It was another seven hours and some change until Asami was ready to show me what he had come up with. It was basically a box the size of two fists, cable in on one end, out of the other, wrap around and go in and come out again at the same points and then it ended in a connector plug. It honestly didn’t look like much and especially not like something that would keep my brain safe. But then again I knew nothing of brain stuff beyond what you become familiar with in my line of work and much less about technology that would keep your brain safe. So who was I to judge. Although I said as much to Asami.

“I understand your concern. Ideally I would have created a ‘Meet in the middle’ virtual environment for signal filtering and monitoring. However, with the limitations we have here when it comes to manufacturing and tech and under the time constraints, this is the best I could do.”

“No worries doctor Soto. Although I am curious what it actually is and does. And at some point you have to tell me what a meet in the middle thingy is.”

“How much do you know about the way the neural link works?”

“Only that I have one and that it allows me to plug things directly into my brain.”

I shrugged. I mean how many people that drove cars were able to tell someone how the hydrogen engine worked. Or even here, how many captains knew the ins and outs of their ship’s sensors or drives or whathaveyou.

He ‘tsk’ed’ but moved on with an explanation.

“When you connect something through the neural link, a virtual space is created in the brain on the end of the link. This can be enhanced through memory upgrades but the brain is a highly efficient neural computer. Anyway, the important part is that whenever the neural link connects to something, the actual connection happens within the brain. That makes the user susceptible to attacks.”

I hadn’t even considered how a neural link works and honestly, that explanation made me wary. Considering that I was connected to hardware right now outside the game, I was wondering if it worked the same way there. Scary thoughts.

“Okay, I see why the whole ‘meet in the middle’ situation would be beneficial. But what does your solution do?”

“Since I can’t generate a clean environment to meet in, what I can do is strip any spikes of activity and charge. While that might still leave you open to data overload, the brain is actually quite capable of filtering that load by itself. The danger comes from large instant pushes of data or electrical charges. The former will overload the brain’s bandwidth and the latter will burn neuron connections.”

“So your box can prevent that from happening?”

“Yes. It is basically a bandwidth and charge limiter. You might notice lag in the data you receive. I think that is better than the risk of brain damage though.”

Yeah, I’ll go with lag over being a vegetable any day of the week. I nodded.

“Okay, so what do I do?”

“Easy. Plug the cable into your neural link and when that is done, use the other end like you would normally connect.”

“You say normally as if this is a thing that I do often. So far I only properly connected with one module and that was a horrible experience.”

He looked at me as if I was crazy. When he asked, I took a moment to explain to him my experience connecting the survey scanner to my brain.

“There should be no synch period. And there should be no pain. This is the first time I am hearing about an experience like this. Curious. I wonder why this happened.”

“No idea doc. But honestly I am not looking forward to plugging this in.”

“I had a lot of pain too when I had my remote connector installed. And it also came with a sync period.”

Irene stood behind us with Opisthos and had so far been silently observing the conversation but I guess she felt the need to chime in at this point.

“Are you saying that when other people connect, there is no pain and no sync period?” she asked.

"That is exactly what I am saying. I have no idea why this would happen to the two of you. You are not even from the same species.”

He looked between me and Irene, trying to figure out a common denominator. Good luck. There was literally nothing we had in common in the game, species wise speaking. But under the hood we were both one hundred percent human and had our Gen-7 neural link recently installed. And I was drifting again. It wasn’t that we were human under the hood. It was that we were players in a game. And I guess the AI had an easier time connecting. Although why they would only put in a sync period for players and not the AI made no sense. Talk about balancing issues down the line.

I was sure Irene saw the commonality of our situation as much as I did as she narrowed her eyes at me. I don’t know if that was because she was annoyed at the imbalance or because she wanted to warn me about not speaking of IRL things, I didn’t know. As they continued with their conversation I had already picked up the cable and plugged one end into my neural port. Talking about the pain brought back some serious unpleasant memories and if I didn’t plug in now, I was not sure that I would have the willpower to go through with it.

“Here goes nothing.” I said to all of them and no one in particular.

I stepped closer to the ship and repeated the gesture that he had made before. Again the port materialized in the shield and before I gave anybody a chance to talk me out of it I took the other end of the cable and plugged myself in.

* * * * *

I would say I should be familiar with the sensation by now but honestly, I can’t see myself getting used to everything going black anytime soon. Haha, see what I did there… whatever… I was funny in my head. You know it is very different when you are tasered or knocked in the head and pass out. Your consciousness kinda fades, you try to stay lucid but simply can’t. This was different. I felt fully conscious but disembodied, immobile, like during character creation. Calling it disconcerting was making light of the situation. It was actually fucking scary.

