She then preceded to slink downstairs. Very carefully, she maneuvered to her secret Lab, where she did all her experiments.

“Good Afternoon, Katie.” Called a robotic voice. This was Katherine’s Lab Assistant, a floating robot named Blip. (Blip stands for: Binary Linear Intersystem Platform. Which means, roughly, “can communicate with any ‘platform’, or operating system, including the human one.”. Or, at least it did to Katherine.)

“Blip, my name is Katherine.” She corrected. “Anyway, care to help me?”

“That’s what I was made for.” replied Blip. “You last left your invention connected to Hailey.” (Hailey is what Katherine & Blip call the computer down in the lab.)

“Excellent. I simply need to program a few more genes into the main circuitry, and it will be complete! We can beta test it today if all goes well. Blip: Load up the data on the Digestive, toxin and appearance genes.” Said Katherine, sticking the Creatures CD into Blip’s D:/ drive.

Flashes of numbers lit up on Blip’s screen. Within a few seconds, Blip announced “Data Loaded! Ready for transfer.”

“Ready for the converter cable?” asked Katherine, hooking a long black wire into a port of Blip’s In the middle of the Cable was a converter box, at the end was a large, round, black platform that resembled the teleporters in Creatures. Katherine found a button on the box and pushed it. “Data transfer in progress.” She confirmed. Numbers began to flash on Blip’s Screen again. He was sending data to the black teleporter, which was called the “HoloDeck”.

This transfer took a few minutes. “Checking Data....” said Blip. “Data transfer confirmed. Ready for test Beta!”

“All right!” exclaimed Katherine in glee. “Let’s hope the Creatures end works.” She got the Creatures CD out of Blip, & stuck it in Hailey. Creatures was promptly started up, and the game opened to a scene with a small, young banana Norn girl was playing in the garden.

“Push food” Said Jenna, the norn, and ate a carrot. Jenna started to look around for another carrot when she noticed something new in the garden- a black teleporter.

“Push mover” Katherine typed in. Jenna decided that this might be fun. You never know where a mover takes you. Jenna climbed on to the teleporter and pushed the red button.

Back in Katherine’s lab, a flash of light appeared over the HoloDeck. It was Jenna, being transferred from Albia to earth. Jenna looked around. There was an unusual thing in front of her. It looked a little like her, only it had brown hair & eyes. Beside the thing was a flying “computer”- but it didn’t look like the computer she was taught about. It was small & round. The odd, hairy thing leaned down. “Yah, Bay Bee”! It said. Jenna was confused. Where was the speech bubble? Then it said some odd words.

“Well, Blip, we can rule out that norns squeak when they talk on Earth.” Said Katherine, the ‘Hairy Thing’. “Shall we try words?”

“Go for it.” replied Blip, the ‘computer.’

“Push” said Katherine, looking at Jenna. Finally, something Jenna understood! To a norn, speaking is the same as reading it out of the bubble. So, Jenna looked around for something to push. There was Blip, and there was the HoloDeck. But the Katherine looked more inviting. She took a few steps toward it, and “pushed” it.

“Dat” Said Jenna.

“Hand” Said Katherine.

“Hold on here” thought Jenna. “Hand doesn’t look anything like this.” Jenna thought maybe Katherine could help. “Think” said Jenna.

“Poor thing’s confused.” Remarked Katherine to Blip. “She’s never seen the rest of me.” Katherine held out her hand. “Hand” repeated Katherine.

Something clicked in Jenna’s mind. Here, in front of her, was the hand she loved. But it was attached to a stick, a tube, and other stuff. Was this the rest of hand?

“Hand”, Jenna said, understanding.

Katherine got up and hugged Blip best she could. “It works! It WORKS!” She shouted. Jenna saw this, & figured that pushing Blip might be fun. She reached up.

“Jenna Yes” Said Katherine. Jenna giggled. This place really was fun!

“Jenna get Mover”. Said Katherine. Jenna was going to help carry the HoloDeck out of the lab. She grabbed one end of the HoloDeck, and Katherine got the other. Blip, having no arms, could only hover close & give Jenna directions. Together, the trio maneuvered to Katherine’s, even though it was tough telling Jenna to go up stairs when she was used to lifts. Finally, after a long series of “Jenna yes” and “Jenna no” (Every time they said no, Jenna dropped the HoloDeck, so they needed to be very careful.) Finally they got to their destination. Katherine put down her end. “Jenna drop Mover”. she commanded. Jenna led the HoloDeck drop with a thud. She was used to dropping cheese & carrots, which weren’t as delicate as a link to another world.

