Hello everyone! I hope you enjoy the last chapter. I credit Karsap for giving me the idea for it. But now it's back to the show proper. And in case you're wondering, my next original chapter won't be for some time and will take place in the distant past.
Read and review!
Chapter Forty-Six
W.O.O.H.P Headquarters-2:00 AM
An exhausted Jerry trudged out of his office, yawning.
"Another late night," he said sleepily. "There are days I wish I weren't the boss."
It had been a long day for him, not to mention an uneventful one. And he was looking forward to concluding it with a good night's sleep. His hopes were soon to be dashed, however.
"I should have gone into hotel management like mother wanted," he muttered, unaware of the large, metallic robotic device on his trail. He was soon made away as it pushed him against a wall, a harness-like apparatus strapped to his head.
"What is the meaning of-" he tried to say, but he stopped his sentence with a gasp as the machine was extending a large vial of water with a nozzle like the one you'd find on a bottle of nasal spray attached to the end.
In no time at all, the vial reached Jerry's nose and squirted the liquid up his left nostril, along with something else.
Jerry's screams echoed throughout the building, but no one was around to hear.
And that was not the end of his troubles, not by a long shot.
Beverly Hills High School-2:25 PM
The day was almost over at Beverly Hills High, but for one student in particular, the last bell felt particularly far away. Sean, Sam, Clover and Alex sat together at their workbench in biology, one of their last classes of the day. Sam and Sean took notes while Clover just stared off to the side at the latest boy to catch her attention. But Alex just sat at her place on the end, her face contorted with disgust.
"And in the stomach," the class's teacher, Mr. Walsh, said while pointing to a chart of the human digestive system. "Food particles are churned with acid until everything liquifies."
"Ew!" Alex exclaimed, looking more nauseous than she usually did in the class. "Could biology be any grosser?!"
Mr. Walsh ignored Alex's outburst and rolled up the chart he was using for his lesson.
"Okay," he said cheerfully. "Tomorrow, we're all dissecting frogs!"
To illustrate his point, he held up a terrarium filled with dozens of the tiny green amphibians.
Alex gasped in horror as she imagined herself in the position to make the first incision.
"Does that answer your question?" Clover asked.
The bell rang and Alex got over her shock long enough to jump between her friends.
"Yes!" she shouted. "Sam, Sean, Clover, quick! You've gotta help me think of an excuse to miss class tomorrow!"
"Why?" Sean asked.
In response, Alex just looked at the terrarium on the teacher's desk.
"I can't dis-dis-I can't even say it!"
She sank behind the workbench as Sam looked down at her.
"Come on, Alex," she tried to reassure her friend. "Dissecting isn't gross, it's science!"
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "But you might want to bring some antacid to school tomorrow."
"Sean, you're not helping," Alex said.
Sean turned to the blonde sitting on his right. "Clover, can you tell Alex she's being overdramatic?"
But Clover wasn't listening, her attention fixated on her latest crush.
"Whatever," she said dismissively. "To me, this icky frog stuff is the perfect opportunity to pair up with a cute boy lab partner!"
Sam and Sean rolled their eyes.
"I swear, it's like she's in her own world at times," Sean remarked.
As the four friends prepared to leave the classroom, Alex walked over to the teacher's desk.
"Uh, Mr. Walsh?" she said nervously. "I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so unfortunately, I'm gonna have to miss out on Froggy Day!"
"Oh, don't worry," Mr. Walsh replied. "I'll save you a frog. You can dissect on Monday."
Alex cringed and looked down at the terrarium, where one of the frogs let out a croak.
"Sorry," she said, thinking fast. "I have a dentist appointment Monday!"
"Well," Mr. Walsh said. "Are you free on Tuesday?"
"Uh... chiropractor?"
Mr. Walsh's face turned stern. "This lab counts fifty percent of your grade. You can't afford to miss it."
"Yeah," Sean muttered under his breath. "But that won't stop her from trying."
Mr. Walsh took the lid off the terrarium and picked up a frog out of it.
"You aren't afraid of these harmless little frogs, are you, Alex?"
She had no time to think of an answer before the floor opened up beneath them, sending them screaming down the dark chute.
Since his back was turned, Mr. Walsh didn't see what happened to Sean and the girls. When he turned around, he was staring at an empty space where his students had once been.
"Kids?" he asked in confusion.
The long ride down to W.O.O.H.P headquarters once again ended on the fuchsia cushion in Jerry's office.
"Perfect timing, Jerry!" Alex said to their boss who was standing over them. "You saved us from the frogs!"
But Clover was less than thrilled.
"Would it kill you to send a limo?! Just once, Jer?!"
