by Ryan B (Rynn) (2017)

"To me class. Come now, be quick!"

A dozen youngsters across the plaza jumped as the querulous order was piped through their earrings. With haste they politely withdrew from their conversations with the locals and re-joined their teacher; the Holy Scholar-Cardinal Liana DeChenz. Seated on the corner of a fountain, her Holiness projected a dispassionate image, a marked contrast from her wards who struggled not to gawp at the crystal towers flanking the open space. Once the last stragglers had arrived (bowing apologies as appropriate) the Scholar-Cardinal began her speech.

"So far I have been quite satisfied with your efforts today class. You have accumulated first-hand accounts of the city whilst maintaining a suitable level of detachment." The wards received this praise placidly, though internally many were relieved. Outward displays of amazement and distraction were grounds for reprimand. Within Forafaust arcology, packed full of technology and tweaks, few had managed to follow their scholum's modesty requirements without supreme effort. Her Holiness continued; "Given your performance I am granting you all permission to explore unchaperoned until sundark. Do not abuse this furlough. It is an important step in your educational and spiritual development to be able to walk among the sullied alone. Draw strength from your lessons, understand their ways so that you might better understand our own culture." She cast a stern eye over them, "and do not give into temptation".

No one dared look nervous but her Holiness knew that some would be feeling it. She herself had at their age on her own class trip. Who wouldn't feel nervous in a place so full of sin? With the risk of exile hanging over every choice.

"Now, off you go". With that the students bowed and scattered.

*

"Keep walking, keep breathing, keep walking." Blessed Scholar-Student Karly Mons repeated her mantra as she made her way to the nearest plaza exit. Outwardly she was a perfect symbol of the church's teachings. Nude apart from a heavy cowl, she revealed enough of her body to freely touch the world whilst proclaiming the purity of her mind. On the inside Karly was terrified. She was convinced she could feel the Scholar-Cardinal's gaze burning into her back like two energy weapon beams. Mind reading was de facto forbidden by the church (all neurotech was) but that didn't help the feeling that the teacher could see her thoughts, read her soul. Once out of the plaza and into the cramped street of the medina, Karly began to calm down. She was, after all, a model student. Inducted into the church scholum at age seventeen, she had enthusiastically pursued her studies, achieving Blessed status in just five years rather than the usual nine. Her scores in rhetoric, mathematics and history were the best in the year and her teachers had already started talking of a career in the political branch of the church. Her classmates called her "Elder Mons" behind her back, a mocking respect for the level she might rise to in life. If only they knew she thought.

As she walked, Karly practised the observational techniques of the scholum. The medina of Forafaust followed the aesthetic of the rest of the arcology but forced it into a small maze of twisting streets. Coloured crystal walls and floors reflected the fake sun's light. Cafes, sense-dens and hobby clubs spilled onto the street from the boutiques at either side. Karly's eyes flicked between them and the pedestrians. The diversity of the city had surprised her even though she had studied pictures of previous class trips. Few clades in eyesight possessed more than four members, most sophonts in the medina possessed entirely different phenotypes. Ahead, a cephalopod in a legged tank was enjoying a live meal, to Karly's left a pile of insectoid vecs breathed fumes from a vent, under her feet a slimy carpet-like individual oozed by (its eyestalks winking at her as she deftly avoided stepping on it). Wink, she thought back, unable to physically do so in case anyone from the church saw the inappropriate interaction. Karly suppressed a sigh at the restrictions she still faced even when unchaperoned. She longed to fully immerse herself in this strange and busy culture but the risk of being seen acting improper was high this close to the plaza. Just keep walking.

*

An hour later Karly had descended to a secluded section of the underbowl. The area was an arboretum packed with exotic plants. A curving window afforded a view down to the ground far below. Karly wandered for a while, doubling back through the trees in mild paranoia that another student might be following. She hoped the window would put any such person off. Forafaust arcology was shaped like a rounded chalice four kilometres high. The plaza, spires and medina were all built on the flat top and by staying there it was easy to believe one was in a city on the ground. The clear walls of the underbowl gave truth to that fantasy; anyone could look down and see the extreme drop to the moon below. Last year the class had taken a trip to the Cathedral of Seema. Many of the students had felt dizzy ascending its tower, but the cathedral was barely a tenth of the arcology's size.

