"Okay, now you have to tell me what toasters have to do with anything. You pulled my arm so hard I think you popped it out of the socket."

"Sorry, Libs," Cindy practically jumped into her computer chair, booting up the computer and mentally cursing it taking so long to turn on. In reality, it was only a few seconds, but each second mattered right now. "C'mon, load you stupid piece of junk!"

Libby checked her cell phone again, just to be certain. "Still no calls. So, what are you doing? Looking online for a toaster? I mean...I still don't see how that's gonna help us get the guys back."

Cindy's computer loaded. "Yes! Finally!" she immediately started keying in long streams of numbers and letters that to Libby didn't seem like real words. "Okay, what kind of password would he use...Goddard?"

"Password? What password? Are you going to take any time to explain this to me?"

Cindy finally looked away from her computer. "Neutron sent out a lot of those toasters as communications satellites."

"Yes, I caught that part. Still not following you, though."

"So, in order to receive a response he has to have a system set up to collect those messages, right?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure that was Vox's job."

"Right, but remember that Neutron has an antenna on top of the lab. I'm willing to wager that it helps with picking up those signals. The antenna retracted along with the rest of the lab, but maybe if we can trick Vox into thinking there's an alien transmission, we can get her out of the ground to receive the message."

"Oh, I get it. But aren't you making this more complicated than it needs to be?"

"What?"

"You're trying to hack into Jimmy's satellite, right?" Cindy nodded, not following Libby's reasoning. "Wouldn't it be easier to create a message for one of the satellites to intercept? I mean, Jimmy's a genius, I doubt he's going to make the password something really easy to guess."

"That's brilliant, Libby!" Cindy whirled her chair back around to her computer. "Okay, just gotta go through here...then here...Libby, let me see your cell phone!"

"Why does it always involve my phone when you guys make calls through outer space?" Libby complained, but handed the phone over anyway. Cindy plugged it in to a USB cable. "Do you know how much my parents have to pay for intergalactic calling? They make me do extra chores to pay for it!"

"Sorry," Cindy looked only slightly remorseful. She finished her line of coding, then hit the send button on the cell phone. "And now we wait..." She grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked out across to the Neutron's back yard, holding her breathe. "Libby!"

Libby pushed Cindy aside to get a look. "It's the lab! It's coming back up!" The two girls hugged. "Still have that hair?"

"Yep. That's two steps down. We're going to get them back, Libby!" They almost tripped over each other in their race to get back across the street to Jimmy's lab. Hold on, guys Cindy thought to herself. We're coming.

Jimmy still couldn't figure out why the light only came on when he had a note to read. He knew his captors wanted him to read the notes, but he couldn't find a light source. He checked the latest note.

Given up hope yet? The latest note read. "Never!" Jimmy shouted at the cell, certain he was being watched. After the notes regarding the nutrient cubes had stopped, the next notes always contained something antagonizing. The last one had said We have your friends. While he was certain it wasn't a lie, he couldn't do anything about it. He was worried, of course, but he couldn't seem to form an idea for a solution.

"Think...there has to be some solution. The lights only come on whenever these ...people, I guess, want me to be able to see something. There's no source I can see the light generated from, and the door has stopped opening at all, or else they only come when I sleep. ...wait. Light with no source. Meldar! He has to be involved in this. But we took his generators away, so is it really him? I suppose another being could craft matrix generators." Jimmy laid down, and would be staring at the ceiling if only he could see it. "If I could figure out who's doing this, maybe I'd have a hope of finding out how to get out of this."

"By the time we get out of here," Sheen said, tapping experimentally at one of the lichen, "Libby will already be married and Ultra Lord will have something like twenty seasons for me to catch up on. But on the bright side, I suppose I will be old enough for Beautiful Gorgeous."

"Won't she also be twenty years older?"

Sheen made a face. "Yeah, you're right. Who likes older women, anyway?"

Carl avoided eye contact. "I'm bored. I counted all those mushroom things three times each day. And you've told me the plot line of Ultra Lord episodes one through one hundred and twenty."

"There are still seven hundred more to go. Let's see, in episode one hundred and twenty one-"

"Don't, Sheen. I'm tired of Ultra Lord."

"He who is tired of Ultra Lord is tired of life."

"I miss Jimmy. He'd get us out of this."

Sheen nodded his agreement, continuing to push on the lichen until it suddenly fell to the floor. "Whoops. Poked it too hard that time. Hey, wait a minute...do mushrooms usually have wires?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe the ones from Singapore?"

"Well, I don't think we're in Singapore, Carl. But maybe we can use this to make our escape!"

"How?"

"Well, Jimmy could rewire it in some way that would blow up our cave and let us out -"

"Jimmy's not here, Sheen."

"...I keep forgetting," Sheen stared at the wires. "But maybe we can figure out something?"

Carl considered it momentarily. "I guess we got nothing better to do."