“Look what I found in deep storage,” Rovin said.

He passed a rectangular shaped object to Chimana. She rotated the object in different directions, and performed a visual scan.

Two rectangular faces, tall and wide. Thin sides.

Chimana declined a prompt for object identification when it appeared in her visual field.

Her curiosity was piqued by the mystery of things. Having all of the answers got boring.

Even with out object ID, she could see from the scan that the device was analog. Analog! No power, no screen, no jack. No NFC.

Strange.

“What is it?” Chimana said. She knew Rovin wouldn’t tell her outright, at least not right away.

“It is a way of conveying stories, knowledge, and information, designed to provide tactile feedback and evoke an emotional response,” Rovin smiled, he seemed to cherish this particular artifact.

“Fascinating” she said.

Chimana could see symbols and imagery on the flat surfaces of what she assumed to be the top and bottom of the artifact—possibly the front and back of it.

Chimana did not use Decipher, when prompted, to decode the images and translate the symbols. She swiped the prompt away in her visual field.

“How did they use it? It doesn’t have an energy source or a communication field. There’s no jack for hadware connection. I mean, how does this artifact work?”

“Open it up!” Rovin said. “Flip open the top and explore what you find inside. The users would look at the inner layers of this artifact—for hours and hours—and extract meaning from them.”

“Like ancient archeology!” She posited.

“Noooo,” Rovin gently redirected Chimana’s chain of thought. “More like an escape or an exploration of feelings and ideas. Like an adventure in the mind.”

“Ooooh,” she was even more intrigued now.

Curiosity piqued, she thought. Chimana filed this feeling away—in Discover—so she could access it and experience this joy again.

Chimana gently glided the tips of her phalanges across the surface of the artifact. The sensation was smooth, except for the symbols located on its center. The symbols were raised ever so slightly above the surface, further enhancing the tactile experience.

Next, Chimana gently lifted the right edge of the top surface up and over to the left. There was a hard, flexible material on the left side of the artifact that held the surfaces together.

Inside were cream colored surfaces—extremely thin. Hundreds of them. Chimana searched for the word to describe the thin layers. Sheets.

Like the front and the back of the artifact, these surfaces had symbols, too. Hundreds of symbols arranged in horizontal lines.

Chimana pinched the top sheet with two of her phalanges. It felt smooth and exhilarating. The sheet fell away from the tips of her phalanges.

“It seems very inefficient,” Chimana laughed.

“Yes, it is! That is part of its appeal. It is a feature, not a bug,” Rovin explained, with a tone of adoration.

Instinctively, Chimana licked the tips of her phalanges—to create adhesion—and she pinched the corners of the sheets, pulling them upwards. She then let some of them fall away.

In this way, she could flip the sheets over, one by one. Now she could look at the symbols.

“Ha! Ha! How did I know how to do that!” Chimana laughed at loud.

Rovin watched Chimana’s exploration of the artifact with a sense of wonder.

Chimana began to perceive that the object had a peculiar smell—distinct—unlike anything she’d encountered with her olfactory senses before.

Chimana searched for the word to describe the smell … the retrieved word was musty. Yes, she agreed. The object smelled musty.

The overall experience of the artifact was intoxicating. The artifact was quite appealing in the tactile sensations of its texture, and the olfactory appeal of its musty odor.

It felt familiar—even though it was ancient.

“It does indeed invoke a feeling, doesn’t it, Rovin? Do you find this artifact appealing?”Chimana looked at Rovin to observe his response, and to catalog his facial reaction.

“Yes, indeed! There’s something about it that’s quite comforting. I can’t quite describe it!” Rovin smiled gleefully.

“It’s lovely,” Chimana smiled.

“A lovely artifact of the way things were,” Rovin responded.

Chimana looked at the Artifact, admiring its simplicity and complexity in form and function.

“Rovin …” Chimana glanced in Rovin’s direction.

“Yes, Chimana,” Rovin said as he was preparing for class, leaning his chair back and gazing toward the ceiling.

“What is this name of this artifact?” Chimana inquired. Rovin turned his head towards Chimana and locked eyes with her. He looked surprised.

“Are you sure you want to know” Rovin said.

“Yes! Indeed, I would like to explore this artifact with you after class.” Chimana offered.

Appearing assured of Chimana’s intent to know the artifact’s name. Rovin leaned in and whispered.

“It’s called a book. There were millions of them written by hand, and later printed, and then digitally distributed, and, eventually infused in our knowledge patterns, such that we no longer knew these artifacts called books even existed.”

“A book,” Chimana pondered the name, calculating and formulating a response.

“Ooooh! How perfectly suitable to this artifact. Book. Simply elegant and subtle. I Love it.”

At that moment, a silence fell across the learning room, except for the quiet buzzing of machines, and the sounds of the Teaching Agent traversing the room.

“Time for school!” said the Teaching Agent, in a friendly, musical tone. Metal tentacles slithered through the air from the Teaching Agent’s torso, finding their way to the receptacles in the back of Rovin and Chimana’s heads, and to the heads of the other students.

The conversations of student that had been happening beyond the noise and privacy filters Chimana and Rovin had created for their pre-class conversation now fell silent as the lessons began.

“See you after class, Rovin! Can’t wait to read the book together. Whatever that means!” she said, whimsically. Chimana’s eyes began to vibrate and she started receiving content for today’s lessons, streaming from the receptacle in her skull, to her visual field receptors, and into her mind.

Rovin didn’t hear Chimana. His eyes were already rolled back into the cavities of his vision sockets. Rovin’s sclera, no longer white, flashed with colors and light—data for today’s lessons-streaming from his learning cable.

The adventure in learning began.