Outside the edge of the city, there were kilometers of farmland, and once they reached the city proper, there would be another full day of travel before they got to where they needed to go, so Darron found the group a modest, yet comfortable inn to stay at for the night.  After several days of walking, Luci had become less concerned about the drones finding them, but now, even in the protection of a large plasteel building, she was feeling more vulnerable. Electronic devices and displays were everywhere, and though her BSI was still turned off, Luci could almost sense the presence of a robust wireless network. As she laid in bed in the darkness and fingered the power button on the back of her neck, it took everything to stop herself from pressing it in.

One of her favorite things to do when she first arrived on a new world was connect to the local world-wide internet and see what unique things could be found there, things that often wouldn't make it into the data packets that were shared with the galactic network. Luci had been on a couple of Aphrodisian worlds before, and found them to be a wholly enjoyable experience. She couldn't imagine what kind of things would be available here, especially after being cut off from the rest of humanity for the past 60 years or so. After spending most of the night tossing-and-turning or staring at the ceiling, she made it a point to look for some personal devices she could use to connect to the internet. It was a far cry from being able to access it on her BSI, but at least it was something.

The next morning, after the group met up to continue their trek, Rosa saw Luci's scowl was looking noticeably less alert than it had been during their journey thus far.

"Restless night?" Rosa asked. Luci answered with a dissatisfied grunt. Rosa laughed. "I don't know what it is, but I'm feeling pretty good! You'd think I would prefer sleeping on cots, sleeping bags, and dirt after what... a decade of living like that. I guess not!"

"I do like cities, honestly," Luci said, "but I was feeling a little..." She glanced over to see Miguel coming out of his room, well within earshot, so Luci adjusted her vocabulary as she continued, "... unfulfilled... without the use of my BSI."

"Ah, I could understand that! Well... maybe not." Rosa laughed again. "I can definitely remember some sleepless nights without Manuel, that's for sure." Rosa's laugh drained completely, and a look of sorrow crept across her face. Luci wasn't sure what to say, so she let the silence linger until they were greeted by Val stepping into the hallway. She also appeared to have had a relaxing night, as difficult as it was for Luci to detect.

"You look pretty chipper this morning," Luci said.

"Do I?" Val responded. "Maybe so... I feel pretty comfortable in cities, I guess. I've always wanted to stay in one."

"Have you ever been to a city before?" Rosa asked.

"Yeah, I didn't live too far from Concordia on Harmonix. I've been to the city a few times. It's where I got my BSI."

"Is that so?" Luci asked. "Have you been having as much trouble as me in keeping it off?"

"Definitely... You haven't given in, have you Luci?" Val raised her eyebrow.

"No. I haven't," Luci said, squinting her eyes at Val. "It's not a contest, you know."

"I understand the risks. That's what makes this 'not a contest' so exciting for me. Though, I'm not sure we would even be able to connect to the network if we tried."

"What do you mean?" Rosa asked.

"I'm not a tech expert, and I suspect Luci isn't much more an expert than I..." Val received a confirming nod from Luci before continuing, "but I suspect that after 60 years apart, the networking technology and how data gets transferred may be wholly different from how it works at home."

"Hmm..." Luci was partly disappointed. She was hoping that maybe, at some point, she would get the all-clear from somebody and could dive into the internet at her leisure. "At least it'll be harder for them to find us."

"Actually..." Val said, "I was wondering about that. Is it possible that whoever it was that destroyed the ship has no idea that we survived? For all they know, we could have been born in the Oasis, right? There wouldn't really be any way for them to know the difference, right?"

"Unless they did a genetic test on you." Darron met the group in the hallway, ready to begin the last leg of their journey.

"Wait... are you guys genetically modified?" Luci asked.

"Yep, it was a necessity if we were going to survive on this planet."

"The spores?" Luci remembered them being mentioned by Lumina when they first landed on Voracia.

"That's right." Darron said. "One of the first things the Benefactors gave us was a modification that allows our bodies to process out the bad shit or whatever. I think pretty much all of us have been born with the gene, except for maybe a few of the original purists."

