Earlier in the week, Bathor had proposed a day and time to meet, at the access point of the dot. Zax had agreed.

General information on the First Circle wasn’t hard to get, but the dotters had no idea what to expect from this specific trip. They had warned the authorities, of course. Zax being an on-call specialist, he had to give a heads up when he left the dot.

Furthermore, he still didn’t trust the Circle one bit; he merely gave the horned woman the benefit of the doubt. Aran didn’t have a strong opinion but trusted Zax, and SG had her own reasons to be generally wary.

Therefore, they didn’t hold back on the preparations and precautions, just in case. Maybe a bit for fun too, in some cases. Advised online, they included packaged meal pills and solutions, 3G stacks, downloaded maps marked with Enforcer stations, saved websites and webpages they might need, emergency numbers on speed dial, and backup bracelets.

It sounded like a lot, but it didn’t take much physical space, and did didn’t take long to complete. Pointless and excessive might be accurate descriptors, but peace of mind was priceless. Also, finding unexpected ways and places to hide different items on their person was fun in its own way.

The girls asked to have the same nanites their expert friend had, to serve as protected bracelets when they had to turn theirs off. Which – somehow – led them to ask for nanites in their pets too. Aran wanted to make character sheets for them, “for fun”. Zax could only laugh exasperatedly. It wouldn’t make them less of a control group, so he had no reason to refuse. It would help his health and behavioural checks, although it wouldn’t preclude the traditional tests they were required to do.

The pet-owners even wanted to pay, but could only do so for the materials. The manpower didn’t have a price set; no demand and all that. He used standard nanites only, installed Stat Maker and the WIL extension, and locked the nanites with different keys for each individual.

“I can understand why you don’t want to waste your precious swarm on them, but why the locks? Afraid we’ll hack them?”

Aran’s question had come as they traipsed to their fateful appointment.

The girls could feel Zax’s anxiety, so they had proposed to go there on foot. Walking and talking would help smooth his nerves. Not just his either; he wasn’t the only one stepping out of his comfort zone.

They followed along the ring that circled the whole dot, the residential area, to their right. They passed several neighbourhoods on the way, some better maintained than others, but all homely and made distinctive by the inhabitants’ personal additions.

“One of the first observable results with the subjects was: the meditation effect does happen with the standard nanites, it’s just weaker. Probably because they’re too ‘heavy’ for the body’s background activity to push them around. But if the subjects huddle together in their sleep – which is normal mouse behaviour – the resonance kicks in. That’s what I call it by the way.”

“Resonance?”

“Yes. It’s not exactly related to low brain activity, so keeping ‘meditation’ or ‘sleep’ in the name didn’t make sense. Music makes it happen more easily, and I’ve had better results since I compare it to an echo or a harmonic, so I’m keeping the name. Until I understand it more and find a better name, at least.”

“Sounds nice.” SG complimented.

“Suspiciously nice.” Aran narrowed her eyes. “Did you find that yourself?”

“No, it was a suggested in a comment on the forums I posted my results in.” Zax admitted without any shame. “I can’t reliably make it happen yet, but blocking it? Pretty straightforward. The resonance is more pronounced when the nanites and the brains run similar programs or process similar information, respectively. I can’t stop that, but putting them even slightly out of synch is enough to prevent it. That’s what the independent encryptions are for. And I didn’t want to keep them separated. Too much work, not healthy for them.”

He usually didn’t expand on his experiments with his sensitive roommates, but his mouth kept moving on its own. Roving in a warm atmosphere, talking about a familiar topic, focusing on the mental challenge he was tackling… their plan worked: he was appeased.

“What can it do?” the tailed girl pursued.

So were they.

“Still not sure. The most obvious application would be remote communication. In nano-technology, the low range of, well, everything, has always been a weak point. Just that would open a lot of options.”

“Seems like a lot of effort if that’s it.”

“You can say.” The expert sighed. “I think it’ll be more interesting when I understand how and why it happens. I still can’t think of a reason it doesn’t work outside living bodies.”

