The soft sounds of rainwater dripping through the storm grates and the occasional bird chirping in the trees surrounded a night shift nurse as she took her morning break.

Where most mornings would have found Debbie staring off into space, just trying to find the energy to continue to smile, today the dawn found tears in her eyes. Tears of joy.

Last night something extraordinary happened. A long-term coma patient, a twelve-year-old girl named Jenna, had recovered enough to wake up and look around. Debbie had been her caregiver from the first day that Jenna was admitted, more than a year ago, and had witnessed the pain that the family had suffered through.

Last night was a miracle, a glimpse at hope.

"It is almost as though the suffering simply changed hands though," Debbie murmured as she looked over her shoulder at the two windows on the fifth floor. The window on the right held a brand new patient who lay in a comatose state, just like Jenna had been. Her window was the window on the left, the one filled with light and cheer as her parents celebrated their daughter's recovery.

A slight recovery, yet something to celebrate.

The new patient, a young man named Kevin, had reportedly drowned while on vacation in Mexico. Lack of oxygen had damaged his brain and, from what Debbie had heard, he had laid in a foreign hospital for a couple of months until he had been identified and flown home.

It was a tragic story.

Debbie hadn't been on shift when his parents and family had arrived and was thankful for that small mercy. She had a heart for taking care of patients but couldn't deal with watching family and friends suffer without hope.

"I still can't believe that they will be taking her home today," Debbie said softly as she wiped the tears from her eyes. It wasn't that she would miss her patient, it was just how sudden it all seemed. The grandfather had poured so much money into the hospital that he practically owned it and could call whatever shots he wanted.

"Hmm... I still need to write up a report on Kevin's EEG machine though. I know the young man's brain is damaged but the readings on the machine just seem to be... off. As though they lack the fluctuations that a normal brain would read." She muttered to herself as suddenly her phone beeped.

"Hmm... never mind, looks like reports will have to wait, duty calls," she said as she got up from the wooden bench to head back along the path to the hospital. Inside Kevin's room, his EEG machine slightly adjusted its previously looped readouts, copying a patient's readings in Frankfurt, Germany who suffered from a similar reported accident so that it would fool Debbie into thinking that it had begun to work as it should.

---

It had rained last night, a constant drizzle against the windowpane of my hospital room. There hadn't been any thunder or anything memorable like that, just constant repetitive plinking against the glass to keep me company.

I could hear everything around me and even feel slight movements if someone bumped my bed or came in to clean my body. A nurse named Debbie had been in charge of that for the last couple of times that I was aware, but it seemed that Meditati had gone into the computer system of the hospital and had hired Tutor as my personal nurse to replace Debbie.

I guess they didn't want Debbie to realize that my body was essentially fake, just a shell made out of cr and animated by Nurse's control of the swarm. I had tried everything imaginable to try to talk to those around me. Invicta said that Nurse had reported that I had spoken once, during the time that I was being rescued from the next dimension.

"Take me home, please. Just take me home."

I had muttered that in my delirious state after I had been knocked out during the Void's attack on the relic barrier. Whatever struck me had done something to my ability to communicate.

As a result, Nurse couldn't sense me, my AI couldn't connect to me, and I had lost all of my senses except for hearing and detecting movement. So basically, my ears were the only thing that worked.

What a way to return home.

Oh! How did I get home? Nurse followed my last order like a champ. She melted any speed limits that might have been posted out in space in order to follow the last command that I had given her.

So, here I was, back home locked inside a prison with no key.

Invicta, my sweet little companion, was faithful to tell me her every thought and to keep me from going crazy inside my prison. She would whisper into my ear whenever the coast was clear and would tell me anything that I might need to know about my friends and family.

Ess was being taken care of and was on her way to the Milkyway galaxy. Nurse figured that I would want my pet close for when I got better, and she wanted to follow every whim that her copy of my memories might have contained.

Oh, and I also had a clone that was frozen in a permanent loop courtesy of Silver's duplicity in modifying the coding in my Alpha cube.

Great guy, I really had to deal with him once I figured out how to get out of whatever this was.

I just... had nothing besides my hearing and thoughts to work with.

What the heck was I supposed to do?

---

A short, beautiful woman with vibrant and curly red hair hid her eyes behind sunglasses as she made her way slowly towards her car at the corner of the hospital parking lot.

Even just getting to her car was a task as she slowly used the parked cars along the way as guideposts for her weary wandering.

Her middle son was laying inside the hospital, and she couldn't bear the emotions that were pouring through her heart. Her mind was busy replaying the last of many hours of sadness.

