Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a relief to be allowed to roam the premises alone. The so-called adults seemed compelled to provide near-constant supervision and Ylaine could only escape that supervision in the confines of her own room. Like anyone with a mind as sharp as hers, it was like being a prisoner of mind and not body, allowed to roam where she chose, but given only limited freedom.

She knew full well that the Center was hardly an unsupervised location. There were security officers, hidden, scattered across the premises, and monitoring devices invisible to the naked eye. Ylaine knew all of their locations. She knew everything about the building, same as she knew everything else. But the illusion of freedom in this instance sufficed. All Ylaine asked for was that, if they would not leave her completely to her own devices, they at least stopped hovering about her.

She looked up at the directional signs pointing to different rooms and facilities. Administrative offices this way, rooms 100-150 that way, cafeteria dead ahead. Though she knew the building's schematics, the signs helped her orient her location. Merging her data with reality was not an easy task.

She set off towards the library, choosing a route away from the more populated areas. Even though she had a bandana covering her head casing, she still did not want to run into many other people. She felt as if they would know her secret just by looking, despite the attempted camouflage. Irrational, but that was the nature of emotions.

Ylaine had to stand on the tip of her toes to open the door to the library, but she was relieved to find it was as quiet a location as the definition of a library implied. She was curious to find out if her apparent knowledge of all published texts was indeed accurate and set out wandering among the shelves.

"I am unhurt," said Ylaine, wary of the question. She had gone through so much trouble to evade the attentions of adults on this excursion. While this stranger was clearly not an adult, the expression of concern was not a positive point in Ylaine's book. She glanced Irelia for just a moment, not wanting to stare, but she could feel Irelia's eyes on her. It made Ylaine uncomfortable.

The book Ylaine was holding was a text on flowers, their biology and cultivation. Fairly dry stuff, far outside what a child Ylaine's age should be interested in. She had it open to a spot in the middle. "Do you require something?" Ylaine's eyes scanned the page as if reading. The only picture was a diagram of the structure of a leaf.

"599," said Ylaine, but did not offer up the fact that this section was 581, or that the books on mammals were all of two shelving units away. To her, 599 was the answer, even though by itself the number had no bearing on the library's geography. Her data was reality removed from reality. Ylaine returned the book she held to the wall and took the one next to it, opening it to a random spot near the middle again and resuming her reading. Clearly Ylaine had not been the one to discard that other book on the floor. She was too meticulous. Yet she had not bothered to return the dropped book to its place, either.

"I am Ylaine." She repeated her earlier action with the book, shelving the one she held and removing the next. It was almost like she was looking for something and had decided to check the books one by one. "This is my first time here."

"Read?" echoed Ylaine softly, a troubled look crossing her face. Her voice had an almost otherwordly quality to it, a low calm that would have been suited to a woman of wisdom and power in some ancient land. "Yes, I suppose I do. I was not aware books were able to whisper." Nor did the idea seem to fit the definitions of book and whisper as Ylaine understood them.

Ylaine was confused. "They contain the same words regardless of their age," she noted. "Why would they offer you more insight than any other person? Their texts are not secret." At least, not where Ylaine was concerned. She looked up at Irelia with a sort of dazed awe, quietly wishing she had the other girl's age, height, and hair and wondering what it was this girl seemed to know that Ylaine did not. The thought was beginning to nag at Ylaine.

"I don't need to read the books," said Ylaine flatly, "I already know what they contain. I was merely checking them for accuracy." And checking herself for accuracy in the process. Ylaine closed the book she was holding, put it back onto the shelf, and this time did not take another. Irelia's words intrigued her. It had never before occurred to her that possessing private information on others might be seen as unethical, but then, Ylaine did not have a highly-developed sense of ethics, being only a few weeks old. The information she held was not of the same nature as what Irelia was describing, but it was certainly secret, at least from general public knowledge.

"Tell me more about secrets," Ylaine instructed.

Ylaine's heart was gripped with a fearful chill. She looked away from Irelia, ashamed, and carefully reached up to check that her bandana was still in place. Near as she could tell, it was, but she checked it again. She knew everything that had ever been printed yet she could not even tell when the bandana had slipped on her head. Ylaine was unaware Irelia had used other means to gain this secret.