The appliances and Wittgenstein alert Rob and his girlfriend, Chris, to Mack's scheme. The appliances install Radio's tube in Wittgenstein and he wakes up with boosted power that regenerates all of his other tubes and destroys all the viruses within him. Guilt-ridden over condemning the animals to their doom at Tartarus Laboratories, Radio gives up his own tube, sacrificing himself. Wittgenstein does his best to survive, but the virus causes him to blow his remaining tube and he dies. However, when Radio and Ratso return with the tube, they accidentally break it during an argument. In an attempt to return Wittgenstein to his full capacity, Radio and Ratso go to the storage building of the college to find the WFC-11-12-55 tube. The appliances learn that unless they find a replacement quickly, Wittgenstein's vacuum tube will blow and lead to his death. Wittgenstein reveals that he is living on one rare vacuum tube, a WFC-11-12-55, due to being infected by a computer virus. Meanwhile, Mack, Rob's lab assistant, plots to sell the injured animals Rob had been tending to a Santa Clarita laboratory named "Tartarus Laboratories." The appliances discover an abandoned, old prototype TLW-728 supercomputer named Wittgenstein in the basement. The appliances, along with a rat named Ratso, seek to help Rob by finding and reversing the effects of his computer virus. One night, while finishing his thesis, his computer crashes due to a computer virus. Rob McGoarty, the owner of the appliances, and the one referred to as "The Master," is in his last days of college while simultaneously working at a veterinary clinic.