"Let me tell you a story, John. There was a sculptor. He found this stone, a special stone. He dragged it home and he worked on it for months until he finally finished it. When he was ready he showed it to his friends. They said he had created a great masterpiece, but the sculptor said he hadn't created anything. The statue was always there, he just chipped away the rough edges. You're always going to be tearing away at yourself until you come to terms with who you are. Until you come full circle."

- Colonel Sam Trautman, Rambo III

Reimi was lying on her back with a thin white sheet pulled up to her shoulders. Under the effects of a light sedative, a sudden jolt probably would have awakened her. Two members of the base personnel were standing over her gurney.

"So this is the government's big alien cover up?" the first soldier chuckled. "Why does she look so… normal?"

"How should I know?" the second one shrugged. "Maybe it's like that Species movie and she turns into some ugly green thing when she's not in her disguise."

The guards shared some harmless banter before returning to their posts. The door closed behind them with a low metallic thud as they left.

The room began to change as soon as they were gone. One by one, the holding cell's lights dimmed and shut off. The very walls of the room disappeared into blackness. Time itself seemed to stop so that the only things in existence were Reimi and her bed.

Solid white light spilled into the room when the door opened again. Out came a group of mysterious figures all wearing customary Fourth Dimension attire.

There was Luther, wearing a black and white suit fashioned as a doctor's smock. There was Blair, wearing a long black and white dress with a head mirror on her forehead. And then there was Sophia, with her long silver hair, her short black and white dress, and a few extra medical accessories for the task at hand. The other figures were various technicians and medical personnel who carried all of the necessary equipment.

Luther stopped in front of the gurney and stared down at the girl intently.

"This is her. Reimi Saionji."

He addressed the rest of the workers as the two women stayed close to his sides.

"Raise the firewalls around sectors 487, 488, and 489. I don't want the natives picking up our signal."

Large black drapes were raised in a square formation surrounding Reimi and the medical team. Illuminated with shimmering lines of blue fiber optic light, they looked like futuristic modesty curtains.

Projectors were placed along the inside of the square and displayed enlarged wireframe views of Reimi's sleeping body. They were recording her for every conceivable type of audio, visual, and vital feedback. High-powered surgical lights were placed along the four corners of the gurney.

A large cart of medical devices was wheeled up to Luther's side. He lifted the sheet slightly from Reimi's shoulders and checked underneath. She was already completely stripped.

"I don't suppose she arrived like this," he said. "Where did they take her combat gear?"

"Lab storage," one of the technicians replied. "It's right in the next sector."

"Good. Send some of our men over for materials analysis. If we're going to study this girl, I want every part of her accounted for."

Sophia stepped up next Luther, appearing as a short and slender witch beside a tall and broad magician.

"I still don't get this, Mr. Lansfeld," she said. Her voice was slightly muffled by her black surgical mask. "Going back into old versions of the system? Studying a bunch of outdated junk that already happened? Why do we need to do any of this when you guys already have me fixing all the glitches in the current release?"

"Ms. Saionji is about to become the first subject in our extensive tracking and identification project," Luther explained. "We'll be visiting random individuals from every major era of the Eternal Sphere's history so we can closely watch their progress on an evolutionary basis. We'll data mine the information we collect for possible system patterns we've never noticed before. It could help us predict where the Eternal Sphere universe will lead in the future."

"What does any of that mean?" Sophia asked with a confused look.

"It means your job will be easier, Sophia," Blair replied to her with a nurturing smile.

"Oh," Sophia thought to herself before she nodded along. "Okay."

"This particular individual is ideal for our research," Luther said. "Her role isn't that terribly important in the grand scheme of history, but she became stranded on this world, the planet Earth, when she was separated from the rest of her group. A local Earth faction took ahold of her as an alien specimen and made her as you see here."

"So these Earth people just killed her and cut her apart like a lab mouse to research her? Gross." Sophia glanced down at Reimi with a sympathetic frown.

"No, the rest of her team found her and freed her before her scheduled autopsy," Luther answered as he snapped a black latex glove over his wrist. Blair and Sophia were already wearing theirs. "We're essentially here to do the local military's job, and then hopefully leave her just like we found her. It should be a very seamless transition. If there are any detectable differences in her body after we're done with her, she and the people close to her will only assume she was tampered with while she was in the custody of this military. They'll never suspect direct contact from 4D beings."

"But we're not going to alter Ms. Saionji in any major way," Blair added. "So this procedure will be much more low-tech compared to the corrective operation we used on you, Sophia."

Luther finished his preparations and turned toward his nurse.

"Would you do the honors, Philosopher Sophia?"

Sophia obediently positioned herself at the head of the gurney. She closed her eyes and gently rested her fingers against Reimi's temples.

"Connection gene online," she narrated aloud as she used her innate powers. "Targeting NPC's neural operating code. Temporary sensory restrictions in place." Opening her eyes, she turned and smiled toward the doctor. "She's out like a light, Mr. Lansfeld. I made sure she's having a nice dream."

