Back in her room, Lilijoy sat on the cot and manipulated her med bugs. Compared to the long days of working on Anda’s injury, the process of directing the bugs to make the necessary connections between the pins from the prosthetic and her own nervous system was simplicity itself. The pins all connected to a tiny processor in the arm, which would sort out what signal went where, so there was no need for precision or specificity. Not only that, but the system allowed for significant redundancy, as there were more connections than strictly necessary. The only tricky bit was separating the major nerves of the arm into individual fibers, but thankfully, that was an automated task that didn’t require her direct supervision.

The next item on her agenda was exciting, and a little scary. She had finally crossed the threshold to begin real Stage Two cultivation.

She pulled up her current status.

STATUS: INITIATE Nanobody count 532,615 Power Ratio 92% Stage One Integration 83% Stage Two Integration .02% Secondary/Support

4 detected, 3 identified

Medical Bugs: .782 Billion, 20% assigned

Rank 4 (Blood): .045 Billion, 0% assigned

Rank 5 (Skin): .015 Billion, 0% assigned

Sensor and Infiltration: 0, 0% assigned

Communications Stealth Mode Sensors Passive Active Interventions 0 Personal Quantification Ranking Display Options | Logs | Data | Reference | Menu

She had crossed the five hundred thousand mark which Jiannu had set as her target in her previous cultivation session.

“Jiannu, I have some time to cultivate now. Can we start Stage two? And what exactly is different about it?”

“Everything you have done to this point is scaffolding. Stage one will remain as mechanical support for Stage two, but now you can begin building structures which incorporate your own neurons and cortical sub-structures directly. This will vastly expand your cognitive capacity. Over time you will gain the ability to control your subjective sense of time, and more accurately model the behavior of physical systems and even other minds. Do you remember what happened when you first initiated Stage two?

Oh, she remembered alright. “I’m pretty sure I almost died. I had an immune reaction that caused my brain to swell.”

“That is a very common outcome. The original intent of the Tao System’s architects was for stage one to be supplied externally, through injections into the spinal fluid. Then, when Stage one was sufficiently integrated to provide support, Stage two would be initiated in a controlled medical environment. Your experience was sub-optimal.”

“Do I need to worry about an immune reaction this time?”

“No, your body has been taught to accept the Stage two elements. What you need to know before beginning is that the cultivating process will be substantially more demanding. There will be a stage of cultivation for each level of your cortical hierarchy...”

What followed was several hours of instruction from Jiannu about the topology of neural architecture in the human cerebral cortex. Several times she needed to stop and learn the necessary math and physics associated with the subject. Her integration with the knowledge available to her from external sources was key; without that, she was sure it would have taken a years, or simply been impossible for her to learn. By the time Jiannu had guided her through the subject, she was ready for a break.

“Jiannu, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface. What about the processing within the neurons themselves? Did anyone ever figure out if the brain used quantum effects from the microtubules?”

As soon as she asked the question she became aware of thirty years of scientific papers, spanning from 2012 to 2046. She didn’t directly know the contents of the papers, but it felt rather like she had read them many years before, and forgotten them. She knew that if she began to read one, she would feel familiar with the contents, more like a review, right until she ran into some aspect of the science for which she had no foundational understanding.

Which was most of it.

She was slowly plugging away on her own time, learning from thousands of sources that were available to her in the old web archive. She had what she thought might have been considered a ‘college level’ understanding in most scientific fields, though it was sometimes difficult to tell what she knew internally and what was supplied from external sources. It would take her weeks to understand the papers her system had pulled up to answer her question.

But there was one nagging familiarity about several of the papers from 2045-46. She had to check to make sure, pulling up the text on her internal view. Sure enough, there it was, Lead Author: Dr. Henry Choi.

Go Dad! she thought. Then she recoiled at her response. Was that an intrusive ‘Emily’ thought? She couldn’t be sure where it came from. Maybe some corner of her unconscious had seized upon Emily’s relationship with her father and used it to fill the vacuum in her own life. She chuckled to herself; maybe the ghost of Emily Choi was haunting her brain.

She pulled herself back to the task at hand. She would understand her father’s paper someday, but that day was not today. She had already used up over half the time she had set aside for cultivating, and well over half her mental energy.

