Classes resumed in the afternoon.

  The schedule however, was not demanding, with the afternoon’s class time being dedicated to individual introductions and icebreakers, questions about physical life and conversations about general concerns and worries regarding the project and its difficulties.

  Cecil’s mood hadn’t improved. He’d spent most of lunch sat in silence, barely aware of or partaking in the conversations around him. That mood had lingered into the afternoon classes as he now sat at his back row desk, deep in thought, oblivious to the lesson taking place.

  Clarity now revealed how deeply inadequate he had begun to feel ever since the day he’d been fished from the tank.

  Little things and small moments had begun to add up. His inability to find the right words in social situations, the lack of courage that often prevented him from speaking the words that he could find, and the disparity between his own resolve and that shown by his peers.

  Falling behind. Lacking. A liability. Timid and weak.

  Restless melancholy lay upon him like a shroud as resolutions danced beyond his reach.

  He longed to return to the tank. Yet he also longed to be capable.

  At the front of the classroom Ms Amelie answered a second floor student's questions about hunger.

  It was just a panic attack. He chastised himself from deep within his own thoughts. You’ve had them before, why are you letting this one get to you so badly?

  Why indeed?

  Because I don’t want to let her down.

  The answer came immediately, surprising him.

  When had he started to think about Yaeh in this way?

  They’d only lived together for a few days, but he realised now that he already felt a genuine sense of loyalty and responsibility towards her. She was his partner.

  He clenched fists beneath his desk

  You don’t want to hold Yaeh back? Then get stronger.

  Cecil nodded to himself, embracing the sudden resolve.

  Unnoticed, Yaeh watched him from the corner of her eye.

  Perhaps because he had just been thinking about her, Cecil turned absentmindedly to glance at his partner and was roused from his contemplations when they met eye to eye.

  The unexpected connection startled him and he instinctively glanced away. However, this time, he felt a reflexive frustration at the habit.

  Before he had time to lose his nerve, he seized his new resolution and turned to Yaeh again, deliberately. She was still looking at him and he thought he saw concern in her expression. Exactly what he wanted to avoid.

  Through deliberate effort, Cecil maintained eye contact for longer than he thought he ever had done before.

  Yaeh mouthed silently to him, “You Ok?”

  Cecil, who was starting to feel more in control of himself by the second, nodded slowly, as he realised that, yes, he was Ok.

  “Yeah, you?” He mouthed back to his partner.

  Yaeh’s eyes flicked up and to the side for a moment as she considered the question. Then responded with a firm thumbs up.

  Cecil smiled fondly at the gesture. It may as well be her trademark.

  They turned back to face the front.

  That wasn’t so bad. Cecil thought. It had been stressful, but not too stressful.

  He wanted to master these nervous instincts. Avoiding eye contact, answering questions as quickly as possible and panicking whenever too much attention came his way.

  What was it Aeon had said? Anything can become normal if you do it often enough? Something like that.

  He intended to put that philosophy to the test.

  By the time classes were finished and the third-floorers rode the campus tram back towards their dormitory, Cecil’s internal conflicts felt settled and his anxious energy had dissipated.

  “Do we wanna do something together tonight?” Sana asked. She sat perched on the guard rail of the automatic and unmanned small vehicle to let a gentle breeze catch her hair as they travelled.

  “Like what?” Isla asked, who sat with legs crossed on one of the passenger seats.

  “We could play around with the cosmetic mask and try out some new looks, maybe print out some new clothes?” Sana suggested cheerfully.

  “That would be nice!” Lulu encouraged.

  “That works out, I want to cut my hair shorter, we can get the mask to do it.” Aeon agreed. “And I want to cook some food for us.”

  “Let’s go to Cecil and Yaeh’s for a change, they have the printer anyway.” Sana suggested.

  Yaeh looked to Cecil. She didn’t type anything to say, so it seemed as though she was leaving the decision to him.

  “Um-” Cecil started, then immediately felt irritated by the vocal crutch that had escaped. He cleared his throat and began again more assertively. “Yeah. That’s fine by me as long as Yaeh is Ok with it too.”

  He spoke clearly and maintained eye contact with Sana via deliberate effort.

  Cecil was surprised by how little effort that actually was.

  Yaeh smiled and nodded to the group with a big thumbs up.

  “Settled then.” Sana declared happily, returning the thumbs up.

  Conversation lulled for a moment as the tram paused to let off and let on other students at a predesignated stop.

  The aerodome was closed today as this section of the sprawling cloud-city was passing through a patch of acid clouds.

