Bjorn had returned to the monitors further back in the room. "Can I ask you a question?" asked Kyle, redundantly. Bjorn raised his eyebrows amiably in Kyle's direction. Kyle pressed onward, "How do you move around in here without dying tragically of electrocution or self-strangulation or something?"

Bjorn grinned. "PIA's my little girl -- she'd never do anything to hurt me, would you sweetheart?" He punctuated the last with an affectionate whack of a nearby pipe. Distant ends of the pipe spit steam and sparks, respectively. It ocurred to Kyle that this combination coming from the same pipe suggested some kind of danger, but he hadn't yet wrapped his mind around the problem when Bjorn came back with "Hey, you want to see something cool?"

"Cooler than blowing up a cloud?" he asked, dubiously.

"Eye of the beholder and all that, but yeah, way cooler than blowing up a cloud."

"Okay."

"Stand over by the Calibration console for a sec." Kyle frowned. Bjorn squinted at him for a moment. "Right...stand over by the large blue sign for a sec. Kyle brightened and walked over to the large blue sign. With nothing else immediate to occupy his attention, he stared thoughtfully at the large blue sign. It said "Calibration". Oh.

"Okay, now what?"

Bjorn grinned back at him placidly. Kyle fidgeted. Kyle did not like silences. Some people made a distinction between uncomfortable silences and comfortable silences. Kyle mostly made a distinction between muttering to himself and muttering to other people. Kyle started to hum tunelessly.

Bjorn held up a finger and said "Probably best if you don't make much noise..."

This concerned Kyle, who said "What's probably better?"

Bjorn didn't say anything in response, instead opting for the universal finger-to-lips gesture that suggested silence. Kyle frowned uncertainly and returned to fidgeting, but stopped humming. Better safe than sorry. ...Right?

Bjorn nodded his head quietly to music not audible to Kyle, and then said after a pause "Okay, that should about do it".

Kyle blinked back at him. "Do what?"

"So, I build PIA to destabilize distant structures that started off with relatively high entropy to begin with. It occurred to me earlier this year that similar principles should allow hyper-stabilization of nearby structures. PIA's got your measurements now, or near enough." He leaned over and typed something into the terminal to his right, and watched the monitor for a moment. Then he turned to the table on which he'd been sitting, and lifted what looked like a very badly perforated super-soaker, pointed it at Kyle, and shot him.

Kyle screamed. Kyle clutched at his chest and gasped for air. Kyle fell to his knees and writhed.

Bjorn pursed his lips.

Kyle hyperventilated and patted himself all over. Kyle frowned. Kyle was fine.