Luther carefully pulled the sheet down to Reimi's bare navel. Her chest gently rose and fell from her deep, restful breaths.

"Thank you, Ms. Esteed. Let's begin."

Luther leaned over Reimi. Sophia positioned herself so the cart carrying the medical tools was within her reach.

"Scalpel," Luther ordered.

Sophia handed him the scalpel. He worked on Reimi's body for several minutes before he needed his next tool.

"Scissors."

Sophia got the scissors. Luther continued about his bold scientific task.

"Acoustic runtime capacitor."

Sophia gave him the next tool and waited.

"Binary cardiac translator."

The procedure continued like this for a while. Finally, Luther looked up from his work.

"So far, so good. It's safe to recompile her now."

A black and silver wand decorated with a crescent moon symbol appeared in Sophia's hand. Her arms waved through the air slowly and her black miniskirt fluttered slightly as she danced. She ended in a pose where she was standing on one leg, had her other foot tucked up to her thigh, held one hand outward while holding the other one up with her staff, and arched herself backward slightly. Tiny particles of digital healing energy sprinkled over Reimi and made every incision on her body completely disappear. It didn't even leave a scar.

"As graceful as always, Ms. Esteed," Luther said in relief. "We'll continue on the subject's reverse side."

The technicians gently turned Reimi over so she was lying on her stomach. They brushed her long brown ponytail away from her pristine skin and made sure the side of her head was resting comfortably against the pillows. The thin white sheet still covered her up to the small of her back.

"Surgical saw." Luther requested his next tool.

Sophia handed him the saw from the tray. Several minutes passed.

"Spinal fluid synthesizer."

Sophia handed him the synthesizer. More time passed.

"Auxiliary debuffer driver."

Eventually Luther was done with all of his cutting, scraping, and prodding. Sophia performed another tiny healing ritual to mend the incisions on Reimi's back.

Luther pushed the cart away. He moved toward the end of Reimi's gurney and pulled her sheet down to the backs of her knees.

"Alright. That takes care of all the preliminaries." Luther brushed the sweat from his brow. "Ms. Esteed, please insert the Probe."

"The Probe?" Sophia blinked absentmindedly.

"Yes. It's the last thing we have to do here. Didn't you review the mission briefing?" Luther asked.

Sophia blinked again. She had kind of dozed off through part of it. Small-scale software management was a pretty boring topic when you were a god-level maintenance AI capable of erasing whole worlds in seconds.

Luther motioned toward one of the holographic screens. One of the 3D renders of Reimi's body rotated in the air and zoomed downward. A blinking red crosshair highlighted the correct installation point for a miniature tracing application.

"Yugh. Do we really have to do that to her?" Sophia said in disgust. She hadn't counted on making a surprise stop to Uranus during her intergalactic travels.

"It's probably the most important thing on our checklist, Sophia," Blair politely insisted. "This is the only way we can reliably track her progress after we put her back in the wild. The marker will be absorbed into her source code so we can trace any descendants she might have, as well."

"Okay, give me a second." Sophia sighed in resignation.

Pressing her fingers to her ear, the nurse spoke into an invisible microphone.

"Welch, can you get me a backdoor installer?" Her eyes briefly glanced toward Reimi's awaiting hindquarters. "Make it low bandwidth. I don't want to strain her resources."

A new wand materialized in Sophia's hand. This one started with a white handle and ended with a gloved black hand that only had its index finger extended. A red ring glowed around the wrist.

"Sorry, Reimi," Sophia said as she stood over the center of Reimi's two rounded hills. A look of bittersweet remorse grew on her face. "This is for your own good."

She held the wand securely by the handle and gently pushed the cushioned finger inward.

"Uhn…" Reimi's face twitched in slight discomfort as the sudden pressure intruded on her reverie. A small unconscious sigh left her mouth as her muscles adjusted.

Sophia had to hold the device in place for a few seconds until the light on the glove turned green. The holographic displays showed a new faint signal being broadcast from Reimi's body.

"Probe installed," she announced. "Removing software updater."

She carefully slid the wand back out and allowed it to disappear from her hand.

"Excellent," Luther said as he closely watched. He motioned toward his other workers.

"Cover her up and shut down these IDE programs."

Then he turned back to Sophia.

"Philosopher, stabilize the subject."

The technicians rolled Reimi into her original sleeping position on her back and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. They turned off all of their holographic screens, took down the portable surgical lights, and rolled up the black fiber optic curtains.

Sophia touched Reimi's temples again and meditated.

"Sensory subprograms restored. NPC is functioning normally."

Luther gave his nod of approval.

"We're ready to leave."

The medical team picked up their equipment and left as efficiently as they arrived. When the doors closed behind them, the flow of time resumed and all of the lights came on like normal.

Edge and his friends arrived at the base shortly after, never suspecting that they were the second party to visit Reimi.