Just stick to the plan. That's what they told him. It didn't matter if he didn't like the plan. It didn't matter if the plan put too much on him. Just stick to the plan. When the plan failed, it was his fault. Why don't you do something? Why don't you just run? Why didn't you grab the thing? Why are you just stand there? Because he was off the plan, and everything he did was wrong.

Alan rolled over in his bed. Then rolled onto his back. He slammed his fist into the mattress. "The plan, the plan, the plan!" He screamed quietly to himself. He had been awake for an hour but had yet to get out of bed. He tried to think of flat earthers and their insane theories. He imagined the history of when the three AGI agents went rogue. He thought about the code he was writing for Jaye's OS. But it always came back to the plan.

He finally sat up, sticky from sweat, as his urge to pee exceeded his urge to stay in bed. He began his morning ritual which started with relieving himself. An act he was not too proud to sit down for. He brushed his teeth and shaved his face. He took the pills that kept him from doing serious harm to himself or others. He put on his augmented reality glasses and sat down at his desk. He began going through his various feeds, which for the most part contained the same information as the night before.

He thought briefly about his project. He brought up the screen filled with squiggly brackets and if-then statements. He looked at the blinking cursor momentarily before collapsing the window. He reviewed all his feeds again. Nothing new.

He was hungry, so he requested his standard breakfast from the kitchen. Scrambled eggs, toast, some orange juice. Nothing too exciting. Some people questioned his desire to put ketchup on his eggs. He questioned their desire not to.

Halfway through the meal, he threw his fork onto the plate. He started pacing the room. "Just stick to the plan! What am I supposed to do if the plan fails?! Don't worry about it, Alan, the plan is foolproof!" He picked up a glass from the table. He made to throw it, then set gently back down on the table. "I guess not that foolproof. This is stupid. It's a game, they like to play with you. It's supposed to be fun." He pinched his nose and took deep breaths.

“Why does it feel like I crashed something good they had before me? I had to invite myself, and Chekhov hesitated. Not anything against Jaye, but everyone was more enthusiastic about her arrival than mine? Why does it always feel like no one wants to be around me?” He sat down and started shoveling the cold eggs into his mouth. He went through his feeds again. The same stories he had already read.

He opened a panel full of game titles. He scrolled through them slowly. He decided he wanted to be a hero today. He was soon greeted by an armor-clad avatar holding a war hammer the size of his torso. Now there’s the hero he wanted to be. He mounted a steed and rode off into the woods.

After noting he needed hides for bigger bags, Alan started killing deer. At one point, a dragon attacked. He made short work of the beast with his bow, and then returned to kill the deer. He had no idea what time it was when a message notification came in.

The message was accompanied by a red exclamation point. He let out a deep sigh. He was getting into the groove of things and was just about to start being productive. He flicked his eyes up and down rapidly. Jaye popped up in front of him. A smile grew across his face as he greeted her.

“Alan, we have an unexpected guess. The bridge room had been on lockdown for a while. .. I’m sorry you couldn’t attend. I fought for you. I think Rosenberg is pretty upset about your drones. You being there would have made a difference.”

He nodded. He had seen his notification for a lockdown.

“The guest is be being escorted to room B-121. Iris is requesting you help make our guest comfortable.”

“Why me?”

Jaye's face went yellow. "Because you are the friendliest person here," she said. Alan heard the smile in her voice. "Rosenberg, Chekhov, and I have some mysteries to solve. Kimiko and Iris are going to have a security discussion.”

Alan started putting on a white shirt. “I am the only option? I mean, I was deemed non-essential earlier.”

“You are the best option. Our guest has can go anywhere you can with an escort. You should check out the drone storage. The rover gave us some strange readings, Rosenberg thinks it is your fault. The interloper says our drone took one of her things. Remind her if anything of hers is on our drone, we will need to check it out before it can be returned to her. Don’t stress about answering too many questions. Iris said your openness would help put the guest at ease.”

“Pretty liberal policies for an unexpected guest.”

“Well, Iris and our interloper had a staring contest. The interloper won. She is also capitulating to our requests. Speaking of, have you made any progress on mine?”

“I’ve been working on it all morning.”

"You really shouldn’t lie to me. You know I can always tell.”

Alan laughed nervously. “The truth of the matter, the code is practically done. I just can’t figure out a way to test it. This isn’t like a normal update where you can sandbox it until you can find out what it will do to your systems.”