"How bad is it if we don't get the modification?" Rosa asked.

"Well, uhh... I don't think you can get the modification, it has to be done during gestation, but there is a medication as well that will treat it, if you still go without it, you can probably expect about 15 years until you show symptoms, and then probably a few more years after that."

"I don't imagine those are Earth-standard years?" Luci said.

"Uhh... No... sorry. Voracian years are 251 days," Darron said. He saw the upset look on Luci and Rosa's faces. "Buuut, our days are a little over 27 hours long, if that makes you feel any better."

"Only about 12 percent better..." Val said.

"I suppose we ought to get a hold of the medication as soon as we can." Luci said.

"Once we reach the dome and meet my contact inside, she will be able to help get you some identities, maybe even get your BSI's connected, if that's something you really want."

"Well, unless there are any objections, let's get a move-on." Luci said.

From the edge of Voracity, the horizon was impossible to see, obscured completely by towers that lived up to the word and only grew in size the deeper inside the city they went. Before long, even though it was still morning, the suns-lit sky was a small sliver of everything above them. They would have been in near pitch darkness, were it not for the trillions of LED's from displays on every available surface. On increasingly more displays as they ventured into the heart of the city were provocative images, and the general style of the passersby seemed to be revealing more and more skin. Rosa did what she could to hide many of the sights from Miguel short of physically covering his eyes.

It was quickly becoming clear why many residents in Oasis didn't care for the incredibly open social attitude towards sex that was on clear display throughout the city. Even Luci felt a maternal instinct to shield the boy. Despite her own generally open attitude toward sexuality, it was a bit much for her. She was also starting to feel overdressed from the looks that many passersby were giving. Val, however, had the widest smile Luci had ever seen her put on. She was enjoying herself, but it was clear that she was trying to hide it.

Luci could also see how much Val wanted to walk into nearly every storefront and brothel that they passed, but she was able to refrain, making sure to keep up with the group. Luci had been to large cities before, but none so concentrated. The place was a wonder to the whole group, with exception to Darron, who was the only one who was able to keep his eyes on the path ahead of them.

The day eventually became night, though nobody in the group was able to tell with the glass and plasteel obscuring the entire sky. They had been on a perfectly straight road for kilometers that continued until it disappeared into the neon-lit atmosphere. Then, out from the distant haze, they began to approach what appeared to be a glass wall. It was only when they were at the intersection directly next to the wall that the group was able to make sense of what they were seeing.

They had reached the center of the city, and at it's center was a massive geodesic dome, larger than anything they had ever seen before. Encircled by an immense wall of megatowers, the dome rose up and into the dark sky that they hadn't seen in hours. Due to glare from the innumerable city lights, the sky appeared as a pitch black desolation without a single visible star. Access to the central dome was a bright and beautifully lit pedestrian tunnel. The sustained vertical wind was unexpected, but not unpleasant, as it removed most of the considerable amount of spores they had gathered from the jungle over the past few days.

Inside the dome, it was like another city entirely, while still every bit as high-tech as the city outside. The towering structures had no displays or projections playing ads providing a much cleaner aesthetic. The group noticed a massive reduction in population within Inner Voracity. The streets were much less crowded and the clothing styles were more conservative, but still not without a degree of erotic provocation.

It was another hour before they arrived at the center of the central dome, to a towering spire that rose through the dome. The entrance to the building had a surprising amount of security comprised of primarily armed humans and a few automated turrets. As they approached the security checkpoint in the lobby, Luci was starting to feel quite uncomfortable about the assault rifle slung on her back underneath her jacket, but Darron made a motion with his hands toward a guard who nodded, then guided the group around the checkpoint and through a locked door. Luci was expecting to be taken to an elevator where they would go up the spire, but instead, they entered a non-descript stairwell and descended a few flights. What followed was a maze of corridors leading to other stairwells where they descended further, until they passed another pair of armed guards, this time wearing more casual clothes, but carrying no less powerful weapons.

