Flinch knew what was coming next, and with all the speed he had in him he bolted to the rescue, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. Unfortunately, he moved so fast, he broke the sound barrier. With a tremendous BOOM! the windows shattered in every building for two blocks. Mr. Miniature had only a split second to wonder what had caused the noise when his ray gun vanished from his hands. The wind was still blowing back his hair as he was knocked to the ground. Before he knew it, both his legs and feet were cuffed.

“What happened?” he asked, dazed.

“I happened,” Flinch told him. Miniature’s bag had split open in the fall, and the ground around him was covered with dozens of tiny little cars, all filled with tiny little people, honking their tiny little horns.

“We’ll get you back to size as soon as we figure out how,” Flinch said to the tiny crowd, but the honking didn’t stop.

“What happened to the two of you?” Pufferfish asked. “Where’s Matilda?”

“She attacked me. I don’t think she’s feeling well. She was talking crazy,” Flinch said.

Suddenly, Pufferfish began to scratch, then she grabbed Flinch and together they fell to the ground. “Get down!”

There was a loud explosion behind them. They spun around to find that Wheezer had used her inhaler to blast through the parachute fabric. Little bits of flame burned around the edges of a hole that appeared to be standing in midair, and then Matilda crawled through it with revenge in her eyes.

“I’m allergic to surprise attacks,” Pufferfish said.

Wheezer flew into the air, then sprayed the ground with inhaler blasts. The results were several huge, smoking craters in the street. Flinch could do nothing more than watch a circle of them appear around him, until the very ground he stood on collapsed beneath his feet.

He fell, then slammed into something hard. If he hadn’t been wearing his harness, he was sure he would have broken a leg, but the impact still hurt. He clamored to his feet, feeling the agony from his injured knee and ribs.

It was dark—pitch black, just the way it had been in the Parisian catacombs, only this tunnel stretched out behind him, and there were tracks beneath his feet. His old panic returned.

“Great,” he groaned, but his complaints were drowned out by a peculiar sound filling the space—a rumbling that grew louder by the second. It was then that he understood where he was and that something big, bright, and loud was coming right at him.

Flinch spun around and ran in the opposite direction. He wanted to turn his speed up to the max, but his knee was killing him. He could barely break twenty miles an hour, limping with every step.

“This isn’t my fault!” Flinch cried. “I didn’t want to be in charge. I’m better as part of the team, not leading it. And now I’m going to get run over by a train.”

He veered to the left at a fork in the tunnel. He hoped the train would go in the other direction, but it didn’t. It followed him into the turn like a big silver bloodhound and, worse, he could feel his harness starting to sputter from a lack of fuel. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the train close behind. He turned the knob all the way to maximum and allowed the power to overtake him. Then with a sudden blast of speed he zipped ahead. But his tank was now on empty and he was running on fumes. The train would overtake him at any moment.

He didn’t need speed anymore. He needed momentum. When the train was nearly on top of him, he jumped forward, and the train caught him in midair like a fly on the windshield of a car. It was jarring enough to rattle his brain, but he was aware enough to squeeze his fingers into the sides of the train to keep a good handhold. Then he rode the car into the bright, crowded station.

When the train had come to a complete stop, Flinch leaped onto the station platform.

“The train was packed today!” he said to the crowd on the platform, then darted toward the exit.

Matilda’s teammates subdued her before she could cause any more destruction. She was feverish and raving when Brand came in to see her. It was like watching his own daughter suffering. She was sick with something, but no one knew what. He had taken his fear of losing her out on some of the scientists, demanding answers. Finally, a scientist called a briefing in the middle school’s science lab.

“Why are we meeting up here?” Brand said. In the previous school, he’d never had important conversations outside of the Playground, and he was worried Principal Dove or someone else on the staff would find them and demand an explanation.

“I don’t want to frighten any of the others,” the scientist said. She was Dr. Olivia Kim, a scientist with one of the brightest minds in nanobyte technology in the world. Brand had no idea why she had been the one to call the meeting. What did the little robots that gave the kids their powers have to do with Matilda’s sudden insanity?

“Why would you frighten anyone?” he asked.

The scientist gestured to a microscope resting on a table. “Take a look.”

Brand peered into the lens and saw a milky white world swirling with stringy bacteria. He wasn’t much of a scientist himself, and it irritated him when the big brains assumed he should naturally know what something was. “What am I looking at?”

Duncan stepped over to take a peek, followed by Ruby. Flinch was next. Jackson waved it off. Science wasn’t his thing, either.

“I think I’ve discovered what has caused Agent Wheezer’s drastic change in personality. Agent Flinch was the one who gave us the lead,” Dr. Kim said. “Please, take another look.”

Brand looked again. This time he saw a black dot appear and attack some of the bacteria. It was much smaller than the other creatures, but it was fierce, and soon the bacteria were dead.

“What’s that black thing?”

Dr. Kim leaned over and adjusted the magnification. This time the menacing dot seemed much bigger, and Brand could make out details. It looked like a cockroach with spindly legs and pinchers on its face. It also looked mechanical.

“That’s a nanobyte,” Dr. Kim said.

“That’s what they look like? That’s what we put into the kids?” Brand asked.

The scientist nodded. “Each of our agents has millions of these in their bloodstream, enhancing and manipulating their natural talents and giving them their remarkable powers. They give Gluestick his sticky hands and feet, Pufferfish her superallergies, Braceface his morphing braces, Wheezer her supercharged inhalers, and Flinch his hyperactive strength and speed. At least that’s what our nanobytes do. The nanobyte you’re looking at isn’t one of ours.”

Brand saw Duncan arch a curious eyebrow. He was a technology geek and loved anything that needed a battery. Brand hated to admit it, but if it wasn’t for Duncan, he wouldn’t know how many of the team’s gadgets worked. “Not one of ours?” Duncan said. “How is that possible? We’re the only organization on Earth that has this technology—unless we’ve been infiltrated.”

“No, we haven’t been infiltrated. Our technology is still safe. These nanobytes aren’t from Earth. They’re alien.”

“Like from outer space?” Braceface asked.

“No, they’re from an alternate Earth—the one Heathcliff visited when he built the interdimensional bridge,” Dr. Kim replied. “While he was there, he visited a mirror duplicate of our Playground and he had a new batch of that universe’s nanobytes upgrade his body. They are what has caused his current condition.”

“I knew the bobblehead had something to do with this,” Jackson muttered.

“Is this somehow connected to Stoop’s crime spree and Mr. Miniature?” Pufferfish asked.