Carrying equipment wasn't the most luxurious of jobs, but Naomi wasn't opposed as it was a great test to make sure her limbs were firmly attached and well-seated to her torso. She challenged herself to carry as much as she was able as she followed Tre back and forth between the Beacon of Solace and the medical wing of this planet's research outpost.

"Please, don't drop that," Tre said.

"It seems pretty sturdy..." Naomi responded.

"I'm not really worried about it breaking. I'm more concerned about it landing on me in this gravity."

"Well, it's only... uhh..." Naomi pulled up her prosthetics' telemetry. "Oh, it says over 240 pounds..."

"Like I said, don't drop that, or, at least, don't drop it on me."

"I'll try my best," Naomi said, carrying the large case with little effort. "What is it anyway?"

"It contains a bunch of components that can be used for a lot of different machines," Tre said. "I guess we aren't technically supposed to know what they're doing with it, but they're probably for some MRI machines."

"How can you tell?"

"I've put together my fair share. Just something a lot of places seem to need."

"Makes sense," Naomi said. "This place doesn't seem like a warzone, do you ever wonder what places like this need assistance from the BOS for?"

"Well, this place seems like a research station. We've done a few of these, and, of course, nothing's ever been confirmed, but mostly I think it's because the station has discovered something that they want more credit for, and are staying under the radar to prevent notifying their superiors."

"That doesn't really seem like much of an emergency..."

"I agree," Tre said, "and while I would prefer to be doing work for people that need it more, part of me is just glad that it isn't a warzone."

After a few trips back and forth, they dropped off the last load of requested equipment to the barebones medical clinic. Tre then received instructions for assembly.

"Called it," she said, snapping her fingers.

From context, Naomi determined she was referring to the point that it was, in fact, an MRI machine, even though she didn't receive the assembly instructions herself. Naomi had neither the technical skill, nor the instructions to be able to assist, so she simply stood near Tre and practiced some close-combat drills. Tre worked in relative silence for a few hours before a muffled sound came from the room beside them.

"Did you hear that?" Naomi asked.

"Hear what?" Tre said from underneath the machine. Naomi approached the wall and turned an ear toward it.

"Something's going on in the next room."

"Do you have enhanced hearing too?"

"Maybe, actually," Naomi said.

"Well, what does it sound like?"

"Hmm..." Naomi leaned closer against the wall and closed her eyes. "It sounds like someone screaming, and some clattering, and a few people yelling."

"That's not too unheard-of in a medical setting."

Another clatter and a thud emanated from the wall loud enough to cause Naomi to flinch.

"Whoa," Tre said, rolling out from under the machine. "I heard it that time."

"What do you think it is?"

"Likely just someone getting a procedure done that's not going very well." Tre shrugged her shoulders then rolled back under the machine. "Going to investigate is against the BOS's policy, so I certainly can't recommend it, but I also can't stop you from doing so."

Naomi got the message. She listened to the sound a bit longer, then slinked out of the room. In the hallway, she moved to the next door, but it remained firmly closed with a briefly flashing red LED indicating that she didn't have access. The room did have an observation window, but the glass was set to max opacity.

From what Naomi could tell, the research station wasn't too concerned with its digital security. As she poked the systems, she saw significant gaps that she could easily take advantage of, but hesitated as she didn't want to risk anything on her first job with the BOS. In her hesitation, she noticed Dr. Ibrahim and Takahashi rushing around a corner toward her. They were both donning face masks and glasses, and were rolling on gloves as they quickly approached. They passed Naomi, barely looking at her, before heading into the room. Naomi took the opportunity to piggyback Takahashi through the door.

The air inside was a cacophony of medical staff hurriedly talking over each other as they stood around a patient they were desperately trying to restrain to an exam table. The man was yelling and screaming. He seemed to be trying to form words, but they were completely incoherent. When Dr. Ibrahim and Takahashi moved into the gaps between the staff, the patient kicked Takahashi in the chest, sending her flying across the room and onto a prep table, scattering instruments to the floor.

The medical staff flinched at the loud clatter, and the patient took the opportunity to fling himself off the exam table in the direction of Naomi. For a brief moment, she caught a glimpse of the man's face. The man was mutilated, his face covered in countless deep scratches, and his eyes were destroyed so completely as to be unrecognizable as eyes any longer. Before Naomi could even process what she saw, the man dropped to his hands and knees, his face only inches away from Naomi's prosthetic feet.

