The first room of the blimp seemed to just be like our living room. I wondered if Steffie would call it a 'den' too, or if it didn't count as one either, like my room. Which was actually where a dragon slept, so it should be a den...

I skipped over to the stairs and peeked up them, since the blimp's living room had gotten boring. I could see a room up the stairs, and I could see another set of stairs going up from that room, but before I could do more than peek up the stairs Steffie called me back. "Let's wait down here until the blimp has launched, Joy."

"Okaaaay..." I stretched my neck out just in case there was anything else I could see, but when that didn't work, I walked back to lay on the floor by Steffie.

Dillian worked on the controls for another moment or two before Frank joined him. They closed the door leading out of the blimp and worked on the controls some more... then the hum of fans that had been vibrating through the floor cut off.

There was a strange sensation of dizziness. My tummy felt like it did when I was gliding around, but my wings were tucked in at my sides, and there was a solid floor beneath me. I was moving, but I... wasn't?

This felt weird.

Dillian joined us after a few minutes and took a seat on the couch opposite Steffie. "Sorry about that, but Frank should be able to handle things for now. It'll be a bit before we reach the first floater. Did you have any questions while we're on the way?"

I looked back towards the stairs, then glanced around the room again. I had so many questions. Including the question of what I should ask first.

Steffie smiled at me. "Why don't you explain what Joy will be doing again? I tried to tell her, but I still don't understand all the details myself."

"Oh, of course." Dillian shifted to reach in the pocket of his pants. He pulled something out that looked like Steffie's phone... but then he unfolded it so that it was the size of Steffie's tablet.

I blinked at him. I hadn't known phones could do that...

Steffie seemed to notice my sudden interest in Dillian's phone – tablet? – and I felt her hand on my head. "Only certain phones can do that. Don't try unfolding mine; it'll break."

My wings sagged a little at my sides, and I gave up on the idea I had already been forming.

Dillian grinned as he tapped on his phone... tablet... device. "So, what we do here at CloudComm is provide internet connection for our customers' wireless devices, like phones, laptops, those sorts of things. We take all the routers and switches and modems that it normally takes and bundle it up into..." He started to tap something on his device, but paused when he saw my expression. I was pretty sure my eyes had glazed over and lost focus, the way they had when Steffie talked about some of her school assignments.

"You'll need to explain it a little simpler; she doesn't always understand things like that." Steffie smiled gently and rested her hand on my head. "Joy can pick things up, but she doesn't know what those words mean yet."

"Oh." Dillian nodded and made a motion towards me with one hand. "Because of the Neffal-"

"Because she is only one year old." I frowned as Steffie's smile suddenly vanished, and she spoke quickly in her 'don't ask me questions right now' voice. "Joy is very smart for her age, but she doesn't have all the experience you or I have yet. You'll need to use things she understands."

I looked back and forth between Dillian and Steffie, but neither of them were looking at me. Steffie was staring at Dillian like she was annoyed with him, and Dillian was looking back at his tablet like he was trying to avoid looking at her. I looked back at Steffie and pulled my wings closer to my side, worried I had somehow caused a problem. "What's a 'Nevvel'?"

Steffie smiled faintly but just shook her head. "It's just one of those silly big words that we adults use sometimes. I'll explain it to you later; right now Dillian's trying to explain what he needs your help with, and we don't want to take up too much of his time."

"Oh. Sowwie!" I fanned my wings back out and looked up at Dillian again. "So... um... dis is about the internet? The thing Steffie's phone and tablet use?" I glanced back at the mystery device that Dillian had unfolded. "And your... tablet?"

"That's right!" Dillian grinned and nodded at me, then looked back at his tablet. "So what we do... Well, do you know how the internet works?"

I smiled a little and nodded. "Uh-huh!" Steffie had told me that once, when I had asked about the homework she was doing on her tablet. The internet was like the 'telephone game'. Which... I didn't really know what that was – Steffie had said it took way more than just two people to play it, and that the Arboretum workers were too busy taking care of the trees to play it with us – but I kind of knew the basics of it. One person told a message to another person, and then they gave that message to another person, and on and on and on, until the message got to the last person. And then everybody would laugh at how messed up the message had become in the process, and do it again with a new message.

The internet was supposed to be like that, too – Steffie's tablet talked to something else, and then that thing talked to something else, and on and on and on. Until eventually it got to her professor's tablet, who would then be able to see the homework she had done. And then give her more homework to do, which Steffie had said was dumb. Which made sense, because homework sounded a lot like forks.

Dillian tapped something on his tablet and the television behind him lit up with a picture of a strange sphere with funny lines sticking out of it. "So basically what we do at CloudComm is take the equipment that would normally be on the ground and put it up in the air in special balloons we call 'floaters'. That saves a lot of money in having to run wires everywhere or building and maintaining cell towers, and it means we don't 'waste' equipment by having it running in places nobody is at – we can move these out of areas when nobody is using them and help out areas where lots of people are trying to use the internet, and then move them back when people in the first area need to use them again. It saves a lot of time and money, and is a lot more efficient."