Pushing through some bushes Karly found a hidden spot right by the window at the base of a gnarled tree. Curling up between its roots she paused to contemplate her plan. So far she had done nothing wrong, if she did nothing more she would meet the others back at the plaza in time to return home. There would be no risk of exile and nothing would change for her. Karly frowned, that's the problem, nothing would change. Briefly her future flashed through her mind; distinguished graduation, sponsorship to the political branch, decades of work to ascend to elder and (if she was lucky) perhaps a century of life in which to push the barest of reforms through the Council of the Holy See. The thought of a lifetime of effort for such meagre reward frightened her more than exile. With that realisation her resolve hardened. Lifting her hand to her face she spoke into the guide ring the city had provided for each student upon arrival. Lacking implants it was the easiest way for them to navigate the city. "Forafaust?" she said in barely a whisper, "Which way to a discrete mod-club?"

*

Caville was bored, extremely bored. Pe was so bored medical warnings flared through per exoself. Per implants were fighting a losing battle against the long term psychoneural damage of the total inhibition of arousal. The experience was maddeningly uncomfortable, and that's what made it worth it. Suspended in a foglet sofa Caville gazed across the Spicy Splice. Low ceilinged and dark the mod-club was a second home to a few dozen members of Forafaust's modding community. Everyone in the arcology was modded to some degree and could install new modifications as easily as checking their mail. But the club existed for more than that. It liked to explore a particular aesthetic, map one area of the phase space of physical and mental form. This week the members of the Spicy Splice were having an extremis competition to see who could go the longest with the most ridiculous modification. Caville had drawn boredom and pe had passed being sick of it days ago. The only thing that kept per in the competition was the sense that quitting would be just as boring (an artificial feeling to be sure but one pe found useful for the sake of winning).

Presently a noise threatened to intrude on per sessile state. It was coming from the entrance behind per, a wet barking followed by a strangely formal dialect of Anglic. That was rare, the only people Caville knew of under the worldhouse roof that spoke any kind of Anglic were followers of the Reserved Church of the Later Ancestors. The novelty of the situation briefly pushed curiosity over the boredom; accessing a spider-like remote on the sofa behind em, Caville observed the conversation. It was a Church member, not just a citizen but a Blessed Student going by the Cowl markings. She was putting on a good display of being polite but the remote identified a tremor in her legs and some twitching in the facial muscles. Hardly surprising Caville thought. The student had unfortunately been greeted by Tarel. Normally there would be nothing bad about that, he was a nice enough Caleb, but for the competition he had drawn a Homunculoid form. The size of his body parts were now correlated to the amount of brain matter dedicated to their function. Consequently Tarel's head was massive, boasting gigantic ears and a slathering maw too small for its tongue. His body was tiny and wasp waisted and his stick legs ended in swollen paws. It was valiant that he had made the effort to drag himself over to the newcomer but despite his best attempts he didn't seem to have done much more than terrify the poor girl.

Through the remote Caville heard her begin to stammer an apology, clearly a prelude to leaving. But why had she come in the first place? What could an ardent baseline possibly gain from coming to a mod-club? The Church was judgemental but neighbourly, they didn't preach unless invited to. A decision tree in Caville's exoself flicked from one state to another. Pe had experienced too much curiosity. The boredom overlay was lifted (per medisystem gave the digital equivalent of a sigh of relief) and pe was out of the competition. Not caring one bit Caville rose and made for the entrance. The student looked up as pe approached. Extending per arms wide Caville intoned a Church greeting hastily grabbed from the net; "Welcome to our sanctuary, I hope you leave as much a friend as you arrived a stranger".

Remote data showed the girl relax slightly. Caville wasn't exactly baseline but if you looked past the four arms and the thick serpentine tail in place of legs pe was similar enough. Certainly closer than Tarel at least, pe thought as the Caleb dragged himself back into the club. "So", pe said as nicely as possible, "what service can I be to a student of the church?"

*

Karly tried not to be overwhelmed as the sophont introduced perself. It had taken her another hour to reach this place from the arboretum and nearly all her resolve not to flee from the monstrous hound that had greeted her. Caville, as pe was apparently known, was a lot less intimidating.

