A frightened young man was standing in the doorway of the Mk. 2's control room, staring at Prof. Emerson, looking like he had seen a ghost. The young man, who Emerson recognized as the naysayer of Abdera, Nicholas Jefferson, pointed a gun at the Professor and said, "Stand back from the controls, Myster Mentiri!"



Confused by this strange outburst from Nicholas, Prof. Emerson only managed to sputter out, "I'm not Myster Mentiri," while backing away from the console. Nicholas didn't respond, he just ran up to the console and started messing with the controls. Prof. Emerson went wide eyed for a second and calmly asked, "What are you doing?"



"I'm shutting it all down!" replied Nicholas.



"Yes, that's what I was afraid of. Look, the emergency shut off switch is over th-"



"Shut up, Myster Mentiri! I won't listen to your lies!"



"Nicholas, I am not Myster Mentiri. My name is Professor Thomas Emerson, and I designed the Mk. 2 so that the Regnum Messoris would never return."



"Well, you Abdera dummies overlooked something didn't you?"



"Wha... What do you mean?"



"They weren't all locked away, one escaped," Nicholas responded as if it were a matter of fact.



Emerson paused at this response, then finally said, "Given the sincerity that you just said that with, do I assume correctly in that I am no longer speaking to the soon-to-be-late Nicholas Jefferson, Myster Mentiri?"



"Well, well, well, not all who work for Abdera are complete idiots. Yes, you are correct in that assumption, Professor Thomas Emerson," responded Myster Mentiri in a mocking tone. Myster Mentiri then held up a small glass bottle containing a swirling back mass, "However, you are still dumb."



"What is that?"



"Enough Distorted Reality to open a portal to Limbo! I acquired it from your old lab’s implosion site."



As this conversation took place the cables attached to the inanium rings of the ASTRRLAP had drained the rings and disconnected, rising up into the ceiling. Then the rings rose several feet out of their little cradle that was cut into the ground. The rings stopped, and for a moment showed no sign of movement. Then, without warning, the light-blueish grey rings spun at remarkable speeds in opposite directions: one to the left, the other to the right.



It was at this point in the startup sequence that Myster Mentiri broke the glass of the control room and threw the bottle of DR inside. The glass container smashed against the ground, releasing its contents. The cloud DR grew as a black mass with vague instances of color appearing here and there that vanished moments after being visible. Myster Mentiri activated the final process once the cloud expanded to a size that satisfied him.



A loud tone bellowed from the back wall. This, in turn, caused a new, yet temporary, noise to occur: the rings were now scraping against each other, making a horrible screech that caused the "non-possessed" inhabitants of the control room to cover their ears. After a few moments, the noise was replaced by a more wondrous sound. It was the sound of two extremely dense metals fuse into one space while maintaining their individuality.



The sound was so mesmerizing and bizarre that it cannot be accurately described in this format; however, the sight is a little easier to put into words. The two rings rest in the same space appearing as one ring made of some churning liquid. The edges were spinning in one direction, while several, twisting eddies rotated in the opposite direction of the rings they reside in.

Unfortunately, this spectacle did not last. Because when the rings fused, all the DR in the room was sucked into the center of the ASTRRLAP, and formed a black disc that filled the null space inside the churning rings. A door to Limbo had been opened once more!



"Now, to rid myself of this fragile body," said Myster Mentiri. He, then, turned to Prof. Emerson with a smile on Nicholas' face as a top hat and cape formed from stray DR. Nicholas' face suddenly frowned and started to plea for "it" to stop; and, "it" was the slow dissolve into dust that his body had begun to do. As Nicholas' body crumbled, Myster Mentiri's body took shape in its place. "There, much better. Wouldn't you agree?"



"I might've if Nicholas was still alive," muttered Emerson.



"Hahahahaha! But, why? He would've only lived a few more minutes, and that's being generous!" Myster Mentiri turned to the Mk. 2, and without looking at the console, he flipped a switch that caused the inanium rings to slowly descend to just a couple of centimeters above the ground.



