"Klein! JUST the man I wanted to see. I've got something incredible to tell you. Something you would NEVER BELIEVE!"

The Think Tank was empty except for Klein. He was immediately joined by Doctor Borous who moved with brisk, anxious strides to meet him at his terminal bank .

"Not now, Gail. Borous. Whatever your name is now. Dala is being incompetent at me and I'm feeling extremely medullar about it. She won't go away no matter how many dismissive affricates and fricatives I expel in her direction."

Up on screen her face loomed expressionless.

"Klein, I'm starting to suspect that you're not listening to me. I find this very suspicious behaviour, even if you don't normally listen to anyone, due to the nature of my problem being that of institutional security. If my suspicion levels continue to rise I may need to dust off one of our old Seditious Behavior Bingo Cards and at least enjoy a fun game while I wait."

"Pfah! Ffft! Tch! Shoo!"

"Doctor Klein. This is serious. More serious than whatever you're doing at the moment, which from here doesn't look like much besides trying to find some way to lower your console's master volume. It won't work."

"WHY not?"

"Mobius' new security protocols authorize me to override any terminal bank's volume and visualisation master controls in order to prevent sabotage from crippling our ability to observe the Dome's most important control center."

"Well BRILLIANT. HONESTLY. You could be watching over me without a Dala-esque thought in your head under the control of the Unnatural Brainwave Decontractor and I'd have no way to protect myself."

"If those overrides are INDEED in place," Borous chimed in, "Then they should operate on BOTH sides, meaning YOU, DOCTOR KLEIN, can alter her console's master controls as well. NO MORE shall she BURDEN you with her most pressing and urgent of matters!"

"Brilliant! Say goodbye to your emergency, Dala!"

"Amusing plan, but pointless. All you can do is make sure I don't turn them off, up, or down, assuming you even know how to do that, and I can hear both of you loud and clear. So, please, Klein, listen to me."

"Tchhhhah! Pfa! Ssss!"

Borous scoffed, "You're both MAD. Here I am, mind bristling with the DISCOVERY OF A LIFETIME, while you bicker about such things as VOLUME KNOBS. Knobs, invented by GUGLIELMO MARCONI, an ITALIAN, and probably a NATIONAL SOCIALIST. You're arguing about nothing less than FASCIST KNOBS."

"Fine then, both of you. Distract me all you like. All signs point to our immediate destruction tomorrow and you want to talk about KNOBS and EMERGENCIES than go right ahead while I DON'T work on a plan to keep us from all dying."

Borous laughed, "Communists? Missiles? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH. EVEN MORE. I'm not even convinced their missiles are real. And even if they are they're probably made out of bamboo. Have you seen the quality of their manufactured products? They fall apart under a STIFF BREEZE. Especially their wind shields."

Dala cleared her throat in an attempt to get their attention.

"My laboratory's security has been compromised, Doctor Klein. My door guard sent reports of not one but two intruders before exploding and then going missing. I need someone to investigate the Alloy Research Facility. Someone who isn't me. I'm busy here trying to protect what little I have left that hasn't been compromised. All of this is definitive proof that there's a communist agent in the facility with intent to make off with our beautiful works of art and science."

"ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, Dala. I, too, have had a shockingly similar experience within the last hour, except MY experience was absolutely NOTHING AT ALL like yours. IN THE LEAST. The single similarity between them, which is an absolutely NON-COINCIDENTAL similarity, is that these two experiences could only have been committed by a heartless, soulless communist. Or, perhaps, someone whose heart and or soul were surgically removed and replaced with a much cheaper and tariff-free Chinese-made counterfit."

Klein took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and then returned them.

"We don't have the manpower, Dala. We literally don't. We don't have a man available to check on it. Our dogpower is already strained to capacity sniffing around the various different laboratories in numerical order. Is that right, Borous?"

"Gabe is on it AS WE SPEAK."

"Numerical order" Dala asked, brow furrowed, "That's terribly inefficent. The laboratories aren't organized by number. Even if he is four-legged and athletic it'll take him 400% longer to search every lab in sequence by number than by, well, proximity."

