were able to soar over the gap to continue the chase.
They were briefly terrified when it looked like their car might fall of the bridge but it only lasted a second before they landed safely onto the pavement and the jet engines fell off. Once again, the car was at normal speed. Well, as normal as it could be when you were chasing someone who made your friends disappear into thin air.
"Good job, Clover!" Sam congratulated, giving the blonde a thumbs up.
By now, the chase had led them to a skate park, startling nearly every child there. Seizing the opportunity, the motorcyclist drove up a ramp and soared into the air, where they both disappeared completely. Just like Alex and Sean.
Panicking, Clover applied the brakes quickly to avoid hitting a twelve-year old boy with a skateboard.
She rolled down the window to look at where the motorcycle had disappeared.
"He's getting away!" she said bitterly. "K.I.R.T.T, turn into a jet helicopter!"
But the screen on the dashboard just kept flashing the word "Error!" over and over, accompanied by an electronic buzzer.
"Only wheeled vehicles, remember, Clover?" Sam reminded.
"What?!" Clover shrieked. "That is so lame. I'm telling Jerry K.I.R.T.T needs a serious makeover!"
Sam shook her head.
"We've got bigger issues, like finding out what happened to Sean, Alex, and Dale."
That was when Sam's Compowder rang.
"Hello?" she said, answering it.
On the screen was one of three faces they didn't expect to see so soon after being kidnapped.
"Help!" Alex screamed. She looked like she was in the driver seat of some sort of car, albeit a car that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi movie.
"Alex?" the two asked as the screen split in half, showing Sean in a similar situation.
"Sam, Clover!" he explained. "You don't know how happy we are you answered. We're on some kind of racetrack at the creepiest looking desert I've ever seen!"
In the desert itself, three cars raced along, a red one driven by Dale, a green one operated by Sean, and a pink one that Alex was trapped in.
Outside the cars, the sand beneath them shifted as a giant blue worm burst out of the ground. The resulting shockwaves shook Sean and Alex's cars, causing them each to drop their communication devices underneath the driver's seat.
"My Compowder!" Alex exclaimed.
In his own car, Sean began to panic. He knew he didn't have time to search for his misplaced wallet phone, but he still wanted to because it was his best link to Sam and Clover.
However, the two knew that their missing devices mattered less than the giant worms now popping up around them.
The cars were knocked off balance by the worms and then... well, Sean couldn't really explain it, but he, Alex, and Dale were back at the starting line of the same racetrack, the light flashing green above them, giving them the signal to go.
"You have two lives left," a cool, feminine electronic voice said.
"Lives?" he asked himself. "Like a video game life?"
But he didn't have time to think on it further because the cars were off again.
"Help!" he and Alex shouted into their misplaced communication devices.
"Alex?" Clover asked worriedly. "Sean? Come in, guys!"
"It's no use," Sam said, hanging up. "Quick! Let's check out the footage from the camera for clues!"
Clover brought out the camera and replayed the footage.
"Look!" Sam said, gesturing to a readout of waves on the right side of the screen. "The camera picked up electromagnetic rays coming from that device! Of course! That would explain why Dale didn't disappear the first time: the silver jumpsuit must have deflected those rays!"
"I knew there was a reason I liked that jumpsuit," Clover said.
Sam took her Compowder back out.
"I think we'd better call Jerry and tell him what we found out."
Jerry's face appeared on the screen sooner than Sam had anticipated.
"Hello, spies," he greeted. "How's the mission coming along?"
"Not great, Jer," Clover admitted. "Sean, Alex, and Dale have been kidnapped."
"Kidnapped?" Jerry asked in shock. "Oh, my! How can I help?"
"Clover's camera picked up some kind of electromagnetic ray," Sam explained. "That apparently downloaded Sean, Alex, and Dale into an electronic device."
On his end, Jerry began to type as quickly as he could.
"A machine that can download people?" he asked as he typed in his query. "Let's see I do vaguely remember hearing something a few years back about a woman game designer who claimed she had designed such a device."
On the screen of Sam's Compowder the image of an Asian woman with her hair tied up in an elaborate bun popped up.
"Yes, here it is," he continued. "A Carla Wong, better known as the Lady Dragon."
A full view of her body showed her wearing a purple backless dress, which exposed the tattoo of a dragon on the right side of her back, apparently explaining the nickname.
"Finally," Clover said. "An evil villain who isn't bitter about being dissed or something."