Jerry's face looked stiff. Well, stiffer than usual, Sean noted.
"Perhaps next time, Sam," Jerry said, walking back to his desk.
The spies' jaws dropped in bewilderment.
"Did you just call her 'Sam'?" Sam asked.
Jerry stopped, his hands twitching worse than Sean's after he'd realized he'd forgotten to study for a Spanish test.
"Of course I did, Clover," Jerry answered incorrectly. "Why shouldn't I?"
"Hello!" Alex exclaimed, pointing to each of her friends. "She's Sam, and she's Clover!"
"Y-yes," Jerry said nervously, going behind his desk. "Don't you think I know that, Farrah?"
"Farrah?" Sean asked. "That's not even close!"
"R-right," Jerry stuttered. "Thank you for pointing that out, Jared."
Sean's eyes widened. "My name's Sean, not Jared."
"Whatever," Jerry dismissed. "Come now, let's get started."
"Looks like Jer is majorly overworked," Clover whispered.
Jerry pressed a button on his desk, turning on the screen behind him.
"This is a simple rescue mission," he began. "You are to infiltrate the Jekyll Island maximum security prison and liberate these three convicts."
An image of a sturdily built African-American man named Lyle appeared on the left side of the screen, followed by the picture of a thin man with blond hair named Merle and a brown-haired man of average build named Willie.
"Huh?" the spies uttered in confusion.
"Uh, Jer?" Clover asked. "Don't we normally put the bad guys in prison?"
"Oh, they're not criminals," Jerry answered. "These 'bad guys' are really undercover W.O.O.H.P agents."
"Must very undercover," Sean observed. "I've never seen them before."
"Now then," Jerry went on, holding up the gadgets they'd be using. "These gadgets will help you on your mission. Suction Cupped Boots for scaling walls, Laser Lipsticks capable of cutting through the thickest steel."
To demonstrate it, he twisted the tube, causing a several blue laser bolts to fly around the room. He quickly turned it off, but not before burning at least a dozen holes in the ceiling.
Weird, Sean thought. Jerry's usually more careful with gadgets.
"Right," Jerry went on, pretending he didn't' just do that. "Next we have Nanotechnology Eyeshadow."
"Perfect!" Clover said with glee. "I'm out of eyeshadow!"
"This is no ordinary makeup," Jerry explained. "Three quick blinks and the powder transforms into X-ray glasses. Quite useful for looking through prison walls. You'll be drilling into the prison via the R.A.T.V.A.T., Rugged All-Terrain Vehicle and Tunneller. Now if there are no further questions..."
He walked over to the side of his desk and picked up a muffin, bringing it to his mouth. But Sean jumped when he saw what kind of muffin it was.
"Jerry, no!" the spies shouted in horror.
But it was too late, no sooner than did he take his first swallow, Jerry began to sneeze violently.
"Are you crazy?!" Sam asked, picking up the half eaten muffin while Sean pulled an EpiPen out of Jerry's desk.
"You know you're allergic to blueberries!" Sean said, rolling up Jerry's left pant leg and sticking the needle into his thigh.
As soon as the medicine took effect, Jerry stopped sneezing.
"Yes, yes of course," he said, sniffling. "It merely slipped my-"
His words were cut off by his hand moving outward, his finger extending and almost involuntarily, the finger stuck itself up his right nostril.
"Ew!" the spies cringed in disgust.
"He's picking his nose!" Sam exclaimed.
"Jerry!" Clover scolded.
As if struggling, Jerry wrestled with his right arm to get the finger out of his nose.
"Oh, um sorry," he quickly said. "Now, on your way."
For a change, the side door to their left opened up and the spies walked out of the office to the hangar where the R.A.T.V.A.T would be waiting for them.
"Definitely overworked," Alex said as the door closed behind them.
"I hope that's all it is," Sean added, concerned.
No sooner than they left, Jerry growled and pointed to his right hand.
"I control the hand," he said, his British accent transitioning into a German one. "I control the spies, and soon I shall control the world!"
Jekyll Island Maximum Security Prison-11:49 PM
As the R.A.T.V.A.T broke through the ground beside the prison, more massive than any the spies had seen, Sean frowned and tapped his fingers on the controls repeatedly.
"What's wrong, Sean?" Sam asked.
"It's Jerry," he explained. "Don't you think he was acting a little weird? I mean, more than usual?"
"Maybe he was just wiped," Clover theorized. "Same thing happens to me when I go on all-night shopping spree."
Sean looked at her. "Really? Does that make you forget names? Or eat things you're allergic to? Or pick your nose?"
