“[color=f26522]Oh,[/color]” Tillie chirped, face pinching quizzically as she hunched down and danced her fingers down the spines of the bookstack. She plucked one vertebra free, a thin book titled: ‘Metamortality: The Human Link’, and popped up with the wide smile back on her face. “[color=f26522]That’s a good place to start! Easy enough, too. Uhm! Here,[/color]”

She flipped through the various dog-eared pages, colored tabs, and post-its scribbled over with illegible shorthand, and turned the book to her opened to a diagram of a Modir’s head. The skull was cross sectioned to depict the brain, which, for the most part, resembled what anyone might think of when they pictured one. The only anomaly, aside from the size, was a dark, spherical object at the back, bridging the fissure between the hemispheres. A tally marked it quite clearly as: [i]cockpit[/i]. 

“[color=f26522]So,[/color]” she said, plopping down beside Quinn with the book on her lap. “[color=f26522]I think a funny way to look at it is like this: when you’re in it, it’s a Savior, and when you’re not, it’s a Modir! ‘Cause, see, you know how Modir can regenerate basically anything, right? Well, they say brains are the exception, but that’s not really true. A Modir’s brain [i]can[/i] regenerate, if it’s conscious, it’s just that usually any real damage is enough to put it out for good. Disrupts the Circuit.[/color]”

She tapped the cockpit on the diagram. “[color=f26522]That’s where the tricky part comes in. We can’t cut too much, or it’s [i]actually[/i] dead and it’ll just melt, like what happens when one loses an arm or a leg. So, we cut [i]just[/i] enough to fit the cockpit, and then that’s where you come in![/color]

“[color=f26522]Pilots can actually slot [i]in[/i] to the Modir’s brain, and neurologically close the little gap we make for the cockpit. See, Modir can’t function without the Circuit, so think of yourself like a drawbridge that’s a little bit thinner than the rest of the road. When you’re connected, the bridge is down and traffic can get across, just a lot slower than usual, then when you disconnect, the bridge is up and traffic stops! Sort of.[/color]” She giggled anxiously—metaphors were never her forte, and she found herself suddenly thankful she wasn’t doing this in front of a class. “[color=f26522]Basically you’re a buffer for the Circuit, and the longer you’re connected, the clearer that signal gets. That’s why you don’t stay in for too long at a time. Completing the Circuit is pretty much just like bringing the Modir back to life.[/color]”