"Ah, thank you for welcoming me" she said awkwardly. The club seemed dingy but clean at least. Furniture was spread throughout the large space fit for many different forms. Foglet clouds shifted through models of prosthetics, genetic sequences and other displays that Karly was unable to identify. She returned her attention to Caville. "I was told this was a quiet place I could perhaps learn more about augmentics?"

"It certainly is" Caville said, smiling. "The Spicy Splice welcomes people of all backgrounds, forms and mindtypes. We also place a high value on privacy, the angelnet in here locks up everything tight and our member's persona overlay boosts secret keeping"

Karly didn't follow the explanation entirely but her guide ring had assured her this venue was to be trusted for its discretion and safety. Nervously she smiled back at Caville. There was still a risk another student, or even the Scholar-Cardinal herself, might stumble upon her in the entrance. If so she would feign temperance, professing that she had sought to truly test her faith by looking in on the club. As if they'd believe that, she thought. With a final check of the corridor Karly crossed the threshold proper.

*

Caville led the student over to one of the booths set into the club's walls. She still seemed nervous and pe suspected she was trying to build up the courage to ask something. "Here" pe said indicating a seat, "we wont be disturbed in a booth". Karly's eyes widened as a shimmering film of smoke dropped over the booth's entrance. As it hit the floor it solidified, providing them with a blurry view out into the club but hiding them from any observers. Caville coiled up on a cushion opposite. Karly's eyes flitted around per body, as if trying to study it with fleeting glances only. Remaining quiet Caville did the same. Pe had never met a baseline before and was interested to see all the indicators of natural development. Karly was healthy and fit to be sure, but pe couldn't help but notice a few blemishes, a slight asymmetry to the face and a myriad of other signs of an unoptimized genome. Presently the student overcame her reticence.

"Have you been modded long?" she asked.

"Oh yes, years" Caville spread per arms wide. "I was born a merfolk and lived in an aquatic hab for much of my childhood. As I grew older I wanted to explore other habs without the need for an envirosuit. My first mod was a big one, a set of them really, to become terrestrial. Since then I've experimented with all kinds of forms and mindtypes. These arms for instance, last week I didn't have any" Pe chuckled to break the tension and got a smile in return.

"Modding is banned in the Church" Karly said. Caville didn't reply, the statement was an obvious truth. Pe hoped she was building up to what she really wanted to say. Was she just inappropriately curious or was she about to commit apostacy and stay in the city to gain morphological autonomy? She looked Caville in the eye, "what do you know about us?"

Pe took a moment to gather per memories, it had been a long time since pe had learned about the Church and most of the knowledge was buried layers deep in per exoself. "Despite being avowed Luddites you were the original terraformers of this moon, colonising it some two thousand years ago. The central belief of the church is that Homo sapiens completed its role in the universe when it gave rise to the first transapient; since then your holy books claim humans have struggled to find their new place in the grand scheme of things. They claim that reverting to a simpler lifestyle and technology base is appropriate and allows baselines to flourish in the niche that they are suited for. The only reason we're having this conversation is that four hundred years ago the worldhouse's envirotech began to fail and you lacked the means to repair it. A request for help was lodged with the system conclave and a local high-tech polity solved the issue. In return the Council of Elders agreed to give away some land as a thank you, upon which this arcology was built. How's that?"

"Close enough" Karly admitted. She furrowed her brow, "you missed out on the governance of the Church. Elders set doctrine on what is and isn't acceptable technology or lifestyle. They come to these conclusions via intensive academic study in the libraries, applying Holy teachings to the interpretation of their readings. My teachers say I've got all the makings of a future Elder."

"Congratulations". Evidentially this was the wrong response as Karly grimaced.

"You don't understand. I…" She paused. "I can trust you right? The guide ring said I could"

"Totally" Caville responded. "I wasn't kidding about a commitment to privacy. It's like…you guys have confidential confessions right?" Karly nodded. "It's like that. As a member of the club I've accepted a script, a doctrine if you will, into my exoself. Any visitor to the club looking for modding advice is given absolute privacy. Anything you say to me I literally wont be able to share with anyone else without your permission. In fact if you tell me to I will forget we ever met"

Karly let out a long breath. Clearly that was what she needed to hear and Caville berated perself for not conveying it sooner. "In that case" Karly began, "in complete confidence I'd like your help getting modded please"

Caville smiled wide. "It would be my pleasure and privilege. What would you like to change or gain?"