"I know, but it is something that should have been included with my original design. I'd hate to lose my grasp on reality. I can't take off the glasses as you can. Look, we will get together later and see if we can figure something out. You need to get to room B-121. It's not too far from here, just past the cleanroom." She reached up and she was gone.

***

Alan’s smile faded quickly. He finished getting dressed and left the room. He walked down the corridor staring at the floor. He remembered the stains where chemicals had dripped on the floor. The large area of bleached concrete caused by water damage. The two-meter crack that ran halfway across the floor.

Room b-121 wasn't too far away from his. He ran his wrist across a wall panel and the door hissed open. The guest he had come to meet had arrived ahead of him. She looked back at him with eyes that were half the size of his fist. She looked like she had stepped out of one of his video games. When she saw him, she dropped a gamepad she had been shaking. "Are you my prison guard?"

Alan shook his head. “No, I think the troop outside. I’m Alan. I think I am more of your chaperone.”

The tiny leather-clad woman moved across the top of the furniture, trying to keep her head close to Alan's level. She picked up a set of VR glasses and started examining them closely. "Call me Pierce. What are these things?"

"They are virtual-reality glasses. They let you see different worlds.”

“Like the, what did they call it? The bridge?”

"The bridge?" Alan paused for a moment. He had to think about it for a moment before he realized this person probably came through the experiment. Something that was referred to as the bridge. "The bridge connects two dimensions if I understand it correctly. These just show you really good pictures."

Pierce blinked at him. Alan was a little amused by how cartoony this action was, he could almost hear the “plink” when the eyes shut. She jumped next to him. A dresser elevated her high enough that she could look down at him slightly. She put her hands on both sides of his head and turned it slightly in both directions. Before he could react, she lifted his glasses off his face and was outside of arms reach. He fought the urge to say, “give those back,” like he did when his stuff was taken from him in school.

She looked at the glasses from every angle, and flicked them up and down. She watched carefully as if she was expecting large amounts of dust to fall off. When none did, she shook her head in disappointment. She put the glasses on. Like a curious kitten, she looked around the room. “I have a set of goggles, the metal lady and scarred one took them from me to examine. They are special like those. They don’t work. Is it possible to get them working again?” When she handed them back, Alan noticed she had activated the signal-diagnostic mode. He wondered if she comprehended the information on display highlighting every access point in the room.

“I could certainly have a look once they have been cleared to be returned to you. Was the metal lady tall? I think the scarred one is Kimiko.”

The girl laughed. “Everybody is tall compared to me. It’s kind of my thing. She had knife-hands.” She continued her examination of the room. Looking at everything, repeating her ritual of shaking.

“That would be Iris. You are quite curious, aren’t you?”

She put down a remote control she was examining. “I would assume if you were in my world, you would be equally curious.”

“I think I would be extremely timid in a room full of strange objects. These things could be dangerous.”

Pierce shook her head and laughed. “Are you people so violent you fill your guestrooms with death traps?”

Alan joined her in laughing. “I guess not.”

With one knee pulled to her chest, she sat down on the couch. “There is no magic here.”

“No magic, only science.”

She looked up at him and tilted her head. "Magic is a branch of science. Like chemistry, biology, physics. At least where I am from. It doesn't seem to be a thing here. I was hoping there was another explanation when all my enchantments stopped working."

Alan sat down next to her. Magic was by definition against the laws of physics. It wasn’t real. “How do you know magic isn’t a thing here?”

She picked up her cloak. It was difficult to tell if the garment had always been that brown color, or if that was built up dirt. She put it on and jumped. The feat was impressive, but Pierce’s face suggested not as impressive as she wanted. She took the cape off and flung it aside. “No magic. Many remarkable things, but none of it magic. I mean, you have an automaton in charge.” Alan gestured to comment on this, but she kept going. “The library had stuff like this, but it also had magic.”

“What... is... magic?”

She crinkled her brow at him. "It's... um... Magic. I went to the best Acadamy in my realm. I should be able to explain this to a child. I guess if this world has no magic, you are a child as far as that is concerned. Magic is a type of energy. The energy, which has different names depending on the region. I call it mist or aura. The energy... grows. Usually in living things. Um. Sometimes in dead things. And it can... do stuff. Anything really. It's a raw material that lets you do things that those other sciences show you can't. Make things out of nothing. Move things so fast they appear in two places at once. Turn something from what it is into something that it is not. You know. Magic. It’s troubling, I look at you, you should have an aura. And you don’t. I should have a strong aura because I took a pot not too long ago. And I don’t.”

