Once every couple of hours or so, a Fist would come into this closet and 
order the M.C. to create something, usually a simple bulk substance like 
rations. On two of these occasions, Nell was outraged in the manner she had 
long
suspected was inevitable. She closed her eyes during the commission of these 
atrocities, knowing that whatever might be done to the mere vessel of her soul 
by the likes of these, her soul itself was as serene, as remote from their 
grasp, as is the full moon from the furious incantations of an aboriginal 
shaman. She tried to think about the machine that she was designing in her 
head, with the help of the Primer, about how the gears meshed and the bearings 
spun, how the rod logic was programmed and where the energy was stored.