“It doesn’t?” SG quipped.

“You’d think so, right? Less interference and all that. But no. When I try to reproduce the effect in different fluids or mix of fluids, including air, they only behave normally.”

“Uh.”

“Neat. Any guess?” Aran picked back up.

“Mhm,” He assented. “Brain-nanites resonate with brain-nanites, heart’s with heart’s, liver’s with liver’s, and so on, but brains always have the strongest effect, hearts a little one, and its neglectable for anything else. It varies among individuals, but I would have never noticed if I wasn’t actively looking for it. Also, when the mice resonate, it’s way less than when we do it.” They hadn’t stopped meditating together, so he could still observe the phenomenon. “It could mean complex brains make a stronger resonance. I think it works off the…” he trailed off to find a comparison they would understand, “What the machines would see as the background noise around them. You know, the general organic activity. The more complex it is, the louder they ‘vibrate’. The 3G favours complex organisms too.”

This comment brough snickers to the girl’s lips.

“What? It’s true. The simpler the organism, the more 3G they need for the same effect, and activation is more difficult.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“No, we were just wondering how you’d relate that to your other hobby.” Aran smirked as SG hid her giggles behind a wing wrist.

“Well, nanites are more my job than my hobby, and I’d say a single point of comparison is pretty tenuous for a relation.” He denied, but a side smile still graced his lips. “It’s my best shot, honestly.” He added with a shrug. “I considered some kind of quantum entanglement, but the machines are not that small.”

“Alright, alright.” They calmed shortly after.

“What’s that?” SG pointed a wing to a new sight in front of them.

It was the same question she had asked for the few improvised playground or home-made gathering points they had come across during their impromptu hike, but this was different.

An endless row of wagons was cutting their path, using at least three bands of a perpendicular light road. They rushed from deeper in the dot to vanish in the wall.

The eerily blank wall, without a door, a window or even a mottle for several metres. It was not a residential area anymore.

“That, would be a delivery sharing our goal.” Zax replied. “You know how, to be able to enforce long-term isolation and autonomy at any time, the dot is only allowed a single access point to the rest of the Shelter?”

“Yes?” The winged girl was up to date about common knowledge.

“This single point is divided in different sections.” He pointed as he explained: “Somewhere below us is a highly secured and sealed pipe network, to carry the 3G directly from the Rift to the Circles. Above the ceiling is a network to carry data and energy. And this, here, is the section for common goods. Materials, items, electronics, and so on. The Circle’s bio-technology may be unique and incredible, but I guess they still need conventional technology somewhere. And we’ll always be the best to recycle it, pretty sure. Oh, see the wheels under the magnetic wagons?” His finger went lower.

“Decorations?”

“Nope, actual wheels! They’ll be set on physical rails at the end of the light road. It makes them useful even where energy is not abundant and reliable. Meaning, everywhere outside the dot.” He smirked.

“Neat.” SG nodded.

“I didn’t know the light road was that energy-consuming.” Aran followed.

“To carry people, not that much. But don’t underestimate the weight of those things, and remember: the Circles can’t have power plants.”

“Ah, I never thought about that.” She blinked. “How do you know all that? I don’t imagine you being a nerd for Circle-related… anything.”

“I tried a lot of jobs before I focused on nanites, even if they had to do with the Circle.”

“Of course you did.” She rolled her eyes. “Where are we going?”

“There should be a people section… there. Signs. We just have to follow them.”

Turned out, the people section of the access point was on the other side of the bustling light road. They had to take stairs and cross a catwalk above the light road. The view up there revealed it actually had five lines, four leaving the dot and one – less filled – entering it. The main road cut through the dot until the no-man’s land, offering a direct view of the Core, in the distance.

The dot used its limited space as efficiently as possible, so no matter where you were, there was always something nearby. As such, it was easy to forget how large it actually was. This scenery was a striking reminder.

The rushing lights, the darting sounds, the purposeful, organised chaos… it was a rare spectacle. A sight to behold.

Beautiful.

