Even neural mirrors didn’t make the action less disturbing as I pulled my hands apart. First the soft outer layers, a kind of latex meant to simulate skin. Compelling enough for casual contact. Not that I ever had anything else.

“Count me out.” The whinny nasal words were unexpected. As were the words themselves. Carter blinked turned away from the monitor. Even with a roomful of people wearing matching uniforms who’d spoken he could easily determine.

The brilliant light faded, and I lowered my arm to… a circus? Green grass, white tents flying multi-colored pendants, rides whizzing about, and blue sky with lazy clouds. The last cell I’d scoured couldn’t have been more different: burning stones ringed by lava. Here’s boundary was a rough, waist-high, wooden fence which couldn’t keep anyone in.

Yumi thought sitting lost amongst the rings around Benkitera, a backwater planet somewhere in the Lore 9CO system, would have bought her peace. Ion trails, she wasn’t sure where the system was. Her bike had dumped her out of orbit and spat those names out of the comp.

Fanfare erupted from the speakers at my station. Speakers I’d thought purely ornamentation until that moment. For weeks we’d labored in stoic silence, not even daring to speak to each other as we unraveled the code the travelers had gifted us with. Code we either solved or another of their machines awoke to transform a chunk more of the world into a lifeless wasteland.

The low buzz of voices pulled at Ryan, both dragging and shoving him deeper into the station section. As we turned a final corner, doors stood open more than midway down the corridor. I swore time dilated, because suddenly I stood looking at the team working within. Security, medical, all the usual suspects.