And now for some thrilling exposition. This is far too emotional for my liking... luckily Temarcia requested emotional so I can blame it on her.

Not as polished up as I would have liked but I wanted to post something else before I left because you're just such lovely people. See you in a week.

The engineer reached the end of the wound and knotted the thread. He appraised his work. He was no surgeon, but it looked… satisfactory. He could feel as he worked with the stuff that it would hold, at least as long as nothing interfered with it. He sighed as he remembered just whose cranial laceration the sutures were sealing. We should make him a cone, he thought, otherwise he'll scratch them like a dog.

He looked up to where the sniper still stood and motioned him to sit down. He did so gratefully, the option apparently not having occurred to him.

"Are you OK?"

The sniper looked at him sharply, searching for an edge in his voice, evidently expecting some jab.

"It's not that uncommon to be bothered by blood. Part of the vasovagal response. It's a biological mechanism, supposed to help you if you're the one who's been injured."

There was no reply. He still looked distrustful.

"Look," Alexander sighed, "I'm just trying to make sure you're all right. Blunt force isn't the only kind of trauma. And if there's one thing I learned today, it's that I want you around and serviceable if something like that ever happens again."

"I'm fine." His voice came out hoarse and he cleared his throat before repeating himself. "I'm fine."

"Only– back there, when he first got hurt, you sort of -"

"I just… I got scared." He ducked his head, awaiting ridicule. Why would you admit something like that? And to Gromov, of all people? He had hoped the engineer hadn't noticed him freezing up, or at least, if he had, that it wouldn't come up.

But the doctor just watched him thoughtfully. "I can understand that."

"I wonder what happened, anyway," Snippy blurted after a few seconds, keen to change the subject. "What were they trying to do to him?"

The engineer sighed. He had rather hoped this wouldn't come up.

"They wanted to connect him to the network. It's part of the programming I incorporated into the headsets; they would automatically search for any others nearby and try to connect. It was to help spread the network and speed up communications; the headsets themselves were not only receivers but could relay the signal themselves. When they tried to connect to him his old headset responded -" he broke off for a moment. "I'm not sure why he still carries it around. Anyway, it reacted in some way, a way that he could perceive and that got his attention. But when they went to connect with him -" he trailed off again, studying the unconscious pilot. Finally he continued, "I don't really know what happened to Hatchenson. He's – well, you know what he's like. It's impossible to get any sense out of him. But from what I can gather his headset broke before the whole - end of the world… thing - and a lot of his long term memory went with it. Perhaps his mind is just too erratic to be part of a network now – it would be like trying to conduct electricity through a broken circuit. Certainly his headset was broken. So for whatever reason they realised they couldn't connect him and, based on all the casualties he had caused so far, that he was a threat. And they decided to eliminate him, I suppose. I imagine they would have done the same to you if you'd let any get close enough to realise that you and the network don't gel."

Was that a hint of admiration? From Gromov? No. He was tired, he was just confusing things.

"But that's what I don't get. You and Captain and I, we don't have headsets anymore. I never had one." He hesitated, wondering if the Captain had ever had one. He had all but given up on trying to figure out the Captain's past. "How were they planning to connect to us?"

The engineer removed his mask and pushed back his hair. He really didn't want to think about the answer to this question. "You have to bear in mind that towards the end the physical headsets were almost unnecessary. The signal was being broadcast at the same frequency as our brainwaves themselves. It's what was keeping those things going, after all, even after biological death – the headset was standing in for a transmission tower and so long as it was active so was the brain, to a limited degree. Their headsets were already detecting our neural activity – which would spike, I imagine, when you suddenly, say, start thinking about particle physics and simulations when everyone else is concentrating on fighting for their lives – and one of them could have reset itself to actually patch a new brain into the network. It's just that if the brain in question were resisting then it would have to override - i.e. turn off - the higher functions to do it."

The sniper took a moment to take this in. Then he wished he hadn't "Oh – Oh god. You mean, when you were – it was going to -"

"It was going to turn me into one of them." Alexander nodded, projecting a composition he did not feel. "Functionally brain-dead. But still walking around."

"That's horrible."

"Yes."

The engineer began tearing off a strip of fabric from one of the unused uniforms in the supplies box. When he was choosing what to bring he had reasoned that they could use a change of clothes at some point; now he planned to fashion a dressing for Pilot.

"So, you know. Thanks,"

"Any time," said the sniper with feeling. Neither of them could muster the energy to for their usual grudging awkwardness.

"So now what?" he asked eventually, looking to where Pilot lay, breathing steadily.

The engineer shrugged. "We wait and see."