On a Space Station in orbit around Neopia – cunningly called the Virtupets Space Station – a teenage girl was standing with her ear to the door.
This girl was a reporter for Neopia's best – and only – newspaper, the Neopian Times. She'd decided it would be a good idea to investigate Sloth's evil plan, because that was the kind of thing Neopian reporters did – and besides, she wanted the cool avatar, and she only had six articles so far.
So far, she hadn't heard much. The doors were impossibly thick. She couldn't hear anything through them.
And then, unfortunately for her, it opened to reveal none other than Doctor Sloth and a twitchy Green Techo assistant.
"Who are you?" Sloth's booming voice sounded. The girl jumped and clutched her notebook defensively (and pathetically, I might add).
"I... I..." the reporter stumbled around for a suitable argument. Then she thought of one. "You can't hurt me, bozo. I don't even exist here." Confidence restored, she brought herself to her full height – 5 feet – and glared smugly at the towering meglomaniac.
The meglomaniac smiled absently at the naïve girl. How naïve she was. Then he barked sharply, "I asked you for your name, girl. Answer me!"
The girl crossed her arms, the notebook dangling perilously loosely from her left hand. "I don't have to tell you anything," she told him confidently. "If I can't get a story on your evil plan, I guess I'll go and do a food review of Grundo's café." With a sharp nod, she turned around.
"STEVENS!" Sloth barked. The twitchy Techo sprung into action and leapt towards the glowering girl, grabbing her arms from behind and whirling her around to see Sloth. The girl dropped her notebook in the desperate struggle to break free, but the Techo was deceptively strong.
"Let – go," she mumbled as fiercely as a mumble could get. "I want that avatar."
Sloth laughed very loudly. "Tell me your name," he said, "and I'll consider letting you go."
The bold teenager sighed. If it would let her write her article in time, fine. "Diana Wattle," she admitted reluctantly. "Will you let me go now?"
"I said I'd consider it," Sloth told her. "Now I have considered it, I've decided not to."
Diana was furious and aimed a fierce kick at where she assumed Doctor Sloth's knee was. It wasn't. Stevens tightened his grip on her arms, causing her to cry out.
"What do you want me to do with her?" asked Stevens humbly, almost hesitantly, to Sloth.
Sloth considered this question and grinned a malicious grin. "How about we test our little Duplicator?" he suggested. Sloth and Stevens shared a knowing evil grin for a moment, confusing Diana to no end.
"What Duplicator?" she asked. Both parties ignored her and Stevens – who was, in fact, shorter than her (but not by much) – started dragging her away. "You can't hurt me!" Diana protested angrily. "I don't even exist!"
"Quiet," Stevens hissed, thrusting the teenager forth into a room. Diana was startled to discover that it had what looked suspiciously like a dentists' chair as the centrepiece, accompanied by a large dome that looked like it would fit snugly over her head. Beside the chair, there was a large control panel, with many more buttons, switches and levers than Diana would have thought necessary.
"What are you doing?" she demanded of the Techo, forgetting her instructions to be quiet. "What will happen?"
Stevens was busily stuffing the teenager into the chair and binding her to it with also deceptively strong velcro straps. Once the dome was safely over her head, he chose to answer.
"The great and noble Doctor has made a brilliant discovery," he boasted, "one with which he will take over the whole of Neopia. He is quite aware that it works on Neopians... and you have a great privilege, my dear."
"What's that?" Diana asked suspiciously.
Unseen by Diana, Stevens grinned maliciously. "You," he told the girl happily, "will help Sloth adapt the machine for Terrans."
"Terrans?" Diana asked blankly. "I'm not bloody Terran, I'm human."
"They are one and the same," Stevens told the girl. "I feel I should warn you that you will probably die in the process."
Diana shrugged. "If Sloth's as pathetic an evil genius as all reports say he is, the most I'll get will be a mild headache."
Stevens chose not to answer. Let her think that, if she wished. The first thing he did was to press a nice shiny green button, flick an equally shiny red switch and pull a not-very-shiny metal lever.
He grinned as the girl under the dome started to whimper, then croak, and finally she started screaming. Diana worriedly realised that surely any Neopet would have enough conscience to turn the machine off. It was killing her.
Little did Diana know Stevens wasn't a Neopet.