Seek expertise.

Dr. Chambers looked at Madison skeptically. "Nitrogen?"

She nodded, hands in her lap. She was sitting across from the chair of the Yetzirah Department in his office. He was a brilliant Yetzologist, but infamously impatient with students.

"Obviously, the soil composition itself wouldn't change the golem's behavior. I suppose in some climates, different chemicals might react differently to different conditions, but I've never heard of that happening. Have you observed this personally?"

"Not exactly," Madison replied. He studied her suspiciously.

"And you're a student in the math department, correct? Why are you so curious about golems?"

Madison was prepared for his question. "Since I work for the Yetzirah department, people ask me about golems a lot. My cousin is considering studying golems when he graduates next year and he had the idea to try different soil types to see what effects they might produce."

"I'm always glad to see a young person take an interest in Yetzirah," Dr. Chambers replied. He stood and walked to his bookshelf. "Golems are very misunderstood in popular conception. People liken them to electronics, but that's a vast oversimplification."

Madison nodded. She understood that Dr. Chambers liked to condescend at length to undergrads; that was the price of his expertise. He took out a small case and fiddled with it.

"A golem is a thing, you see. A program is an algorithm, an abstraction that need not be tied to any specific physical object. Men like Alonzo Church and Alan Turing understood that computers are to programs what telescopes are to stars. Golems are different, though. Without a golem a script is nothing but consecrated paper, and without a script a golem is simply consecrated dirt."

"But why would the chemical composition of that dirt matter?" Madison asked innocently. She was trying to steer the conversation without trying the professor's patience too much.

"First principles," Dr. Chambers chuckled as he sat down with the case and opened it. It was filled with small white plastic containers. "The clay is everything to the script and the script is everything to the clay. If you have a question about one, you need to ask the other."

"But the golem doesn't-"

"You don't need to ask the golem," he interrupted as he laid out two of the odd white containers. "You need to ask the script. Golems can deceive or be deceived. Golems can even be modified to behave differently with modifier scripts."

He opened the containers and Madison glanced into them. "For example, take these two modifier scripts. This one," he said as he held one in his left hand, "compels a golem to acknowledge its true nature. But you already deduced that, didn't you?"

"Of course," Madison said nonchalantly. "Because I'm a golem."

"Of course," he repeated. "A very common script. This one, on the other hand, I wrote myself. The mistake many make when dabbling with golems is to make broad, sweeping changes that are immediately noticeable. You've become rather fond of another student lately, I've noticed."

Madison blushed. "Yeah, my boyfriend Ross and I are getting pretty serious."

Dr. Chambers smiled magnanimously. "How lovely! And you've only been an item for less than a month, no?"

"That's right," she said. "It's because he gave me a new script."

"Of course he did," the professor said. "Very clumsy work. Better to make just a tiny, tiny change. I don't need your love or your slavish obedience, dear."

"Oh, good," Madison said with genuine relief. "So what does the script do?"

"It simply places my wellbeing, success, and life at the top of your list of priorities. Right now, there is nothing in this world more important than ensuring that I get what I want, is there?"

"Absolutely not," Madison replied immediately.

Dr. Chambers closed his office door behind her and came back around the desk. His smug grin had taken on an air of menace.

"Good. Now it's time to continue our conversation."