At the infirmary, the same nurse was on duty again, but this time I wasn't surprised. He probably was on duty 24/7. Perhaps he went to standby once in a while, but as far as I knew, Artificials needed no real sleep and could consume biofuel as food to keep running for days on end. As I opened the door after briefly knocking, he raised his head to look at me across his desk, where he had been focused on something on a screen.

"Oh, it is you again. Are you alright?"

He immediately got up and walked up to me. Now that I had come to realize that he was an Artificial, I was acutely aware of the speed and fluidity of his every motion. A furrow of concern had appeared on his brow the moment he had laid eyes on me. It was just one of the many small details that had been added to make them appear more human – facial expressions that mimicked true emotion.

He stepped up in front of me and gently touched the back of his hand against my forehead. It felt cool, but I knew that it was because of my fever, and not because he was not human. Artificial bodies were like human bodies in almost any conceivable way, and their optimal operating temperature was close to 37°C. But I suspected that in contrast to a human, he could measure my body temperature with this simple touch right now, probably down to a difference of 0.01°C.

"Sit down here for a minute," he told me and guided me to the bed where I had spent the night after the accident.

"It's good that you came, you have quite a fever. But I did not detect any signs of inflammation or infection in your blood samples before. I am wondering what else could be the cause..."

He looked me over for a moment, the furrow on his brow deepening.

"Any... strenuous activity after the incident with the suit that you didn't tell me about?"

Before I could answer, he stepped away again, to look for something in a cabinet nearby. It contained rows upon rows of identical looking bottles, arranged in an order that probably only he understood. I watched him rummage through the cabinet for a moment, searching for the right words. At least it was easier to speak, now that he didn't keep his questioning, bright blue gaze on me.

"Well, we had that training session in the simulator yesterday afternoon."

"...which I saw on your monitoring bracelet's records. You mentioned that. After that?"

"I felt... exhausted, afterwards," I said truthfully.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering how to put into words what I had experienced over the past days. There really was no way to spell this out without sounding paranoid or hypochondriacal. But there was definitely something wrong with me right now. My head felt like it weighed a ton – a ton that spun uncontrollably fast, like an entire planet, tumbling on its orbit and about to be ripped apart by centrifugal force.

"And then there was this... noise. In the late afternoon. It was really unpleasant, and it made me feel sick. Gave me a nosebleed, too."

"A nosebleed?" The nurse turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. "Hm."

"Yeah. It was very strange. But it was all better after I ate," I quickly added. "I brought back the bracelet and I went to bed early that day."

"That is strange. But I did not see anything in your scans that would indicate any brain trauma or other serious injury."

He walked back over to me and leaned down to be on eye level with me. He searched my face, perhaps for any indication that I was lying to him again. The way he looked at me when he met my gaze almost made me forget what he was for a moment.

There was expression of kindness but also worry in his blue eyes. Or at least, I liked to imagine that. He was an Artificial - he didn't really feel any of the things I projected onto him. Yet, at that moment, I felt like I could trust him more than any human I had met in my entire life. Perhaps precisely because he didn't feel anything.

I stared at his face so close to mine for a moment, utterly amazed as he put on a smile. It was so lifelike and human, down to the last detail. Like the small wrinkles on his lips, the deliberately added imperfection of his smile being lightly crooked and the dimples on his cheeks. Had I been mistaken before? Was he just a human playing a prank on me by pretending to be a robot? Then again, it was indeed much more likely that he was an Artificial than a human. I had read somewhere that these days almost 80% of all jobs in medicine and health care had been taken over by Artificials. And why not? They could appear as compassionate and caring as any human, but their patience with their patients was endless.

"Here, this should make you feel better."

He interrupted my train of thought by handing me a vibrantly red pill in a little cup, and a glass of water. I took both in my hands, but beyond that, my body refused to move. As I stared down at the clear liquid, my throat felt like somebody had fixed a thin wire around it and was pulling on it very tightly.

Somehow, I almost expected it to rise and spill over the glass any moment now. To fill the room completely, and drown me and the nurse. It was irrational, of course. Just a nightmare. This was plain old, regular drinking water. No need to worry. My hands had begun to shake, and the pill made a quiet rattling noise within the cup. I gripped both cup and glass tighter to stop it.

