Captain McCoy had been long awake when Dr. Minett entered the intensive care unit in order to perform the routine examinations on both of her patients; Captain Armstrong had not slept at all that night.
“Good morning, people! Is everyone awake?” – Dr. Minett greeted both men enthusiastically.
“Good morning, Dr. Minett! Good to see you again!” – Captain McCoy answered with as much enthusiasm.
Captain Armstrong muttered a response as Dr. Minett went on to check Captain McCoy’s state of health. Once the procedural tests had been concluded, McCoy did not waste the opportunity to try something that he had seen in his last dream:
“How do you like the food here, Doctor?”
“It’s okay. Don’t you like it?”
“Do you get to have a real breakfast or are you stuck with rollmops and isotonic drinks too?”
“You need that breakfast to keep your electrolyte balance. It’s important.”
“If you say so… at least lunch is pretty normal.”
Dr. Minett just nodded. Captain McCoy did not see any reason to stop what he was doing – he had completely forgotten about the other patient on the next gurney at that point:
“I bet the food is different for you smart people.”
“No, it’s not. Of course there are some differences because of the patients’ dietary requirements, but overall our lunches and dinners are the same as yours.”
“Really? I thought there was a chef cooking special meals for you, like in a fancy restaurant.”
“I wish it were true!” – Dr. Minett giggled – “The food here is good, but Gosh do I miss some really great dishes.”
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“Do you know what I miss? Risotto al Gorgonzola.”
“Oh, that’s my favorite dish.”
“No way! It’s my favorite dish too! What are the odds?”
Captain McCoy was happy about the honest coincidence of food preferences, but what made him really thrilled was to know that apparently whatever Dr. Minett told him in his dreams turned out to be true in real life.
***
Captain Armstrong went to Dr. Volkov's office at the scheduled time. He could barely believe the things that he was going to report, and he had seen everything with his own eyes and listened to everything with his own ears and enhanced brain.
“You'll probably think I'm lying and, to be honest, I'm having a hard time myself believing what I witnessed last night, but I swear I'm gonna tell you the truth” – Captain Armstrong did not know a better way to start reporting his findings.
“I'm all ears.”
“I knew I could read people's minds, but I never thought I'd see anybody's dream.”
“You actually saw his dream? That's amazing! Why don't you tell me how it happened?”
Captain Armstrong described what he sensed and felt in the moments preceding the vision of Captain McCoy's dream and shortly thereafter.
“Very interesting, indeed” – Dr. Volkov pondered excitedly that he had just stumbled on an opportunity to discover and learn about two different phenomena with a single experiment: one phenomenon was whatever was happening to McCoy, and the other was Armstrong’s reaction to it.
Fearing that his account of the event would not be deemed valuable enough to ensure his release from The Compound, Captain Amrstrong reluctantly decided to get in details of Captain McCoy's personal matters:
“But there's more: before the target fell asleep he wished that he could learn something about Dr. Minett in his dream again. He's not just dreaming of her, he's actually learning information about her. From his dreams!”
“Are you telling me that it wasn't just a dream?”
“I don't know if he's kinda seeing the future or what, but that's definitely not just a dream.”
“Can you prove it?”
“In his dream he was ordering Risotto al Gorgonzola for him and Dr. Minett. This morning, the bastard found a way to make her tell him what her favorite food is, and guess what? It's Risotto al Gorgonzola.”
“That could very well be a plain coincidence.”
“But it's not! I know it wasn't the first time it happened, I read it in his mind!”
Dr. Volkov sighed, took off his eyeglasses, bit one of its temples and concluded:
“Then it's probably gonna happen again...”
“He's in love with her. I bet it's gonna happen again.”
“...and you'll be there to watch it.”