Monday came again, Sophia woke up in bed alone. She got up, looked over at the empty pillow beside her, and felt a pang of loss and anxiety, so heavy it took her breath away. She ended up having to spend several minutes reminding herself that he would be back.

In just a few days, her hoheit, her Andrew, would return. Healthy, alive, and probably grinning foolishly about something banal while totally disregarding the handful of implausible feats he’d have had to pull off to complete their plan successfully.

In the meantime, she, Sophia had some work to do. Sophia sat up and looked at the internal located within her mind. She created a data-process that would remind her of the next time she had enough power gathered to make another trip.

She doubted that she’d need the reminder and expected to end up crossing over to the other universe the very instant she could.

However planning was a habit that she’d cultivated within herself to deal with the chaos that was the waking world. It kept her sane and calm. Thus she planned for eventual visit and then planned for a whole host of other things that would need to happen in the meantime.

The difference in speed between her mental space and the outside world gave her plenty of time to plan. Though the ratio varied depending on the part of her mind, Sophia could roughly spend roughly a year in her head for each second that went by in real world time.

In which case, one might argue the prim and proper young miss was just as airheaded and ‘carefree’ as her partner, if you counted the time she spent goofing around mentally. She was just a touch more diligent, with an ability that let her hide her shortcomings.

Sophia’s consciousness expanded as she left her body and entered her overmind. She connected with the great hive of Sophias that she’d created after the awakening of her consciousness and suddenly felt a whole lot less distraught.

Andrew had given the overmind a name just as she had dubbed Andrew ‘hoheit’. He dubbed them the ‘Network of the Wise’ or simply just the ‘Wise’ for short. To this day, Sophia wasn’t entirely sure why he’d named her such.

She’d been freshly born and knew literally nothing about life, the universe, and everything in between, when he first gave her the name.

According to Andrew, it was because she’d shown a great deal more common sense than he had. Wanting to run away from her dark master instead just gormlessly going along with Andrew’s plan to fight him showed good reasoning.

That they’d ended up being forced to fight the former lord of Abwickeln in the end, to escape the mad being, was just bad luck.

This Wise network was her, and she was the network, and besides a few instances where she sometimes felt herself in two minds about a matter she’d never had any issues with existing as hive mind.

The machine-like processes that dominated her greater self, and the larger perspective that the overmind granted her, gave the girl a sense of surety.

She could leaf through her memories and see all the instances where Andrew had done something dangerous, or gotten wrapped up in the figment-realm’s madness, and still came out okay.

With cold logic and her knowledge of Andrew’s capabilities, she could similarly trust that he could continue his track record of coming out okay. This was especially true if she took measures to avoid unfavorable outcomes and potentialities.

One could sum all this up as a process of reassuring herself by saying she’d simply decided he’d be fine. However the sheer amount of numbers and data involved in coming to the conclusions she was coming to, made Andrew’s eventual return feel less like a desperate hope and more like a statistical inevitability.

With her worries assuaged, Sophia was able to focus on other things. She returned a portion of her consciousness to the handful of bodies she had in the building. The main body was in the suite that she shared with Andrew. There were auxiliary bodies that were either also in the suite or in condos on the floor below.

Four bodies would teleport to offices held by her company, Housecarl Industries. She actually had a board meeting scheduled for today with a few of the executive officers, so a fifth, sharply dressed, duplicate was teleported to the head office here in Eblouir.

A sixth body, the main body, quickly showered, dressed and teleported to school. Sophia passed through the kitchen with a sigh. She could cook breakfast herself but a lack of any real need to eat, and her current downcast mental state led to her ultimately deciding to forgo breakfast this morning.

By that same measure, while Sophia generally cherished the quiet moments of her morning commute, today was not a day where she wanted to be sitting around alone with her thoughts in the back of a cab.

The last duplicate that would leave the building didn’t look like a duplicate of Sophia at all. It was six-foot-ten, long limbed, broad shouldered, with orange hair and eyes. This Sophia was designated by the network as “Sandy”. An Andrew duplicate that had a copy of Sophia’s mind running its wetware.

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“Good morning, class. I hope you’ve all read through that club brochure I passed around last week and considered which groups and companies you might want to intern with. The places you gain your first experience at and the clubs you join will have a big effect on your future employment prospects, so please actually give it some thought.” said Professor Sevinc.

‘Sandy’ sat at the back of the class, next to Sophia’s main body. Sandy did the best they could, to do a good Andrew impression. Pretending to be someone you weren’t was surprisingly difficult, even for Sophia.

Having personal expeience with that individual, and a large collection of neural scans that gave hints of how that person’s mind worked, helped, but the task still remained difficult.

The only factor that made things easier was the knowledge that school-Andrew was lazy and laconic. Doing and saying very little unless it was absolutely necessary.

Andrew’s lack of close friends, or even acquaintances, in most of his classes could also be considered helpful, but Sophia found that she couldn’t really think of the boy’s asocial tendencies as a good thing.

The two of them had come to this universe for a reason. Seeking a world that was bigger than just the two of them. It kind of defeated the point if only one of them was broadening their horizons.

