The walls of the room were covered with monitor readouts and various terminals of all sizes. From most of these ran wires to a coffin-like object in the center of the room that had its own single monitor on the cover. Several of the metrics on it made no sense to Andy, but the big one in the center, saying “Subject: Life Sustained,” stood out as good news.
“Well, I think he’s still alive in there, anyone have any idea how to open this?” Andy looked to Bart and Libby specifically as he asked.
“Interesting, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. What a brilliant idea to use his own life to fuel the systems needed to guide us back here.” Andy watched as Bart started typing on one console, only to move across the room to a different one seconds after he started. This repeated for several minutes as the man started to look more and more frustrated.
“Any luck?” Andy finally asked after Bart slammed his hands down at his current workstation in anger.
“No, none of this makes any sense to me. What the hell did you do here, Rander?” Bart turned towards the coffin as he asked.
“Perhaps Andrew would be helpful here. He is considered one of the stewards. His presence may be required.” Libby had spoken up.
“That's a Good idea. I’ll grab him,” Bill said as he rushed from the room in search of Andrew.
While he waited, Andy looked around the room himself in more detail, not that it did him any good. The systems were totally alien to him as well. That was one of the significant splits he and Andrew had made in their knowledge. Andrew had gone the weird super-science route, and Andy had gone the magical science route. Hopefully, his former self had some better insights here.
“It’s good to know my genius is still often needed, though somewhat disheartening to know it, considering you already have one of me here. Andy, you really should take after yourself, and you wouldn’t have such problems.” Andrew entered the room with one of the most annoying grins Andy had ever seen on the man’s face.
The door slammed shut, and several of the monitors started beeping. Andrew’s presence had changed something, and Andy hoped it wasn’t for the worse.
“Ugh, what’s going on? I haven’t even touched anything yet?!” Andrew yelled over the blaring sounds.
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“No idea!” Andy yelled back.
The lid slid off the coffin, and a surprisingly average-looking man wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt sat up. “Oh good, Bart, you survived, and Librarian Unit 004, I’m so happy that you were able to grow beyond your programming. And look, two slash three of the stewards as well. Does this mean you’ve managed to seal the wing from the abyss?” His voice had a slight rasp to it, as though he hadn’t had anything to drink after a long sleep.
“Yeah, we did manage that. Nice to meet you, I guess. I’m Andy, this is Bill, and this is Andrew.” Andy spoke these words slowly, in a bit of disbelief at the man before him.
“That’s great news. Bart, we are going to have a ton of work to do in the coming years. Virtually all of the staff were corrupted. We will need to purge them of this and maintain basic functionality while we do. This won’t be easy. Sadly, Libby, is it?” She nodded. “I can’t help your desires. The Librarian units are not produced here. Well, I suppose actually I can help, I just can’t solve them. But before we get into what’s next for everyone, I think it’s storytime. The stewards need to understand what happened to the Under Library and how it relates to them. It won’t hurt for the refugee to hear as well. The cat might hurt, but they seem to trust him, so who am I to judge?” The chief engineer spoke lightning-fast, and Andy wondered if everyone was able to keep up.
“Explain,” Andrew said before Andy could chime in.
“So the stewards over here, which for one thing there should only be two of, despite their being three, live in a universe that caused a time bubble to come into existence. This bubble spread itself across the multiverse at instantaneous speeds. Originally, it was centered on Andrew here, but thanks to some meddling from a greater power in their universe, it’s now centered on their friend. Time bubbles like this should be impossible. Yes, the library contains a few recorded incidents of limited bubbles to very small scopes, and probably some other wings contain concepts of how to make some larger ones. I highly doubt any wing prior to the existence of this bubble contained the possibility of it other than perhaps that what must never be wing. However, considering the damage its existence did to the Under Library, I think it may not even be covered there. The Under Library, by its very nature, can’t be contained into any sort of time loop, bubble, or even paradox as it resides in the abyss and controls its own time flow. Somehow, the force of this bubble was so powerful it cracked the defenses of the Under Library, allowing for everything from abyssal beasts to primal nightmares to leak in. What I find interesting, though, is that people who would become stewards are from that universe where it all started, and two of them are paradox clones of who were involved in this in the first place. So I wonder if maybe the creator foresaw this eventuality and kept the knowledge from the archive itself.” He finished once again speaking faster than most people Andy had ever heard.
“That explains why Mr. Wiggles is so interested in them, doesn’t it, little wiggly?” Serilina said in a cutesy voice as she patted the cat’s head.
“Great, so we are not only dealing with an alien invasion but also with the damage our universe caused to the rest of the multiverse?” Andy asked.
“Well, I think most of the multiverse is probably okay, but yes, you did do some real damage here, and it’s time we start fixing it.” The chief engineer smiled.