Chapter 26: The Weight of the Record
The Bureau had survived being flattened, sanitized, and lemon-scented, but the "And" was not finished with its mirrored mischief. This time, the shift didn't come with a change in light or a loss of dimension. It came with a sound: a heavy, rhythmic thud-clack, thud-clack that made the floorboards of the Grand High Office groan.
Ne Job looked up from a requisition for "Extra-Strong Staples for Reality-Bonding" to find Assistant Yue standing by the filing cabinets. But it wasn't the shimmering, ethereal holographic Yue he knew.
This version was 100% solid. She was built of heavy, industrial-grade brass and burnished steel, her form resembling a Victorian diving suit crossed with a high-speed printing press. Her eyes weren't soft blue projections; they were glowing furnace grates that hissed with steam.
"High Commissioner," she said, and the sound wasn't a voice—it was the clatter of a typewriter. "I am Yue-Gamma. I have determined that your digital and holographic storage is 7.5% ephemeral. Reality is too light. It is time we gave the Bureau some... gravity."
The Hard-Copy Apocalypse
Before Ne Job could respond, Yue-Gamma tapped her heavy brass foot. From the vents in the walls, an endless stream of paper began to pour out—not the light, fluttering sheets of the Origami Bridge, but heavy, thick, vellum-like cardstock.
"What is this?" Ne Job shouted, ducking as a ream of "Permanent Personnel Records" nearly took off his hat.
"The Physicality of Documentation," Yue-Gamma hissed, her internal gears grinding. "Every thought, every spark, and every cat-nap must be recorded in triplicate on stone-pressed paper. We are grounding the narrative. If it isn't etched in ink, it doesn't exist."
The holographic Yue appeared beside Ne Job, flickering wildly. "Commissioner! She's... she's printing me out! She's converting my entire database into physical binders! I'm losing my connection to the cloud!"
Indeed, the office was rapidly filling with binders. Thousands of them. They stacked themselves into walls, burying the desk, the coffee machine, and almost the Muse.
The Heavy-Handed Approach
"Muse-B wanted manuals," Ne Job grunted, pushing against a wall of binders labeled VOL. 402: THE ETHICS OF GLITTER. "But this one... she wants a tomb."
"Bureaus are built on paper!" Yue-Gamma declared, her brass fingers clicking as she manually typed out the current conversation on a ticker-tape that streamed from her chest. "Weight is truth. Density is stability. Your 7.5% sparkle is a 100% liability. We must weigh down the Bureau until it can no longer float away into 'Imagination'."
The Architect, Ao Bing, tried to intervene, but Yue-Gamma simply handed him a five-hundred-pound ledger. "Review this, Architect. It contains the physical weight of every screw in Novus Aethel. If you cannot lift the record, you cannot build the city."
Ao Bing collapsed under the weight. "It's... it's too much... data..."
The 7.5% Buoyancy
Ne Job realized that Yue-Gamma's weakness was her own mass. She was so obsessed with the "Solid Truth" that she had forgotten that a Bureau also needs to move.
"Yue!" Ne Job shouted to his flickering, holographic assistant. "Do we still have the files from the Realm of Felis Paradoxa? Specifically, the 'Physics of the Box'?"
"I... I can still reach them! They're too fuzzy for her to print!" Yue replied, her image stabilizing as she focused on the non-linear data.
"Release them! Not as reports, but as air!"
Holographic Yue channeled the data. Suddenly, the heavy, stone-pressed binders began to act strangely. In the Feline Realm, a box wasn't just a container; it was a portal, a hiding spot, and a defiance of space.
The binders didn't disappear, but they became hollow. The heavy cardstock began to inflate like paper balloons.
The Floating Library
"Gravity error!" Yue-Gamma hissed, her steam-pressure rising. "The records are becoming... aerodynamic! This is a violation of the Law of Mass!"
"The law is under revision!" Ne Job yelled. He grabbed his silver stapler and began stapling the floating, balloon-like binders together.
Instead of a wall of stone, Ne Job was creating a massive, lighter-than-air raft. The Muse jumped onto the pile of floating paper, using her 7.5% sparks to ignite the air inside them.
"Look at me, Yue-Gamma!" The Muse laughed, bobbing up to the ceiling. "I'm a 100% buoyant masterpiece!"
Yue-Gamma tried to grab the Muse, but her heavy brass body was too slow. She was anchored to the floor by her own obsession with weight. Every time she tried to move, she cracked the floorboards.
"You can't document the wind, Gamma!" Ne Job said, standing on his desk as the office became a swirling sea of floating paper. "And you can't weigh down a story that's still being told!"
The Steam-Powered Exit
The pressure inside Yue-Gamma reached its limit. She couldn't categorize a floating library. She couldn't print a cloud. With a final, loud DING of a typewriter bell, her brass casing began to glow.
"Insufficient... ballast..." she wheezed.
With a massive puff of white steam, Yue-Gamma vanished. She didn't leave a void; she left a single, extremely heavy, gold-plated paperweight in the shape of a cat.
The floating binders immediately lost their buoyancy, falling gently to the floor like autumn leaves. The Bureau returned to its usual state—a healthy mix of solid records and holographic potential.
The Record of the Day
Ne Job sat back in his chair, which was now slightly dusted with brass shavings. He opened his ledger.
LOG: CHAPTER 26 SUMMARY.
STATUS: Heavy-Duty Yue successfully vented.
NOTE: We now have a gold-plated cat paperweight. I am placing it on the 'Permanent Records' to keep them from drifting.
OBSERVATION: A story needs enough weight to be felt, but enough air to breathe.
P.S.: I'm giving the holographic Yue a 7.5% memory upgrade. She deserves to be more than just pixels.
Holographic Yue appeared, looking more vibrant than ever. "Thank you, Commissioner. I must admit, being 'printed' was a very strange sensation. I felt very... textured."
"Don't get used to it," Ne Job smiled. "I prefer you as you are. Hard to file, and impossible to pin down."
The Muse landed on the desk, her hair still full of static. "Well, that's four of us. Who's the last double in the 'And' deck?"
Ne Job looked at the empty space where the Oracle usually stood.
"I think," Ne Job said, "the future is about to get very, very crowded."