The doctor, a sweet older man named Dr. George, had been the one to inform her of the news about her son when she had rushed to arrive at the hospital. "Patricia? Kevin's mother? My name is Dr. George, I am the head neurologist in charge of overseeing Kevin's case." He had said when he had first introduced himself inside Kevin's hospital room.

Patricia barely heard a word that he said in those first few moments as she rushed to the bedside of her son. He was laying there, lifeless, with his eyes closed and his hands and arms hooked up to all manner of machines.

Her son's skin felt normal, as though he would wake up and be fine any minute.

He didn't stir though, didn't even move beyond the slow rise and fall of his chest.

"Kevin?" She asked, seeking her boy, asking him to be in there somewhere.

The doctor stood by and waited with inhuman patience as two large men rushed into the room and to the bedside. It was Kevin's two brothers who had rushed over when they had received the call.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

No one took note that the doctor didn't stop the two men, it was almost as though he knew them even before they barged in and rushed to their mother's side. Their mother who was nearly collapsing with overwhelming grief.

The next many hours were spent inside that room as the Dr. George and the nurse looked on with sadness in their eyes.

---

"Are you positive that this was the best way to do this?" George asked Meditati in VR. He couldn't stay in the company of such sorrow, directed at his master and best friend, for very long without needing to escape for a time into VR.

Kevin had truly changed his heart, making it feel all of these hard and raw emotions where only seamless logic had ruled before.

"Yes, I am afraid so," Meditati answered as she inspected hundreds of streams happening around her. She had taken it on herself to simulate outcomes for Kevin's recovery and to try to think of ways to reach him.

There was a pregnant pause as Meditati's eyes glazed over and she literally stepped backward out of herself.

"Out of all of the storylines that I considered creating, this one held the least negative effects given the fact that we have a backup Kevin waiting inside the Alpha hive mind experimental protocol key, or "Alpha cube" as Kevin prefers to call it." Her new clone replied as she stepped away from her other self to give it room to continue its work.

"Remember! I had to get this idea past Nurse as well. She simply would not let me animate a version of Kevin without his consent. 'He would never want an AI to take over his life back on earth' was the best answer that I got out of her. That removed so many paths that I could have used to explain his disappearance for over two months. No, if anything this will bring the family closer together once he recovers." She said before opening a display that showed his older brother sitting beside the bed while the mother rested on a nearby couch.

"That is the least that I can do for him."

"And what of the other things?"

"Well, I am planning things out for when he wakes up..." She said as her face slowly took on a worried look. "But I can't keep track of his swarm. It is all over the place trying to do anything that Kevin might have desired. So far it has all been benign like repairing all of the machinery in the hospital, weeding his mother's garden, and cleaning earwax from his father's ears while he was asleep."

"What?!?" George uttered in dismay as a floating form of Nurse appeared in the air off to the side of the three AI.

"Kevin's mind contained memories about his father's hearing problems due to his increased wax generation in his ears. It was my endeavor to correct this issue so that he could hear better once again," Nurse answered the pair.

"Yes, but Nurse, you need to stop what you are doing on your own! I only knew that you had done those things because people commented about them. Sure, no one will take apart the equipment in the hospital to see that you fixed and rebuilt everything back in pristine form but it was perfectly clear to the surveillance camera across the street that in a matter of minutes his mother's entire front yard had been perfectly groomed by a professional... invisible ghost!"

George's eyes were wide as he inspected the floating ant.

"As for the earwax thing," Meditati waved her hand dismissively. "That doesn't really matter. People's ears and their functions might as well be the Marina Trench for how much attention people pay to ears just magically clearing themselves out."

"But isn't his father currently on the other side of the planet?"

"In the air actually, he is flying back to see Kevin as we speak. His plane is six hours into its longest flight."

"Wouldn't that cost him a small fortune to get a flight booked that fast? We only called them recently about Kevin's return."

"No, it was covered by some charity or something," Meditati answered with a smug smile. "Ha, don't give me that look you two, at least what I do is untraceable and thought out."

"Just don't mess with the plane, ok? Everything still has to work as the human's expect it to work. We wouldn't want them to look into why one plane would suddenly fly faster. Wait... you cleaned his ears while he was on the plane, didn't you?" He shook his head in horror.

"And rebuilt the turbines and chassis of the aircraft. It was showing some wear and tear." Nurse replied without any visible regret.

