InvestiGators (Volume 1)

InvestiGators

Author
John Patrick Green

Illustrator
John Patrick Green

Published on
February 25, 2020

Publisher
First Second BooksMacmillian

**"InvestiGators"** is the 1st book of the InvestiGators' series. It was released on February 25, 2020.

Synopsis
**MANGO and BRASH are the INVESTIGATORS: sewer-loving agents of S.U.I.T. and scourge of supervillains everywhere!**
With their Very Exciting Spy Technology and their tried-and-true, toilet-based travel techniques, the InvestiGators are undercover and on the case! And on their first mission together, they have not one but two mysteries to solve! Can Mango and Brash uncover the clues, crack their cases, and corral the crooks—or will the criminals wriggle out of their grasp?

Main Characters* Mango
* Brash
* General Inspector
* Gustavo Mustachio
* Junior Assistant Baker Marie
* Senior Assistant Baker Bob
* Houdino

Minor Characters* Head Scientist
* Cici Boringstories
* Doctor Copter
* C-ORB

Plot
Chapter 1
We're introduced to our protagonists Mango and Brash who's latest mission is to find the missing cupcake chef and mustache model Gustavo Mustachio, who was about to unveil his latest culinary masterpiece.
Two weeks earlier, Gustavo is seen kept prisoner in the sewer by a mysterious shadowy figure.

Chapter 2
Once they reach Batter Down, they're greeted by Junior Assistant Baker Marie who's eager to see Gustavo (who's actually Mango disguised with a mustache) had returned. She brings him and Brash into the Batter Down kitchen where she asks them to get out the recipe so that she can get ingredients. Brash refuses but Mango gets irritated and opens up the case, which explodes in his face. Brash pushes Marie out of the kitchen and eventually the Gators look around for clues.
Meanwhile Gustavo is baking sample cookies for the mystery villain who's getting angry at him for being a fool. Gustavo says it's because of the ingredients quality which is why the batches aren't as great.

Chapter 3
Not having any luck, Mango goes to interrogate Junior Assistant Baker Marie while Brash thinks about what had happened to his 'previous partner', which sends chills down his spine (actually, he was just in the walk-in refrigerator). He then notices one of the ovens in the kitchen is missing.
Somewhere at the Science Factory, the Head Scientist is about to reveal their latest invention called THE THINGAMABOB until it was announced that the breakthrough was broken. So he then decided to ask all the other scientists to wait outside in the sun.

Chapter 4
While Mango is trying his best to get answers from Marie, he's interrupted by a figure wearing a raincoat, who's ordering a large birthday cake. He passes it to Brash who tells him about the missing oven. Mango panickes but Brash reassures him that they could just use the even bigger oven and they get baking. Once they're done they roll the cake out to the customer and continue with their investigation.

Chapter 5
Scientist Bob is being interviewed by Cici Boringstories when he's interrupted by a text message and leaves. Then, the raincoat figure goes to deliver the birthday cake to the Science Factory to deliver the cake for Bob. The Head Scientist manages to get THE THINGAMABOB (now called the THINGAMA*STEVE*) working again and asks for the scientists to all come back inside until a huge explosion blows up in the Science Factory.

Chapter 6
The Gators are called to report to S.U.I.T HQ and get a little bit lost until C-ORB finds them and helps them clean up and get to the General Inspector's office. He tells them about the Science Factory explosion and how it might be connected to their current investigation. They leave his office to get fitted into new V.E.S.T.s where they meet Sven Septapus at A.R.M.S.

Chapter 7
An ambulance arrives at the Science Factory and takes the Head Scientist who's gotten a head injury and needs to be taken for brain surgery. Just then, the Action News Now helicopter suddenly turns into a brain surgeon named Dr. Jake Hardbones who makes his way to the hospital.
Mango and Brash make their way to the Science Factory and ask the security guard some questions. He tells them about what had happened and something about a "jamboree". The Gators then start digging for clues. Mango goes inside the factory while Brash goes to interrogate the other scientists who've only had minor injuries. One of them tells Brash about the missing breakthrough which happens to be a laser beam that digitizes actual money and puts its value into a computer. Brash asks more about Scientist Bob and Cici Boringstories says she interviewed him earlier and that the news helicopter might have footage.
Inside the factory, Mango finds the missing oven in Project 808 and the birthday cake that he and Brash baked earlier and runs outside to tell him. Brash then assumes that Scientist Bob must have been involved in Gustavo's disappearance and used the cake to sneak an accomplice. The Gators split up again where Brash heads to the hospital to talk to the Head Scientist and Mango follows the trail of chocolate microchips that they had baked into the cake earlier. Down below, Gustavo ends up baking the perfect super dough... to make his mysterious captor, Crackerdile, better...faster...stronger!!

