Ito and Darren had a crowd following a short distance behind as they made their way towards the dorm building, Anya spotted them and came running over, "What's with the groupies hotshot" she said grinning at him. "Was it you?" Darren asked somewhat annoyed, "What?" she responded innocently, "It wasn't" Ito responded, "The girls in the gymnastics club were all talking about it as well." Anya looked for Ito to Darren confusion plain on her face, "I mentioned it this morning remember" Darren said, "There was a huge group in the observation room for my training simulation when I got there." "Ohhh, well I think it was probably our instructor" Anya stated plainly, "You've got it rough, one of our instructors has been singing your praises while the other hates your guts." It had become common knowledge to most of the student body that Dmitri had been bragging about his ace student, while Andre had been grumbling about his useless arrogant coward of a student. "I wasn't aware of this" Darren said annoyed, "You don't interact with anyone other then us" Ito responded, "You should try talking to some other people," Anya said, "Try talking to other guys" she corrected herself. Ito and Anya laughed, Darren looked at them confused "Never mind" they said in unison.
Darren ran into Aleksi outside the door to his room, "What's up?" he asked, Aleksi looked about a little uncomfortable, "I have to ask you something but it's awkward" he responded, "There's a nasty rumor going around that you've been inviting girls to your room at night" he said. Darren looked at him confused, "That's against rules, girls aren't allowed on the men's side and men aren't allowed on the women's" he said. "Apparently the guy in that room there" Aleksi pointed to the room across from Darren's "Said he saw a girl leave your room around midnight last night, he said she was all clad in black." "I went to bed really early last night, around eight" Darren said, he thought about it for a minute and he didn't actually remember going to sleep last night, "Just thought I'd let you know" Aleksi said.
Darren continued to think on the previous night while he practiced hacking into the Vibro Tech website and the more he thought about it the more he didn't remember actually climbing into bed, the last thing he remembered was the katana's.....katana. His communicator rang suddenly pulling him out of his train of thought, he clicked it on, a voice he vaguely recognized came through the speaker "Vnimaniye."
Dr. Vasaliev looked on from the observation room while several scientists connected an unconcious Darren to various machines, "He's a continuing headache, the therapy may have worked to well for him" "Its not the therapy, your operatives were idiots, they secured his belongings without researching the memories associated with them" a young woman replied. "Should we continue? if he's going to finish his training only to recover his memories he should already be considered a failed project" Dr. Vasaliev stated. "I've done my research properly, any memories associated with belongings should no longer be an issue" replied the woman, "Don't get two fixated on him, we have another after all" he replied. "Not an option, zero three is a poor substitute at best, and subject zero two is all but failed at this point, what is to become of him?" she asked "Zero two will continue going forward, the scientists have implanted new memories in him, he'll be seperated from the other four however" Vasaliev stated. "It will be interesting to see how zero one deals with him going forward, if we're lucky we won't have to liquidate zero two ourselves at the end of the experiment." "Alright well I should return to my post" the woman said.
The woman looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, her expressionless face, her feigned indifference, she was disgusted with herself, "I won't let zero one be killed off, all the others died, it was my fault" she said to herself. "Even if I have to turn my back on the corporation so be it."
Darren woke up feeling out of it, he was light headed and felt weak, he stumbled over to the kitchen and got a glass of water, he pulled a thermometer out of the med pack that were supplied to every dorm room. Thirty eight point one degrees celcius, a fever, its not to bad yet but he decided he should stay in bed for the day, "This is Darren, I won't be in class today, I'm running a slight fever, yes, yeah I understand, thanks." Darren hung up his communicator and climbed back into bed, he slowly dozed off.
