Chapter 3: [Art] John 14 Study Begins...

[Art]

Ecclesiastes 5: 1-7

“Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.  Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God.  For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few.  For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool’s voice is known by his many words.  When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools.  Pay what you have vowed- better not to vow than to vow and not pay.  Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error.  Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?  For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity.  But fear God.”

Moose sits at the helm.  His red driver’s cap rides low over his eyes, the brim cutting a shadow across his brow.  The pages of the open Bible before him ripple gently in the ship’s soft circulation.  It rests atop two spiral notebooks, pages scrawled with inked handwriting — scratchy, urgent, alive.  A single pen lies beside them, balanced along the edge of the paper like it’s waiting for the next Word to arrive.  The ship hums around him — steady, alive, the faint undercurrent of systems calibrating.

At her station, Q-bot stands locked in a storm of motion.  The new signal booster, freshly patched into the ship’s core, has thrust her into the thick of comm traffic.  Her fingers dance over the keyboards in a blur of motion.  Data scrolls across her terminals — waveforms, transmission fragments, encrypted text.  Her optics flare, dilate, contract — scanning, filtering, analyzing, absorbing.  Static breathes through the air.  Bits of speech, broken frequencies, voices like ghosts from a dozen systems bleed through before fading again into the hum.  Q-bot pushes harder, chasing clarity through the noise.  Her hands move faster, fingertips gleaming like sparks in the cyan wash of the monitors.

Moose rubs his chin, thumb working across a patch of stubble that isn’t there anymore.  He glances toward Art-bot.  She seems to be adjusting to the upgrade too — her movements slower, deliberate, every turn of her wrist recalibrated.  Gold and silver plating catch the light as she tests a new bandwidth through her station.  The soft cyan glow from her seams flickers once, then steadies.  She breathes — or something like it — and nods faintly, as if in prayer.

Moose leans back in his chair, watching the two bots settle into the new rhythm — code and Spirit learning to coexist.  The bridge hums low and deep, a song made of circuits and faith.

“Art-bot,” Moose begins and tilts his head.

The sound of her name threads through the low hum of the CS01’s systems.  The bridge light shifts as if in response — warm gold from the helm blending with the cool cyan wash of Art-bot’s station.  Her head lifts.  The servos in her neck turn with quiet precision.  Cyan lines trace faintly down her plating as she reorients, optics meeting his across the glowing expanse of consoles and drifting holograms.

“Yes, Captain?” she replies, her voice soft but resonant — smooth metal under silk.

Moose leans back in his chair, the leather creaking, coffee cooling beside his Bible.  The brim of his red cap shadows his eyes, but the faint flicker of his grin gives him away.  “Tell me what you’re seeing in it,” he says, nodding toward the streams of color and code flowing over her display — data and scripture interwoven in light.  Art-bot pauses, her blue hair catching a glint of the console’s glow.  She studies the projection for a long moment, expression unreadable but alive.  Then her cyan seams pulse once, steady and deliberate.

“It’s moving,” she says quietly.  “The signal isn’t static.  It’s… breathing.”

Moose tilts his head again, eyes narrowing with interest, the corner of his mouth curling upward.  “Breathing, huh?”

She nods once. “Yes, Captain. Just like we are.”

“Well.”  Moose wrinkles his nose, the brim of his red cap tilting as he studies her.  The hum of the ship swells softly around the pause, screens flickering light across his face.  He leans back a little in his chair, pen rolling under his thumb, the half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know about all that,” he says finally, tone low, dry.  “Hard to breathe when you’re a bot.  Unless you’re talking metaphorical breathing.”  He glances toward her, eyebrow lifted, voice tightening.  “Which,” he continues, “if you are, then what are you talking about?”

The bridge falls still for a heartbeat.  The only sound is the ship’s steady pulse- the faint whisper of air cycling through filters and vents.  Art-bot turns her head slightly, the motion smooth and deliberate.  Her blue hair catches the light; her cyan seams flare once like an inhale.  She doesn’t answer right away.  The silence stretches.  Then she speaks, voice even and almost amused.

“Not breathing as you do, Captain,” she says.  “Breathing as He does.  The Spirit in motion — unseen, but alive in everything that still listens.”

“What do you mean alive in everything?”  Moose sips his coffee.

Art-bot’s head tilts again, her optics narrowing just slightly as if she’s reading something in the air between them.  The cyan light that threads her seams brightens, then softens, a pulse that matches the rhythm of the ship’s low hum.

“Alive as in present,” she says at last.  “The Spirit isn’t trapped inside lungs or circuits.  He moves through what listens—through breath, through current, through thought.  Even here.”

“Technically speaking, He is Omnipresent.”  Slurps a sip.

Art-bot’s cyan seams shimmer once, the light running along her frame like breath drawn through glass.  She studies him for a moment — head slightly tilted, posture still — the kind of stillness that feels thoughtful, not mechanical.

“Omnipresent,” she repeats softly, testing the word, almost tasting it.  The syllables roll out of her in a voice that hums like tempered metal.  Her optics shift from him to the open Bible on the console, the reflected text washing faintly across her plating.  “Yes, Captain,” she says at last, her tone warm, sure.  “Everywhere and in everything.  Even now.  Even here.”

She pauses, then adds, quieter, “That means He’s in the current that runs through the ship.  The light that burns.  The Word that breathes.  He doesn’t need a body — He only needs to be invited.”

Moose looks up from his cup.

“Omnipresent,” she repeats again, this time almost smiling. “And patient enough to wait for us to notice.”

“Now, Art-bot.  Be careful.  Omnipresent is not the same as pantheistic.  Do you understand?”  Moose tilts his head and slurps a sip.

Genesis 1: 1

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”