"Howdy, it's me. Inspector Gadget," the voice boomed. Columbo looked up, grasping his emergency knife tightly. He saw a twisted figure with a TV screen hosting the Inspector's swollen face, robot arms and pistons and mechanical tentacles sprawling forth from the main body which held the stolen artifacts: the belt, the briefcase, the revolver, the locked locket, the saw, the heart container, and even the Kaleidoskull itself.

"I owe you a huge thanks," he continued. A second, similar voice screamed, "I'm having a lot of fun."

"You really did a number on all those other VILE agents. I couldn't have gotten all the artifacts they stole without your help."

"Unfortunately," he said, ominously, "that leaves you as a loose end.

"You can shut up now," the second voice bellowed, laughing. "I'm always on duty!"

The machinery descended on the Inspector, who dodged them with all his might in vain.

"Your deductive skills are useless in the face of the power of the artifacts," Gadget gloated as Columbo tripped over an arm. "This is all just a bad dream, Lieutenant, and you are never waking up."

"Don't you feel so small now, like you are just an inch tall?" It was true: he did feel no more than an inch tall. And it was so dark, wherever he was; it was as though he were locked in a pantry. Columbo was struggling to stand by this point. He started slashing furiously at the cyborg components that were oppressing him, seeking liberty from the foul machine. He started chanting Gadget's theme song, hoping this would distract him. The bells were ringing, his ears were ringing, and the artifacts' containers were losing integrity.

"The artifacts? What are they doing?"
They fell forth from Omega Gadget's center. Then they began to swirl around, damaging the machine's hull

"NO!" he screamed in terror. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO OBEY ME! PLEASE!"
"I told you to shut up, but you didn't listen!" the second voice declared matter-of-factly.
The Inspector swore at his unfortunate circumstances. Then, once again, everything went black.

Both the Lieutenant and the Inspector, in his normal state once again, awoke next to Grucci. Columbo still held his knife.

"You've bested me, Columbo," said the battered and weak Inspector Gadget. "Go ahead, kill me. I deserve nothing more than to die right now."

"Gadget, we're taking you to prison," declared Grucci.

"No no, kill me. If you send me to prison I'll come back." However, the prison Columbo had in mind was not one that people often returned from. Grucci, as if on cue, found a vibraphone and played a very convincingly mysterious sting.

"I'm gonna have to send you to the Columbo dimension."
Gadget had worked with Columbo long enough to know what that entailed.
"No, not the Columbo dimension, please!"
And with a snap of Columbo's fingers, Inspector Gadget was no more.