For a brief moment that I had spent wallowing in my self-pity, I had contemplated skipping my appointed training session with Ray that evening. But I knew that running a sim mission was probably the best and most efficient way to take my mind off of everything. And I desperately wanted to give my brain something else to focus on than what my parents had told me.

Due to Moon's and my detour through the city, I ended up being fifteen minutes late, and so I braced myself for the loud, squeaky pop music that Ray liked to listen to. But upon my arrival at the class room, I found it dark and empty. It was not like Ray to miss out on a training session, and when I checked my com, she hadn't replied to my message that I was going to be late, so I figured she was held up with something of her own.

Never mind, I thought. Maybe it's better if I'm alone right now.

I started up the terminal and picked a mission that I would be able to do solo.

Continue with last playlist? The program asked me. It was still set to my classical music collection.

"Not today," I muttered and set it to play some Old World industrial instead.

The distorted guitar riffs, gloomy bass and electronic sounds filled the room as I went over to my rig to prepare for the mission. I took a deep breath to relax my body and clear my head before I strapped myself into the harness and pulled the goggles over my eyes.

I found myself in the streets of a ruined city that was very reminiscent of Pharos. Skyscrapers towered all around me, but they were dead and hollow skeletons, like contrite tombstones to commemorate the glory days of humanity. The streets were desolated, the pavement sundered by thick roots of the mutated, toxic plants that had reclaimed this place. The misshapen shrubbery seemed to try its hardest to devour the last remaining signs of human existence, and had overgrown anything from the chassis of burnt out cars to street signs in a language that I couldn't read.

The rustling of the leaves in the wind and the scratching and creaking of branches filled the urban canyons, above the music that I had put up. It was set to play just faintly in the background so I would still hear enough of my surroundings. But there wasn't much for me to worry about. There weren't many dangers here.

As much as it looked like a lush and vibrant jungle, this place was filled with death moreso than life. It was based off of a real location, and in Wasteland Theory and Survival class we had learned that not many bigger animals could thrive in such places, because the plants had evolved to exude extremely toxic compounds. It was a mission setting for beginners, to learn how to move around in their rigs and maneuver their suits through unsteady terrain. I should have probably practiced my shooting skills with a drone or an ADM unit instead, to work on my biggest weaknesses for my finals. That would have been the productive thing to do. The logical thing. But I wasn't in the mood for productivity today.

This mission was simple. The goal was reconnaissance. There were several spots in this city that I had to reach. They were randomized with every training session, some of them within buildings, some of them surrounded by enemies. If I was honest with myself, this was no training, this was recreation. Still, it was better than doing nothing, or sitting around moping and being upset.

At a crossroads ahead of me, strong vines had at some point started to climb along the steel ropes that the traffic lights once had been suspended from. Over time, they had grown into a self-supporting green canopy that spanned the open space from the corner of one building to the next. From here, three points of interest lay in each direction ahead, the fourth was in the direction I had just come from. I turned in a circle twice, trying to decide where to start. Above me, the leafy canopy rustled in the wind, and I couldn't fight the feeling that I was being watched. But when I looked up, I only saw the lush green leaves sway back and forth.

I picked the path leading West, and walked for several minutes, occasionally facing off against giant arthropods that crawled out from some shady nooks and crannies, and climbing over debris or giant vines here and there, when I suddenly heard a static noise via my com.

"Ray?" I called out, wondering if she had decided to join me after all.

But there was no response. Again, I had this uneasy feeling that I was being watched, and from a vantage point on top of a tipped over truck I cast a glance along the road. Just then, an enormous shadow swooped down from above. I dodged the creature's attack at the last second. With a nasty screeching sound, its talons scratched along the back of the EVA suit as I ducked and rolled away.

With my heart racing from the surprise attack, I got back on my feet and got a glimpse at the winged monster just as it took a turn and swooped down at me once again. It looked like a disfigured, oversized bat with dimly glowing lumps covering its body, and it stared down at me with not one, but two, very angry looking faces on its head as it approached.

I raised my hand, but before I could fire my blaster, the beast was hit by another shot from the side. With an ear-piercing screech, it pulled up, long before it could dig its claws into my suit. It flew up in a wide arc and vanished in a side alley.

"Thanks Ray," I said. "I'm a bit distracted today, but we can switch to another mission if you'd like-"

As I turned around to face her, I didn't find the drone that I had expected her to pilot for this mission. Instead, another black EVA suit stood there, looking up at me from below. I jumped down to it and inspected it curiously. In the smooth, black panel covering the frontal sensor array of the unit, where the face of a human would be, I could see the reflection of my own EVA.Apparently, she, at least, was doing the smart thing and using this relatively easy mission to work with the unit she was least familiar with.

"That's an unusual choice for you," I commented.

She didn't respond. Instead, she shifted her posture, stabilizing her stance and raising her hands in front of her.

