"Yeah there's the place," Larry pointed towards a large silver gate with sharp spikes at the top of it. "That'll be three canisters of floss."

"You literally just walked us around the corner from your office," Sarah said. "Three canisters of floss seems like a kind of steep price for less than a minute of work."

"First off, I promised to take you to where the energy spike is coming from. I can't help how far or not far it is from where we started. I delivered on my end. Secondly, three canisters is taking into account the family discount. Normally I'd charge five canisters for this sort of thing. Now pay up. Or do I have to enlist some of my sketchy friends to start breaking some kneecaps?"

"We don't know if this is the place we're looking for," Sarah said. "Maybe this is something innocent like a power generator or something."

"With all due respect it doesn't seem to me you even know what you're looking for," Larry said. "You just said you were looking into an energy spike. I can promise you this place is putting out a lot of energy. And I don't think zapping people is something innocent people do. I told you they zapped me, right? It was very rude. Especially since they were already being rude and making lots of noise and shining light in my window at like 4 A.M. Look, I don't know who these people are, what this place is, or what they're up to, but if you're investigating weird sources of large amounts of energy, this is definitely the place. So are you going to honor our deal or what?"

Lothar had pulled out a device that looked like a little rotating plastic bird on the end of a pole. He pointed it towards the gate and the bird began spinning around faster and faster until soon it was just a blur. There was a beeping sound emanating from the device that grew louder and louder as the bird continued to spin with increasing velocity. After a few seconds the device exploded in his hand. "Well, there goes another meter. But this one exploded even faster than the other ones. I'm pretty sure this is the place we're looking for. Go ahead and pay the man, will you?"

"I'm not quite sure why the floss is coming out of our pocket when this is your project," Sarah grumbled as she paid Larry. "We're supposed to be trying to locate my fiancee's body, which is currently being inhabited by a chicken, in case anyone forgot."

"Nobody's forgotten," Dr. Octavius said. "I want to find Pauline as much as anyone so I can gather the results of my experiment. And also so you can marry your little boyfriend, of course. But if Lothar is correct in his suspicions, this place could be extremely dangerous. I know you can't have your wedding if we can't locate Maurice's body, but nobody's going to be having any weddings ever again if the universe gets wiped out of existence."

"Now we just need to get to the bottom of exactly what this place is," Lothar said.

"Uh, nobody mentioned anything about universes getting wiped out of existence," Larry said as he shoved the canisters of floss in his pocket. "I'd love to stay and help you figure out what's going on here, but I've got a lot of business to attend to back at the office, so good luck. I'll keep an eye on things from my window up there. If you get zapped to death I'll call someone to come clean up your remains. I won't even charge you for it. How's that for service? Anyway, like I said lots to do." He turned around and went running back around the corner. A moment later they could see him peeking out his window at them.

"So," Dr. Octavius said as he rubbed his chin. "How do we go about investigating this anomaly? All we can see from here is a fairly nondescript gate, which apparently administers unpleasant shocks if you attempt to touch it."

"Do you still have your pocket periscope?" Sarah asked. "Maybe you can see over the top of the gate."

"Indeed I do. Never leave home without it. Good thinking, Sarah." He rummaged through his pockets tossing aside some random gears and broken springs before he emerged with the periscope. He extended it to its full height and walked as close to the gate as he dared. The top of the periscope just barely cleared the gate when he stood on tippy-toes and held it to eye-level. He peered through the periscope, but almost immediately dropped it and shielded his eyes.

"Are you okay?" Sarah asked.

"I think so. Just got a large lingering spot in my eyes. I couldn't see anything on the other side of the gate except for a blindingly bright light. Hopefully my vision will return in a minute or two."

"I've got some amazingly kick-ass eyedrops I designed myself," Lothar said as he pulled a little bottle out of his pocket and offered it forth. "Perhaps they might provide some relief in this instance."

"Thank you," Dr. Octavius said as he removed his glasses and applied the eyedrops. "Yes, they seem to be working. I can see much better already. Nonetheless, I don't think I'll be trying to look through the periscope again."

"How much weird stuff do you guys carry around in your pockets, anyway?" Sarah asked. "I swear I don't have that much crap in my purse and I haven't cleaned it out in a couple years."

"A mad scientist needs to be prepared for all eventualities," Dr. Octavius and Lothar said at the same time. They looked at each other and then both said "Jinx."

"Oh great, they jinxed each other," Dennis said. "Now neither of them can talk until we say their names."

"Are you being serious right now?" Sarah asked.

Lothar and Dr. Octavius both looked at her without saying anything.

"They take their jinxes very seriously. If one of them talks before being released the other guy is allowed to sally slap him."

"Sally slap? What's that?"

"It's when you lick your hand and then proceed to slap someone. It's quite painful. No, I'm afraid neither will talk ever again until their names are spoken."

