This time reading through the unlocked side of the book I made sure to study all of The Last Engineers mining techniques. The Tela who wrote this book was a genius. He wrote of how force worked against common matter when cr and cr propulsion was involved. I wasn’t smart enough to understand his theory or formulas so I mainly stuck to the pictures and videos of his research.

It was a good thing for me that he liked pictures and recording videos of every facet of his research. I learned that in the early days the Tela used massive cr harvester bots to mine stars. This was a good thing initially but they quickly discovered that it created a fatigue barrier where no harvester could enter without getting stuck.

The Tela learned to be more strategic in their harvesting methods over time. They mapped out harvested locations, used smaller harvesters, and began developing methods to tunnel through fatigue.

I learned the reason why they didn’t just mine straight down towards the core of the sun instead of taking layer after layer of what they could grab. They called what would happen a “Fatigue sinkhole.” The deeper you went the more the surrounding area would be affected by fatigue.

When I read this I sat back and thought about the sloth leeches and how they seemed to live inside the cr of the sun. They seemed to resemble earthworms and it would make sense that if you made a hole for them to crawl through, more would come from the other side of the hole in reality to feast on any cr propulsion that they could find.

While I mused over these things, clasping the side of the brick that was unlocked to me with my left hand, I continually ran my right hand over the scales of the Leva’s head laying across my feet. I must admit, it was quite a little reading nook I had found myself in. I thought to myself as I traced the pattern of different-sized scales across my lovely Leva’s head. Lovely, in a black deadly mamba, kind of way.

---

I must have misunderstood my parent. Badly. The little side tails rising up must have meant that I should stop. I must have angered it for it to need to use its light on me.

And such an amazing light my parent possessed! So powerful!

It slammed into me and overpowered my mind, freezing the world around me.

My parent’s light was so powerful that it made time stop.

I was stuck in that moment. It is strange to be here. I can still think, I just can’t seem to move my body or see anything but the frozen figure of my parent with its side tails raised at me. Everything is in perfect detail as the light bursts forth. Frozen. I have been stuck here for a while. Waiting to wake up.

A gentle and incredible feeling above my mouth and all over the scales of my eyes tickle my mind, pulling me upwards from my state of shock. I couldn’t see anything in the dim light of the cave but I could feel the pleasure of a small tail gently moving back and forth across the surface of my head.

I didn’t want to pulse or move, lest this incredible feeling might stop. So I lay there as still as I could be and simply wished that the feeling would go on forever.

---

After absorbing all that I could from the unlocked side of the Engineer’s book I decided to see if having his helm in my possession changed anything. I flipped the brick over to a random different side and hovered my hand above it. This was the moment of truth.

The moment I set my hand upon the flat side of the book I immediately got my answer in the space in front of my eyes.

-Locked by owner-

Disappointment flooded through me. It looked like I would have to find a hacker after all. I thought as the book's chapters and headings flowed into view in front of my eyes. I blinked in amazement as the notice reminding me that it was still locked simply migrated up out of view while the entire contents became available to me.

“Huh… that is surprising,” I muttered as my eyes began to read the contents of the book, slowing down with each new word.

I could faintly hear Invicta commenting on something but my brain refused to comprehend any of her words.

It was all here.

All of his schematics.

This whole section was full of all of the things that he designed and created during his life.

“What? What did you say Invicta?” I asked through my astonishment.

“Wow, your mind just went away there for a second didn’t it?” She asked as a little hand formed in front of my head and smacked me on the forehead. “There? All better now?” She asked as I shook my head a little, slightly peeved. I really didn’t like people doing that.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I just found his inventions.” I said as I glanced back at the text in front of me before hurriedly focusing back on Invicta when the tiny hand moved to get ready to slap me again.

“So, you found toys? So what?” She asked in amusement as she seemed to lay across the top of my mind and read what the words said with me. “Whoa…” was all she said as she did exactly the same thing that I had done just moments before. This made me wish that I could whack her too.

Just for the fun of it, I imagined reaching out and whacking her rear. That got her attention. “Heeeey!” She screamed at me and seemed to puff up in my mind, rubbing her imaginary butt and acting all offended.

I quickly blocked off part of my mind and emotions from her, lest she experience just how funny it all was to me. “No fair! I want to see!” She complained as she kicked at the wall that I had built in my mind.

“Yeah, I know but you can’t have access to my every thought. I need to have some privacy as well.” I said as I remembered that I still hadn’t found out what she had originally said.

“So what did you say again?” I asked as I imagined her crossing her arms at me.

“I said ‘That is really smart!’. The book remains locked all the time. The helm will allow its owner, which was only him at the time until “Mr. Cheaty McCheats” came and found it, to access the book's contents. Well, minus the “Mr. Cheaty McCheats part though.” She said as she huffed at me.

“Say you are sorry.” She said after a second of silence.

I sighed heavily. “I am sorry for slapping you on the butt,” I said, knowing that she wouldn’t even consider apologizing for whacking me in the face.

“No, that was fun, say you are sorry for blocking me out of your mind.” She said with a hidden smile.

This girl AI! I always felt like I needed to smack myself in the face around her. Either that or squeeze the bridge of my nose all the time in mild frustration. I noticed a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. The Leva’s tail had twitched ever so slightly.