Beyond the doors they were guarding was a beautiful, multi-story atrium that was filled with a bustling crowd of hundreds. Once inside, the guards left Darron and his visitors to their own devices. Darron navigated the carts and kiosks that littered the atrium floor. They passed by hydroponics facilities stocked with pure Old Earth flora, medical and educational wings, and entered into the offices between the tech lab and the living quarters. They then used an elevator to go to the top office level and finally, they arrived at their final destination, for the moment at least.

The office itself was littered with cables, tools, and electronic devices. At a far corner of the office, an older woman was leaned over the counter, tooling around with a complex piece of machinery. She didn't notice their entrance through the thick augmented reality goggles she was wearing.

"Ladies and gentleman," Darron said, "I'd like to introduce you to Oasis' primary contact in Voracity, and formal leader of the Humanity Purists, Dinara Nikolićeva."

"Hold on..." Dinara said as she continued with her highly technical work without interuption. "Let me get this taken care of, it'll be just a second."

The group stood around idly for a few minutes, only wandering a few steps to take a closer look at some of the tech that was lying around. Finally, Dinara dropped her multimeter probes, removed her soldering gloves and goggles, then turned to the group with a more-or-less genial smile.

"Good morning," Dinara said, "I am Dinara, leader of... did you already do that part?"

"Y-yes, ma'am. It's also evening..." Darron gave her a concerned look. "How long have you been working?"

"I haven't been working. I'm on holiday."

"We're in your office right now..."

"I like my office, alright?" Dinara snapped. "It makes me feel calm, you have a problem with that?"

"Whatever, Din. Just get an hour of sleep, ever?"

"I'll take that under advisement." Dinara said with derision. She moved to another device and continued it's disassembly, but motioned toward the group. "Who are they?"

"They're... not from around here." Darron said.

"What does that mean? Like another hidden village? I told ya! I kept saying, there's gotta be one out there!"

"No, Din, not 'Atlantis 2,' these people are from the Milky Way."

"Bullshit!" Din said. Now they had her attention.

She moved over to the group, meeting Luci first who, naturally, was in the front of the pack. Dinara looked at Luci through skeptical eyes, then reached out and suddenly grabbed her hand. Normally, this was enough for Luci to break somebody's nose, but she fought her fight response, letting Dinara take her hand and bring it up to her face, where she smelled Luci's palm with a deep breath. Already, Luci regretted her decision to hold her punch.

"Wow!" Dinara said. "You're human, all right!"

"There are other ways of telling that, I'm sure." Luci said, holding her hand in the air in disbelief as Dinara moved over to Rosa.

"How did you get here?" She asked. Rosa hesitated, but put out her hands to let the woman smell them. Rosa didn't respond, letting Luci speak for them.

"We were jumping from Harmonix in Lyra to somewhere in Carina-"

"Sorry... I'm not really familiar with those terms." Dinara said, then took a whiff of Rosa's hands.

"They're... uhh... star systems in the Milky Way..." Luci said. Dinara nodded and smiled at Rosa, then moved to Val.

"Okay, that makes sense." Din said. Val was more hesitant to present her hands, but did so after Din gave her a sweet smile and a nod. Din took another deep inhale of her hands. "Whoa..." She said. Val pulled her hands back. "You're not Voracian, but there is something different about you..." Din notices the offended expression starting to appear on Val's face. "It's not a bad thing, just... interesting." She stepped back from the group. "Sorry, I know it's weird but... there aren't many naturally born humans that don't have altered genetics anymore." She looked over at Miguel, who was already lifting his hands, but Dinara motioned for him to stop. "If smelling adult hands was weird enough, I'm not going to put a child through it. That's a little creepy, even for me."

Miguel looked dejected as he put his hands down. There was an awkward pause. Darron pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Alright, Din," he said, "I'm going to go do some stuff in the city. I'll check in with you before I head back." Darron moved past the group to the door, giving them a courtesy wave. "It was nice to meet you all, I hope you get home... 'Til we meet again!"