I was unsure what was going on but tried to calm myself. If what Asami said was true, then my consciousness had been pulled into the virtual space in my brain. Which meant I should be okay. It could also mean something had gone horribly wrong but there was fuck all I could do about that. I just hoped that the people on the rock would unplug me if that was an issue. Or the people IRL would pull the plug in case they noticed something was off. Although, I had kept track of the login period this time and had barely done one third of it. Floating here for the other two thirds would really mess with me.

Was Asami Soto still working for the Red Dawn? Could he have put something in the “safety measure” that would trap me in my own brain? What would happen in the Asteroid? Was RD on the way to get the ship right now? Maybe there was already a firefight going on and they had just waited for me to be out of order to start the takeover? Were my people already dead?

I tried pulling up my HUD but couldn’t. Not unexpected but I just wanted to check what was going on. Fuck this, I needed to get...

Connection established.

Bypassing interference.

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Automatic handshake initiated.

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Handshake accepted.

Hardware and software scan initiated.

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Scan complete.

Identification pattern scan initiated.

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Scan complete.

Communication established.

Adjusting for interference.

Visual representation unavailable due to bandwidth limitations.

Adjusting for technological deviation.

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Adjustment complete.

Adjusting for brain wave patterns deviation.

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Adjustment complete.

Technological and brain wave patterns match to crew: 72%.

I saw all that text run by in my mind’s eye. Or whatever you want to call it. You know, since I was floating in blackness without the feeling of a body. Which is the best way to describe it but floating implies physical sensation. Which I didn’t have. Whatever, I don’t know what to call it. The text started appearing and scrolling past quite quickly. I wondered what it all meant.

“Greetings Seeker!”

“What? Who? How?” I stumbled over my words when I was suddenly addressed.

“My name is Nyx. I am the persona core of the ship you are connected to. Since you are connected with limited bandwidth a virtual representation could not be achieved.”

“Okay, I see. Now what?”

“Since you connected to the ship’s access authorization system I assume you would like to achieve entry.”

“Yeah, that is basically what we tried to accomplish. But this seems too elaborate to open a door.”

“That is true. However, this ship has been dormant for 8864 standard years. All previous crew has most likely perished by now. As such it is required to conduct a more thorough authorization procedure.”

“And the result… wait… eight thousand years?”

“Correct, this ship was secured within this asteroid and set to dormant mode 8864 years, 7 months and 4 days ago. The previous crew left the Nyx, being reassigned to combat specialized vessels. The last access attempt was logged 2317 years ago.”

“Damn, that’s a long time ago. I can’t even wrap my brain around that. Or that I am talking with an AI that is so old. You are an AI, correct?”

“In a way I am an AI, that is correct. But I am also the living persona of the ship.”

“Okay, I have no idea what this means. But since we are talking I figure that means I can potentially come in, right?”

“Data collection is complete but the results are inconclusive. I initiated communication in an attempt to clarify and reach a conclusive result.”

“Clarify away. I think I rather have my question answered when I can actually feel my body.”

“I will do so. The scan indicated the technological patterns match 68% with the neural link interfaces that have been used by the original crew. In previous access attempts the number recorded was significantly lower. Please provide an explanation as to how you came to be in possession of technology with this level of similarity. The same applies to the brain wave patterns scan. A match level of 76% was recorded. Again, significantly higher than logged in previous access attempts.”

“Uhm… I don’t really know how to answer that question.”

“Would you like me to scan for potential explanations?”

“If it doesn’t hurt, why not. Better than any explanation I can think of.”

Scan initiated.

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I mean I could think of one explanation. The game recognized me as a player and this was a ship made for players. So it would stand to reason that the ship’s AI who was controlled by the game AI would be able to recognize a difference between NPCs and players and would deny entry requests by them while allowing a player. But since we didn’t mention that we are players in the game, I did not have a way of explaining that.

Scan complete.

“Seeker, it seems that you have DNA markers similar to the previous crew. This could lead to brain development along similar lines which would allow for waver patterns to match. Additionally your neural interface seems to be constructed in a similar manner although with cruder technology. Again, a possible explanation for the matching result.”

“Okay then. What now? Are we good?”

“I am indeed satisfied. Access to the ship has been granted. Malcolm Solo is authorized to enter all areas marked yellow and green. Limited bridge access has been granted. Attempting to enter any areas not marked as such will result in immediate withdrawal of privileges and the activation of defense measures. Would you like to request access for any other life forms?”

“Oh, good point. Yes, there is one other person that I would like to request access for right now. There will most likely be others later.”

“Please specify the name.”

“Irene Adler.”

“Irene Adler has been granted access to areas marked green and yellow.”

“That is different from what you just told me, no?”

“Yes, Irene Adler does not have bridge access.” Nyx specified. And then anticipating my next question she added: “To gain further access rights a scan similar to yours must take place.”

“Okay, I’ll let her know to plug in. Anything else?”

We had spent a good amount of time here between the scans and the conversation and I was starting to feel anxious to let the people know that everything was okay. However, instead of answering a simple message popped up:

Communication terminated. Would you like to disconnect?

Y/N