"It says here," Jerry informed as he read from his screen. "That the Lady Dragon left the video game industry several years ago because they refused to make some of her more... eccentric games."
"Figures," Clover spat, retracting her last statement. "So, how do we find this Lady Dragon?"
"Both Alex's Compowder and Sean's wallet phone each have an indestructible homing device," Jerry explained. "You can use those to track them."
"We're on it, Jerry!" Sam said, signing off.
Tokyo Beach-3:00 PM
The hustle and bustle of this Japanese seaside resort beach all came to a halt when what could only be described as a wheeled submarine broke the surface and climbed onto the shore, scaring hundreds of curious tourists either back to their hotel rooms or elsewhere within Tokyo.
Inside the sub were the solitary figures of Sam and Clover, the former of whom looked at a screen on the dashboard, zeroing in on a signal that the two knew came from either Sean or Alex.
"The signal's leading right to that hotel over there," Sam said, pointing ahead. "Let's go!"
"I hope they have nice bathrooms!" Clover said, crossing her legs in discomfort. "That's another improvement to be added to K.I.R.T.T's makeover list!"
To avoid attracting attention, the spies returned K.I.R.T.T to its previous disguised form as a sports car and Sam floored the gas pedal, heading straight for the hotel in question.
As the two pulled up to the large glass building, they stepped out of the car and into the door, which laid under an enormous sign that read "Video Trade Center." Apparently this hotel was hosting a video game convention, which would explain why a game designer would be here.
"Video game trade show?" Sam said in wonder and awe.
"I think what they mean is 'Geek Land'," Clover added in slight disgust.
"I believe the proper term," Sam said as they stepped onto an elevator. "Is 'computer enthusiasts'."
She opened her Compowder, this time tracking a signal positively identified as Sean's.
"Come on, the signal leads upstairs."
Clover pressed the button for the appropriate floor, as she looked over at Sam's screen... and saw the name it was tracking.
Should I tell her? she thought, remembering her conversation with Sean at the mall a little over a week ago. In all the times she spent alone with Sam, it was tempting, she admitted. Plus, I can only imagine what a cute couple they'd make!
But she also thought of the sincerity in Sean's voice when he pleaded with her to keep it a secret. And Clover did treat many things trivially, but she knew how to keep a promise... and a secret.
So, no matter how much she wanted to see two of her best friends together, she would hold her tongue until Sean found the right time to tell her himself.
But first things first, they had to rescue him and Alex from the clutches of an evil video game designer.
Now there's something I never thought I'd say, she thought.
After the long elevator ride upstairs, (and a quick bathroom break for Clover) the two stopped in front of a door on the top floor.
"The signal leads to that room," Sam said, pointing at the door.
Against their expectations, it turned out to be unlocked. As they snuck inside, Sam and Clover looked around the room for any sign of the signal's source. No luck, since there didn't seem to be anything electronic in the room. But they did find something familiar splayed across the back of the couch.
"That looks like the motorcycle guy's outfit from the racetrack!" Sam exclaimed.
Before they could discuss it further, a voice from behind them cleared it's throat.
"Can I help you ladies?" the voice said. It was a woman's voice, very stern and equally intimidating.
The girls turned to see the same woman from Jerry's search standing in the doorway.
Carla Wong, or the Lady Dragon as she preferred had her hands on her hips and her face was fixed with a scowl so deep, Sam thought for a minute that it might be permanent.
"Uh..." Sam stumbled to search for a response. "Miss...uh,... Lady Dragon! We love your games! We're, like, your biggest fans!"
"We are?" Clover asked, confused. But she got an elbow in her side for almost blowing their cover.
"So," Sam continued as if nothing had happened. "How come you stopped making games?"
Lady Dragon drew closer to them.
"Because of certain short-sighted fools who couldn't grasp my revolutionary vision," she answered, her voice dripping with venom. "But now that I am back with a new line of games, those who opposed me will see the error of their ways. In fact, if you will wait here, I will give you a demonstration."
She turned to leave, leaving behind Sam and Clover, who didn't really know what to think of her except that she had their friends.
As soon as the door closed, Sam walked over to a dresser, where a bright and colorful post captured her attention.
The poster itself was only as big as a sheet of paper, but she could still see the the brightly colored cars racing across a desert... each of them pursued by gigantic worms.
She rolled up the poster and took off out another doorway that served as an emergency exit along with Clover.
Just seconds after they left, Lady Dragon returned accompanied by two guards in suits.
