The title for this chapter means "Someday we'll understand eachother" in Japanese. It's a line from one of the opening themes to the popular anime 'Bleach'

A turtle walked by on the old television screen as Nexus watched, lying facing the device on the quasi-existent floor of the Construct, watching the small reptile waded past with eyes that appeared clouded and distant. Her RSI had altered slightly since she had first arrived three months ago; her hair was similar to the reality now, a few inches long and slightly spiked. The boots and heavy canvas pants remained, out of practicality, but the cold dark colours of the jacket and shirt had given way to warm burgundies, oranges and yellows.

The dreaming look upon her face cracked into a small smile as the one turtle replicated into two turtles, which themselves replicated. Soon a small army of turtles were moving past. The young woman watched them for a moment, then squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to remember something. The turtles flickered very slightly, all at once, and began to disappear in clumps, as if following a random grid pattern.

Nexus lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, then sat up slowly. She had been practicing with her images for a few weeks now, feeling out her limits. She could easily maintain the image of something small, and could hold those of several identical things for a few moments, as with the turtles, with their dark shells and bright red and yellow striped heads. Scrambling the image of something more substantial, as she had done in the Matrix a month earlier, was harder, and acted chaotically. She had not as of yet been able to actually create an image outside the screen in this place, and she still wasn't sure she even could.

Nexus' phone started to ring, and she started, then laughed slightly at her own jumpiness

and brought it to her ear, answering it. Aiglos' voice issued from the earpiece. "We've

got company. I'm pulling you out."

The blond woman shut her eyes and opened them again to meet the nervous gaze of

Skylla.

Medea tossed and turned in her sleep, her browed creased and tense as unwelcome

images played out behind her eyelids.

Medea ran down the aisle of the old warehouse, a confused and frightened Makai running behind her. The agents had stopped chasing them, but this only made the youth more nervous, not less. She stopped at the end of the aisle, banging on the door at the dead end hard three times, casting furtive glances behind her.

Makai caught up to her, breathing hard. She felt pity for his current state; he had been like a protective older brother to her since her parents had split up when she was a child and the other kids at school had begun to target her for ridicule. Now she was showing up after disappearing of the face of the earth, and dragging him off as if all the hounds of hell were after them.

"Celie, what the hell is going on here? Where have you been? Everyone's been worried sick." Medea had been prepared to let go of those she had left behind, but Makai was just as much of a hacker, a self-proclaimed outcast, as she had been. He would understand. He had to. "It's alright Mak. Everything's going to be OK. I've a friend here who's going to explain everything, I promise." We're going to make it, she thought. Two long years as a rebel and she would finally get the person she cared about the most out. Free, like herself. Still, she kept her gun at the ready, listening and waiting for the sound of the heavy door being unlocked, as Makai eyed the weapon fearfully.

As the heavy lock of the door clicked, Medea heard Makai scream in pain and terror behind her, and something inside her shattered at what that sound meant. She spun around, going low and raising her gun to sight her friend's head, now shifting into that of an agent. In the instant before she pulled the trigger she met her friend's eyes, and saw the horror and betrayal etched into them. Then the eyes dulled, and the form shifted back to wholly his own, crumpling lifelessly to the warehouse floor as the door behind her opened to reveal the astonished crew. Medea stared at the corpse of her friend, numb with shock, barely registering as her crewmates gently turned her away from the sight and pressed a ringing phone to her ear.

Medea woke with a start to the sound of the proximity alarm, rocketing up reflexively, then falling back to her cot with a worn sigh. Reaching down for her boots she pulled herself back up and put them on, grabbing an extra blanket to wrap around her shoulders as she made her way up to the cockpit.

That dream…it had been at least a year since she had had it, and she had thought it was gone for good. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, walking steadily through the broadcast room on the way to the cockpit as she had done hundreds of times before. She had received a call from the Solaris earlier about a young man, fresh from the pods, asking after her newest recruit. It had taken months for her to start speaking again after that event that haunted her still, and years after the incident, as she called it, to stop having anxiety attacks when a new recruit was freed. She hid it well, but her crew, observant as they were, noticed how badly she slept when they were about to pick up a potential, and the small tremors that manifested in her hands as she set herself up to be plugged in on these missions. Even so, she never hesitated on the hard decisions, and knew that she would do what she had done back then again in a heartbeat, should the situation call for it, and knew that those of her crew would not hesitate to pull the plug, nor the trigger if they had to.

She idly wondered how Nexus would come off in such a situation as she came to the top of the ladder where the cockpit, filled with the rest of the crew save her gunner, watched silently for signs of sentinels. "Is the EMP ready?" she asked warily. "Skylla's got it locked in, ready on you command Captain," came the reply from Aiglos, who had already landed and powered down the ship.

As the group waited tersely for the danger to pass, Medea turned to Nexus, speaking in a low tone. "I got a message from Solaris for you earlier, by the way, when they were reporting the proximity warning…"