"Thank you, Darron." Rosa said, her gratitude mirrored by respectful nods from the rest of the group, and in a moment, Darron was gone.

"Anyway..." Din said, turning back to Luci, "please, continue..."

"We were jumping to another system and, well, that's it. We arrived here in orbit. We didn't have control of our ship at first, but we were able to land near the Oasis, but as soon as we left the ship to get some medical help for Miguel there, some drones came in and killed everybody on the ship."

"Drones?"

"That's right... Large, flying drones with very high-caliber kinetic weapons."

"Hmm..." Dinara moved to her desk and picked up a tablet. "None of the drones in the city are equipped with lethal weaponry. At least as far as the public is concerned. There were some in the past... but they weren't equipped with high caliber weapons." She browsed through the menus until she found a list of all the Voracity drone designs, then handed the tablet to Luci, who gathered her companions to browse together.

There several images of each design, but were all conveniently grouped. Most included technical diagrams, as well as digital renders and photos of the model from around the city. Unfortunately, none of the designs were particularly close to the ones that Luci and the others had seen, though they were interested to see the companion model.

"Whoa! They have human robots?" Miguel said as he saw it. Rosa grabbed him, and cupped his eyes as Luci swiped to a nude full-body of a female companion model.

"We do. Or, they do, I guess." Dinara could see the next question on everyone's face. "Yes, there are people who order versions with realistic touch and stuff, but most companions are more for the AI to interface with humans for things that might otherwise be very personal, or would seem strange or upsetting coming from a security or maintenance drone, and really only for those who don't have a Brainstem Interface."

"I see... Well, none of these really appear very similar to the drones we saw, right?" Luci received gestures of agreement from the rest of the group. "Except for some of these massive construction drones, the ones we saw were a bit larger than most of these other ones. But it was at a distance and through trees too, so we didn't get a very good look."

"It sounds like the kind of drones you might have seen would belong to an Old Earth military."

"I imagine this place has never needed a military?" Rosa asked, almost rolling her eyes at how utopic this society seemed to grow every second.

"There was a military during the Influx, as sometimes the newcomers would, understandably, freak out and try to kill everybody and/or themselves. Once the Influx was over and no more people were arriving, there wasn't really a need for it anymore. There were some military bots at the time, but they were repurposed into the security bots and refitted with nonlethal munitions." Dinara leaned over and swiped over to the security drone images. "The weapons they had before were pretty low caliber. 10mm, if I recall."

"Yeah... they aren't very close... Actually... I might have some video of it recorded in my BSI before I turned it off. Do you have any idea if we might be able to connect to any of your devices?" Luci said. Val perked up to hear the information.

"Hmmm... The first step, I think, is to turn your BSI's back on and see if you can't find the network."

"Is... that a good idea?" Rosa asked, placing a hand on Luci's arm.

"That's my question exactly," Luci said. "There was some talk with the council in Oasis. We're still not sure who killed our people, but whoever it was has the resources for flying combat drones and controlling an OTech ship remotely, which I didn't think was even physically possible. The only ones on the planet that seem even capable of something like that would be the AI system here in Voracity, or..."

"The Benefactors?" Din asked. Luci nodded. "I guess... maybe? I mean, I'm no fan of the Benefactors, but I've never heard of them doing anything like that."

"What about... uhh... You called it 'Atlantis 2?'" Rosa asked. Dinara laughed.

"'Atlantis 2' is just a stupid name I came up with for it. I do think it exists, mind you. I think there's one, if not more than one, lost or hidden settlement out there, but I expect them to be cut off from electronic technology, like some of us Purists are, otherwise I think we'd know about them. I never imagined them to have anywhere close to that level of tech, but I suppose anything's possible. The fact is that I have no idea, though. Just a crazy theory."

"Our concern was that whoever it is might be able to detect our wireless signals if we started using our BSI's," Luci said.

"That seems like a valid concern, though I have high confidence that you won't have an issue down here. We have an air-gapped network, and even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be able to connect with Voracity's network through all the plasteel. So... go ahead, flip it on, see if you can find any networks."