“I’d like to do just a little, Jiannu. There’s no way I can make it through a full session.”

“That is fine. Let’s aim to build just a few mobile units, and one augmented cluster.”

Lilijoy fell into the gleaming depths of her brain.

***

The next day, after a full night's sleep on the Outside and eating solid food for the second time in a week, Lilijoy went to see Anda. He was agitated, pacing around the tiny confines of his room and pawing at his face as if he was trying to wipe something off. His door was open, and Lilijoy hovered in the doorway for a moment before knocking tentatively to let him know she was there.

“Um, hey Anda. Sorry it’s been so long.”

He slumped down onto the bed and put his face in his hands, saying something unintelligible.

Lilijoy wasn’t sure what was going on. “I’m sorry Anda, I didn’t catch what you said.”

He moaned, and the moan somehow transformed into standing and shouting at the top of his lungs.

“I said I screwed up, alright!”

Lilijoy flinched back. Even though she had grown an inch or so, he was still almost twice her height, and intimidating when he lost his temper. Which was all too often since his head injury.

I wonder why I don’t react this way to Rosemallow? Maybe my deep brain has learned that the dangers of the Inside are different.

She tried to remain calm in the face of his emotional turbulence.

“I’m sorry. Is it something I can help you with?”

He flopped back onto his bed and clutched at his bald head. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I told some people, okay?”

“Anda, who are they and what did you tell them?” Her tone was not quite remonstrating.

“The Hand.”

Now she was definitely worried. “Like from the old comic books?” She really hoped he wasn’t delusional.

“It’s ironic, okay? It’s what the Renaissance leaders are called; I guess they thought it would be funny.”

Well, at least he hasn’t lost it completely. “And what did you tell them?”

He looked at her directly with bloodshot brown eyes. “I told them about your friend.”

“I thought they already knew about Attaboy. Aren’t they the ones who told you?”

“It was an anonymous message. If it was them, they knew that Sinaloa captured an indigene bearing a mysterious legacy bug.” He looked away. “I just wanted to help! I’m going crazy, trapped here in the cold and dark. It’s always dripping here.”

“Anda, you have Augsight,” she reminded him. “What did you tell them?”

“Did you know that Marcus tried to disable my communications with his infiltration bugs?” He lowered his voice. “I think they’re trying to keep me here. They say they are trying to help me, but I just want to go home!” He put his hands over his face and his shoulders shook.

Lilijoy crossed her arms and watched him sob for a moment. After she regained her patience, she tried again. “Anda, please, what did you tell them?”

“I told them it was Tao System, Okay!”

“What did they say?”

“They didn’t believe me. They said my brain was confused.”

Well that’s a relief

“So I told them I knew someone else who had it.”

Oh crap.

“But it’s fine. They don’t know it’s you...” his voice tailed off.

Lilijoy dug deep and found her last scrap of patience. “Who else would they think it was?” Then she took the scrap and threw it away as her own anger grew. “I know that your judgment is impaired, but what were you thinking? We finally had a safe place to grow and plan. Now what? You can’t leave here the way you are, but what am I supposed to do? I won’t be able to help you for months, and now I’m going to have to run again!”

She turned and ran from the room before she said the other things she was thinking. That she should have left him in the swamp. That he just screwed up his chance at a normal life.

How was she supposed to deal with her anger toward Anda when none of this was really his fault? He had gotten shot protecting her; she should be grateful to be alive. But his betrayal, however blameless, hurt her to the core.

She ran all the way back to her room and hopped into the pod. She just wanted to escape for a few hours, she told herself. While the various plumbing components of the pod were attaching themselves, she sent a quick message to Marcus explaining the situation.

Hi Marcus. Anda told the leaders of the Renaissance about me and Attaboy and the Tao System. Did you know they were called ‘The Hand’? I guess I got two new hands in my life today, haha. I’m going Inside for a few hours to cool off. I don’t know whether I should stay or go, so please let me know what you think. I’m sorry for the big mess I keep making in your life!

***

Back in her room at the Academy, Lilijoy released a deep shuddering breath. Her conversation with Anda replayed in her mind, and tears of frustration, sadness and anger refused to leave her eyes. She looked out her window at the fields below and noticed dozens of people, tiny figures from her vantage, milling between the arenas and on the path between them and the Academy. Then she heard the door to the suite open, and someone came into the common room, babbling excitedly.

