The rest of the evening and the parts of the night during which I did not sleep, I spent finishing the design for Technica, making lists of parts to purchase and even starting on the eventual assembly-plan. For the headsets, I went one step further, designing a relatively simple robot that would take over that task.

In addition, I started to consider the best way to get my own, offensive robots without alerting Technica, she had already told me she would consider such things a very bad idea. While I was reasonably certain she would simply continue to advice against using them, I could not be completely certain, so secrecy seemed to be the best way to go.

The easiest idea was to go would be creating a base similar to the one I already had above New Brunsburg, but closer to Accord Island. Sadly, the Island itself was out of the question, not unless I had a complete map with every secret lair on it, but the secret lairs were, well, secret. I had a reasonable grasp on Technica’s lair, but I had no idea how many more were dug into the island and accidentally knocking down a wall in someone else’s lair would be… problematic.

Finally, it was time to head out to breakfast with Sophia. I was curious if she would try to continue the talk from the evening before or not. Sadly, there was no time during breakfast and later in the day, we were both busy with schoolwork. When we finally met in the evening, the first thing she did was invite me to go dancing with her. I was about to decline, when I realised that she had asked for outings such as this one, when she was still scared that a new relationship with me would isolate us again.

So I agreed, noticing that a part of me was even looking forward to it. We split, both of us needing to get ready. While I normally did not feel a need to dress up, going out with Sophia was a worthwhile occasion.

“Galatea, what do you think we should wear? You inhabit this body just as I do?” I asked my dear daughter, curious what she would suggest. In a way, it was a bit of an experiment, to see what she considered aesthetically pleasing. Through our connection, I noticed her feeling stumped and when she noticed me noticing, she sent me an image of an old bluescreen, making me giggle a little. It was not a real system-freeze but she did take an extraordinary amount of time to consider the question, given her normal processing-speed.

That speed was quite curious anyway, we had made a few test and experiments and it seemed that the speed she was operating at had increased over time, after she had started inhabiting the network of nanites integrated into my body. There was a distinct spike when I had integrated the second batch of nanites, before going after Sophia, but the overall curve was inclined. In addition, I felt that communicating with her and accessing resources through her was getting easier and smoother, making me hypothesize that there was an integration going on, my brain getting accustomed to use the nanites while allowing the nanite-network to outsource some processing into the biological processing parts, increasing the speed of the network. It was a beautiful theory, but unless I wanted to dissect my own brain or start experimenting on live subjects, I was unsure if it was true. The irony on live-testing was that I would have to acquire test-subjects and while the organic subjects were not a problem, I would need a second AI that I was willing to experiment on. Just the idea to experiment on Galatea, even if only on a split-off secondary instance, was abhorrent to me.

After about thirty seconds, Galatea got back to me with an outfit to wear. At first, I was flabbergasted, I had no such clothes. But the next thing Galatea showed me were ways to change a few of my clothes to turn into the outfit she was envisioning. I had to admit, it looked… interesting. Not completely out of my normal style, but there was enough removal to make it extraordinary.

Her outfit consisted of a tank-top that seemed to be missing quite a bit of cloth, not only were there a few artistic rips and tears in it, but it bared most of my shoulders and all of my midriff. For my non-organic arm, she went the opposite direction of what I normally did, normally, I was wearing long sleeved tops and a glove to hide the, well, non-organic optics of the arm. With the outfit she suggested, that was wholly impossible, instead the arm in the rendering looked as if it was made to look non-organic using makeup in an attempt to stand out. The silvery sheen made it seriously eye catching.

Below the exposed expanse of my midriff, she was suggesting to take the pants from my stealth-suit and adapt them a little, using my nanites to tighten them after putting them on. In her rendering, they looked painted on, which was not far from the truth, getting into those, or out of them, would be impossible without disengaging the nanite-ribbons she suggested.

Finally, my black leather boots and the weaponised bangles rounded out the outfit, giving me some combat-ability if I wanted to have it.

“It is certainly… different.” I admitted, not quite sold on the concept. It was similar enough to the outfit had worn in New Brunsburg when dancing with Sophia, but up top, it showed quite a bit more than I was wholly comfortable with, especially the exposed arm. But on the other hand, sticking with long sleeves in a club would stand out, so I decided to simply go with Galatea’s suggestion.

Luckily, I had a few advantages when it came to makeup and such, for example the ability to extrude strings of nanites from my skin, allowing me to clear up mistakes with minute precision. In addition to that, my hair was still short enough to be easy to handle and within half an hour, I was ready. When I left the bathroom, I almost ran into Tanisha who was getting ready to go out as well. She noticed my outfit and for a few seconds, she was staring at me, mouth hanging slightly open. Once she had caught herself, she turned back to her closet, rummaging through it.

I covertly sent Sophia a message, asking if it would be just the two of us and when she answered that Leona had asked if we wanted to join her and a couple of her friends, asking me if that was good with me, I told her that it was. The outings were supposed to make sure we did not isolate us, so going with acquaintances was just fine with me. I still planned on spending my time dancing with Sophia, but having others with us could be fun.

“Do you want to join us? I am going out with Sophia, her roommate and a few of their friends.” I asked, not wanting to exclude her. I remembered what had happened some time ago, when she got hammered to the point that I had to go get her and I would prefer it if I could keep an eye on her.

“Umh…” she hesitated for a moment, “Yeah, sure. Do you mind if the friend I would’ve gone with joins us?” she asked and I agreed. Sadly, I had not noticed that she had left the room’s door open and Karen was in the other room, getting ready as well. When she asked if she and Lu Shi could join us as well, I thought it would be quite impolite to disagree, so I told her that it would not be a problem.

Ten minutes later, I met Sophia back at the entrance and wondered just what had happened. Instead of the two of us, going dancing, there were fifteen people, of which I knew six, all planning to go. I noticed that the group’s composition was quite heavily skewed to the female persuasion, with only three guys in evidence.

“Stop that.” Galatea told me in the back of my mind. I managed to keep my pokerface but sent a questioning thought back, asking what she meant.

“You are tense and glaring at the guys, as if you are getting ready to either attack them or be attacked.” Galatea explained and when I paid attention to slight variations in my stance I noticed that she was right but part of me was unwilling to let go of the vigilance.

“Do not worry, I will keep an eye on them. You can relax.” Galatea assured me, when she noticed my hesitation.

Focusing on Sophia, I forced myself to relax. I was here to have fun with Sophia, not worry about some guys I did not know.

Sophia and I linked arms and the whole gaggle proceeded to walk over to the tram-station, encompassed in a cocoon of happy sounds and a potpourri of perfume. I idly wondered if there was enough cosmetic propellant in the air to turn it flammable and wondered if we should put up signs to that effect. At the thought, Galatea gave me a mental nudge, telling me to let go of the worries and have fun with Sophia. It was an idea I could get behind.