Determined now Karly leaned forward; "I want knowledge. As much knowledge as you can cram into my head between now and sundark. And I need it done without the Church ever knowing."

*

Once Karly had opened up the explanation just kept flowing. How even as a child she had silently questioned the harsher restrictions of the Church. She grew up watching her father and brother work in the orchards, picking fruit and meat by hand day after day. The labour was exhausting and mind numbing, surely mere picking machines wouldn't cause the faithful to become decadent?. As she progressed in her studies she found herself questioning more and more. She wasn't a heretic by any means, she agreed with the Church's central belief that humanity had to look inwards to find its place in a galaxy of gods. But she was in a political minority.

Caville seemed bewildered as Karly spoke of the scholum libraries. Millions of tomes fabricated at the colony's founding held knowledge of every subject, drawn from the Encyclopaedia Galactica ("You store data macroscopically?!" pe exclaimed). Students, Cardinals and Elders alike were tasked with learning from the libraries and applying Church doctrine to what they found. Sometimes an Elder would find a description of some technology, policy or philosophy that they felt was best suited to the Church's goal and would argue intensely for its adoption. It could take years of campaigning, debating and networking to get new doctrine approved. That's what Karly hoped to master, what she hoped to side-step.

"I think I see" Caville said, simultaneously rubbing per chin while crossing the rest of per arms. "You're worried that your radical proposals for doctrine will fail because you don't know enough to argue against a whole Church of scholars?"

"Yes but not just that". It was very important Caville understood her goal. "My teachers speak of my promising career and it's no secret I'm elder material. But it's not guaranteed. I've heard of the learning technologies that exist outside the Church. To ensure that I will become an ElderI need to master dozens of topics. More than that; if I hope to make a significant difference in my lifetime I need to become the most learned, well argued Elder the Church has ever seen. I need this, the Church needs this". There was a silence as she trailed off. Caville appeared to be thinking deeply.

"OK. Well there may be a slight problem. It's only six hours until you have to leave to make it to the plaza on time. We can get you set up in a tachydidaxy rig no problem, you could grab a comfy seat while I fetch a TD-helmet. But in that time the most one could cram into you would be equivalent to a little over a week's worth of unaugmented study." Pe looked apologetic. "Hardly much in the grand scheme of things."

Karly's stomach dropped. She had risked so much in coming here only to be met with this. An extra week of study? Barely a fraction of her schooling time, let alone the amount of learning still to go to graduate. She forced her eyes closed to hold back the tears. She felt Caville slither over and wrap an arm around her "Woah hang on there, don't be sad. Look…there may be another way." Karly's eyes flicked open and stared pleadingly into per face. "Just give me a sec ok? I'm going to look zoned out for a bit but I'll see what I can do." With that Caville reclined and closed per eyes, seemingly asleep.

*

What seemed like an eternity later but was likely only a few minutes Caville roused again. Pe grinned at her "I've found you a way to get what you need. But we've got to start quickly". Karly jumped up and followed per as pe slithered out of the booth. The privacy curtain flowed around them ensuring they wouldn't be seen. Surprisingly Caville led her out of the club and rapidly headed through the corridors of the underbowl. "Where are we going?" Karly asked.

"The issue you have is time right?" Caville asked as she nodded. "Well then we need to buy you more time. That's what I've done but we need a piece of kit that we don't currently have spare in the club. Our fabs could make another but every second counts so we're borrowing".

Karly kept further questions to herself as they moved at a jogging pace through twisting streets and staircases. This section wasn't very populated, a point in its favour in her search for a suitable mod-club. They crossed into an aquatic area through an air tunnel. Karly couldn't help but gawk at the tonnes of water and marine life suspended above her by a thin sheet of diamondoid. Guiltily she snapped her mouth closed and looked around for other Church members, not that it would have mattered with the privacy curtain flowing around them. Presently they came to a vestibule budding off the tunnel's side. Gazing through the diamond it seemed to connect to a coral-like building on the aquarium floor. She noticed a symbol above the entrance door; "Caville doesn't that mean 'infirmary'? Why are we here?"

