Jess was increasingly irritated as the trio's problems mounted. Firstly, there were several androids that had killed everyone in the vicinity and that had decided to chase the wandering targets. They'd had to run nine-tenths of the way from Zoe's mansion to the space shuttle centre. After a little panicked waiting, Jess had realised that she couldn't buy tickets because there was no one to buy them from any more, and after stealing a shuttle and barricading herself and her Uni and her Kougra inside it, she also realised she couldn't fly it.

"Can you?" Jess asked her Faerie Uni. The Uni shook her head.

"Bugger," Jess grumbled. "I'll just have to guess."

"You do a lot of guessing," Tigger told his owner as she pulled a few levers and grabbed a hold of an archaic steering wheel.

"Well, I'm usually right," Jess replied while staring at some readings she didn't really understand. The shuttle then started to move, and Jess grinned.

"All right!" she yelled triumphantly. "Now, can I steer it..."

Blanche held a hoof to her forehead. "Just because everyone else is dead doesn't mean we have to join them," she protested. There was a lurch and the shuttle seemed to plummet.

"Relative gravity," Jess explained, even though Blanche knew that. Tigger didn't. "And what was that you said?"

Blanche gritted her teeth. "I said, just because everyone else -" She stopped suddenly as the shuttle swayed violently to each side.

"I'll get the hang of it," Jess assured her pets confidently as Blanche was thrown into the wall to her left, and Tigger into Blanche who was on his left. The seatbelts sure weren't doing much.

"You'd think they'd have a transmat," Blanche groaned as she was released from being pinned between Tigger and the wall.

"Maybe they will one day," Jess replied. "Why is it making so much noise?"

Both her pets thought they'd be astounded if they made it to the Space Station in one piece.

Blanche and Tigger felt reasonably ill by the time they finally stumbled off the dratted shuttle. Jess herself seemed quite unaffected.

"Well," she said brightly. "Someone's been around here, haven't they?"

"What do you mean?" Tigger asked, confused, irritated and sick.

Jess gestured at the mess around them. As well as being in complete disarray, the Station was also completely deserted. "I mean," she explained, "that someone was here to make the mess, but obviously isn't here now."

"Oh," Tigger replied.

Unseen by the three, they were being watched. It wasn't that the watchers were being particularly secretive about their watching: they were just not being seen. The watchers couldn't stand for this.

"Halt!" one yelled at the three. There were six watchers, and they were all blue-wearing Yellow Gelerts. Security guards.

Jess turned and looked at them. "Well, you don't you have a job to do!" she told them brightly.

"All right, miss," the same guard said. "This is a restricted area. What are you doing here?"

"Restricted area?" Jess asked. "Why? By who?"

"We received orders that the Space Station was under quarantine. No one's allowed in, and no one's allowed out."

"So that's his excuse," Jess mused. "Well, what are you going to do?"

"Do?" the guard looked at his fellow guards, bewildered.

"Surely you're going to do more than stand there and look dumb."

"Oh." The bewildered guard tried to look authoritative. "I'm afraid all three of you will have to come with me for questioning."

"By who?" Jess inquired.

"Umm..." Jess heard the guard ask a fellow guard who would be questioning them. "Us."

"You could just question us in the café over a nice cup of tea," Jess pointed out. "Or rather, a disgustingly chemical-tasting cup of tea."

The guard was uncertain. "You're not very threatening."

"Am I supposed to be?" Jess asked. "I can be. Threatening, you know. But it gets rather boring after a while."

The guard grinned sheepishly. "I hope you realise you can't go back to Neopia."

"Yes, I am aware of that," Jess replied. "How about, I come up with questions and question myself? You're pathetic." She coughed and the guard didn't realise she'd insulted him. "All right. Name, Jessica Smith. And those are Blanche and Tigger, my pets. User name, opalgirl26. Horrendously stupid, I know, but I was nine. I think." She paused in thought. "No, I was ten. That was November 2002..."

The guards watched the babbling girl speak, until they realised they should be jotting it down. One guard retrieved a notepad and a pen and started to write 'Name: Jessica Smith; User name: opalgirl26; Pets Accompanying: bubbles2003neo, tigger2002guy;'...

Jess peered over his notepad. "You forgot. Joined date, 17 November 2002... no, 16 November, actually... uhh, let's see. What else? I was published in the Neopian Times nine times but was given credit for ten. I beat Cheat! and I have a runners-up medal in Invasion of Meridell and, uh, maybe Snow Throw... oh no, I forgot the name of it. It's not Snow Throw, is it?"

"It's Snow Wars, mum," Tigger put in helpfully.

"Ah. Thank you, Tigger. And I also got a bronze for NeoQuest II, and I participated in the Battle for Meridell and that Hannah-Thieves war. I supported Maraqua in that skirmish – Zoe said I should have fought – but you don't know who Zoe is, do you? Zoe's a NeoFriend of mine, her user name's diamondzoe4, you know..."

The guard was now deeply confused, unsure of the fields he should be writing, let alone the variables. He wondered if this was a deliberate tactic on the part of the twelve-year-old.

"Can you speak coherently, please?" he enquired. Jess shrugged.

"Is that really one of your questions?" she asked in disbelief. "Well the answer is yes, I can. Do you have any more questions?"

"Uhhh..." the guard paused in thought. "We think you should join the other Neopians who are stuck up here in quarantine."

"That's not a question," Jess pointed out, "but all right, all right. Where is that, exactly?"

"Not far away," a different guard, for once – the tallest of the bunch – assured her.

"Good, good," Jess agreed, then letting herself and her pets be escorted away.