(If you’re lost, check out my last tooned note here.)

“Here is my proposal to you, Suspect 7. You continue to attempt to thwart corporate evil. I will continue to spin your efforts into dazzling PR for my employers. All will continue as before, save for one small thing

“In exchange for your freedom, you will leave young Kevin Joy and his family ALONE.” The last word came out shrill and screaming in my ear and I cringed away from him.

He smiled, then rose to his feet, dusting off his knees and tittering to himself. I could feel Mrs. Brisby trying to burrow deeper into the depths of my pocket.

It was now or never.

Ignoring my pounding head, I sprang to my feet, still partially tied to the chair. Mr. Giggles’ mouth opened in a round O of surprise as I barreled into him, shoving him towards the thug with the gun.

As the other thug reached for me, I reached up to grab some manacles dangling for the dungeon ceiling, and I used the guy’s body to pull myself up and over him, swinging out through the door into the hallway beyond.

Then it was time for my patented superhero move: running like hell.
I ran blindly, not sure if I was getting out or trapping myself deeper in the building.

I was still half-drugged and out of it when I burst through a set of doors to the outside. Suddenly I was in the brightness of early morning, on a busy downtown street in front of a totally unassuming highrise.

I pulled off my mask as passers-by looked at me strangely.

A taxi honked at the traffic in front of me. A bum asked me for a quarter.

The whole scene was so surreal that I had to force myself to get moving. Not that anyone followed me out of the building.

I started to walk, looking for some familiar marker to orient myself. But I couldn’t focus. All I could think was: Kevin Joy. Kevin. Joy. Kevin Joy.

New Guy, who had shown up at school at the same time that the JoyTech Global Improvement Company set up headquarters here in Ring City.

New Guy, who was always telling Aurora to stop worrying about JoyTech.

Mrs. New Guy, waving my picture around.

“Leave Kevin Joy and his family alone.”

As I tried to wrap my head around it, I felt like I was suffocating, like I was drowning and every breath brought in more water.

Mrs. Brisby’s heart beat like a tiny machine gun, in my pocket, against my chest.

When is it time to admit that your behavior is getting pointless and obsessive?

Me and Mrs. Brisby have gone back to the JoyTech plant every night this week. And every night it’s the same thing. I jump the fence. I climb across the roofs of outbuildings. At the main building, sometimes I sneak around the outside. Sometimes I hit the air ducts and clatter around in there for a while.

Some nights I find a new room, but it’s always the same thing: computer labs, science labs, offices. Last night, I came across a big room with no lights on, but all the computers were humming, and at every station an employee sat, doing data entry.

What kind of data entry needs to be done at four in the morning?
I know there’s something going on here that’s way bigger than the recycling thing, and even the animal thing. I’ve just got to figure out what it is…

Except, I can tell that I’m losing focus, for two reasons.

First: when I was leaving the plant last night, I heard a couple of security guards coming around a corner towards me. But instead of ducking out of sight, I kept walking towards them. Mrs. Brisby tried to make me stop by tugging on my ear with her little teeth, but I just paused long enough to make sure the meeting would be surprising.

As soon as they were almost on top of me, I rounded the corner and walked smack into the guards.

“Oh, sorry guys. I didn’t see you there.”

In a split second my hands were behind my back and cuffs were going around my wrists. The guard that didn’t have a hold on me was on his radio, talking rapidly.

“Damn, you guys are good! But I can’t stay. Hang on, Mrs. Brisby!”

Using the guard’s hold on me for leverage, I managed a couple of bouncing steps and then I ran up the wall of the plant, flipping back and over my captor. We both fell down in a heap long enough for me to wrestle away from him and jump up, running.

My recently dislocated shoulder burned from the rotation of the flip, but I had to keep running. As I ran, Mrs. Brisby scurried down my arms and somehow got the cuffs off my wrists. I could hear the guards pounding the pavement behind me. I prayed these guys weren’t part of the gun-toting JoyTech thug squad.

And then I was up, and over the fence. I heard the guards’ radios crackling as they shouted into them, but I didn’t look back. I ran all the way home with Mrs. Brisby chittering angrily in my ear.

Into my backyard. Home free. I grabbed my bedroom windowsill and launched myself up, pulling myself through the window to the safety of my bed, which happened to have a warm body in it.

“Mmmmphhh….Nemo!”

Second reason I can tell I’m losing it: I forgot I had plans with Aurora to go see a midnight showing of the Dark Knight. She had been waiting, for hours, in my bedroom, in a pissed-off state, for my return.