A postcode given to Reese via Psychic Sarah at the fairground leads the Questers to a simulator where scientists were trained how to run the Sparticle Project. Ami, Jordan and Holly get trapped in the room with the prototype collider's super-cooling systems running, and the temperature is plummeting towards absolute zero. At the City Hotel, a fox has been at the chickens and the children decide to trap it. This is very tricky, but when they finally track down the animal and are set to destroy it, they decide on a better course of action.

While the team are on their way to the Sparticle Project, Ami is captured in the woods by the Water Rats - a group who love life messing around on the river. The Water Rats are at war with the Menaces - and the Questers, persuaded by Ami, decide to help. Will Ami swap the seriousness of the Quest for a kid's life of fun and games? Jeffrey is keen to help out more, but his wheelchair needs more power. Tia and Jeffrey discover a satellite communication system which allows them to send a message into the ether, asking anyone out there for the batteries Jeffrey needs. They arrive back at the hotel to a package - it's from Anita at the university and it comes with a message.

Jeffrey is proud of his abundant garden, but when hungry waifs turn up at the hotel, he finds himself at war. The Questers on their way to the Sparticle Project discover a bucolic village run on communal principals. Reese 'sees' Muna again and with the help of Tamsin, one of the village kids, Kat figures out that the wormhole events are occurring at points where leylines intersect. Some of the Questers, however, have been caught red-handed stealing food and are made to stand trial in the children's court where the issue is whether stealing to survive is justified.

The Ranchers have invited a tribe of seriously idle girls into their hotel. As they take advantage, the Ranchers are forced to fight back - but who will be turfed out of their home? Holly is anxious when she realises the journey to the Sparticle Project is coming to its conclusion. She leaves her fellow Questers trapped in an underground nuclear bunker, but there is another force at work. A computer who thinks there has been a nuclear war competes against the ingenuity of the children in a battle of wits.