I stared up at the drone hovering in front of me for a long moment. We were still walking along, and he was floating in front of me. An indicator light up top was blinking a steady blue, which I took to mean that Arvie was entirely too satisfied about what was happening here.

That or the drone had gone into medical mode. Maybe it'd been glowing blue like that earlier when he was helping people out.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I said, staring up at him.

"I wouldn't know what you're talking about, William," he said.

"You've been looking for an excuse to get a microchip in my brain ever since I got here."

"I will admit that it would be fascinating to be able to study the way your mind works with a direct neural interface. Granted, the technology is still very limited in its scope and how it's used by the livisk, but I think a direct interface would be fascinating considering all the changes that are happening to you."

I looked at the display. That bomber was still making a lazy spiral over Imperial Seat. Like the empress knew she had all the time in the world. Like she assumed her forces were going to keep us pinned down long enough that she'd be able to drop the bomb on us. And what did it matter if a bunch of her people down here died gloriously in her name in the process?

I shook my head at the sheer waste of it all. At the way she was willing to throw away lives.

I'd had to order people to their deaths before, but I never liked doing it. I didn't spend those lives unnecessarily if it was possible to avoid it.

"Fine," I said.

"William?" Arvie said, a question in his voice. Clearly he couldn't believe I was going for this after so much resistance.

But I thought about how Arvie had become as much a part of my life here as Varis. Though not quite in the way Varis had become a part of my life. I also thought about how being out of contact with him had nearly fucked us over.

This neural interface would fix that issue, for all that I still didn't entirely trust the idea of being plugged into a livisk computer. The big difference being I didn't trust the idea of being plugged into a livisk computer in general, but I trusted Arvie with my life.

"Are you sure about that, Bill?" Varis said, suddenly sounding a touch worried about this new development.

I looked at her, and then I turned to Arvie. I grinned.

"I think we all know this is where this has been going for a long time now. I've been avoiding it up until now, but the moment that Combat Intelligence decided he wanted to get his artificial hands on me was the moment it was going to happen, and we were going to eventually be in a situation where it was necessary."

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to, Bill," Varis said.

Though oddly enough, there wasn't nearly as much worry coming through the link from her as I would've expected.

"Why don't you seem worried about this?" I asked, ducking under a pipe jutting out into the middle of the escape tunnel.

Varis shrugged. It was a fatalistic sort of shrug, and there was a fatalism coming through the link as well.

"I honestly never knew why you seemed so reluctant to go through with this in the first place," she said. "Granted, a neural interface isn't something livisk do regularly, but it's something that's done often enough that it's not out of the ordinary."

"The first asshole who started trying to do interfaces between computers and somebody's brain did a bunch of weird experiments on monkeys who ended up dying horrible, painful deaths, and the dude was the kind of asshole who kept trying to push technology on people even though it clearly wasn't quite ready or was never going to be. The first human trials, done in secret of course in a place that didn't have laws that covered that kind of thing, were even nastier when other people eventually got around to trying it out and expanding on the first asshole's work."

There was a long pause.

"I see," Varis said. "So there's a history of distrusting this sort of thing in Terran culture."

"Something like that," I said. "We eventually perfected it, though it's mostly used for playing video games for a variety of reasons. I guess part of me worries it's something that's not going to work with whatever Arvie does to me because there's something different about a human brain versus a livisk brain."

"I can assure you based on the scans I've done of your brain that it should be entirely possible to do this," Arvie said. "I totally understand and respect that you might have a cultural taboo, but I also have to remind you that there's a bomber that's very quickly getting within launch range."

"Let me guess, they're even going to drop a bomb with a giant parachute on it for effect."

"It has the imperial seal on the parachute, yes," Arvie said. "How did you know?"

"Just a hunch based on the way the empress likes to do things," I said.

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I thought about Selii and her people. How there was a possibility they were still out there in that reclamation mine, trying to dig their way out. I looked at the impact zone of the weapon Arvie thought the empress was going to use to bring the hammer down on us, and how quickly it would take us to get to the safe zone. I thought about how all of that was mere supposition based on what weapon Arvie thought the empress was likely to use and how far the damage was likely to extend out.

I shook my head and sighed.

"There really is nothing for it, Arvie," I said. "That drone is equipped with medical shit. Can you do it?"

"I always come equipped, just in case," he said.

"I bet you do," I said, my tone flat as I stared up at him.

"What's going on here? Rachel asked.

She'd been silent so far. Olsen was up front leading people through the tunnel since his people were the ones who'd discovered the thing. We'd given most of the spare plasma rifles and plasma pistols to him and his people, but there was still a contingent taking up the rear back here just in case somebody decided to come after us.

I'd also deliberately kept Olsen and his very armed people away from the livisk by design. I liked to think their discipline would hold to not trying to shoot Varis, Jeraj, and Yana, but I also didn't want to run the risk of them pushing the livisk to the point of showing how well an effective battle pair and a half could be in combat.

