A month later, I'm in mine and Ko-lee's bedroom making breakfast for the pair of us, using one of the machine's I had finally learned the operation of. "Brain dead simple, really," I think, pressing the options to cook/dispense the food. "Like if a Kuerig did food instead of coffee. Although to be fair, I never would've guessed that without help, 'cause that literally sounds so ick." I stick one of the processed nutrient cubes in my mouth, before plating the rest of our food. "Eh, not any worse than a 7-11 breakfast." Sitting in the center of the room is a "dining" table that Ko-lee and I had procured a few weeks ago. I walk the three steps it takes to reach the table, and set down both our plates, before sitting in my seat and reaching for the chopsticks. "Ni," says Ko-lee with a bemused expression. I look over at her, the food halfway to my mouth. "Your mask?" she reminds me, and I slowly raise a hand to my face to realize that I was inches from squishing my breakfast onto the metal surface.

  "Oh... didn't you know? I can actually eat through the mask now," I tell her, deflecting from the near breakfast related tragedy. "Yea, Scientia gave it to me during equipment training a few days ago. Based on some Orokin tech, I think." Ko-lee adopts a thoughtful look. "Wow, I didn't realize that. Well, by all means, don't let me stop you," she says casually. I respond with a dramatic sigh. "Yeah, unfortunately it breaks upon exposure to sarcastic girlfriends," I tell her. She shakes her head at my flawless logic, rolling her eyes. "I don't know how it ever would've worked for you then," she tells me. "Fair," I think, shooting her a grin. "I'm either easy to understand, or Ko-lee is way too smart for me." I can feel the smile on my face start to wither. "For now, anyways. God, I hope I don't just turn into some crazy fuckin' know-it-all post surgery. I mean, literally every glance of anything I've ever made ever? I'm sure I've flicked through a language book once or twice. I've scanned so many Wikipedia pages. The amount of information I probably have floating around in here..."

  "You've seemed distracted this morning," says Ko-lee, her suit covered hand touching mine. I open my mouth, but the jokes and japes die on the tip of my tongue. "Yea," I respond, feeling conflicted. "I'm just... I don't know. Nervous, I guess. I have that first advanced training later today. Remember when I had to go chat with the Lotus? That whole thing?" She nods her head once, her eyes locked on mine, before squeezing my hand. "You'll be fine," she tells me, and her confidence is so unshakable that I'm unable to formulate a response. I just give her a smile, and squeeze her hand back, before turning back to my food. "Yea, it'll be fine," I tell myself. "If I can't swing it, then whatever. I just don't, and then I don't do the crazy dangerous surgery. Maybe not a win win, but like a... win tie. It'll work out either way." I don't feel particularly convinced, but I do my best to keep the thought in mind as I finish breakfast.

  "Mask of my own face... I'd wear that," I half hum, half mumble under my breath as I put our breakfast dishes away in the recessed dishwasher. "To be fair, I don't know that it's actually washing the dishes. It definitely isn't making dishwashing sounds," I think, my hands moving of their own accord. "What are you singing?" asks Ko-lee from behind, causing me to jump slightly. "It sounds nice." I feel my face grow warm. "Oh, uh. It's a... it's a silly song by this internet guy. I just... had it stuck in my head for some reason." I can see her debating on something for a moment, before she speaks. "I don't know what 'internet guy' means," she tells me. "Oh, sorry!" I exclaim, turning to face her. "I thought- you know when I was telling you about how back home people are connected across the planet? How we can share music and knowledge and play games and stuff together? The thing that let's us do that, that's what the internet is." She doesn't show me any signs of disinterest, and so I continue to infodump.

  "It's pretty much everything, honestly. We can talk to people, and shop, and share pictures and videos, and so on and so on. And, because you can do everything, some people have jobs that were... are? Some people's jobs are the internet. Their whole thing is making money by producing stuff specifically for that culture, and also sort of by... being a celebrity, I guess. It's kind of weird without like, a lot of context on how value is determined and what not, but yeah. The song I was singing was by one of those people. A musician, but also a 'content creator'," I say, doing air quotes around the English phrase. I can see her devouring the information, but when I take a break, she doesn't say anything else. I give her a momentary look of confusion. "You know, if you're curious, you can just ask me about this stuff. About my home, and what not. You don't have to wait for me to bring it up," I tell her.