"Fine," Sarah sighed. "Let's break the jinx. Dr. Octavius. Lothar."

"That's a relief," Lothar said. "I got jinxed once in primary school and nobody said my name for almost three years. I had to enroll in a speech therapy program just to relearn how to use my vocal cords, which had atrophied in the interim. Second worst three year period of my life. Anyway, where were we?"

"Sarah was making snarky comments about how much stuff you guys carry in your pockets," Dennis said helpfully.

"Oh yes," Lothar nodded. "And we were explaining to you that mad scientists need to carry lots of items around that may be of potential use in a wide variety of situations. It's certainly nothing to be making fun of."

"Really, Sarah," Dr. Octavius said. "Don't be a hater. It's unbecoming."

"I'm not hating. I honestly don't care what you guys carry around with you, as long as it's useful. I'm the one who suggested you look for your pocket periscope, remember? But really we're wasting way too much time on what was intended to be a random aside comment. What's important here is figuring out how to get through this gate, and assuming we're able to do that, how do we actually see what's there without going blind? You guys got anything else in your pockets that might help us out here?"

"I believe I have some industrial-strength sunglasses," Dr. Octavius said as he began rummaging around. "Ah yes, here they are. These might help with the light. I'm afraid I cracked my periscope when I dropped it though. We'll have to figure out some other way to look over the gate."

"I think I have the solution for that," Lothar said as he dug through his pockets and emerged with a pair of stilts.

"How the heck did you fit those in there?" Sarah asked. "Never mind I don't want to know. Who's going to wear the sunglasses and climb on the stilts?"

"This seems like a Dennis job to me," Lothar said.

"Agreed," Dr. Octavius said. "Have you ever walked on stilts before, Dennis?"

"Well, no, actually. And I'm not exactly known for my stellar sense of balance. Old Clumsy Dennis is what my frat brothers used to call me. Of course most people probably don't have great equilibrium after doing multiple keg stands. What the heck, I'll give it a shot. Hand me those sunglasses."

It took him a few tries, but he eventually got himself upright on the stilts and began hobbling around on them.

"How's it going up there? Are the sunglasses working?"

"Oh yeah. They seem to be dampening out the worst of the light. I can see some sort of building."

"What kind of building?"

"I don't know. It has a roof. A few windows. Looks like a front door. Might be made out of concrete or something? I don't know much about building materials."

"All of that sounds like a standard building. Isn't there anything distinctive about it?"

"Distinctive? Oh, you mean like the giant statue situated on top of the building? I guess that's kind of different."

"What's it a statue of?"

"I don't know. Some guy? Whoever he is, I've never seen him before. Uh, I think I might be losing my balance here." He suddenly tipped over and slammed right into the gate. A bolt of electricity shot out and zapped him, sending him flying back the other way. He landed on the ground right by Sarah's feet with smoke rising off of him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm not sure yet," he said. "That certainly didn't feel very good though."

"Plus you burned my stilts to a crisp," Lothar said as he held up the singed pieces that remained. "They're worthless now. This is coming out of your paycheck, mister."

"In the meantime we're no closer at all to figuring out what this place is or who's behind it," Dr. Octavius said. "We need to get on the other side of this gate. I don't see any mechanisms on this side that we could use to open it and any physical contact seems to result in triggering a brutal defense system. I was going to suggest leaning a ladder against it and climbing over, but based on what happened to your stilts, I think that's out. No, the only thing that I think might solve this dilemma is one of your doors. You've been working on programming them to take you where you want to go, right? Perhaps we could program one to take us to the other side of this gate."

"Hmm," Lothar said. "It might take a little bit of time, but I believe it could be done. It will require some complex ten-dimensional calculus, but I can do that sort of thing in my sleep. I could probably do it right here and now if it wasn't for this infernal racket. Does anyone else hear that? Sounds like an engine revving up?"

"We all have functional ears, as far as I know," Dr. Octavius said. "That noise would be difficult to overlook. And I concur, it does indeed sound like an engine. A large, very powerful engine, which appears to be originating on the other side of the gate, which we would be able to confirm if we could just get ourselves to the other side of the aforementioned gate."

"Hey guys," Sarah said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the gate is opening on its own."

They all had to leap to the side of the road to avoid getting run over by the strange purple vehicle that came spinning out in a cloud of steam. It lingered outside the gate for just a brief instance before suddenly racing out of sight down the street.

A small chicken came waddling out of the gate after the vehicle had disappeared. "Sarah! Dr. Octavius! Thank God I found you!"

"Maurice? Is that you?" Sarah asked as she ran over and hugged the chicken. "What in the world are you doing here?"

He held up a wing as he huffed and puffed trying to catch his breath.

"I'm afraid we haven't managed to locate your body yet, but we'll keep looking."

"That's okay," Maurice panted. "There's something I really, really need to tell you guys..."