The man stopped moving altogether when he was in position with his arms splayed. Naomi held her ground, ready to defend herself until the medical staff hurried to grab the patient and pull him back to the table. Dr. Ibrahim noticed Naomi, and though she was wearing a facemask, Naomi could see the anger in her eyes.

"Naomi, what the fuck?!" She shouted, then aggressively pointed toward the door. "You can't be in here, get the fuck out!"

When the other staff grabbed the man on the ground to pick him up, he immediately started screaming and fighting again. After a few seconds of struggling fruitlessly to get the man back onto the table, Naomi stepped in and lifted the man by the chest with one hand. She slammed him onto the table and held him there. Despite the strength of her prosthetics, the man's erratic struggling was overcoming her weight, but she was just able to keep him held down as the medical staff applied the restraints and sedatives.

Once the man was secured, Naomi let go and stepped away, but was immediately pushed back against the wall by Dr. Ibrahim.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" She shouted. Naomi assumed it was a rhetorical question and didn't answer. The doctor continued. "Go back to the BOS and to your room, right fucking now, and don't interact with anybody. We'll have Nia decide what to do with you later."

Without a word, Naomi did what she was told. By the time she had left the room, the patient was already calming.

"What the hell is wrong with this guy?" Takahashi asked, holding her sternum where the patient kicked her. The research station's lead physician stepped up to speak.

"Over the past few cycles, the patient has been showing a growing obsession with what they had described as a 'yellow point of light' that we haven't been able to detect through mechanical means, but I can be fairly sure it's not psychosomatic." The doctor pointed toward the floor where Naomi had just been standing, the same direction that the patient had faced when they leaped off the table. "The direction this yellow light is coming from is very specific, even rotating with the orbital period of this planet, signifying that it's coming from somewhere else, probably not even in this system."

One of the resident staff began inspecting Takahashi's chest, probing it for broken ribs. Takahashi was still attentive to the conversation, and was surprised to hear the information. It was a phenomenon she had never heard about before. Dr. Ibrahim hadn't either, but she had seen plenty of strange things in her time and didn't bat an eye. The lead physician continued.

"The wounds to his face and eyes are self inflicted. His corneas have been completely destroyed, but as you just witnessed, despite the damage, the patient still seems to sense this light and is obsessively drawn to it."

"How long has this been happening?" Dr. Ibrahim asked.

"The patient first reported the light and eye irritation about 80 hours ago. This was shortly after the patient returned from a planetary expedition."

The room was quiet for a moment as everyone was already considering the implications.

"Does the planet have an ecology?" Dr. Ibrahim asked.

"It does." Another brief hush filled the room as everyone waited for the lead physician to continue. "But the patient followed all biocontamination guidelines and wore a Level A environment suit."

"You don't have to be an Epidemiologist to know that no amount of protection is 100 percent foolproof," Dr. Ibrahim said.

"We understand that, doctor, which is why this outpost has a strict quarantine procedure."

Doctor Ibrahim and Takahashi looked at each other and at their own garb. The scrubs, masks, and safety glasses they were donning was the most basic protective equipment, primarily to help prevent the doctors from passing an infection to the patient, but they did little to protect from the opposite.

"This patient doesn't seem very 'quarantined' to me," Dr. Ibrahim said.

"Everyone at this outpost agreed to forgo individual isolation in favor of quarantining the entire outpost in the event of suspected infection."

"So that's why we were called," Takahashi said, rolling her eyes.

After several minutes of working alone, Tre finished assembling the MRI machine and booted it for calibration and testing.

"Alright, we need to do this from outside the room," she said before looking around and noticing that Naomi hadn't returned.

She wasn't to be found in the hallway outside either. When Tre saw that the glass to the next room was opaque, she shrugged her shoulders and started the booting procedure for the MRI machine. As the machine booted, Tre sent a message to Naomi requesting her whereabouts.

>Na: Returned to our room on the BOS. Might want to talk to Nia or the Doc before coming back.