"I don't know how," she said, looking around the empty room. "But those girls followed me from the racetrack. Tell everyone to keep their eyes out for them. I've come too far to have anyone interrupt my plans!"
For emphasis, she repeatedly slammed another version of the device used to capture the athletes and Alex and Sean against her palm. A version of the device attached to a gun instead of a camera, so it could be fired with one hand instead of two.
"Sam," Clover said atop the staircase of the emergency exit. "What are you doing? This isn't time to be playing video junkie!"
"Clover!" Sam whispered harshly. "Look at the poster for the Lady Dragon's new game!"
She held it up for her friend to see. And it didn't take too long for Clover to draw the same connection as Sam did.
"That looks just like the desert Sean described!" she said. And at the top of the poster was announcement for an investor meeting in about an hour.
"Come on!" Sam insisted. "We've gotta get inside this investor meeting!"
But Sam's plan was not going to be as simple as she thought, for the very reason that they looked too young to be investors. As the guards in front had told them.
Besides, there was one other problem.
"Sorry," one of the guards said. "Invitation only."
"Hey pal!" Clover said indignantly. "You're looking at major investor material right here!"
That was when the other guard whispered to his colleague.
"Hey," he said. "Don't these two look like the girls Lady Dragon told us to look out for?"
Even though it was a whisper, it was loud enough for the girls to hear. And loud enough for them to begin to think of an escape plan.
"Get them!" the other one shouted.
They reacted so fast that thinking wasn't an option at the moment.
The guards chased the girls through the hallway, only losing them as they rounded a corner.
When they finally caught up, the guards could see that the girls were nowhere in sight.
In their place were two male security guards of a much wider build, but oddly enough with similar hairstyles as the girls.
"Huh?' one asked. "Where'd they go?"
They looked back, not seeing the girls' disguises as security guards flicker out for a brief moment before switching back.
Then they walked away, leaving behind a still disguised Clover and Sam, who looked sighed in relief and awe at the gadget they employed.
"These Virtual Reality Belts," Clover said, her voice still that of a teenage girl's. "Are totally awesome! How do I look?"
She turned to Sam.
"Do the words 'hair restoration' mean anything to you?" Sam responded, referring to a lock of Clover's hair going limp all of a sudden.
Inside the room where the investor's meeting was taking place, Lady Dragon stood in front of a massive screen before turning her direction to the small group of people who either sat in comfortable chairs or stood elsewhere in the room.
"My new technique for enhancing realistic gameplay," she began. "Is so incredible you'll feel like you're playing against real people."
The screen turned on, and everyone present was so fascinated that they didn't even see the doors open. Or Sam and Clover come in.
As the game loaded, Lady Dragon offered one of the investors a controller.
When the game's start screen came on, he pressed the button to begin the game.
The objective seemed simple enough: just drive a car through a hostile desert while trying to avoid worms big enough to swallow the car whole.
And only three people in the room knew this for a fact, but the game secretly contained several downloaded athletes as well as two downloaded spies, one of which Sam and Clover could hear very clearly over the roar of the engines in the game.
"Help!" Sean's voice called out over the speakers, but the investors either didn't notice or didn't care and just continued to play the game. Another scream accompanied his, this one recognized as Dale's.
"Clover, do you hear that?" Sam asked.
"Sean and Dale are in the game!" Clover exclaimed.
After only a few minutes of gameplay display, Lady Dragon turned to one of her aides.
"Clear the room," she ordered. "We've given them enough of a taste to whet their appetites. Besides, we must hurry to the warehouse to download the new athletes and prepare for mass production."
After the room was emptied, Sam whispered into her friend's ear.
"Did you hear that? We've gotta tell Jerry about the Lady Dragon downloading more athletes!"
"But what about Alex, Sean, and Dale?" Clover asked.
"You two!" Lady Dragon barked, startling the disguised spies. "Guard the room and make sure no one gets near the game."
She stormed out of the room, leaving the two alone.
"Quick," Clover insisted, as they rushed over to the screen. "We've gotta get them out."
"Maybe I can crash the system," Sam suggested, turning the screen and gaming console on.
Apparently, this was the type of game that was actually a collection multiple games on one disc, as Sam found out when she pulled up a game entitled "Hockey Smash".
At the character selection screen, Clover, who had taken the game controller, scrolled through each character until she picked one she recognized.
"It's Alex," Sam said as Clover started the game.