---

Oh, please don’t stop moving your side tail! Please please please!

---

My eyes squinted as I played back what I had been doing in the moments prior. I had been talking to Invicta and I had stopped petting the hatchling’s scales while I was lost in thought and arguing with her in my head.

A short replay of the surroundings showed that a couple of seconds after my hand stopped moving, the tail started to tap against the floor.

She was awake and pretending to still be knocked out so that I would continue to pet her! Ah! These girls were going to drive me crazy! I laughed to myself as I let down the walls of my mind again for Invicta and went back to petting my Leva’s head.

“I am sorry I whacked you in the face. I didn’t realize that it was really rude to do that.” Invicta said a couple of moments later. She had looked through my feelings and found that it elicited a strong pull from negative memories. “I will be sure to whack you on the butt next time instead.” She said happily.

“Nooo! Not the butt!” I cried in mock horror as I couldn’t help but laugh at my little AI’s cheeky behavior.

She stuck out her tongue at me in my mind before going back to reading the contents of the book with me. There were plenty of designs for exotic parts, memory modules, AI expansion drives, robots, space and land vehicles, and even how to build the parts of a habitat.

A lot of the designs were stamped with “Negated by cr”. It seemed that once they learned how to build with components that couldn’t fry themselves due to overheating or wear and tear the earlier designs became obsolete. Still, though, scientists back home would kill for even just one schematic in front of me.

“Um… may I read it when you are done with it?” George asked. He sounded like he would be sitting on my doorstep like a puppy every moment until I let him devour the amassed wealth of mouth-watering knowledge I held in my hand.

“Ha! George! You just want to geek out. Well, I will let you read it if I can geek out with you as well.” I said as I thought of all the cool things that I could learn from him at the same time.

“Deal! Great, wonderful deal!” George said as he nearly couldn’t contain his excitement.

One listing caught my eye so I opened the tab. Inside was a detailed schematic on how to create the helm that I had won in the game. The very helm that Invicta had created for me to wear now as sunglasses.

“Oh shoot. I was hoping that you wouldn’t find that.” Invicta said, suddenly getting sad. The next listing was a design for creating gloves for someone called “Q’tell”.

“Or that.” She said as she started to cry inside my head.

“What the heck Invicta?” I asked, totally bewildered by her sudden shift in emotions.

She didn’t answer me for some time. Tutor’s voice popped into my head after a while of me just sitting there stroking my Leva’s head, unsure what to do with Invicta.

“Kevin. Those first two equipment designs are the two that you found in the game. Q’tell is the Last Tunneler’s real name. She must have known the Engineer to whom this book belonged. It appears that he created and designed them for her.” Tutor said as I mentally put two and two together.

“Invicta, please calm down. I am not going to get rid of you now that I have the designs.” I said as I tried to console her.

“Ok!” She said, bouncing back really fast.

“What? What was that? Aren’t I supposed to pat you on the shoulder for the next hour and smooth your hair? Telling you repeatedly that everything will be alright?” I asked, confused at how she could just rebound and be back to being fine just like that.

“Well, you said it, and I could read that you meant it. So… why would you need to do all that other stuff?” She asked me.

“I really don’t know,” I said as my mind tried to wrap itself around just how different my AI were from real humans. It had been there at the back of my mind ever since I met Tutor and I was still trying to figure it all out. A small seed of worry. I knew I needed to understand this. This difference. A word popped into my head and stuck there. Simulacrum. The image of what I perceived to be real.

I felt all three of my AI hesitate when they read my thoughts. I trusted them and wanted all three of them to know that I was struggling with something at the back of my mind. The idea that all of this wasn’t real.

“Ah. That is the reason.” Tutor said softly inside my head as I felt all three of my AI watching me. They could feel that I was afraid of losing myself, that I feared I might have already lost myself by being uploaded into VR.

“Rest your mind, Kevin.” I heard George’s grandfatherly voice say into the stillness. “When we pick up Meditati tomorrow we will get you back home so that you can see your family again. We all know that you need them and have wanted to see them for quite a while.” He said before fading from my mind. Letting me have my privacy.

I sat there for a little while, stroking my hatchling’s head, lost in thought.

“Xa and Hxerdinand just returned from going dark.” Tutor said suddenly into my mind. “They both would like to see you when next you can host them. Hxerdinand has a favor to ask. They both just learned that Hxerdinand’s home was destroyed and will be unavailable for a few hours while they take care of getting him settled again.”

“Ok! That is wonderful news! The part about them being back, that is.” I said as I tapped the thickest and center scale in the middle of my Leva’s head. I wondered what she would do if I revealed that I knew that she was awake. She tapped her tail once in reply before lifting her head up slightly.

My goodness, she was majestic.

“Ahhh… I just found your name! I said as I moved my hand to stroke her beneath her mouth and around her jaw. Her whole body began vibrating from me gently caressing her scales.

“Sublimis. Meaning majestic in Latin. Ess for short.” I said as I reached further under her chin to rub under her jaw. My petting her like this had the same effect as hitting her with my photon blast. Her entire body went limp as she just enjoyed the attention, her huge head rolling to the side to give me more access.