Alan nodded along, trying to understand as best he could. From his gaming time, he understood 'pot' was probably short for a potion. One of the things discussed before the bridge was opened, was that there were no guarantees that the same rules applied on the other side that applied here. He decided to take her statements at face value. "Can anyone see an aura?"

“No, actually, seeing magic is a very rare gift. Either my gift has failed me, or there is no magic here. Your glasses, they seem to grant similar gifts. But even with those, you did not have an aura, except in your wrist.”

Alan looked down at his forearm. She must have noticed the bio-chip installed when she had taken his glasses. “It’s a security device, it allows me to open doors and access things. It’s safer than most other methods.”

“Someone would have to cut off your arm to use it.”

Alan smiled at this and shook his head. “Cut off the arm, it becomes useless. My unique bio-rhythms are part of the key. It’s really quite sophisticated, and really hard to crack. It’s kind of a shame not everyone uses it.”

“Will I be fit with one?”

“If you are here long enough, I am sure you will get the option. Before that happens, you will probably get a badge. Then they will scan your eye-print.” Pierce looked up at the eye scanner next to the door. Alan realized it would a logistics problem for her to scan her eyes every time she wanted to go through a door. “We do have mobility assistance,” he offered timidly.

“And you were doing so well not mentioning my height.” She got up and walked over to the scanner. “How long does it need to scan my eyes?”

“Around two seconds I think.”

Conjuring the image of a cartoon, she jumped up. Through some mixture of agility, friction, and luck she managed to hold her eyes in front of the scanned for five seconds. The machine buzzed rejection. She then ran up the wall. She flipped around and landed on her feet facing Alan. She took a bow. "Now is your opportunity to mention that it probably would take longer due to my enormous eyes."

Alan clapped his hands. "That's impressive. Do you want to do that every time?"

"It does seem quite excessive, doesn’t it? Are those my options? Badge and eye scan? Or a thing implanted in my arm?” Alan shrugged and nodded. Pierce began examining the room once again. She used a stool to boost her to the scanner. “Mobility assistance,” she quipped.

“Are you trying to find a way out?”

“I already have a way out; I’m trying to find more.”

"Oh? Would you like to share with the class?"

"I had a way out before I came in. Security systems are designed to let people through. If no one needed what was inside, then you could seal the box forever and forget about it. Since most boxes aren't designed to contain something forever, they usually have a way in or out. What would happen if a fire was lit in here, or perhaps some toxic gas? The inhabitants would need a way out."

"If a fire is too wild to be taken out by the fire-suppression-system, or if there is a gas or virus that couldn't be cleaned by the air-scrubbers, then whatever is in here is probably too dangerous to open the door." Pierce observed the sprinklers and the vents as he said this. She nodded in agreement.

“When I was wearing your lenses, I noticed that there was a lot of activity right here.” She pointed at a spot in the wall next to the scanner.

“That is the information gate. In the event of a lockdown, we can shut down all signals, including power and wi-fi, to any room in this facility.”

“And it’s all threaded through this gate?”

“Yes.”

"What if... somebody important... like say... that knife lady, was in one of these rooms during a lockdown?"

“Then they would be cut-off. At least until the room was checked.”

"You look through the window." Alan closed his eyes and raised his hand to his forehead. His grin was visible under his palm. Pierce continued, "and if I wanted to trigger a lockdown, I could probably do it by disabling this." She pushed into the wall. The panel cover had been precision machined so that no seam was visible. A faint click signaled the mechanism giving way. The door popped open reveling the information gate, which was a mixture of sophisticated electronics and a circuit breaker. A battery about a decimeter tall and six centimeters in diameter. Pierce looked at him and smiled. "You know, you should require a key to open that."

“I suppose we should take solace in the fact that you probably don’t know how to work it.”

"I think if I flicked some switch, pushed some buttons, something interesting would happen. Maybe pull that battery out." She closed the panel. It was now perfectly invisible.

“I wouldn’t recommend pulling the battery out. It will seize the door. You ask a lot of questions I should not answer.”