  Cecil gazed up at the acid resistant polymer dome and the hazy yellow clouds of sulphuric acid that passed outside of it.

  The sun that shone behind bathed the whole campus in acrid yellow light.

  As so often was the case, it was very easy to forget the sheer violence of the planet below them as Venus City gracefully rode the skies above.

  They said that it was impossible for the gargantuan cloud-city to fall.

  Built upon enormous sealed chambers of Helium-4 that required no energy or machinery to operate.

  In the worst case scenario, such as a catastrophic energy grid failure, the city would simply drift across the planet freely upon natural wind currents.

  Without the upward thrust from the wind sails and propulsion engines, the city would fall to a lower and denser point in the atmosphere, no lower than two atmospheres of pressure before stabilizing, but two atmospheres of pressure wasn’t hazardous to humans.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Nothing short of a sustained and targeted attack that could breach the floatation chambers would sink the city. But as many pointed out, if any faction had the means and intent to do such a thing, it would be far easier to simply nuke the city instead.

  The way it was told was that the He-4 chambers were so well sealed that if humanity abandoned the city tomorrow, the empty metropolis would continue to float upon the clouds of Venus for tens of millenia or more before wind erosion eventually breached the final chamber and the last section of the city plunged into the high pressure furnace of the planet’s surface where it would be slagged within an hour.

  It was the kind of day for such thoughts as Cecil stared out at the acidic sky.

  The tram passed by one of the dormitory buildings and Cecil noticed that two students appeared to be having some kind of argument on a balcony attached to the building.

  Huh, our dorms don’t have balconies. Cecil mused, then noticed that the whole layout of the building was different than their own, reminding him of a large house more than a dorm.

  The students were well dressed and looked healthy, and Cecil almost had the impression that they were older somehow. Perhaps an effect of their completed puberty? Were they second or third years?

  “Woah guys look.” Sana whispered loudly to the group and pointed at the balcony as subtly as she could. “I bet that’s a breakup!”

  As Cecil watched the figures, the girl of the pair seemed to notice the passing tram and the small crowd of first year students that were watching the scene. She shoved the other figure backwards and stormed back into the house as the tram rounded the building and it began to recede, blocking the view of the balcony.

  “That was awesome! Like a media film!” Sana commented happily.

  Isla scowled, purposefully looking at the other side of the street.

  “What are you gonna cook today?” Sana called towards the kitchen area.

  “Chicken… somethings.” Aeon replied, consulting the recipe on his tablet. “How do you say this word?” He asked, offering his tablet towards Lulu who sat in her chair next to him.

  Lulu cleared her throat, inspecting the word.

  “Go-johns?” She offered uncertainly.

  “Chicken go-johns!” Aeon called back. “We’re going Full Protein Mode so get used to lots of this chicken stuff.”

  “Aeon, what on Venus is “Full Protein Mode?” Isla asked in exasperation.

  “What it sounds like. Duh.” Came the impetuous response. “I’m loading all of our diets up with as much protein as possible so we can fill out and stop looking like nasty little goblins.”

  “Oh god, I wish you’d stop calling us that.” Lulu laughed. “We don’t look that bad.”

  “Well, I don’t look that bad because I’m a beast, naturally. But the rest of you…” Aeon teased.

  “Where do they keep all the chickens?” Sana mused. “I dunno if I’m cool with eating any more animal stuff, those eggs were disgusting and like, don’t they have to kill the animals to get the meat out of them?”

  Yaeh perked up and hopped onto her knees next to Sana on the sofa as she wrote a message.

  “There are no chickens on Venus. Well maybe some somewhere but that’s not where we get our chicken meat and eggs, it’s all lab grown.” The tablet read.”

  “Yaeh says it’s all lab grown.” Sana relayed to the group.

  “Oh yeah, well that would make sense.” Cecil added. “I mean, they cram humans into pods and stack us up in warehouses because space is so tight in this city. There’s no way anybody could afford to build a farm.”

  Sana thought Cecil seemed a little different today. Still nervous, but he seemed to be making more of an effort to join in on conversations. Good for him.

  “Well, the protein thing sounds good to me.” Isla declared. She still looked super pissed off, but Sana supposed that was understandable. She was dying to know more about what went down with Lanc but didn’t want to be the one to bring it up.

  “Ok, I suppose I’ll eat it too then. Like, when we put on weight and do the puberty thing, we will look like the older students, right?” Sana asked eagerly.

  “In theory.” Cecil replied with a nod.

  Sana almost bounced on the sofa she was so excited.