“… don’t know what they were thinking. Outsiders are so strange. I’m sure the next time we’ll get a better group. Did you see the way that boy kept looking at us? Oh, look, Jess! Someone got furniture! Do you think some new people came while we were out? I hope they’re nicer than our group was. I don’t think I like this rug, but the cushions are bouncy… “

The high-pitched voice continued to chatter a rapid stream of observations about the new furniture Lilijoy and Magpie had picked out. A low grunt punctuated the unceasing flow of words once or twice, which was all Lilijoy heard of the other participant in the one-sided conversation.

I guess it’s time to meet the rest of my roommates.

She emerged from her room and the chatter stopped. Looking back at her, in the act of jumping up and down on the couch was a small furry girl with huge round eyes and large triangular ears on the sides of her head. A bushy tail almost as big as she was was curled around her feet and draped further off the edge of the couch and onto the floor. Her fur, mostly gray, ranged from a white patch on her front to a black stripe that ran from between her eyes all the way to the tip of her tail.

“Someone my size!” Lilijoy exclaimed, precisely at the same time as the other girl said, “She’s little too!”

They both laughed, and then the furry girl spread her arms and said, “Greetings, I am Petauran Bentbough Panadan Skria the Fierce Sky Rider. Please call me Skria.” As she stated her name, Lilijoy saw her name, titles and level appear as Skria Panadan: Sky Rider, The Fierce: Level 7. Her arms were connected entirely to her body by a membrane of dark skin.

“Nice to meet you, Skria! My name is Emily, Defender of the Young, Dark Lady of the Thorns and Blessed of Nandi. But please call me Lily.” She allowed her public information to show, deciding it must be the custom when greeting friendly Insiders.

Skria’s companion, who had remained silent to this point, gave a snort.

“Jessila, the despised,” she said in a growling voice. Her information appeared to Lilijoy as Jessila Tewl: Level 8.

Lilijoy had to crane her neck to look up to Jessila’s face as she spoke. She was an imposing figure, perhaps six feet tall, but of enormous girth, though it was hard for Lilijoy to discern how much was her and how much was the many layers of heavy leather and cow skins she wore. Her head was round, with her dark hair set in braids that coiled around her head multiple times, held in place by thick wooden dowels that projected at all angles. Her face was surprisingly small for such a huge head, and had a mixture of features that confused Lilijoy’s intuition for how a face should look. Her nose and jaw projected into a blunt snout, but she had high cheekbones, a domed brow, and the most vibrant blue eyes Lilijoy had ever seen, with elegantly arched brows and thick lashes. Her skin was olive brown and looked perfectly smooth and soft.

“Pleased to meet you, Jessila! I’ll try not to get underfoot.”

Jessila glared at her, and Skria laughed.

“Don’t be scared of Jess. She just doesn’t like talking. Or people. But she would never hurt anyone who didn’t attack her first. We met on the way here when she helped me with a bunch of trolls who were resistant to my poison cloud, so I kinda owe her my life.” Without pause, she pivoted to Lilijoy. “So tell me about yourself Lily. What people do you belong to? Do you miss them? Have you been here long? Do you like your teachers? Have you met your teachers? Do you want some fruit?”

With the last of the rapid-fire questions she brought out a wrinkled green fruit about the size of Lilijoy’s head. Immediately a pungent aroma of spoiled milk filled the room, and Lilijoy hastened to damp her olfactory system. Jessila’s nostrils twitched several times, but she had no other reaction.

Skria was still talking. “… It’s really good. It’s a thing my people do when we meet, a custom I guess, but not many other people seem to do it, so I won’t be offended, but you should try it and not be like those outsiders who were really mean about it.”

She finally paused to allow Lilijoy a word in, while looking at her with big innocent eyes.

Lilijoy was taken aback by the whole thing. She had never met anyone who could talk more, and faster, than she could. The fruit smelled like something she would throw away immediately, worse than the rotting amazon swamp even. She struggled to find a way to politely decline the offer.