My eyes started to lose focus a little as I stared at the image on the television screen. Dillian had used a lot of big words that I didn't entirely understand... but I think I understood most of it. CloudComm put the internet in the sky, instead of on stuff on the ground. Which I could see making sense. There was plenty of room in the sky, but only so much space on the ground. Putting stuff up in the sky instead would mean more room to play in, or to grow pretty trees and flowers. "Oh... dat makes sense."

"Right!" Dillian grinned happily and tapped another button on his tablet. The sphere showing on the screen began to tilt to one side, and the funny lines sticking out of it all seemed to twist in different directions, before a yellow triangle with an exclamation point appeared above the sphere. "And that's why we need your help – as time goes on sometimes the floaters will get broken and stop talking back to us, or need upgrades done to them so they can work better, or things like that. And it's very easy to put them up in the air – they're like this blimp, in that they'll float up to the height we want them at as soon as we let them go – but it's a lot harder to get them back down. At least not without breaking them even worse, or wasting a lot of expensive gas." He looked up from the tablet and gestured above him with his hands. "So what we're hoping is that you can help us grab some of the floaters that have stopped talking and bring them back down for us, so we can get them talking again."

I stared at the screen and tried to think through everything he had said. The floaters – which were balloons that had the internet on them – could break, and then they stopped talking, so he needed my help getting those balloons back down, so that he could fix them and make them talk again....

My eyes went wide as I turned back to Steffie. "Bloons can talk?" I curled my tail around and pulled the pointed spikes underneath my body to try and hide them behind my wings. I had popped a lot of balloons when Steffie and I had played the balloon game. A lot. And even the ones I hadn't popped had been trying to float up and get away... "They aren't mad at me, are dey? For catching them in the bloon game when they wef twying to fly awbbbllffle."

My tongue got stuck on my teeth again, and I took a deep breath and tried to straighten it out. Steffie started giggling before I could manage to try speaking again, though, and she shook her head. "No, sweetie. The balloons we play with are different. Dillian's talking about a very special type of balloon that is bigger, and that does a lot more things."

I relaxed in sudden relief. "But... the 'bloons aren't mad at me, right?"

Steffie grinned again and nodded. "That's right, they aren't mad at you. They don't have feelings or thoughts like that. Even Dillian's balloons don't have feelings, and they can't talk in the way you're thinking of. All they do is repeat the message a person gave them, the way my phone or your headset does. What's said at one end just comes out the other; your headset and my phone are just tools that help do that, same as these balloons."

"Oh!" That made sense. And that was good. I didn't want to start thinking about how many I had popped, and how upsetting that must have been for the poor balloons if they did have feelings. But even if they didn't have feelings, it was a little sad to think that some of them were broken... so if I could help Dillian fix those, I wanted to at least try! "I'd love to halp you then!" I nodded happily, then thought back to my tail again. "Um... though somefimes I lose track of my tail and pop 'bloons..."

Dillian chuckled and shook his head. "Don't worry, Joy; our 'balloons' are tough enough that your spikes won't hurt them. And you shouldn't have to get too close to them if you're worried – all you need to do is carry a tether up to a magnetized spot on the floater, and I'll do the rest from here on the blimp."

I took another glance at the spikes on my tail – they were sharp, and seemed to always be causing trouble, so I wasn't too sure that Dillian's balloons would be safe – but I nodded. "'Kay."

"It will be fine, Joy; these are built out of the same type of things as the doors in our home. You might scratch them up a little, but you won't pop them." Steffie smiled down at me, then looked back up at the picture of the floater on the television screen. "So, do you understand what we're doing?"

"Uh-huh!" I nodded enthusiastically. "We'we going to play the 'bloon game with these special 'bloons, but by carrying a 'tether' up to them instead of bringing them down to the gwound. And that will keep your tablet and the television working."

I beamed proudly up at Dillian and Steffie after my explanation.

Dillian blinked slowly, but Steffie giggled and patted me on the head. "That's right." She glanced back to Dillian, then looked towards the front of the blimp. "How much longer do you think it will be until we reach the floater?"

"Probably another half hour. We don't have very far to go, but like you said, blimps don't move very quickly." Dillian tapped something on his tablet. Nothing changed on the television screen, but he seemed happy with whatever he saw on the tablet. "I've got three floaters on the maintenance schedule in the area we're headed for, but it's fine if we don't get to all of them. There's no pressure if you get tired, or if we need to head back early."

Steffie nodded, but I saw the hint of a smile in her eyes. "We'll see how things go. I'm comfortable enough here and have plenty of school work piled up on my tablet to keep me occupied. But Joy has been cooped up for most of today – she had a long car ride to get out here, and before that she was mostly just stuck inside watching tv. And as I understand it, there's a hatch at the top of your blimp that lets you up onto the roof, so with that being the case... maybe she would like to fly alongside until we get there?"

My eyes went wide, and I started to stretch my wings out at the thought. Was I about to get to fly outside? For real, and not just up to a roof? And alongside a blimp?

I looked back and forth between Dillian and Steffie, then stared hopefully at Dillian as he started speaking. "Well... we can always slow the blimp down a little if she has trouble keeping up... but it's not like we're in any rush. Come on, I'll show you the way."

