Chapter 7

The first thing she registered was her head pounding. Groaning, she opened her eyes to look at a white ceiling. A female entered her vision and gently touched her shoulder, "Easy. You're still healing. You took a lot of nasty hits."

She tried to sit up and winced at the stiff pain. The female instantly helped her sit up and Nico noticed the man that had saved her was missing.

"What….?"

"You have a visitor." The woman said, as if reading her thoughts, "Once you're ready, I'll send him."

After a moment, she nodded and the woman picked up a notepad of some sort off the table and walked out the room.

Nico, meanwhile, looked down to see she was still in her suit. Her hand went up to her neck. It still hurt, but whatever they did, it made it less of a bother.

She looked up again to see the medic and a familiar figure in the doorway. The medic grabbed his arm and whispered something to him. He looked down to her and nodded, and the medic, seemingly satisfied with his response, walked off. His gaze lingered on her for a moment longer before he turned and entered the room. Nico quietly watched as he pulled up a chair from the wall and next to her bed before sitting down. Neither said anything for a moment.

"How you feeling?" He said finally, though quietly.

"…I'm ok." She decided on, pulling her knees up to her chest before wrapping her arms around her knees.

"That's good." He nodded as he spoke, eyes looking down in thought. She waited as he sighed and finally looked up to her.

"I need to ask you a couple questions…concerning your lack of a disc."

"I have a couple questions concerning that too. Why am I missing this….disc-thingy? And why is that important?"

He sighed, his hand going from underneath his eyes with his thumb and forefinger before pinching either side of the bridge of his nose. Obviously, this was not an easy topic for him to discuss.

"I don't know why you're missing a disc. You could've lost it or had it stolen or destroyed."

"I've never had a disc, though."

"I'm sure you did, but without a disc, programs experience memory loss, thus becoming Strays."

Nico decided not to say anything concerning the word 'programs', but rather said, "But I remember everything. I can prove it."

"Alright, if you say so." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened his eyes, "What's your name, then?"

"Nico."

"What's your job?"

"Programmer."

He gave a look of confusion, "There's no such thing as a programmer. There are hackers, but not 'programmers'."

"…." Now Nico was confused.

"Let's try another question. Where are you from?"

"Central City."

"…." He decided not to say anything, but Nico could tell she's choosing all the wrong things. But she didn't know why. She was telling the truth, after all.

"Describe to me your first cycle on the Grid."

By now, her mind was fully aware, and so the words began to make sense to her, in a weird way.

"I was in the Outlands and there was this portal there. I was curious about how it worked and so I was exploring it when this patrol of programs arrived_"

His head snapped up faster than she thought. He seemed intrigued now. Unsure what to make of this, she continued.

"I was afraid of them, so I hid. But I slipped and fell and they heard me, so I ran."

He seemed shocked and didn't say anything.

"….Did I say something confusing there?"

"No, I just…." He looked to her, "I need you to come with me. Are you able to walk?"

She stood on the ground, "Yeah."

"Okay. I'm going to check, then you need to come with me."

"Why?"

"You need to talk with a couple programs."

She didn't know what to make of this, so she let him pull her along.