Deet made a sound that only vaguely reminded Rogers of laughing.

“That’s a good one,” Deet said, pointing to the room.

“I don’t get it,” Rogers said.

“It’s a binary thing,” Deet said. “Either you get it or you don’t.”

They turned a corner, and all of a sudden, the whole area opened up. What was formerly a narrow corridor that seemed more at home in a submarine than a space cruiser was suddenly a grandiose hallway, almost bulbous. The ceiling must have extended some twenty or thirty feet above them, tattooed with elaborate drawings and frescoes of things that Rogers didn’t really understand. There were ones and zeroes, of course, but there were also other drawings that seemed both archaic and modern at the same time, perhaps paying tribute to an era long gone. Something that appeared to be a partially eaten pie was chasing around blue dots. Rogers wondered if zip jack was really that rare on this ship after all.

“This place is weird,” Rogers said.

“I concur with your assessment,” Deet said.

The strangeness didn’t end at the ceiling, however. The door to the IT center wasn’t just your average hydraulic-powered sliding door with a keypad and that really comforting hissing noise that told you that you were home. It was a giant set of double doors made entirely out of iron that ran nearly all the way to the ceiling. Swirls of intricately patterned dark wood had been embossed on the door, though there wasn’t any clear meaning behind it.

And, for some reason, Rogers heard organ music.

“Really weird,” Rogers said.

They approached the door, and without any door control to use, Rogers rapped on it using the thick knocker hanging from a well-oiled, fist-thick hinge.

A small window opened with a resounding clack, revealing a set of charcoal eyes set in a face as pale as sheep’s wool.

“Yes?”

Rogers hesitated. “Um, we need to come inside and see the mainframe room,” he said. “I have the admiral here with me. We’re conducting a random inspection.”

The eyes darted between Rogers, Klein, and Deet, and then vanished for a moment. When they returned, Rogers was almost certain they were the same eyes, but the voice was entirely different.

“Yes?”

“I just told the other pair of eyes that we need to come in and get to the mainframe room,” Rogers said, trying to remain patient. “I have the admiral here and we’re conducting a random inspection.”

The window slammed shut, and for a moment, Rogers thought they’d been ignored. He probably would have done the same thing had someone come by and told him he’d be having a random inspection. In fact, he’d tried to do just that several times. Rogers wished his old room on the quarterdeck had been equipped with a window like this he could slam on people whenever he wanted.

Rogers pulled out his datapad and paged the Viking while he was waiting for another set of eyes to appear and say, “Yes?”