9

“Samuel and the others will know the messages from Mr. Pegg are fakes in about three minutes,” Jaden said.

As soon as Mrs. Ram had told them about the emails, Mission Control had sent out messages to all their colonists. Then Mrs. Ram had left to tell Mr. Olsen and the other team sponsors what had happened.

“Barrett is out to get our colonists,” muttered Benjamin.

“I don’t know, the Earth Firsters are looking pretty suspicious. We found a possible clue at their camp this morning,” Caleb said. He and Jaden told the others about the Crunchies in Robin’s bag.

“Could it be someone from one of the other teams?” Sonja asked. “It would be easy for them to get the other colonists’ email addresses. They’re all just the person’s name plus marscommission.com.”

Benjamin shook his head. “The competition is only between us and the Mads. The other teams don’t have any reason to mess with our colonists.”

Caleb rolled his chair over next to Jaden’s. “Do you think Benjamin could be the perp?” he whispered. “He wanted Samuel to trade so they could be on Mission Control together, and it’s freaking him out that they’re separated. Now he keeps saying we should pull him out of the hab because of the sabotage.”

Jaden’s brows drew together as he thought. “It would’ve been easy for him to put the Crunchies in Samuel’s bag,” he whispered back.

“And he could’ve easily sent the emails from his console,” Caleb said.

Jaden nodded. “I’ll start a suspect list. So far we have Barrett and that protester, Robin.” He hesitated a few seconds, then added, “And Benjamin.”

* * *

---

Hours later, the S.M.A.R.T.S. were still stumped. It was almost the end of their Mission Control shift, and they still hadn’t figured out who was behind the sabotage or how to make a new fan for the scrubber.

“Let’s go through the materials again,” Jaden said. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. Maybe because it was so late — after two a.m.

Sonja yawned, then started pointing at the items they’d laid out on the back table. “We have the treadmill belt. We have —”

BANG! The door flew open, loudly hitting the wall. Barrett stormed in. Kaylee was right behind him, filming with her cell.

“You’re the cheaters this time!” Barrett yelled. “I know about the emails you sent the Mads colonists, pretending to be Mr. Pegg. Very smart creating a bogus Mars Commission email account to send them from. You probably thought no one would notice that extra s in commission, but we did.”

Caleb stared at Barrett in surprise. He couldn’t believe that he and the others hadn’t noticed the fake account. They hadn’t even thought to check where the emails had been sent from!

“You tried to turn the Mads colonists against each other so we’d lose,” Barrett continued.

“We did not! That’s what you did to us!” Benjamin shot back.

“What are you talking about?” Barrett shouted. Kaylee continued to film, a little smile tugging at her lips.

Benjamin hit a few keys and brought up the email from his brother. “Look. It says right there that Samuel got an email from Mr. Pegg telling him to use too much water.”

Barrett frowned as he read the email on Benjamin’s monitor. “You guys probably sent fake emails to your own team too,” he said. “That way no one would suspect you. But your colonists must’ve known to ignore the emails.”

“I checked with the Fig Neutrons and the Kelvins after Mrs. Ram told everyone about the fake emails,” Kaylee said. “They never got any — only the Mads and S.M.A.R.T.S. colonists did. It seems like somebody’s cheating in the competition between your two teams.”

“And it’s him,” Benjamin cried, pointing at Barrett. “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

As the two boys continued to argue, Caleb turned to Jaden. “Okay, Sherlock, what are you thinking?” he asked. Jaden was a complete Sherlock Holmes fanboy.

“Barrett could have done what he was accusing us of. He could’ve sent the emails to our team and his own team so he wouldn’t look guilty,” Jaden said, then shook his head. “But that would mean all the Mads were in on it. If they weren’t, the emails would mess up their team too. I don’t know if Barrett could have gotten all of them to agree to cheat. Most of them were really friendly on the bus.”

Caleb frowned. “And what about Benjamin? Sending emails to the Mads wouldn’t get Samuel out of the hab early. Why would he do that?”

“To make the competition fair, maybe?” Jaden suggested. “Both teams would have to deal with the same problem. He —”

Ping! Ping! One of the monitors sounded a warning, interrupting Jaden.

Benjamin gave a yelp and hit a couple keys on his computer. “The CO₂ in the hab is at 0.7 percent. It’s rising even faster than we thought!”

“Huh? What’s going on?” Barrett asked.

“What’s going on is that the Crunchies you snuck into my brother’s bag broke our scrubber,” Benjamin replied. “Are you happy?”

“I didn’t —” Barrett began.

“Just get out of here,” Sonja told him.

Barrett scowled, then turned around and left without another word.

“He’s probably heading off to sabotage us more,” Benjamin muttered.

“But the Earth Firsters are still good suspects too, remember?” Jaden said.

“The Earth Firsters? Why?” Kaylee asked.

“Robin, one of the protestors, had some Cheez Crunchies,” he told her. “She could’ve put a packet in Samuel’s bag. If the Earth Firsters can mess up the simulation, it might make people think the Mars colony will fail. Mars Commission would be ruined if they can’t get investors.”

“Interesting,” Kaylee said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Earth Firsters, Barrett — doesn’t really matter. Whoever the perp is, I don’t think they’re done,” Benjamin said as he turned back to his monitor. “Something else is going to happen. Maybe something even worse than the wrecked scrubber.”

“So what does the CO₂ level increasing mean for your team?” Kaylee asked, turning slowly, filming each of them.

“If it keeps going up at this rate, our team only has about nineteen hours of breathable air left,” Benjamin told her. He reset the Clock of DOOM.

18:57:00.