Richard struggles to escape from the clutches of the tentacle, but the creature tightens its grip and pulls him further down into the mercury sea. But just as he braces for the worst, a bright light flashes from Robo and a laser bolt hits the creature. Though the shot doesn't kill it, the beast's attention is diverted enough for Robo to grab Richard and pull him out of reach.



As Robo carries Richard to the safety of land, the mercury monster finally surfaces and glares angrily back at its lost prey. Robo identifies the mechanical monster as a Hermisite and labels it as dangerous. Upon reaching solid ground, Richard finds the cruiser waiting for him; asking how it was retrieved, he gets an answer of "remote control" from his companion.



The two friends get on the cruiser and fly away from the mercury sea. Soon the landscape changes from the monotonous flat landscape to a forest of massive spikes. White lightning bolts sizzle across the spikes. Robo predictably warns Richard to be careful as they fly through this area. As they fly through the forest, Richard asks Robo a question that had been dogging him since arriving in the Cyber Dimension: would he really ever find a means of leaving this world?



Before Robo can answer, the spike forest ends abruptly and the two find themselves flying over a massive plain that isactually a giant mirror that stretches in all directions. Robo identifies it as a mirror membrane, which separates the Cyber Dimension from other worlds. Richard is estatic, as he believes that this membrane will allow him to return home.

But his joy is short-lived, as Robo's attention is caught by an approaching flying entity. As the object gets closer, Robo immediately sends out a warning, identifying it as Flector, a mirror creature. The creature gets closer still, and Richards sees it is a giant spinning disk held by a crude robot frame. Robo fires his heat ray towards the creature, but Flector immediately fires back an even stronger blast that nearly knocks the cruiser over.



Realizing the creature can absorb and deflect attacks, Richard wonders how they can fight Flector when he remembers Robo's binary panel. A new message has appeared, so he starts to decode it as Flector starts firing a volley of laser beams. As he dodges the lasers, Richard decodes Robo's binary message and has an idea. He asks Robo to send out an ultrasonic sound, and the robot complies.

Richard hears a high pitched tone from his companion as Flector continues to fire upon them. Then, suddenly, there is nothing from Robo, and to Richard's horror Flector is nearly on top of them. Thinking that the plan has failed, Richard prepares for the worst. But suddenly, there is an enormous explosion of light and sound, and Richard watches in amazement as Flector starts to break up. The Chosen One then remembers that ultrasonic pitches are too high for humans to hear.



Flector's enormous mirror shatters into a million fragments and the robotic frame falls apart and plummets to the ground. They land on the mirror membrane and shatters its surface, sending cracks far into the distance. Robo immediately warns that the membrane is breached and there is no more stability. A blast of hot gas sweeps across the cruiser, and Richard passes out.

He awakens to find himself on the cracked mirror membrane, wifh Flector's wrecked frame nearby. Richard notice's that while everything looked the same, nothing was familiar. Robo suddenly chimes in from behind, reaffirming that the cracked membrane has caused a malfunction and that they were now inside the Cyber Dimension sub-version.



Richard understands none of what Robo is saying, but the robot continues by saying they need to find the Omni pieces, which are keys to the Cyber Dimension exit and hidden in the sub-version. Before Richard could ask for more information, there is a loud cracking sound and he turns to watch in horror as the shards of the broken mirror membrane were coming loose and flying straight towards the companions.

Richard and Robo quickly run towards the cruiser as shards of glass rain down on them. Richard's suit protects him from the smaller shards, but he fears getting hit by one of the larger shards. The two jump inside the cruiser and fly off; the glass, however, doesn't give up and flies after them.



Just when it looks like they'll get away, the cruiser starts to slow down, thanks to friction generated by the air density. To increase the power in the craft, Robo connects one of his arms to a socket in the cruiser's panel, and the cruiser pushes forward faster. But the burst of speed doesn't last for very long, and the glass continues to catch up.

Robo disconnects his arm from the socket, filling Richard with alarm. He prepares to feel the full onslaught of the glass, when suddenly the flying shards are deflected from striking them. Amazed, Richard turns to his companion, who says in a weaker voice that he is generating a protective forcefield. The robot manages to maintain the field just long enough for the glass to give up its attack and fall back to the ground.



His batteries drained, Robo informs Richard that he will recharge and falls silent. With Robo now offline, Richard continues piloting the cruiser forward. As he does, he looks down at the seemingly endless mirror plane, where he is fascinated by what lay beneath the enormous sheet. He sees an enormous crack in the plane where beautiful rock formations were visible, and between those rock formations is an incredible sight: hundreds of multi-colored spheres drifting between the rock formations.



But Richard soon notices something amiss when he sees the spheres moving in a particular pattern and realizes that they are following the cruiser. In a panic he tries to outrun the spheres, but the spheres have no trouble with catching up to the cruiser. Richard frantically calls for Robo to wake up, but the robot doesn't answer. It doesn't take long before Richard is surrounded by the colored spheres.




Comments:

The twenty-ninth volume in The Ancestral Trail finally gets things rolling by moving away from the episodic monster-of-the-issue and giving our heroes a motivation for traversing the Cyber Dimension. This motivation turns out to be the Omni pieces, which are apparently some kind of keys that will help Richard return home. So I suppose this means that returning the amulet to the Evil One is no longer an option to return home.