With Dinara's go-ahead, Luci and Val reached behind their heads. Luci pressed and held the button on her BSI hub until she saw her digital interface blink into her vision and fill her sight with rapidly scrolling boot data. A soothing tone accompanied the Bell-Westbrook Cybernetics logo, then landed at her primary HUD. She opened her network settings and browsed for networks, but, as they had expected, they were not able to find any.

"Nothing..." Luci said with a subtly demoralized expression.

"Ahh... hmm..." Dinara walked to one of the nearby cluttered counters and pulled out a box from underneath. She sifted through the tangle of cables within the box, "You guys got a... TAC-3 input?" She looked over to see Luci and Val shaking their heads. "Alright... how about a FR-2090?" Again, Luci and Val shook their heads.

"I've got a JCSS-4.4 input?" Luci said. Val pointed to her and nodded in agreement.

"What the... What the hell is that?" Din asked in annoyed confusion. Luci and Val both shrugged their shoulders. "Hmm... I think this is going to be a little bit more complicated than just finding a single cable..."

"What do you suggest?" Luci asked.

"We might be able to have one of you try and find a diagram in your system files, but you'd have to draw it, which can be very tedious, or..." Dinara looked around the room at all the disassembled devices, then looked back at the group with a knowing look, "we can do it the fun way..." Din drew a screwdriver from one of her pockets.

A shiver ran down Luci's spine at the suggestion. She wasn't quite ready for the level of intimacy that would be required to have Dinara disassemble and toy around with the BSI attached to her spinal column. In particular, Luci didn't like how she referred to it as the "fun" way.

"I, uh... I dunno. I think I'd rather do the diagram thing," she said.

"Oh, c'mon! Maybe if I buy you a drink first?"

"Maybe," Luci said with a laugh, "For now, do you think you could settle for guiding me to where I can get a device that connects to the internet?"

"Itching to see what Voracity has to offer?" Din raised an eyebrow and laughed at Luci's discomfort. "Don't worry, just head over to the tech lab and ask someone, they'll get something for you."

"Will you be able to make it work?" Val asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. "Opening up our BSI's, I mean?"

"If you mean 'can I get you connected to the network?' I'm not sure that I can, really, but taking a closer look at your BSI tech would be the best place to start. I know some people who can help, and who would kill to get a look."

"... Kill?" Luci asked. Dinara chuckled.

"Not literally, no! It's an expression! I don't think it originated here on Voracia..."

"Yeah, I know the expression," Luci laughed as well, "I just wanted to be sure you knew the expression." 

"In any case," Din said to Val, "if you'd like me to take a look, I'll gather my tech people tomorrow and see if we can get something working for you."

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Val said. "Where can we go to find a place to sleep for the night?"

"There are plenty of rooms available in the living quarters. Just head over and mention my name at the front desk and they'll find something for you."

"So... what do you think of our situation?" Luci asked.

"Hmmm... It's definitely the most interesting thing that's happened in about 70 years..."

"Do you have any ideas on what we should do?"

"You probably don't want to hear me say 'settle in and stay a while,' right?"

"Not exactly... We were kind of hoping to find a way to return home."

"And where is home?"

"The... uhh... Milky Way?"

"I mean, where exactly?" Din asked. "You said you were trying to jump to... Carnita?"

"Carina, it's a constellation."

"Well, constellations usually have a few different star systems, don't they?" Din asked.

"Yeah... that's true. I guess we didn't really have a specific destination in mind. Our primary concern was leaving Harmonix."

"So, isn't Voracia as good a place as any?"

"Sure... This place is pretty nice, excepting the drones that killed everyone we knew and stranded us here, and the poisonous environment."

"I've got some stuff for the second part. I've stockpiled a lot of medication that was sent to me to help combat the spores, I can go ahead and give it to you. As for the first part... I truly am sorry about that, and I'll do everything I can to help you find out who, or what, is responsible for that, but for now, I'm at a complete loss. I think we might need to bring in some more people to help solve this puzzle."

"How many people?"

