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“—things off of high shelves?”
Mikey nodded, then frowned. “Yeah.”
Heathcliff forced a smile. “Maybe your skills are better suited for communications or pla
Mikey nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” He leaned over to take off the boots, and with a loud “Oops!” the boots extended him thirty feet off the ground on two spindly stilts.
Heathcliff craned his neck to look up at the boy. “Wow!”
“Sorry, the trigger is pretty sensitive,” Mikey said as the stilts lowered him back to the floor.
“How high can those go?”
“About forty feet,” the boy shouted. “But I could design them to go as high as a hundred. Why?”
“I think we’ve found something we can use,” Heathcliff said. “These amazing boots make you into some kind of butt-kicking beanpole. In fact, that would be a great code name for you—Agent Beanpole!”
The boy scowled as he descended to his normal height. “That’s the dumbest code name I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, they can’t all be wi
“Benjamin!” Mikey cried. He pushed a button on the box’s side and it glowed with a blue light. “It’s called a computer. The other guys think I’m wasting my time, but someday it will help the team with its missions—if I can ever get it working.”
Heathcliff removed his backpack and took out the two halves of Benjamin he was trying to reassemble. “You’re not wasting your time.”
Mikey took the pieces and examined them closely. “This is my work. I mean, it’s super tiny, but this motherboard is my design! It works! Benjamin works!”
“Actually, it doesn’t at the moment. It’s damaged. I almost had it working again, but I had a setback,” Heathcliff said.
Mikey put on a set of goggles with thick lenses. “Well, it needs some wiring replacement, but I see a problem already. You’ve got a conductor in the wrong position.”
He took a set of tweezers and went to work on the robot’s i
“That should do the trick. I’ve got some copper wiring over there if you need any, and feel free to use my tools. I’d love to see how he turned out.”
Heathcliff grabbed a few things he would need, thanked Beanpole, and shoved Benjamin into his backpack just as May approached.
“Agent Brand says we need to go. We’re about as ready as we’re go
TOP SECRET DOSSIER
CODE NAME: UNCLE MITCH
REAL NAME: MITCH CASTO
ACTIVE: 1998
CURRENT OCCUPATION: MANAGER OF A WAVERUNNER COMPANY
HISTORY: MITCH, THE UNCLE OF
FORMER AGENT AMOS “JUNIOR”
CASTO, DISCOVERED THE PLAYGROUND
WHILE SPYING ON HIS NEPHEW’S
AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES. HE GOT
TRAPPED INSIDE THE UPGRADE
ROOM, WHERE IT WAS DETERMINED
HIS BIGGEST WEAKNESSES WERE HIS
HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE AND
THIN COMB-OVER HAIRCUT. HE
WAS GIVEN THE NANOBYTE VERSION
OF A TRIM AND A SHAVE, EMERGING
WITH HAIR PLUGS AND LESS
RIDICULOUS FACIAL HAIR.
UPGRADE: DESPITE BEING
INJECTED WITH NANOBYTES, UNCLE
MITCH HAD NO POWERS AND SPENT
MUCH OF HIS TIME FLIRTING
WITH SCIENCE TEAM MEMBERS AND
SECURITY GUARDS. SHORTLY AFTER,
HIS UPGRADES WERE REMOVED
AND THE UPGRADE CHAIR WAS
REPROGRAMMED SO THAT NO ADULT
COULD RECEIVE NANOBYTES.
When the time machine flashed into August 16, 1987, Miss Information realized that perhaps she should have entered more detailed information about exactly where in Washington, D.C., the machine should drop them. It occurred to her that they could have appeared right in the middle of traffic and been hit by a bus. But there was nothing barreling at them. In fact, there was nothing in the street at all except for a few parked cars. It seemed peculiar that a street in downtown Washington, D.C., during lunch hour would be so empty, but perhaps it was just her good luck. One thing was for sure: She had an incredible sense of déjà vu.
“Welcome to 1987, team. There’s no Wi-Fi, no iPhones, no Facebook, and MTV still plays music videos,” she said.
“What’s a music video?” Tessa asked.
Miss Information frowned, suddenly feeling very old. “I hate you. I hate all of you.”
She pressed a button on her time machine and watched it collapse into a small box.
She hefted Alex onto her back and pulled Benjy out of her pocket. The little robot floated next to her, buzzing and tweeting.
“Many of my functions are inoperable, including telecommunications. I’ve concluded that the satellites needed don’t yet exist at this point in time.”
“But you still have our list of targets, correct?” she said.
“I do. In fact, the first one should be along any moment.”
Everyone peered down one end of the empty street, then they turned to peer down the other. No one was coming in either direction.
“You sure about that?” Tessa asked.
“I’m quite certain,” Benjy said.
“Something’s wrong,” Miss Information said.
“Where are all the cars?” Snot Rocket asked.
“Benjy dear, what time is it, exactly?” Miss Information asked.
“Two thirty,” he said.
“Two thirty in downtown D.C. You shouldn’t be able to walk across this street, let alone stand in the middle of it for five minutes, without seeing so much as a kid on a bicycle.”
“That’s ’cause we redirected the traffic,” a girl said as she stepped into the road. Miss Information recognized her at once. It was the poofy-haired kid with the superallergies—Ruby Peet. “There’s a very important person on his way to the immigration office and we wanted to make sure he got there unharmed.”
The migraine came on full force. Miss Information’s brain felt like it was going to break in two. Was this real or was it a dream? She couldn’t be certain. Whenever one of the NERDS showed up, she lost her focus. But why? “How did you find us?”
“We followed you,” Ruby said. “You see, you weirdos have already been to this moment and you made a huge mess. You destroyed a bus, smashed a taxicab, and made a major blunder—you got your faces in the paper. That’s the thing about wearing a black mask with a skull on it, lady. It draws a lot of attention.”
A red-haired boy with glasses stepped next to her. Heathcliff! “It was easy to figure out that you had built a time machine, but we didn’t know how to build one ourselves. That was until you made your second mistake. You shouldn’t leave highly sensitive plans for time machines lying around your secret lair,” he said. “Or leave a toxic trail to said secret lair that was easily tracked. Those are textbook no-no’s for supervillains. Very sloppy work.”