"What, hand-to-hand practice, here?" I gestured around us. "Seriously?"

We didn't often train like this together, simply because there weren't that many creatures in the Wastelands where a direct confrontation would prove more useful than a blaster gun. But offensive techniques could come in handy occasionally. In exchange for training with me on weekends to keep me in the loop on what we did in class, I had promised her to teach her some of the tricks that the Talos Enforcer cadets had shown me.

Why is she not talking to me? I wondered. Is she mad because I blocked off that conversation yesterday?

With one hand, she just gestured at me to come at her. I sighed and moved into stance .

"Well, if you insist... it's been a while, do you remember what we practiced last time? How to use the force of your enemy's attack against-"

Before I could even finish my sentence, she charged at me with full force. I side-stepped just in time, reflexively doing exactly what I had just spoken about. The other EVA's fist barely brushed my own suit's front shielding, before she rushed past me. I grabbed her arm to misdirect her momentum and led her back around to where she had come from.

"Whoa there, hold your horses," I said, "You're not gonna hit anything if you-"

She whirled around and charged at me again. And she was fast. Still baffled by the whole situation, I had trouble keeping up with dodging her repeated blows. Involved in an elaborate sequence of punches and kicks that I had to evade and block alternatingly in quick succession, I didn't realized that she had slowly forced me towards the thick stump of a vine-tree. Suddenly I found my back pressed against it with no more room to evade. Her next punch was an upper cut that hit my EVA in the stomach with enough force to lift it from the floor. My rig screeched under the awkward strain of that posture, wedged between her and the vine behind me.

Point for you. I admitted, But I'm not done yet.

I was starting to feel angry at her refusal to communicate, and gritted my teeth as I got ready to counterattack. Just as she was about to driver her other fist against my unit's head, I blocked it. I squeezed my fingers around the robot's clenched hand and forced it away from me again.

This was one of the intricacies of piloting a robo suit – the strength that they had at their disposal was not directly related to that of the wearer. All it took was a certain familiarity with the units to know just how much they were capable of. The mechanical strain of the suit's motion was only translated to the rig, and thereby only indirectly affected the pilot's muscles. Consequently, it also took a lot of experience to understand that pushing and squeezing feeling of the straps and clasps of the harness.

Of course my EVA wasn't stronger than hers. They were equal in absolutely every single parameter, especially in a simulation. Yet I had the moment of surprise on my side, and I had caught her arm mid-attack at a slightly awkward angle. It was just enough to give me the minimal advantage that I needed.

With another forceful push, I brought some distance between us and she stumbled half a step back. I pulled up my leg and kicked against the EVA hard enough to cause her to fall backward and land hard on the ground. But she scrambled back to her feet immediately and got into attack stance again. I had no idea what had gotten into Ray. I sensed an unusual tension in her movements, but there was something else. It seemed like anger and frustration, and yet she was moving quickly and nimbly.

The music of my playlist switched to a track with fast paced electronic beats and I could feel a wave of adrenaline well up inside of me. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea to get rid of some of my own pent up anger and rage I had been holding in since this afternoon.

And so we continued to exchange punches and kicks in silence for a while, until I realized that we were both beginning to slow down. I wasn't exactly going easy on her, so I was starting to get out of breath. I had never seen her fight like that, and I began to wonder if I should stop the simulation and ask her what was wrong. While pondering the thought, I was too slow to evade one of her punches and it threw me off balance, causing me to stumble to the side. I was exhausted, but I wasn't ready to give in. My ego couldn't take defeat today.

I redirected my erratic momentum through quick side steps and ducked down, barely evading her foot as it passed over my head. In a fluid motion, I delivered a low kick in response that swept her off her feet and caused her unit to fall over backwards again and hit the ground with a thud.

"You must have practiced without me," I acknowledged in between quickened breaths as I rose back up. "Remind me to not go easy on you anymore in the future."

It was our agreement that whenever someone hit the floor, we'd start a new round, so I stretched out my hand towards her unit to help her get up. But she didn't take it. Instead, she jumped to her feet by herself and seemed to stare at me.

"Is something the matter?" I asked, confused.

Before I could process what was happening, the unit reached out and grabbed my extended hand. For a split second I expected her to throw me over her shoulder, like we had practiced at one point, but instead, she pulled me close and put her unit's other hand on my back.

"Eh - wait, what are you –"

The realization unfolded before me, as the EVA unit involved me in a complicated sequence of steps and turns that on anything else but a professional Keres rig would have led to a disastrous knot of cables around the pilot's legs. At the very last turn, I was so dizzy that I continued to spin of the other unit's reach. But it didn't let go of my hand and pulled my unit back into its arms. For a moment, I was frozen in place, and then white hot rage boiled up inside of me.

"Stop simulation!" I yelled at the program and hastily pulled the goggles off my head.