Then, from the swirling blackness from within the portal a figure appeared. As it drew near at a leisurely pace, a familiar white noise emanated from it; and a square-ish, white glow came from its head. The monster stepped out from its dark domain, revealing its already obvious identity as the Static.



Myster Mentiri floated out of the control room, down to the Static and said with a bow, "Master! I personally welcome you back to Intervallum!"



"Thank you, Myster Mentiri, it is good to be back in this world of color."



"Where are your pets and the Gaze?"



"They will be arriving soon. We came ahead to ensure the gateway's stability."



"There is no need, Master!" said Myster Mentiri, then pointed at Prof. Emerson, "That foolish Human designed this ASTRRLAP to be impervious to all conventional means of destabilization."



"Really?" the Static looked up at Prof. Emerson, who was now slowly walking backwards towards the door, "Aw, don't be shy! Come down here, so that we may thank you face-to-face."



Before Prof. Emerson could object, Space seemed to wrinkle up and stretch back out again, dumping him outside of the control room a few feet away from the invaders and the ASTRRLAP. Stunned, Prof. Emerson barely managed to spit out a "How?" before the Static answered with, "There are a lot of things you don't know about us."



"What else is there about you that I-"



"Shhh. We haven't thanked you yet," interrupted the Static, "Thank you, for designing and building this wonderful machine!"

"You are most certainly not welcome. Now, go back to the Abyss from whence you came!"



"Or what? You'll destabilize the portal? Or perhaps you will kill us?" chuckled Myster Mentiri, "Face it, you have no bargaining tool! You're weak and defenseless!"



"Ugh, we grow weary of this all-too-familiar chatter," groaned the Static, "It's harvest time, and this Human might prove to be an excellent disguise."



The Static, was preparing to drain Prof. Emerson when a black cloud of energy shot out of a security camera and stopped in between the Static and Emerson. The cloud intercepted the Static's draining beam and shot it back at him. In response he discontinued the beam with a cry of pain and stumbled backwards.



"What? How?" inquired the Static.



In response, the cloud took on a humanoid form. It was black and featureless, except for two "normal" eyes that were such a deep shade of red that they were nearly black, and a couple dozen shapes that appeared and disappeared around the figure. The shapes were each a color of the rainbow and white. It spoke in a light tone and sounded like an audio glitch, "My name is unimportant. However, if you must call me something, call me Ignotus. And I have painfully redirected your Time-Life-draining beam back at-"



"Ignotus?" Emerson was so stunned by the arrival of the visitor that he forgot his manners and continued his interruption, "As in the Ignotus that helped six Sativanians defeat the Master Notalekt?"



Annoyed, Ignotus took in a deep breath and responded, "Yes, and we're call the Encoded. However, isn't Abdera the corporation that replaced an employee with a computer? Which in turn caused that employee to realize that his universe had way too many computers and designed a virus to destroy them all that accidentally infected the Council of the Encoded? Which caused the virus to mutate into the universe destroying Notalekt virus? The very virus that tore me-"



"Silence!" interrupted the Static, "We're bored with this situation. What do you think Myster Mentiri?"



Myster Mentiri's smile grew, "I think that you should let your pets stretch their legs before absorbing the professor."



"Agreed," and with that, the Static called into the portal in a strange language. From within the portal, a lot of ticking, rattling, and skittering was heard approaching.



Myster Mentiri turned to Emerson and said with a sadistic chuckle, "I'd start running if I were you."



Ignotus quickly grabbed Emerson and dragged him out of the chamber's access door and into the hallway where they ran for their lives. Shortly thereafter, the door burst open and about a dozen Clockworkers scuttled after them. "I must confess," said Emerson panting, "I haven't been doing as much cardio as I probably should be."



Ignotus glanced back, "Well, if my knowledge serves me correctly, we shall not be running for much longer."



Emerson became even more concerned, "And what do you mean by that?"