"NONSENSE. Numerically is the only way. It prevents Gabe from getting confused about which labs he's sniffed out and which ones he has NOT sniffed out. I've programmed him to be capable of counting to a maximum of six digits, more than enough to cover all of the labs. I haven't been able to teach him GEOMETRY yet. If I told him to check the labs in some sort of LENGTH-based manner he'd probably run off to the break room and PEE EVERYWHERE."

"You . . . haven't replaced his bladder with one of the Pocket Sewage Plants? They're compatible, you know."

Borous looked horrified, "OF COURSE NOT. How could I? That would be like surgically removing your ability to sign your lab reports! UNTHINKABLE. What kind of MADMAN do you think I am?"

"ENOUGH. Dala, we'll have Gabe look at your . . . penis-sculpting farm in due sequential course! Besides, I've already located your doorman. His exploded chassis was dragged off by some Securotrons according to this Robotics Lab inventory log report I apparently received for . . . some reason. Probably operating on O's behalf. How he knew the thing had exploded is beyond me, but he's got a knack for locating non-functioning machines in the name of making them function even less. I'll concede with your initial hysteria, however: your security breach is indeed disturbing."

"Whoever infiltrated the lab," said Dala, "May have been at least partially in search of Cram. The last image sent to me by my doorman before it mysteriously detonated was that of the break room room cluttered with unopened cans of Cram."

"Wasn't 8 working on something involving the the recombination and subsequent ANIMATION of Cram? Oh, no, of course not: that was ME. I ATTEMPTED THAT. However, that was two years ago. I have not even been NEAR a can of Cram since and I certainly did not RAID your breakroom for it. Pointless endeavour. I should have been splicing pigs into ants, or perhaps the other way around. PIG ANTS would have been a far superior source of dubious meat-based preserves."

"Probably O's pet Securotrons fetching the robot corpse," Klein growled, "They still run on ancient RobCo firmware because O doesn't know how to do anything to it besides make them call him flattering names and insult Robert House."

"Then I'll await Gabe's report. In the meantime, watch your back Klein. Borous. My adonis awaits."

The screen flipped to an image of a testing pattern before going blank. Klein turned around and Borous watched him pop two mentats into his mouth before chasing them with a glowing mouthful of Quantum.

"Sometimes I think I'm going to resign in disgust," Klein sneered, "But then this image comes to mind of you all rolling around in the radioactive mud of the crater giggling like chromosome-deficient hydrocephailitics and I remember why I'm the head of idea-ology, tasked with the burden of chewing all of your food for you."

"Nevermind THAT, Klein. My DISCOVERY. It's IMPOSSIBLY-"

Mobius' voice echoed from the Sink entryway, "This way, professor! I've got something even more impressive to show you than those talking vending machines!"

Klein spun around and began randomly fiddling with his console. Borous kept his eyes on the door to the Think Tank. Mobius entered followed by that same bald stranger with his off-colour labcoat and out of place kindly manner.

"Klein! Borous! As you saw at the meeing, professor, these are two of the greatest minds still housed in skulls in the facility. Klein! Borous! Say hello to my colleague in science, Professor Beedles!"

"Fascinating! Yes! I'll be right on it. I'll have it on your desk tomorrow morning," Klein shouted waving his arms about, "Stop interrupting me if you'd like to stay un-irradiated and alive. These button presses are the pathway to the world of tomorrow!"

"Oh! Have you established a missile interception device on the roof?"

"Of course I haven't! 8 is up there overseeing it. I think. Someone is up there overseeing it while I co-ordinate . . . things. Especially the co-ordinates where those things are to be located on the roof. One wrong button press and the whole project will be headed straight to Philadelphia."

"MOBIUS. Just the man who I wanted to see who wasn't the man who I originally wanted to see. SOMETHING IMPOSSIBLE HAS HAPPENED."

"Tell us, Borous! Tell us exactly what discovery you've made!"

"My terminal at the Z-14 has NEARLY DISAPPEARED."

Klein paused his button pressing for a moment and glanced over his shoulder at Borous.

"Don't you mean 'neatly' dissapeared?"

