..::Chapter 10:: The Pair of Gray Eyes::..

Jimmy, Cindy, and Timmy have just been ejected from BTSO headquarters and landed somewhere dark and spooky. A spider scuttled by them and Cindy whimpered

TIMMY: (rubbing his backside) Well, that was more painful than I thought it would be.

CINDY: Ah! Spider! Quick, someone, kill it, quick!

JIMMY: (laughing) Cindy, that's just a piece of black lint.

CINDY: (crossing her arms) I knew that.

TIMMY: Uh, guys? Where are we?

The camera zooms out quickly and Jimmy realized that he has no idea where they are

JIMMY: I… I don't know!

CINDY: (speaking slowly and clearly, as if to a five-year-old) Well, for one thing, we're in a street…

JIMMY: (slightly hysterically) Obviously! But I don't know what street we're on, what city we're in, what state, what country, I mean, for all we know, we could be on some parallel universe on the other side of the galaxy's dimension!

TIMMY: Okay, slow down. You said, on the other side of the galaxy… the galaxy's dimension… now how does that work?

JIMMY: No, seriously! I have absolutely no idea where Commander Baker sent us!

TIMMY: And why did he send us here?

CINDY: (sarcastically) Well, do you think it could have anything to do with the giant foreign space ship sitting ten feet away from us?

The camera moved helpfully to the right, where a humongous ship, into which three houses could comfortably fit, was parked in the middle of the street

JIMMY: (perfectly calmly) Well that's convenient.

CINDY: Wait, Neutron, don't you see those diamonds on the front?

JIMMY: What about them?

CINDY: They spell out the letter E!

TIMMY: Something tells me that's Eustace's ship.

JIMMY: Eustace has a ship?

CINDY: Well if not then he bought one! Come on, Neutron. Who else would put diamonds in the shape of an E on the front of their evil ship?

JIMMY: Good point! We should form a plan to get inside and steal the Hypno-Ray back.

TIMMY: …Did you fall on your head or something?

JIMMY: No, I just ate a lot of sugar before we left and now the street is spinning.

CINDY: (clearing her throat) So, can we make a plan now or what?

JIMMY: Yeah. Quick, let's go in that dark alley and think of something.

TIMMY: (rolling his eyes) Yeah, because nothing bad every happens in the dark alleys.

The three of them darted into the security of the shadows, unaware that the blinds on the farthest window on the right had shifted and a single pair of grey eyes was staring unblinkingly out of it

JIMMY: (pulling a paper and pen out of his pocket) Now, this is what the ship looks like.

He drew a rough outline of the ship and its doors and windows; the pair of eyes remained fixed on Jimmy's face, unblinking

JIMMY: There are doors here, here, and here. Now, knowing Eustace, he'll be expecting me to try to steal the Hypno-Ray back. What we need to do is surprise them—there are three of them, three of us, and three doors. I'll go through that front entrance right there and—

TIMMY: Speaking of the front entrance, have you noticed there are a pair of evil eyes staring at us through that window over there?

He points to the window, and everything seems to happen in slow motion. The eyes didn't move, blink, or widen, but a finger attached to the person lowered gradually and pushed a button. As Jimmy's jaw dropped, something purple leaked out of the bottom and grew until it was as big as the ship itself. It turned so that it was horizontal and levitated until the ship was directly below it. The pair of grey eyes showed no surprise as the portal lowered itself until in enveloped the ship completely and the ship disappeared with the usual pop

JIMMY: (dreadfully) We may have a problem.

TIMMY: Ya think?

CINDY: (crossing her arms) Neutron? Explain. Now.

JIMMY: To the lab?

Jimmy was already pushing a series of buttons on his watch before Cindy could even reopen her mouth; within seconds, Goddard flew down from the sky and sat expectantly

JIMMY: (already boarding Goddard) Get on!

Goddard flew back to the lab; it seemed that they were not far from Jimmy's house because landed in front of the clubhouse in less than ten minutes. Jimmy and Timmy jumped off but Cindy disembarked cautiously

CINDY: Neutron, what's going on?

JIMMY: (pulling a hair out of his head) Get in.

CINDY: Excuse me?

Jimmy rolled his eyes and the trapdoor fell open

CINDY: Oh, right. That 'in.'

JIMMY: Here's the thing. I can get from Retroville to Dimmsdale by stepping through this portal generator. Now, I was working on it in my room that day when Eustace and Beautiful Gorgeous and Victor—Vicky—whatever— stole the Hypno-Ray. Now, when you turn off the generator, the purple part flickers and emits sparks that have to be stamped out. I, unfortunately, was late for school and forgot to do this.

CINDY: (groaning) You didn't!

JIMMY: I did. And when they're left in a sealed environment for long periods of time, they fuse together. It seems that this time, the sparks fused together and grew until they formed a solid, nice-sized, portable portal. Easy to fit in the average plastic bag, the villains would have no problem taking it. They have been able to avoid capture by flitting back and forth through the dimensions—more that just here and Dimmsdale. To be able to stop them, we have to make them stay in one dimension.

TIMMY: You mean, just trap them?

JIMMY: No, because then we wouldn't know where they are.

CINDY: So what are we doing?

JIMMY: If I pull this switch right here, the generator will cease to work. And because it was on for so long, all the dimensions will cease to work, which means—

TIMMY: We're fusing them together?

JIMMY: We're fusing them together.