Inside the game itself, Alex found herself in a huge hockey rink surrounded by five other players-three of whom appeared to be robots-and one referee.
Luckily for her Alex, thought, one of the players reminded her a little of Troy.
"Stay behind me!" he shouted back to her.
"Any time!" she said excitedly.
But she began to have second thoughts when the referee dropped the puck.
Looking above, she could make out the disguised face of Clover staring at her through the screen, but barely had time to register as she moved involuntarily thanks to her friend moving the joystick.
"Clover!" she shouted. "What are you doing?!"
By this point, Alex was now skating through the rink too fast and out of control, unable to hold her hockey stick in an appropriate manner.
At one point, she fell over, losing the stick in the process, and Clover just kept making her leap all over the rink.
"Clover!" Sam complained. "You have the joystick upside down!"
"As if that matters!" Clover retorted as their disguises began to glitch out again.
Seconds later, they faded out completely.
"Uh, Sam? Bad news. These power packs are losing juice fast!"
Sam gasped.
And as if to prove things could indeed get worse, Lady Dragon's voice rang out from behind them.
"Well," she said. "If it isn't my two biggest fans."
The girls turned around, and indeed the game designer was there, accompanied by two of her guards.
"We know you've been kidnapping athletes," Sam said, pointing at her. "And downloading them into your games, Lady Dragon! We're here to put an end to it!"
"Unfortunately for you," Lady Dragon countered. "There is no stopping me! Once I put my games into mass production, all the athletes will be multiplied a thousand times over, trapping them permanently!"
She pointed to the two girls.
"Get them!" she ordered her guards.
The guards sprinted at the two spies as Sam rubbed her fingers over the last gadget she had.
"These Sapphire Hologram Pendants better work!" she exclaimed, pressing a button on the side.
Sam's hopes proved to be true when three holograms of her appeared in front of them, with three holograms of Clover following suit.
The two guards were confused, not knowing which girl to attack.
"I think it's time we bailed, Sam!" Clover said.
The two teens sprang for the door, leaving their bewildered attackers behind as they frantically jumped at holograms that just disappeared as soon as they touched them.
"Don't just stand there!" Lady Dragon shouted as they ran out the door. "Bring them back!"
Not bothering to hop into K.I.R.T.T, Clover and Sam hopped over all over the cars outside the hotel, apparently stuck in a massive traffic jam.
Thinking fast, they hopped into a nearby bus just as the guards were catching up to them.
Looking out the back, they smiled in triumph, waving tauntingly, confident that they had lost them.
Sadly, their trip didn't last more than fifteen seconds as the bus pulled over and the driver threw them out onto the pavement.
"No ticket, no ride!" he said angrily as he drove off.
"Stop them!" a guard exclaimed, prompting them to continue running.
"Clover," Sam said between breaths. "We've got to find the Lady Dragon's warehouse and stop her from downloading more athletes!"
"Quick!' Clover said, agreeing. "Let's duck into this alley and call Jerry!"
Running straight into the alley, the girls crouched behind a large box as Sam took out her Compowder.
"Jerry,' she said once he answered. "We need the location of the Lady Dragon's warehouse, fast!"
"I wish I could help you girls," Jerry said apologetically. "But I've got nothing. Have you tried the wharf?"
"The wharf! Of course!" Clover exclaimed, facepalming. "That's where the warehouses always are! Why didn't we think of that?! Thanks, Jer!"
Before Sam could hang up, a familiar flash of blue light engulfed them. And judging by the way they were starting to look faded, they new what it was.
"Girls," Jerry said in concern. "I think I'm losing you."
But the girls didn't pay attention to him, instead looking up at the building above them were the beam was coming from. The Lady Dragon herself was perched on the building's fire escape, holding the gun her downloading device was attached to.
"I don't know who you girls are," she said. "But you've interrupted my plans for the last time."
Sam and Clover could only stand still in horror as the effects of the device were completed.
"We're disappearing!" Sam cried fearfully.
And two seconds later, they did just that.
Lady Dragon pulled out a cartridge from her device, smiling at it in victory.
Back at the hotel, she walked into the room where her game was being tested and after some editing to get the girls into the game, she turned it on.
Going to the water skiing section of the game, she made sure Sam and Clover were on the same team. Seconds later, in the game itself they appeared perched on the shoulders of two other girls. Confident, she knew there was nothing left to do but let the game run.
