An excerpt, regarding a child’s academic finals-project:

"826 the Physicist looked around and up to where 28 the Mathematician still stood on the railed mezzanine, watching. 'A remake of Paltron’s Curtain?' she called out. 'Is this what you teach your disciples now, Mathematician?'

" 'No,' the other educator replied from the upper walkway, her voice ringing out sharp and clear across the great room. 'This one actually works, Physicist. 12 has apparently fixed Paltron’s errors.'

" 'Fixed them? The Curtain schematic is over 1000 years old,' she easily blustered. 'Why, everybody knows...'

" 'Before you fail the student, Physicist, ask to see her product. Ask many questions, and ask them many times, for you will not believe the first response--and likely not your own eyes, either.'

"Faced with this very public academic challenge, Physicist drew a deep breath, then faced back to 12, slowly nodding her head to the child. She settled herself in a chair, dutifully awaiting the demonstration, and watching the young girl scurry about her device, activating secondary power supplies, shunting data feeds, and generally doing complex, technical--stuff. After five fretful minutes, 12 looked to her grader, and the thing at the grader’s back. Her impish smile could not be contained.

"Hearing the unexpected rustling of foliage at her back, Physicist turned to the small patch of previously nonexistent jungle growth. The scales across her back tightened with a loud clatter, and she quickly leaped across the table to stand at 12’s side. The formerly extinct Talexian jrskan, a flesh-eating wolf-like creature dating from the planet’s pre-colonial days, charged upon the two, leaping high to clear the separating table. Physicist cried out and assumed a defensive posture against the beast, while young 12 merely laughed, and the jrskan vanished from existence."