Zax was reminded of his challenge, to add his mark in hard to reach, meaningful places. This view was certainly meaningful. Not particularly challenging to reach however, but that was easily fixed.

The catwalk’s underside should be enough.

“What are you doing!?” Aran shouted when he stepped over the guardrail.

“Wait for me, I won’t be long.”

The path was fixed to the wall with thick metal beams. Different ducts followed it; he would make sure to not touch them. The beams didn’t offer much adherence, but their placement allowed a sure grasp.

He didn’t go that far from the edge, but he was surprised at his own calm. He was hanging high enough to be hurt even with a perfect landing on soft ground, the ground below wasn’t a soft one, and the fast-moving vehicles wouldn’t let him reach it. He was only one misstep from severe injury or death. He could see many ways things could go wrong even as he did them.

Yet he wasn’t particularly worried. He merely ignored the unfathomable darkness of the tunnel in front of him, put his introspection aside, and started on his task.

Like last time, he shaped a nanite ball from his pocket into a craving tool, drew a ‘Z’ with a slightly longer bottom, a straight line up until halfway to the upper line, followed by an oblique parallel to the Z’s, until below the starting point.

There had to be a more effective way of doing this, but paint wouldn’t last long enough for his taste, and he wasn’t invested enough to think more about it.

He put the nanites back, loosing [11.2%] of them to a well-timed disruption field, and turned around to see Aran bearhugging a support beam just under the guardrail, with SG casually walking to him upside-down. Literally walking, her talons grabbing the beams above their heads as easily and regularly as taking a stroll. Her wings were sticking to her body; she didn’t need any help balancing.

Both were confused. One was also not happy at all.

Once they were back up, Zax explained his “It was just too perfect not to.” actions and earned a rightful “That was terrifying and reckless!” and “You could’ve warned us.” admonishment from his tailed friend, despite his compelling defences of “I knew what I was doing.” and “I told you to wait.”.

He didn’t try to stop her though; she wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t even sure what had driven him. Still, he didn’t think she would keep going when they left the “crime scene”, nor that she would continue until they reached the other side of the bypass and down the stairs. Had she even taken a breath since?

She only stopped at the entrance of the hub. Zax couldn’t tell if it was larger or smaller than in his memories. There was a lot of space, even if it paled against the previous sight, but there weren’t many people. It left it feeling empty and bigger than it was.

Most of the front was a waiting area, with seats for all kinds of tails, mass, and other varied anatomy. A manned reception was on the left, where – according to the signs – people could have their luggage checked for items that didn’t fit their destination or make inquiries… to actual people. It was a weird concept for the dotters, but it made sense if there could be no computer network to give you the answers.

To the back were side rooms of different sizes, probably for more private meetings. Hallways between the rooms and to the sides led to different parts of the First Circle. The names on the signs didn’t mean anything to the dotters, so it was easy to see how useful the reception booths could be.

Despite the distractions on the way, the trine was a bit early. They wordlessly sat on random seats and killed time in their own ways. Aran waited a bit, shaking her leg, then went toddling around; the place had the space for that. SG followed her; the large empty space made her jittery, she needed to move too. They made sure to stay within eyesight of each other though. Zax merely waited, observing the surroundings.

Construction was mostly metal, so maybe this humongous room was still part of the dot. The Circle would have more stone, probably. He couldn’t see a sealing in the threshold they had gone through, for the potential lockdown the dot was made to be ready for, so it made sense. It would be closer to the limit.

A more obvious feature was the recommendations for travellers from both sides, displayed everywhere. Those targeting dotters repeated the main precautions he was already aware of, which was reassuring. The others were the Resident’s counterpart, paper-printed and heavily outnumbered. Some made sense: advising to get bracelets as soon as possible and why, the curfew hours and consequences for breaking it. Others were just confusing:

Forget about air conditioning.

What did air need to be conditioned for? Why mention it at all? That’ll just remind people. Was it important in the Circles? But the dotter posters didn’t mention it.

Zax idly pondered the implications of what he was seeing until Bathor pulled him out of his reverie.

She wasn’t alone.