Instead of fuming over what she considered a worthless feature, Zoe played with the virtual bouncing ball until she calmed down. After growing bored with the ball, Zoe dived back into the tutorial and other documentation that came with it. Eventually she fell asleep.

*

“Huh,” Zoe said aloud the next morning after resuming her studying.

“Find something interesting in your new toy?” Zane asked as he came in to check on her.

“Two things actually,” Zoe replied. “Good morning by the way.”

“Good morning to you too” Zane said. “Going to tell me what has your interest?”

“I can filter some of the binary Code View shows me into a language I can read.”

“Ok…”

“You’re not a coder, so you don’t see why that is important.”

“True,” Zane cheerfully replied as he finished up his notes. “What’s the second thing?”

“I can use my P750 and MR as a virtual shooting range anywhere, including here in bed, if someone would be kind enough to bring me my pistol,” Zoe answered smiling sweetly at the big nurse.

“I’ll bring it to you with an empty clip along with your breakfast,” Zane said.

“Thanks!” Zoe happily replied. “Speaking of breakfast, can I get something besides a muffin, toast, plain rice, or cereal this morning?”

“Maybe. What do you have in mind?”

“Grits, country ham, ham gravy, biscuits, bacon, hash browns, sausage, home fries and scrambled eggs,” Zoe replied as her tummy growled.

“Wipe the drool from your mouth,” Zane laughed.

“I’m not drooling,” Zoe protested.

“You’re not getting any of what you listed either,” Zane replied. “Most of that is not healthy.”

“Come on Zane!” Zoe whined. “It’s all good though.”

“We don’t make breakfasts like that here and you know it,” Zane said.

“Could order out,” Zoe suggested.

“Not happening. Claire would have a fit,” Zane replied. Zoe mock pouted and Zane laughed again. “I suppose could get you some hash browns and a couple pieces of bacon from my stash to go along with some rice, wheat toast, and scrambled eggs though.”

“Thank you! You’re a life saver,” Zoe gushed.

“Just don’t tell Claire,” Zane said walking to the doorway.

“I won’t,” Zoe promised. “She probably knows about your stash anyway.”

“She does. But I meant don’t tell her I’m sharing my stash with a patient,” Zane replied.

“Sure.”

“I’ll be back in a little while then,” Zane said walking out.

“Don’t forget my gun!” Zoe called out.

*

Zoe lined up and shot the virtual target. It was a disc shape, what people used to call skeet or sporting clays. She missed three times before the virtual clay pigeon fell to the floor. Shooting moving targets without using her targeting assist was hard. Zoe turned on the assist and hit the next dozen clay targets without any effort.

“I really need to keep practicing,” Zoe said to herself as she lowered the P750 and sat it on the bed beside her.

“Talking to yourself isn’t healthy,” Claire said entering Zoe’s room.

“Not true. It’s only unhealthy when you answer yourself,” Zoe quipped.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Doc Brown replied coming in and sitting in the chair beside Zoe. “And I thought you were going to stop talking to yourself.”

“I’m trying,” Zoe replied.

“Uh huh,” Claire muttered. Zoe grinned at the cyberdoc.

“Got some bad news for me?”

“No. Did my sitting down give you that idea?” Claire asked.

“Yeah,” Zoe admitted. “The last time you sat, you gave me bad news after all.”

“Yeah, well, that was a onetime only thing,” Claire said. “At least I hope it was a onetime thing.”

“Me too,” Zoe agreed. The two chatted for an hour before Claire had to go see another patient.

Doc Brown stopped in the doorway. “Oh yeah. Do you want to get NanoHair installed when I replace your spine?”

“Yes,” Zoe immediately answered watching Claire’s hair change colors. “That shouldn’t have even been a question.”

“Just making sure you hadn’t changed your mind about wanting NanoHair,” Claire said before walking away.

*

Zoe decided to check out her daemons and ICE in Mixed Reality. She hadn’t done so yet and was curious how the programs would look. She pulled up her angel. She didn’t see the angel at first. Zoe turned and looked over her right shoulder after seeing a shadow.

“Archangel Gabriel,” Zoe murmured as she gazed at her angel. The angel had the appearance of a smiling tan strong looking young man wearing a toga with white wings silently flapping behind him. A halo floated above his head. The angel’s eyes were a deep blue, and his shoulder length hair was brown. Binary scrolled across the angel.

Zoe shook her head wondering why the program looked like what she always imagined an angel would look like. She checked the tutorial to see if it had anything on what appearances daemons and ICE took in MR. Zoe discovered all virtual representations of programs had basic forms, but a user’s perception or imagination would influence what they saw.

Zoe pulled up Aperture, which was a small round black hole. It appeared to be paper thin. Binary swirled in a circular pattern disappearing in the middle of the hole.

Bulwark was a wall that encircled Zoe. Binary scrolled throughout it as well. Bastion appeared as a smaller wall with protrusions sitting on top of Bulwark. Zoe saw binary scrolling though it too.

Bigboy was a large cartoon fat guy. Broadcast was a small satellite dish. Bug Zapper lantern that attracted insects. Caveman was a barefoot cartoony hairy man carrying a club that Zoe was sure boarding on copyright infringement unless the coders or corporation had secured the rights to the character.

Fly Swatter was a literal fly swatter that Zoe could weld. This amused her greatly. Dazzle was grenade. Zoe assumed it was supposed to be a flashbang. She could toss it, which also amused her.

Fox was a tiny red tail fox. Grave Robber looked like a fantasy thief complete with shovel. Hog was a pig while Hound was a large hunting dog. Zoe was unsure of the breed. Illusion was a shimmering version of herself. It changed to a shimmering version of whoever’s profile she used. That was discovered after trying it on Bill after getting his permission.

Kunoichi appeared as a female ninja. She didn’t have a sword or any other weapons though. Zoe’s Lockpick was a lockpick set. Note was a notepad that should write on and even flip pages in. Nostradamus, the data reader, appeared to be an older man dressed in a medieval merchant style. At least, Zoe guessed it was what a merchant from long ago would look like.

Phantom was a cloaked ghost. Faint lines of binary made up its hands. Rabbit was an adorable bunny. Shocker was a simple lightning bolt that Zoe could throw as if she was Zeus. Stinker was a skunk. Tag appeared as an arrow pointing at whatever she used it on. Tomahawk was a missile and Traffic Cop was a uniformed policeman.

All in all, Zoe was pleased with the way her daemons and ICE looked. Being able to weld some of them was a pleasant surprise that Zoe looked forward to using, especially the prank daemons. She wondered how much of a distraction using the MR versions would be.