In not much time at all, the lift slowed and eventually halted at floor -12 – the very last one. The door opened.

"It's quite chilly," Blanche remarked.

"You're telling me. Neopia Central's far more seasonal than Melbourne, anyway, and there's a brilliant quote for it."

"For what?"

"Melbourne, silly. 'If you don't like the weather in Melbourne, wait five minutes.'" Jess paused to think about that quote. "Most of the time, though, five minutes won't do it. Three months is far more effective. Unless, of course, you happen to have a time machine, which I don't."

There she was with the babbling again. "What are we looking for down here?" Blanche shivered.

Jess surveyed the dark room. "It was just a theory," she muttered. "But all the storage here appears to be the size of shoes. Or at least, they fit into shoebox-sized boxes."

"Logically," Blanche agreed. "Unless, of course..."

"Unless? Of course?"

"Suppose Sloth not only has androids and satellites, but access to suspended animation equipment and a... a shrinking device?"

Jess thought. "Logical," she decided. "But most of that stuff is unknown to Neopia. Where could he have learnt it?" She suddenly paused. "I wonder..."

"Wonder?"

"Diana Wattle. Maybe she served a purpose to Sloth. You know, apart from the usual annoying-reporter-gets-thrown-out-of-airlock thing."

"They don't have shrinking devices on Earth," Blanche pointed out, "and cryogenic suspension is still in its infancy. Humans still don't know what happens when you come out of it."

"Blanche!" Jess complained. "It's not like Neopia's done any better."

"True," Blanche admitted. "But I'll tell you what we are ahead of you of. Time travel."

"That's no use," Jess complained.

"Yes it is," Blanche argued. "He could travel to a time where shrinking devices exist, or are even commonplace."

"Oh. Right. Well, I..." Jess struggled to think of a suitable statement to wipe Blanche's smug smile off her face. "Well, I knew that. I was just testing you." It didn't work. Well, of course, she couldn't have expected it to. Not with such a rubbishy argument as 'I was just testing you'.

Turning away from Blanche's smug face, she approached the wall of boxes and pulled one off at random. It felt as cold as ice. She slowly prised away the lid and, lying dormant inside, was a perfectly miniaturised Baby Poogle. She wondered how its family must have felt on being attacked by such a sweet – if bigger than toddler shoe-sized – Baby Poogle.

She returned the box to its position in the wall, moving to her left a few steps. She pulled a box from as high as she could reach – for the wall itself stretched several dozen metres above her head – and prised away its lid. Inside this box there was a miniaturised Halloween Lupe who barely seemed to fit into the box. His face had an unmistakeable grimace on it.

She searched for another box. This one was barely visible, made of ice itself, but Jess eventually determined its status as an Ice Bori. The next box held a clump of snow that had probably once been a pet, but had fallen a part. Why put a clump of snow in suspended animation?

She'd been through a dozen or so boxes before she heard Blanche stroll up to her.

"It's terrible," Jess declared. "Terrible." She showed Blanche the contents of the latest icy box pulled off the shelves. Inside it there was a small human girl, dressed in pink and with pink bow ties in her hair. "She can't be older than seven." She found it even harder to comprehend that this girl – or rather, this girl's body – would go on a murderous killing spree. Sloth was truly, truly sick in the mind. "How many are there?" she asked quietly, placing the resealed box back on the shelf.

"Millions, I'd gather," Blanche replied, her voice betraying little of the emotion that Jess was feeling.

"But," Jess continued, "how many like that?"

"What, young? Cute?"

Jess bit her lip until Blanche finally went through enough wrong suggestions to trigger her. "Human. How many... how many humans?"

Any slightest trace of pity Blanche might have displayed was swallowed up by fury. "Humans."

"No," she added hastily. "Not just humans -"

"Humans. You... racist..."

"In answer to your query," a new, unseen male voice interjected, "there are six hundred and seventeen thousand, eight hundred and ninety-three humans here."

Jess looked around at the cold, huge room, which appeared no different. "Where are you?"

"Where am I not?" the voice replied laughingly. "You've heard my voice before, my dear."

"Oh, I should have guessed," Jess replied angrily. "All this... only you would have the sadism required!"

"Sadism?" the bemused tone asked.

"Now, listen you," Jess replied bitterly, "anyone who can kidnap pink-wearing seven-year-olds to replace with murderous androids without fear of guilt isn't anything less. And don't chortle when I'm reprimanding you."

The disembodied voice, which Blanche correctly guessed to be Doctor Sloth, started to actually laugh.

"Why is it that nobody takes me seriously?" Jess grumbled. "So what are you going to do, All-Mighty Disembodied Voice That Is Too Cowardly To Show Up In Person?"

"Look around you, Miss Smith."

Jess did. Icy boxes. Wow. Then she realised what was in them.

"You can't!" Jess shrieked. "Your plan's already completed. Finished. Successful."

"You don't even know what the plan is," Sloth told her. "Did you really think I'd stop after one miserable planet?"

"Ah," Jess replied. "I'm afraid I did. But don't start chortling again." The voice ignored her and chortled anyway.

"Typical," Jess muttered. "What do you intend to do, eh? Take over... oh, what was the name again? It began with a D..."

"Detrum?" Blanche suggested helpfully.

"Yes, that was it," Jess nodded. "Neopia's nearest interplanetary neighbour."

"In fact," Blanche added, "it shares the same orbit as Neopia but in the other side. Rather like a twin planet."

"Exactly," Jess beamed.

"And it has fourteen -"

"Yes, that's enough, now," Jess shushed her. "So, Sloth, is that your plan?"

"That's Doctor Sloth to you," Sloth said sneeringly. "I don't have to reveal my plan to mere, primitive humans, either."

"Primitive humans?" Jess stopped furiously. "You're either very stupid or very powerful. Or rather, you are very stupid and you're possibly very powerful."

"Hold your tongue!"

"Can't be bothered," Jess argued. "So, hm? How are we to assist in your evil plan? Suspended in a hollow ice cube like those guys?"

"No one ever thinks my plans are original," Sloth replied. "You're completely right, Miss Smith. My guards'll be there to meet you in a minute."

Jess breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, good. Those guards were quite pleasant. And quite dim-witted, too."

"I'm not sure those are the guards Sloth means," Blanche objected.

"Don't be silly. What other guards are there?"

Blanche didn't get a chance to answer, however, as both girls were hit by stun beams from unseen directions.