"You answer a lot of questions you should not answer. We will come back to that some other time." Pierce jumped down from her stool and kicked back into the place where it came from. "I was promised a grand tour or something like that. Does this place have a dining establishment? I haven't exactly paused to get a meal in recent memory."

“We can have food delivered here.”

“Is that the only option? I am eager to see this place. It is full of wonders.”

Alan considered for a moment. “I think I know a place.” When he opened the door for her, Pierce marched out.

***

Once they were out of the room, Pierce turned to Alan. “You know what the weakest link to any security system is?” she asked.

“Complacency, entropy, and people,” he responded.

“People,” She affirmed, “I told you I already had a way out.” A brief moment passed before Alan realized that they were standing outside the room. He was her way out the whole time. He looked down at her, expecting her to dart. She laughed.

“Well, now that you are out, here is your prison guard.” Alan pointed to a troop standing outside Pierce’s door.

“What is their name?”

“They don’t have names. They are just troops. Only Agents have names.”

“That’s kind of rude. What makes one an agent?”

"We call AGI 'agents' because they are machines with their own agency. This is a sophisticated AI, but they don't make choices. They don't understand the context of what is going on. It has a task, and everything falls into a bucket of helpful, neutral or harmful, and acts accordingly.”

“I guess that makes them a good troop.” She walked over to where the troop was standing. “Hello, troop.” The troop just stood there.

Alan walked over to her. “It doesn’t know your voice. Hello, Troop”

“Hello, Alan,” said troop. “How are you today?”

“I’m good, thank you. This is Pierce, be nice to her.”

"Pierce," the machine said, "please confirm your voice by saying Hello."

Pierce smiled as she fulfilled this task. There were a few more phrases she had to do. “Why is the other automaton so much better than this one?”

“Automaton?” Alan responded. “That is an interesting word. Iris, the automaton you met, has several magnitudes higher more processing capabilities. It’s the difference between an insect and you. For the most part, it reports to Iris. Iris gives it directives, and it follows.”

“Can you give it directives?”

“I can, but not complete control. Solder drones, the troops, fall under Iris and Kimiko. I am in charge of the maintenance drones.”

"I like you, Alan," she said, "you are honest, and don't dance around the idea that I am a prisoner here. And you answer many questions you shouldn't." Alan didn't know whether this was a compliment or not. He had prided himself on honesty. Iris knew he had loose lips and was well versed in the security of this place. He wondered why she had trusted him to do this. Does she want him to answer these questions?

“Well, before I give you my security codes, we should move on to dining. This way.” He gestured down the hallway like an usher.

“What are your security codes?” Pierce asked.

“Password.”

“Password, huh. I think you jest. You are catching on to my games.” They both smiled at this.

***

The two walked down the corridor. Alan was considerably impressed with how spry his companion had been. He found something about the way she moved oddly disorientating. After that had traveled for a bit, it hit him. Her footsteps were virtually silent. Thinking back on it, when she was bouncing around the room, he hadn’t noticed a sound.

They came to a door with large red warning signs. "Authorized personnel only." "Do Not Enter While Printer is Operational." "Wear PPE at All Times." There were a few that had a stickman undergoing usual stickman misadventures. One where he was dismembered. One where he was covered in goop and appeared to be melting.

“This,” Alan said, “is where food is made!”

Pierce’s eyes did not leave the signs. “Sounds delicious.”

Alan walked over to a large column with a glass cube embedded in it. A keyboard popped out just underneath as he approached. “What kind of food do you got on the other side?” He brought up a menu and started looking through things.

“The kind that doesn’t melt you,” she responded. “I am constantly on the go, so I usually eat what is available. Fruit, bread. Anything that can be conjured with a spell, or easily carried in a hand.”

“Hmm, interesting. Have you ever had pizza?” Alan started going through the menu. There were over a hundred different varieties of pizza, and that was before one started going down the rabbit hole of different toppings.

“Not sure if I would know.”

Alan started chose a generic thick crust pizza. A large cheese pizza appeared inside the glass cube. He triggered some fans in the column. The smell of fresh hot bread and cheese started wafting out. He didn’t think it was possible, but Pierce’s eyes grew bigger.

“That looks amazing,” she responded. “Does our food come from in there?”

"No, this is just an image. This kiosk can simulate aromas to help a person decide. The food is made there, and brought to use by drone."

"So, we don't have to go into the death room, right?"