Once she left room, back inside the game, Clover looked down to see that one of the girls she was standing on was...
"Alex!" she exclaimed happily. "I didn't know you could water ski!'
"No time for a reunion girls!" Alex said seriously. "Look!"
Up ahead was another water skiing team, this one composed entirely of robots. Robots that could fire lasers from their batons, apparently.
"What kind of sick, demented woman is this Lady Dragon?!" Clover asked, barely dodging the lasers from her position on Alex's shoulder.
Sam looked below them and her face contorted with fear.
"If you want the answer that question, look down!" she exclaimed.
Right beside them was a single sleek, black fin. A fin that could only have belonged to a shark.
Sam knew what happened in a video game when you lost a life, but she didn't want to know what happened here.
"We're about to become shark bait!" Clover whimpered.
"Hold on, girls!" Sonia Summers said from below their left. And with that, they accelerated, swerving around the opposing team, and barely avoiding falling into the shark-infested waters.
Alex looked behind them to see the opposing team following them along with a second one.
"They're coming back!" she warned. "And they brought friends!"
Sam grit her teeth, desperately thinking for a solution. Then she remembered.
"Quick, Alex!" she said. "Turn your outfit into a silver jumpsuit!"
"Huh?" Alex asked, confused.
"Just do it! And hurry!"
Taking her friend's word for it, Alex pressed a button on her Virtual Reality Disguise Belt. And in an instant, her blue swimsuit was turned into a jumpsuit and it's color turned to silver.
"It's working!" Alex said as the screen that made up their prison began to turn to static.
Moments later, the spies as well as Sonia and another water skier who had been abducted landed on the floor of the testing room.
"Sam," Clover said, impressed. "You're a genius!"
"Ah, it's simple, really," Sam said modestly. "Just like with Dale's silver jumpsuit, electromagnetic fields can't work against a surface of deflection."
The other two girls simply looked at her, confused.
"Uh, yeah, right," Alex said, not getting it. "Real simple."
Then Clover looked around.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Where's Sean?"
Sam looked to the girls and to the gaming console then back again.
"He must be in another game," she deduced. "We have to find him and get to that warehouse!"
Turning on the console, Sam searched each game until she found a soccer one that featured selectable characters. She quickly found Sean and picked him out for a one on one option for the game.
Sean appeared on the screen. He was on a soccer field opposite a robot similar to the ones in the hockey and water skiing games. But this was no ordinary soccer field, as both Sam and Sean knew. For it was situated above an active volcano.
"And I thought I had it bad," Alex said in equal parts awe and horror.
Maneuvering Sean carefully, and using him to kick the ball into the opposite goal as quickly as possible, Sam spoke very loudly and carefully.
"Sean?" she asked. "Can you hear me?"
Sean looked toward the direction her voice came from.
"Sam?" he asked, answering her question with his own. "Yes, I can!"
The girls smiled in relief.
"Don't sound so happy to see me!" he said frantically. "I think if the other guy scores a goal, you fall into the lava!"
"Sean," Sam explained. "I know how you can get out of there. Do you still have your Virtual Reality Disguise Belt?"
"What? Yes, I do! Why?"
"Okay, listen very carefully: you have to turn your outfit into a silver jumpsuit."
Sean looked confused as he barely blocked the ball that time.
"But what good will that do?"
"Just trust me!" Sam said insistently.
Left with little other choice, Sean reached down to his belt buckle and pressed a button on it. His red soccer uniform disappeared and its place was a silver version of his spy uniform.
The ball hit the goal behind him, but before he could fall into the volcano, the screen around him turned to static and on the other side, blue waves were coming from behind it.
Eventually, Sean came out of the screen no worse for wear.
Sam rushed over to him, hugging him.
"Thank God you're alright," she said with relief.
"It's all thanks to you," Sean said, returning the gesture, and glad she couldn't see the redness on his face.
As soon as they let go of each other, his blush disappeared.
"Not that I'm not happy to get out of there," he quickly added. "But don't we have a crazy video game mogul to stop?"
Sam nodded in determination.
"You're right," she agreed. "Let's head to the Lady Dragon's warehouse!"
And with that, the four spies, now together again, ran out the door.
"Wait!" Clover objected. "I forgot to give Dale my phone number!"
Though grateful for being rescued, Sean still wasn't in the mood for Clover's lack of priorities.
"Clover!" he said, grabbing her wrist. "We're going!"
And he dragged her in the direction of Sam and Alex.
