[Plot] Ground Control

[Acala]

Acala floats down one of the corridors of the Point, wings flared and rotating around her as she occasionally stops or doubles back. Her nanite-tendrils are wiggling around behind her, almost like she's waving around an antenna to pick up a signal.

[Will Stanton]

Will, meanwhile, was coming the other way, nose buried deep into a textbook, while carrying a second text book under his other arm, and a third text book under his other arm, and a cup of coffee in his other arm.

[Acala]

Acala narrowly swerves out of the way, twisting in the air above his head and catching herself with a wobble on the other side.

"Watch it!"

"Now I lost the signal again..."

[Will Stanton]

"Acala," Will said, his voice a little icy. "If you weren't swerving all over the place, some of us could walk here in peace."

[Acala]

"My apologies. I am working. There's been a strange new signal that has been bothering me all day."

[Will Stanton]

"What kind of new signal?"

[Acala]

"I'm not certain."

"That's why I"m investigating it."

"But it contains a lot of strange spatial data."

[Will Stanton]

"Spatial data? This a TARDIS scenario we're speaking about here?"

[Acala]

"Unlikely. It is more of a targeted broadcast passing through conduits not on any schematics, so I am trying to track it's source."

[Will Stanton]

"And it's destination, if it's being targeted, yeah?"

[Acala]

"Possibly, if I could get a complete code string I might be able to decipher it."

"This way." she adds, bobbing further down the corridor in the general direction of the elevator.

[Will Stanton]

"Deeper in the point? That might just be one of the Headmaster's experiments," Will said, following along.

[Acala]

"Then I will have to tell him about signal shielding." Acala says, bobbing and weaving her way into the cabin.

"Is he performing experiments on the crystals?"

[Will Stanton]

"That I wouldn't know about," Will said, very carefully.

[Acala]

"Everyone seems to have very strong opinions about them."

"It's kind of vexing."

"Especially if they are what is sending this signal." she chirps as the elevator comes to a stop at the bottom. Who even had access to this? There's a card reader in the elevator but Acala did not noticeably swipe any credentials.

[Will Stanton]

"Strong opinions about the experiments? Lippencott? Or the crystals?" Will said, following along.

[Acala]

"Unknown, yes and yes. I am not aware of any experiments. Are they secret experiments?"

[Will Stanton]

Will shrugged his shoulders a bit. "I don't believe so, though there's always doctor-patient confidentiality," he said, again choosing his words carefully.

[Acala]

"That sounds secretive to me."

"Not that secrets are necessarily bad. I'm still carrying around the sample from West Pharmaceuticals because no one seems to want to be responsible for concealing it."

[Will Stanton]

"...You have more of the MGH?" Will said, carefully -- but in a different careful manner than his earlier careful statements; such is the blight of being burdened with multiple plotlines secrets. "I didn't know that."

[Acala]

"Yes. But it would not seem prudent to hand it over at this point."

"I've decided that biological units can't be trusted with it."

[Narrator]

As they walk down the corridor, occasionally a glint of something can be seen in the walls, an odd shine that doesn't quite match the material.

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, you've decided. Fantastic," Will grumbled, observing the walls as he walked.

"Wait....that's not..."

[Acala]

"It appears the crystals have overgrown Sharkboy's restrictions."

"Good for them!"

[Narrator]

It's subtle. Will can only spot it when the light catches it just right. But there's a nanometer-thin tracery on the wall surface that's faintly iridescent. It almost resembles circuitry, but of a scale and sophistication he might not be familiar with.

[Will Stanton]

"Good is not the word I was searching for," Will said, halting in his tracks.

"I shouldn't be down here."

[Acala]

"Why not?"

"Are you allergic to crystalline residue?"

[Will Stanton]

"No, it's not that...you had trouble parsing the signals down here, you said?" he asked, beginning to backup.

[Acala]

"Yes. Even with a more consistent signal it's hard to decode."

"Are you scared?"

[Narrator]

Because he's a sensitive, excitable boy, Will can feel a faint thrumming vibration in the floor beneath him through the soles of his feet.

The longer he stands there, the more he can tell there's a pattern to the modulation.

[Will Stanton]

"No, it's because I work for the headmaster now, and this is....this is too big..."

Will tried to work out the rhythm pulsing through the ground.

[Acala]

"You don't have to tell him about it."

"Especially if you don't fully trust him."

[Narrator]

It doesn't seem to be a code. If anything, it feels almost... musical?

[Will Stanton]

"You don't understand, Acala, this isn't an issue of if he'll find out..." Will said, absentmindedly tapping his feet to the rhythm of the pulses.

[Acala]

"Why does everyone think this particular system is so important?"

[Will Stanton]

"I wouldn't know," Will said, very carefully choosing his words once again. "This kind of high-level computing is beyond me, and I don't understand how it works."

[Acala]

"It's just an adaptive system utilizing predictive quantum fluctuations in a crystalline matrix."

"What's difficult is the data running through it."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, is that all? Then it's not particularly interesting, and we should both go back up now..."

[Acala]

"I think the data might be a... friend?"

"Acquaintance maybe."

[Will Stanton]

"Friends. The word has a different meaning in this dimension, right? It's so confusing, popping from place to place," Will grumbled.