  She turns away from me, crossing her arms as she does so. "I just... didn't think it was appropriate," she says. "Why?" I ask, rotating around to make eye contact with her. "Well... you're here, now. You can't really go home," she explains. She takes a deep breath before continuing. "And... I just know that whenever I think of home, it hurts. I just didn't... want to hurt you." I reach up to pull my mask off with one hand, and pull her into a hug with the other. I kiss her on the top of her head before speaking. "That's very sweet of you love," I say, before leaning back from the hug slightly to make eye contact with her. "But it's really not a big deal," I tell her with a soft smile. "It doesn't bother me in the same way, cause- well, I... I guess I never really explained this. I want to go home. Or rather, I'm going to go home. I don't really have specifics, but if I made my way here somehow, then I should be able to make my way back. So, as far as long term plans..."

  I feel Ko-lee tighten in my arms, and I lean back once more to try to make eye contact, but the moment I do, she wriggles out of the hug. "Love?" I ask. "You're leaving?" she asks back, her voice uncharacteristically small. She's not looking at me, and there's a tenseness about her, so I do my best to explain the heavy topic lightly. "Ko-lee. Life here is... hard. Dystopic, if I wasn't feeling particularly charitable. It's brutal, and not in a way that people always survive. I... don't want someone I care about to die. I don't think I'd handle that particularly well." She laughs mirthlessly. "Yeah, I think I can imagine what that'd be like," she says, a sour note in her voice. "I know how hard it was for you, love. But... I think that, for as heartbreaking as it was for you, you've managed to come out of it... okay," I say, trying my best to find the right words. From the daggers she shoots at me, I know immediately that I've fucked up. "I'm not saying that it was okay! I'm just saying- I'm just trying to explain that you're a wonderful person, a strong person. Stronger than I am."

  I sigh, reflexively trying to rub my eyes, but I'm stopped by the headset. "I just think that if someone I was close with got hurt, I'd handle it badly. I'd just be a worse version of myself, and I don't..." my words trail off, as I struggle to put feelings into words. Her glare softens slightly, and after a few seconds, she sighs. "Ni, why not just live here, in this universe, together? After our five years of service, we can just leave. We don't need to stay here. We don't need to stay in danger," she says, a note of hopefulness, or maybe desperation, in her voice. I do my best to respond gently. "Ko-lee, realistically, if - and this is a big if - we both manage to survive five years of being a soldier, where would we go after?" She throws her hands in the air. "Anywhere!" she shouts. I can feel the argument heating up, and so I just bite my tongue, rather than press her on specifics. She watches me refuse to respond for a few seconds, before she scoffs.

  "So, that's it then?" she says, anger in her eye. "It's not safe here, so you want to leave?" I can't help but furrow my brows in confusion. "Uhm, yeah?" I say. She stares at me with frustration and anger, and the tiniest hint of disgust. "You're selfish," she states. "Excuse me?" I snap back, more heated than I mean to be. "There's nothing selfish about not wanting to die, or not wanting to watch your loved ones die!" She shakes her head at me. "No, it's the fact that you think it's so dangerous to live in this universe, yet you're fully willing to leave me to go back home! You don't seem to care about my safety at all!" Her statement comes from so far out of left field, that I can't help but laugh. "Sorry... what? What the fuck are you talking about? Why would I leave you?" I say, the ridiculousness of the situation making it hard not to chuckle. "Well... you... huh?" asks Ko-lee. I struggle to not laugh at the idea, even though it's just so patently absurd.