Chapter 8
Once Brash reaches the hospital, he runs to the emergency room only to be escorted out as the Head Scientist is prepped for surgery. We cut to Dr. Jake Hardbones having a flashback as to how he got his helicopter transformation.

CHOPter 9
Many moons ago, Jake was visiting the Scottish Highlands in celebration of his graduation from Brain Surgery School. He spots a village and asks the locals if they have tales to tell. He's then interrupted by an old man who tells him an urban legend about a group of people that visited the village with their flying devil (which was actually a news crew filming about bed and breakfasts) and their news helicopter got struck with a curse and now haunts the village during full moons. Dr Hardbones leaves and as it gets dark, he's interrupted by some chopping sounds. And so he turns on his headlight he spots the rabid helicopter right in front of him and it proceeds to start attacking him until the old man comes to save him. He's told that he can no longer be normal as he's now cursed as being a Doctor Copter. Jake snaps out of his flashback as he's interrupted by the sound of a flatline and plugs it back in.

Chapter 10
Meanwhile, Mango is tracking the chocolate microchips where it brings him all around town and ending up at the hospital where Brash is. This gets Brash to assume that the Head Scientist is in on the crimes with the cake and stealing the invention so they decide to burst into the Head Scientist while he's still in the emergency room. And so, the Head Scientist confesses to... eating the cake when it wasn't his birthday. But why would he eat the cake if he was going to sneak the device out? It made no sense and so the Gators walk out defeated, if only they had the tape from that news helicopter.
Luckily Dr Hardbones overhears this and hands them the tape and gets back to the emergency room to continue with the surgery. And so the Gators can get back to the bakery to watch the news footage but Mango notices that Brash looks a little sad. Brash tells him that this investigation has him worried that something bad is gonna happen and he tells Mango that the last time he was undercover at a bakery his old partner **died** and now he's afraid of losing another. Mango reassures him that they will not lose each other and to never quit.
In the sewer, Gustavo asks Crackerdile how he got like he is and Crackerdile tells him his origin story, how he wasn't always a tasty treat. In fact, he used to be a crocodile named Daryl but that was until a catastrophe changed all that. He fell into a vat of radioactive cracker dough, machines rolled him out and he got baked into individual saltines, packaged and shipped off to who knows where. However, thanks to the radiation (or high-rise yeast) he combined with all the other crackers and burst out of the vacuum seal, forevermore to be known as CRACKERDILE! But alas he was all alone, even though he gained the strength of a giant saltine, it also made him weak to moisture and vermin (which doesn't help considering he lives in the sewers, which have both moisture and vermin). And with that, Gustavo reluctantly helps Crackerdile by rebaking him with a super dough that would make him invincible! Once Crackerdile was in the oven, Gustavo sets off to free himself from his leg shackles.

Chapter 11
Back inside the Batter Down kitchen, the Gators watch the tape footage and see that the raincoat figure had actually brought the cake to the Science Factory and went inside it as well. The cake gets wheeled in by the security guard and Scientist Bob is seen running out of the front gate, likely giving the go signal to set off the explosion. After analysing the footage further, they notice a silhouette in the explosion and it's revealed to be none other than the triceratops escape artist, Houdino.
The Gators go to ask Junior Assistant Baker Marie for the store copy of the receipt for the giant birthday cake to check if Houdino had used a credit card so that way they could track him (unfortunately he paid with cash). Then, a news report from Cici says that a crime wave is happening - the city banks are now empty and that no one's money is safe. So if Scientist Bob hired Houdino to steal the invention...how does that connect to Gustavo's disappearance?
The Gators look over to Marie who's been texting someone during the whole event, and Brash snatches the phone from her out of annoyance. She's been texting someone named SaBBob. Scientist Bob? So when the security guard told them he saw a "jamboree" on Bob's phone, what he actually meant was JABMarie! Junior Assistant Baker Marie! Brash asks her what she needs the big oven for and what she's done with Gustavo. She says that she saw him fall down a manhole and instead of calling for help, she did nothing. Suddenly, Gustavo appears! He says that while he was stuck, he had to bake, and bake, bake and was afraid that once he could bake no more, Marie would be forced to suffer the same fate.
Brash questions if Marie was involved in Gustavo's disappearance. He says that she and Bob had nothing to do with it and asks where Bob is. Not Scientist Bob, but rather Senior Assistant Baker Bob. This begins to raise some questions and so they interrogate Marie for some answers. She says that Bob was tired of living under Gustavo's shadow and that they both wanted to start their own bakery together. However, Gustavo keeps all his best recipes in his head and so the only way to get them was to reverse engineer them with science. That's why Bob went to the Science Factory disguised as a Scientist.
As for the big oven, it was actually with Gustavo the whole time he was in the sewers, the Bakemeister 2000 is one of the three best ovens on the market. So it's not a surprise that the Science Factory would have one of their own too. This means that the connections between Gustavo's disappearance, the bakers stealing the recipes and Houdino's explosion were all just coincidences. The Gators eventually catch Bob when he returns to the Batter Down bakery and have both him and Marie sent to the police.