Clover blinked. "Okay, you've got a point. But this is Jer we're talking about. Weird is nothing new for him. I mean you said he once WOOHPed you while you were taking a shower, right?"
"Thank you, Clover," Sean deadpanned. "I needed to be reminded of that."
"We can worry about Jerry later," Alex said. "Right now, we've got a prison to break into. Whoa, there's something I never thought I'd say."
The spies hopped out of the R.A.T.V.A.T, and dashed toward the first entrance they could see, a side door that Sean reasoned must have been a service entrance. Careful to stay out of the searchlights, the four maneuvered themselves over to the door. Though Alex did almost get caught, the light ignored her and allowed her rejoin her friends by the door.
"This is the service entrance," Sean said to the girls. "It should be unguarded."
"We'll just see about that," Clover said, applying the eyeshadow given to her back at W.O.O.H.P headquarters. Blinking three times, a pair of dark pink glasses appeared on her eyes. As Jerry had said, the glasses let her see through the prison walls and the skeletal forms positioned behind them. "Yeah, unguarded as in there's a bunch of guards standing around."
She turned to face her friends. "Whoa, nice brains."
"They may be guarding the doors," Alex said, looking up at a barred window. "But I bet they're not guarding the windows."
With the Suction Cupped Boots, the spies walked up the side of the wall and up to the window, where Sam pulled out a tube of Laser Lipstick and used it to cut through the bars.
One by one, they crawled through the window, leaving Alex put the bars back in place in order to avoid suspicion.
Walking on the ceiling, they snuck right over a guard who was on patrol. The guard in question gasped and looked back when he thought he saw someone or something above him, but when he turned around there was no one there.
Sighing, he resumed his nightly duty as the spies dropped down from the ceiling.
After a quick trek through another hallway and over a catwalk, they finally made it to the cell block. According to their info, the prisoners they were supposed to liberate were in the cell that was right below them.
They jumped down in front of the translucent doors, made of glass so thick it could withstand a truck hitting it. The three men inside were taken aback as the spies landed just inches from the door.
Sam held a finger up to her lips to demand silence from them and Alex pulled out her own Laser Lipstick to begin slicing through the door's locks while Sean and Clover stood guard on either side.
At long last, the door was open and the prisoners stepped out, regarding their rescuers with obvious confusion.
"What are you?" one of them, Willie asked. "The pep squad?"
Clover growled as the other two, Lyle and Merle, stepped further out.
"Come on," Lyle said to his cellmate. "Let's blow this joint."
The spies got up, each looking very annoyed.
"Hello!" Clover called out. "Rude much?! I think a little appreciation's in order here!"
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "But we let them out, so we might as well get this over with."
Journeying back to the service entrance, the spies and prisoners hoped to find it deserted. No such luck, it was still guarded.
"Those guards are still there!" Clover announced.
"And since we only have one pair of these boots in a men's size," Sam added, gesturing to Sean's boots.
"This is our the only way out," Alex finished, just as Lyle snatched her Laser Lipstick from her.
"Then we do this the fun way," he said.
"What do you mean by that?" Sean asked.
But Lyle's intentions became clear when he walked up to the guards station, where the two were playing cards and aimed the lipstick at them.
"Hasta la bye bye, fuzz!" he shouted, about to twist the tube.
"Hey!" Sam shouted.
"Don't!" Sean added.
"Stop!" Alex shrieked as the four tackled him out of the way just as the laser bolt made contact with the glass window of the booth, leaving a smoking hole in the middle and two bewildered guards on the inside.
"What's the matter with you?!" Clover chastised.
"W.O.O.H.P agents never fire on innocent people!" Sean scolded.
An alarm rang out throughout the prison, and Sean didn't have to be a prisoner to know what that meant.
"Do they know that?" Lyle asked, as the guards pulled out a pair of rifles.
Nodding in understanding, the four teens and three prisoners made a mad dash for the exit, dodging bullet after bullet. When one flew just inches from Sean's right ear, he shifted his stance and began running on the wall behind a scared Alex and Clover.
As more and more guards scrambled through the prison to stop the escape, the seven made it to a side wall not too far away from where the R.A.T.V.A.T was parked. Using her Laser Lipstick to carve a square hole in the wall, Sam gestured her teammates and the prisoners to follow her.
"Come on!" she urged.
They followed her lead, climbing in to the vehicle just as the guards reached their makeshift exit.
"Start her up, Sean," Alex yelled to her friend, who was at the driver's seat.
Nodding, Sean gripped the controls and had already started it up when the guards caught up to them, firing their bullets at the R.A.T.V.A.T. But they bounced off harmlessly as the giant drill-equipped tank burrowed back underground and safely away from the prison. The three escapees cheered, apparently happy to be away.
