[Oded's Place: Habitat D1234- Medical Aid Space]

Odelia wakes up with a headache.

"What-ouch…"

There's a hand giving her a sip from a cup.

"Here dear."

She takes a sip, it's tea. Cold.

She looks at her mom, still holding the cup.

"Thanks mom." She looks around the room.

"I guess Oded called you two when I passed out?"

Odedi is the one who answers her.

"Yeah, mom. By the way, it wasn't a nervous breakdown. I sent an update to the ultranet, you caught a virus. A variant of the common cold if you believe it."

She stares at him. "I… Kinda prefer the thought of heartbreak induced breakdown over what, not washing my hands?"

Arthur comments then. His hand goes to his grandson's shoulder.

"That does sound nice and kind of romantic, right? But no. Also, it's airborne."

Oded then glances at his grandfather.

"You realize you make it sound worse than it is.-" he turns to his mother. "Mom, yes, it's airborne, but your immune system has to be compromised. You honestly would have been fine if you slept a bit more."

This is like when she was ten and got food poisoning from that milkshake.

She wants to cover her face.

…

[Auschwitz Is Hell: Simulation Interface Management Center]

Ron is at his simulated Office. And the thought pissess him off. He changes his wall to have a window.

Sighs. Maybe if he had actual access to just the resources here, he would have been able to do his job.

He actualizes several action windows. One of them shows his real life body, asleep.

The server here, houses this simulated reality and can give him a time compression at factors of 10 to 1 with the prison/school/vacation Server hub.

He instigates several attarations of himself, just two, it's a balancing act.

The server of course does not give him anything close to what he actually needs. Instead he gets a 5 to 1 time compression.

He uses the window to one of the subservers, downregulates several base control clocks there. He will get yelled for it, but he will have the time to make sure the latest calculation load attack can be redirected and dispressed.

If 5 to 1 compression was good enough in practice, not just best case scenarios, it would have been fine. As in, if the tasks of his job didn't require a minimum of five minds, 24/7 just to keep track.

And that AHole called him lazy.

He's literally at *almost* enough for *bare minimum* to be able to do his job…

A lip of his curls.

Because those that decided instead of getting more servers so, rich people can give their kids safe education and rearing, they took those people's money. Told them it cost more because they had to get more servers just for their children's privilege.

So they feel guilty and not push, and check.

A 'He' turns to the three windows that monitor the critical interaction points control and public info spheres. Doesn't help that instead of doing what they said to their customers, they've cut into the server space meant to monitor all this.

Which coincidentally, gave those fuckers of Native-whatever, a hardware access to the gate. To you know, do how many force calculation attacks on what should and actually close enough to be the fucking the OS main memory.

Honestly, he loves Rosalie, but even she never got *that bit* of the whole thing.

He's about to finish the dreamshift. Before…

There's another message from the AHole.

Huh.

As he opens that…

He begins to grin.

Oh. Oh. The dude gave him proof.

He underestimated him.

He's sending it to Rosa.

Wonder if she'll change her mind about him.

…

[Heart of the Solar System: Solar Processor Station Medusa: Information Manager Nathan Harrow Personal Quarters]

Natty has Nilly on the couch. She's munching on nachos. He can hear her as he goes to the Door.

Igor is all smiles as he steps in.

"Common, Setup's ready. I have another guest if you don't mind."

Igor shrugs as they go. He looks forlorn as they don't stay in the plaza.

"So, some family came to visit you?"

Natty pauses for a moment.

"What? No. Why?"

Igor stands, looks at him directly.

"You have a guest."

Natty straightens his shoulders and lets out a sigh.

"Nilly works where they directly manage the plasma we filter. What gets cooled to a solid/superfluid and dropped down to the sun, and what gets accelerated to the customers."

He rubs the back of his head.

"You know, the main purpose of this place."

Igor nods.

"And you call her a guest. OK, then-" He gestured for them to get a move on.

…

As they enter back to Natty's room, Nilly observes Natty's new friend. Apparently he's actually 21, maybe now 22 years old. From Syber stalking him, he seems to be trustworthy. Though it's possible he's just using Natty for gaming media.

But that is a very low possibility.

As he approaches her, she cleans her cheek of the Nachos Sauce, and stands to meet him.

"Hi, Nuella Nacros, pleasure."

He bites his lower lip. She sighs.

Stolen story; please report.

"Yeah, I heard all the jokes. I go by Nilly, by the way."

He nods his head a bit, and blushes.

"Yeah, sorry about my reaction, I'm Igor Karington, I just use Igor."

She raises an eyebrow at that.

No wonder he's sorry about that reaction.

She gestures to the chairs and sofa.

"Are you neurally trained? Will you use your phone?"

Natty answered first.

"I have peripheral devices, you know."

She's taken aback a bit.

"Why?"

Igor takes a seat. A handful of nachos, no sauce.

Nilly shakes her head.

"Yeah, sorry. We have so few visitors here, social or otherwise."

Igor smiles a bit, a bit flushed, but his shoulders are loose. She probably didn't mess up Natty's friendship.

Hopefully.

He swallows his mouthful.

"Dude, relax, just, with what game are we starting?"

Natty surprises them both. Probably.

"Candy Crush. Then Duke Nukem. Then we'll see."

Nilly mouths the name of that first name, she's surprised.

Igor chuckles.

"I told you, that thing's addictive."

And takes another handful of nachos. This time with a little bowl with some sauce.

…

[Void Wars Mobile Arena: Owners Quarters]

Rennard goes through the Bosses' physical notes. Box after box, mostly full of some variant of caramel candy.

The reason, of course, is that Several hours ago the Boss's son sent confirmation that the Boss is taking her vacation. Which, yeah. Fair.