Chapter 12
After the bakers are sent off to jail, the Gators are now figuring out how to catch Houdino before he robs the entire city. They decide to pull up the S.U.I.T. database for any useful info on him.
Houdino is a master escape artist who began his career by performing daring feats of escape on stage. Breaking chains, getting out of handcuffs, escaping straitjackets. But what he couldn't escape were low ticket sales and so he turned to a life of crime robbing banks. He likes to break in, break out and breakdance.
And with that information, Mango and Brash decide to bust Houdino.. BY BUSTING A MOVE!! They are then seen breakdancing with a crowd of people cheering them on and handing them change. But alas, Houdino was never seen. Well, at least the Gators got some money - the money has vanished. It seems like Houdino can't resist money even if it's small change. Brash mentions that the Thingamasteve only works on money which means that Houdino can't use it to steal anything else. So the question is what's the money for? He hasn't been caught spending it on anything. He seems to not only be shifty, but also *thrifty!* The Gators will have to lure him with something money can't buy. They'll have to set a trap!

Chapter 13
And so, a newspaper ad shows Batter Down's Customer Appreciation Day where customers get the latest creation free if they present their receipt from a previous purchase. Luckily Houdino happens to reading this and despite having more money than he could spend, he can't pass up something that's free! Eventually, the Gators are back at the bakery handing out Peanut Butter Pickle Bacon Pastry Buns to customers and are nearly about to put Gustavo's bakery out of business.
Just then, Houdino appears and hands a receipt before getting caged up. He's asked about how he knew about the invention and he says that when he saw that all the scientists at the Science Factory were outside, he knew that place would be easy to steal from. He then tries to break out of his cell and Mango proceeds to cover it in metal, bricks and wrap it in a present.
Once that was over with, the Gators realised that after all this time, they still haven't found out who kidnapped Gustavo!! So they head back into the kitchen to ask him what had happened earlier. While Gustavo was waxing his mustache while walking to work, someone had grabbed his leg and pulled him down into the sewers. He was a crumbling, half-eaten menace who forced Gustavo to develop a new type of dough. A super dough made of cracker, cake, cookie and bread.
Brash gets irrational and asks if he was a **cracker** to which Gustavo tells him that this villian had called himself Crackerdile! Brash is shocked and can't believe what he's heard and goes outside for a bit. Mango goes to check on him and asks if he's alright. Brash tells Mango about what had happened to his old partner back at a bakery...
His name was Daryl and he was S.U.I.T.'s top agent. Brash had learnt a lot from him in their time together. Their last assignment was going to be easy as pie. Daryl was going to retire and this assignment was going to be his last mission, but no one expected it was going to be his *last* last mission. They were cracking down on a cracker company that was disposing nuclear waste by baking it into their saltines. They had cracked the case but after tripping on a cat, Daryl fell over the railing and into the radioactive dough, where he was never seen again. Or so they thought.
Brash feels bad about not saving him and saying that it's all his fault for Daryl turning into an evil saltine. Mango makes a comment on how he'd also be a little salty about being left to die but reassures Brash that he's a great detective and Gustavo is safe now. They can deal with Crackerdile later, his time will be up soon.

Epilogue
We see Crackerdile after being completely baked in the oven, but he turns out to be made of normal dough again. He is distressed about it.
At the hospital, the Gators visit the Head Scientist who had a successful brain surgery where he feels better (and maybe, even smarter!). He tells them that the Thingamasteve has been put in safe hands - the government! Hearing this exciting news, Jake Hardbones rushes out of the hospital as he involuntarily turns into Doctor Copter.
The Gators leave the hospital and Brash worries about what Crackerdile might do next as he's back angrier than ever. Mango tells him that no matter what he might throw at them, they'll be there to stop him!

Trivia* Bill Plungerman, who debuts as a secondary character in InvestiGators: Take the Plunge, is mentioned in a billboard that appears on the first page of the book

    * + In the same page, Panksy, who later on becomes a secondary character in InvestiGators: Heist and Seek, makes a cameo, painting a graffiti on a wall that says "Panksy wuz here"
* In page 90 there's a bookstore called "Farms & Royals Bookstore", its name a parody of one of the largest USA bookstore chains, *"Barnes & Nobles"*
* In page 93, one of the scientists is making the same pose that characterizes *The Thinker* sculpture, by *Auguste Rodin*
* Doctor Copter's backstory is inspired on the 1981 comedy horror movie *"An American Werewolf in London"*
* During the breakdance montage, there is a hippo and a red panda in the background. They are cameos of the main characters from another book by John Patrick Green, Hippopotamister.

Errors
    * On page 18, Brash does not have his head scales.
* On page 135, the word "Into" is repeated two times.