"I love busting out of the joint!" one of them exclaimed as the confused spies listened on.
"Okay," Alex said. "I know these guys are undercover as criminals and all, but they are way overdoing it!"
"I'll say," Sean agreed. "They almost got us thrown in there!"
W.O.O.H.P Headquarters-7:30 AM
It took until morning for the R.A.T.V.A.T to make it back to L.A and to safely arrive at W.O.O.H.P headquarters.
Sean and the girls lead the three prisoners to the automated double doors that opened up to Jerry's office, where Jerry himself was waiting.
"Welcome back, agents," he said enthusiastically to the three prisoners.
"Hey!" Merle said in a Southern accent. "Dr. V! Is that you in there?!"
"Dr. V?!" the spies asked in shock.
Merle's companions glared at him in fury as Jerry cleared his throat.
"That's one of my... codenames."
"That's right!" Merle said unconvincingly. "We're using codenames!"
Predictably, the spies weren't buying it.
"We need to talk," they all said at once, before pushing Jerry over to his desk.
"Okay, Jerry," Sean began. "What is going on?"
"Who's Dr. V?" Sam asked.
"And who are these so-called agents?" Clover inquired, pointing to the three men behind them.
"And how come we don't get cool codenames?!" Alex demanded.
"One problem at a time, Al," Sean said, before turning back to Jerry, his confused stare becoming an angry glare along with those of the girls.
Jerry began to sweat. "Spies, I...I assure you there is absolutely nothing to worry about."
As he said this, he no longer sounded like the Jerry that Sean had known for the past four years of his life. Not only did he sound more strained when he spoke, but his smooth British accent deteriorated in to a deranged German one.
"Everything is-"
"Whoa!" Clover exclaimed "What's up with your accent?!"
"My accent?" Jerry asked, still sounding German. "What are you talking about? I always speak this way!"
Just then, his body spasmed again, launching his fist upward toward his jaw.
The spies looked on in concern as their boss stuck his knuckle into his mouth and began to groan as if in pain.
"Looks like Jerry's gone from overworked to just plain crazy!" Alex observed.
Sean stepped closer, worry painting his face.
"Jerry?" he asked. "Are you feeling alright? I can always call your doctor."
"No!" Jerry refused. "No, really! I am fine! Thank you for your concern!"
Panicking, he slammed a button on his desk and four robotic claws came down from the ceiling and dragged the spies through the hole they came out of.
"Bye bye!" Jerry shouted after them.
The W.O.O.H.P tunnel deposited them back in school just in time for the first bell to ring. In all the excitement, Sean had forgotten he and the girls had double biology that day. And the first of those two was their first class of the day.
"Well," Sean said. "That's one way to get to class on time."
"Ah!" Mr. Walsh exclaimed with delight. "Alex! I'm glad you cancelled your... doctor's appointment so you could join us for this fascinating scientific adventure!"
He pulled out the terrarium filled with frogs and pulled one out, placing it in front of Alex who shrieked.
"No way!" she exclaimed.
Luckily for her, she had no time to make the first cut before her friends dragged her outside the classroom when Mr. Walsh wasn't looking.
"Good idea, guys," she said to Sean and Sam, who closed the door to the biology lab. "Let's make a break for it!"
"We're not worried about the frogs," Sean said. "We're worried about Jerry."
"We've gotta get back to W.O.O.H.P," Sam added as she and Sean walked off, their friends not far behind.
After sneaking out through a window in an empty classroom, the spies took a long walk to W.O.O.H.P headquarters and used their access passes to enter the building. Once inside, Sean deduced that the best thing to do was find the W.O.O.H.P data archives and find any reference to a "Dr. V." Once they learned who that was, it would go a long way in solving the mystery as to why Jerry was behaving the way he was.
"Come on!" he urged the girls as they stepped into the main hallway once they were sure it was empty. "We can't let anyone see us!"
After a mad dash down the corridor, they finally found the room they were looking for. Sean had never been in this room before, but having memorized the schematics of the building, he knew exactly how to find it.
"The W.O.O.H.P data archives," Clover said as they entered. "Since Jer won't talk to us, maybe his computers will."
Sam and Sean ran up to the main console, with Sam quickly logging on.
"Let's start by finding out who Dr. V. is," she said, typing in her query. In less than two seconds, an image of an elderly man with even less hair than Jerry popped up on the screen.
"Hey!" Alex exclaimed. "I know that guy!"
"Yeah!" Clover agreed. "Isn't he one of the W.O.O.H.P science nerds?"
