Chapter 3

"Absolutely not!" Adrian Martin slammed her hand on the table. "I refuse to allow it!"

"Allow what?" Greg asked.

"This whole project. I'm not going to let it go forward."

"What do you object to?" Greg asked.

"This girl. What she does. The whole idea. Everything about it!"

"It's the sex, isn't it?" Hanna asked. "You don't want her to engage in it."

"I expected better of you!" Adrian said. "You're a woman. Can't you see that they're just using her? This is just typical male objectifying of the female body!"

"Actually, no," Hanna said. "I don't see your point."

"You're just giving boys what they want!"

"And giving girls of that age what they want, too," Hanna said. "I remember when I was that age. That's pretty much all I thought about."

"Not specifically!"

"Actually, I think a lot of girls that age have very specific thoughts about sex." Hanna looked at the Chairman, Dr. Phillips. "Wasn't there some other case... ?"

"I think so," Dr. Phillips said. "Ms. Martin objected to an experiment we ran for women who were 30 and older. We set up a social scene for them, and some of the participants' avatars became sexually involved with male avatars."

"I would say you just hate the idea of sex altogether." Hanna said.

"Women have minds," Adrian said. "They're not just a collection of genitalia."

"Given the way we've seen the subject acting," Dr. Phillips said, "I might disagree with your conclusion. The girl is certainly exercising her mind, but she's also obsessed with sex. In the last run, how many partners did she have?" He lifted one finger slightly, his eyes never leaving Hanna's face.

"One, that I know of," Hanna said, "and I think that was her boyfriend. She flirted with other boys, but that doesn't count." She pressed her leg against Greg's, warning him to remain silent.

"One? But I thought ... I heard..." Adrian paused, clearly surprised by the information. "She's only a girl of 15! She has an ever-changing body, and she's confused by what's changing. At most she should be holding hands and wondering what kissing a boy would be like."

"Your objections are noted," Dr. Phillips said in a cold voice. "The real point of this discussion is not the sexual activities of the girl in question, but that she is learning at a college level while only 15 years old, and she otherwise has not shown that capacity. And she retains that knowledge when she's away from The Construct."

"I wonder if she retains any memories of what else she does?" Hanna asked. "I wonder how we could ask her."

"You're missing one other point," Greg said. "She's compressing an entire day's worth of learning into 90 minutes. That needs to be kept in mind. How is her mind processing so much information in such a short time?"

"We'll go forward with a limited trial," Dr. Phillips. "It will not be in the unfettered environment Miss Travis has created around her, but will be in smaller and more constrained situations."

"And the sex?" Adrian asked.

"There will be no sex in these other trials," Dr. Phillips."

Everyone looked at everyone else, and at Dr. Phillips' nod, got up and left.

As they were walking back to the monitoring booth, Hanna stopped. "Did you notice we're not to end Cheryl's sexual escapades?"

"I did," Greg replied. "I wonder how many of these tests we're supposed to run will involve sex."

"You heard him, none. Personally, I think it's a great motivator. Get good grades in a tough school, and you can get laid any time you want. Oh, not quite in so many words," she added as Greg burst out laughing, "but you get the idea."

"I wish my parents had done that," he said. "I'd probably have been valedictorian in high school. What was that about her having only one partner? I counted seven, or was it eight." He punched in the entry code for the monitoring booth and held the door for her.

"Seven for sure," Hanna said after the door had closed behind them.

"There is one thing, though."

"Oh?"

"I've been wondering about the effects of what we've been watching on the both of us."

"You mean, am I uptight about it?" Hanna shrugged. "This is The Construct. It's all make-believe ... well, mostly make-believe. If this was the real world, I'd wonder about a girl like that, wonder what had happened in her life that made her so open to every guy."

"Instead we're intruding into her dreams. Want to bet that Adrian'll make a big stink over it? I don't understand people like her."

"I do," Hanna said quietly. "They're more common than you might think, at least among women."

"I know she was all for this accelerated learning in The Construct, and then something happened, and she was opposed to it."

"I don't think she's against the concept," Hanna said. "She's just opposed to the sex. That's been obvious since she joined us."

"Care to fill in the blanks for an unenlightened male?" Greg asked at last.

"Sorry, I forgot guys don't pick on the little clues women drop about what we're thinking. Adrian is one of those women who has a severe hang-up about sex. Maybe she was traumatized as a young girl, or maybe it's something she picked up from her mother. More women are that way than you think."

"So when she found out that our favorite student is active..."

"She went ballistic." Hanna shrugged. "A woman runs into this, well, I won't say all of the time, but you do run into it. She obviously feels it is her duty to protect any woman under the age of, well, 90 I guess, from any situation that might be deemed sexual."

