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"Wow, you're really good at ObTech! I'm impressed," you say.

“Do you think so? Maybe I should specialize in it,” Zeta says. “But I also like SysTech, especially interfacing with unusual or outdated system architectures. And I want to learn how to make æther constructs that can do so much more than an echo. But echoes themselves are really interesting too. It’s like a game of tricking a system into seeing something that isn’t there, which is a core part of a construct in the first place isn’t it? I think whatever I specialize in I’m gonna end up doing a lot of both because they’re clearly deeply interconnected.”

“You are so autistic,” you say.

“Yes,” it says as the two of you near the opposite wall. Zeta twists itself around and pulls on you for leverage to turn upside down for landing. This puts an uncontrolled rotation on your body that you don’t know how to deal with. It tries to balance you out again only to impart a reactive force onto itself, and both of you hit the padded wall sideways.

Zeta grabs hold of a handle to stabilize itself and get its feet on the wall, then activates its magnets to root itself there. It pulls you back toward it as you were drifting away again, and grabs your other hand to help you reposition. You get your magnetic boots firmly on the wall--now your floor.

“Thanks,” you say. “This takes some getting used to.”

“You Lunatics will learn sooner or later.” It looks down at the floor, where you both seem to be standing on an off-color square set apart from the rest of the wall. It kneels down to look at a handle in a recess in the carpet.

“Oh wow, a maintenance hatch!” it says.