Vreta was not given too much time to worry about the quake before the pain struck him. He braced himself against the table, a growl escaping through his helmet. Inside his head, it was like a war took place across his mind. Rhia reacted to the intrusion within nanoseconds, but her initial attempts to block out the signal were futile, as it did not have a specific source she could target. It was, in essence, reality that created the disruption. It was as if the weave of spacetime itself was probing his neural patterns. Still, that did not prevent Rhia from trying to run interference as best she could. Even if she could not stop the scan, that did not mean she could not disrupt its purpose. 

The nature of Rhia’s connection to Vreta was as close as one could be. The implants in Vreta’s brain expanded the capacity of his mind to make room for Rhia to exist comfortably, but she was not confined merely to synthetic computer chips, nor was Vreta strictly shackled to organic neurons. His implants bridged that gap in a multitude of locations, allowing signals to be quickly and freely translated between the two. At its theoretical peak, the system would allow not only Rhia to use Vreta’s brain just as she would her own processors, but for Vreta’s consciousness to be able to use Rhia’s hardware in the same way. Of course, unlike Rhia’s hardware, Vreta’s brain was not built specifically for this purpose. It would take time for an organic mind to learn to “think” with artificial hardware. For now, Rhia had to direct which parts of their hybrid mind were used by which consciousness. To at least try and confuse the scan, she started moving some of his thoughts, memories, and autonomic processes into scattered corners of her hardware, and vice versa from herself into his mind. She mixed up parts of him with parts of herself to hopefully scramble the scan’s results and make its data unreliable. She could not know how successful she had been, but she at least made the attempt to preserve some of their secrets.

Eventually, after enough microseconds had passed, Rhia started to feel the pain herself, or at least her equivalent of it. That part of this simulation’s reality that had been invading Vreta’s mind set its sights firmly on her. Though, for Rhia, it was less of a scan and more of a direct attack on her being. It was as if quantum fluctuations were trying to scramble her data, like wiping a drive by corrupting its files. Fortunately, this entity’s attack was not specifically suited to dealing with her. It may not have known of her true nature, as she did not store data in the same way as the average computer. Corrupted data could be healed, and pathways between the nodes restored or rerouted. Not only that, her connection into Vreta’s mind allowed her to pass fluidly between synthetic and organic mediums. It was an ability she could use to shield herself, and hopefully keep the both of them protected. 

Altogether, the chaos within Vreta’s mind left him beyond disoriented. It was only by Rhia’s direct control of a few of his muscle groups that he avoided collapsing to the ground entirely. Fortunately, Rhia knew how to avoid causing him lasting harm. [i]”Rhia, by the blackest depths of the Void, what was that?”[/i] He asked within his mind, though even just [i]thinking[/i] still caused him a headache.

[i]”Don’t know, still working on that.”[/i] She answered quickly. [i]”It was like reality was performing a scan on you, and trying to kill me. I’ll go over all the data I saved, see what I can figure out.”[/i]

After a few seconds, and once he was sure he had full control of his motor functions, Vreta pushed himself back up fully to his feet. [i]”Any damage?”[/i]

[i]”Nothing permanent. I can get us back to a hundred percent. I get the feeling we’re different from what this…thing was expecting. Still, I don’t know what it’s capable of, and I’d really rather get out of this sim. We’re in its territory.”[/i]

Vreta was far from the only one to be affected. Freyr, the Agent, even members of Eti’s team showed signs of pain. Eti, Mar, and Kelest were all recovering. The only members of Void Company that did not seem meaningfully affected were the two members who had not taken part in the previous mission: something that seemed to establish a clear pattern.

“I don’t…think we should stay in this sim.” Vreta replied to Freyr.