Lady Dragon's Warehouse-5:34 PM
The confused NBA players gathered in the large, and as they discovered, empty stadium. They had been invited to compete in a tournament, and although initially skeptical about the location, they had agreed to participate.
But the lack of fans in the stands had caught them completely off guard.
"This is the strangest basketball tournament I've ever seen," one said.
"Yeah," another agreed. "Where are all the fans?"
"I'm afraid you won't be hearing the sounds of screaming fans anymore," a voice said from above them.
In an elevated corner of the stands stood the Lady Dragon behind a series of controls and wires.
"Lady Dragon?!" one exclaimed in confusion. "I thought told you months ago I didn't want to have anything to do with endorsing your whacked out game!"
The others murmured in agreement.
"Silence!" she shouted. "This time, I'm not asking!"
She pressed a button on the large console before her, activating larger scale versions of her downloading devices.
They each fired their blue beams at the athletes, who began to disappear.
All hope seemed lost for them... until a monster truck crashed through a nearby wall into the arena.
"What the-" the Lady Dragon exclaimed as the truck drove onto the court.
Inside were four smiling teenagers.
"How did we ever survive without K.I.R.T.T?!" Clover asked.
Sean smiled in agreement before looking out the window to his right.
"We're too late!" Alex exclaimed, seeing the same thing he saw. "The athletes are already being downloaded!"
"We've gotta get them out of there!" Sean said, opening his door.
The spies hopped out.
"I'll go in after them," Alex volunteered. And she ran off into the devices' line of fire.
"Hey!" she called out. "Lady Dragon! You want a piece of me?! Come and get me!"
Lady Dragon just scowled in surprise.
"I don't know how you got out of the game," she growled, picking up the handheld version of her device. "But I can just as easily put you back in for good!"
She fired the device at Alex, who was once again engulfed by blue light.
But even though she was about to be sucked back into the game, Alex just smiled at her friends.
"I'll see you guys in a flash," she reassured, and she was gone.
"We've gotta destroy the downloading machines permanently!" Sam said as three guards began charging at them.
"Look out guys!" Clover exclaimed as the three turned on the Sapphire Hologram Pendants Jerry had given them, creating duplicates of themselves.
Just like in the hotel, the guards were so confused that they couldn't tell which teen was real and which ones were the holograms.
In all the confusion, the three spies who were still free jumped up into the stands.
"Better luck next time, boys!" Clover taunted.
Once they were high up enough, Sean looked at the machines, thinking.
"I think I have an idea," he said. "If we can point those rays at each other, the might download themselves!"
"Good idea!" Sam agreed. "I'll take care of that!"
"Get to it, Sam!" Clover said. "I'll keep the Lizard Lady busy!"
"I think I'll help you," Sean offered. "After all, she and I have a score to settle."
Clover nodded with approval and the two jumped off in the direction of where the Lady Dragon was hiding.
With the aid of the Sapphire Hologram Pendants, she would have a hard time figuring out which spy was real.
Meanwhile, Sam struggled to move the downloading ray as the Lady Dragon pulled out her own downloading gun.
"It appears you kids have spunk!" she said, taking aim at the two spies running toward her. "I hate spunk!"
She fired three downloading rays but luckily, Clover and Sean dodged them and instead two holograms were hit by them instead.
"Sam, you might want to hurry!" Sean said. "We can't keep her distracted for long!"
Sam continued her seemingly fruitless efforts to shift the direction of the devices.
"These things must weigh a ton!" she complained.
Down in the court, with a burst of blue waves, Alex and the athletes appeared in the middle unharmed.
The Lady Dragon took notice of this.
"So, you want to play, do you?" she said with barely contained fury. "I'll just make a few adjustments that will automatically send the athletes into mass production!"
The rays from the stands fired, hitting Alex and the athletes again.
"Hey, guys!" Alex shouted from down below. "I think this one's permanent!"
Back up in the stands, Sean and Clover looked back at Sam.
"Sam!" Clover said. "Alex is about to become a split personality unless we do something fast!"
In response, Sam hopped up on top of the device and took out her Compowder, carefully placing the screen's reflective surface against the beam.
"This better work," she mumbled.
The beam hit the screen, bouncing it off to the left... hitting the Lady Dragon's controls. She jumped out of the way just in time and her equipment went up in a shower of sparks.
"That was close," Sam sighed, relieved.
Alex and the athletes, who reappeared very shortly afterward, looked inclined to agree.
