“Impacted!” said Walpurgis. “Perfect!”

And it was! The destruction of the worm that had tried to gobble up the Vironator seemed to have destroyed the will to fight of the other worms.

The cloud suddenly shrunk – so that it was much smaller, and the squirming grey flecks were all much closer together.

Now it looked REALLY revolting!

The Vironators had stopped swooping and diving, and formed a perfect circle around the cloud.

Then, suddenly each one began to glow with a purple light all round it. Fascinated, Dot watched as the cloud started to stretch - like someone pulling at a sheet from each of its corners and all along each side – so that it went flat, again like a sheet, with dozens of pointy little bits all extending themselves towards the Vironators.

There was a screeching sound. “CREEEE-ARRR-ZOARRRRRR!”, and a crumbling and a cracking. The worm cloud was dying – tearing into pieces as it was dragged towards the Vironators.

And as it did so, the scattered, shattered fragments of it were sucked towards the Vironators – disappearing into the absorption pods under their wings. Faster and faster the fragments went in, as if in the grip of a giant vacuum cleaner – till suddenly, the sky was clear again, and the dirty black cloud had completely vanished!

“What happened to the Vironator that was caught?” asked Dot.

“Oh” said Walpurgis “That’s him there!” He tapped the screen with his paw.

Sure enough, there he was – looking as good as new.

“But… how did he escape?” asked Wiz, looking up at the screen with his head on one side and his tongue hanging out, just like cavalier King Charles spaniels always do when they’re puzzled.

“Oh – he zifted!” said Walpurgis, with a chuckle.

“Zifted?”

“Oh it’s easy to understand, really” said Carmeramalita, who’d joined them. “When the force of the worm was applied to the Vironator, it used that energy to enter a One Dimensional Pocket. So then, he hardly existed… ”

“Oh!” said Dot. She was feeling a bit silly – just DIDN’T understand.

“Because you see”, said Eldenbeam, wiping his beak with a silken handkerchief and giving a little burp (he’d finished his meal with a raspberry crumble and cream “then, he becomes as thin as a piece of... as a piece of this!”

He leant forward and pulled a stray thread out of the hem of the sleeve of Dot’s T-shirt with a little snap.

“Oh, I see” said Dot, feeling a bit less of a mugwump “So he could just slip out of the worm’s coils all round him?” “Exactly!” said Walpurgis. “And THEN, the worm impacted – all its energy was turned on itself, because it was wound up so tight, and it just vaporetted! Exploded!”

“Outstanding!” said Fromage. “And zere was I worrying about the poor Vironator caught by the worm!”

“Oh they never stop for that kind of thing” said Eldenbeam, who'd joined them. He took off his glasses - they had big round frames, one bright red, one yellow - and tiny little windscreen wipers to keep them clean. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, then gave Dot and Wiz a beaky grin. “They have to keep their eye on the job in hand – and anyway, they have all sorts of clever ways they each know for beating viruses. But look what happens now!” he said.

The Vironators were performing a kind of victory dance. Diving and climbing, zooming round each other in more and more complicated patterns, they once again reminded Dot of the Royal Air Force's amazing Red Arrows display team.

And just like the Red Arrows, they trailed a kind of multi-coloured smoke behind them.

But the difference was - this being networld - the smoke didn't fade away. Like someone knitting a very complicated jumper, the coloured lines twisted and turned, wove in and out, crossed over each other again and again, till finally you couldn't see the Vironators at all - just the huge coloured pattern they'd left in the net sky.

Then, suddenly, there was a great flash, with a ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSHHHHHHH! sound - and the coloured pattern disappeared, leaving behind their message, written across the net sky:

“Viruses! See ‘em – seize ‘em – sink ‘em!”

But of the jet-like Vironators, there was no sign!