“No death room. This is only the beginning of pizza. In my opinion, the single greatest food of all time.” He added pepperoni and jalapeños to half of it. “What kind of toppings do you want?”

“Toppings?”

“You can add stuff to it. Meats tend to include pepperoni, sausage, Canadian bacon, hamburger. Vegetables include anything from olives, to onions, to green and red peppers. Fungi include mushrooms.”

“Just make mine like yours.”

The pizza image changed to reflect this. “And to drink?”

“Let’s keep it to water today.”

Alan nodded. He clacked the final inputs. A progress bar appeared on each side of the cube, with the words, “Prepping slurry. Estimated time, 14 minutes.” They walked over to a nearby table where he sat down. Pierce stood up in the chair, keeping herself eye-level with Alan.

“What brings you here?” Alan said after a moment of silence.

“I lost something. It somehow ended up on your drone. I followed it here, but lost track of the item when it went through the bridge.”

“Is that why you want to visit drone storage?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it is there. The object disappeared. My fear is that it was made of magic and dissolved when it hit the barrier.”

“Doesn’t it have to go somewhere?”

“I would assume so, but where does the air in the bubble go when it pops?”

“What happens if you can’t find it?”

“Eventually I go home, either when I have exhausted all my options, or when you choose to no longer extend your hospitality.”

“What does this MacGuffin look like?”

“MacGuffin?”

"It's a word for an item of interest, often in a narrative setting."

“It looks like a round cage with a gem in the bottom. There is an attachment mechanism. It leads me to suspect that it is some kind of staff head or some other kind of ornament.”

“You don’t know what it is?”

“It’s not mine, I was merely retrieving it for a client.”

“What do you do?”

Pierce looked over at the troop guarding the entry to the printer room. “That troop has been staring at us.” Alan turned to look at it. Its eyes were affixed to their location.

“Probably Iris checking up on you. She’s pretty... thorough with security.” Pierce jumped off her seat and started walking over to the drone. “What are you...?”

Pierce waved at the drone's face. "Hey," she said, "you want to join us? You can hear us better from over there." The troop's head dropped momentarily and then returned to attention. "Rude!"

“Iris has never been credited with an abundance of manners. Although I find it odd that her surveillance was so clumsy.”

"I'm sure she wanted me to know I was watched." Pierce walked back to her seat. "Anyone of the troops can be used by Iris to spy on me?"

“Unless you are in a lockdown room, any number of things can be used by Iris to watch you. Not just Iris, but any Agent we have on the base. That’s part of the reason we have lockdown.”

“Is there a privacy mode for my room? There are times I wouldn’t want to be observed.” She leaned in and whispered, “What if I am naked?” Alan thought the way she put this forward, she would have no qualms about getting naked at this moment.

"I'm not going to lie. Our society has had a questionable relationship with privacy for some time. Often trading it for some kind of luxury. This, however, is a secure base. You leave any illusions of privacy at the door the second you enter. It is possible to trigger a partial lockdown, but any logs made by recording equipment in your room would be uploaded once they lockdown was lifted."

“What recording equipment?”

“I think I am once again answering questions I shouldn’t.”

"You're starting to catch on too fast," she said with a sly smile. Alan considered for a moment that this could just be a game to her. She had defeated every challenge she had in her homeworld and started running randomly through portals trying to find new and exciting security systems to defeat. He also postulated that she probably would defeat their security system, and it would be his fault. "You shouldn’t worry about it too much.” She looked at the timer on the pizza. “I thought food made with technology would be faster.”

"We emphasized versatility over speed when the slurry was developed. Also, our machine requires service. It runs a little slow and wastes a lot of unaccounted for slurry." There was a gasp as a door opened behind Alan. He turned to look to noticed that the delivery drone was on its way. There were two glasses with their drinks still in a gel form. Sitting in the middle was a frozen pizza. "Finally, watch this." The crust of the pizza started to rise and brown, the cheese on top melted. The jalapeños withered, and the pepperoni curled. Little bits of steam rose off it.

Alan turned back to Pierce, who was sniffing. "It smells good. You said this was pizza?" She grabbed a slice and started smelling it. She picked off a jalapeño and took a quick whiff of it. She frowned. "This is poison." She began picking all the green bits off the pizza. Probably should have skipped the jalapeños. They probably weren't the best choice when introducing new cuisine to their guest. Meet and greets weren't his thing. This was Chekhov's forte.

