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Third Structure
... during a context switch we put a remote routine over into their side. its imaginary access rights shields didn't always work (it spent a lot of time running from security daemons) and the most interesting place we broke into was Araeana's structure closet. there were only three structures in there; the remote copied all three to our side, storing the pieces in supposedly empty checksum packets. we stole off to a quiet sector in the Ring and examined the structures. the first was your basic "hello world" structure, a standard reality template based on conventional laws of physics. they usually had a few buildings and cut-out people for use as background detail. she'd made a few changes, the ones that students usually make. the second structure was the complete version of an assignment they'd all been given for Basic Virtuality part one. she'd received a distinction. the third was a series of narrow, winding tunnels lined with a material like padded, thick black felt. the only light available was from recessed UV sources. all surfaces were black and apart from uncertain glowing patches and occasional distant silver glints, it was completely dark. and silent. the further reaches of the tunnels were packed almost solidly with virtual human figures - bots - made of the same material as the walls. they crawled about in the warm half-gravity, occasionally forming writhing, orgiastic knots in some of the wider tunnels. the silver glints were from rings; navel piercings, nipple rings and ampallangs. the figures behaved like slow, sleepy nymphomaniacs and were unusually perceptive in knowing when a human in the virtuality wanted to be left alone. we spent quite a lot of time in that virtuality. it was very relaxing, particularly crawling right down to the ends of the tunnels which opened into small spherical chambers which always seemed to be unoccupied. the felt walls had soft padding about a metre thick. it hugged you to sleep in safe warmth. very womb-like. if you listened, you could hear a deep distant heartbeat keeping slow time in the darkness. a bit of a departmental buzz followed when the bureau found out that we were spending almost all of our spare time in there. they decided that the relaxing effects (which were reflected, to a degree, in our realworld bodies while we were in that structure) were beneficial and simply allocated a large block of work-time for us to play around in Araeana's third structure. |
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