Jess awakened the discover herself sitting upright, if lolling around a little. Her hands were tied somewhat half-heartedly and loosely behind her back, and she was in a dark, circular chamber. Blanche was nowhere in sight, but she could tell where Blanche was from the noise...

There it was. The dentist's chair. Moved from its original spot somewhere between Neopia Central and Meridell, moved to here. The Space Station.

But now the ugly green thing was accompanied by a large metal machine and a metallic dome that was currently fitting snugly over a Faerie Uni's head as her body writhed.

Jess was sickened. She glared at a cloaked figure's back – the cloaked figure who was switching switches, pulling levers and pressing shiny buttons of various colours. She continued her scathing glare as the did a bit of writhing herself to free herself from the ropes. The cloaked figure didn't notice, too enthralled by the spectacle in front of his eyes...

That he was causing...

Unseen by anyone, Jess inched her way off the chair and silently kicked the cloaked figure aside as hard as she could manage. It wasn't a very strong kick, but it would have served her purpose if she'd known how the machine worked.

So she guessed.

And it wasn't right. Blanche's screaming intensified as Jess hastily pushed the lever back to where it had been before. She then pushed it in the opposite direction, guessing that if down made the pain worse, up would make it better.

That wasn't right, either. Jess wondered if the lever worked rather like numbers, in which there was a mirror set on the other side of zero. She was glad no one was forcing her to explain her analogies – they'd be doubly sure of her insanity, even though she wasn't. Insane, I mean.

Before Jess was able to test an inviting red button, her left arm was clasped behind her back, presumably by the cloaked figure. Bother. She was so extremely left-handed that her right arm would be useless in situations like these.

"Let – go!" Jess shrieked wildly, stomping like the most primitive of her species she was capable of imagining – a caveman. While that wasn't strictly true, it did have to be capable of her imagination.

The cloaked figure ignored her and pulled a knife from his hip. Jess pursed her lips as the knife fixed itself in front of her nose.

"You're a bit off," Jess said stupidly. "And besides, you can't kill me anyway. Sloth... would be displeased."

"The great and noble Doctor does not care for primitives," came the harsh reply.

"Why is everyone here a male?" Jess asked witheringly, not particularly caring for the answer as she was being tied into her chair again. "They're certainly not more efficient," she continued, "and not more courageous. Both my male pets dropped out in cowardice. Maybe Sloth just likes idiots easy to manoeuvre. Easy to manipulate." She wasn't quite sure what she was ranting about now. Maybe she was just letting off steam about anything that had annoyed her by any male in her nearly-thirteen years of life. Like that imbecile, Peter whatever-his-name-was, who had decided that Jess couldn't throw even after she'd hit him square in the nose with a beanbag.

Jess couldn't repress a giggle. He'd gotten so much punishment for punching her in the nose in return that it was unbelievable.

It was about then Jess realised that the cloaked figure was now screaming at her about holding her tongue, and that he had taken her giggle as defiance. Geesh. She was rather stuffed then; that man held the key to... well, to something Jess had quite forgotten the word for right now. It was far more terrifying than she cared to think of a description for.

Jess coughed nervously and looked away from roughly where the cloaked man's – or pet's – head would have been if it were visible. The cloaked figure had an air of smugness around him as he, in turn, turned away from her and back to the control panel. Then the screaming started again. Guilt kicked in. She had to do something... something... something...

She couldn't do something. Nor anything, nor everything, nor nothing. She was stuck. What did she have?

There was one thing. And, funnily enough, it was what Jess did best.

Babble.

