Infoquake by David Louis Edelman

differently. Unlike most other hives, they had no ges tation and birthing facilities, no counseling staff, and no social programs of any kind. Children came to the Proud Eagle because they had
stretched beyond the boundaries of the traditional hive system and
needed a challenge. The proctors delivered it to them in the form of
ten-hour classes, six days a week. This left very little time for idleness,
boredom or mischief.

    Natch did not miss the infantile games and simplistic moral lessons that had taken up his time at the old hive. Initiation lurked somewhere in his future, but he would deal with that challenge when it
came. He took to his new surroundings like a fish to water and spent
the next several years gulping down knowledge.
    The history proctors taught him about the thinking machines that
had nearly decimated humanity during the great Autonomous Revolt,
about the dark times that followed, and about the golden age of scientific reawakening that Sheldon Surina's discipline of bio/logics had
brought into being. They taught him about the evaporation and consolidation of the ancient nation-states, the rise of the L-PRACGs, the
establishment of the Prime Committee and the Council, the neverending quarrel between governmentalism and libertarianism.
    The ethics proctors taught him about the early religions, how their
influence waned after the dawn of the Reawakening, and how the violent fanaticism of Jesus Joshua Smith drove most of their remaining
adherents into seclusion in the Pharisee Territories. They taught him
about the Surinas' philosophy of spiritual enlightenment through
technology, and about the creeds that had sprung up during the
modern era to preach community and responsibility. They taught him
the tenets of Creed Objectivv, Creed Elan, Creed Thassel, Creed Dao,
and many others.
    The data proctors taught him about Henry Osterman and the
Osterman Company for Human Re-Engineering (OCHRE), about the
microscopic machines carrying Osterman's name that swarmed
through his blood and tissue. They taught him how to summon data agents with a thought, how to run bio/logic programs that interacted
with the machines and supplemented his body's natural abilities. They
introduced him to the vast corpus of human knowledge available on
the Data Sea. They explained to him how Prengal Surina's Universal
Law of Physics allowed scientists to turn grains of sand, droplets of
water, and molecules of air into quantum computers of almost limitless strength.

    The business proctors taught him the basics of bio/logic programming. They showed him the holographic method of programming,
which had long ago supplanted language-based systems of logic. They
discussed the difference between market-driven fiefcorps and publicly
funded memecorps. They put a set of bio/logic programming bars in
his hands and set him loose in MindSpace to demonstrate how to visualize and manipulate logical processes.
    Given the grueling program of study, most of the children couldn't
wait for long weekends and vacations to be with their families. But
Natch had only Serr Vigal to go home to, and Vigal had never acted
like family. The neural programmer treated him like a colleague
instead of an adopted son. When they were not simply ignoring one
another, they were having cordial conversations about current events.
These conversations usually turned into Socratic discussions, with
Vigal feeding him question after question as if skepticism were a form
of dietary fiber.
    I wish I knew something about children, Vigal would chuckle absentmindedly from time to time. But Natch was grateful he didn't. He
looked forward to spending weekends alone at the hive, when all of the
children were gone and Vigal was shuttling around the globe
fundraising.
    For a few years, the Proud Eagle seemed like paradise to Natch. He
tore into his assignments with gusto and asked for more, afraid to take
this opportunity for granted because he knew it