After having vented most of her frustration on the two children, Misery now began to think more rationally, and to realize that being so harsh with the children had not been the wisest of decisions. Now, she had no clue as to the whereabouts of the other three people she was trying to track down. It would have been much more sensible, she realized, to try to finesse that information out of the children before sending them off to their respective locations. "When I find the next person," she thought to herself, "I won't be so hasty."


A talent for engineering was something that ran in both the Sakamoto and Fuyuhiko families, and the four current members of the adult generation of those families were no exception. Date Fuyuhiko's specialties were computers and robotics. He made his first quasi-intelligent robot when he was 13 years old, by combining parts from a computer and a toaster to form a little contraption which he called "Balrog". His sister, Momorin, was what you might call the "jack of all trades", not having prodigal skills in any specific branch of engineering, but being quite good at all of them. Then there was Itoh Sakamoto, the mechanic. Finally, arguably the most talented of the four, was Professor Bruce R. Sakamoto, Itoh's brother, Momorin's husband. Electricity and magnetism were his areas of expertise. He was famous among physicists for having discovered a general formula for the equivalent resistance between any two points in an infinite grid of one Ohm resistors. Momorin coined his nickname, "Booster", partly because it sound kind of like "Bruce R." and partly because of his ongoing project to create a lightweight, easy to use jetpack called a "booster" powered only by electricity.

After successfully containing the frenzied Mimiga in Grasstown, this family of Humans on Mimiga Island had gone their separate ways. Momorin and Itoh had gone off to explore the Island. The two Sakamoto children, Sue and Kazuma, had decided to stay in Grasstown for a while. None of them were sure where Date had gone off to. Professor Booster had found some Mimiga scientists who shared his love of electrical engineering. They had explained to him all about the teleporter network that ran through the Island and how it worked. "For each pair of connectible teleporters on the Island, there is one teleporter which is the 'dominant' teleporter," they had told him, "It is this teleporter that has the ability to establish or break the connection, although it is theoretically possible to establish or break the connection from the non-dominant teleporter. Doing that, however, takes a great deal of knowledge and skill, as well as time and patience." When he told them about his booster project, they said that his idea sounded similar to the rockets that held the Island up in the sky. They, too, were powered only by electricity. They explained to him the details of how those rockets worked, and he had a sudden inspiration for how to finally achieve his goal of building a completed working booster. He bade the Mimiga scientists a hasty farewell and set off in search of the materials he would need.


Sue practically exploded with excitement at Toroko's agreement to her plan. "Really!?!? You're up for it!?" Then she was suddenly serious. "You were right to say that what we're about to do is dangerous," she said, "and there is a chance of one or both of us getting hurt or killed. And if I'm still alive after this, I will probably be leaving the Island before too long. In any case, I want to give you something to remember me by once I'm gone." She pulled a silver locket on a necklace out of her pocket and handed it to Toroko. Toroko took it, but her hands were shaking, partly out of fear of what they were about to attempt, and partly out of her ongoing mourning of her brother's death, and the locket slipped out of her hands and sank to the bottom of the reservoir. "Oh, I'm sorry," said Toroko, "let me go get it...", but Sue put a hand out to stop her. "Don't worry about it," she said, "It's no big deal. Besides, it's the thought that counts, right?" Toroko smiled. "Right," she said.

The two of them headed out to begin their mission. But before they got to Arthur's house, King called out, "Toroko! I need to talk to you." Toroko left Sue to wait while she walked over to have a brief whispered conversation with King.

"What was that all about?" Sue asked when Toroko returned.

"Well, part of it is just King being paranoid. He thinks I shouldn't trust you just because you're Human." Toroko rolled her eyes. "But he also had some very strange news," she continued, "It seems two of the residents of this village have been kidnapped by a strange unknown creature."

"That is odd," Sue replied, "I wonder if that has any connection to this 'Doctor' you told me about."

When they reached the door to Arthur's house, they pressed their ears to the door to listen for any sign of activity within. Upon hearing none, Toroko took out her key, unlocked the door, and cautiously opened it. They didn't see anyone inside, so they stepped in and closed the door behind them. "Let's hide and wait and see if he heard us and will come to see what's going on. Then we can jump out and take him down!" Sue suggested. They both hid behind pieces of furniture and waited. But at least two minutes passed without anyone showing up, and without any sound of activity elsewhere in the house before they decided they had waited long enough. "Let's look upstairs," Toroko suggested, "he might be sleeping." But they didn't find anything or anyone of interest upstairs.

They explored the basement after that. At first it seemed that their mission had come to naught, but then suddenly Toroko gasped in shock. Sue followed her gaze, but all she could see was a small pool of water and a patch of flowers. "What is it?" she wondered. Toroko gestured toward the flowers. "Don't you know what those are?" she said. Sue suddenly remembered the "history lesson" that she and her family had gotten from Folka and Himosiku when they had first arrived on the Island. "Are those... the Red Flowers?" she said, "the ones that turn you into a raging monster if you eat them?" Toroko nodded.

They both realized that, although they had not found The Doctor, their time had not been wasted. It would not be good at all if the Red Flowers ended up in The Doctor's hands, and they now had the chance to take them from him. "If we mash the petals and put them in that pool of water over there, then the toxins should be too diluted to be harmful," said Toroko, "and it is extremely important that we destroy all of the seeds, otherwise he could easily grow as many more Flowers as he wants."

After they had finished sabotaging the Flowers, Sue seemed to become interested in the teleporter that was set up in the house. "I should probably go search for my family," she told Toroko, "and this teleporter would be just the way to do it." She sat down at the computer that the teleporter was connected to, typed in her name, and pressed "Log on". She double clicked on an icon labeled "Teleporter operation", and a window popped up asking her if she wanted to permit teleportation to the Egg Corridor. "What's the Egg Corridor?" she asked Toroko as she pressed the "yes" button.

"The Egg Corridor is a very large genetic engineering laboratory in which there are some Mimiga scientists trying to create dragons. From what I've heard, they've successfully created one sort of dragon called a 'Sky Dragon' which is capable of flying for extremely long periods of time. They're now waiting for the eggs to hatch."

This caught Sue's interest. "Hmm..." she said, "On the off chance that we can't get back to our helicopter, one of these dragons might be a good alternative for getting back home to the surface."

"You're not leaving that soon, are you?" Toroko said sadly.

Sue pressed the button on the computer to connect the teleporter to the Egg Corridor. "Don't worry," she said, "I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye," and with that, she disappeared to the Egg Corridor in a blur of blue light.