The engineers worked all through the remainder of the night and morning to analyze the Arc, comparing its appearance and components with the information contained within AI Ninety-Seven's blueprint. Two days later, they already had a smaller, less-long prototype available for testing, a feat made easier by the unlimited supplies of dragonleaf and sand to fire the "biosilicate" (as AI Ninety-Seven called it) used by the ship.

"Bath, this place looks just like my room on Earth," Lisa protested. "How did you even get a cup of soda and a fries?" This trash looks like it comes from McDonalds. Not that Lisa was surprised: lots of people set up their own little food stops to gain experience as chefs. Fast food was quick to make and would certainly be in demand now that everyone's metabolism had increased.

Bath looked up from the control pedestal. "What?"

"You need to clean up after yourself."

Bath rolled his eyes, send a wave of essence over to internalize the trash into his Center. "Done. And you're one to talk, saying that this place looks like your room."

Lisa snorted. "Okay, well, not all of us can clean up by...devouring things like a sink disposal."

"Come over here," Bath said, brushing the comment of. "I'm trying to make sense of the controls regarding the maintenance of the library."

Lisa looked over Bath's shoulder. "It's not that difficult," she said, raising an eyebrow. "What do you want to know?"

"How does the vent system work?" he asked, pressing his fingers into the pedestal.

"The vent system?"

"The books are kept in temperature-controlled rooms with circulating, dessicated air. Why?" He gave her a pointed look.

"To preserve them?" Why else?

Bath shook his head. "Lisa, these are hard copies. If they wanted to simply preserve the information, they'd keep it in a digital form. And yet, when I asked AI Ninety-Seven for a digital version of Egdelek's library, he said that one doesn't exist."

Lisa frowned. That is odd. Maybe the books are super old and precious, which explains why they're being transported. "But why ask about the vents?" she asked, stepping forward and placing her own hands on the pedestal. "Here, let me show you how they're controlled." She manipulated the pedestal's controls until she arrived at a Ventilation Control display which shone as a projection above the pedestal. "Here you go."

Bath studied the controls, shaking his head slowly. "This isn't right."

Lisa let out an exasperated groan. "Bath, what are you trying to find?" It's just ventilation, jeez.

"You see the sigils on the floor?" Bath said, glancing at the glowing symbols in the otherwise stark control room. "There's one sigil for each room."

"How do you know?" Lisa asked uncertainly.

"The air currents in each room are different," he muttered, backtracking through the vent settings and looking through the pedestal's massive menu system. "Each current traces out a unique sigil in this room."

Lisa's eyes widened. She stepped aside and paced toward the sigils to the left, studying them with renewed interest. Now that I'm looking closely, I can see that the sigils are all made with a single stroke... She could make out the beginning and ending points of each, lending credence to Bath's assertion. I can hardly believe these are all written in one stroke, Lisa thought as she inspected one sigil after another. Let alone that the air currents in the library rooms match them. Lisa had no idea how anyone could engineer a ventilation system to pump air through a room in the zig-zagging, twisting, tightly-compacted cursive-like symbols on the floor. They almost look like classical Arabic calligraphy. Moreover...how did Bath even think to make that kind of connection?

"So where is the air coming from?" Lisa murmured contemplatively.

"It's coming from a vent system that flows through each of the rooms," Bath explained. "I've managed to trace the entire network of vents with my essence."

"Nothing out of the ordinary?"

Bath shook his head as he proceeded through the pedestal's systems menu. "It's different from an Earthen HVAC system, though it doesn't strike me as particularly odd. Air flows out of a desiccating, oxygenating filter and into the vents, circulating into each of the rooms."

"So nothing strange...Except for the fact that the air follows a strange--almost impossibly complicated--pattern of circulation in each room."

"Right."

"Stop fussing over the pedestal," Lisa commanded, stepping over to push his hands aside. "You're not getting anywhere. Let's just ask Ainsley." If AI Ninety-Seven doesn't know, then it's a true mystery. "Or, wait, have you checked magnetic fields in the rooms?"

Bath gave her a look. "Do you really think that magnetism accounts for air moving like that?" he asked, gesturing to an array of sigils. "And yes, I checked."

"Fine. I concede defeat," Lisa said. "Wait," she said a second later. "What if it's the books?"

"You think that the books are causing this?"

Lisa shrugged. "Why don't we do some experimenting?"

Bath shrugged back. "Okay. So you're saying I should just take a book from one of the shelves?"

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

"Maybe try taking it out of the room it's in," Lisa suggested.

"Why would that do anything?" Bath asked.

Lisa gave him an exasperated look. "I'm just guessing. We can alternatively fetch Ainsley if you won't want to do it."

"It's fine," Bath grumbled. "There; I'm taking out the book." He glanced at Lisa. "Nothing."

"Maybe try...taking out all the books," she suggested.

“Fine," Bath replied, chuckling. "Done--wait, what?"

"Did something happen?" Lisa asked, a grin coming over her face.

"The entire ship...it's self-destructing in ten, nine..."

Lisa punched Bath's shoulder. "Seriously! Did anything happen?"

Bath snorted. "No."

Lisa sighed. "Maybe...uh...try opening all of them at the same time?"

Bath cocked an eyebrow. "You know, I'm supposed to be the one making stupid plans," he stated. "Why are you so sure that the books are behind the air currents?"

"They seem suspicious," Lisa retorted.

"How could any normal sapient, especially one on a one-man ship, ever hope to open all of the books at the same time?"

"Just try it," Lisa insisted. "It'll take you less than a second."

"Done."

"And...?"

"Nothing."