"Used to be," Sean clarified. "I've seen him around a few times, but I've never talked to him. His name's Dr. Vomesa and it says here he was just fired a week ago."
Sam continued to type, searching for a reason for Dr. V's termination of employment.
"He was working on Project Microspy," Alex said, reading the report. "A way to reduce spies to microscopic size for super secret missions."
"But he was using criminals as guinea pigs to test his machine," Sean added.
"So Jerry had to fire him!" Clover realized.
Sam searched the file further and pulled up the images of three men that they had only seen the night before.
"And these were criminals he used," she announced to her teammates. "They were arrested by W.O.O.H.P a few weeks ago!"
"I knew they weren't real agents," Alex said in affirmation. "They had that bad guy smell."
"Either that or they just haven't showered in two weeks," Sean added.
"But why would Jerry send them to jail just to have us bust them out again?" Clover wondered, stepping away from the screen.
"Because maybe Jerry isn't Jerry!" Sam theorized. "Jerry must be Dr. V. in disguise!"
"So that's why he's been acting so freaky!" Clover exclaimed, finally understanding.
"And that's why he wanted those criminals back," Alex added. "So he could do more experiments!"
Sean narrowed his eyes in determination and looked toward the door out of there.
"Come on!" he urged the girls. "Let's go ask 'Jerry' what he's done with the real Jerry!"
The doors opened, revealing three W.O.O.H.P agents. And all of them looked very severe.
"Yeah!" Sam exclaimed as she and Clover ran up to them. "You guys have to help us!"
"See," Clover began. "Jerry's been replaced by an imposter and-"
She never got to finish that sentence as the agent grabbed her by the arm while the one closest to Sam grabbed hers.
"Huh?" Alex and Sean asked as they turned around, seeing Jerry standing behind them, looking very annoyed.
"You four have been putting your noses where they don't belong," he said, still in a German accent.
Sean and Alex growled before charging at the agents that held their friends captive and blocked their escape. They both knocked one down with a single kick, catching Sam and Clover's captors off guard and enabling the girls to throw them against a back wall.
"Come on!" Alex exclaimed to her friends. "We've gotta warn the rest of W.O.O.H.P."
"After them!" the infuriated Jerry, or Dr. V., as he was now being referred to, shouted.
Mid-run, Sean looked back to see five agents in hot pursuit of them.
"Quick!" he shouted to the girls. "The briefing room!"
Unfortunately for them, Dr. V. had gotten there first, now addressing row upon row of agents at desks and displaying footage of the fleeing spies on the giant monitor before them.
"Help!" Clover exclaimed on the screen. "Somebody!"
"Take us to red alert!" Dr. V. said, now using a perfect imitation of Jerry's voice. "The four young spies are-"
"Gotcha!" Sean and Clover exclaimed, each grabbing one of Jerry's arms.
The assembled agents stopped what they were doing, confused.
"It's okay!" Sam tried to assure. "This isn't really Jerry."
"Yeah," Clover agreed. "He's an imposter, you know, in disguise!"
Trying to prove her point, she tugged on Jerry's nose, clearly expecting to pull off a mask.
Using the desk to plant her feet on for further force, she pulled and pulled, but the result was the same. Jerry's face stayed in place.
Her teammates looked embarrassed while every other agent in the room looked at them unamused.
At long last, Clover gave up.
"Wow," she said, impressed. "This is a really good mask."
"Maybe Dr. V. just got plastic surgery," Sean hypothesized. But he remembered that was unlikely. When he'd eaten that muffin the day before, Jerry's allergies had kicked in. None if it made sense. And Sean had no time to make sense of it before a W.O.O.H.P agent restrained him by the arms.
"Thank you," Dr. V. said, once again in Jerry's voice as the girls were apprehended. "These four spies are obviously part of some nefarious plot to undermine our organization. And they will be dealt with as traitors."
Later, with their hands tied behind their backs, the spies were thrown into a room none of them had entered before, one piling on top of the other while "Jerry" strode across the room, an evil smile adorning his face.
The spies sat up to see two giant pieces of equipment towering over a small platform. And judging by the bulbs aimed at the platform, it was obvious that they were supposed to fire some kind of ray.
"Jerry" stepped up to the controls and began typing in an indecipherable command.
"I don't get it!" Sean exclaimed in despair. "How can that be the real Jerry?"
"No clue," Alex replied. "But's gotta be him! He was allergic to blueberries, remember?"
"Then why does he hate us?" Clover asked tearfully. "Jerry's our friend! I just don't understand why he's being so mean!"