“Pst...Pst...Hey, Harlow to Andrew. You in there, man?” said a voice. Interrupting Sophia’s train of thought. She looked to her side and saw that: A) somehow, while operating on autopilot she’d managed to make it to the lunch period, and B) there was certain clean faced half-elf looking at her.

“Sup…” said Sophia. Hurriedly searching her archives for the other boy’s name.

“How are things going in your neck of the woods, Oliver.” said Sophia.

“Er… Good. So as I was saying...Do you know anyway that you could help my family elders see that girlfriend of yours?” said Oliver.

“Girlfriend? What girlfriend?” said Sophia. Eyes narrowing slightly as she found herself surprisingly less perturbed by the idea of Andrew having another lover besides her than she’d expected.

Taking two steps back she reasoned that the cultural tendacy towards polygamy and her own unique ideas of what meant to love and be loved something to do with it.

Her lack of a negative response might have also been due to the fact that just last night her and Andrew’s relationship had gained yet another level of definition, and commitment, and after eons of the two of them being together she saw no reason to feel insecure.

“You know...Miss Luce.” said the half-elf leaning in and whispering the name in Sophia’s ear.

“Oh,...Well, technically she’s my fiance but...whatever...Why did you need to see her again?” said Sophia/Sandy

“D-, Didn’t you say that you’d need her go ahead before you considered taking my family into your confidence? My elders have been trying to contact her but it seems that the Luce family’s attendants and the people at Housecarl Industries have stonewalling them.” said Oliver. Trying not to be shaken by the world-breaking revelation that he’d just heard.

“Nh...Oh, that’s right. I’ll call her and have her pencil you in for sometimes this week. Would that be alright?” said Sophia.

“I...Uh, Yes. Yes that would be more than alright.” said Oliver. Trembling faintly as he correctly and incorrectly inferred certain things about Andrew and Sophia’s relationship. His mind drawing conclusions on their closeness, power balance, and Andrew’s level intimacy with the Luce’s operation.

“Was there anything else?” said Sophia.

“Uh...No, not really.” said Oliver.

Sophia was on the edge o sending the boy away. Dismissing him like she would do to any of her subordinates. Then it occurred to her that this boy was probably one of the few friends Andrew had in school.

“Er...Okay. So how’s your day been, man.” said Sophia.

“G-, Good I guess.” said Oliver. Taken aback at first but then settling down as the conversation carried.

The two spent the next hour chatting about nothing. Sophia made sure to record the conversation so she could pass on the data to Andrew. When it was time for them to head to their classes, they left the canteen together.

Just as Sophia and Oliver were about to leave the canteen they found their way blocked by a group of youths. From their builds and the badges on their uniforms it was clear that they were students from the higher years.

In the center of the crowd was a wolfkin, blue-silver hair, sharp facial features, dark gray eyes. The wolfkin has a muscular build and an aura about him that marked him as blooded and experienced. Student who was no longer just a student.

“Are you Andrew Oddvar?”

“Yeah? Who’s asking?” said Sophia. Taking on the indolent, vaguely bored expression Andrew always wore when people came to people came to pick fights with him.

“I’m Joshua Harrington. Julian was...is...my little cousin. Dudes’s basically my little brother. I hear you fucked him up quite badly. Personally speaking, I have no feelings about the whole situation but family is family. I hope you understand.” said the wolfkin.

“Ah...I see. I’m guessing you’re here to avenge your little bro and take back the family’s honor, or something like that.”

Joshua smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes.

“Something like that…”

“Nh...Okay.” said Sophia/Sandy.

Sophia burst forwards. Relying on the superior strength possessed by most if not all of her bodies to handle the matter.

A leg sweep that tore through concrete, soil, and bone dealt with the first portion of the group. A flurry of punches that fell like lightning and thunder dealt with the middle part. The young men that hung towards the back were taken down as they were forced to catch the friends that were thrown at them like meteorites.

Finally, all that remained was Joshua. The wolfkin stood stock still. Arms still crossed. His expression still confident. Then slowly the young man’s eyes and brain began to catch up to the reality in front of him.

“Uh… C-, Can we still talk this out?” said Joshua. His formerly brash and domineering attitude nowhere to be seen.

“There’s nothing to talk about, mate. I’ve got class and you’ve got to pick all this trash you’ve left lying around before the head janitor sees. See you later, Ollie.” said Sandy. Smirking as he stepped around the wolfkin while stepping over the bruised and battered bodies of the boy’s he’d just knocked out.

“Yeah...Later, man.” said Oliver. Similarly out of sorts because the other boy had acted before he could so much as say a word to show his loyalty and reliability.

Oliver and Joshuo’s gazes met after they both watched Sandy leave.

After assessing that he was just strong enough to give the wolfkin a thrashing, Oliver considered doing so for the sake of impressing his friend. Old patterns and old training tilting him inclined him towards the idea of gathering favor wherever he could

After thinking on it twice, Oliver decided that crushing randoms like Joshua Harrington held no value. If the ‘Andrew’ had actually cared about what happened to the Harrington boy he would have fought the boy himself.

Oliver also realized for the first time that even he wanted this relationship he was building with Andrew to be a real friendship and not just subordination masquerading as friendship.

Thus Oliver simply left the scene. Uncaringly stepping on a few of the battered thugs as he left the entrance of the canteen behind him.