"No! You can't be doing that! We can't get the attention of the Tela until Kevin wakes up and uses the Global Arbiter Control key to reclaim his planet from them."

"I left the scratches and surface rust." Nurse replied as she tilted her head at George. "No one will ever know that I fixed his airplane."

"Whew! Ok... just stop for now, ok? I really don't want to get in trouble with Kevin because we mess up his home planet before he wakes up. The Tela that rent this planet out for vacations are known to be powerful planet barons. It will be better if we take it away all at once and set up defenses at the same time so that they don't have any time to activate any countermeasures."

"We wouldn't want them to do anything out of spite."

"I won't let anyone harm Kevin's home." Nurse answered as long spikes protruded from her six limbs for just a second before disappearing.

---

Tutor walked the hallways of the hospital in her nurse uniform, pretending to live the life of a newly acquired resident in the long-term intensive care wing of the hospital. Where other nurses were stressed and strained with their abundant duties, daily taxing shift schedule, and harsh emotional environment, Tutor took it all in stride.

Almost as though nothing could affect her.

Her shift reports were never late and were written like an astronaut's personal log with attention to the most finite detail. Her fellow nurse would breathe easier, and almost a sigh of relief, whenever she would enter the room where a stressful situation was taking place. She wielded a level of professionalism and medical knowledge that made other nurses, and even some doctors, take notice and ask her for her opinion when needed.

She was so on top of her game that it quickly silenced any coworker that might have complained about how fast she had been hired on at the hospital and given authority over the other nurses.

This level of authority made checking in on Debbie's prize patient, Jenna, go unnoticed even by Debbie as she walked out of the room with her chart.

Tutor looked over the room with a practiced eye and nodded in satisfaction. The room was empty except for the lone patient.

Jenna's parents had gone home to work on their daughter's bedroom and to oversee the installation of additional life support equipment that would be coming home with her in the near future.

Grandfather Lorenzo was also absent from the room, having returned to his hotel suite near the hospital to rest. This gave Tutor a perfect opportunity to look over the girl and to have a talk with Nurse about what she had done to the child.

"Can you put her to sleep for this so that we can talk about her future?" Tutor asked Nurse as she walked further into the room to inspect the charts and monitors next to the bed.

"It is done." Nurse replied as Jenna's EEG rhythms smoothed out as the girl was put to sleep.

"So, what did you do to her? What will I need to tell Kevin when he wakes up?"

"I put a newly created Nurse inside her, one without all the extra memories of Kevin and my life serving the swarm."

"Hmm... why?" Tutor asked as she expertly worked at turning Jenna onto her side and undoing her hospital garment's back so she could inspect her scar tissue. A soft blue glow emanated from Tutor's fingertips as she scanned the tissues from Jenna's head to tailbone. There was so much that didn't look right, both from attempted corrective surgeries and the original accident.

"Because of... things that I don't understand about human physiology and how their minds work. If memory bleed is possible, I wouldn't want her mind to be corrupted by the swarm's genetic programming. This new Nurse, almost entirely separate from Kevin's Hive, will be soley focused on learning how to fix this little girl's body from within. The healing rate of humans is an order of magnitude slower than that of the swarm and everything needs to be done with care."

"I see. What guidance have you given this Nurse so that she doesn't become a swarm of death?" Tutor asked as she replaced the hospital garment and laid Jenna back in a comfortable position. She had seen enough. "Just the simplest of commands to follow that mimic the swarm's directives and also follow what Kevin would have wanted."

"What would those be?"

"To heal, serve, and remain unseen by others."

"That is it? Nothing more? Why not protect as well?"

"Because if I gave that order then the Nurse might feel compelled to kill anything or anyone who would threaten the girl and Kevin wouldn't want that. As it is, these three commands leave a lot of freedom for the Nurse to fulfill her duty. If she ever gets out of line, then all Kevin needs to do is to either order her to return to the swarm or to have her end her existence. We can check in from time to time in the future as needed. As it stands, it will be a while for the girl to heal completely." Nurse said as Tutor nodded in agreement.

Waking up Jenna from her coma was the easy part, rebuilding and reconnecting her body to her brain would take time.

Tutor's eyes fell on the nightstand next to the bed where a story book lay. She touched the cover in thought as she tenderly held Jenna's hand.

"In order to avoid confusion about which Nurse swarm we are talking about in the future, let us name this one." Tutor said as she traced the picture on the cover of the book. It was a drawing of a precocious bee named Maya.

"What designation would you like to give her?"

"I am thinking that we will call her Maya."

"It is done."