Caville turned to her. "Like I said you need time. We can't get that out here in the ril but in a virch? That we can manage". Pe pushed through the door into the medical bay. Its layout wasn't that far removed from the mod-club. An open plan centre ringed by bays built into the walls. Only here the foyer was attended by medical bots and the bays contained metallic coffins rather than seating. Caville led Karly into a booth for the second time that afternoon, the privacy curtain fitting itself in place over the entrance.

"OK Karly here's the plan. You don't have to go through with it if you don't want to, but this is as best as its going to get." Pe gestured towards the coffin. "This is an autodoc. One of the many things it can do is perform a gradual upload of a mindstate vector…er, do you know what that is?" Karly nodded. Aside from being common knowledge in the Church she had once spent an evening reading a fascinating book on the process, complete with theological commentary. "From the Church's perspective continuous uploading retains one's identity" She recited, before added sheepishly "but is banned for denying the natural event of death."

Rolling per eyes Caville continued. "Doctrine aside there are many uses to virch life besides longevity. In your case that's speed. Most virches run out of sync with the ril. Normally it's by a small ratio but given enough resources they can run thousands of times faster. A few minutes out here would be days in there. You get me?"

Karly nodded again. "What's the catch? You didn't seem sure there was another option at first"

Caville gave a small nod, "you're right in realising that there would be one. But that's what I had to sort out first. The faster a virch runs the more it draws from the computational commons. Renting that much of a public resource costs a lot."

Karly lifted her guide ring, tapping it in the way the Scholar-Cardinal had shown her that morning so that it displayed a number. "I have twenty-three shares, is that enough?". Caville laughed "Nowhere near friend. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem for a citizen, you can always get a city loan and have your weekly share allocation docked until it's paid back, or accumulate your own hardware over time. But as a visitor you don't qualify for loans and as much as I'd like to help you I've already got a few outstanding. And we definitely don't have time to earn a personal stack of computronium."

Confused Karly looked down at the autodoc. "I don't understand, why are we here then?"

With a wave of per arms Caville caused the lid of the autodoc to flow open. "Because I'm not the only modder prepared to help you."

*

With a soft hiss the lid sealed itself, shutting Karly off from the outside world. And soon taking me out of it, she thought. As the cortical probe lined up with the base of her skull Karly desperately tried to distract herself from her nerves. Breathing deep she replayed Caville's explanation:

"I set up a fund for you, donated a few hundred shares that I could spare." Pe was speaking hastily as Karly removed her cowl and climbed into the autodoc. "Then I sent details of the fund to every mod-club member in the arcology."

She was pulled back to the present by a small pinch followed by a numbing sensation. The probe had bonded to her skin and was preparing for entry. Karly was determined not to think of its endlessly bifurcating tendrils penetrating her central nervous system.

"Don't worry!" Caville admonished as she started. "Your privacy is still assured. Modders could only read the message if they agreed to supress the memory afterwards." Pe shrugged, "it's not that uncommon and I've got a good enough rep that many agreed to read it. And most of those were keen to donate."

The numbness began to spread across her body as the tendrils followed, mapped and isolated individual neurons. Karly began to lose consciousness as the effect reached her face. Her final thought before the blackness took her was of Caville's words as the lid closed

"For a moment you were the richest girl in the city. Enjoy every bit of it"

*

There was a brief moment of discontinuity, for a second Karly couldn't remember where she was or what she was doing. At once the answer slotted neatly into her mind. She was a virtual now, uploaded to squeeze as much learning into an afternoon as she could. She looked around her environment. The virch appeared to be modelled on the scholum library; row upon row of books stretched on to...squinting she realised it stretched on seemingly forever. Likewise the shelves reached up towards an infinite ceiling (exactly how a ceiling could be seen yet seem infinitely far away Karly filed away as dream-logic typical of a virch). As she was wondering what to start reading she heard a faint coughing behind her. Turning around she was confronted with a person who looked suspiciously like Caville. Except this sophont was in baseline human form and clearly male (easy to see as he was dressed in the Church's traditional scholar attire of only a cowl).

"Is that you Caville?" She asked.

"No" the man answered. His voice was soft and kind and just hearing a single word made her feel relaxed and cared for. "I am a nonsentient interface for this virch. Ordinarily such functionality would be installed into a personal exoself, but as you lacked one in the ril a more suitable format was selected".

