"Good job distracting him, Doc!" Dennis said. "While you kept him busy talking I attached all those explosives he kept in his fridge to his vehicle and blew it up. That'll show him. He won't be able to travel anywhere now!"

"I don't think he needs that particular mode of transportation anymore," Dr. Octavius said. "He just flew away under his own power."

"Oh, wait. That was him?" Dennis asked. "I thought that was someone else because I didn't know that guy could fly. I thought maybe it was like a big purple butterfly or something that just happened to be passing by. All right, so maybe blowing up his ride didn't exactly accomplish anything, but I heard he wanted to blow up your guys's labs. Surely he won't be able to do that now since I used up all his homemade bombs, right?"

"Something tells me he's not going to need those bombs anymore either. I believe Lothar and I need to have a strategic conference immediately."

Lothar opened the door a crack and peeked out. "Is it safe? Is he gone? Did you blow him up?"

"He has departed for the moment, but unfortunately we haven't seen the last of him. In fact, he has stated his intentions to blow up our labs."

"Wait a minute," Lothar said. "That's not good. I've got a lot of important stuff in my lab."

"As do I. We will also need some sort of lab-like space to work on projects if we're going to figure out a means to stop him."

"Can he be stopped?" Lothar asked.

"Yes, I believe so. Our main source of trouble isn't the boy himself, but rather the powerful energy that inhabits him. If we can coax it to come out, Vance is merely a standard human with below average intelligence. We should be able to best him easily. The issue is that the energy has made it clear that it desires a vessel to hold it, and currently Vance is its preferred containment unit."

"So in other words we need to invent a container that is more desirable to the energy than this idiotic boy that it is currently inhabiting."

"That is precisely the conclusion that I've come to as well," Dr. Octavius said. "But before we can set our minds to that, we need to figure out a way to protect our labs before that fool destroys them."

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation," Sarah said from over Lothar's shoulder. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"No, we need to put our minds to work and, no offense, but you'd likely distract us with unnecessary questions and suggestions. Also as your uncle and primary parental figure, I'd like to keep you safe, and at the moment that means being away from our labs." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a canister of floss, which he tossed to Sarah. "Here. Are you hungry? Why don't you and Maurice make yourselves scarce for a little while and get yourselves something to eat?"

"I guess it's been a while since breakfast," Sarah said.

"Can I come?" Dennis asked. "I'm starving and you guys ate all of the cheesy poofs."

"No, you may not go," Lothar said. "Your assistance will be required for running any menial errands we need. Also you're entirely expendable."

"Okay, but how long should we stay away?" Sarah asked. "And how do we meet up with you again?"

"Hard to say, but I figure it'll be at least a couple of hours. You can come check out my lab, but keep a safe distance. If it hasn't already been destroyed by then, it may be the case that Lothar and I have figured out how to protect it. Or Vance just may not have come by yet to blow it up. Or it'll be a smoldering ruin. Either way we'll have a better sense of what's going on by that point. Stand at the far end of the block and moo like a cow and we'll know to come looking for you. Now run along and grab yourselves some supper."

"And let's the three of us head over to my lab," Lothar said. "I've got the beginnings of an idea."

*

Lothar's lab was filled almost entirely by an exceptionally long table covered in stacks of doors of various shapes, colors, and sizes. They were looking for a particular yellow door with a pink circle on it. Unfortunately the doors were not well organized and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen it, so it was taking them a little while to sort through the doors. Dr. Octavius was beginning to think he had made a mistake sending Sarah and Maurice away when he did.

Lothar couldn't help but brag about what various doors did as he came across them on the table. "This one here is the dream door I was telling you about. Very exciting stuff. And this one is a highly experimental prototype time travel door that I'm working on. And this one here! Oho! This one lets you inhabit the body of a tree! Fascinating stuff, I tell you."

Dr. Octavius stopped dead in his tracks when he lifted up the next door. "What does this door do?"

"Oh that? That's just a generic programmable universe hopping door. Nothing exciting. Wait, here we go. This is the door we're looking for." Lothar lifted up a standard sized door that was yellow and sported a pink circle as advertised. "This door leads to a small pocket universe where I used to hide out. The door used to be invisible, password activated, and site specific, but I started getting annoyed having to walk to the same spot just to use it. So I disabled the need for it to be in a specific spot to work. And then I got tired of trying to remember the password, since it forced me to change it every ninety days for security purposes, and that just became annoying, so I disabled the password activation. And then I kept misplacing it and having a terrible time finding it, so I disabled the invisibility and painted it in distinctive colors. It still leads to the pocket universe, but it's much easier to find and activate now. So my idea is that we shove all of the other doors into this door. That protects all of my valuable items in a completely separate universe, so it doesn't matter if that moron destroys this lab. Then we head over to your lab and we can shove everything you need kept safe into this door as well. Then we simply take this door to a neutral location where it won't be blown up if either of our labs are destroyed. I can even re-activate the invisibility so he won't be able to find it and voila, our problem is solved and we can turn our minds to other matters."

"That sounds like a good plan," Dr. Octavius said as he lifted up the door he had been holding. "In the meantime, I'm going to need to keep this door set aside along with another universe hopping door. After we get everything else protected in your pocket universe I'm going to need you to program both of these doors according to some very precise specifications. How long would that take you to accomplish?"

"Oh, assuming you know the necessary coordinates, I believe I could get them programmed in a matter of twenty minutes or so. May I ask, why do you need that door in particular?"

"Because this door is an old friend of mine," Dr. Octavius said. "And what's more it doesn't belong here. As a matter of fact, it's already been destroyed, but if it gets destroyed now by Vance, or indeed at any point in the future, the consequences would be catastrophic. I can't trust leaving this door in your pocket universe, and I absolutely can't let Vance destroy it. I'm afraid we're going to have to attend to this as soon as possible."

"Okay," Lothar said. "I still don't understand what you're talking about, but give me a hand shoving all these other doors into the pocket universe and then we'll head over to your lab and you can explain more along the way."