A merchant greets Numi as she walks through the station's shopping center. "Hey! Long time no see Numi."

"Hello sir, do you have any stims in stock?"

"We should. Let me check our system really quick."

The merchant grabs a holo device off the table and scrolls through the list of merchandise he has in stock. He puts the holo device on the table after searching for the stims. "We only have four in stock at the moment. I've heard that production has been really slow recently. It almost feels like the entire galaxy is having issues getting supplies to make the stims. As you can see, the current price is eight-thousand DAQ for one stim. As per usual, I can offer a bulk discount, but it'll have to be reduced to five percent if you purchase the usual amount."

"EIGHT-THOUSAND DAQ?? THAT'S CRAZY!!!!!!! I can't afford the usual amount, even with a discount. Something has to be wrong here." Numi tenses up, hoping for this to be some kind of cruel joke.

"Sadly, this is just how it is. You know I don't price the goods; I simply sell them. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

Numi takes her wallet out of her pocket and checks how much money she has. Nine-thousand DAQ? Guess I'll just have to take the loss to save him. She thought to herself. "I'll take a single stim then, running low on money. Missions have been getting rougher because of the war." Numi reluctantly hands the merchant eight-thousand DAQ from her wallet. The merchant hands Numi the stim and sends her off with another apology and wishes her good luck on her next missions.

Numi returns to the ship after sobbing because of the cost of just a single stim. Captain Yamada greets her, "Welcome back. You pick up a few stims?" Numi looks at the ground. She looked like a dog that did something they weren't supposed to. "Numi... did you get the stims?" Captain Yamada asked. Numi slowly looks up, avoiding eye contact while responding, "I got one stim... it's all I could afford."

"ONLY ONE STIM!!!!???? How much did they cost? What's going on? We haven't been gone that long. There's no way the price could've changed that much."

"Eight-thousand DAQ. Pretty much all of my money."

"Ugh, Numi, I tell you constantly to save money and stop spending it on useless weapons that you know you don't need. No one needs a rifle that's thirty years old! You need to sell your outdated gear and either upgrade or save it for emergencies like this. Shit, fucking hoarder."

Numi stands still, almost like she's holding herself back from contesting that statement. "I said I would pay... did I not?"

"Numi, calm down. Just go take care of your little human thing."

"Human thing? He's just some... some... thing now? Who do you think you are to say what he is?" Numi clenches her fist in anger, her facial expression showing such.

"Numi, you know I mean nothing by it. It's just what I'm used to."

"What you're used to?! Just because some humans were mean to you doesn't mean that every human is horrible! This one isn't just some random bag of flesh as you see them. He's different, and you should've noticed as much. Some fucking captain you are!"

Numi walks towards the last functioning medical room, stomping her feet in anger along the way. Ari calls Luna on her holo device.

"Do you want me to help fix your little problem, Ari? Dumbass."

"Well, at least you heard what happened. She's been very temperamental if you mention her precious meatbags lately. Would be nice to have some help to calm her down."

"I'm not helping you dumbass, call me when we have another mission for once. I need some money for more food."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it."

Luna closes her holo device and leaves her position in the gun of the Akunara for the second time within this short time period. Luna walks towards the medical room, debating whether to talk to Numi during the short walk. When Luna enters the room, her face changes from calm to anxious. That part was probably because of my presence since Numi was trying to fix up my messed-up leg.

Luna holds out a stim to Numi, signaling to take it. Numi shakes her head as she speaks. "I can't take that, Eight-thousand DAQ from our cheapest seller. Absolute insanity has encroached the region." Numi stabs the stim into my leg after resetting it. I can't imagine how much pain I would've felt if I woke up before she reset it. She sets up a holo device to monitor my vitals, except she notices something this time. Wait? Why isn't it working? It was fine earlier. She thought to herself as her heart rate rises. "Luna, could you come check this out real quick?"

Luna walks over, only to see the holo device has completely corrupted. The text isn't even readable, nor does it look like text. It's just symbols, unreadable bars, and sliders. "What's going on?" Numi asked. Luna responded with a worried look on her face. "His body is rejecting the neuro-link from the holo device. We know what that means for us, but we don't know what it means for a human. Let alone a human that probably isn't normal to begin with."

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"The neuro-link should work, though. You saw it last time. This is worse than just simply not working. This is unusual at the least and fatal at the worst."

"Maybe if we pop another stim in him, he'll wake up. It acts a bit more like adrenaline on a human. I think it's worth a shot, anyway." Luna says with a confident look on her face.

Numi grabs the stim out of Luna's hand and jabs my leg again. My eyes open wide at first and return to normal after suddenly jolting awake. "What the fuck!" I yell as I regain consciousness and sit up. My heartbeat faster than a supercar on an empty roadway. Numi wraps her arms around me, squeezing me tightly. "You're awake, and it only cost me two missions' worth of money."

