"Space…the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Wheezer. On a five-year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no nerd has gone before!"
With those words, Wheezer pressed the plunger on her inhaler and felt its powerful propulsion system rocket her out into the inky nothingness of space. Her team, the National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society, or NERDS, for short, was on a mission to save the International Space Station. They had rocketed through the atmosphere in a superjet, docked with the station, put on high-tech space suits, and were now leaping out of the air lock into nothingness.
Being a secret agent ruled.
"Gruubballla!" Flinch said through the space suit's communication device.
"Anyone want to translate that for me?" Wheezer asked.
"He said enough with the goofing," Pufferfish explained. "He wants to get back to headquarters. He says the lunch lady has made him a special dessert today. Grubberlin…or something."
"Gruubballla!" Flinch cried.
"What is Grubberlin?" Braceface asked.
"Who knows? He's had too many juice boxes," Gluestick replied. "After twelve I'm not sure he even knows what he's talking about."
"Flinch, this is the experience of a lifetime, and all you can think about is dessert. Don't tell me you guys are so used to being secret agents that this is boring? What eleven-year-old kid gets to save some astronauts?"
Gluestick's head bobbed in his helmet. "Wheezer's right. This is awesome. What a great opportunity to test out the Z-64 Moon Walk Suits. Each one is specifically designed to work with our unique powers," he said as he strolled along the outside surface of the space station. The chubby boy was the team's resident techno-geek, and he obsessed over anything that blinked and beeped. Wheezer guessed that, for him, wearing a superadvanced space suit made of a flexible, comfy-cozy polymer-completely airtight-was like ten birthdays rolled into one. "My adhesives work just like they would on Earth."
"That's great for you, but my upgrade enhances my allergies and this suit is making me itch!" Pufferfish said, as she tried to scratch her arm through the suit.
"Well, whatever they're made of, they aren't stopping the amazing powers of Braceface," the boy said. His helmet's faceplate acted like a force field, keeping oxygen in but allowing his braces to morph and grow as he willed them. They swirled around in his mouth and produced a superhero statue featuring his own face.
"Gruubballla!" Flinch cried as he beat on his chest like a gorilla.
As the others talked, Wheezer felt her chest tightening. Too much excitement sometimes triggered her asthma. She closed her eyes and focused on the inhalers in her hands. She felt the click that meant the inhalers had switched from rocket boosters to medicine delivery devices. Then she inserted them into the specially designed slots in her helmet. She pushed the plunger and cool mist eased her breathing. She couldn't help but smile. Sure, she had asthma, but here she was on a secret mission in outer space, when less than a year and a half ago she couldn't walk around the block without stopping to catch her breath.
When Matilda "Wheezer" Choi was three years old, she often woke up in the night unable to breathe. She told her parents it felt like an invisible monster was standing on her chest. It wasn't long before a doctor diagnosed her with chronic asthma and prescribed what he called a metered-dose inhaler-a small canister housed inside a plastic plunger-which he said would help. When she put it in her mouth, a premeasured amount of medication was shot directly down her throat into her lungs. It usually made her feel better, but sometimes her attacks were strong and the inhaler was not enough. When her wheezing was really bad, she used a device called a nebulizer, which delivered a powerful mist into her airways. If the inhaler and the nebulizer both failed, Matilda spent the night in the hospital. Some nights as she lay in her hospital bed, looking up at the tiles on the ceiling and wishing her mother and father could sleep by her side, she prayed for a new life-one with sports; field trips; long, uninterrupted nights of sleep; and family pets. But years passed and her prayers went unanswered.
Then one day a Latino boy with a mouth full of licorice approached her. He was shaking so much from the sugar that she could barely understand what he was saying. Then he reached into his shirt and turned a glowing knob on a strange harness covering his body. One twist and he was normal. That was the day she met Flinch. It was also the day she became a secret agent.
Matilda was invited to join a team of kids who all had weaknesses. Flinch was hyperactive. Pufferfish was allergic to everything. Gluestick ate too much paste, and Choppers had the biggest buckteeth she had ever seen. With the help of a supercomputer named Benjamin and special nanobyte technology, each of their weaknesses was turned into a strength. Flinch's hyperactive energy made him superstrong and lightning-fast. Pufferfish's superallergies allowed her to detect lies, danger, and even the tiniest clues at a crime scene. Gluestick's love of adhesives made him a human wall crawler, and Choppers's big teeth allowed him to hypnotize people. Unfortunately, Choppers had turned out to be a criminal mastermind who had betrayed the team. The new fifth member was Braceface, whose monstrous orthodontia could become any tool. And for Matilda, the asthma that had made her feel so powerless became her biggest asset when she was given a pair of inhalers that not only eased her breathing but allowed her to fly. She still had asthma, but now it didn't limit her. Now she was "Wheezer," and nothing could stop her.
