Day changed into night and there were no further visits to the basement. The group tried to sleep the best they could on the hard floor inside the cage. The next morning DTH Jon was woken by Karyn. Athena had came back into the basement. Saying nothing and ignoring the prisoners, she stood off to one side. She was now fully dressed. As were Sarah and Biff who followed her down the stairs. They looked like they were going adventuring. Both with dressed in cargo pants and pieces of camo clothing. They were also both wearing small backpacks. Sarah had the DTH in one hand and a metal briefcase in the other.
"Morning peons!" Sarah said in a cheery manner to her captives. "I hope you got a good night's sleep because I sure did." She put the briefcase on a workbench. "I've got a surprise for you all." She said as she unclipped the briefcase latches. "Well not a total surprise because someone's got a big mouth." She glanced at Athena. Out of the briefcase she pulled a device that bore little resemblance to the DTH. It was black and about three times the size. So large in fact it had a hand-strap for holding it. The screen didn't look much bigger though. There were a lot more controls, switches, dials, buttons, no two appeared to be the same type. Numerous bundled multi-coloured wires ran round the outside of the case.
She waved it in front of the captives. "What do you think?" Sarah asked them.
"It looks like a piece of crap." DTH Jon said. Sarah briefly frowned.
"You are lucky I'm in a good mood. I'm actually going to let you all go. Here's what's going to happen. We're going to leave with this." She held up the copied DTH. "I've left the key to the padlock upstairs. I've told Athena where. She'll go get the stone then release you all."
Zoe spoke up. "She hates us, she might not let us out."
"My parents will be back in a day or two, they'll find you, probably." Sarah told her. "Anyway. I don't want you following me." She dropped the DTH on the floor. "Biff, will you do the honours?"
"Sure thing, Sarah." The oversized Jock said. He brought his heel down with great force on the DTH multiple times. It bounced around the floor. DTH Jon stood watching unemotionally.
Panting after dozens of impacts, Biff leaned over and picked up the DTH. There wasn't a scratch on it. "This thing is pretty tough, Sarah." He said looking at it.
"This place is full of tools. Use one of them." Sarah instructed. Biff looked through the tool boxes as Sarah stood watching impatiently. He located a sledge hammer. Biff had a smile on his face as he whacked the DTH with the large hammer. The DTH was still undamaged. He tried four or five more times before Sarah stopped him. "Stop! Just forget it." Biff put the hammer down. Even though DTH Jon was sore and tired Biff's misfortune still managed to put a smile on his face.
"Okay time to get started." Sarah said as she flicked a large metal toggle switch on the side of her DTH. It emitted a quickly rising frequency like an old camera flash charging up. The original DTH, still on the floor, started making a lot of angry bleeping noises and it's screen started flashing different colours.
"The DTH doesn't like this Sarah." DTH Jon warned her.
"Like I care what your stupid device thinks." Sarah told him. She turned to Biff holding out her free hand. "You have to hold my hand." Biff was preoccupied by the noises coming from the DTH.
"Are you sure about this Sarah? I mean it might be warning us or something." Sarah grabbed his hand forcefully.
"Don't you start. We are doing this together."
DTH Jon practically screamed at the two of them. "I warned you Sarah, I warned you! Don't do this." Sarah rolled her eyes. She pushed a button on her DTH. Another series of nasty beeps came out Jon's DTH.
The effect was not instantaneous, unlike Jon's DTH. They slowly started to fade out. Just before they vanished their body shapes became distorted. There were a pair of blood curdling screams from Sarah and Biff as they travelled to
"What the hell?" Athena asked. She turned to DTH Jon. "What happened to them?"
DTH Jon shook his head. "I warned them."
"What the hell did you do to them?" Athena demanded to know, practically screaming herself.
"I didn't do anything. It was your buddy Leonard, he did a good job of copying the DTH's operating system and installing it on Sarah's device. I hadn't set a destination when they took the DTH. That meant neither did the copy, so it defaulted to the nearest timeline."
"The flower petal dimension?" Karyn asked him. DTH Jon nodded.
"What is the flower petal dimension?" Athena asked.
"It's a dimension where time folds in on itself. Your sacred stone brought it into existence. There is no escape. None that I've found so far anyway."
Athena stepped back from the cage. "Poor Sarah," her mood seemed to change, "oh well at least I still get the stone." She turned round and ran up the stairs. She pulled on the door handle and the door remained closed. She tried again and again, it was clearly locked. Eventually she came back down the stairs.
"Problem?" Asked a grinning Zoe. The whole group in the cage had heard her noisy attempts at opening the door.
"Looks like Sarah took her petty revenge for telling us about the prototype." DTH Jon said.
"Guess she's stuck with us peons." Said Karyn to a somewhat dejected looking Athena.
"Laugh all you want. It means you're stuck in that cage till Sarah's parents come home."
Prisoner Jon who had remained silent throughout said. "Can you guys feel a breeze?"
"What is the big deal about a breeze?" Athena asked.
"In all the time I've been in here, I've never felt a breeze." He said.
Thinking fast DTH Jon scratched up a handful of dust and threw it in the air. They all watched as the cloud of dust slowly moved out of the cage across the basement. It started turning into a cone shape as it got nearer the point where Sarah and Biff had disappeared. Suddenly it vanished.
"Okay that was weird." Said Athena walking towards the point where the dust disappeared. Several strands of her long hair started being pulled towards it. "Ow!" She screamed in pain as she moved back towards the cage. "What is that? Some kind of vacuum cleaner?"
DTH Jon shook his head. "Something much worse."
