“Negative,” Ruby said. “Work faster.”

Jackson watched the helicopter land on the roof of the lab. A moment later, he heard heavy feet rushing down the stairs the boys had just taken. Jackson and Heathcliff raced over to the doorway and peered out into the hall. A dozen heavily armed men were running down the stairs from the roof. Among them was a young girl, no older than Jackson, with platinum blonde hair. She said something to the men and they raced down the hallway past the boys’ hiding spot.

“They’re in the building,” Jackson said. “You’ve got to warn the others.”

“I can see that!” Heathcliff snapped. “Gluestick, can you hear me? Wheezer? Choppers? Flinch? Can anyone hear me? Abort the mission!”

“It’s too late,” Flinch said. He sounded nervous in Jackson’s head. “They’re storming into the doctor’s lab now. Gluestick is in there. Where did these guys come from?”

Heathcliff frowned.

“We have to save them,” Jackson said.

“Absolutely not. You’re here to observe and we are outmatched.”

But Jackson was already running down the hallway after the armed men. Heathcliff may not have had any faith in him, but he’d show that jerk. He was Jackson Jones, and Jackson Jones did not sit on the bench.

Dr. Jigsaw said it would be simple. All the Hyena had to do was to storm the lab, kidnap the scientist, and go, but did it turn out like that? No! Nothing was ever simple when you worked for a crazy person.

It was, of course, her own fault, because she should have known better. She should have quit the moment she saw Dr. Lunich die in a fiery inferno. She should have quit when she saw what Jigsaw’s continent-moving machine could do. She should have quit when she discovered Jigsaw had been in a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown, but she realized that if she quit every job because the boss was a lunatic, she would never work again. But now he had gone too far. He had saddled her with a team of morons who were heavy on weaponry and short on attention span.

As goons went, they were really quite useless. If she hadn’t reminded them to show up at the airport at a certain time, they would never have gotten on the plane. If she hadn’t personally made wake-up calls to get them out of bed on time, they would have slept through the mission. And meals—oh, the meals on the mission were the worst. Picking a restaurant to eat in took hours and usually ended in an angry squabble. One wanted fried chicken; another had to have chili. One was on a special no-carb diet. The other was allergic to wheat and eggs. There was no making them happy.

But the morning of the actual kidnapping, the Hyena thought she had whipped them all into shape. Everyone was showered, dressed, and ready when the helicopter landed. Everyone had had breakfast. No one had to go to the bathroom at the last minute, and best of all, they had remembered to bring their weapons with them.

When they landed on the roof of the doctor’s building, she led the goons down to the lab, where they found a locked door. There are many ways through a locked door. One can pick the lock. One can slide a credit card along the crack where the door and the frame meet. One can use a crowbar and pry a door open. One can even knock. But the goons had another method—kicking a door off its hinges. They dashed in, fully prepared to snatch a screaming scientist, when the Hyena saw something she didn’t expect. Standing with mouth agape was a chubby African American boy dressed in a black jumpsuit. He was clutching Dr. Badawi’s arm as if he were preparing to drag her away.

“Who are you?” the Hyena demanded.

The chubby boy thrust out his hands and a thick, yellow substance squirted out of the tips of his fingers. It landed all over her boots and the floor.

“Hey! Watch the boots. They’re new!” she cried, but the boy was already on the move. He hoisted the tiny scientist onto his shoulder like a sack of apples and then did something the Hyena would not have thought possible if she hadn’t seen it herself. He ran up the side of the room and onto the ceiling like a human fly. Each step left more of the gooey yellow glop behind. Soon he and the scientist were racing across the ceiling and out of the lab.

Once the Hyena came to her senses, she attempted to chase after them, but her feet held fast to the floor. In fact, she couldn’t move a pinky toe in any direction. The stuff the fat kid had squirted on her was some kind of super-powerful glue.

“What should we do?” one of the goons asked.

“Um, you could go after them,” the Hyena suggested sarcastically.

A moment later the goons were piling out through the lab door and she was struggling with her boots.

“Not again!” the Hyena muttered as she reached down to unzip them. She slid her feet out and gave her boots a strong tug. It did no good. The weird kid’s glue was like concrete. Another six hundred dollars down the drain!

Furious, she turned and raced barefoot into the hallway. The kid and the scientist were nowhere in sight, but another boy had appeared in front of her. This one, unlike the sticky weirdo, was cute, though he had a set of braces that appeared to be made from battleship scraps.

“Give up,” the boy said. “We’ve got her now.”

The Hyena frowned. “My boss doesn’t pay for me to give up.”

She was about to push past him when something crazy happened. The boy opened his mouth and strands of his braces sprang out, formed a giant hand, and latched onto her arm. She tried to pull away, but the braces wouldn’t allow it.

“Let me go, you carnival reject,” she demanded.

“Not until you call off your goons,” the boy said.

The Hyena had had enough. Cute or not, this boy was in her way. Her arms weren’t free, but her feet were. She aimed a kick at the boy’s chin. His weird braces loosened their grip, and the Hyena slipped out and raced for the stairs.

Unfortunately, when she got downstairs to the street, she found her so-called crack team of mercenaries getting their butts handed to them by another eleven-year-old boy. He was dressed in a weird harness and was tossing the goons around like rag dolls. He was scrawny, but had unbelievable strength. She watched him punch one of her goons, a man three times his size, sending him tumbling thirty yards down the street. But he wasn’t the only obstacle. Flying above them was an Asian girl—were those inhalers in her hands?—who kept buzzing by the goons, distracting them. Then there was another boy with bright red hair and the biggest set of front teeth she had ever seen on a human being. She couldn’t be sure how he was doing it, but he had somehow convinced half of her team to turn on itself. Soon the goons were in the midst of an all-out brawl. The Hyena raced into the melee, dodging flying fists and angry elbows. The sticky boy and the scientist were weaving through the crowd ahead of the Hyena, but her agility and speed would allow her to catch up to them fast. She was within hands’ reach of her prey when the boy with braces materialized again.

“You’ve got my scientist,” the Hyena said to him.

“Sorry, finders keepers,” he replied as four long metallic arms crept out of his mouth, planted themselves on the ground, and lifted him up like a spider.

“OK, that’s cool in a very disgusting kind of way, but I recommend you move,” she said.

“Can’t do that,” the boy said.

“Your mistake,” she said as she leaped into the air. She planted her hands on his shoulders and used him as a springboard to flip herself over his body. She kicked him in the back of the head in the process. He fell hard on his face, but she didn’t stick around to see if he was hurt. Glue boy and the scientist were climbing aboard a camel and racing off down a back alley. She’d never catch them on foot. Spotting another camel nearby, she climbed into its saddle, took the reins, and dug her heels into the animal’s ribs. It roared and took off like a rocket.