"Yeah.  What's your updated eval for where they fall on the scale of evil versus just weird and incompetent?"

"I'm pretty stably at 'weird and incompetent' - helps that you aren't simulating people, actually - but they could be intractably weird and incompetent, which is much like being evil."

"Totes mcgoats.  By 'intractable', do you mean - do you think that would be shaped more like it not being safe to have them help with anything, or like it being impossible to deter them from trying to 'help'."

"...little of column A, little of column B. Their species, if they are to believed not to be an outright pathological liar, subsists on making art; they seem to be irregular in what forms of media they appreciate but it does make giving it up a slightly different proposition than telling somebody intent on sprucing up their college applications to cut it out with the haphazard voluntourism."

"How - receptive to feedback, did they seem in general?"

"I didn't have much cause for complaint till you appeared on the scene but I wasn't, like, spending a lot of time on vampire project critique."

She nods.  " - Did you mean something non-obvious by the fact it helped that the simulations aren't people?  Like beyond that it's obviously evil to allow thinking beings to be made and harmed and destroyed that easily, and they didn't do that."

"They didn't do that and it could be that they exerted effort to not do that, though I don't know, it could also be that it would have been like so by default."

"Mmhm."  She checks her phone.  "How 'very poof' is computer brain surgery; it's kind of late for me and I don't know whether it's the sort of thing you have to rest after, or if you shouldn't sleep right after it or - anything like that."

"Assuming vampires are like humans, you will experience no discomfort or side effects, though you will have to train your computer on how you think before you can use it and will experience ongoing performance improvements over time in general and per software application."

"Nifty."

"Chiplocks are a good invention. Do you have a preference between Nechar and the infirmary lady for who spots you?"

"Infirmary seems more the thing, wouldn't you say?"

"In principle yes, but Nechar has healing powers and is far more able to hold a conversation."

"Well now I'm curious, but maybe mostly not in a way where I'm inspired to put my life in her hands."

"Supposedly the infirmary is categorically adequate the way security is. Up to you, lead the way."

She heads for the infirmary.

"Show me where you're hurt," says a middle-aged woman in the infirmary wearing a blue dress.

"Wait a moment please," Cam tells her. "Ready?" he asks Judy.

"Yep."

He hands her a computer like his. The infirmary lady regards them patiently. After a beat, he tells the infirmary lady, "Thank you," and holds the door for Judy.

"Thanks," she echoes, and walks through.  Directed at Cam: "And to you too."

"No problem. Computer's loaded up with an English-language tutorial when you turn it on. It's that switch."

"Swell.  And is there a - leg?  Catalog?"

"You want a catalog leg as opposed to just the mirror image of your live one?"

"I've already come around to being a cyborg and I think I'll like it even more with cool future legs, even if they aren't that cool comparatively.  And also in the event that I have to go back with any sort of masquerade still up I don't really want to have to either explain a new one or take it off again."