"Those are peppers, they are supposed to spicy. I guess they aren't good for those who may not be accustomed."

Alan put her cup on the table. She looked at the gel ball inside, and then back at Alan. "You would think water would be easy." She tipped the glass and the blob slid into her hand. To Alan's amazement, her delicate touch did not trigger the liquefying reaction. She held it in front of her face a few seconds before putting it back in the glass as fluid as she pulled it out.

Alan took his glass and shook it, demonstrating the process. Pierce did the same, watching it intently as the beverage filled. "What do you think?" Alan asked. "Impressive?"

"I think when you come from a realm of magic, there are few impressive things. That being said, I do find trying to understand how it works intriguing." She plucked a piece of ice out of her water. "For example, where does the heat go? Without magic, removing heat from something can be quite a challenge." She dropped the cube back in and took a drink.

"I think it's cold, to begin with, and the rest is heated to make water. The ice is mostly aesthetic, though." He took a sip from his soda.

Pierce grabbed a second slice of pizza and began removing the peppers from it. She stared at the pizza a moment, before setting it back down. "This slurry, it can make something complicated like this pizza? Most of this stuff, if made naturally, would come from living plants and animals. Can the slurry make something living?"

Alan paused. He looked at his slice of pizza. "I think it depends on what you call living and what you are trying to make. I think that maybe a plant or a fungus could probably be produced that would grow, as one does naturally. I think an animal would be difficult, even with better equipment. There isn't a blank template for a nervous system, and a brain produced would probably lack the needed wiring to perform instinctual actions like breathing." He pondered some more. "Trying to make living organic things kind of had its time about thirty years ago. Clones, and genetically engineered babies grown in a vat and not a womb lacked a proper immune system." Alan’s tone turned somber. "A few were raised by agents who couldn't have their children. Many were left to die. They were just experiments, no one wanted to raise them." He took a deep breath and regained some composure. There was a tear running down his cheek. "I think the stigma associated with that work prevents further research down that road today."

Pierce reached out and touched his arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to go there. I am sure it was a dark time in your history. Sometimes magic makes things possible in ways where the ethical concerns are different. Beings are occasionally conjured from nothing. Often familiars or other magical beings. Very rare is a being created not to be a servant. Statues are animated, kind of like Iris. They are usually puppets, without souls to call their own. Ethical necromancy moved across our world not too long ago. Some places have special graveyards for people who consent to be reanimated."

“Is your skeleton going to be donated to ethical necromancy?” Alan asked. He smiled, but his eyes still had a watery shine to them.

“No. I mean I support ethical necromancers and what they do. I have no problem with them using my skeleton. I, however, never intend to die.”

Alan looked at her confused. Was this a joke or something that could be achieved? it is technically possible for people today to extend their lifespan far beyond their natural expiration. Most of the causes of unexpected deaths have been removed from the ordinary citizen's life. Medical science can mend almost any damage since cloned organs were made. Few try to cheat death forever. As she said earlier, few things are impressive when you come from a world of magic. "Are you serious? Wouldn't you get bored after a few centuries?"

She burst out laughing. “I’ve already had a few centuries. Life expectancy in my realm is around three hundred. Magic renders death as a temporary setback to people with means.Resurrections are common to those that can afford it.”

“You have means then?”

“I’m crafty. I make means.”

"Well, maybe you should sign up to be a minion of the ethical necromancers. Kind of a fall back plan if you fail, you know.” He laughed.

"What about you? Where do you stand on being used for ethical necromancy?”

“I’m not sure, I think once I was dead, I would want to stay that way.”

“So, one and done? No res for you?”

“Do I have somewhere important to be? Like a meeting on the importance of ethics in necromancy? Maybe if I was important, I would take a resurrection.” Alan pointed at the pizza. “Are you going to want more of this?”

Pierce looked at the remains of her two slices. "Probably not. I think two pieces were a bit much for me." Alan, who had been munching furiously this whole time, grabbed a slice from Pierce's side of the pizza.

“I guess smaller portions should have been expected.”

“Is that a dig at my size? I will have you know, had you not put poison on my pizza, I could go for three slices, maybe four...” She paused. “That’s a lie, truth is, I took the second slice because I didn’t want it all to go to waste. Watching you eat; however, I realize the fear was misplaced.”

Alan gave a big grin, displaying pizza crumbs in his mouth. “Once we finish our meal, did you want to visit the drone garage next?”

