Accelerando, page 289 by Charles Stross
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She forks a ghost, demonstrates a transient other-Amber in a refrigerated tank rolling across the Slug's backyard, crushing coral and hissing and clanking noisily. "You'd be like this."
"Your reality is badly constructed, then," the Slug points out.
"It's not constructed at all, it just evolved, randomly." Amber shrugs. "We can't exercise the same level of control over the underlying embedded context that we can over this one. I can't simply magic you an interface that will let you bathe in steam at three hundred degrees."
"Why not?" asks the Slug. Translation wetware adds a nasty, sharp rising whine to the question, turning it into a demand.
"It's a privilege violation," Amber tries to explain. "The reality we're about to enter is, uh, provably consistent. It has to be, because it's consistent and stable, and if we could create new local domains with different rules, they might propagate uncontrollably. It's not a good idea, believe me. Do you want to come with us or not?"
"I have no alternative," the Slug says, slightly sulkily. "But do you have a body I can use?"
"I think -" Amber stops, suddenly. She snaps her fingers. "Hey, cat!"
A Cheshire grin ripples into view, masked into the domain wall between the two embedded realities. "Hey, human."
"Whoa!" Amber takes a backward step from the apparition. "Our friend here's got a problem, no suitable downloadable body. Us meat puppets are all too closely tied to our neural ultrastructure, but you've got a shitload of programmable gate arrays. Can we borrow some?"
"You can do better than that." Aineko yawns, gathering substance by the moment. The Slug is rearing up and backing away like an alarmed sausage: Whatever it perceives in the membrane seems to frighten it. "I've been designing myself a new body. I figured it was time to change my style for a while. Your corporate scam artist here can borrow my old template until something better comes up. How's that?"
"Did you hear that?" Amber asks the Slu