"If I tell you something personal... are you obliged to tell anyone, or is there patient-doctor confidentiality between us?" I asked him in a low voice.

"Well, I am only obliged to report if you are actively hurting or about to hurt yourself or others. Anything else is between us."

He sat down on the bed next to me, and I looked up from the glass to find an expression of perfectly simulated concern all over his face.

"What about... your boss? The Moirai? Captain Talon? The scientists who brought me here?"

"I assure you that everything you tell me will be 100% confidential, unless you intend to harm yourself or others," he reiterated.

I didn't know why I believed him. There was no way to be sure. There was no rule, no actual law in their circuits that prevented them from lying, especially in such a case. He may be lying without even knowing it, there may be somebody listening to all the data he recorded at the end of the day, or browsing through his memory bank like an open book, looking for information on the cadets.

With all Artificials being recalled to the factories, chances were that whatever I said next would be on record and heard or read by some Moirai agent by the end of the week. I had to be careful about my choice of words. So close to graduation, there was no way I would risk my career by admitting to psychological problems – again. It could be my downfall. I took a deep breath that turned into a weary sigh, and stared down at the glass and the pill, still in the palm of my hand, as I spoke.

"There's something else. I've been having... strange dreams. Nightmares."

My voice came raspy from my choked throat. All of a sudden, speaking had become as excruciating as if I had swallowed sandpaper.

"It started after the accident, and now I didn't sleep well for two nights in a row. Perhaps I just didn't get enough rest," I suggested.

The Artificial looked at me with a curious expression, as if he was waiting for me to continue and delve into details, but I chose not to. All of this was weird enough already.

"Well, I can give you sleeping pills that should provide you with a dreamless sleep..."

He got up again and searched through his cabinet once more.

"Take the one against the fever in the mean time!" he reminded me.

I put the pill in my mouth, and hesitantly lifted the glass to my lips. My hand was shaking. I almost spilled half of its content on myself before I was able to quickly force down the smallest possible amount to wash it down.

Perhaps I should mention my sudden hydrophobia as well, I thought.

But then again, I was 100% sure I hadn't contracted rabies from anywhere, so it was in all likelihood purely psychological – just a result of that stupid nightmare.

"Ah, this is the one."

He handed me a little box that contained a blue-green pill and another red one, and another monitoring bracelet.

"Take the other red one this afternoon, preferably with a bite to eat. It will act faster. And the blue one, take it right before you want to sleep. It will knock you out completely. It would be best to wear a sleep mask, if you have one?"

"My roommate does."

"Maybe you can borrow it. It will make it easier to wake up. Tomorrow morning, you have to come back and let me check on you. And wear the bracelet to let me monitor your sleep. Sleeping pills are only a short term fix. For now, you need rest to get rid of the fever, but once your body is alright again, your mind will have to get some proper rest, too. And we will have to discuss further diagnostic measures – I will have to go back to digging for the rest of your medical files."

"Uhm. Thanks."

I took the box and shoved it in the pocket of my uniform, and presented my wrist to let him fix the bracelet again. I almost expected the smooth, silver ring to give me an electric shock, but of course it didn't. It was just a normal health monitoring bracelet.

"Alright. You're good to go," he said with a quiet sigh. "I know I cannot keep you from any training you might have today, but perhaps you could... lay low a bit?"

I eyed him suspiciously as I climbed off the bed. I wondered, what kind info had he read in my file? Then again, perhaps I was just being paranoid. It was entirely possible to come to that conclusion about my character after my rather reckless behavior in the last two days alone.

"Thank you," I mumbled.

I threw him another glance as I was about to leave. He gave me a kind smile that only made me feel more ashamed of my own irresponsibility over my own body.

"See you tomorrow. Take care!" he said.

I really should have noticed that he is an Artificial, it occurred to me. They don't normally use the customary greeting.

Perhaps because they didn't have the same concept of time as us, or because they were programmed to be perfectly useful, so the meaning of the two words eluded them.

"Carpe Diem," I said nonetheless, and turned to leave.

"Carpe Diem," he replied behind my back, like an echo.