Absentmindedly, Clover blinked three times, activating the X-ray glasses. Once everything was see-through, she looked at two of the agents who stood guard by "Jerry". She saw nothing unusual about their skeletal forms... other than a strange square shape implanted in their brains.
Curious, she shifted her gaze to Jerry and saw that his brain also had one.
"Wow!" she exclaimed. "Weird, they've all got microchip thingies in their brains!"
Sean and Alex gasped.
"Project Microspy!" Sam realized.
Hearing this, "Jerry" walked over to the four teens.
"That may be the real Jerry," Alex said.
"But a microscopic Dr. V. is controlling him from the inside!" Sean finished.
"And those criminals must be controlling the agents!" Sam guessed.
"Talk about mental problems," Clover said dryly.
"So," Dr. V. said from inside Jerry's body. "You've figured out my little secret, have you?" Yes, Project Microspy was successful, but our dear commander was too worried about ethics to understand the value of my work. Nor did Jerry understand that these criminals were not guinea pigs, but willing assistants. But now, I control Jerry, and Jerry controls W.O.O.H.P! And with my superior intellect and a private army of spies at my command, I shall soon control the entire world!"
"And you're gonna get away with this because?" Sean asked.
Dr. V. leaned down further into the boy's face. "I am the head of a powerful, secret organization! Who is going to stop me?"
"We are!" Alex answered defiantly.
"You microscopic jerk!" Clover added.
Dr. V. laughed as the agents walked over to the other side of the room. "I'm afraid you pose... little threat. Very, very little."
Four robotic tentacles came down from the ceiling and picked the teens up before depositing them on the platform in the center of the room.
"Yes!" Dr. V. said gleefully. "Once my molecular reduction apparatus shrinks you to microscopic size, you won't cause me any more trouble. Because you'll be far too busy fighting for your lives against an army of vicious bacteria!"
The spies gasped in fright as Dr. V. turned to one of the agents.
"Begin the shrinking process!" he commanded and the agent typed in the command to activate the ray.
"We've gotta get loose!" Sam exclaimed.
"Duh!" Clover agreed. "How?!"
"You cannot escape," Dr. V. said, pressing Jerry's palm on a panel on the wall. Several glass panes began to rise out of the gaps on the platform, enveloping it like a dome.
"Way ahead of you," Alex said, doing a flip and jamming her bound wrists of one of the pane's sharp edges. The ropes were cut just as the beam began to hit the spies.
"I really don't want to go through the whole shrinking thing again," Sean said, remembering his previous experience with such technology.
"Well, it doesn't look like we have a choice," Alex told him as she finished untying the others. "We're trapped!"
"And we're shrinking!" Clover pointed out as their mass already began to decrease.
"Good!" Sam said.
"Good?!" Sean asked, shocked.
"Whose side are you on, girl?!" Clover demanded to know.
While she was still big enough, Sam scurried over to a computer console inside the dome.
"We have to be micro-sized if we're gonna go after Dr. V.!"
Sam typed as quickly as she could. "Now, we just have to figure out how to get one of those submarines."
As the spies grew smaller by the second, the screen lit up, showing Sam's request for a sub was approved and one came out of a trap door in the middle of the platform, itself shrinking.
Once they were small enough to fit inside, the spies crawled in just as both the ray and the shrinking process itself stopped.
"Great!" Alex said. "We're in an itty-bitty submarine! Now what do we do?"
"Now we find a way inside Jerry's body," Sean said, taking the controls. '
Outside, the glass dome retracted and Dr. V. walked Jerry's body over to the shrunken sub.
"You've stolen a submarine," he said mockingly. "So what?"
He picked up the sub with a pair of tweezers and held it up to his eye.
"With no way of entering the body, there's no way you can harm me!"
But Jerry's body began to spasm again, his arm waving around wildly.
"What are you doing?!" Dr. V. exclaimed, trying to get his new limbs under control. "Stop! Jerry does not control the hand!"
Soon enough, the sub was close enough to Jerry's mouth.
"Let's go," Sean said, pressing the turbo button. The sub flew out of the grip of the tweezers and down Jerry's throat.
Jerry's Stomach-4:02 PM
The submarine raced through the red depths of Jerry's stomach as the girls looked outside in both awe and revulsion.
"Are we where I think we are?" Clover asked.
"Unfortunately, we are," Sean replied, trying not to throw up.
"Okay, ick!" Alex gagged as a screen popped up from the console.
"Uh oh," Sam announced. "We've gotta get out of here. Jerry's stomach acid is eating through the hull."
"Already on it," Sean agreed, gripping the controls. "If we're gonna save Jerry, we have to get Dr. V. out of here. My best guess is he's in Jerry's brain."
