"What's with the unusual choice of music today?" Ray asked as she entered the class room.

She flung her bag on a desk and went over to her usual rig, preparing it for use while I finished the setup of the simulation. We had an unspoken agreement that whoever came first got to pick the soundtrack and mission for the day.

"I don't really know, I'm just in the mood for classical music," I said with a shrug. "Is it bad?"

"Not at all. It just sounds... unusually melancholic, even for you," she noted, as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata began to play.

I had been meeting with Ray every weekend ever since my special training for the Agalma project had begun, to make up for missing some of my classes. And while the project was now officially over, we had both retained the privilege to come to the room and use the rigs, so we had decided to continue our weekend training regime. After all, finals were just a few weeks away, and any extra training would certainly come in handy.

Ray and I made quite a good team, and she always had my back in training missions. Through our time together in the months she probably knew me better than most other people, except for Moon and Bastion. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised that she was apparently able to read me like an open book by now.

"Is it because of what happened yesterday?" she started, and looked over at me with a serious expression through the tangled cables of her rig.

"Yesterday?" I feigned ignorance.

"What happened at the Colosseum. Do you want to talk about it?"

Actually I didn't even want to think about it. After Moon and I had returned from our little adventure at the hangar, I had tried to focus on some overdue homework and studying, but I had found it hard to concentrate. All I wanted right now was to get into that rig and blow off some steam in a simple training mission.

"I don't think there's anything to talk about," I replied curtly.

"Look, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but... Blaze is my friend. And so are you. So I just wanted to let you know... I really don't think he meant to offend you," Ray said.

I didn't answer, and just tried to focus on setting up my rig. Out of all that happened in the last twenty-four hours, what had happened – or hadn't happened – between Blaze and me was the very last thing I wanted to have on my mind right now. I had already made my peace with the fact this was it, the story was over, it had been fun while it had lasted, he would move on and direct his attention towards somebody else and we would both forget it all ever happened. I didn't want to spend another second on imagining it could be any different. In the end, that would only prolong my suffering.

"You really got into that guy's head, you know," Ray went on.

"Is that so," I mumbled.

"Seriously. I've never seen him like that. Neither has Flash."

Flash was Blaze's roommate. He was also Ray's boyfriend. I wondered if due to some enigmatic societal rule that eluded my comprehension this would mean that Ray and I couldn't hang out any longer if I tried to avoid Blaze for the rest of my time at the academy.

"Actually," she continued, while I pretended to type on my tablet again, "I'm kinda worried for him. Worried that he might do something stupid, you know."

I raised my head and looked at her with my eyebrows raised. "Something even stupider than trying to 'win my heart' by fighting over me with my best friend in a VR tournament in front of the whole cohort?"

"Yeah, well... arguably that was pretty stupid. But you also have to admit that it probably would have worked like a charm to impress someone else. Just not the newly crowned Queen of Sims," she said and cast me a grin.

Maybe she was right. Someone else might have regarded it as a very romantic gesture. But I was me, as much as I disliked that fact and sometimes wished I wasn't. I had been more impressed by the VR sim Blaze had showed me before all that, and I suddenly wished last night would have just ended right there. It would certainly have made everything less complicated. Perhaps it was indeed just my own fault, and I had ruined the night by interfering with their stupid little competition, and maybe things would have ended differently if -

I groaned in frustration as my thoughts began to move in circles again.

It wouldn't have changed anything, I finally decided. Better a painful end than endless pain.

Just then, in a moment of situational irony, the melodramatic crescendo in the middle of Liszt's Liebestraum No 3 resounded through the room.

"Honestly," Ray said, "I think he's just really scared."

I stopped halfway through my motion of strapping myself into my harness and looked over at her, baffled."Of what, exactly?"

"Well... Of you. Of the feelings he has for you. Of having his heart broken by you."

I snorted with suppressed laughter. He was probably just mopey because conquest number three-hundred-something had turned out too tough a nut to crack.

"I'm serious, Sky," Ray said. "Please just... go easy on him, okay? Yes, he's an idiot, but he's even more of an idiot than usual when it comes to you. Which shows you're really something special to him. I just... don't want him to get hurt."

Go easy on him? You gotta be kidding me. I gritted my teeth, as I pulled the simulation goggles over my eyes. For once in my life I just try not to be the one who gets hurt, and you ask me not to hurt him?

"Let's focus on our training," I cut her off before she could continue, and started the mission.

~ ~ ~

When we exited the class room three hours later, it seemed that she had understood that I didn't want to talk about this topic any further. But once she had planted the thought back in my head, it had quickly taken root. It lingered with me for the entire training session, which had of course impacted my performance negatively. I was annoyed by it all, to say the least, and to top it all off, the situation had literally given me a headache by now. I longed to just fall into bed, face-down on my pillow, and sleep it all off. But that reminded me of something else I had to take care of first.

On my way back to our room, I passed by the infirmary. A familiar face greeted me with a friendly smile as I entered.