"I uh... hmmm... I'm not really sure. Maybe like 4 or 5?"

"I think we should circle back to the concern about who did this, and the possibility that they might still be looking for us. The more people we tell about it, the greater the chances that we could be found."

"That may be true, but I think that at least leaves the city's AI, Oracle, out as the culprit. As you came into the city, you probably saw maybe like 10, 20 people before you got in a cab?"

"Cab? No... we walked..." Luci said. Din stopped fiddling with an exploded watch and looked at her in disbelief. "Yeah... we probably saw, maybe... hundreds of people?"

"Over a thousand." Val said. Dinara blew a frustrated sigh.

"Fucking Darron," she said, shaking her head. "Well, whatever. In that case, then, you've probably been seen by over two thousand cameras that are directly connected to the network at all times, and that's not even including the cameras on buildings, drones, or ads. The Oracle is probably well aware of you."

"Hmm... that's probably true... but are they aware that we are from a ship that just came from the Milky Way? We could reasonably have been from the Oasis from the Oracle's point of view."

"But... why are we trying to remain hidden?" Rosa spoke up, eliciting a look from everyone else in the room. They paused to let her explain further. "Why not let everyone know about us? About our story? You said that nothing like this has happened in seventy years, right? I think you were talking about the last time people came from the Milky Way, but when was the last time drones came from nowhere and killed twenty-four people?"

"That's... never happened before," Dinara said.

"Isn't that something that everyone should know about? The possibility that drones will descend from the sky and massacre you and everybody around you?" Rosa's arguments made sense.

"It's a fair point, but it might be pretty out there to someone who lives with drones and androids, and was even raised by them, which includes like ninety-nine percent of people out there. Even if a lot of them believe you, that's an incredibly frightening thing because, like I just said, there are drones fucking everywhere out there."

"And, what if we do put our names out there," Luci said, "what if everyone does know about us... what if it turns out to actually be the Oracle, or the Benefactors, or some other force we don't know about, and drones do come out of the sky and kill everybody?"

"Okay, now..." Dinara raised her hands, "That's getting a little too sci-fi for me."

"Alright," Luci said, putting her hands on her hips. "Maybe that's a little extreme. I do actually agree with Rosa, though. If we put our names and our situation out there, maybe we'll attract the right kind of attention. People who can help. People who know a bit more about things that we don't."

"Fine, you've convinced me... but I want to at least start with a small group of people and build out our support network from there, including people who can help get your story out without panicking people."

"That sounds good. Any objections?" Luci looked around the room. Val nodded, as did Miguel. "Rosa? Have any questions?"

"Yeah... like a billion, right?" Rosa laughed.

"Well, sure, but how about we go down to the tech lab, grab some tablets, then go find some rooms. We'll freshen up and come back tomorrow to see what's what." Luci looked at Miguel, "Maybe we can even get the kid his own room. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Miguel didn't care to be talked down to, but the prospect of having his own room was exciting to him. He hadn't had a bedroom to himself for years. As they were moving to leave, Val stepped toward Dinara. The rest of the group paused to hear what she wanted.

"Excuse me," Val said, "earlier, you suggested that you were willing to take a look at our BSI's now... is that offer still on the table?" Val's question was met with distinct interest from Dinara.

"Well shit, really?" Din asked. Val nodded. "Whoa okay, for sure!" Dinara grabbed a few tools from around her office then, almost guiding Val by the hand, she moved to the door and opened it. "Well, we're all going to the tech lab, let's go!"

The tech lab wasn't exactly clean. There were parts of machines, circuit boards, and wires everywhere, and at that time of night, there was only one person there, a maintenance technician, desperately trying to return tools to their designated spots. Luci stopped to speak with him, and was, in fact, able to retrieve a few tablets. Luci, Rosa, and Miguel then split with Val and Dinara, who went deeper into the lab to find an operating table.

Once in their rooms, Luci, Rosa, and Miguel connected their tablets and began browsing the Humanity Purist's ethernet. Where they may have been expecting a more repressed version of what might be on the Voracity internet, they were surprised to find much of the Voracian views on sensuality were still pervasive. Luci wouldn't be distracted. Yet.

