Priya dropped to the ground against the wall next to the doors of the church, grabbing at strained breaths. Spotted. A human among the optimizers, what was she thinking? Yet where she sat, she continued ruminating on Father Clever’s words. Pure Illusion. The certainty. For every terror that came about being an organic creature in the optimizer church, she found a balancing urge, a gnawing need, to understand what they did.

The knowledge that these machines could envision their perfection.

She pressed her ear against the door, hoping to hear more- but the sound was ultimately drowned out as it carried through the distance and material between the two. Leaning back against the old bricks, once forgotten by the humans who set them, she stewed on the questions. The possibilities. The nerve to walk back inside after being spotted. What would she ask if she could have the chance?

But as the moments passed into minutes and the minutes drowned away into hours, and she found herself less certain than ever and more far from answers, eventually the doors would open and the flood of followers would pour forth from it. She turned away as they passed to avoid attention, and after some time when she was confident that the crowd had cleared, she turned back to the doors, and stepped inside to a much emptier hall.

There only Father Clever remained, shuffling through the aisles of seats and collecting the drives left tucked into the back of each. “Just gathering the drives with the community readings for the day,” he commented, seeing her reenter. “Do you need anything?”

Priya shuffled her feet at the entrance. “I was hoping I could talk to you about optimizer faith,” she said, trying her best to make sure the words came out direct and without uncertainty.

Father Clever finished gathering the drives. “I see. Would you mind following me to my office?”



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