I dreamt of cross-processing and very large lens arrays.

When I came to, I saw water coming down from a bowl in the ceiling. No. Wait. Yes. All the appropriate "where am I, what happened" thoughts ran through my head as I slowly sat up and looked around the large, sunlit room I was in. Plants of all sorts sat in the corners and around a center basin where the water falling collected.

R.A.H.N.E.E. was hovering over me as well. Her Victrola voice interrupted my train of thought: "I bet you do not ever read the instructions at home, either."

I groaned as I sat up. My head felt heavy. "Where are we?"

"In the conservatory, but it was Mr. Jaschu, in the gallery, with an electrified table," she said, hands on her hips.

"I--"

"You certainly did."

I started feeling dizzy as well as berated, so I put my head between my knees and let out an unintelligible, burbling moan. R.A.H.N.E.E. waited patiently for me to pull myself together. I'm thankful for the small things.

"Did you carry me in here?"

"I did not. I surmise the cron jobs did."

I nodded. Ouch. "Sounds right. Mr. D usually writes some clean-up scripts. I'm glad they didn't think we were temporary files."

She tapped the inside of her wrist. "RFID chips, yes?"

I wobbled to my feet. R.A.H.N.E.E. helped to steady me and led me back into the gallery on my insistence. When we got there, the table that had shocked us was clear, except for a bit of ash. Right about... "What happened to my coffee?"

"Oh, you noticed. Is this table freaking you out, Jaschu? Is it a freaky table?"

"It--My coffee got deleted."

R.A.H.N.E.E.'s head cocked to one side. I imagined somehow she was rolling her eyes. "You should have heeded the sign."

"It deleted my coffee!"

"Your coffee was not what the table was looking for."

I find that it's not worth arguing with cyborgs and active electricity.

I pushed my sleeve up, checked my forearm comp. Fortunately, my left arm hadn't acted as a ground and it wasn't fried. I popped the comp open again and opened up a chat window. As I typed, I turned to R.A.H.N.E.E. and said, "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean for us to get electrocuted... Who makes a table that electrocutes you, anyway?"

She shrugged. "That table is meant for photographs and projects."

Still typing, I frowned. "What if my project required coffee?"

"Next time, write something first."

I changed the subject: "I need to talk with Mr. D, see if I can get access to the error logs, go through the repository."

Yo, I sent to Mr. D's chatter.

Hey there, I heard you're at the mansion.

Yessir, got a sec?

Sure. How's the search going?

Shockingly.

Should've read the sign. ;)

I frowned. Everyone's a critic. :(

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