Dyssia stops.

She stops. She stares.

And with a hoot, she starts to laugh! To laugh uproariously, tears in her eyes, laughs like a child!

Because she's wrong! She's wrong, and the Azure Skies are wrong, and in a single instant it's like seeing--

It's seeing a cart rolling along on a set of round wheels after building nothing but square wheels your entire life!

"Biomancy!" she gasps, in between a fit of giggles and a gasp of air. "Biomancy could never!"

Not cooperation as the Pix know it! Not as a result of competition, a form of excellence, everyone striving to fit the same ideal! Not cooperation as the result of fear, or coercion, or pheromones, or instincts, or--

It's strange! It's glorious! It's looking at a society and realizing that all along, what you thought was the peak of scientific ability was actually a whisper of a shade of an echo of the real thing! Iron skin and titanium lungs and synthetic muscles, all of it worthless in the face of--

People, everywhere, being different and having different skills and choosing, every single one, to give nothing more or less than anything they can, because it's right and it's helpful and that's a good enough reason! From each according to their ability, to each according to their need!

It's humbling and amazing to realize that after all this time, she *still* has so much to learn! She could spend the rest of her life here learning--what was it called? A daily affirmation of the way?--

But first! First, Nero needs to be stopped!