SETTLING INTO THE COUCH IN the middle of the MECH-X4 clubhouse, Ryan pressed a button on the remote and the flat-screen TV slowly descended from the ceiling. He immediately turned to Channel 7 News, where “Voice of Godfrey” was already in mid-broadcast. Just as Ryan had anticipated, Godfrey was talking about MECH-X4 again. But beyond that, his expectations were far from met.

On a monitor next to Godfrey was an image of MECH-X4 and a caption that read POLL: 80 PERCENT FEAR ROBOT. Meanwhile, on the banner underneath the newsman were the words MECHANICAL MENACE.

“Fear,” Godfrey intoned, widening his eyes as he looked straight into the camera, “is what Bay City should be feeling right now.”

Ryan scrunched up his face, confounded. “They’re more scared than ever!”

“More scared than ever,” Godfrey echoed. “And yet, Bay City’s favorite son, Seth Harper from Harper Futuristics, has his usual delusional take on it.”

The image of MECH-X4 next to Godfrey was replaced with a shot of Seth Harper, and then footage of him started to roll. “I saw you, MECH-X4,” Seth said. “I saw you save Marty.”

Spyder tilted his head and looked over at Harris. “Did we save a Marty?”

“I dunno,” Harris grunted with a shrug of his shoulders.

“You fascinate me!” Seth continued. “And like everyone else in Bay City, I just want to know more about you. So, mm, five-ish, I’m inviting you to my estate to learn. But mostly, I want to say thank you.”

Finally! Ryan smiled up at the screen. “And I will say, ‘You’re welcome.’”

Harris squinted at Ryan. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to let him know that we’re the heroes inside MECH-X4,” Ryan replied.

While all this was going on, Principal Grey was watching the same broadcast in her office at Bay City High and making plans of her own.

“Now that I know where that robot will be, I can destroy MECH-X4”—she whispered through gritted teeth, turning to activate the touchscreen on her desk and then moving her hands across the glowing surface, fusing two images (one of an enormous worm, the other of a giant squid)—“in front of its biggest fan.”

Her exaggerated pout slowly curled up into a wide, evil smile.

Back in the MECH-X4 clubhouse, Harris was getting seriously impatient with Ryan. “Are you kidding me? You want to reveal our secret identities? For what? So you can become famous?”

“Trust me, it’s pretty awesome,” Mark noted, having spent years enjoying all the perks and praise that came with being the most popular guy at Bay City High.

“No,” Ryan fired back at Harris, hurt and upset that his friend was so quick to judge his motives. “People are scared of MECH-X4. They think it could be an alien…or evil.”

“Or an unstoppable killing machine from the future,” Spyder noted—and then, when the others shot a confused look at him, he added, “I’ve been reading the message boards.”

Ryan sighed. “But if they see the human face of MECH-X4, they’ll be less scared.”

“Yeah, especially if it’s this face!” Mark flashed one of his most dazzling smiles while pointing at himself.

Ryan rolled his eyes at his brother. “It’ll be all of our faces.”

But Harris wasn’t buying any of it. “You’re not doing this to make people less scared,” he maintained, stomping away from the group and through one of the corridors leading back to the elevator before spinning around to glare at Ryan. “You want a victory lap. What, not enough trophies at home? You want to make MECH-X4 one.”

“Zing!” Spyder said.

“Shoots and scores,” Mark quipped.

“Okay, let’s take a vote,” Ryan proposed, raising his eyebrows at the others. “All in favor of proving we’re not evil?”

Ryan held up his hand, and Mark and Spyder followed suit.

“At Harper’s estate?” Ryan added in an enticing voice, widening his eyes at Harris—but Harris simply frowned and kept his arms firmly at his sides.

“I’m not some vending machine you can technopathically push around,” he snapped.

“Weirdly stated, but okay.” Ryan frowned as he watched Harris get into the elevator. Was he seriously bailing on them? Did he really think Ryan was that selfish?

“If you need me, I’ll be trying to figure out why that guy in the video built MECH-X4—because I’ll tell you one thing: it’s not for fame,” Harris concluded, pulling the elevator door closed.

Once Harris took off, Spyder suddenly decided to follow him through the alternate route—the metal plate in the floor of the control center.

So, just like that, the MECH-X4 team was split in two.