Garion flipped at the time, when Rennard told him that as Odelia is still recovering from a cold and *exhaustion.* So he will have to, for the next two weeks, possibly a month, at minimum, take over the Training Session Captain duties.

Rennard switches to her little office closet. It's mostly little electric ink tech tablets with what looks like her son's drawings as a boy. He was actually pretty good.

Garion asked for Odelia's notes. That was After, that is, Rennard had shown all of them the Boss's video of why she selected Garion.

He pauses, trying to make sure no tablet gets scratched.

"Can't believe she even planned for if she was unavailable."

It was not because Garion is the best. No. He's just the one who spends the most time observing everyone else.

He's heading now back to the boxes. They are a mess.

Garion at the time constantly said it had to be a mistake because Seph was far better than him. But the video made it clear. Because Garion always paid attention to many factors in the game, he will need the least emotionally impactful changes in his gameplay.

Basically, he already knows to look around, now he will have her cheat sheet.

But he actually needs it, that book. And they all know she doesn't… Heck.

So now, after digging in all of her little boxes here.

Rennard slumped in the chair.

"PA Renny. The Physical Game Book is not in this craft. Reserve Captain Garion has been sent a digital version upon request."

He frowns and asks the Butler A.I.

"I just spent over two hours here, making a mess."

"Yes. The instructions are to only give sensitive information after the authorized Personnel upon request. Only exception if said personnel can be reliably understood to have no knowledge of the availability."

He stares forward for almost a minute.

"And you needed me to waste over two hours ransacking the room to be sure?"

"Last week you participated in a game of charades-"

He crashes into a chair as the Butler continues.

"and would not allow Odelia to reveal you the answer for over 5 hours."

He sighs, the thing doesn't even pause.

"As this is a matter relevant to the effective management of this Habitat, the wait did not exceed 2.35 hours."

He just got up and went out of the room to get drunk.

…

[Void Wars Mobile Arena: Team Staging Area]

Garion and the team are on the hull, and the new boy, Sean, looks nervous.

Garion tries to relax everyone.

"So, everyone, don't worry, none of us should be nervous over this. Not even you, sean."

The man looked at everyone and just blurted his word vomit over the radio.

"Why not be nervous, I will be the one blamed if we lose?"

Seph turned to him, and, not quite soothed him.

"Not really, most people will assume it's because Odelia is the really good one here. Beyond that.-"

Sean interupts her.

"The next game is in two months, and she's supposed to return a month before that at the latest. *This,* is just in case."

"Yup. But also, unless you literally got in everyone's way, we could carry enough you would look a better player than you actually are."

And Garion… Failed at making him feel better.

…

A half hour later, the training session is in full effect.

Seph calls out to the new guy.

"Hey, Sean,listen to me, tell me how to orchestrate your hooklines!!"

The man looks like a bad breakdancer. With weird whipps. He answers her, a bit hoarse.

"Umm. Focus on the thumbs, and imagine a circle. Kinda?"

Garion tries to sound encouraging.

"Good, now try it."

The man still…

"Dude, hold your breath and only release when I say so, ok?"

"K…"

"OK now, with your right palm…"

…

Two hours later, the man was able to reconnect with a craft he split away from.

…

[Void Wars Mobile Arena: Team only area, The Gym]

Sean's on the treadmill. He is not running.

Garion sits by him, his girlfriend Daria, or rather, Dari is on Sean's other side.

They are flanking him.

"So, you never played and decided trying to learn for the first time was as a player in a competing team."

Yeah, she's a match for Garion, alright.

Sean sighs.

"A year before Odelia Gittin.-" He knows he sounds questioning there, her sure name is said so rarely though. And those two ignore it, anyway.

"-created this game, around her husband's accident, I had an accident like his. I was using a space exposed drone, like him. And like him, there was a surge that got it destroyed, and I was blown away."

He takes a deep breath. Fairly understandable, he thinks.

"But David Gittin was undetectable and was only found a full five minutes after his oxigen ran out.

And I, I just so happened to be under monitoring. So they picked me up."

Garion and Dari shared a look.

"Since then I was never in a craft smaller than a City Level Habitat."

Garion closed his eyes…

"So, you joined to deal with the fear?"

Sean noded.

"And the survivor's guilt."

Dari grabbed his hand.

"Did today help?"

Sean chuckles.

"Yes, actually, it helped a lot. I know I can *do* something. *I can swim now.*"

She smiles at him.

Then Garion spoke.

"So, do you actually want to continue in the team? Or not? It's just, I have no idea how the procedural failsafes did not prevent this. And…"

He shrugs his shoulders. Sean can understand.

"I got a doctor's release."

Garion is slack jawed at that.

Sean elaborates.

"She thought I had healed enough for this. And I actually did."

…

[Oded's Place: Habitat D1234]

A group of four who look like siblings is having dinner in the kitchen.

That is because medical science has decades ago reached the point of effectively healing aging. So the grandparents, who are around ninety years old, look like their Daughter, who is around seventy years old, and her son, who's just shy of fifty years old.

Who himself, would have got carded on Earth in the late nineteen hundreds, United States.

"Hey mom, feeling better?" Odedi question's snaps Odelia from her musings.

"Oh, fine dear, just, modern medicine is… very strange."

He seems about to ask, but his grandfather is the one who tries to clarify.

"Are you talking about your recovery shot?"

She at first shakes her head. Then tilts her head as the understanding surges.

"Kind of? I was talking about how all of us here look far younger than we would without it."

Her mom then intergects.

"Yeah, I see it."

And they continue to eat.

None knowing that in nearly five years, a war that would require every bit of Humanities Medicine science and beyond, just so humanity has a chance.

So unaware, they might as well be stationary targets.

For now, the food is good.