Ray, Carol, and the professor packed and put a lot of Ray's stuff into the spaceship. It was carefully stored and made so that it would not come loose during a flight.

Ray took his legal papers, even though his clients were all dead. He wanted to go through them before he made a decision to keep them or not. He felt sad for all those people. Though poor, they had all had lives, friends, family, and their dreams. That was all gone now. No one knew why. Not yet.

Ray was quiet as he packed those papers. There must be something he could do make those people's deaths have meaning, and not have been in vain.

There must be something he could do, Ray thought to himself, over and over again.

He bumped into Carol, who was carrying some of his dvd collection.

" Hey, watch out there, little brother. Pay attention to what you're doing."

" Sorry, sis... my mind was elsewhere." He told her, his voice in the room, but his mind elsewhere.

" Well, come back to Earth and help."

Carol's words made Ray stop dead in his tracks.

Come back to Earth and help. This is what he had to do. Somehow.

An hour and a half later, and whatever Ray had wanted to take with him back to Carol's home in Chicago had been safely stowed away.

The Professor was a little out of breath. He was 116 earth years old, but Zi - Alorians were long lived. Their normal life span, barring injury or severe illness, was about 250 Earth years. The Professor only appeared to be about 60.

They had lunch before lift off. Nothing special, just some burgers, fries, and Coca - Cola that Ray had in the fridge. It was good. All three were hungry after being up all night. The Professor was able to consume Earth foods because food on Zi - Alor was similar, except without the amounts of cholesterol and salt. Those were eliminated by Zi - Alor's more advanced science... the very same science which was now being used to devastate Zi - Alor.

This was why the Professor had left his homeworld...he could not help them destroy themselves, and his sabotage had been discovered when more and more peaceful robots he'd created had refused to fight, and had fled the planet to other worlds.

The three walked up the ladder and into the sleek, shiny, silver ship.

After lunch, they used the Professor's communcation system to call Carol and Ray's mother, Barbra, to let her know Ray was alright.

Barbra cried as soon as she had heard Ray's voice. They spoke only briefly. Carol spoke with her a little, as did the Professor. Barbra was not surprised to hear from him.

Zum once more activated the ship's cloaking device.

He initiated the launch sequence, which was successful. Had there been a problem, he was more than capable of repairing it by himself.

Ray took one last look at his house. He had liked it a lot. He would miss it, his job, friends, and his life in LA.

Ray was amazed at the smoothness of the lift off.

The three of them could see the destruction from the air. It was horrible... It reminded Carol of 9-11, only a billion times worse.

The ship traveled slowly towards Lincoln, Illinois, at an altitude of 75,000 feet...far above commercial air space.

Carol shed a few tears. The deaths of all those people had finally sunk in, now that she wasn't occupied with moving Ray's possessions. Ray held her. He was deep in thought, staring at the compartment in the dashboard where Professor Zum had stored Darmo's memories.

Memories of Ray's, which he hadn't known existed until just a few hours ago.