"I mean, that either these creatures are going to catch us with their tongues or," Ignotus pointed to a door down the hall, "we duck into that security office."



Emerson glanced at Ignotus confused at how he had known what the room was; but, before he could ask, a chorus of cuckoo clocks sounded. Emerson made one final dash towards the office, while Ignotus effortlessly zoomed into the room. Emerson zipped into the room just in time as Ignotus was closing the door which pinched a Clockworker's tongue. Ignotus held the door shut trying to keep the tongue from reaching him or from opening the door. Emerson scrounged around for something to combat the forked muscle. Finally, he found a taser and thrusted the sparking edge into the tongue. A high-pitched screech could be heard from the other side of the door as the tongue began to glow orange and shrink so that it could slip out of the doorway. Ignotus slammed the door shut and turned some of the light in the room into matter and fused the door with the wall.



After he collapsed into a swivel chair and caught his breath, Emerson finally asked, "How did you know that this was a security office?"



"Two reasons: One, I was inside the computer network of this entire facility, so I know all the ins and outs of this place. That knowledge of the layout also leads me into reason two; which is, we already passed it approximately three times."



"What! How is that possible?" Emerson exclaimed, "I was certain that we never made a complete circle, let alone, three. Why are you just standing there? How did this happen?"



Ignotus cleared his throat and responded, "Why don't you ask our captor yourself."



Emerson froze for a second before slowly turning his chair to face the monitors behind him; and, all of the screens were filled with static. Sheepishly, Emerson asked, "H-how did we go in circles?"



The reply came in the form of a maniacal laugh from Myster Mentiri, followed by his booming voice, "You puny life forms know nothing of the Existence you live in! There are so many things that you can't s-"



"Quiet, Myster Mentiri!" interrupted the Static, "If the Human wants to know how we have ensnared them, then we shall oblige. You have experienced a spacial loop that we have created by the means of our Reality folding abilities. The very abilities that allowed us to slow time for that Human that Officer Jamison read about."



"About those blog posts," Ignotus suddenly chimed in with confidence, "Who wrote them?"



"Myster Mentiri wrote his. As for the other two, we don't know. There were actually more than what we gave to Officer Jamison, and they were being made as we continued on with our exploits. Why do you find this important?"



Emerson looked at the screen in front of him, and he noticed that it was glitching. He tried to say something about it but Ignotus stopped him, he mouthed the words "I know," and pointed to the monitor in front of him, which was also glitching. He then said, "Because, Static, Emerson and I will unfortunately be rescued by the author of those blog posts."



"What?" said the Static and Prof. Emerson in unison. But, before anything else could be said, two skeletal tentacles emerged from the glitchy screens; one purple, the other red. The red one wrapped around Ignotus and the purple one wrapped around Emerson. The two tentacles pulled Emerson and Ignotus into the monitors.



Emerson materialized in a strange black void. Nearby Ignotus did the same; however, his black body was barely visible, so the only features that Emerson could perceive were Ignotus' eyes and the colorful shapes that continued their cycle of coming in and out of existence.



Emerson looked around and asked, "Where are we?"



"We are what Encoded refer to as the 'inside.' But, you would probably call it the Digital Realm, the Digiverse, or Cyberspace."

"How did we get here?" asked Emerson, rubbing his head.



"You don't remember? Well, I guess that since this is your first time it must be a little overwhelming. We were in a security office where we were 'rescued' by the author of the mysterious blog posts."



"And, who might that be?"



"That would be me!" said the voice an immense being as a large skeletal creature became visible. It was tall, and had an unusually shaped head that was deformed to accommodate for its eyes and mouth. The main body, head, arms, and legs were all white. However, six spine-like tentacles, were each a different faded color of a rainbow. "Hello, Ignotus. I bet you didn't expect to see me again, did you? Why don't you introduce me to your Human friend here?"



In a shudder of fear and anger, Ignotus cleared his throat and said, "Professor Thomas Emerson? This is the Master Notalekt, the should-be-dead intelligence behind the Notalekt Virus."


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