"What the hell was in that room?" Tre asked to herself. When she asked a similar question to Nia, she received a vague answer. "She told me to talk to you, so I'm going to need a better answer."

"I can't really say much, you know how it is. All I can really say is that we've worked in isolation before. Whether you choose to enter that room or not, we aren't going to be able to set foot anywhere else for another two weeks. Same procedure we've done a hundred times now." Nia's voice was tinged with annoyance, though Tre could tell that it wasn't toward her. "Anything else, Tre?"

"Nothing... Just... try to keep me apprised on whatever you can," Tre said.

"I always do."

The window featuring Nia's professionally detailed digital avatar blinked out of Tre's vision.

"Yeah, fucking right." The extremity of Tre's eyeroll threatened to detach her retinas. She shook it off and continued her work, making sure the MRI machine she just assembled and the room's magnetic shielding was working properly.

She placed prominent warnings on the door and sent the operation manual and safety procedures to the technicians she was authorized to communicate with. After collecting all of her tools, her job was done. She dusted her hands and returned to the Beacon of Solace.

Tre didn't hesitate walking into her room. She set her toolbox next to the door and had her jacket half off before she noticed Naomi standing in the corner furthest away from her.

"Did you talk to Nia?" She asked.

"I did," Tre Replied. "She gave me the quarantine spiel."

"So, am I quarantined, or not?"

"Well, yeah, but I mean, we all are, really." Tre hung her jacket on a hook by the door and kicked off her shoes. "It's standard procedure to stay aboard the ship for a few days at least after any contract, and up to two weeks when a contagion is suspected. It happens pretty frequently, to be honest."

As she spoke, Tre walked to the couch next to Naomi, who was still reluctant to move close to her. Tre didn't seem worried at all. She grabbed a gamepad from the coffee table in front of her and leaned back, throwing her feet up onto the table. The lack of concern Tre was displaying was both distressing and assuaging to Naomi.

There wasn't much she could do about it now. She still maintained a distance from Tre, but it wasn't much more than usual. Tre started playing her videogame and Naomi sat at the table across the room. She wasn't quite up to joining her in multiplayer yet, but Tre played in a digital window, invisible and inaudible to Naomi. She wouldn't have minded watching her play, but unless she was going to watch awkwardly on a small display, she would have to connect her BSI, and that was something she wasn't ready to face yet.

Naomi had her BSI for nearly as long as she could remember, but after it had been used against her, she had felt uncomfortable using it, even to read documents or messages. Instead, Naomi quietly fiddled with some of Tre's useless machines on the table.

Only half an hour had passed when they both received an urgent message from the captain.

"Whelp, there's the official two-week quarantine I was talking about," Tre said. A shiver ran down Naomi's spine. A few moments later, Naomi received a call from the Captain.

"Have you had close contact with anybody since the incident in the exam room?" Nia asked sternly.

"I came straight back to my room on the BOS like the Doc told me to. I didn't interact with anyone on the way, but Tre arrived a little while ago and is currently here with me."

"I see..." Nia grumbled. Her avatar mostly accurately portrayed the dismayed tone in her voice. "Well, I suppose you two get to spend a bit of time with each other. I know you don't have much experience with our quarantine procedures, but they're going to be a bit more strict than usual."

"Is it pretty serious?" Naomi asked.

"We've dealt with serious before. I don't think this is anything we can't handle, we're just taking some extra precautions with this one. You both have BSIs, so I doubt you'll have any issues keeping yourselves entertained. We'll also make sure you're well fed, but, yeah, you guys are gonna have to tough it out alone for a little while."

"So, they think whatever was going on with that guy might be an infection?"

"We don't have all the information yet, so it's really too early to tell, but if you or Tre start experiencing some eye irritation or begin seeing anything unusual, let Dr. Ibrahim know immediately."

"Yes, Captain," Naomi said. There was a short pause before Nia responded.

"I appreciate the respect and professionalism, but please, Naomi, you can just call me Nia."

After ending the call, Naomi passed the information along to Tre who, again, didn't seem to be bothered by the information, but she did show some interest.

"I assume this all happened because you were able to get into that room, right?" Tre asked.

"I imagine so."

"So... what did you see?"

"I'm not sure I should say anything."