"NOT AT ALL. It has VERY NEARLY DISAPPEARED. In fact, by the end of the day, it may be COMPLETELY VANISHED. After our casual impromptu meeting was officialy adjourned by mandate I went to Z-14 to make sure that all of the DNA splicing equipment was secure and that none of my double-helix banks had flown their snug little sterilized coops. A spy could do HORRIBLE THINGS with cazadors on the loose. So, when I arrived, I went to the main terminal to run some diagnostics. AND IT WAS GONE. ALMOST. A single monitor remained with a CB radio input device. When I spoke through said device the monitor responded in text with, and I'll quote it from memory as best I can here: INANE NONSENSE, BABBLING AND IMPUDENT GIBBERISH. Something about defending the home soil and worthless maggots. SO MANY MAGGOTS."

Mobius clapped his hands together and nodded, "Oh yes! THAT terminal! I was well aware of the dangers of a possible cazador release when I started cooking up my one-hundred and fourty-five point plan to upgrade the crater's security in the absence of a standing humanoid private police force. I had certain terminals adjusted to make them more difficult to crack, you see. That particular terminal had its static, immobile station reduced to a speech recognition system logged by the mobile remainder of the terminal."

"Are you saying my DNA splicing terminal is no longer STATIC, Borous?"

"No! Quite mobile now, in fact! And capable of defending itself, I might add. It's been distributed throughout a network of Mister Gutsy mobile defence units. I think they're wandering about in the gully. I've done the same with the robosplicing console at X-8. Far too dangerous to just let it sit around there, being a console."

"How am I supposed to work on my incredibly important pig ant splicing project when my console is FLOATING AROUND THE YARD?"

Mobius scratched his chin, "D'oh, that's a fair complaint, although unfounded. How are we going to protect our most easily compromised terminals when they're not even armed? Now your workstations are not only mobile but capable of firing great globs of superheated plasma! Isn't that quite the upgrade? I mean, the only downside is that your work productivity on those already quite sensitive projects is going to erode by some 99.9%, but as soon as the Mk2 robo-scorpion is ready for manufacture. I project a delay of a week. Maybe less, depends on how bad the nuclear winter is. I recommend, Borous, that you work on that Schoolhouse project you were toying with recently at X-8. Benign as it is I left that workspace untouched. If anything a Communist spy would learn a thing or two from it about good-old American family values."

"YES. The AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL PROJECT. How could I have forgotten? So many memories," Borous' veins began to bulge out from his bald skull, "More than I . . . have the blood pressure to contain at the moment!"

"Excellent. If you'll follow me, Beedle, I'll show you around to where I'm working on this antenna project at the X-2 array. I don't quite remember what it does, but it's certainly a broadcasting device for something. If you'll follow me,"

And they exited. As soon as they were gone Klein exhaled and turned to lean back against his console forsaking the buttons he'd been pressing over and over again.

"Do you KNOW who that is, Borous? That fellow buzzing around Mobius like a wayward valence electron?."

"A new LAB assistant or something? I thought we'd all assigned them to projects indefinitely."

"No. Worse. Much worse."

"How much worse?"

Klein's turned to the massive monitor bank and brought up an image of Professor Beedles standing in what appeared to be a Natural History museum.

"He's a PALIENTOLOGIST."

Borous glared at Klein as if he were mad.

"NONSENSE. Mobius called him his colleague in SCIENCE. That's not an institution of SCIENCE. That is a ZOO. They draw in unsuspecting adults and their offspring so that various species of animals are safe to BETTER OBSERVE THEM. I should know because of that HIGH SCHOOL FIELD TRIP I had to go on in order to ensure I got 100% extra credit for my grade. Everywhere I went: EYES, WATCHING ME, WATCHING US: Penguins! Wolves! Bears! SCORPIONS. WATCHING US ALL. My only satisfaction was seeing BETSY BRIGHT flee in terror from the HORRORS OF THE REPTILE CONSERVATION ZONE."