“Now,” Katherine said to Blip, “Let’s get Jenna back inside and call Susan. She’ll want to hear about this!” Katherine then turned to Jenna and told her to “push mover”. Jenna was tired, and wanted to go home. She voluntarily pushed mover and was zapped back into Albia. Glad to be in the garden, she pushed food, & then fell asleep. Katherine turned the HoloDeck off to prevent any other norn in the world, or worse yet the Grendel coming into her room uninvited. She then trotted in the Kitchen, Blip by her side, and dialed up Susan. The conversation went like this:

“Hello, Susan?”

“Hi Katherine!”

“Can you come over real quick! I want you to see my latest experiment!”

“Is this one like the norn that was suppose to be immune to Death Cap Mushrooms, but died from the fever toxin in the thing?”

“Well...”

“OR like the norn who was suppose to be fearless, and you were going to use him as a Grendel Basher, but he developed a fear of Cheese and starved?”

“WELL...”

“OR like the...”

“ALL RIGHT!” I get the point. But this is way better. You have to see this.

“Fine, I’ll come over & see this. But if I’m right...”

“You’ll get bragging points.”

“Sounds good. See you in a second. Bye!”

“Bye!”

And then they hung up. What seemed like 5 minutes later, Susan was standing in Katherine’s room.

“So,” said a skeptical Susan, “This thing is suppose to take norns from inside the computer to our world.”

“Yuhp. And it works, too!” Announced Katherine. She turned to Hailey and asked Jenna (Who was still in the garden)to “Push mover”. Jenna looked at Albia’s HoloDeck and thought about what happened last time. She got to see new things, and it was fun! She went over, and pushed mover.

There was a flash over the HoloDeck in Katherine’s room. When the light cleared, there stood Jenna. Susan looked at this... norn, that was now a physical being. She could not believe that Katherine finally did something right. There was only one word to describe this feeling, which she said aloud.

“Wow”.

Jenna looked at Susan. Something crossed her mind. Now there were two hands. This had been a _very _ confusing day. She sat down best a norn could. “Think” she said, responding to all this.

“Susan, stick out your hand & say ‘Hand’” said Katherine. Susan did so, which made Jenna think even more. Two hands? Oh well, at least they looked different.

“Think she’s hungry?” Asked Susan.

“Let’s get her a carrot.” said Blip. He, Katherine & Susan went off toward the kitchen in search of norn food.

“Jenna” said Katherine before she left the room, hoping to attract Jenna. But Jenna didn’t come.

Jenna took a closer look at the HoloDeck, trying to figure out how it worked. She found a switch that she had pushed earlier. What if she didn’t stand on the HoloDeck while pushing? She reached for the button and was about to push.

Back in Albia, a purple mountain norn named Jack was in the garden. He saw a carrot lying on the HoloDeck. This looked good, so he stepped on the HoloDeck to get the carrot. At about this instant, Jenna pushed the HoloDeck on Earth and transported Jack from Albia to her new world. There was a flash of light, and then there was Jack. Jenna looked at Jack. “Push norn” she said, and gave him a big tickle.

Jack liked this and decided to return the favor. “Norn” he announced and tickled Jenna right back. Then he gave her a kiss.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Blip, Susan and Katherine were looking for norn food.

“Hey- did you hear that?” Said Susan.

“What?” asked Blip.

“It sounded like... Norns Kissing?!” replied Susan.

“OH my GOSH!” Shouted Katherine in Horror. “I left the HoloDeck on!” Everyone then realized that another norn was in there doing who knows what. Immediately the trio dashed down the hall, and began to turn to get into Katherine’s room. Katherine, being a horrific klutz, fell over in her excitement, landing at the feet of Jenna. She lay there for a second, because she landed funny and hurt a little. As she lay, she heard the loudest Kisspop you ever heard. Opening her eyes, she saw exactly what she didn’t want to see, Jack and Jenna.

“Oh... My...” Katherine picked herself up. “Did they just...” She looked at Blip and Susan, who apparently saw the whole thing as Katherine had heard it.

“Yuhp.” Said Susan. “Let’s put her back into Albia so we can see if she’s pregnant.”

Katherine & Blip looked at each other. Blip decided to explain. “There’s something you should know... Somehow the HoloDeck reacts with the fetal fluids of Pregnant Norns.... Any pregnant norn that uses the HoloDeck is killed instantly. Jenna will have to stay on Earth until we determine if she is pregnant, and if she is, then she will have the first norn ever born here on this planet.”