"Brain?!" Alex shrieked, holding a paper airsickness bag up to her face. "I don't wanna see Jerry's brain!"
"You do want to stop Dr. V. so we can get out of here, don't you?" Clover asked.
Alex just wretched into the bag harder.
"I'll take that as a yes," Sean said, resuming his course for the brain.
Outside, Jerry's hand held up an oral syringe filled with water; water that contained three microscopic submarines piloted by the escaped W.O.O.H.P convicts. The hand held up the syringe to Jerry's face.
"Quickly!" Dr. V. said, once again with Jerry's mouth. "They are inside this body coming to get me!"
The convicts smiled as their boss squirted the water into his host's mouth, swallowing quickly.
Inside the body, the submarine had moved on from the stomach. Sean had reasoned that the best way to get to the brain was through the circulatory system, preferably through a vein.
"Okay," Alex said, looking a little green. "We're out of his icky stomach and into his icky veins."
"At least this is safer than the stomach," Sean said at the controls just as something collided with the sub, causing Alex to dry heave.
"Can I please throw up now?" she asked as the sub shook again.
"What was that?!" Sam exclaimed, her body hitting the back of the chair next to Sean's, which was occupied by Clover. Against his better judgement, Sean looked outside the sub's viewport. Outside, the submarine was being engulfed by a massive, white fluffy shape, like a cotton ball but made of gel. He knew enough from biology to know what their assailant was and what it was doing.
"We're being attacked by a white blood cell!" he shouted to the girls. "It must think we're a virus!"
"Well, it's wrong," Clover said. "Get us out of here, Sean!"
Sean pressed a button on the console, activating the sub's turbo engines. The vehicle broke free of the blood cell and sped off through the bloodstream, knocking the spies out of their seats.
"Prepare all of our combat vehicles," Dr. V. said from Jerry's body in the briefing room to a crowd of assembled agents. "For a full scale invasion of-"
He was cut off by a belch, surprising many present, who just stared at the head of W.O.O.H.P in confusion and concern.
"Just a little heartburn," he replied weakly.
The spies' journey through the bloodstream ended at its very center has they heard a loud thumping sound echoing through the vein walls.
"Hang on! Here comes the heart!" Sam called out as they approached the organ. Sean grit his teeth as he aimed for the nearest exit: an opening of a ventricle that would carry them up an artery into the brain.
As they travelled up the thin, red tube, Alex followed their progress until she spoke up.
"This is it," she said. "Jerry's brain."
Sam gasped as she looked ahead. "And there's Dr. V.!"
The spies followed her gaze to see a sub identical to theirs situated in front of Jerry's frontal lobe, right behind the eyes. The submarine had a claw attached to a nerve just below it. If Sean had to guess, that was what he was using to control Jerry.
"And then," Dr. V.'s voice echoed through the cranium and outside in the meeting room. "Once we have conquered Europe, we will take control of-"
He was interrupted as a laser fired from the spies' sub at his, causing Jerry's body to jump outside. The spies continued their course, but three more laser blasts hit the hull of their sub. They looked behind to see three more subs right on their tail, no doubt piloted by Dr. V.'s accomplices.
As the convicts continued to fire their lasers, the battle inside impacted Jerry in ways that any onlooker would have admitted unusual, including a brief period drooling, his neck twitching in unnatural ways, and more body spasms. Inside his own sub, Dr. V. watched the fight in frustration.
"How can I control a brain with all this commotion?!" he complained. "I must increase power!"
He adjusted a knob on his sub's console, sending a jolt of electricity down through the claw attaching his sub to the nerve. Outside, Jerry held his head in pain as the assembled agents grew more and more concerned for their employer, who was now standing on his head, then attempting a ballet move before switching to a Russian step dance before he was standing on his head again. Whimpering, Jerry made a leap before landing on the floor.
Just when he picked himself up, the battle inside his own body made him sprint forward between the rows of desks, clapping his hands before striking various poses.
Inside the spies' sub, they were looking at a readout of Jerry's vital signs. And none of them looked good.
"All this fighting is putting too much stress on Jer's body!" Clover reported grimly. "He's in serious danger!"
"Then we've gotta get these guys out of him," Sean said, piloting the sub toward a nerve. "And fast!"
"How?" Alex asked, eliciting a grin from Sean.
"Blueberries."
The sub reached the nerve as Sean prepared the claws. If he remembered right, W.O.O.H.P staff meetings always served refreshments including coffee and scones. Logically, there should have been at least a few with blueberries.
If I could just get Jerry to eat enough of them, he thought. His allergies should make him sneeze all of us out.