  There were a lot of things about living physical that sucked. The withdrawal for one. Everything tasting like crap for another. And not being able to talk to her girlfriend who was still plugged in was probably the worst of it.

  But Sana couldn’t help but feel excitement at the idea of having a real body for once, and having it grow and change in new ways that belonged to her.

  She’d always felt a disconnect with her Plugnet avatar, often changing styles, outfits, base models and proportions, searching for something that she could never find. Authenticity.

  For Sana, the pursuit of some ideal representation of her “inner self” had led nowhere. Nothing had stuck. Every avatar had left her with the same sense of “emptiness.”

  But her flesh and blood body? It was effortlessly authentic. Truly hers in a way no avatar ever could be. She’d been born with it and she’d die with it.

  The previous night, after Hereon had passed out in his commandeered bedroom, she’d spent over an hour in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at her body.

  It was gaunt, frail and imperfect, but she loved it. And she couldn’t wait for it to get hotter.

  Makeup, fashion, exercise, puberty. She’d use any tool she could find.

  “So where’s the makeover helmet thing?” She asked Yaeh, unable to wait any longer.

  Yaeh hopped off the sofa and went to fetch the device. She seemed almost as eager as Sana. Did Yaeh also want a new look?

  The petite girl returned carrying the bulky white device in both hands.

  “Time to see what this baby can do. Would you like to go first Yaeh?” Sana asked.

  Yaeh waved her hands to indicate a no.

  “Are you sure? I’d love to help you pick out a new hairstyle if you like! I reckon bangs would suit you really well, and your pink hair is so cute you should do something with it. Is it your natural colour?” Sana gushed, leaning in as she spoke.

  Yaeh only recoiled slightly from the attention, tugging subconsciously on an uneven strand of lilac hair.

  “It’s not pink. It’s like… purple kinda.” Isla noted, listening to the conversation passively.

  “It’s lilac.” Cecil corrected, prompting an eager nod from Yaeh. “Is it natural though Yaeh? I have to admit I’m curious about that too.”

  Yaeh nodded again and wrote on her tablet to explain.

  “Yeah, it’s natural. A genetic modification introduced somewhere back along my geneline. Same as your eyes Isla, and those gold highlights in your hair Sana. I think Cecil's hair colour might be a modded gene too but I’m not certain.”

  “Oh, my eye colour is a gene mod?” Isla asked, surprised.

  Yaeh nodded.

  “What if we just look at some hairstyles for you Yaeh, and then if you don’t like any we don’t have to pick one.” Sana suggested, getting back on topic.

  Yaeh considered, then eventually gave a small nod of approval.

  Sana clapped her hands excitedly and plonked the helmet onto Yaeh’s head in a single quick motion before she had time to change her mind.

  The exterior photopanels on the device came to life and projected a “see through” image effect of Yaeh that made it seem like the girl was wearing a glass bowl on her head.

  “Ok, let’s see what we can find. Ah, here we go, here are the controls.” Sana lilted as she accessed the exterior touch screen.

  Sana began to flick through hair styles and as she did so, the photopanel display provided an incredibly high definition 3D vision of Yaeh with each style.

  The difference between the professional salon quality styles and Yaeh’s naturally messy hair was profound.

  “Woah.” Sana muttered under her breath. “I’m actually so jealous of your hair, what the hell! Everything looks good with this colour.”

  Beneath the mask, Yaeh shifted self-consciously, unused to the attention.

  “Can this thing make your hair longer?” Isla asked as she watched with interest.

  “Yeah- Yaeh don’t nod, you're jostling it! Yeah, kinda but it’s just extensions, it can't grow out your natural hair.” Sana explained

  “Well, she only has shoulder length hair right now so it might be best to find something that doesn’t need extra steps and keep it around that length?” Isla proposed.

  “I agree, and she really suits some of these shorter styles!” Sana nodded.

  The display of Yaeh face betrayed that she had started to blush, which Sana enjoyed.

  “What about this one?” Sana asked, selecting a style called “Pixie Cut - C.”

  Inside the helmet, the interior display provided Yaeh with a wrap around view of the hairstyle on her head.

  She turned to Cecil to gauge his reaction.

  Sana noticed. So cute! She thought to herself in delight and a grin appeared on her face.

  Cecil looked at the style hesitantly, but didn’t react.

  Not good enough then, don’t worry girl I’ve got you.

  Sana flicked through a few more styles, more slowly than before. Keeping an eye on Cecil while she did so. He was watching intently.

