Monday morning, started quite early and as always, I went to the gym, first thing in the morning. On the way there, I was reading the facts Galatea had found for me, regarding the Wardlaw-family, one version only compiled from publicly available sources, the other more fleshed out, with less available sources, as she had flexed her digital muscles and acquired information normally not available, from their bank, Tanisha’s former school and even the IRS. The information on the Wardlaw family was rather boring, it seemed that, outside of being very active in the local baptist church, the family was living a quiet life. If I would have to describe my worst nightmare, I would just have to show the report on them, or maybe a picture.

Galatea had added some information on the church and their pastor, which were a little more spicy, mainly due to the conservative nature of his sermons mixed with his own, rather liberal, behaviour when it came to taxation. He seemed to think it was a good idea for everyone else, but should not apply to him. There were clues that some things had been swept under the rug, but sadly, it was only a clue that something had been there once, which made finding out what was missing impossible.

Reading the report, Tanisha seemed to have been a prototypical ‘good girl’ on the surface, but, once taking into account private messages Galatea had unearthed, a pronounced predilection to party became apparent. She had been very, very careful, at least when being close to home, but the messages showed that her current behaviour was not something recent.

Sadly, the report did only marginally satisfy my curiosity but it was the best I could do, safe for interrogating her. And that would go against my word, so I had to suppress my curiosity.

Classes dragged a little, I was itching to get back into my workshop, to the point that Nisha noticed my behaviour and started to get curious. It was a trait we both had in spades and I knew there were only two ways to deal with it, either shut her down completely, likely damaging our friendship or throwing her a bit of a bone. So, I told her about the supercomputer, downplaying its full capabilities but admitting enough of them to make my giddiness and pride justified. She asked if I she could use it some time, to do run some simulations but I had to reject it, giving the reason that the supercomputer was just hardware and lacking the operating system. It was partially true, it was lacking an operating system that was not dependant on Galatea but that could be hidden. But to let anyone into my workshop, I needed to do some cleaning and conceal some of my equipment. A lot of it could be explained away, but not everything.

A bit of excitement was caused by the announcement that afternoon-classes were cancelled for the next day because of some sort of faculty-meeting. While I was rather sad to have classes cancelled, it gave me more time to play with my microbots and that was a plus in my books.

After classes, I wanted nothing more than to rush into the workshop, but Galatea was mean, reminding me that I needed to do some chores before I was allowed to play. I might have tried pouting at her, only to get laughed at by my own daughter. We both had a good laugh when I complained about children not respecting their elders, which she only answered with an over two millenniums old quote, almost perfectly mirroring my complaint. Some things just never changed.

When I got to the room, Karen was sitting in the common-room, chatting with Ru Shi. I was about to go into my own room, when Karen addressed me.

“Hi Diana, want to join us at the movies tonight?” she asked, cheerfully.

“Not really. But who is us?” I asked, slightly curious.

“Currently, there are four of us, David, Ru Shi and her boyfriend.” she gleefully explained. It had taken the two of them quite some time, but about two weeks ago, Ru Shi had finally clued her roommate in on the fact that Lin was her last name and Karen was a close enough friend to use her first name.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Ru Shi protested instantly, blushing quite furiously. “He’s just a boy I know.”

“A boy you know and want to get to know better, right?” Karen asked, grinning.

“That almost sounds like an argument to join you. What movie are you watching?” I asked, still not committing, but there was a small interest. Social drama was sometimes fun to watch, especially the prospect of watching Ru Shi be awkward with some boy. It was far less interesting compared to going to my workshop, but the workshop would still be there the next day.

“Oh, they are showing an oldie, you know that old movie about D/S culture? Fifty Shades of Grey or something like that? They are showing that.” Karen explained, now blushing a little as well.

I doubt there was a movie I was less interested in, but the prospect to watch Karen watch a movie about a dominant, powerful man and his submissive girlfriend? That sounded fun, but not fun enough to force myself to join them, not if I could rile them up beforehand and watch the fireworks.

“Why, Karen, I never thought you were into dominant man. All I ever hear you talk about is that they are the evil oppressors and what not. Now, you want to watch some guy whip a girl?” I asked, my smile turning impish.

“D/S culture is not about oppressive dominance, you know? It is the ultimate form of trust, the submissive is ultimately in charge, trusting the partner to satisfy an urge they have, it’s something entirely different.” Karen started to pick up steam, getting ready to rant. With her primed to go off, I excused myself, citing the need to get my laundry done. I would have to ask Ru Shi to describe the inevitable explosion to me, later. Watching it live was tempting, but I had a feeling if I tried, I would get caught up in it.

Doing my laundry, the main chore I had to do so Galatea would allow me back into my workshop, did not take too long, the dorm had public washing machines which made quick work of it. While I waited, I did some homework before drying my clothes and putting them away.

Afterwards, Galatea sent me to have dinner before I was allowed to go into the workshop, but finally I was there, ready to look at my newest toys.

Inside the assembly-chamber, easily visible to the naked eye, sat a small, silver puddle, the size of a dime. At least it looked like a puddle, but I knew better.

“How many did you assemble?!” I asked, shocked by the amount of bots. Making one had taken almost half an hour and there had to be millions. I knew that the raw materials had easily been enough for about ten millions, but I was still shocked.

“Once I had the first two, I used them to assist in assembly. It became a geometric progression, allowing me to use up all parts, assembling 4.243.565 microbots and 5.786.423 nanites. I admit, I kept you away until I was finished a few minutes ago, but I wanted you to be proud of me, mother.” Galatea sounded like a child, presenting her mother a report-card with an A on it. I wanted nothing more than to hug her, but sadly there was no body.

“You don’t know how proud I am, daughter. You are the best child one could wish for.” I said, my voice thick with emotion.

“Thank you, mother. Would you like to go over the current control-software? Sometimes, your organic mind gets insights that I miss.” Galatea displayed lines of code, far less than I had anticipated but it was optimised for the smaller processors. One part that was particularly interesting was that the small processors kept the ability to link together, forming a computer like the one I was working on. They were, after all, an offshoot of my supercomputer, so it made sense. I was quite curious what Galatea would be capable of, if we linked enough processors together.

“Do you have an idea what you want to do with our newest tool?” I asked.

“There are a few ideas I have, but I would prefer to massively increase the swarm-size first. I think hundred times more nanites would be a good idea. Look at this design.”

On the screen, a simple chest was displayed, thirty centimeters long, twenty wide and ten high. The bottom-plate was quite thick and a detail-schematic showed that it was housing an array of microwave transmitters, allowing full control of the nanties within the chest.

“You will need a lot more than five-hundred million nanites to fill that one up. More like five-hundred billion.” I stated after a moment.

“Yes, and that is the next goal. But even five-hundred million would allow prototyping in a way never before seen.” Galatea explained her plans.

“Let’s do this.” I told her, starting to go over things I needed to allow her to continue assembling.