"What can I do for you today?" the nurse asked from behind his desk, "I hope you're feeling well?"

"Brilliant," I said flatly, my sarcasm probably lost on him. "I'm just here because of the sleeping pill you gave me."

"Ah, yes. Did it work for you?"

"Yes. I mean –"

I hesitated for a moment. Technically, he had promised me a dreamless sleep. I could remember that I had a dream last night, but the details were hazy. But at least it hadn't been another nightmare. A vision popped up in my mind all of a sudden, of the domed ceiling in the atrium of Tartaros, illuminated by a million sparking stars, and I shook my head violently to make the image disappear again. As long as I didn't dream of that infernal place, I didn't care.

"I forgot to take the pill the first two night because I was so exhausted," I said. That was not exactly true, but close enough. "I had more nightmares then. But once I took it, it worked well. I feel much better. That's why I wanted to ask for more. Just in case the nightmares come back," I quickly added.

He looked at me pensively, and I wondered what kind of computational processes his digital brain was going through at that moment.

"I can give you some more, but... you will have to keep the tracking bracelet, and you can only get three at a time."

"Fine with me," I said and shrugged. It was probably a measure to keep people from accidentally - or purposefully - overdosing.

"But it's no long term solution," he pointed out.

"Oh, well... I know. I think it's just all the stress with my extra training and upcoming finals. I... I really just need to be on top of my game for the next few weeks. I need to be well rested. You understand?"

"I do, but you have to see that this is all very strange. You reported these nightmares after the accident, so I cannot help but see a connection. I can provide you with the sleeping pills, but we need to thoroughly investigate if there is any connection to what happened to you. Please sit down for a moment," he asked, and gestured towards a chair.

I obliged, and he came over with a handheld scanner. He gently tilted my head forward and brushed my hair to the side. Then he proceeded to press it against my skin, where the device was located that I had been implanted with a couple of weeks ago for the purpose of connecting to Daidala.

"You think it could be the implant?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. But I found the documentation of the whole procedure in your medical file to be... lacking."

"What do you mean?"

"Lots of redactions and secrecy about the technology," he explained. "And with every prototype technology, there might be unforeseeable side effects. Did you receive a proper briefing about potential risks before the surgery?"

I nodded as I recalled a conversation with a scientist of the Agalma project on the day of the procedure. They had told me about all the regular side effects of cybernetic implants: local allergic reactions including itching and swelling, complete immunogenic rejection, incomplete integration leading to heightened pain sensitivity or other aberrant sensations. None of that had come to pass, and the brief procedure, which had been completed within half an hour under local anesthesia, had left me with nothing but three tiny, silver spikes that protruded from the back of my neck, just above the lowest cervical vertebra. They had been reluctant to tell me much else about the little device, despite my curiosity about the way it would work. All I knew was that it had some sort of microfibers that connected to the nerves in my spinal cord, and it provided a point of contact to the Daidala suit – it was the gateway of the machine-brain interface.

"But it's not directly connected to my brain," I argued, "How could it give me nightmares?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

He finished the scan and came back around. He leaned against his desk with crossed arms and watched me with his bright blue eyes narrowed. His expression of deep contemplation seemed absolutely lifelike, and in moments like this I found it especially hard to believe that he was an Artificial and not a human.

"As far as I can tell it has integrated perfectly. But the human body, and especially the nervous system, is a delicate matter. I think it would be wise if we did a full nervous system scan to check for any abnormalities," he proposed. "Which leads us back to the problem with your medical file."

"The redactions you mentioned?"

"Yeah, though that's not the word to describe it," he said, as he reached for his tablet and began to look for something. "The parts about the implant are redacted. But there is other information that just seems to be... missing. Lost. Completely. As if it was... cut out."

"What exactly is missing?" I asked. I started to feel worried about the thought that my medical files were so messed up.

"Well, that's the thing. It's missing, so I can't tell. I can only see from the file structure that something is amiss. It's hard to explain. It's as if the redactions are blacked out words that have been made illegible, but there are other parts that are more like... blank spaces."

I watched the Artificial nurse with fascination as he continued to skim over some files on a tablet, his bright blue eyes darting back and forth across the screen, with impressive speed. I knew that there were some Artificials who were tasked with network and database maintenance, who could probably easily identify errors or glitches like that in a patient file. But he was a nurse. I recalled what Moon had told me, about the tertiary laws. They were in place to prevent an AI from learning anything that was not related to its primary function. Could his work with patient data have really given him the ability to spot such 'blank spaces' in the data structure when looking at my file?

"Either way, I will continue to investigate and try to track down the missing data. Perhaps we can make an inquiry to access the backup servers," he said and put on a reassuring smile as he handed me a little box with three of the blue pills.

I snapped out of my thoughts and took it.

"Sure. Whatever you think is best," I replied, still perplexed about the whole issue with my files. "Thanks."

As I turned to leave, he bid me farewell. "Carpe Diem, Sky."

And for some reason, the tone of his voice made it sound to me like a plea rather than a greeting.