"Way to go, Sam!" Sean congratulated his crush.
Back on the court, Lady Dragon had mounted her motorcycle and by the sound of the engine revving, she was prepared to escape.
"She's getting away!" Alex shouted.
Sam and Sean looked down and saw the motorcycle heading straight for the hole in the wall.
"I don't think so," Sean said as he and Sam gave chase from above.
They leapt down in the path of the motorcycle and Sam leapt upward, kicking her downloading gun out of her hand while Sean delivered a kick to her neck, knocking her off the motorcycle.
Once she recovered from the fall, Lady Dragon scrambled for her gun, but a red clad foot kicked it out of her reach.
Terrified, she looked up to see the four spies glaring down at her.
She still had the camera version of her device, as it turned out and she whipped it out, taking aim at them.
"Oh, no!" Sean groaned. "Not again!"
Luckily, none of them would be stuck in the game again, the same blue flash that downloaded so many people very fittingly engulfed the Lady Dragon, who disappeared before she could even press a single button on her camera.
The spies looked ahead to see Jerry holding the same gun that she had dropped.
He deposited the cartridge that held her and looked at the spies with pride.
"Huh," Sean said walking over along with the girls. "Well, let's see how she likes being stuck in a video game!"
"Have fun!" Alex called out cheerfully, although the person she was talking to couldn't hear her. "And remember: it's only a game!"
"Well done, spies!" Jerry congratulated.
In the game itself, the Lady Dragon was stuck on the same water skiing course the girls were on. And like them, she was surrounded by sharks.
"No!" she wailed in frustration. "Not me!"
Her screams were in vain as a shark jumped up out of the water in front of her.
Hollywood Studio-8:45 PM
Outside the little known, but still successful studio, a limo pulled up letting out four men.
Well, truth be told, only one of them was actually male.
After rescuing the kidnapped athletes, Jerry had offered to let the spies to use K.I.R.T.T however they wished as a reward. And since Alex was insistent on attending a taping of Troy's Bayou, they accepted, if only to try to get her over her celebrity crush.
Sean, who didn't really need one and could just pretend he was with them, stepped out first.
As a studio guard opened the door, the disguised girls and undisguised boy walked into the studio completely unnoticed.
"You have to admit," Sam said. "It was nice of Jerry to loan us K.I.R.T.T so we could drive onto the studio lot without a hassle."
"And it's a good thing we found those extra power packs for our Virtual Reality Disguise Belts," Clover added as the spies turned them off.
"Well, Alex?" Sean asked as they came outside a door with the show's logo painted on it, a dressing room, to be exact. "Are you ready?"
Alex nodded eagerly. "I can't believe I'm actually gonna meet Troy!"
She smoothed over her outfit and opened the door.
But as she waved happily, her elation crashed to the ground when she saw what was inside.
On a huge computer screen was video footage of Troy, who kept turning to the camera, flashing a smile, and saying "Hi, I'm Troy!" over and over.
And Alex didn't need to be an expert to know what this meant.
"No wonder Troy's so perfect!" she lamented. "He's computer generated! I should have known he was too good to be true!"
"Sorry, Alex," Sam consoled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "But I know a way you could visit Troy if you really want to."
"That's okay," Alex denied. "Been there, done that."
"And speaking from experience," Sean said. "I don't think she wants to do it ever again."
Dejected, Alex walked out... only to bump into a young man carrying a stack of books and discs, all of which were dropped upon the collision.
"Sorry!" she tried to apologize, as she knelt down to help him pick everything up.
"Oh," he said. "That's okay."
Alex froze as she got a better look at him. He wore glasses, but behind were very interesting green eyes. His hair was nowhere near as blond as Sean's but she did have to admit that it was cute. But she especially liked the freckles on either side of his cheeks.
"I'm Steve. I created Troy."
"Oh, really?" Alex asked, intrigued and possibly smitten. "I'm Alex."
After seemingly only a second of talking to each other, Steve and Alex walked out of their building with their arms locked while her friends looked on, both surprised and happy for her.
"Could we have programmed a happier ending?" Sam asked.
Sean nodded in agreement, but stopped short when he realized what she said.
"Please, Sam!" Clover said angrily. "No more computer lingo for a long, long time!"
"Yeah," Sean concurred, shuddering from his brief time as a computer program. "It's too soon."
But since Alex was now dating a computer programmer, he knew he would probably getting a lot of reminders.