Victor Vance sat in class, scribbling notes at a furious pace. He was usually able to keep his Mental Score up by simply paying attention, but he needed to make up for time lost in the vents. It was still a little odd that life seemed to be continuing as usual. People had died on Nexus for the first time since Dixon. Come to think of it, that hadn't been that long ago.

Every now and again Victor would sneak a peek at Wright Two, Frank. As the A.I. voice droned on, Frank stared blankly at the avatar it used onscreen. His eyes were hollow and unseeing. Victor had been avoiding him. Some of the students thought it was time to build a memorial. There were no candles onboard Nexus, and these would have been expensive anyway, so the students positioned two light projectors on a section of the club hall and wrote the deceased's name. Around the name that person's friends could leave messages to them or about them. It was oddly spiritual despite the fact that spiritualism was subtly discouraged by the A.I. on Nexus.

Victor wanted worse than anything to write on the wall, but knew he wouldn't be able to. His Eco Scores were too low to take the hit from writing on the wall. Eco was one of the trickiest stats to keep high because no one was absolutely sure of exactly how it worked. It did drop to some extent if you did nothing, but not as much as Social or Physical. There also seemed to be some aspect of being active and useful on the station, which meant that it was in part connected to the other scores. If all of your scores dropped a little, Eco plummeted.

When Victor looked up the class was over and students were beginning to leave.

"Victor," said a voice in hall. It was Frank. Victor turned around, not knowing what to expect.

"Hey Frank. How've you been?" Victor could've kicked himself for asking the question.

Fortunately, Frank ignored the question. "I'd like you to come to the vigil, tonight," he said simply. Victor nodded. He might not be able to write on the wall, but he could at least show up.

"Okay. I'll be there."

Frank seemed pleased by this. When he didn't say anything else, Victor nodded politely and began to walk away.

"Victor?" he heard Frank's voice call from behind him, again. "It wasn't your fault you know. What happened to Edgar. He would've stood up no matter what you did. The only difference is that you would be dead, too." Frank seemed to be holding back tears. "Because you left, it wasn't all for nothing."

Victor wanted to comfort Frank, but before he could decide on the best way to do this Frank turned around and walked away.

Later that evening Victor headed for the Information Room to talk with Rajia, previously simply 'Najar'. On his way he passed a student trying to get to the club hall. A drone blocked his path.

"Sorry. This area is temporarily closed for maintenance operations. Normal access will be resumed, shortly."

The student frowned at the drone. "You piece of shit machine. We have a vigil tonight. You know, for the people you helped kill?"

Strangely, the drone did not take disciplinary action.

In the Information Room Lucas and the others were sitting around the holo table and sorting through line after line of code, looking for the special areas that were apparently designated by the A.I.

"So far, not many of them are useful," Fumio reported.

"I'd say most of them are downright useless," Lucas said exasperatedly. "For example, we just found four designated coding areas for the showers. The showers. We can now control water temperature speed, and mineral composition in the showers and sinks onboard Nexus. We can control the lights in the showers, too. Dimness, angle, and strobe are the effects we've found so far."

Victor laughed. "That's a shame."

"Yeah. I guess it should come as no surprise that even when the A.I. is cutting us a break it's being an asshole," Miguel said. He wasn't helping with the code, but was watching the other two.

"You about to talk to Najar?" Lucas asked.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"If she's there. Did you guys want to join?"

"No thanks. This takes priority right now. If we get another T.J. we'll need to be prepared."

Fumio nodded in agreement with Lucas. "Just let us know if you learn anything interesting."

In Information Room 5 the red light at the holo panel was already blinking. When Victor took it out of idle mode and summoned the keyboard, the text box was already open.

Victor. You there?

Yep.

A station with guys and girls on each side. Weird, huh?

Victor thought carefully about his next response.

Yep.

Anyway, I've got some exciting news. We may have interpreted that data you had your friends send over.

Great. I'd nearly forgotten about that because of all the excitement. What did you learn?

The Reactor isn't emitting any energy. It is not an energy emitter.

Victor read the sentence over and over again, but it still didn't make any sense.

So what is it, then?

It's appears to be some sort of containment field.

A containment field? That didn't make any sense.

What does it contain, exactly?

Not sure. Victor, there's something else. I think the A.I. is beginning to take notice of our communications within a shorter window of when we begin.

How do you know?

Long story. Too technical to explain here. To put it succinctly, this way of reaching each other probably won't be viable for much longer. I’m already searching for another way. You should on your end, too

Will do.

We're out of time.

Okay.

Oh. Sara Storm is next to me. The blonde? She said it was nice meeting you.

Victor found that that made him smile for some reason.

In the hall he found himself in a better mood than he had any right to be considering the memorial that awaited him that evening. He was grateful that his darker complexion hid blushing. Now if he could only stop smiling like an idiot. Thinking back, the only girl he had ever really been close with was Sara, from the ground floor. They'd been young back then and it had never even occurred to him to think of her as anything but one of his two best friends. Sara was Sara. What he was feeling now was different. New.

When Victor reached the club hall he noticed a commotion. He got closer and could see tears streaming down Lucas' face. Other students were gathered. Many looked angry. Others, sad. At first Victor thought that the Vigil had started early. The names had already been writing on the wall in nano ink, though no messages had yet been written around them.

Above all the names was written something else. Scratched into the wall in large lettering was: Wall of losers. Below, in smaller print: More will join them. -V

A few people gave Victor an evil look when he approached. He felt a shoulder bump into him as someone passed.

"Not a whole lot of people with a 'V' in their name, Vance," the student said. Victor vaguely remembered his name. Wally? Wendel? More and more students began to look at Victor.

"Follow me," said a voice by his ear. It was Lucas. "We need to straighten this out at the holo table, NOW. Comm diving time."

Victor nodded. From the expressions of the other students around him they didn't have long before someone was in danger of being put out of an airlock, consequences be damned.