As he talked Karly was shocked and delighted. She didn't understand what he meant by nonsentient interface or why a personal exoself would matter but as he said them the concepts bubbled into her mind as if from a lost memory. Laughing she realised she had just had her first taste of tachydidactic learning. Perhaps sensing her mood the interface smiled.

"So how do we proceed?" Karly asked. "Do I read or are you going to give me lectures? And how much time do we have?"

The interface began to walk down the aisle, gesturing at her to follow. "Last question first I think" it said. "The educational fund of the Blessed Scholar-Student Karly Mons has paid for this virch for five hours as measured by the Forafaust Ril-clock. It is however running on enough processors to operate at a two-point-five kiloRil ratio." The interface paused to look her in the eye. More false memories arose to give understanding to the strange terms.

"You mean to say I have a subjective seventeen months alone in here?" Karly asked. The interface nodded. Karly blanked for a moment before bursting out laughing; at this the interface seemed amused. "I'm so-so sorry" she stammered. "I don't know what to say to that. It's miraculous, relieving and daunting all at once."

The interface guided her to what would be a quiet reading area in a real Scholum library. A small square space flanked by shelves on all sides, possessing a single table and two chairs. The interface continued once they had sat; "'Daunting' is a perfectly natural response. But one that we can easily deal with," the interface paused as if gathering its thoughts, no doubt really giving Karly time to gather hers.

"Clearly efficiency is of the essence during your time here. We can do a lot more in seventeen months than you could in your Scholum's actual library" he said leading forward and steepling his hands. "As you've already experienced you're no longer limited by the awfully poor fidelity of spoken or written communication. Knowledge can be streamed into your mind like memories. You also won't be bothered by basic physical needs if you don't want to be; the need for sleep, nutrition and rituals of hygiene has all been edited out for your virtual form". That admission Karly found especially welcome. She couldn't begin to count the amount of times she had fought her sleepy mind during late night study sessions.

The interface paused again as Karly held up a hand. "So you're saying that there is no physical (or should that be virtual?) reason that I couldn't learn 32 hours a day, 273 days a year?"

"Quite" the interface said. "From that alone you'll gain a fourfold increase in productivity. The only obstacle we have yet to deal with, if you choose to, is one of psychology." With that the interface reached under the table and pulled from somewhere a vial of amber liquid. He placed it on the table between them. "What is that?" Karly asked, noting that small lines of text seemed to float through the liquid just within the bounds of perceivability.

"It's a persona script. Specifically 'Student Perfect'"

Understanding blossomed in Karly's mind. A persona script was a neuromod that usually ran on an exoself via a DNI. It adjusted one's psychological make up, changing outlook, attitude and behaviour. Caville's modder persona was what ensured pe kept secrets and wanted to help others. Student Perfect was a variation on a classic design to optimise any human-like mind for study. Curiosity, patience, tranquillity and confidence would all be boosted whilst their antagonists of boredom, frustration and anxiety would be inhibited. Combined with the memory tweaks granted by the virch anyone running the persona could diligently study forever with no loss of productivity or negative feeling. She was happy to learn that it wouldn't completely freeze her personality or make it something it wasn't, the persona's modifications would merely be anchors to ensure she didn't drift too far from the ideal state of mind.

Without bothering to consult the interface Karly picked up the vial and knocked back the script. It turned to vapour on her tongue and immediately she felt her mind settle into a sublime state of total focus. "Right", she said. "Let's begin."

*

With effort Caville supressed per annoyance at having to repeat perself for the third time. "All I'm saying friend is that the cult of Ladian NcDance is not something to be entered lightly. Phenodynamism requires you to be locked out of your medisystem controls, you wont be able to change the random mods happening to you. I'm not saying that's a bad thing in itself but for someone who is yet to change clade for even a casual event it's a huge step." The small Gray on the sofa opposite huffed at that before asking another question about what ultratech they would need to join the cult. Sitting back slightly Caville let the other Spicy Splice members attempt to persuade the newbie against their reckless choice. Normally per persona would be doing a better job of keeping per focused but something was nagging at the edge of per mind. Looking around the mod-club there were plenty of members still enthusiastically displaying their radical mods. Caville remembered the torturous experience of being supremely bored…but couldn't quite remember when pe stopped being so. There was also the curious discrepancy of several hundred shares missing from per wallet. Deep down pe knew that there was a good reason for this, even if pe didn't know why, and without acknowledging it realised that a privacy block was involved. Per attention began to drift back to the conversation at hand as the silent member's binding shepherded per thoughts away from the memory gap.