"So that's why she rejected that program Dr. Phillips mentioned during the meeting."

"The 'Lonely Hearts Club' project." Hanna nodded. "Adrian can't seem to get it into her head that there are women who choose to have sex with men." She chuckled. "If there weren't, there wouldn't be a human race around."

"You're all just very good at hiding it."

"Part of that's our upbringing. Your hormones are raging, you want to get some guy alone and spend some time learning about each other, and you're told: nice girls don't. Nice girls sit up straight, keep their legs together, and speak only when spoken to, and you're a nice girl, aren't you? Only bad girls want to do those naughty things. You hear it so often that it gets drummed into your head."

"I suppose my first clue should have been her instant reaction to the whole idea."

"Actually, your first clue should have been Adrian's clothes and body language. She looks like a dried prune. Ever notice that? Severe clothes with no cut to show off anything of her body. No make-up. Her hair isn't styled, it's pulled back in a short bun, which emphasizes her face, but not in a flattering way. She doesn't have any of the personal adornment a woman normally wears."

"I'm a guy," Greg said. "I'm not used to learning about a woman's personality by the way she wears her clothes."

"No, you're more interested in the body underneath."

"Like I said, I'm a guy. So what do we do about her?"

"Keep her away from our favorite student. Hide the file somewhere so she can't get at it and shut it down. Have you monitored her personal file she has to keep updated for the corporation?"

"In the last week her problems at home have almost dropped to nothing," Greg said. "Her parents have been pleased with that."

"I hope the doctors—"

"They've told the parents that they think a program of on-going visits will be to her benefit. That way she won't regress. By the way, did you see what she did on Monday?"

"First day back from the weekend?" Hanna shook her head. "No, I didn't. I can guess, though."

"She made up for lost time. Two different teachers, one female, and I lost track of the number of boys. She was quite busy during her study hall."

"One of the women? Kinky."

"She's exhibited that before."

"Yeah, I know."

"Does seeing two women enjoy each other physically make you uncomfortable or something?"

"I know guys get turned on by it," Hanna said, "though I've never understood why."

"I could say it's a guy thing, but that doesn't even begin to explain it."

Hanna nodded. "Most women who see it are puzzled by that behavior. I think it's something in our genes. We're attuned to man-woman, and when we see two women intimate with each other, we don't understand it. I know several women who feel sick about the whole idea. Their skin crawls, the whole thing. I have friends, though, who just accept it as working for that girl, though they don't want the details."

"Most women don't want 'the details'."

"That's because most women want more than just a physical relationship."

"What about our star pupil?"

"She's at that age every girl goes through; she wants the emotions, that's why she has a boyfriend, but she wants the physical side of it, too. Though I admit that in her case she seems to want a lot of that."

"See, now that's where most guys, up to the age of I don't know, can be happy. We'll take a physical relationship."

"It's getting guys to admit the emotional side of it that's hard work," Hanna said. "Most women have to learn that guys are like that. Not all of them do."

"Most of them don't," Greg said, "if what I hear on the talk shows and from snatches are gossip is true."

"Well ... yeah. That's kind of a constant theme of most conversations I hear from my friends: why are guys so different? Why aren't they more like us?"

"Instead of having the reaction most guys have about women: women are like that, and we'll never understand it. Life gets easier if you don't try to understand things."

"And then you learn that guys are a lot more complicated than you think," Hanna said, "and a lot simpler, too."

Somebody knocked on the door to the control room, and handed in an envelope. Hanna tore it open and read the memo inside. "We're to isolate the Claiborne Prep program," she told Greg. "It's to be listed under something else, and buried; keyword access only. It's signed by Dr. Phllips." She handed Greg the memo. "Why didn't he just send us an email?"

"They can be read by outsiders," Greg replied. "All emails are archived and indexed. A note like this leaves no trace."

"In other words, he's preparing for the worst."

"Looks like it." Greg pulled himself over to his control station and began entering commands. After 20 minutes of work he leaned back and stretched. "Take a look."

Hanna reviewed his work. "I never would have looked for it there," she said at last. "You covered your tracks pretty well, too."

"A really competent tech could find it, eventually," he said. "Did you see the email that just came in, too?"

"Was it addressed to both of us?" She didn't wait for an answer. She pulled herself over to a screen and opened her email. "Go in to the Claiborne Prep part of The Construct? Whatever for?"

"He didn't say. But ours not to reason why."

"Yeah. We'll have to do it while she's here."

Hanna looked at their schedule. "We could do it tomorrow."

"Yeah," Greg said, "I think so. We can leave everything automated for one session. I don't think there'll be a problem."

"Shouldn't be."