"Darren won't be making it to class today, I'm guessing he overdid it in the simulation yesterday and developed a fever" Mr. Semenov said, "Is he alright?" Ito asked concerned, Anya looked at her a slight pout on her face. "He'll be fine he told the faculty it was only a slight fever, he was taking the day off to ensure it didn't get any worse" Mr. Semenov replied, "Knocked out by a fever, that surprises me" Aleksi said, "Fevers can be pretty serious non" Jeanne said, "If you ignore them they can cause serious problems." "Can I get permission to go see him later?" Anya asked, "You'd have to discuss that with the dorm supervisor" Mr. Semenov replied, "They might turn you down there's a rumor going around that he snuck a woman in to his room the other night." "He told me it wasn't true and that he had gone to bed at eight that night" Aleksi said, Ito hid her sigh of relief, "I knew he was a dirty boy, it wasn't you was it Ito" Anya laughed. Ito turned red in embarrassment "I would never sneak into a boys room" she said louder then normal, the whole room turned to look at her, she hid her face in her hands becoming even redder.
Darren awoke to a light knock on his door, he looked at the time and it was just after classes, "he..hello" a small voice called from the other side, Darren climbed out of bed and walked over to the door. It was Ito, she looked quite red, Darren looked passed her to see several of his dorm mates staring, "I...I have permission to be here" Ito said to them clearly embarrassed by the unwanted attention. "Well as long as you have permission" Darren said letting her in, "Are you alright?" she asked concerned, "I was pretty out of it this morning but I'm feeling better now" he said reassuringly. Ito fished around in her bag "I..I brought you this" she said embarrassed, she handed him a small round tupperware container, inside was a fresh steaming rice porridge with pickled plumb on top. "This is okayu with umeboshi isn't it?" Darren asked amazed, "Yes" Ito said looking away, "Thank you very much, my mom used to make this when I caught a cold" he said happily. He took a bite, it was delicious, "Wow! I didn't know you were such a great cook Ito" he said, Ito was about to respond when a loud knock came at his door "Hey sicko!" came Anya's loud obnoxious voice, Darren put a hand to his forward "not her...." he muttered to himself. "What are all of you looking at! I have permission, see!" came a shout from outside the dorm room "We better let her in before she makes more of a scene" Darren said.
Anya burst in as Darren opened the door, luckily he stepped to the side or she would've plowed into him, suspiciously he thought that was her intent, "I brought you some books! wait, Ito? what are you doing here" she said astonished. She turned her head to the side and saw Darren standing to the side of the open door "Shouldn't you be in bed?" she asked, "Who would've opened the door then?" he asked annoyed. Anya looked over at Ito, she got embarrassed "I..I could never answer the door to a boys room" she stammered, "Well don't just stand there with the door open come in!" Anya exclaimed. "This is my room..." Darren muttered closing the door as soon as Anya was out of the way, she handed Darren the bag of books she brought "This is from my personal stash" she said with a wink. Darren pulled a thin book out of the bag and dropped it in astonishment he looked at Anya an expression of annoyance "Anya.. what kind of idiot brings erotic novels to a sick person" he said perplexed. Anya pointed to herself "This person" she said not understanding the problem, Ito always tended to feel a little left out whenever Darren and Anya talked like this so she built up her courage, "Are you that surprised Anya's a pervert" she said. They both looked at her for a second Darren started laughing "yeah, yeah she is" Anya pouted "I just have a healthy curiosity" she said innocently.
While Darren finished eating the meal Ito had brought him Anya wandered about his room looking under his bed and in drawers, eventually she gave up and sat on Darren's bed, "What kind of boy has no porn stash!" she said disappointed. "This boy" Darren said pointing to himself, Anya gave him a quizzical look "I don't believe you!" she said "You must have one you just hid it where I haven't looked yet." "It's getting late, we should get going" Ito said walking over and grabbing Anya by the arm, "I'm not tired yet.." Anya whined, "I'm sure you're not, we don't need more rumors spreading about Darren though so off we go" Ito said with finality. Darren saw them to the door and they said their goodbyes before heading towards the staircase to the lobby, Darren fell back to his bed exhausted from having to deal with Anya. He checked his temperature and found that it had normalized, he still felt a bit weak but was mostly recovered, "Well if nothing else that woman always livens the mood" he thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.