Nimda runs us through challenges for hours. Every single one pushes us to our limits, but never beyond. I don't know how much all of this is going to be useful in the attack on Mara's trench, but I do feel a little more comfortable. The main thing that she drills into us is improvisation and adaptation. She lies to us about what will happen and changes the threats constantly.

Clover handles things surprisingly well. The pressure keeps her focused, much like me I suppose. Plus, moving her digital self seems infinitely easier than moving her physical body.

"I think we should stop here." Nimda says. "More stress risks the possibility of not healing before we arrive. I'm proud of all of your work, and am glad you seem to have the determination to push through all of this."

I let my body fall back onto the ground and let my mind rest. It's not the hardest hack I've ever done, I'm still conscious after all, but my mind deserves the break.

Corax steps over and stands protectively over me, just in case this is another trick designed to keep us on our toes.

"Nimda?" Clover asks into the void. "Is it possible to simulate my physical body here?"

"Of course."

An instant later Clover slumps over as gravity takes effect on her limbs. She stumbles a few feet, desperately trying to stay vertical.

"Ah, there it is." She tries her hardest to pull her head up, glancing around for the compound Nimda created. Her eyes lock onto it, and flicker to Corax and I momentarily. "I'm staying in here for a while." She lifts one hand up, trying to dig into reality, only to slide down some physical, unseeable object. Instead, she begins to shuffle forward, getting started on the long walk.

"And what will you two do?" Nimda asks Corax and I.

"Cassie." Corax answers for me.

"I wish you a good night then. I'm sorry Cassie cannot enter with us for practice, but perhaps we can fix that shortcoming when we return to the city."

"It's not a shortcoming." I say defensively.

"Understood. Nonetheless, I will create some drills to run in the physical, so she might be able to train with us."

An unnoticed pressure lets off my body as Nimda's body winks out of existence and her attention leaves our small section of her server.

"Are you alright?" I ask Corax without standing up.

"Don't like." He says.

"Do you have a bad feeling about her?"

Corax shakes his head.

"Don't like." He reiterates and disappears as he unplugs himself from the server.

I don't think I like her either. I unplug myself from Nimda, returning myself to the physical world. I retrieve my cord and stash it back beneath the skin plates running along my arm.

I push myself to my feet, and Corax presses against my cheek in support.

"I'm alright." I reassure him. "Just… Exhausted? Maybe?" Now that I think about it, it's the same feeling I had after we got out of the quantum AI that lived in Eight's penthouse's server, just far less strong.

I stand up, my limbs feeling difficult and slow to move. I'm not sure if that's because of how I feel, or if I just already adapted to my digital body too much. Whichever it is doesn't matter, I'll get used to it.

I push myself to my feet and head towards our house, trying to open the door as quietly as possible.

Cassie's hand moves subtly, a small shift of her blankets the only clue that she reached for her knife. I take a step in and her hand relaxes.

I climb into the bed next to her, just putting my legs beneath the covers. She rolls over, wrapping her arms around them, but leaving her head on the pillow.

"How'd it go?"

Oh my god her voice is so cute when she's sleepy. It's a little deeper than normal, the words partially blur together, and it has the cutest scratchiness to it. Telling her that will unfortunately wake her up and get rid of the voice. I'll let her know tomorrow.

"It went well." I say and begin to run my hand over her prickly hair once again. "Clover can focus under pressure. I think she'll be able to fight if she can get used to her physical body. Corax and I got a lot of practice fighting in the Digital as well."

"Good." She mumbles.

"I'm going to read if that's ok."

Her eyes crack open, squinting against even the tiny amount of light that is making it through the window. She glances at Corax before returning her head to the pillow with a small smile on her face.

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"It sounds like you both need it. Just don't keep me up."

"I won't, promise."

I keep my hand on her head as I begin to read. It's barely two minutes before Cassie is once again asleep. The moment she is, I switch to a book she's already read. I don't want to waste an unread one while she's asleep.

Cassie sleeps peacefully through the night, barely even stirring when the others return to the physical world and begin to move around.

She eventually begins to return to consciousness, and as always, I keep reading to offer her the choice of returning to sleep. She doesn't take it this time, instead she lifts her head up and places it on my leg.

"Good morning." Do I call her a cute nickname? They often do that in her books, but those aren't always realistic. Plus, anything that applies to their relationships won't necessarily apply to mine. "How'd you sleep?"

"Good." She says, unfortunately without her sleepy voice. "Way better than the car."

"I'm really glad. Nimda offered to run some training exercises today so we can both get used to fighting alongside Lance and Robin."

"Good. I've been itching to see what they can do."