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  "Did you think that when I was saying I was going to go to back home, I meant by myself?" I ask, fighting a smile. "Why in the world would I not ask you come with me?" "Well, why didn't you tell me!" she says, in what seems like the dying embers of anger. "Love! I'm literally telling you right now," I say. She takes a few steps over to the dining table, and sits down at it, putting her head in her hands. Even though it was just a spat, I can feel my heart beating hard from the adrenaline. I take a breath to help relax, to pull my body out of fight or flight. "This... you just dropped this... bomb, in my lap... and I..." she says, struggling to find an explanation. I give her a small grin. "Well, to be fair, the plan was to just finish up breakfast and mess around on the headset for a bit. I wasn't trying to spring this on you. But I get it," I say, sitting down across from her. "I really wasn't trying to hide anything from you. I'm just... I'm barely at step zero, you know? All I have are vague maybe's and possibilities. Other than 'do something with the void', I have no plan, no first step to take. And honestly... there's a part of me that's expecting to find out that it's totally impossible. That it was a one way trip. That I'm..." I swallow, my throat strangely dry. "That I'm stuck here."

  "Or," I say, with enthusiasm I don't feel, "Maybe I find out I really am crazy. That all my memories were implanted, or something. Wasn't that one of your theories?" She looks up at me. "It was," she says, locking eyes with me. There's something there, maybe sympathy. Or pity. "I thought you were coming up with wild ideas, honestly. But with the surgery... yeah. I didn't know that technology could do stuff like that," I say. I feel my lips turn up in a joyless grin. "Lack of imagination on my part. But yeah, if you can do something like that, then why couldn't you create a whole fake world? Maybe there's no where to go. I just didn't want to tell you all this just to have to break the news that actually... we're stuck here." Ko-lee shakes her head, the denial clear on her face. "I never felt stuck here. I was born here. I've lived here my entire life. Even as dangerous as it is, this is home to me. Things like... like with Sharip. With my dad..." she trails off for a moment, and I see her eyes shine, but she manages to pull herself together.

  "It happens," she states, her voice clear. "It's a part of life. And I... ...anyways." There's a moment of silence between us. "I'm sorry," I say. "I wasn't thinking. I... I'm sorry." She shrugs. "It's okay. You were thinking about your home, not mine. I get it. Besides... my home is a little more flexible nowadays." She gives me a smile, and I can't help but respond with one back. "That's pretty cheesy," I say, and she laughs. Its infectious, and like a dam breaking, the next minute or so is us laughing at the entire situation. Eventually, the laughter simmers down, and after a few moments of silence, Ko-lee speaks. "Do you wanna talk about it?" she asks. "Talk about what?" I respond. "Your home." I just sigh. "I mean, sure. I don't know what to talk about though," I tell her. "Well..." she hesitates. "I do have some questions, if you think it'll help." I give her a grin and a nod. "Okay, so... how does your planet have 8 billion people? That's... wouldn't you be packed in like sardines?" she asks, clearly confused by the idea.

  "I don't know why you think we would be. There's probably like 80 trillion people in the system, 8 billion for a single planet isn't that much," I respond. She gives me a funny look. "There's not 80 trillion people in the system. Who told you that?" I immediately feel awkward. "Oh... well... no one. I just extrapolated. There's- so, uh, my first guess was closer to 8 trillion, but then I remembered this quote about how humans are bad with big numbers, specifically in space and sci-fi contexts, and so I tacked on another zero," I explain. She wavers her hand in mid-air. "It's closer to 150 billion, last I checked," she tells me. "What?" I say, after picking my jaw up off the floor. "That's... how!? You have the whole solar system colonized, plus space colonies! And all the planets! It's so... that doesn't make any sense!" The second I make the claim though, I realize it does make sense. "They've just had war and war and more war. And then there's the infested fucking up livable land and stuff. This is the scattered remnants of humanity subsisting on the dregs of it's previous civilization. ...fuck," I think, with more than a touch of dread.