  She landed on “French Bob - J - Wavy” and lingered for a moment. It was perfect. She looked at Cecil and his eyes had widened slightly.

  “What about this one Cecil?” Sana asked, sly as a cat with a smug grin on her face.

  “Oh, um.” Cecil cleared his throat. “Yeah. That one looks really good!”

  He tried not to blush as his hand covered his mouth defensively. Cute!

  “What do you think Yaeh? Do you like it?”

  Yaeh nodded slowly which caused the helmet to knock against Sana’s shoulder softly.

  “Oh, YAY! Ok then Yaeh, when you’re ready, fire away.” Sana declared gleefully.

  Yaeh’s hand went up to access the holographic interface that only she could see. Her hand hesitated for a moment, then she tapped the air.

  The machine began to do its work. From the outside, Sana could hear parts moving on the inside and the sound of hair being cut.

  After only two minutes, Yaeh took the helmet off.

  The machine had recreated the selected style perfectly. Not only that, but Yaeh’s hair shone with a healthy look that it didn’t have before.

  Yaeh and Cecil shared a look, then they both immediately looked away from each other blushing.

  Cute! Cute! Cute! Sana thought with delight.

  “Holy hells. That’s incredible.” Isla said in astonishment. She rose to her feet and walked over to Yaeh. “My turn!”

  Isla took the cosmetic mask from Yaeh who went to a mirror to inspect her new hair more closely. Isla placed the device onto her head without hesitation.

  “Do you know what you want?” Sana asked hopefully.

  “Yeah. Sorry Sana, no window shopping for me.” Isla replied, her hands going up to access the interface as the photopanel display came back online to reveal the false image of her head.

  Sana watched silently as Isla selected extensions, hair straightening and sprinkled in a handful of stark white highlights.

  Once Isla had selected all of the options she wanted she examined her hair closely, then pressed the invisible button in the air to commence the styling.

  Minutes later she removed the helmet and a cascade of silky, mirror-like black hair tumbled from the helmet. It fell to her waist, which at Isla’s height, was a significant length.

  “Hey! Don’t hog all of the extensions, the refills aren’t free Isla.” Sana chided half-jokingly. “That look is sulphuric though, nice choice.

  Isla swished her hair revealing the white highlights that streaked through the layers of her long black hair, a small smile on her face.

  “You know that one media we watched last month Sana. The Mars one with the creepy girl that had a ghost in her neural implants.” She asked.

  “Oh yeah, we picked the black wedding dress as her final outfit in the last act.” Sana remembered.

  “Yeah. I looked up the style that the actress was wearing in it. It’s called goth. I’m going to dress like that!”

  “Nice.” Sana approved. “A breakup is always a good time for a style change.”

  “Exactly.” Isla nodded sagely.

  “Hey, what’s that smell?” Cecil asked, sniffing the air distractedly.

  The others paused to smell the air too. Sana could vaguely detect something acrid.

  “Hot sauce, brother!” Aeon called from the kitchen. “It’s making my eyes water! Haha, how cool is that? I’m cooking the “gonjohns” in it. The guy at the food store said this “hot sauce” stuff is good for people just out of the tank because it has a strong taste.”

  Lulu began to cough as pungent, spicy air filled the kitchen.

  “AEON! WHAT THE FUCK? IS THIS POISON?” Isla screamed at the dinner table, eyes watering.

  Cecil coughed violently at the corrosive pain in his throat and on his tongue. He’d only eaten one goujon!

  Sana wailed and ran to the bathroom.

  Lulu looked around the room, then slowly lowered the goujon she’d just been about to eat.

  “What do you mean? They’re good!” Aeon protested, his voice straining as he ate another of the contaminated chicken strips. Fluid streamed from his eyes and nose.

  “PAIN! CECIL! PAIN IN MOUTH! HELP!” Yaeh’s tablet read, the screen smeared with red sauce from her coated fingertips. Her eyes were puffy and she was crying miserably.

  Cecil wished he knew how to help, for his own benefit too.

  “Water!” He decided and took Yaeh by the hand. They ran to the kitchen.

  “AAA, OH FUCKING HELL DON’T TOUCH YOUR EYES! OH MY GOD!” Isla yelled in pain. She kneeled on the floor wiping at her eyes with a curtain.

  “Why not?” Aeon asked, rubbing his own eyes with red stained fingers. Seconds later his yelling joined Isla’s.

  “AEON YOU SLABHEADED PRICK I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!” Isla screamed on the floor next to Aeon who was rolling around in agony.

  As the only one left at the table, Lulu began to laugh.