"I can also confirm that Nimda is an incredible fighter in the digital world. Her specs are absurd, and her skills are exactly what we need."

"Good." She says for the third time.

I lay there silently with Cassie for a few minutes while she fully wakes up. She eventually groans and reluctantly pushes herself off of me.

"If I don't get moving I'm going to fall asleep again. Can you two get out while I change?"

"Of course." I lean in for a quick kiss before standing up. We exit the room, leaving Cassie and her blushing cheeks alone.

I head back to the water's edge. Nimda, Lance, and Robin are sitting against the car, having a conversation. Clover sits next to them, entirely slumped over.

"Let rest." Corax whispers in my ear.

"Good morning. Is she awake?" Nimda is the first to see the two of us.

"Yeah, she'll be out in a minute." I open the trunk and riffle through our supplies, quickly, but carefully, throwing together a hot breakfast for Cassie. I leave it on the steam generator to boil.

"Excellent." Nimda says. "We set up a way to practice in the Physical. I'll refrain from explaining until Cassie arrives."

"So, like I was saying-" Robin picks his story back up, and I listen idly. Most of my attention is on the soup, and waiting for Cassie to leave our house.

I grab the bowl just as she reappears. She takes it from my hand with a smile and opens one of the car doors to sit inside while she eats.

"I hope you slept well." Robin says to her, a hint of that same jealousy over her eating in his voice.

"Shit, sorry. I forgot. I'll go eat somewhere else."

"No it's ok." Robin interrupts her before she can move. "I was just having a bad day yesterday. You can eat here."

"Alright, if you're sure."

"While you do, allow me to give you a rundown." Lance crouches down in front of Clover and places his hand on her shoulder, shocking her back to awareness. "We're going to go walk the course. You should come too." He stands up and holds out his hand for Clover, who takes it and lets herself be pulled up onto her feet. "We spent the night setting up a shooting course. Each of us are going to run it individually while recording. The rest of us are going to watch and offer critique so we may all improve. After that, we will begin running it as a group. Robin, Clover and I have 400 bullets of extra ammunition to practice with."

"We'll use up the bad ammo." Cassie says and glances at me. I nod in agreement. "We're going to be the limit, but we'll go as long as we can."

"Sounds good. I'll walk you through the course." Lance pushes himself to his feet and Cassie and I follow closely behind him. Cassie is thankfully used to her legs enough to walk smoothly and not waste a drop of her soup.

"It begins here." They've used a bit of scrap to create a makeshift door in one of the endless alleyways. They've put up compact light strips everywhere along it. I'm glad we won't have to just rely on the light from the lake.

Lance walks us through the course. It goes down thin alleyways, ducks into buildings to practice clearing, has sections with long sightlines with a heavy encampment at the end.

Everywhere we go, scrap has been cobbled together to create facsimiles of humans. Of course they're humans. Not long ago that would have been a problem, but I think I've killed enough that I can handle shooting human shaped targets.

That's probably not a good thing, but it's too late to fix that now.

The targets have been placed differently in each section to test different skills. Clumps of them are placed together to test how fast someone can swap between targets. Scattered ones are in heavy cover to test accuracy. Long straightaways have them scattered at different distances to test how someone would tackle multiple targets at multiple ranges.

I'm glad I have my drives back and can recognize how well designed this thing actually is.

Lance finishes running us through everything, the course ends up ending just a few feet away from the car.

"What do you think?" Lance asks.

"It's textbook." I answer.

"Thank you, I take that as a compliment."

"I've never run something this big, I'm excited." Cassie answers.

"Would you like to go first then?" Lance asks.

"Fuck it, sure." Cassie bounces on the tips of her feet a few times in excitement.

"You're going to have to wear a camera array, let's set that up."

Cassie heads directly for the car, unloading her magazines and loading in our normal bullets. She quickly dons her full set of armor, the same one I stole from Mara's men.

Lance steps forward, holding a few cameras and a tablet in his hands.

"I need to attach these, is it ok if I touch you?"

"Can Blue do it? No offense."

"Don't worry, I understand. Even if they're misguided this time, you're right to always trust your instincts." Lance puts everything in his hands onto the hood of the car. "I need one camera attached to her helmet, one to her chest, and two on her back which are each pointed 45 degrees away from straight."

"Alright." Everything is easy to get attached and wired into the tablet, which is tucked safely into a pocket.

"Everything recorded will be transmitted back to Nimda in real time. All of us will be watching you live. I wish you the best."

"Oh I will be." Cassie walks over to the start line excitedly, but waits to enter.

Corax and I plug ourselves into Nimda, and she passes over the live feed from Cassie's cameras. It's weird, but honestly kind of comforting seeing the world through something akin to her eyes.

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