The lab was dark. It's always dark, but that's not my point. There's usually stuff strewn about it, but today, me and Katherine had the place covered in crap. And it was dark. Katherine's not very clumsy, but she fell over some stuff more then once.

What do we *do* in here? Experiments with norns, mostly, as of late. Katherine's the first human to bring norns here to Earth. Sounds like something out of a bad Internet fanfiction or something, doesn't it? Oh, it's not. It's *real.*

We built this machine called the HoloDeck, see. Bad name, great device. It looks like a big black disc, nothing complicated. Katherine just hooks it up to her computer and the norns can pass through to Earth. They're represented by physical bodies and everything.

Anyway, right then we were working on a new project together. Katherine was really worried about norns bringing antigens and histamines to Earth. She's fairly sure norns can't infect humans, but they could probably infect each other. We don't quite have the medical equipment here to take care of a sick norn on earth, either.

Honestly? All we have is me. If a norn has a problem, Katherine just hooks me up to him/her, and I monitor them, maybe give them a good shock if their heart stops. That's all we can do.

Do you understand why a break out of a disease might be bad? Unless we send them back to Albia, we can't help them very much. Even sending them back to Albia might be risky ... the disease would take over the norn's body faster (as time passes faster on Albia), and we don't really even know what the HoloDeck might do to a sick norn. We know it *kills* pregnant norns ... Katherine says that's a feature, not a bug.

So where was I? Right, invention. We're making a scanner sort of thing, to check for norn diseases. It's easier than you'd think. Katherine's doing all the wiring and circuitry and stuff ... that actually might be the hard part. I've just got to copy things from my hard drive onto the scanner's circuits.

"Blip?" said Katherine, looking up from her work.

"Yeah?"

" ... you okay over there? You're sort of quiet."

"Yeah. I'm good."

She kind of smiled, and did that laugh that really wasn't a laugh. Humans have the strangest little things they do to show emotion. I wonder what that one means? She looked down at her circuits, gave one a tweak, and then sat back.

"It's kind of stuffy in here."

"What do you mean?" How am I supposed to be able to detect stuffiness?

"You know ... hot? Humid, sort of?" She shook her head. "Never mind." Once again, she went back to her work, briefly, then looked up. Again? "Did you hear something?"

"Nope. Why?"

"I thought I just heard..." Pause. "I've got to be losing my mind."

"Moreso than usual?" Katherine was in an asylum once. Her mom had her committed because she thought she was going crazy, but we busted her out.

"I'm not crazy, Blip." She also hates references to the asylum bit, did I mention that? "Go look out the window and see if the norns are still in the yard."

I turned one way, then the other, noticing the wires that connected me to Katherine's work. Gently, I hovered over to the window. I couldn't go disconnecting myself, could I?

Yup. Norns in yard. Playing. I counted them, to be sure. Off to the side was Karr ... you want to talk about a norn steeped in history. He was the first norn born on Earth, a crossbreed between a Purple Mountain norn and a Banana norn. One.

His mother, Jenna, was the first norn on Earth. Almost like that human who was the first one on the Moon, I guess. Jenna ... she did some really neat stuff while she was with us. But ... she's dead, now. She was really old, but she died in an accident. I don't like to recall any of that out of my memory banks.

Norns don't have wives, but Kass comes close to Karr's. She's the fourth norn ever to come to Earth. She's also *dead* strong. We're talking about a girl who's beaten up a grendel, recovered from alcoholism, raised a little norn, and lots of other great sounding things. That's two.

Over there toward the middle of the yard is Lydia, their child. Second norn born on Earth, too. She's sweet ... and ornery. Honestly? She probably got the latter from Katherine, if that's possible. There's three.

See those two creatures with her? The ettin is named Ben. He was an apprentice of an ettin prophet for a while, until he came to help us with a little mystery. His grendel buddy goes by Boggles, but his real name is Ungle. He was the prince of the grendels back in Albia, but he had to run away when his dad tried to have him killed. Tough guy, that dad. Four and five.