“Thanks Skria, but maybe you have a different… “

“Different fruit? Sure!” She continued to talk while pulling out a variety of colorful fruits of different shapes and sizes from her inventory. Lilijoy tried to listen while she looked for something that looked familiar, or at least edible to humans. “We just got back from our first experience term, but it wasn’t very good because the rest of our group thought they were the new leaves and treated us like the brush, and neither of us even gained a level. I probably got most of my experience for ‘exposure to difficult social situations’. Here, try this one.”

She handed Lilijoy a small yellow triangular fruit, which turned out to be crunchy and faintly sweet. In between nibbles, Lilijoy answered some of Skria’s earlier questions. It turned out that Skria had mistaken her for an Insider, which Lilijoy took as a compliment. After that confusion was cleared up, she asked a question of her own.

“So, Skria, how did you end up at the Academy? Do Insiders have a Trial?” She hadn’t even realized that there would be students from the Inside, but she decided to keep her ignorance to herself on that.

“Oh, we don’t have a trial like you do. It just kind of happens that some of us get into a difficult situation in our normal lives, and if we rise to the challenge, we gain an achievement called Tempered, that makes us a bit more... I don’t know, aware of ourselves? Of those who are tempered, about a thousand come to the Academy every year, so we’re still outnumbered by the Outsiders. For example, I ended up defending my family from shadow owls, huge birds of the night who hide in darkness and prey upon my kind whenever they can.”

She looked over at Jessila, who grunted and turned away. “I’m not sure what Jess did, but I bet it was pretty amazing, cause she reached level eight before she even came here.”

She drew a breath to continue her thought, but at that moment a deep bell rang, vibrating the stone all around them.

“Oh, there’s the assembly call!” Skria said “We’d better get going.”

This was news to Lilijoy. “Where do we go?”

“Just follow us. We’re in the same major cohort, so we’re all going to the same place.”

Along the way, Lilijoy learned about the cohorts of the Academy. There were five major cohorts, and each corresponded to a certain range of experience and ability. Theirs was the Fourth Cohort, the second from the bottom.

“But it’s not really very exact. Eventually, we’ll find a smaller group of five or six and that will be our ‘learning cohort’, but until we do, we get mixed and matched during experience sessions so we can see who we get along with. As we get stronger, we’ll move up to higher major cohorts. You’re really close already to the third cohort, and I’m just barely in the fourth, thanks to my magic.”

Jessila made a skeptical grunting noise towards Skria’s self assessment. That didn’t stop Skria from barreling forward in her explanation. “Anyway, everyone here is pretty amazing in one way or another. They have one of these assemblies for each major cohort at the start of every class term, but a lot of the Outsiders don’t come, I guess because of the curse?” She glanced sideways at Lilijoy for her reaction.

From her conversations with Rosemallow, Lilijoy had learned that Insiders viewed the Outsiders’ need to log out as a curse to be pitied, so she replied with that in mind. “Yeah, that’s probably it. We have to spend time in our original reality too, or our other bodies might get really sick.”

Skria nodded. “That’s what I heard. One of our experience term group disappeared for a whole week, poor thing! Anyway, it’s kind of a pain for the rest of us, but I guess the Academy has found ways to work around it. We’re roommates, so I’ll let you know if you miss anything exciting. Anyway, it’s not like we go to all our classes either, especially the boring ones.”

Lilijoy was about to ask Skria how she even knew what classes she was in, when they arrived at a large circular amphitheater buried deep within the Academy building. The room was about a third full, and Lilijoy’s instant counting told her there were sixteen hundred and eighty-six students present, though more were trickling in from doors spaced all around the top. Conversations buzzed as students shared tales of experience term and whatever else they had been up to for the last two weeks. It looked to Lilijoy like the majority of those present were Insiders, as many of them did not appear to be human. She even noticed a group of avian students flying up to a row of perches projecting from the walls at the top of the room, and added another forty-two to her ongoing count.

They made their way to an empty bench about a third of the way up.

“I want to sit close. It’s fun to watch the teachers while the dean talks,” said Skria. “This is only my second assembly, but last time three of them were sleeping, and one of them rolled her eyes so much I thought she was about to pass out.”

