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Things are missing. Full of holes.

It was a worrying thought -- that even the memory of this centuries-old spirit had been tampered with somehow. But by whom? And why? What was so important, so dangerous, that someone didn't want them to know about it?

Fortunately, she was drawn away from her answerless musings by the exciting mess that was -- as Mimisbrunnr had dubbed it -- the server room. There were piles of wires not hooked up already, all looking rather technical and important. But, for all that, Mimisbrunnr's excitement was contagious, and all Hvergelmir saw was a fun puzzle.

"Okay," she said, gamely stepping forward to gather up some of the cords. "I'll be your John Watson! You tell me what to do, and I am on it like a bonnet."

"Okay, you've got it!"

Hvergelmir giggled at the description of the tangled wires as like a high school computer lab. Well, then. Untie some knots, plug things in -- she could do that! No problem.

The squire stepped over to a clear area, took up one of the bundles, and stared separating wires. As she got them free, she would each one into a little coil, then set them aside in little groups. Round plugs, ordered by size, then the ovular ones, then all the rectangly ones -- then finally a group for all the plugs that were just plain weirdly shaped. It was slow work, but she had steady hands that were used to working with thread by now; these wires were thicker by comparison. Not impossible, untying a few snarls.

" 'Come, my little friends, as we all sing a happy little working song,' " she sang quietly to herself. " 'Merry little voices, clear and strong, come and roll your sleeves up (so to speak) and pitch in, cleaning crud up in the kitchen as we sing along...!' "

Hvergelmir let out a giggly peal of delight when she realized Mimisbrunnr was joining in -- not just knew the words, but was singing along. In her experience, there were two types of people in the world: those who'd join in on a sing-along, and those who -- for one reason or another, wouldn't. While plenty of those reasons were perfectly innocuous, Laney generally found that people who raised their voices in goofy singing were more often people she could get on with. She was glad Mimisbrunnr was one of them.

"We'll keep singing without fail, otherwise, we'd spoil it!" the squire of the cosmos went on ( -- after all, otherwise, she'd spoil it). "Hosing down the garbage pail -- " With one hand holding the end of a long cord, she made a gesture as though she was operating a garden hose, using the cable ports as her unseen garbage pail. " -- and scrubbing up the toilet!"

They were making good work of the tangled wires. Soon this place would be downright tidy.

Hvergelmir nodded, standing up straight and dusting her skirts off, then brushing her hands together to clear the dust off of those, too. "Okay. I'll start on this end, then, and you can start on that one?" She started inspecting the ports on her side of the server block and trying to pick out the shapes and sizes.

She had some luck with the first few, matching wires in her pile to a few corresponding holes -- but soon enough, she found ports she didn't have wires for.

"Have you got a little rhombus shaped one over there? And I need one that's shaped like, uh, the side of a Monopoly hotel." She scratched her head, smiling ruefully. "I have to say, maybe it's weird, but this is actually just really fun."

Hvergelmir giggled. "No problem," she said with sincerity. "I used to love puzzles as a kid -- putting things in little matchy slots. Ah, here's your star -- " She scooped up the wire from the ground and handed it over, swapping for the two she was missing that Mimisbrunnr had brought over.

"It's funny, though. I wonder why the wires were all tangled up like this in the first place . . . " She looked over at Aishe's ghost with a puzzled look, as though to say, do you remember anything?

There were people coming. That was vague -- Hvergelmir supposed either this was one of the gaps in Aishe's memory, or there was something she didn't want to say. Maybe it was a secret not meant for mixed company, something she'd only tell Mimisbrunnr herself. Hvergelmir filed the information away in a blue glass drawer in her mind and focused on what she was doing.

"Well, no worries! It looks like what you did helped protect your Wonder, so that's always good. Anyway, we'll get you sorted out in no time." She gave a cheery thumbs-up and went back to plugging things in.

"The tech's really great here on Mercury," she commented by and by, still to Aishe. "I've got nothing like it at my Wonder -- but then, mine's so remote. Was there a very thriving knightly order here on Mercury? Did you know any of the others? Babylon, Mistral, Nazca?"

'And I knew Alexandria very well, of course.' Hvergelmir nodded with interest, storing the name and the factoid away for future reference.

She smiled luminously, taking a moment to appreciate their handiwork and compare it with her mental image of the room when they'd entered. What had once been a veritable pterodactyl's nest of wires, slung into a horrific tangle of knots on the floor, was now a neat and tidy array of cords swinging between machines from port to port, orderly as a symphony. Whatever material they'd been made from, it had weathered the long centuries well: none of the wires were cracked or holding the wrong shape. Count on Mercury, then, for superior technology indeed. Here, just as it had been at Mistral.

"You've got it," she agreed, drawing her distaff and spindle out between her hands, the narrow thread hooking them together.

Hvergelmir stood close to the wires, though not among them; she didn't want to risk being accidentally electrocuted or something. She peeked back over her shoulder at Mimisbrunnr and Aishe. "You may want to close your eyes," she warned, wondering: can a ghost be blinded by something? How does it work?

Then, having issued her warning, she slid her hand down the unwoven thread and began to spin. A spark jumped beneath her hand, then doubled and tripled; then the air gave a loud, powerful crack as light jumped up through the thread and Hvergelmir's fingers and began to burn from her, incandescent. The sharp, fresh smell of ozone was pungent through the humming air, and the world went clean white all around. Hvergelmir held it that way for a few seconds, spinning, letting searing light flood the room, then she let it drop -- hopeful that it had worked, and the machines had picked up whatever juice they needed to jump-start.

Hvergelmir grinned from ear to ear. Her magic had never really been useful before, not really. This was a first.

A far cry from how badly things had gone at Mistral; this had been . . . easy. Pleasant. Bloodless.

"I'm happy I could help," she agreed, still radiant with cheer if not with actual light. "And you were such a help to me, too! I never really run out of questions, being honest. It's great to find someone who has some answers."

The news of a computer virus was a little more unpleasant -- and well beyond anything Laney could do, certainly, since it didn't involve Norton -- but she was relieved to find that Mimisbrunnr considered that not-too-insurmountable. Maybe all Mercury knights were good at these kinds of things. Kent had some knowledge in that area too, she was pretty sure, or something like it.

Hvergelmir would've liked to stay longer -- explore a little more, ask Aishe some more questions -- but she could understand the need to get back home. Some people had busier schedules than Laney did, and lives that didn't wait while two girls sat in a room untangling wires. They had to get going.

"Thank you for having us," she said, giving the ghost a gentle ghost-squeeze. (How odd! How exciting! A ghost hug!) "It was so lovely to meet you."