They will.

"Fine," Andrew grumbled. "Let's get Madison back to normal."

"Aw, no fair," Madison complained as Ross touched her forehead. A moment later she was crumpled on the ground, and then she was on her feet again.

"Thanks," she said with a peck on the cheek. "I was pretty out to lunch. I guess Erica still is, huh?"

Erica nodded emphatically. "For sure."

"She said her soil had a lot of nitrogen," Ross explained to Madison. "Any idea why?"

Madison frowned. "Well, they've tried using all kinds of different materials to make golems. As far as I know, the only thing that works is soil or earthen clay. I guess the soil itself could have different properties, but that shouldn't change her behavior. After all, everything's based on the script."

"So we're back where we started," Andrew muttered. Erica blew a raspberry at him.

"I could ask around the Yetzirah Department," Madison said. "Maybe one of the professors can help."

"I thought you knew all about golems," Andrew objected.

"I know how to write scripts and perform maintenance on standard golems. Messing around with the soil composition isn't standard at all."

"Remember how Erica was able to talk to herself in that weird hypothetical coded language?" Ross asked.

"Not really," Erica giggled.

"Could we try that again? Put a copy of Erica's script in Madison and have her interrogate herself?"

"Right now I just wanna go to bed," Madison said. "It's four in the morning."

"You don't get tired," Andrew snapped.

"I don't get irritated either but I do a pretty good impression," Madison rebutted with a scowl. "Oh, and there's a way to reset golems' modifiers without unbinding them."

She put two fingers to Erica's forehead and spoke a single word: "SHUV". Erica's eyes closed then reopened. She looked around groggily and yawned.

"Thanks," she told Madison. "It's nice to have my mind back."

"No problem. I assume you still can't tell us anything about the levels of nitrogen in your soil?"

"I don't have anything to say about that," Erica said with an apologetic shrug.

"So you're programmed not to explain it to us, and the only way to bypass that makes you too stupid to explain it to us," Andrew said.

"You ought to show some respect," Erica said with a frown. "I'm still your professor, and... um. Yeah. You know."

Erica hiccuped and giggled as Andrew put the modification script back in his pocket. Ross glared at him and he shrugged.

"What? She was getting mouthy. Why don't you two go get some sleep while I show Erica the respect she deserves?"