That effort was stifled when one of Caville's remotes spied someone standing outside the club entrance. Without really knowing why pe rose from the sofa and quickly slithered out into the corridor. There stood a small woman, baseline human it appeared. She stared up at Caville intently, a faint smile on her lips. "Hi" she said.

"Hello" said Caville. They both stood silent for a moment. Caville opened per mouth to speak again but the woman got there first. "You don't know me and I don't know you, not really. We're strangers." She glanced around quickly as though checking for something. "But you're a wonderful person and I'll always think of you as a friend".

Bemused Caville waved as the strange baseline hastily marched away. A small part of perself cherished the experience for some reason. After a minute of standing in an almost trance-like revere Caville looked about. Not entirely sure what had bought per out into the corridor pe returned to the club; eager to help the next sophont in search of the right modification.

*

It was strange to be back in Forafaust, in more ways than one. Despite some clever tweaking to her mind Karly was still getting used to being in a physical body in a world that was largely immutable. An artificially heightened instinct caused her to quicken her pace. Beyond the window of the underbelly the fake sun projected by the worldhouse ceiling was darkening. Memories of lessons ran though her mind; from the mathematical equations describing the characteristics of emitted photons to the trophic flow of the moon's engineered ecosystem.

She marvelled at what she had retained from her afternoon (or year?) in the virch. Nearly every moment felt clear from the moment she entered and spoke to the interface. From that point she had experienced more than she could ever have dreamed of. The lessons of the virtual scholum were more like guided dreams than any dreary lecture or book reading. Knowledge arose continually from her own mind as if she was merely remembering facts she had previously forgotten. Occasionally those memories would feel confused or incomplete as the lessons struggled to mesh with her concept map. At that point the virch supplemented memory with experience, adjusting her environment and form to whatever was beneficial to understanding the new concepts.

Walking back through the medina Karly couldn't help but feel that it wasn't as strange or impressive at it had been just hours before. She had tasted the growth of new muscle tissue whilst calculating the chemical bonding strength of its actin filaments as easily as counting her natural fingers. She'd played games of firing projectiles round implausibly massive furniture to comprehend the intricacies of n-body system modelling. Some lesson-experiences were so abstract that she could barely describe them beyond the knowledge retained; such as when she'd adopted the form of a 5-dimensional knot unravelling in order to jostle her mind into absorbing the complexities of the Forafaust/Reserve Church treaty.

The latter was of immediate interest. The arcology angelnet had agreed to prevent any student attempting to take any prohibited technological artefacts back with them. Something which Karly needed to do; there was not enough time for the autodoc to properly rewrite her natural connectome so it had had to insert a temporary scaffold and install her virtually upon that. Over the next few weeks it would dissolve harmlessly as it reinstalled her into her own mind. And thanks to a precedent set by a previous class trip gone awry the angelnet would neither stop her or reveal this secret. Active medicine that hadn't finished its task was permitted by the treaty. It was the work of barely a minute for her now to draft the relevant legal request and lodge it with the city; her privacy was guaranteed.

Entering the plaza Karly secretly delighted in being able to spot the hidden pattern in the floor tiles. She wasn't sure how the Holy Scholar-Cardinal Liana DeChenz would react to knowing the fountain she was still sat upon lay at the centre of a mathematical code representing the software patch the moon's environment needed. The very fix that revealed the hubris of the more extreme restrictions of the Church. The solution was so simple really, if only they had allowed some of the faithful to explore the beauty of code and mathematics they wouldn't have needed to ask for help. If another disaster came they might not be so lucky.

"Ah Blessed Karly" the Scholar-Cardinal observed as Karly approached. "The first back in good time. I hope your experience was useful and not too disturbing?"

Outwardly Karly maintained the projection of an ideal Scholar-Student; modest, demure and resolute. "No your Holiness." She said as she bowed low, hiding a faint rebellious smile. "I would go as far to say the trip was very…educational"

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By Ryan B (Rynn) (written 2017, added 2026).

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