"So," Jess said loudly over the shrill screams. "Since I'm stuffed anyway, do you mind if I tidy my thoughts a little? Aloud?" There was not a reply. "I'll take that as a yes," she decided. "So, let's see. I know that we're here because Sloth can make android duplicates of us, correct?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Now, I also know that after this despicable process, I'll be shrunk and placed in suspended animation. That's also true, isn't it? So logically, it follows that as long as I don't rot away first, I'll wake up one day. Isn't that very likely, Mr. Floating Cloak?" Good nickname, Jess decided. She'd use it a bit more. "So, Mr. Floating Cloak, I also happen to know that Neopia is far ahead of my own planet in terms of time travel. Can you imagine what new developments they could have made in five thousand years? Hm, Mr. Floating Cloak? I could come back here and stop it all from ever happening." She grinned as her Mr. Floating Cloak obstinately continued exercising his sadism on Blanche. "Of course, that would set off a time paradox... and there would be two mes running around. Or," she added thoughtfully, "one me would disappear. Very interesting. Don't you think, Mr. Floating Cloak?"

The cloaked figure sighed impatiently. Flicking a switch, the dome lifted off Blanche's head. The Faerie Uni was struggling for breath and thrashing her head wildly.

Jess immediately regretted what she had said.

"Don't... hurt her," Jess ordered, quite forgetting that she was in no position to do so. "What I said... it had nothing to do..."

Jess looked in horror as the cloak stretched a hand – a human hand, nonetheless! - towards what looked suspiciously like a wooden bat.

Jess closed her eyes and cringed, but the horrible yelps were bad enough. She bit her lip until she felt her teeth go through it. She deserved it.

No, she thought, changing her mind. No one did. No one. Not even that stupid Peter whatever-his-name-was who punched her in the nose. How trivial that seemed now.

Jess took a heavy breath as the yelps continued nastily. She refused to open her eyes. She would refuse... she wouldn't open them. Never. Or at least not until this horrible business stopped. Mr. Floating Cloak was an incredibly cruel man.

As, she thought, he was a man. For some reason, that enraged her all the more. It was probably quite racist of her, but it was so dreadfully easy to blame aliens you only heard of three years ago for things, rather than your own kind. Someone from your own planet. It was very difficult to imagine them attacking defenceless aliens.

If Jess wasn't restrained by much tighter knots, she didn't think she'd need a bat. She'd attack that man with her fingernails.

"What do you think you are doing?"

Jess opened her eyes in spite of her own agreement to herself to look for where the voice had come from. She didn't see anything pertaining to that, but her eyes unfortunately fell on a bruised and battered Blanche who was sobbing with pain as Mr. Floating Cloak gave her a reprieve – probably because of the voice.

"The human was being difficult, sir," the man – or, as Jess soon realised, the boy – stumbled vaguely. He was only a few years older than her!

"What do you mean, 'the human'?" Jess shrieked hysterically, yet again forgetting her plan of keeping them closed. "You're human! Not only are you human, you're sick!"

That didn't count to Sloth very much. "You are delaying progress, Mr. Forrester. When the girl is processed, you may continue." Jess got the impression that he switched the microphone off after that.

This Mr. Forrester – only in year 9 or 10, Jess realised – obeyed Sloth and untied Jess's hands. He was amazingly, incredibly strong and held them firmly behind her back over the short five-metre trip to the dentist's chair. Jess wasn't sure whether to be furious or depressed, and oddly settled to a combination of both.

"You think this is all a game," Jess sobbed bitterly. "You haven't made the jump yet, have you?"

"I'm only obeying orders, little missy," Forrester told her coldly.

"You don't understand," Jess hissed. "I'm real. This is real. What you're doing... it's happening. I can feel it."

"I don't think an android of you is much use," the teenager declared. "You're insane."

Jess sighed. "Can't you hear that?" she asked. "Listen. Can't you hear crying? You inflicted that. It's all your fault."

"You cannot harm a virtual reality," Forrester declared in his usual cold tone. Jess saw no more as the dome was placed over her head, like so many before her.

"This is not a bloody virtual reality!" Jess yelled. "You think you're sitting in front of your computer at home, don't you? Doing something 'cool' and evil?"

"Oh, but I am," Forrester assured the anxious though furious girl confidently. "Now, if you'll be quiet for a moment."

"Why should -" Jess reluctantly obeyed as the massive pain being inflicted on her gave her no choice.

This was the worst Saturday she'd ever suffered.