The claw attached itself to the nerve as Sean sent an electrical current through it. Outside, Jerry noticed a woman pushing a refreshment cart around. Dashing madly over to it, he picked up as many blueberry scones as he could and began to shove them into his mouth.
"Wait!" Dr. V. said from inside his brain. "I can't eat those!"
Once enough of the pastries had been consumed, Jerry inhaled sharply. Dr. V. tried to make his host hold it in, but it was all in vain.
"He's gonna blow!" Clover shouted inside the sub.
"No!" Dr. V. wailed just as the sneeze finally took effect. The sneeze was the most violent in Jerry's life, so hard that it made his shoulders hurt. The force of the sneeze sent out a few pieces of masticated scones and the five submarines.
Inside the spies' sub, Sean and the girls were piled on top of each other, while Dr. V. pounded his fist repeatedly in anger inside his own sub.
"Everyone alright?" Sam asked as she got up followed by Alex, Clover, and a dazed Sean. Sam walked over to him, concerned. "Sean?"
The boy regarded Sam, having hit his head so hard that he was experiencing double vision.
"Sam?" he asked. "Since when do you have a twin?"
"Take it easy," she said, helping him stabilize himself. "You might have a concussion."
A moment later, Sean shook his head, looking more focused.
"What happened? Did we win?"
The girls grinned in response as he let out a deep sigh.
Outside, Jerry picked up the subs before looking at the confused agents.
"I wouldn't eat the scones if I were you," he said casually.
Inside one of the subs in his palm, the spies cheered in victory.
As the ray returned the sub and its four occupants to normal size, Jerry smiled while he watched his four best agents crawl out of the hatch on the roof.
"Never thought I'd be happy about going up fifteen dress sizes!" Clover said, as she and the others approached Jerry.
"And I never thought you'd be saving the world from me," he returned. "Many thanks, spies."
The spies blushed.
"So, I guess Dr. V. and his boys are in big trouble, huh?" Sam asked.
Jerry grinned, picking up a shoebox. "Yes, but big trouble can come in small packages."
He pulled the lid off the box, allowing the four to look inside. Dr. V. and the three convicts were huddled up against a corner, sulking. Sean, however, wasn't in much of a mood for celebrating, with the words "big trouble" making him think of something else completely.
"Oh no!" he groaned in despair. "We completely bailed on the frog dissection lab!"
"You make that sound like a bad thing," Alex said in relief.
"Alex, that was worth fifty percent of our grade! If we don't do something to make up for it, we're gonna fail!"
Then Alex looked at the submarine, thinking back to their experience with it.
"Maybe not," she said, grinning.
Beverly Hills High-9:50 AM
On Monday, the spies walked up to Mr. Walsh just before class started, a stack of papers being carried by Clover. Since the purpose of the frog dissection assignment was to teach about anatomy, Alex had the idea of writing a paper on human anatomy as a way to compensate. They had each written their own individual reports, with Sam pointing out mistakes and Sean making sure that no two reports were too similar.
Mr. Walsh, however, still looked disappointed at the four skipping the assignment.
"We're really sorry about missing froggy day!" Alex apologized as Clover held out the stack of papers.
"So, to make up for it," she said, giving them to him. "We each wrote a paper on human anatomy."
Frowning, Mr. Walsh took the papers.
"Well," he said, looking at them. "That's very nice. But since you four didn't do the dissection, I'm afraid I still have to give you an-"
Sean braced himself for what was about to be said when Mr. Walsh took another look, his disappointed look fading into an impressed one.
"These papers are brilliant!" he exclaimed happily as the four friends smiled. "You described the body's systems in such-such detail, it's almost as if you'd seen it firsthand!"
"Almost," Sam giggled, not revealing the real reason their report was so descriptive.
"So," Sean said nervously. "Are you still gonna fail us?"
Mr. Walsh shook us head. "You four don't need to dissect anything! I'm giving you all A's."
He walked away.
"Yes!" Sean said happily, as the girls cheered in delight.
But their happiness was short lived as Mr. Walsh came back and placed four frogs on the workbench in front of Sean and the girls.
"And you can keep your frogs as pets," he added, walking back to his desk.
"No thanks," Sean said to the girls under his breath. "My mom's scared to death of these things!"
"So what do we do?" Alex asked, concerned.
"I know a good French restaurant that pays big money for frog legs," Clover suggested.
"Clover!" her friends scolded.
"Just kidding."
"I say we take them to the aquarium after school," Sam suggested. "All in favor?"
Sean, Alex, and Clover immediately raised their hands.
"Then it's settled."
Well, that's all for now. Thanksgiving is next week, but rest assured I will continue to work on this next chapter when I can.