For the next few minutes, Lilijoy and Skria chatted about all the different races present. Then the same low bell sounded and people began to file out on to the stage. They were as diverse as the students, people of all shapes, sizes and colors. Many of them resembled humanoid versions of animals Lilijoy was familiar with, and there were beings she assumed must be elves, dwarves, and gnomes. But there were also beings that eluded classification, by her anyway. A huge pile of what looked like wooden sticks ambled on to the stage on hundreds of stick legs, only to neatly stack itself into a tower-like structure as it reached its spot on stage, which caused Lilijoy to nudge Skria and point.

“Who is that stick tower person?” she asked in a low voice.

“I don’t know their name. They’re called animus collectives, but that’s the first one I’ve seen made from sticks. There was a leaf collective in the jungle where I grew up.”

Lilijoy had already moved on to the next wonders. There were jelly creatures and several balls of rolling fur, and even a giant spider. She saw Professor Anaskafius talking to the empty space next to him, and assumed that there must be some invisible entity standing (or floating) there.

“Is this the whole Academy faculty?” she asked.

“Just the ones that mostly work with our cohort. There are tons more that teach the others. Our cohort and the third are the biggest though so we do have a lot of teachers.”

Skria was pointing out some of the instructors she was familiar with, when a very ordinary looking woman wearing tan robes came to the center of the stage and raised her hands for silence. The sound in the hall ceased like magic. Looking around, Lilijoy realized that it actually was magic of some kind, as she could still see people’s lips moving as if they were in the midst of conversation.

“Thank you for your attention. Please cease all mental and sign communication, so I don’t have to remove all the air from the theater like last time," the woman said.

Lilijoy looked carefully, but there was not a hint of humor on the woman’s face. Next to her, Skria gave a little shudder.

The woman continued. “I am Dean Masgret Reunification. May you reflect Guardian’s glory. I hope you all had a fruitful experience term. I am pleased to welcome all the students who have joined the fourth cohort from cohort five. Congratulations on your achievement. While I hope you stay with us in the coming months, I can only hope you will be as eager to move up to the third as you were to join us, and that your diligence in training and studies will reflect that.”

Skria leaned over and whispered in Lilijoy’s ear, somehow overcoming the sound dampening magic.

“That’s my primary mentor, if you can believe it. She’s very strict. Best Air Mage at the Academy though.”

The Dean continued her speech, welcoming students new to the Academy who had joined the cohort directly. “… we expect great things from you who have joined us in medias res as it were. Your talents will take you far, if you apply yourself! Since there are only twenty-two of you this term, I would like to meet with each of you individually. Please see Mumo at the front desk to schedule your appointment.”

Oops, Lilijoy remembered. I’d better get Mumo his fish, and look into charming plants to grow without light before I see him about that.

Following the opening statements, the Dean introduced a host of new faculty, talked at length about the virtue of hard work and perseverance and reminded the students of the rules of conduct.

“You will treat one another with respect. Remember that those who are currently weaker than you may grow to surpass you. Use of Charm for the purpose of manipulation is strictly forbidden. Combat outside of sanctioned duels or tournaments is strictly forbidden. Always remember that your reputation with the non-tempered can be influenced by your actions here, even though we tempered beings and Outsiders will make our own judgments.”

That last bit made no sense at all to Lilijoy and she resolved to ask Skria or one of her mentors what it meant.

“Please be conversant with the Code of Conduct posted throughout the building and available through your internal awareness.” She scanned the room as if searching for confused parties.

“For Outsiders, that is what you may think of as your display screen, though I do hope you will outgrow that hopelessly archaic mode of thought. Ignorance of the Code is never an acceptable excuse, and carries its own separate penalty. As your Dean, and the individual ultimately responsible for enforcing the Code, I beg you not to give me cause to suspend or expel you from our beloved halls.”

She sighed and stayed silent for an uncomfortable length of time, allowing the gravity of her request to permeate the hall.

“Finally, the Fourth Cohort tournaments for individual ranking in combat and artisanal crafting will be held immediately after the next experience term. Prior to that, by the end of this class term, currently unranked individuals who wish to participate in one or both must obtain permission from their personal advisor. The tournaments for casting and combat oriented crafting will be held after the following experience session, so be thinking of those as well.”

She held her arms up and a cool breeze filled the room, carrying with it the return of sound.

“That concludes this assembly. May Guardian cast glory upon us all.”

“And may we reflect that glory,” a good portion of the room chanted in return.