They'd both been in The Construct several dozen times. But for the most part those had been established and long-running programs. Today would be only the second time they'd gone into The Construct that was being carried in one person's head.

They started by inserting a message that people from a different school district wanted a tour of Claiborne. By preference, they wanted students, a boy and a girl, so they could get the "Student's Perspective." Cheryl Travis's name had been drawn, as had a boy. Then, when Cheryl was dropped off for her appointment, they both settled in the room where they'd be inserted.

The mechanism looked like a dentist's chair, but with an entire array of sensors that were lowered around their heads. They both took the drink that would relax them for the next two hours, and signaled to the technician that they were ready.

"Ready?" Greg asked.

"Yeah," Hanna replied. "Same old, same old."

Things faded out after that, and...

... Greg was driving a car through the parking lot of Claiborne, looking for a place to park. The roads were icy, and the chains made a thunk-thunk-thunk noise. It was snowing, but not heavily.

Hanna looked around carefully. The distant trees seemed hazy in the snow, as did some of the buildings in the distance. But as she looked, they came into better focus. Greg, she knew, was doing the same thing, trying to take in everything around him.

One of the peculiarities of The Construct was that if it was in one person's head, it was mutable. After a second or a third person experienced it, things began to firm up. It was the basest form of causality around: if the subject wasn't experiencing it, it wasn't happening. Some things, such as infrastructure, weren't quite that way. The mind had put extra effort into 'creating' the background, and it could 'happen' without the principle subject present—though things would be a bit 'hazy' until perceived by another.

"Flat," Hanna murmured as they walked across the parking lot. "And cold."

"I don't even want to guess what the temperature is," Greg said.

They went through the main entrance, and turned right to the offices. The two people behind the desk rose to greet them.

"Greg Lemuir and Hanna Gibbons for our pre-arranged tour," Hanna said, producing her ID.

"Ah, yes." The woman shot them a close look. "Have they told you about our, um, social set-up?" She was a middle-aged woman, a bit overweight, with a round face and a double-chin. She was wearing a dark blue dress with short sleeves, and her hair was like something out of the 1950s.

"We've been told several times," Hanna said. "We're ready."

"All right. But I'll repeat the warning: this could be quite a shock. Follow me, please."

She took them into an adjoining room with lockers and a keycard door that would let them into the school proper. "You'll have to disrobe here," she said. "School policy. When you're ready, I'll open the door for you." She stepped back into the corner to wait.

They both turned partly away from the other and undressed. There was a mirror in the room, and Hanna took inventory: breasts larger and a little higher, waist a little narrower, butt about the same, and hair, definitely the same. This was the avatar she'd developed when she was first introduced to The Construct; she'd just never expected that she'd have to show it off in the raw.

Greg's was the same height, though with a little deeper chest, and little smaller waist. His butt was just a little smaller and tighter—the kind she spend hours watching. She wondered if his cock, she could just see it, was that size in real life. She'd never learned if guys liked to increase their length like women increased their bust size. She wondered how many guys gave thought to increasing their girth as well as their length.

"Ready," Greg said, turning around. He tried to politely avert his eyes from Hanna's body, but he knew this was something he'd probably stick in his dreams: dark red nipples that were sticking out a bit, and a tiny little bush between her legs. She wondered if women consciously thought about down there. It was all caught up in the image a woman had of herself. If she trimmed, it would appear that way on her avatar. If she let it grown 'wild and free' in real life, and he hadn't met a woman who did, then her avatar would be that way, too. Of course the avatar was the idealized vision a woman had of her body, and that had to be kept in mind.

The woman in the dress unlocked the door. It opened on a small hall to the right, then an abrupt turn, and another door.

"Why is it that way?" Hanna asked. She had taken a few seconds to pin her hair back so it no longer hung all over her shoulders.

"That way there is no direct line-of-sight into the school," the woman said. "It's for the privacy of the staff and pupils. Except in an emergency, you can't open both doors at the same time."

Hanna and Greg both nodded. "That makes sense."

The woman handed them keycards to carry on a chain around their necks. The two walked to the other door, waited until they heard the door behind them click, and then used their cards to open the door to the school.

Cheryl was waiting for them, as was a boy. She had her dark hair pinned up, and was smiling, though with a little frown on her face. The boy was Greg's height, with blonde hair and an otherwise average body. He introduced himself as Brian Dixon.

"Oh," Hanna said, looking at the floor. "Radiant heat. I like that."

"I do, too," Cheryl said at once. "Nobody suffers from cold feet here."

"We wanted a tour of the school," Greg said. "We'd seen the physical plans, but it's the students and staff who bring it to life. You don't get that in a dry recitation of facts."