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After having been on the ship for a number of weeks now, Merlin was beginning to get the hang of the place. Or at least, he wasn't finding himself in completely unfamiliar places where it would take him all day to get back to somewhere he recognised quite so often.

At least now he didn't have to worry about needing to get back to his rooms so he could feed Iniss. He hoped that Tom was alright - he still wasn't sure that taking Iniss back was the best thing for Tom, but Merlin had resolved to check up on him. And if Iniss still wasn't letting Tom control his own body...well, Merlin could always cast that spell again.

One thing Merlin definitely hadn't gotten the hang of, however, was the omnicomm. Which meant that he was currently walking along the corridors of Stacy, blissfully unaware of the fact that a very public declaration of both Merlin's actions and his magical ability had recently been broadcast to the entire ship.

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Zouichi wasn't looking for anyone or anything in particular after the bizarre incident with Ruffnut (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/639677.html?thread=47494589#t47494589), but all the same, he found himself suddenly and without warning, well... falling through the floor.

He twisted as he fell, cradling Fuyu's projection sphere and absorbing the brunt of the impact when he landed on the floor of what was apparently the corridor below. The wind was knocked out of him, but that was all. As he looked up, he saw Merlin.

"Er... hello."

Merlin leaped back instinctively when something was suddenly falling at him from above. He gaped at Zouichi for a moment, before looking up at the undamaged ceiling above.

"Hello," Merlin said slowly. "How did you...?"

Was he magic, like Merlin?

[ooc: I'm kinda assuming he just kinda phased through the floor, but let me know if that's wrong?]

"You got me," he said, looking up at the ceiling as if expecting it to open up again. In his shock, he completely forgot to be polite to the fellow he'd nearly crashed into. "I was just falling through the floor all of a sudden."

He looked back at Merlin. "I don't suppose you saw what happened any more than I did?"

[Yep, phased through it. He's under the influence of some weird magic junk (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_pilgrims/511392.html), where he'll randomly cast spells by accident. He doesn't actually know any magic himself.]

"No, I think falling through the floor pretty much covers it," Merlin said. He thought he might have sensed magic - well, what else could it be? - but he'd been too distracted by the sudden falling person to really pay attention. "...maybe it was magic?"

[ooc: awesome, thanks!]

"Magic?" Zouichi blinked, mulling that one over for a second. "So someone dropped me through to this hallway? Why?"

The image of a young woman, luminous and only a few inches tall, flickered into being in the air near him. "I didn't detect anyone nearby... But you were saying something right before you fell, didn't you, Zouichi?"

Well, now that Zouichi thought of it, he had been mumbling something... but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. This was getting weird.

"Maybe a sorcerer doesn't like you?" Merlin suggested. But then the image of the tiny woman appeared. "Who are you?!" he said, staring.

"I'm Fuyu," she said, smiling politely at Merlin. "Nice to meet you."

"Kanoe Zouichi," said the young man, extending a hand in greeting. "And if that's true, that would explain a lot. This is the second time this's happened today."

"Um, Merlin," he said, shaking Zoichi's hand but still looking at Fuyu warily. He said he didn't have magic, but he had a...familiar?

"Sorry, but...what are you, exactly?" he said to Fuyu.

"I'm Zouichi's partner," she said. "An artificial intelligence. My job is mainly to support him during missions, but I've asked Zouichi to show me the premises, since it's a little difficult to negotiate a motorcycle around the ship." Then she paused. "Merlin? That's an unusual name. Were you named after the wizard? Or perhaps the falcon?"

"What's an artificial intelligence?" Merlin asked, curious. 'Motorcycle' was another familiar word, but at the moment Merlin was focused on how there could be a tiny inch high woman who wasn't magic.

The question about his name, though...by now, Merlin had learned that that was dangerous territory. "Oh, my mother just really liked the name," he said.

Fuyu looked at Zouichi, not really sure how to explain. He looked kind of at a loss himself.

"Uh, are you familiar with computers?"

Merlin was silent for a moment.

"What are computers?"

Edited 2011-02-19 01:32 (UTC)

Oh, god. Zouichi hoped he wasn't horribly shattering any timelines.

"Well, er, on our world, humans eventually figured out how to create mechanical devices that ran on electricity, which were capable of performing extremely rapid calculations. Computers.

As their technology became more and more advanced, they became interested in creating artificial intelligence -- basically a being that was wholly constructed by human beings, who would live inside the computers. That's basically what Fuyu is."

"She's made out of electricity?" Merlin said, staring.

"Well... basically." He wasn't really sure how to explain code and algorithms to someone who didn't know what computers were.

Fuyu looked a little embarrassed about being stared at. "Ah, but... the image you're seeing of me now is artificial. It's a projection of light, to help give people something to relate to."

"You're an illusion?" Merlin said, trying to relate it to something that was familiar with. "But you're not magic?"

Fuyu looked at Zouichi, who nodded. "Merlin, would you mind passing your hand through my body for a second?"

Merlin looked wary. He could almost hear Gaius telling him that he shouldn't go around sticking his hands into potentially magic illusions that he didn't know anything about. "Why?"

"It's just a demonstration; I can promise you won't be harmed. But if you wish, I can try to explain without it."

"A demonstration of what?" Merlin asked.

She sighed; were all preindustrial humans this suspicious?

"The image that you see of me now, that's the illusion." Suddenly, she disappeared, leaving only empty air where her form once floated. After a second or two, it appeared again, in roughly the same place. "It's not really connected to me in any way; it's just a way of interacting with people who need a face to talk to."

Zouichi held up the projection sphere in his hand.

"That's where I live in reality. I exist as a pattern of electricity in a sphere of intricately constructed metal. There's no magic involved."

"So you live in the spehere?" Merlin could tell there was no magic: that still didn't mean he understood it, though. "But how can electricity make illusions?"

"It's a combination of two different devices," said Fuyu. "The projector is designed to shine light into the air to produce a specific image, when provided with electrical instructions to do so. I merely provide those instructions."

"Humans have designed quite a few devices that function based on electronic instruction," said Zouichi. "Some of them simple, and some of them complex. They can produce light, sound, do mathematics..."

It still seemed like magic that wasn't magic to Merlin, and even trying to think about it made his head spin. "I'd ask how they work too, but somehow I don't think I'll understand any of it," he said.

"Yeah, probably not," agreed Zouichi. Fuyu gave him a look.

"Our world follows specific rules that humans have used to create many things, living and machine," said Fuyu. "Trying to understand their most complex accomplishments without learning any of the discoveries that formed the foundation of those accomplishments won't give you a very deep understanding of anything. I'd recommend first learning about simple inventions and concepts, such as electrical circuits and conductivity. Perhaps the lightbulb, which was a seminal invention in the technological progress of mankind."

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