"Aww c'mon, don't be like that," Tre said, craning her head away from her invisible display to look at Naomi. "Don't you think it's relevant to our current situation?"

Tre had a point, and Naomi was no longer terribly concerned about blindly following orders anymore, not that the policies and procedures for the BOS were anything like the kinds of orders she would have been given years ago.

"Considering our situation, I'm not really sure that you want to hear what I saw," Naomi said.

"Why not?" Tre asked, setting the controller to the side. She was now even more interested. "Is it pretty nasty?" She gestured to her mechanical arm. "I'll remind you that I've seen some pretty disgusting and violent shit in my time..."

"Okay, well, remember they said to be on the lookout for any eye irritation?" Naomi asked, and Tre nodded. "They were trying to examine a guy and he wasn't having it, kicking and screaming as they were trying to strap him down, but you didn't need to look very closely to see that the guy had scratched his own eyes out."

"Really?" Tre asked. Naomi affirmed with a solemn nod. "Sick!" Tre's response wasn't what Naomi was expecting.

"'Sick' is exactly the right word to describe it." Naomi tried to insert a more serious tone to the conversation, but it didn't reach through to Tre.

"You wouldn't happen to have recorded it, did you?" Tre was now leaning closer to Naomi with a grin growing on her face.

"What? No!" Naomi said. There was a time when she would have recorded everything, but that time had passed. "Even if I had, I wouldn't show you."

"Aww, damn!" Tre snapped her fingers with playful frustration.

"Are you one of those types that gets off on violence?" Naomi said, knowing full well the irony of her question.

"No, not really. Just a morbid curiosity, and, like I said, I'm not unfamiliar to seeing some pretty fucked up shit."

"You're not at all concerned that this is something that might end up happening to us?"

"Well, my BSI can block pain receptors, and I'm pretty damn sure that yours can too. Plus, in my experience, the medical team has been pretty good at mitigating infection symptoms and whatnot."

"I see," Naomi said. "In any case, Nia wants us to notify the doc if our eyes start feeling irritated, or..."

"... or?"

"Or if we start seeing anything strange." Naomi's voice had a tinge of confusion.

"Strange... like what?" Tre stood up from the couch and walked to the kitchen area.

"She didn't say."

"What do you think? Does blurry vision count?" As Tre spoke, she pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge.  "Though, blurry vision isn't really that strange for me." She held the beer next to her face and winked at Naomi with a frisky laugh. It made Naomi smile, if only for a moment.

Tre motioned with the beer toward Naomi in a nonverbal offer. Naomi was slow to accept. She was no stranger to alcohol, but since she had been rescued, she was still hesitant to do anything requiring a modicum of trust, imbibing substances chief among them. She had known Tre for a few weeks now, however. It was long enough to know that Tre wasn't the kind of person to take advantage of someone under the influence. At least, not with violent malintent, so Naomi accepted the offer.

A warm smile grew across Tre's face as she grabbed another beer, then threw it at Naomi. While she wasn't expecting it, Naomi was able to catch the bottle with perfect accuracy.

"Jesus!" Naomi shouted.

"Sorry, just testing your reflexes."

"What if I hadn't caught it?"

"Then I guess I would have had to clean up." Tre plopped back down on the couch. "It wouldn't be the first time I've broken a bottle in here."

Next, it was time for Naomi to test her grip and articulation by twisting the metal cap off without crushing the glass in her hands. Again, she was able to complete the task without issue. She brought the beer to her lips and took a sip.

The taste and sensation of carbonated alcohol wasn't something that Naomi expected that she would have missed, but when it hit her tongue, she couldn't help but let out a small, pleasured groan. The high alcohol content showed that Tre wasn't playing around.

They sat in silence as they drank. Naomi went back to fiddling with the machines on the table in front of her, and Tre browsed some forums and social media. Before long, Tre had finished her first beer and grabbed another. This time, when she returned to the couch, she sat closer to Naomi, leaning against the arm toward her.

"So... you wanna hang out?" Tre asked.

"Isn't that what we're currently doing?"

"This isn't exactly the kind of 'hang out' I was referring to." Tre pointed to the back of her neck.

If Naomi was hesitant to accept a beer from someone, she certainly wasn't ready to connect with another person through their BSI. It was something she had always avoided.