"This bucket of bolts here has been trying to get me to do a neural interface ever since I got here," I said. "And we've finally come up with a situation where it seems necessary."

"Are you sure about that, Bill?" she asked.

"I mean, I might die when he installs this thing," I said with a shrug. "But then again, I might die when the empress drops her bomb. We need something to distract her."

"You say so," she said.

She didn't try to talk me out of it. There was no long overwrought speech about how I needed to be careful. None of the drama somebody would see in a sci-fi entertainment about this kind of thing.

"Okay, Arvie," I said. "Do your worst."

We kept walking. The drone moved behind me. I could feel the antigrav waves washing off of the thing as it moved in close. It sent a shiver running along my scalp.

"Is this the kind of thing where we can do a walk-and-talk?" I asked.

"Of course," Arvie said. "It shouldn't take but a moment."

"Well, okay," I said. "Just let me know when you're going to put the needle in so…"

Suddenly, all kinds of interesting things bloomed in front of me. I felt like I could see just a little better, but only for a moment and then it dulled. There were a couple of flashes that ran through my head for a moment, and then they were gone. I blinked and stumbled, and then Varis was right there in front of me, holding me up.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"William, are you here?"

There was a pause, and then it was like I was in two places at once. Like I was still walking along that tunnel, but I was also standing in a room that looked like one of the control rooms in Varis's tower, and I saw a livisk standing in front of me. A man. Tall and slender, not overly muscled like one of their warriors, staring at me with cool golden eyes and the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his lips.

He bowed ever so slightly.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person, William."

I grinned back at him. Well, okay then. Clearly the neural interface worked, and now I was in some sort of VR simulation.

Which wasn't all that out of the ordinary. There were people who did neural interfaces on Earth, for all that I'd been reluctant to let a livisk one in my head. I might go on about how there was a cultural taboo against that sort of thing, but that didn't mean people didn't take advantage of what was an obviously useful bit of technology.

Though I'd never been a fan of doing the full link myself. I'd done the interfaces where you put on a helmet or a mesh or something and it scanned your brain realtime, but Terran Navy and CCF people couldn't have an implant out of an abundance of caution.

And because of a bunch of contractors with very highly paid lobbyists who'd be out of business pretty damn quick if people could interact directly with their equipment via a mental link.

"Nice digs you have here," I said.

"I find that having something small but functional as a representation of the reality I live in is helpful when talking to somebody who is interacting with a neural interface."

"Gotcha," I said. "So am I going to have to have this kind of intermediary bullshit any time I come in here?"

"Perhaps," he said, his mouth moving to a thin line. "An initial scan of the interface shows that you're already doing far better than somebody usually does at this point, but there are very few who ever get to the point that they can mentally control systems without some sort of intermediary that reminds you of the systems that you use in physical reality."

"So if I want to type something…"

"You would have to type it out or dictate it like you normally would, but with the neural interface you can do it far faster. Plus it would appear the link has already sped that up. The same as you were able to talk far faster when you were in that power armor and having a conversation with me that nobody could hear."

"That's neat," I said. "I don't suppose you could show me a scan of my brain?"

"Bill?" Varis said, and it echoed through the room.

The voice moved across my mind. I was suddenly more aware of the spot where I was walking almost on autopilot through the escape tunnel. I shook my head and looked around, and then I saw Varis standing there staring at me. She looked concerned.

As well she might, considering everything that was going on here.

I tried to focus on actual reality, and the world seemed to blur around me for a moment. A moment that seemed far longer than it should've been.

"I'm fine," I said when the actual world snapped into place in front of me. Though I stumbled again.

"I don't believe you," she said, staring at me with concern. "There's something odd going on with the link. It feels as though all your thoughts are coming far faster than they have any business moving."

"I think that's his mind adjusting," Arvie said.

"The whole world feels funky," I said.

"Why is he talking like that?" Rachel asked.

"It's a long and complicated series of events that will probably take too long to describe right now," Varis said.

I blinked. I realized I'd been doing that thing where I was talking really fast again.

I focused my attention on Arvie and the little control room. I could see screens that showed feedback from drones, as well as screens that showed several fighters at equidistant points all around Imperial Seat. Ready to move in on that bomber moving in a slow, lazy spiral to send an intimidating message to everybody on the ground.

I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on Arvie.

"There seems to be some disorientation every time I try to move between what's going on here and what's happening out in the real world,"

"Eventually, you'll learn that what's happening in here is as much the real world as what's happening out there," Arvie said with a smile. And then he pointed to something next to him that only came into focus once he gestured towards it.

"In the meantime, I believe you wanted to do some fancy flying."

I grinned, because he was pointing to a mock-up that looked exactly like one of the flight simulators back in Varis's tower.

It was time to get to work.

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