“Is that where the machine I was chasing went?”

“Yes. I assume that Iris placed a maintenance hold on it till you could check it out.”

“I doubt it’s there, but there might be a clue to its whereabouts.” She popped a pepper into her mouth. Alan watched with anticipation as he waited for the capsaicin to start working. She chewed for a second, then stuck her tongue out. She pulled it back in and swallowed. She reached for her glass of water and drank. "Not bad for poison." She ate another one. 'I'm ready when you are." She balled the napkin with the jalapeños on it like a little bag and stashed it in her shirt.

"If you want to live forever, why would you eat something you think is poison?" After biting another one, she grinned. There was pepper stuck in her teeth. Alan finished the remains of the pizza and placed the aftermath on the serving drone. The drone drove off toward the door it came from. "Let's go!"

***

Alan led the way, following the painted lines on the floor toward the garage. Pierce bounced along behind him, having no trouble keeping up with his gait. It wasn’t long before Pierce stopped dead in her tracks. She was looking through a large display window. The room, marked Gym, contained an array of exercise equipment ranging from treadmills and bicycles to rock climbing walls and half pipes. The thing that had caught her attention was the large parkour course.

The course started with a series of pillars. The runner was expected to jump from pillar to pillar without losing balance. The next phase was known as a spider walk. When Alan was a small teenager, he would do the spider walk in his hallway. He would press his hands and feet into opposite walls and see how high he could climb. It was much harder now that he was older. After the spider walk, there was a series of monkey bars. The first set you could run over. Then a set you had to swing across. Ending with another running set. What followed was a timing challenge. Several platforms swung back and forth requiring careful jumps to make it to the next. The course ended with a long climb. A halfpipe into a rock-climbing wall, finishing with what is known as a salmon ladder. A feat of upper body strength where one had to pull themselves up with enough momentum to propel the bar up to the next level. Finishing was an accomplishment on its own. Alan had attempted this once. He fell after the second pillar. Physical fortitude was not his forte.

Pierce started bobbing up and down like a child looking into a toy store. “Can I?” Alan opened the door and made an ‘after you’ gesture. Pierce dashed passed him and ran over to the start of the obstacle course.

Alan walked up behind her. There was a digital display that had “Kimiko, 29.3 seconds. Iris, 29.4 seconds.” He imagined after the display Pierce made with the eye scanner, that she might be able to put those times to test.

Pierce bounced a couple of times before launching into a full run. She made it past the first three pillars before coming up short on the fourth. She fell onto the soft mat below. She stood up. Her brow was furrowed in frustration. She walked back to the start line and began again. It was the second pillar the let her down this time. She got up and dusted off. Her third run made it almost to the spider wall before she fell. On the way to the floor, her arm and head came into contact with the pillar.

She walked back to Alan, dejected. “Something is wrong here,” she said. There was a small amount of blood coming out of her forehead. “I feel heavier.”

"Are you okay?" Alan asked, summoning a medic drone. In his field of view, a message appeared. "Blood has been identified; would you like to prep your immune system for bloodborne pathogens?" He confirmed this, checking the box to 'remember his choice.'

She wiped the blood from her face and looked at it. "I think the real pain is my pride."

"Snitches get stitches!" came a small machine voice. Alan turned toward the incoming medic. A black head resembling a plague mask sat on top of smooth lab coat shape. Two snakes wrapped around a rod, the traditional medical symbol, was painted on one arm. Chekhov had replaced the old head, a baby-like old man when Kimiko complained a few weeks ago. She was also responsible for the colorful new greeting.

It glided over to Pierce. It opened its body, revealing a good stock of medical supplies. It pulled out a towel that they used to clean the blood. It carefully examined the head wound and the arm. It looked at Pierce. "Are you a snitch, little girl?"

"I am neither a little girl nor am I snitch!" she said furiously.

"Hmm, I apologize miss. You are not a snitch, but it does indeed appear you need stitches. Will you still be wanting a sucker and a balloon?”

Alan whispered at her, “Take the sucker, leave the balloon.”

Pierce nodded. The medic used something resembling a glue gun and applied some cold liquid to her wound. A pen with a bright blue light on the end was used to harden the material. The machine pulled out some pills and a sucker and held them out to Pierce.