Dillian led the way up the stairs, and I followed carefully after him. My tail thunked against the railing a few times – walking 'up' like that instead of flying was weird, and I had trouble keeping track of my tail and wings when I was focused on the odd motion of walking 'up' – but I managed it without damaging anything too badly. Or at least, Steffie didn't say anything from where she was staying on the couch, and Dillian didn't comment on it.

I was excited to get a look at the second floor... but it actually turned out to be fairly disappointing. There were two open doors on either side of the stairs, and through them I could see lots of boxes. I paused to look at the boxes, and Dillian stopped to point at some of them. "That's where we keep replacement parts and tools we need to do maintenance on the floaters with. I can open a few if you want to see?"

Any interest I may have had in the boxes faded at the news they were only tools and work parts. Thankfully my headache was still just a comfortable 'one', but I was sure it would climb to a three or four if I let Dillian start explaining what was inside the boxes.

Plus I was about to go flying. Alongside a blimp!

I shook my head, a little worried I might have upset him, but he just grinned and continued on. The only other thing the second floor seemed to have was another set of stairs, and he led the way up that one.

The third floor made me pause at the top of the stairs, and I stared in confusion as Dillian walked ahead.

This floor was flat and open, just like the first floor where Steffie had stayed, even though it lacked the furniture of that floor. There was lots of equipment built into the walls of this floor – there was another television, and I also recognized the red tube that Steffie called a 'fire extinguisher' and kept in a kitchen cabinet. There was also a lot of other strange looking stuff, and a pair of long tables along the side.

But what had me confused was the two sets of glass walls dividing the room.

I stared at it, feeling strangely uneasy for some reason I couldn't understand. One wall of glass separated the side of the room we had come up the stairs in, along with the tables and all the equipment. Then there was a small open space after that glass. Inside that area were hooks along the wall, holding strange clothing – I think they might have been called 'vests', and I could vaguely remember an Arboretum worker or two wearing something like that? There were also some metal things hanging on the other side, which looked like giant versions of the spools workers would wind hoses back up into. There was even a hose on them, except this one looked like it was made of metal, and seemed to have a strange hook instead of the nozzles that hoses had.

After that was another wall of glass. Past that was a small empty room, with nothing but stairs that led up to a spot on the ceiling.

It... didn't look like there was anything scary on this floor. And I was pretty sure that those stairs led to the roof, where I would be able to go flying. So...

...why did this place bother me?

"If you'll just give me a moment, I need to put a safety harness on. It's standard procedure for any time we go up to the roof." Dillian didn't seem to notice I had stopped. He walked up to the first wall of glass and opened the door on it, then stepped right on through to grab one of the vests off the hooks. "Most of the time we're fine, but the wind up there can be unpredictable. And it's a long way down if the wind catches us by surprise. So since we don't have wings like you do, this keeps us from taking an unexpected trip back down to ground level."

He paused in slipping one leg into the harness to grin back at me, only to frown as he saw me standing on the stairs. "Joy? Is everything okay? We can go back down and wait with Stephanie, if you don't want to go flying right now."

I wasn't sure why this room seemed so scary... but I knew I wanted to go flying. I shook my head and stepped off the stairs. "No, I'd like to fly. Eveyting's okie."

Dillian hesitated, as if he didn't really believe me. It probably didn't help that I had curled my tail around and was clutching it in one hand, so I forced myself to let go of it and follow Dillian into the small area between the glass walls.

I had expected that to make the nervous feeling worse... but somehow it actually seemed better in here than it had at the stairs. There was just one wall of glass, and then the stairs. If anything, it just felt like the canopy over the Arboretum. So it actually felt a little like home, oddly enough.

Dillian watched me for another moment... then he shrugged and kept working on the safety harness. It had lots of buckles and latches and zippers and buttons. But he made it look easy as his hands flew over the harness, and before I knew it he was finished.

I bet he didn't have any trouble with forks, either. Dumb forks.

He closed the door we had just come through, then pulled one of the metal not-hose things off one of the wheels on the wall. He attached the hook to a point on the harness – I noticed a metal bar close behind the hook, which kept the hook in place even when he gave it a firm tug – and then did the same with a second metal not-hose. "Okay, I'm all set. Ready? We can always go back if you're nervous."

"I'm weady!" I nodded, though at the last second I kept from spreading my wings out. The room was a bit too cramped for that.

Dillian grinned and opened the other door, then walked up the stairs. He fiddled with a latch on a spot on the ceiling, then pushed up on the ceiling... and the sound of rushing wind filled my ears as the air began moving around me. I fanned my wings out and back in as Dillian moved off the stairs and onto the roof, then followed him up the stairs.

There was nothing but sky all around me. Dillian was standing to one side and leaning against the railing I had seen earlier, and the metal hoses trailed up the stairs to him, and of course the blimp was beneath me, but that was it. No more walls. No ceiling. No distant canopy. The breeze was steady as I spread out my wings and stretched my neck into the wind... then I ran forward, leapt over the railing, and spun as I dove through the open air.