Philipp Gollner and Brad Stoltzfus, mano a mano.

Stoltzfus started spinning his baseball bats with increasing vigor, preparing himself for battle. Gollner fell to his knees, grasping desperately at the beard strands that fell from his face.

Stoltzfus paused, and smirked.

“Give it up old man. This is my kingdom now.”

He ascended triumphantly to the Good Library roof, spinning his baseball bats at such a rate that he was lifted from the ground with a helicopter effect. From there, he flew to his baseball dugout lair.

Eric Bradley, the new tenant of the Mennonite Historical Library, looked down at the beardless, despondent Gollner.

“How can I find the elixir?” Gollner groaned.

“Okta,” Bradley whispered.

Why was there a new tenant? Joe Springer, after his discovery of the Beard Elixir, “retired,” and was pushed out … I mean … chose to take a year in Germany out of his own volition. Before departing, he provided Bradley with the passcode to unlock Ana, the robot assistant.

The note, however, was sent to a different Bradley; Bradley Stoltzfus. Stoltzfus was returning to his lair to collect it. Within minutes, he returned triumphantly, shattering the second floor windows as he ascended with his whirling bats. He swaggered up the steps to the third floor, and yelled out the password.

“SQUIRREL!”

Suddenly, a box popped up on Ana’s monitor: Okta Verify. Brad struggled with his cell phone; his baseball bat-laden hands went from a stellar coaching tool to a clumsy inconvenience.

“Zounds!” he exclaimed.

Suddenly, Gollner poked his head around the corner.

“Looks like bat boy isn’t doing so hot.”

Stoltzfus blushed.

“Could you give me a hand?”

Gollner looked down at Stoltzfus’ phone. Okta Verify popped up. Wait … it closed out … wait … ok now it’s ready. He typed in his password. Suddenly, a red box popped up on his screen. Elixir sprayed out from Ana on to Gollner’s face, blinding him. For a split second, everything went still —Stoltzfus’ baseball bats hung suspended in mid-air, the hum of Ana’s circuits seemed to pause. Then, the transformation began.

Gollner’s eyes widened in horror as his body trembled, his skin tingling in a way that was all too familiar, but wrong. His beard — which had always been his pride, his symbol — began to grow back … but not in the way he expected. It shot out in tangled, chaotic directions, twisting and warping into a massive, spiraling growth that seemed to take on a life of its own.

Ana came alive, beeping and flashing red from her home screen.

“ACTIVATE! ACTIVATE!”

A red tractor beam burst from her screen, propelling Gollner from the ground and dragging him by his beard around the entire Dewey Decimal system.

Ana started laughing maniachanically.

“Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.”

Stoltzfus, after initially preparing to fight Gollner, saw who the menace really was. He started slamming his bats into Ana’s metal side and screen.

“Take that, chum bucket!”

Her beam flipped to Stoltzfus, and Gollner thumped to the ground. Stoltzfus was suddenly possessed, dodging his head back and forth as his bat-hands turned on him.

“Help me!”

A looming, shadowy figure appeared at the door. Joe Springer, the disavowed librarian, gazed despairingly at the destruction that laid in Ana’s wake.

“Ana. Cease!” he commanded.

Her screen went black.