Numi explains everything that had happened to me while practically strangling me with her hug. I look around to see that this is a different medical room from the last one. It's much smaller. The light at the top of the walls is flickering, while the one at the bottom of the walls is perfectly fine. Seems this room hasn't been through too much maintenance. I thought to myself as I continued checking the room out.

I saw someone standing in the doorway. "Who are you?" I ask to the unknown woman. She looks like a fox. She has the fox ears, eyes, and a tail. Wonderful white eyes and deep orange hair. Her hair isn't as long as Numi's a good middle-ground in terms of length. She jumps in response to me, noticing her presence. She lets out a little gasp, almost like she was trying to speak. "Mma-." She runs out of the room, almost tripping in the doorway on the way out.

Numi releases her grasp on me and answers my question. "That was Luna Kitsune. She's a recluse, as you probably already know, if your mind hasn't become foggy from the stims."

"My mind feels fine, so far anyway."

I turn towards the holo device and notice the messed-up text and graphics. I decide to ask, "What's up with the device? Is it broken?" Numi turns to me and tries to hide her confusion plastered all over her face, "It's not broken... per se, it's just you sir. Something in you is rejecting the neuro-link. It's very rare and is only being researched by the richest of the rich and so far, the economy is looking like shit. The chances that we can research this neuro-link problem is almost zero. All we can do is look at it from a surface level for now."

Hmmm. I thought to myself. Back at home, scientists were researching something they called a "neuro-link" but it wasn't anywhere close to fruition. The neuro-link attempted to enhance standard human function, store information, and eventually make what we'd consider as "super humans" later down the line. The neuro-link was meant to be installed in the brain and interact with it through reading and altering brainwaves. Then a sudden realization hit me. How long have I been gone from home?

I turn towards Numi while she's cleaning. Apparently, she made a massive mess when looking for stims earlier. "What does the neuro-link do exactly?"

"Oh, that thing? Well, it's pretty simple. It connects to your body through the radiation emitted from your brain. We all emit an extremely low amount of radiation every second. It's nowhere near close enough to cause any damage, but the neuro-link can harness that radiation and effectively read it. It's sort of like how the internet works, sending data back and forth. Though the neuro-link isn't always reliable with sending. That's mainly because sending information through radiation is a very new technology. Let alone the fact you have to somehow always send data without sending harmful amounts of radiation through long-term use. So, I guess you could say it's like the internet of any mammal's body."

Transferring information through radiation? So, it's nothing like the neuro-link being researched at home. This is all way beyond me. I thought to myself as I tried to wrap my head around all of this. "How does it read and send data through the radiation?" I ask, attempting to get a further explanation. Numi responds with the expected, "I don't know, Luna's the tech nerd here." Should've expected as much.

I look at my leg, which was effectively backwards the last time I saw it. Of course, it's perfectly fine; This world is capable of everything. I try to leave the medical room, but I get stopped by Numi. "Sir. No leaving your bed for a while. Your leg may still need to heal. There's no way to tell without the neuro-link. Well, we'll know once the stims wear off, anyway. You'd have to deal with unbearable pain if the stims wore off while you're up and about." She leads me back to the bed and gets me situated. Numi leaves the room after saying, "You'll just be here until the stims wear off. So just stay here in bed, sir."

So, these stims are like adrenaline or something? Technology isn't as advanced as I thought. Unless technology like this just stood the test of time. That is, if this world has been around longer than mine. These medical rooms are fairly boring. Especially when you're stuck in them as long as I have. I know barely anything about this world. Feels like I've been in here forever, probably because of the boredom.

After what felt like an eternity of laying down, a surge of pain flooded my leg. I see, the stims have worn off. I cover my mouth as the pain is becoming so unbearable that I feel like screaming. I mean, who wouldn't scream in a situation like this? I heard a loud bang similar to that of when we got attacked, rang throughout the ship. Are we being attacked again?

Ari suddenly yells over the intercom, "Luna, what in the fuck have you done now?" Luna yells back, "I didn't know it would do that! Not my fault the gun upgrade manual isn't clear! Leave me alone!" Upgrading a gun shouldn't be too hard. You already have the main hardware there. Just change out the old hardware for the new hardware. Ari yells back at Luna, "Don't fucking yell back at me! You fucking rat of a fox! I tell you time and time again to read the damn manual thoroughly and yet here you are. The tech wizard can't upgrade something that takes me three minutes. Pathetic." Ari slams something before releasing control of the intercom. This is going to be a fun ride.

I hear footsteps down the hallway. Ari stomps her way past the doorway of the medical room. Someone is in trouble now. I thought to myself as I sat up in the bed that Numi had trapped me in for the past few hours. The pain worsened with the slightest movement. Well at least I know my body is functioning properly.