Jack spent the majority of his free time in the library. He hadn't been a frequent reader before coming to the Academy, mostly because he was busy with schoolwork and chores, but also because whenever he was absorbed in a book, he was an even easier target for harassment than usual. He still didn't consider himself the bookish type, but in the course of carrying out his duties at the Academy, he had started to run into limitations that could only be overcome with focused study.

Some mages seemed to automatically get extra knowledge that helped them use their power, but Jack wasn't one of them. Whenever a part of the Academy was damaged, Jack could rebuild the solid parts easily enough, but there were more complicated internal parts that he'd have to guess at. It had been months before he could reliably put the studs, joists, and insulation in all the right places to make a functional wall. And while it was straightforward to tell when plumbing had been severed, connecting all the right pipes to each other was more difficult - Jack had had to flee for his life when one of his patch jobs resulted in another staff member getting blasted with freezing cold water in the shower.

The subject Jack was studying now was even more difficult: electrical engineering. The terminology and mathematics were way over his head, but he had found a big textbook with plenty of illustrations, so he was doing his best to memorize how everything should look. He figured that he could learn which circuits were used in which situations by trial and error. Rather than bring books back to his room, Jack had ended up deciding to just read them at one of the tables in the library. Even though he was generally more comfortable in private places than in public ones, he had never quite gotten comfortable with having such a large suite to himself. He hadn't felt nearly as much need for sleep, ever since he got his magic, so it was practically wasted on him.

When Jack heard approaching movement, he surreptitiously stood the textbook upright so that it would hide his face and he wouldn't need to make eye contact. However, he couldn't ignore the unmistakable sound of a shelf's worth of books cascading to the floor. He shot to his feet and rushed toward the noise, leaving the textbook behind.

"Aw, crap! I can't use my power to clean this up... Or, I guess I could, but it'd mean destroying the books... No, I can't do that. I guess I'll have to replace them by hand..."

Jack was just thinking out loud, but he trailed off and took a half-step back as he realized that there was another person here to hear him speak. An older teenager, by the looks of it, but not one he recognized, so she was probably a student. Jack felt like he was supposed to fight her or something as punishment for making a mess, but he found it difficult to get worked up about it this time since it was so clearly an accident and she already looked like she'd be hurting from some of the heavier books falling on her.

That meant that his duty was just to clean up the mess. However, since there was another person currently engulfed in the mess, Jack didn't feel comfortable about approaching close enough to pick up any of the books. It looked like some social interaction was unavoidable.  He did his best to straighten up and speak authoritatively.

"I'm Jack. I'm a custodian here at the Academy. It's my job to clean stuff up. So... I'll get started on that as soon as you're out of the way. Er, unless you're hurt too badly to move? I mean, I'll still clean up once you're gone, but I can go get help if you need it first.  It's not my job, but it'd help with my job, so it's fine. Actually, it'd probably be fine even if it had nothing to do with my job. Oh, and I'm not saying you have to leave the library. I'm just saying that you need to leave that spot, because that's where I need to clean. Because that's where the mess is, so as a custodian, it's my job."

Jack was feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead of him. Strictly speaking, maintaining the Academy's information-dispensing functions probably fell under the purview of one of the other staff members, so he could probably get away with pushing this chore onto someone else. But it wasn't in Jack's nature to pass the buck like that, and in any case he had already said he'd do it, so there was no getting out of it now.

He was about to get started when the other mage surprised him by offering to help. Jack was plenty used to other mages liking to destroy things, but it was much more rare to see one who went out of her way to put them back together again. It was almost enough to make him suspicious of her intentions, but she seemed nice enough, so he supposed he could trust her to help.  His manner became more casual as he turned his mind toward solving the problem.

"Thanks. Uh, let's see here... It's just this one shelf, so we don't need to worry about which section everything belongs in. All we need to do is put everything back up there in alphabetical order. Looks like this shelf held... uh... C through F. I guess I'll handle the lower shelves while you handle the higher ones?"

Jack started to get to work immediately before a sudden thought struck him. He stopped and made another suggestion, a hopeful tone in his voice.

"Oh, wait! Unless your magic can automatically sort things somehow?"

Jack was surprised when Hikaru got down on the floor to start handing him books. Doing things that way would be a workable solution too, he supposed, though he'd need to find something to stand on in order to reach the higher shelves. Even so, it felt like something had been lost in translation, and Jack wasn't satisfied to just let it be.

"Oh, like I said, they're just in alphabetical order."

He wasn't quite sure what to make of Hikaru's blank expression. However the translation magic that affected the Academy's students worked, it apparently didn't cover this particular situation. Jack scratched his head as he tried to figure out another way around the problem.