"No, Borous, I've looked up his records. He is a certified palentologist. Do you know what palentologists do for work? They play with jigsaw puzzles. All day long. These jigsaw puzzles don't even have all of the right pieces, and they're covered in dirt. They play dirty jigsaw for a living and they call themselves SCIENTISTS. Pfffft! A palientologist walking around the grandeur of MY Big MT looking at all of MY projects breathing MY Sani-matic filter-scrubbed air scuffing MY nice floors with his black soled shoes in strict violation of MY handwritten note that I placed on the fridge all of two weeks ago. NO black soled shoes in the Think Tank! That's what it says! And Mobius, he doesn't notice a thing? Nor does he care! Friend? How can you be friends with a . . . a jigsaw-puzzle artist?"

"Do you think . . ." Borous leaned in whispering as quietly as a snoring grizzly bear, "Do you THINK he might be the spy? He's new, he's clearly got Mobius fooled into thinking he has some sort of legitimate reason to be walking around Big MT, and his eyes seem just ever so slightly slanted. COSMETIC SURGERY, Klein. SKIN DYE. He's most certainly an agent of the enemy. I would bet something of value on it. Something MOST VALUABLE INDEED."

Klein pondered this as he scanned the Think Tank floor. Mobius, brain scrambled by the very gun he feared would be used against them all, stating claims that one of them was possibly a spy when he was already operating under hypnotic pretenses without even knowing it. Did Mobius suspect himself?

"We simply don't have enough information. I'm just now realizing this, Borous. Mobius told us that this Uncooled Mentalist Dipolerator thing could change the recipient's patterns of thought and action without them even knowning it had happened or that it WAS happening. How, then, does one determine if it has been used? Could I, or you, have already fallen under its influence? Could all of us possibly be moving about carrying forth seditionist plans? And why was Mobius so quick to assume WE were the ones at risk and not HIM. Tsk, tsk. Always overconfident. He didn't even tell us if there was any way to undo or reverse the programming! Typical Doctor Merriwea- MOBIUS. I need him back here immediately to answer these questions."

Out of the corner of his eye Klein saw a figure steal into the room wearing a maintenance outfit, his head covered by a hazmat Darklight Cowl.

"Oh NEWTON, one of the repair monkeys found its way in here. Is anyone even watching the DOOR at this point? Bah! Perhaps he can make himself actually useful. YOU! OVER THERE!"

He shouted out to the intruder who practically leapt out of his skin. The man froze in place.

"Yes, YOU. LABORER. Go find Mobius. That's M-O-B . . . wait, do you even KNOW who I'm talking about? Counfounded new security measures."

Borous turned to the man and waved his arms in a grand gesture, "BRING TO US THE BEARDED ONE, the great and for lack of a better word TERRIBLE DOCTOR MOBIUS. HE WHO PAYS YOUR MEAGAR SALARY."

The man began to tremble and sweat, pulling at his collar with his finger. Through his mask his breath was quick and panicked.

"It can't understand a thing. Why can't it understand us? Are we so desperate for hiring now that everyone's gone crammed into vaults and shelters? YOU! DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ME? Have you been lobotomi- BOROUS!"

He spun around and grabbed his fellow scientist by the shoulders, "Borous, I'VE GOT IT. I've got what we can do to fix this whole brain scrambling situation! I've got the key to our issues! At least, I theorize that my plan will solve everything. If not it'll at least keep Mobius from wasting time on that glorified parlor game quack and back on track to helping us eliminate the threat of Communist thought laundering!"

The man took the opportunity to dart out of the room completely unnoticed by the two doctors who were now caught up in Klein's frenzy of idea-ology,

"And the best part, Borous, is that we can do it all ourselves! And by we, I mean YOU. Assuming you've still got access to Y-17. You do, don't you? Tell me you do!"

"ENTIRELY MAYBE POSSIBLY. Dala DOES try to pretend that it's under her supervison, but she's busy with her prurient interest projects at Higgs if I recall. SO, YES."

"Good, good. Get over there by tram without delay. And get in touch with O, we'll need his automaton rickshaw squad to ferry parts. I'm going to fix this brain scrambling problem, no matter how many other problems may arise from finding a solution! All things in due course, Borous. All things in due course."