‘A Yuri-nator,’ Martin repeated, walking over to the window. ‘A killer cyborg named after his designer Yuri BoomBoom’ovic, or Yuri Boom-Boom as he prefers to call himself nowadays.’

‘Yuri Boom-Boom?’ Penelope said, scratching her head.

‘Yes, he’s a deranged puppeteer and robot inventor from the former People’s Republic of Oobleckhstan. Nearly twenty years ago he promised to build an army of Yuri-nators and take over the planet with them. However, as soon as the world’s security services caught wind of his schemes he was forced to hide underground and his plans were delayed for years.’

Martin stood alongside his flustered-looking colleague. ‘It’s only thanks to his operations being constantly curtailed by relentless global manhunts that he hasn’t been able to do more damage to us yet.’

‘But now he’s joined forces with Dr Disastrous, I take it?’ Penelope said, pointing at the sneering imposter.

Martin nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, it would appear so. And that changes the balance of everything. We have no idea how close he is to achieving his sinister goals, but if I had to guess from looking at this sophisticated evil creation, I would say uncomfortably close.’

Martin produced a face mask from a container. ‘His early prototypes used rubber masks and bodysuits to disguise themselves, but this monster possesses real skin grown over a titanium skeleton. We suspect that Boom-Boom’s using cutting-edge DNA cloning technologies.’

‘So when did people discover that scruffy dude over there wasn’t the real deal?’ Johnny asked.

Milton held up a stained bear. ‘Yuri-nators can be programmed to mimic the DNA of their human counterparts, but there’s no guarantee they can replicate every single hidden personality quirk.’

‘Mister Henry,’ Johnny cried.

Martin waggled the bear about. ‘Yes, you and I recognise the significance of this putrid, pee-stained bear, but the Yuri-nator doesn’t. Instead of finding Dr Disastrous’s beloved Mister Henry tucked carefully into the cell bunk sheets each morning, he was wedged against the cell wall to try and stop a drip coming down from the upstairs toilet. The penny soon dropped with the prison guards.’

‘And his henchmen were switched with Yuri-nators too?’ Penelope asked.

‘No,’ Milton looked a little embarrassed. ‘They escaped the old-fashioned way – faking a horrible dysentery illness so that they were transferred to a low-security hospital wing.’

The Yuri-nator slowly drew its index finger across its throat. ‘Kill Johnny Danger,’ it mouthed at the glass screen.

‘What’s his problem?’ Johnny cried.

Milton put his hand on the young spy’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Danger, but this is going to be your most difficult assignment yet. We need you to neutralise Dr Disastrous and Yuri Boom-Boom and stop their Yuri-nator invasion before you are hunted down and neutralised yourself.’

‘I could be neutralised?’ Johnny coughed nervously.

Martin pushed a button and a viewing screen emerged from the floor. On it was a grainy photograph of Johnny’s head pasted inside a bull’s-eye target.

‘According to our counter-intelligence reports, the evil twosome have said that eliminating you is their number one task, before taking over the world.’

‘Bogus,’ Johnny shivered. ‘I’m way too young to be neutralised.’

Martin placed a hand on Johnny’s other shoulder. ‘Danger, you’re a marked man and we need you to take the greatest care of yourself at the moment. Trust no one – your life may depend upon it!’

‘Absolutely,’ Milton added. ‘Your mail-delivery person could be an assassin Yuri-nator in disguise. Your dentist could be a Yuri-nator. Your classroom teacher could be a Yuri-nator!’

Johnny looked at his partner. ‘I’d put money on Mr Moore being a Yuri-nator, wouldn’t you? He’s definitely means to harm me.’

‘Shhh,’ Penelope groaned. ‘This is important.’

Martin clicked a button and the screen descended.

‘All right, Danger, the news is grim, but we have every confidence that you will win the day as usual – isn’t that right, Agent Pounds?’

Penelope paused. ‘Hopefully,’ she finally said, quietly crossing her fingers behind her back.

Martin wiped his watery eye. ‘The two of you need to head back home to your cover school and stay as quiet as church mice while you wait for further updates. Our intelligence team is scouring the planet, looking for the most likely places Dr Disastrous and Yuri Boom-Boom would hide out together. As soon as we get a credible tipoff, you’ll be sent to that location as quickly as possible.’

‘Please travel carefully on this mission,’ Martin cried. ‘You’re going to need eyes in the back of your head 24-7.’

‘Roger that,’ Johnny chirped. ‘I’ll sleep with one eye open.’

Penelope shook her head. The two spies took one last look at the Yuri-nator, then raced out of the intelligence room.

‘This situation could not be more ironic,’ Penelope whispered to Johnny. ‘MI6’s hottest new agent is under threat from imposters when he’s the biggest “fake spy” imposter of all time.’

Johnny frowned. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent Pounds.’

Back outside the MI6 headquarters, they collected their segways from the waiting security team. Johnny grinned at Penelope as she hopped up on the rubber-padded foot platform. ‘Excuse me, Agent Pounds, I need to ask you an extremely personal question.’

‘What?’

‘When it’s all quiet, and there’s no one else at home, are you a secret Yuri-nator?’

‘You are so childish,’ Penelope snapped.

‘I have my suspicions,’ Johnny chuckled, leaping onto his segway. ‘Really, I do.’

The two spies swiftly rolled across the pavement and then headed toward the large arch they had descended from.

Johnny checked over his shoulder. ‘You will let me know if you sense anything bad going down today, won’t you?’

‘Of course. You’ll be the first to know.’

‘All righty then, let’s vamoose.’

Johnny zoomed away and pulled a steep turn, heading straight up the arch towards the skyline.

Three-quarters of the way up, Penelope’s steering column started shuddering.

‘Danger – I think something is going down,’ she cried.

‘What?’

‘Me!’

Johnny’s steering column also started shuddering uncontrollably and both segways rolled backwards down the towering arch, picking up speed.

‘Arghhh . . . someone’s tampered with our controls,’ Penelope shrieked.

‘Not good,’ Johnny howled. ‘There goes my roller-coaster testing . . . Arghhh!’

The segways hurtled back to the ground and – KERTHHHUMMP! – collided with the side of a parked ice-cream delivery truck, sending Johnny and Penelope flying head over heels onto the pavement.

‘Whoa – that’s definitely going to leave marks,’ Johnny groaned from beneath a tray of ­dripping slushies.