"Ugh," Lisa grumbled. "Fine, put them back," she said. "Were they in a particular order?"

Bath shrugged. "Not that I could tell." Suddenly, his hands stiffened. "Wait..."

"Bath, look!" Lisa exclaimed, pointing at the floor. "The sigil is changing."

His eyes darkened. "What is this place?" he whispered, gaze distant.

"So if you put the books back on the shelf in a different order, the sigil transforms and the air current changes to match," Lisa summarized. "But...why?"

---

From: Fartuun

>Dean.

>This is the best thing ever.

>The best day of my life.

>I'm dying of joy.

Dean scowled at the rush of messages. Can't she just think one message instead of sending four--each only fifteen seconds apart--with only a few words each? At least we can chat without missing anything: Instachat lives up to its name.

From: Dean

>I'm glad you're enjoying the Android's presentation of the ship blueprint along with an overview of the technology powering its, uh, y'know, the, um, particle projector thruster...thing. I'm following along, but I'm not getting too much out of it.

Ugh, Dean grimaced inwardly. Thought-to-text Instachat gives no room for editing, or thinking things over. While Dean's director boons helped him immensely in face-to-face, real-time communications, talking to people via Instachat was still a little too rapid for him to omit all the awkward "uhs" and "ums" that naturally prevailed in his speech.

At least Fartuun is a friend, he thought glumly. But if Instachat stays like this, I'm never going to be able to use it for anything official.

Dean's face was an impassive mask of casual interest as he sat at the front of the small auditorium. The room's dragonleaf construction was imbued with elegant carvings of nature, such as plants, animals, and natural structures. At the apex of the inscribed ceiling was COTD's dragon symbol, the one readily found on both its website and on the tabards everyone wore.

Right now, he was doing his best to trace the edges of the insignia. Just can't look like I'm falling asleep, he thought.

The android's presentation of the blueprints and ship itself wasn't boring. However, the current Q and A session was technically-oriented enough to bore Dean to tears. At least Fartuun and is enjoying this.

A part of Dean knew that this presentation was absolutely unprecedented and paradigm-shifting and historical. However, he couldn't bring himself to truly appreciate it. He wished that he could leave the engineers and the android alone for the next few days so that they could collaborate and perfect the already-constructed prototype ship.

"...Seeing no more questions on the blueprint, I have one more topic to discuss." The conclusion to the Q and A snapped Dean immediately back to attention, his eyes falling from the ceiling to the android's conspicuously four-eyed head.

"Radiances Church and Dragon have instructed me to upgrade the technology that you have, if my records are correct, only just recently procured. The chip readers."

From: Fartuun

>Dean what is the android talking about did the Church or Dragon say anything you met with them Dean

Does she not think with punctuation when she's excited? Dean wondered.

From: Dean

>I have zero idea. Let's just calm down and wait for the android to finish its explanation.

From: Fartuun

>...Right.

Dean suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, his mouth quirking up into a small smile. Fartuun's several years older than me, and usually seems so calm. I never thought an alien android's presentation would make her so...spastic.

The android began to project a three-dimensional image from his palm. "This is the body of the average sapient." The android's eyes swept over the crowd, narrowing when they happened upon the section of quasi wolves and horses off to the side. "It should work fine on humans without modification, though if you wish to use it on non-standard sapient body types, that can still be achieved after taking appropriate precautions.The Vertebral

"The Vertebral Tap, also called the Vertical Tap or V-Tap, will replace three vertebra from your spinal cord."

From: Fartuun

>Does this confirm that endoskeletons are the norm, and that sapients across the universe have nervous systems that run vertically throught the body???

Three question marks? Dean wondered for the second time just how the thought-to-text algorithm converted Fartuun's thoughts into punctuation.

From: Dean

>Probably, though we already knew this from the chip reader encyclopedia indicating that sapients have convergently evolved to look more-or-less like, well, uh, us.

"The V-Tap will interface directly with your central and peripheral nervous system, though predominantly the former. The three replacement vertebra will provide, as a whole, approximately twenty-nine times the raw processing power of your chip readers.

"It would be more; however, any faster would increase your metabolism to an unsustainable rate, considering the biological enhancements you have all received."

From: Fartuun

>Wait so this thing directly takes energy from the human body? I need to get my hands on one of these things.

From: Dean

>Sounds like you're going to get one soon.

"The V-Taps all come with a standard adjustment and calibration procedure. As soon as the V-Tap is installed, you will naturally begin to use the system's controls. I will provide you all the V-Tap schematic now."

From: Fartuun

>It's on my chip reader. I'm gonna die.

Dean glanced down at the chip reader resting on his wrist. He'd received a notification that an unknown file had been transferred to his device. He had to option to accept or deny the file onto his reader. Like everyone else, he selected the "accept" option and waited for the file to download.

That was quick, Dean remarked as the schematic of the V-Tap appeared in his palm. Huh; it looks like a set of three molars.

"I have three sets of V-Taps on the Egdelek Arc. As a demonstration of installation, the Church and Dragon have commanded that I install a set on your chief engineer, Vladimir Sokolov, your technological coordinator, Fartuun Roble, and your Knight."

No way.

From: Fartuun

>Okay this is what heaven is like bye~

From: Dean

>Aren't you at all concerned to be a guinea pig?

From: Fartuun

>The android said it's completely safe. I trust technology more than I trust people.

Dean felt like pulling out his hair and attacking Bath head-on. I told him to fix the issue of messing with people's minds, Dean fumed. I definitely didn't want him to invade my mind with an implant.

"No need to take recordings: I am documenting the procedure and will disseminate it for your repeat viewing," the android said. "Now, who wants to go first?"