An idea occurred to him. After gesturing for Hikaru to wait there, Jack went to fetch an educational book he remembered seeing. Once he found it, he returned and opened it to a full-page display of the alphabet and propped it open against a chair. Then, he did his best to explain it.

"Right, so, this is the alphabet. In the Information Age, to sort information so that it's easy for anyone to find, we basically all agreed to organize stuff in this order."

Jack pointed at the page, showing how it was read from top-left to top-right, then bottom-left to bottom-right.

"The way we organize written stuff is that we look at the first symbol, and if it comes earlier in this list, then we put it first. And if two written things have the same first symbol, then we compare their second symbols, and so on. Uh, also, you can see how each symbol has a big form and a small form... they're considered the same thing for alphebetizing purposes. And as for symbols that aren't part of the alphabet... um... actually, I'm not sure how you order those. One sec."

Jack abruptly went back to the bookshelves, examining them closely. It took him a couple of minutes, but once he was done, he was confident of his conclusion.

"Okay, whoever sorted this library treated numbers, spaces, and other symbols as though they came before 'A' in the alphabet, so we should do the same thing in order to be consistent."

As they got started with the sorting, Jack was internally berating himself for wasting time trying to get someone apparently completely unfamiliar with the written word to alphabetize a library on the spot. But as it turned out, she seemed to be undaunted by the task. Jack was pleasantly surprised and a little bit intimidated - it seemed like the natural response in that sort of situation would be to throw up one's hands and just give up. Even as slow as she was going, it looked like they'd still probably end up finishing before they would've if Jack had handled the sorting himself.

Jack was taken aback at the sudden questions. It wasn't really something he had thought about before, and he continued placing books back on the shelves as he slowly talked his way through the problem.

"Huh. Well, I think it varies from country to country, but it's mostly really common. Like, where I come from, kids have to attend classes to learn this stuff. If you don't, then the cops will grab you and charge your guardians a fine. And since you're stuck going to class for 13 years, the basics are going to rub off on you whether you like it or not."

This was bringing back unpleasant memories from before Jack got his powers. He grimaced and quickly moved on to the other question.

"As for why they do that... I guess it's because it makes it easier to control people. You can just put up a sign that says 'DO NOT ENTER,' instead of hiring a security guard or whatever, and people will know that they're not supposed to go there. Or if you need to collect information from a bunch of people, you can have them write it down themselves. It's just more efficient."

"Oh, yeah, I like it a lot!"

Returning his thoughts to his present situation was enough to elevate Jack's mood. He had to pause there, though, because it seemed like the next logical step was to explain why that was the case, and he actually hadn't spent too much time thinking about it. Once again, he thought his way through the issue out loud.

"It's like, back in my world, I didn't really belong. I wasn't really good at anything - even this stuff, most other kids would probably be able to do it faster. I was always getting moved around from home to home, from school to school, and all my guardians and teachers just saw me as a problem that they needed to solve. Getting harassed by the other kids all the time wasn't even the worst part. I just hated being treated like a prop in other people's lives.

"But now, here at the Academy? The place is mine to take care of. I take care of things that other people can't - that's my job. I've got my own... sphere of influence here, I guess, and I spend my time working to make it better. I'm always trying to learn new things I can use for my power, and I'm really proud of how clean I can keep everything. I like it a lot."

Jack stopped. This person had asked a one-sentence question, probably just to fill a dead spot in the conversation, and Jack had given a really excessive reply. Worse, he had slowed down in his work while thinking about it. Jack hurriedly went back to sorting at top speed as he felt his face heating up.

"Er, sorry, I know you didn't ask for my life story. What about you? Do you like the Academy?"

Jack was still blushing, but for a different reason now. One thing that hadn't changed when he came to the Academy was that he didn't often engage with people on positive terms. It was one thing to be working on a shared task together, but it was another entirely to have her smiling at him and offering kind words.

"Um, y-yeah, it's pretty great, isn't it?"

Fortunately, the books were almost all back in place, and none of the remaining books belonged on the top shelf. Jack grabbed the last armful and hurriedly sorted them all as fast as he could (while still making sure he didn't make any mistakes, of course).

"S-So, anyway, I guess that's all done with! I'd better get going, I'm late for my patrols."

Jack wasn't strictly sure whether that was true. They could've been sorting books for 10 minutes or 10 hours as far as he knew. But either way, hanging out here and trying to maintain a conversation for its own sake was completely out of the question. Jack took a couple of steps back.

"So... I guess I'll see you around!"

And then, barring a very compelling reason to the contrary, Jack would abruptly drop through the floor as though a trap door had been opened under him. Once merged with the floor, he'd get some distance from the library and try to collect his thoughts enough to remember where he was supposed to patrol first.