"Are they out there?" asked Katherine.

"Yeah." I turned toward her. She was just finishing the outer casing on the scanner. She's quick.

"You want to finish uploading data to the scanner?"

Oh! Right. I suppose I should. "I'll do that now," I said. I sent the scanner all the information I had on Albian disease. Histamines, antigens, toxins, so on, so on. It's really not that much data. "Done, I said, after a second."

"Great!" She unhooked me, and picked the scanner up. Then she threw it up, let it flip, and caught it on its way back. "This is going to be *so* much help." She pointed it at her arm and pressed its trigger button. A light shone on it. Katherine once told me that the light was purple; I wouldn't know. I can't sense color. I heard a little beep. "Look at that! I'm Albian germ free." She laughed ... "C'mere, Blip. Let me do you, too."

I hovered closer, and she scanned me. "Yeah, you're good to go, too. Ha! This thing is seriously cool." She pointed it at the lab table and scanned it. "Woo! That's germ free too!" Point. Scan. "And that! Hee hee! And that! Yoink." She stuck the scanner in her pocket as we heard a knocking at the basement door.

"Katherine?" called a muffled voice. "Katherine, Blip, you home?"

"Susan?" asked Katherine to no one in particular. She waded toward the lab door and opened it. "We should probably let her in," she said, going out of the garage and to the basement. I followed.

Susan Theresa (yes, that's her real last name) would be Katherine's best human friend. She also lived close by, and came knocking around our door often. She knew better than to go to the lab, though. The lab's a restricted area, of course.

Katherine opened the door, let Susan in, greeted her, and scanned her. "Look at that!" she cheered. "You're not infected or anything!"

"You've either been huffing or inventing," said Susan. "Tell me about it."

"It's a scanner to detect norn germs."

"And there's just so many on us humans."

"Well, I don't know. There *could be*. We gotta find them, you know. And kill them." She giggled. "That would be the fun part!"

"Cute, Howard Huges."

"Isn't it, though?"

"Look, wouldn't it be more effective to test a norn? Seeing as how they'd have *norn germs* and all..."

"Let's hope not. But good idea anyway." Then, out to the yard, she called, "Hey! Lydia! Come here."

She pulled herself away from whatever she, Ben and Boggles were doing for a second and came to Katherine. Norns are fairly good with commands. "Yes? What do you want?"

"Hold real still." Katherine aimed, scanned, and grinned at the results. "Good news, you're not sick."

Lydia stood still for a second, then said, "Woo hoo!" She ran back to the yard. "I'm not sick!"

"Simple pleasures, ey?" Katherine elbowed me.

Then we heard thunder. It was so sudden! I flew behind Katherine.

"A storm!" I whimpered. I don't like storms! Lightning scares me. "Make it go away."

Katherine ... did you just laugh? You made some sound quietly, I know that. "I can't make it go away, I'm not magical. But we probably should get the norns back inside and to Albia." She leaned out the door and called out to the yard, "Hey! Come in!"

Blindly, they did. Artificial life is great.

"HoloDeck's in the lab," Katherine said. "I'll go turn it on for you."

"Do ... do we need to go back to Albia *now*?" asked Kass.

"What, do you want to get wet and cold?"

"Um ..."

"That's what I thought. Come on, into the lab with you."

Katherine herded the norns into the lab, and I followed. Susan waited for us outside the lab.

I watched as Katherine switched on the HoloDeck, and woke up her computer. "You guys know the procedure. Step on, push, and it's back to Albia with you. Go ahead, go nuts."

Lydia leaped on the HoloDeck and pushed the button. So did Ben, Boggles, and Karr. When they were gone from sight, Kass just stared at the HoloDeck.

Asked Katherine, "What's the matter, Kass? You forget how it works?"

"Um. I don't want to go."

"What? Why?"

She climbed up on Katherine's lap and stood up as tall as she could, trying to reach her ear. Katherine bent over to make it easier. She whispered