She was after all the information she could find about the Benefactors. Fortunately for her, all the information about the Benefactors online was a lot of information. Websites that collected their posts were the most visited websites on the ethernet, even above porn, if only just. The Benefactors had tens of thousands of posts in disciplines ranging from health, to robotics, to agriculture, psychology and philosophy. The posts were simultaneously published in over three thousand languages, primarily in text, with the occasional image or animated diagram.

Every single post they made had thousands of comments that were mostly memes, trolls, and people asking the Benefactors for things. Sometimes petty trinkets, other times, for their dead loved ones to be returned, but most commonly, people were asking, praying even, for a chance to win the Beneficiary program. That was another rabbit hole that Luci went down.

Many people talked about it. It was something that everybody wanted, and it wasn't hard to find videos of the lavish gala with full production values, even offering BSI recordings to allow the user to feel as if they were there themselves. Musicians, politicians, sex icons, and influencers of all kinds attended the events. When a winner is drawn, a celebrant party is sent out to retrieve the winner and record the reactions when they are told. Luci found the ones where the people are woken up from a deep sleep the funniest. Even when the videos started out humiliating for the winner, as the most popular ones were, the winner is always smiling and ecstatic to go to the Beneficiary's resort.

Descriptions of the resort itself were very few and far between. In official advertisements, it was always described the same way.

"Become a Beneficiary and taste life without need or want, or join the Benefactors, and make paradise last forever!"

Luci looked for testimonials from winners who returned from the Beneficiary's resort. Every winner stated that it was a lifechanging experience, and their words were evidenced by a complete shift in their persona after their visit to the resort. Most often, they become seclusive, preferring to spend the majority of their time in BSI recreations of their visit.

It was a wonder to Luci how much more idyllic a place could be to anyone who lived here. Even the Humanity Purists didn't exactly seem discontent with their life here. And how unsatisfied could a person be when they can go anywhere and do anything with a BSI already. Nonetheless, the secrecy about what happens at the resort only made people want to visit that much more. It was working on Luci as well. All that was required is the user must have a Brainstem Interface, freely available to anyone who can pass a self-awareness and competency exam, the pass rate of which was near one-hundred percent by age five.

The availability of BSI implants in Voracity was incredible to Luci. She was still worried about the possibility of being found by whatever force brought them to the planet and tried to kill them, but the fact that it was so ubiquitous likely meant that getting her BSI working, or getting a replacement entirely, might be within the cards for her.

The last thing Luci did before finding sleep was browse some of the more explicit websites on the ethernet. Morning came in the blink of an eye. Luci had to commend the environmental engineers for somehow accurately representing daylight through LEDs. When she was up, she first headed to Din's office, but was only able to find a note on her door saying that she will be in after a few more hours. It was the perfect opportunity to explore the Atrium, specifically the food vendors, where she met up with the rest of the group as they did the same.

Unfortunately, Val and Din didn't make too much progress the night before, beyond removal of the outer plate and some basic imaging. She said that Din had some administrative duties to perform, and was told that they are free to go topside, and that their devices would be able to guide them to wherever they wanted to go. They were excited to see what the central dome looked like during the day, and had just enough time to visit a proper Voracian art festival just outside the dome.

The festival was booming, with thousands of people viewing exhibitions of all kinds. Luckily, they had separated most of the erotic elements into their own sections, so Rosa had the opportunity to explore with Miguel. It was clear to everyone that the art was a rich blend of influences from Old Earth cultures, but also had distinctly unique and original styles as well.

At some point, Miguel had snuck away from his mother in order to find some of the explicit exhibitions and was pleasantly surprised at what he was able to find. Luci, however, didn't let the boy leave her sight, and made sure that he returned with her when it was time. As Val had promised, they were easily able to find their way back to the Humanity Purists. Luci and Miguel met up with Val at the office.

Rosa, however, was nowhere to be found.