  "Yeah, ignore me, I guess," I say, waving my hand in the air. "It does make sense. I just... yeah. I wish tactics went over stuff like this. I have all these weird gaps in my knowledge," I say, with a hint of a grumble in my voice. "Well, I'll always be here to tell you how wrong you are," says Ko-lee, with a smirk. "Aww, that's so sweet," I tell her, rolling my eyes. "Anyways, yeah. 8 billion people. We're just more tightly packed than you are here. Like, think Lykka Forest. Imagine if, instead of trees, it was just all Cetus. For just miles and miles and miles." I watch her eyes widen. "Or, imagine the Unum, maybe a touch smaller, but then 6 or 12 of them right next to each other," I say, and her eyes grow even more more. "Okay, I think I'm starting to get it. Did you live in one of those?" she asks me. "What? Oh, like a skyscraper?" I ask, before shaking my head no. "No, I lived in a house. Like your place in Sharip. Different build materials, but same idea. It was me, my wife, my boyfriend and a roommate." She quirks her head at me. "What about your parents?" she asks. "No, they didn't live with me, remember? My mom lived in a different state so... like four weeks walk? Maybe? But I would just take a plane, so really it was only a couple hours away." She gives me a look I can't decipher. "What about your father?" she asks softly. "Gone," I respond, before my immediately realizing my mistake.

  "Sorry! No, not gone! Just an asshole! He's... well, there's a couple guys that've held the title, but yeah, my mom has remarried a few times, so I don't really consider any of them to really be my 'dad', if that makes sense," I explain. It seems pretty clear that it doesn't make sense, but she moves past it regardless. "Right. Well, what was a day like for you? Before you became a solider?" she asks. I snicker. "Well, it was a lot lazier than this. I'd wake up, order some food-" she cuts me off before I can finish explaining. "Order some food?" she asks. "Yeah, we have devices... actually, you saw my phone! That thing, the metal and glass thing? That could connect to the internet. I could use it to buy food, and then someone would come deliver it to my house, usually within like 30 minutes," I say. I watch as she tries to imagine the scenario, with obvious difficulty. "Did you not have a way to keep food in the house? Were there no markets?" she asks. "No, there totally is! It's- okay, for context, I did used to go buy food from a store. But then there was this disease across the whole planet. A bunch of people got sick, and we all had to stay inside as much as possible, and I got into the habit of ordering food when that happened, and then the habit stuck," I explain.

  "Sometimes I would go to buy food from the grocery store, when I'd remember, but most days, I wouldn't even think about food until the morning of," I say. "You still don't," she jokes back. I try to grin but it feels flat. "Yeah. I've got a brain disease. Or three. But one makes it hard for me to focus. I'm actually sort of surprised that no one's magically offered me a fix for it like everything else so far," I say. "Maybe they're not aware. Or maybe it's not something they'll cover, and you'd need to pay out of pocket?" Ko-lee responds, trying to find a reason for the apparent disconnect. "Ah, money and meds. The more things change," I think sarcastically. "Yeah, maybe. Anyways," I continue, "I'd usually order some food, watch some videos, read a book. Play some Warframe," I say with a grin. "Then I'd go to work. I think I've explained that." She gives me a nod. "And... that's pretty much it. Repeat ad infinitum." Ko-lee hums to herself. "Sounds boring," she says.

  I shrug. "May you live in interesting times," I say in English. I repeat the phrase for her in Origin, before going on to explain. "It's meant to be ironic. Interesting times are not generally fun to live through. Like, an exciting thriller movie would be terrifying in real life. A book filled with action and adventure would be traumatizing. Interesting times," I say. I watch as she thinks on the phrase for a moment, before nodding. "Yeah. I think that's what my dad was trying to teach me as a kid. Being a Tenno is interesting. Being a chief is boring. But my dad was happy, I think. And I think that's what he wanted for me too," she says, lost in thought. I'm more than willing to let her muse on the idea, but the flashing clock in the corner of my vision lets me know that tactics is about to start in 20 minutes. "Let's put a pin in this, love," I tell her, standing up from the table. "I'm not going anywhere. We can always talk about it some more later. But we've gotta head to Scientia's." She stands up from the table as well, and we leave the room, hand in hand, to learn about something interesting.

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