"It's time to get to work," Pufferfish said. "There are three astronauts aboard this station, and the last thing they want to see is a bunch of kids goofing off outside the window. As you know, the station has a ruptured oxygen tank. Unfortunately, the onboard computers have gone screwy and can't pinpoint its location. Even worse, all the tanks are linked, so soon they will all be empty. Our job is to find the damaged tank and fix it before they run out of air inside. There are tanks all over the station. Let's split up and find it."
"Hopefully before my lunch is cold!" Flinch said.
Wheezer closed her eyes and concentrated. A quick squeeze and the inhalers were blasters again, sending her flying farther into space like a rocket. She angled toward the far side of the station, marveling at its construction: a series of interconnected pieces that looked like a LEGO set assembled by an alien toddler.
As she neared her section, she immediately spotted a seeping milky gas drifting out of a white tank mounted on the outside of the hull. She pushed a button on the chest plate of her space suit and a cable fired a magnetic tether. It connected to the station's metallic skin and stuck tight. Another button on the chest plate reeled in the slack and soon she was less than a foot from the damage.
"I found our broken tank. It has a big, jagged hole. Not clear what caused it," Matilda said.
Gluestick responded. "Could be anything-pieces of old satellite, rockets, stray meteorites, even a golf ball. There's a lot of junk floating around up here."
"Give me half an hour and I'll have it fixed."
"Don't waste a second," Gluestick said. "That's all the oxygen we have left in our suits. Do you need any help?"
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Gluestick standing behind her. "How did you get here?"
"I walked," he said, pointing to his feet.
"Are you worried about me, Gluestick?" she said.
"Um, I just didn't see anything, uh, in my section and, ah, I just…"
Wheezer smiled. She had a little crush on her teammate. It was nice to see he might feel the same way.
"Activate welding goggles," she said, and a pair of black lenses dropped down from her space helmet. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her hands. There was a soft click in the inhaler and a hot, blue flame ignited at the tip. Through the blackness of her welding goggles she could see its faint flickering, and she went to work on the gaping hole in the air tanks. "This fix is only temporary. These tanks will tear just as easily if something else crashes into them. Perhaps they should build some kind of protective shell."
"I've been talking with NASA all day about it," Gluestick said. "We have technology they won't have for decades. I think it's time we shared."
As Matilda worked, Gluestick kept her company talking about his fascination with space. It was nice to have a conversation with Duncan. Most of their usual interaction involved spy work and filing reports.
All too soon, the tank was sealed. "All done," Matilda said as a little red light flashed on her helmet. "Uh-oh. What's that?"
"That's our oxygen supply," Gluestick said. "Time to go inside, Wheezer."
"All right, all right. Keep your space suit on," Matilda said, but before she could unclasp her tether, she was struck from behind and flung forward. She slammed hard into Gluestick, causing the boy to hit his head on the side of the ship and knocking him unconscious. A meteoroid about the size of an orange floated nearby. Wheezer was surprised that such a small thing could hit so hard. Just then another one flew by and slammed into the ship. She turned to see where it had come from only to spy a small wave of sharp space rocks heading right for them. The station would never survive such an onslaught. She'd be lucky if she could save Gluestick.
"Uh, I've got a problem out here," Matilda said.
"Wheezer, you'd better get back in here," Pufferfish cried. "You and Gluestick only have a couple minutes of air left!"
"I'm a little busy," she said as she aimed her inhalers at a fast-approaching rock. She pulled the trigger. There was burst of light, then an explosion, and in the blink of an eye the meteoroid was vaporized-one down and a hundred to go. Unfortunately, the rebound force of the blast slammed her and Gluestick into the ship. It hurt, but she had no time to fully recover.
"Gluestick, wake up!" she cried, but got no response. More of the rocks were approaching fast.
She had to stop them, but there was only one way, and it was likely suicide. Without a second thought, Wheezer bravely released her tether and attached it to Gluestick's suit. He was safe. She pressed the plunger on her inhalers and swerved into the path of the approaching meteoroids.
"Bring it," she said, and with another squeeze she flew headfirst into the avalanche, zigzagging between rocks and zapping them one by one as she sailed past. When she broke through the other side of the rock shower, she used her inhalers to spin around and fly back in. She knew she would only get one more shot at saving the station and she had to make it count. So she closed her eyes to concentrate-a nearly impossible task considering the blaring alarm going off in her ears and the dizziness she was feeling from the lack of oxygen. Somehow she managed to will all the nanobytes in her blood to give her inhalers a full charge of energy. The scientists at the Playground had warned her to never bring the nanobytes to their fullest charge. They said the blast could kill her. But what else could she do? Gluestick was in trouble, and so were the astronauts. She had to save everyone, even if that meant dying herself. So with her hands glowing like two tiny suns, she took aim at the remaining rocks and pushed the plungers on her inhalers. The explosion sent her spinning wildly off course, end over end away from the ship…and that's when her air ran out.