ThirtyI spent the next few hours exploring my new apartment, a huge place, with more rooms than I could ever use. My wardrobe was full of new, neatly pressed clothes, the gadgetry was all up-to-date, everything working smoothly and seamlessly. On accessing my computer files, I learned the Academy had accepted me. My programming would begin in one week's time. One week! Was that how much time I had left at being plain old Simeon Allis? Because I knew, beyond any doubt now, that once I stepped into the virtual classrooms of the Academy my life would change forever, perhaps even my ability to think rationally, for myself. I'd be reconfigured. Instinctively I felt the scar behind my head and frowned. There was something not quite right about it, even now, after all their tampering and refittin
