My mind gives anguish new definition. I am contented with my lot, strange as it is to say. --85.4 Seconds Post-Integration.

  By the time they returned to the pod, it was nearly two-in-the-morning. They had on hand a fair few Dandies and their resolve. As far as Clark was concerned, this dwarven pod and its mystery was at its end. "Guys. We're going to get this done, okay?"

  "Can we go to bed, then?" Theo rolled his eyes as he sat on a stool and spun himself around.

  Clark didn't want to give into his behavior anymore than he had to, so he gave a sarcastic response. "Hun. If we get this done, I will tuck you into bed myself!"

  Theo yawned. "I'll hold you to it."

  He and Theo and Hera all circled around the glowing sphere. "Let's try the Dandies first."

  "Actually, I think we should activate our auras first," Hera suggested.

  "Fine. Auras first, then. SIMP: please monitor the sphere and if there's any changes."

  SIMP acknowledged his request with a beep.

  He closed his eyes and got to work in channeling his aura. It was slower going than usual because of his advanced state of tiredness, but he managed. In fits and bursts, his aura came alive, he able to feel it along his skin like a film on an instant microwave meal.

  Breath in... breath out... in, out...

  As his aura formed, Clark felt his friends' aura as well. Not heavily, not anywhere near like his own. But he felt their presence. It was as though their aura-energy pulsed from their bodies like ocean waves buffeting the sandy beach.

  "Clark:" SIMP spoke. "There is a slight change in the sphere. Not much, I can hardly detect the chance in its signature, but it is there."

  He opened his eyes, a broad smile cresting his features. Hera and Theo had their lips pursed in a half-smile, perhaps not wanting to get ahead of themselves with the full smile, least they hit another roadblock.

  "Time for the dandies. Keep your auras active, guys!" Clark said as he rustled in his bag for his recently bought Blessing Dandies.

  Hera and Theo did likewise. "On my mark, we all pour the dandies at the same time. All of them, one after another."

  His friends nodded.

  "Mark!" Clark tilted the tiny bottle over the sphere and let the whole Dandy pour onto out.

  Theo and Hera poured theirs as well and when all the dandies ran dry, a second wave was poured after. Then a third wave, followed by a fourth.

  "I am receiving new readings, Clark. There was an activity spike." SIMP's words ere exactly what he wanted to hear.

  "But we're out of dandies," Theo said. "Are we going to buy more Dandies?"

  Clark didn't have to think about his reply for very long. "Yeah. If SIMP said there was a spike, then we need to try and replicate that spike. SIMP: can you tell me anything about the spike?"

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  SIMP replied in their typically blunt way: "Hardly anything, young'un. My advice would be to follow through with your plan. Buy a whole lot more Blessing Dandies and dump them all as fast as you can while your collective auras are at full strength. I think that might be enough to trigger the sphere's programming."

  "Imitate what Dwarves do, in other words?" Hera whispered conjectures to herself. "That's bold but I agree, SIMP. My readings on dwarves all indicate a close connection to spiritual pressure and control. I think dwarves would have interacted with this sphere by 'directing' some of their highly pressurized aura at the machine. I bet their mechanical bodies help pressurize that aura to begin with. If so, then we need to mimic that pressure if we want the sphere to activate. I think short of waiting months and months, if not years, the brute force approach is best."

  "That's a lot of ifs though," Theo added.

  About to continue with his detractions, Clark shut him down. "We don't have time for endless debate. Hera and SIMP's logic is as sound as my sleep-deprived brain can muster. We give it a go. We buy as many blessing dandies as we can, okay?"

  "Fine... I'll be expecting that tuck, remember."

  Not having an ounce of desire to overthink Theo's attitude, Clark marshaled his team out of the Interior and toward every nearest Green Guild outlet. They bought out every Blessing Dandy they could lay their hands on. They had to have bought hundreds. Clark wasn't sure as he stopped keeping count past two hundred. His share of the payment alone amount to over three-hundred Standard Credits at the shopping spree's end.

  Back at the Pod-structure, they then carefully uncapped every single Blessing Dandy they had bought and arranged them for easy grabbing. "Once we start dumping the dandies, we have to keep our momentum up, okay? We're pretty pathetic when it comes to magical anything. If we want this thing to activate, we need to push it."

  Theo nodded but motioned his hand in a circular twirl telling him to 'hurry it up.'

  Back in circle around the sphere, Clark asked if they were ready.

  "Ready as I'll ever be!"

  Each of them had a bundle of dandies in hand; on his mark, they poured.

  All it took was a couple of heartbeats. One, two, five, eleven dandies emptied and counting.

  "Spiritual energy-signatures from the sphere are climbing fast -- keep up the pressure!"

  "You've heard SIMP -- keep at it!" Clark reinforced his team by amping up his own aura output even more. He focused only on his aura and on dumping dandies. Fixated so, he alone made a good dent in the number of dandies.

  "Energy signatures are reaching a critical juncture!" SIMP blared. "You're almost there. Make one more push with your auras!"

  Clark groaned as he pushed his aura into such a focused state, it made him feel mildly dissociative. Seconds passed; dandies were dumped; he inwardly concentrated, his efforts tunneled on surging his magical potential into his aura.

  And then, it happened.

  A blinding glare erupted from the sphere. The room filled with magical vapor tendrils. It reminded him of being in a sauna or hot springs.

  When the vapors cleared, the sphere and its pulsating light directed all attention to it. The sphere had now opened up to reveal a highly mechanized interior reminiscent of a finely made watch. Except it was not gears and switches carefully laid upon one another in an intricate fashion. The intricacy came from a swirling knot of tunnels and passages which were inside the sphere. Throughout these passages, skittered strange -- but tiny! -- creatures.

  "Uh, SIMP, do you know what I'm looking at?" Clark was in disbelief at the sphere's insides. Were those... ants?!

  SIMP was silent.

  Hera and Theo gave awed gasps when they saw the inside. It might have been that they were awed too well, for neither of them stepped forward to investigate. Clark approached the sphere to get a better look. He pushed his face against the exotic and translucent material of the sphere. He squinted his eyes to force as much detail as possible from the unusual sight before him.

  "Yep. Ants..." What was he to make of this? Clearly, they were no ordinary ants. Even so, ants were what they were, digging through cloudy, silver-tinted dirt (which obviously was not normal dirt). "SIMP? Any ideas?"

  SIMP choked out half a syllable before the sphere rumbled and interrupted.

  The sphere descended into the sideboard command station. It melded perfectly into the indenture slot which previously contained it. Clark heard a click followed by the light from the sphere draining into the command console.

  Simultaneously, every televisual screen in the room turned on. Displayed on the screens was the same message.

  [Workshop Activation in Progress]

  Phew! And with this chapter so ends the third part of Superstore!

  Superstore on Amazon! If you have been enjoying the story and want to read the whole thing, consider buying it for the aggressively average price of $4.99!

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