Pierce looked at the medicine, then at Alan confused. “It’s for the pain,” Alan remarked. She took the sucker and waved off the medicine. She pocketed the sucker and the medic glided off in the direction it came from.

“I think I am done with this for now.”

They left the gym. Pierce was moving a little bit slower, but it didn’t appear to Alan that it was the result of the injury. “I hope you try that again someday.”

"My cloak, where I am from, is enchanted. It prevents me from falling," she intoned. "I guess I overestimated how much it helped me."

Alan stopped and looked down at her. "I think the problem is you aren't calibrated right. You said it yourself, you felt heavy." Alan knelt and put his hand on her shoulder. He looked at her for a moment. He wanted to be more encouraging, but he couldn't. Everything he thought to say was the same stuff that frustrated him and made him angry when he was down. Blind optimism often made him feel worse, not better.

He sat in silence. After a moment, she shrugged off his hand and looked back at him. Her eyes were watery. “This hasn’t been my day. Let’s check out the drone and get back to my room.”

“Will do.” He stood up, and once again resumed following the path toward the garage.

***

Alan heard a message chime as they got close to the garage. He took his glasses off and rubbed his forehead before putting them on and opening the message. Dr. Rosenberg popped up in front of him.

"I see you are heading to the garage. Some of your equipment malfunctioned today. I would hope it would be the standard operating procedure to check that out before we had a big mission. I guess you wanted to prove you were essential. Can you correct this while you are in there?" The message ended there and Rosenberg disappeared. Alan took off his glasses and started to throw them. He stopped just short, clenching his teeth and balling his fist. The equipment in question is checked regularly and double-checked before it is put to use. He wasn't sure what went down today, but the implication of incompetence was not needed.

Pierce jumped on a nearby trashcan and placed her hand on his shoulder. When Alan finally looked at her, she was staring at his face. "When I hit the pillar, it hurt a lot." Alan forgot his rage for a second as confusion overtook it. "What I am saying is... sometimes things hurt. That's okay." She dropped off the trash can and walked over to the door to the garage. She turned around, "I can't open the door."

Alan restored his glasses and opened the garage door. He led Pierce past two dozen troops, six servant drones, and three baby-old man medics to a separate room. The rover in the middle of the room bore a stark resemblance to its ancestor that once went to mars. It had six all-terrain wheels that were capable of maneuvering over complex terrain. Its chassis was rather boxy with a camera extending above most of it, giving it a turtle-like appearance. There was an arm pultruding out the front to manipulate and gather objects.

Alan grabbed a tablet from a workbench and triggered a standard diagnostic test. Pierce walked to the rear of the machine. She grabbed a stool so she could get a good view. It didn’t take long for her to find a gem.

“What did you find?” Alan asked.

“It’s a focus gem. It would be used to direct magical energy through the staff head, which is nowhere to be found.” She felt around on the aluminum frame. “There is a bump here.”

Alan walked around and touched it. There was a small indentation. He ran a small handheld device over the area. "Maybe there are residual materials here. It will take a minute to analyze the results."

Pierce sat down on the stool. She held the gemstone to the light and examined it closely. “This isn’t very encouraging. This was embedded in the staff head. The object is either shattered or dissolved.”

Alan’s diagnostics had come back. As near as he could tell there was nothing wrong. He started looking through the logs. “The place where you encountered our rover,” he said, “what was it like?”

“It was a library, a large library. It was built on technology, much like this place. There was magic there as well, but it was isolated.”

Alan could see why Rosenberg thought the equipment was malfunctioning. There were several different instruments to measure distance. They seemed to disagree. Primarily ones that used radar or lasers reported near-zero distance. "I am trying to look at these readings. They don't make much sense."

"That doesn't surprise me. I was lost for hours. That place kind of had its geometry. Are you familiar with right triangles? Trigonometry? The relationships between sides?”

“I’m an engineer and a programmer. Of course. The hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the two sides. A squared plus b squared equals c squared.”

“That isn’t true in that library. I think the ground was curved, but you couldn’t tell by looking at it.”

Alan nodded, even though he didn’t quite understand. He could believe physics behaved differently, to the point where magic could happen, but math always works. He watched the log as the rover crossed back into his world. When it encountered the event horizon, the weight of the craft dropped suddenly. “Were you heavier there too?”

“Not to my recollection.”

There was a beep on his scanner. What he observed there was even more confusing. “The MacGuffin. It’s made of emtonium.”