“Zoe, you have some guests,” Bill announced.

“Aunt Anne and Jimmy again?”

“Nope. If it was Anne, I would have just let her back on her own,” Bill said. He grinned. “These five have a shady look about them, so I thought I’d make sure you want to see them.”

“What? I don’t know any shady characters…well, not many of them,” Zoe replied taking her attention from the Mixed Reality paint program she had been playing with. “And I don’t know any that would visit me here except for Jimmy.”

“See Bill! I told you I’m not shady!” a familiar voice shouted from the hallway.

“You sure could have fooled me,” the nurse replied. Laughter greeted that statement from more familiar sounding voices. “You think your cousin is shady?” Bill asked breaking out into laughter of his own.

“He does work for the mafia…”

“Mon Dieu! You should be ashamed about talking about your family this way,” Chloe declared pushing past the laughing nurse and entering the room. Vee, Newt, TK, and Terr followed. The room suddenly felt very cramped. “It’s us as you can plainly see.”

“He deserves it!” Zoe said before smiling and greeting her friends. She hadn’t expected them to visit since they hadn’t mentioned doing so in their messages or phone calls.

“You guys can half an hour to visit,” Bill said. “It’s getting late, and Doc Brown doesn’t like to for patients to have visitors after 7PM.”

“Can we get some chairs?” TK asked.

“Nope,” Bill answered walking out. “I’m a nurse, not a servant.”

“Bill is a bit of a grouch, isn’t he?” TK wondered aloud.

“He is always nice to me,” Newt said.

“Me too,” Cee added.

“And me,” Vee said. “Maybe he’s just not a cat person.”

“Or doesn’t like men,” Terr added.

“That…” TK replied before snapping his mouth shut. “Both of you might have a point.”

“Bill’s nice enough especially if he wants to sleep with you,” Zoe said.

“No wonder you keep coming back here,” Terr said.

“It’s not like that! I didn’t have a choice where I woke up at,” Zoe protested to laughter from the others.

“How did you end up here?” Newt asked changing the subject and earning a grateful smile from Zoe.

“Evidently one of the cops that arrived at the scene of my accident is friends with Claire and the others,” Zoe answered. “I haven’t asked how he knew Claire did my implants though and to bring me here.”

“Zoe, have you confirmed that your frame hasn’t been sliced or is sending out information that it shouldn’t be broadcasting?” Vee asked.

“Yep.”

“Then don’t worry about it then,” Cee advised. “Just be glad you’re in a clinic where you trust the cyberdoc and staff. And that they do good work.”

“What makes you say that?” Zoe asked.

“Because there are a lot of worse places that you could have ended up,” Terr answered.

“Yeah, the hospitals are really bad unless you have insurance that is paid up and offers the right kind of coverage,” TK added.

“And some of the cyberdocs are appalling,” Cee said.

“Oh,” Zoe replied.

“You’ve been either blessed or extremely lucky,” Vee told Zoe.

“Most of us have had bad experiences with cyberdocs,” Newt said.

“Speaking of cyberdocs, do all of you have optic implants?” Zoe asked as a thought hit her.

“Yeah,” Chloe answered. “Why?”

“Are all of you capable of seeing Mixed Reality?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah. Most Kaiser optical implants can see MR and play simple games,” TK answered. “We all have Kaisers.”

“Good,” Zoe said going back to the paint program. She pointed at TK and drew a pink mustache and beard on him.

“What are you doing?” TK asked. The others laughed. “What?”

“Zoe gave you a pink mustache and beard,” Newt answered sending him a picture of what he looked like.

“When did you get MR coding access?” TK asked.

“Not too long ago,” Zoe answered. She told the others about her selling her ICE to CyberBionic and how MR access was part of her compensation.

“So, other than games and goofing around, what else can you do with MR?” Newt asked.

“It’s supposed to make coding easier or at least faster,” Zoe replied.

“You haven’t tried coding yet?” Vee asked. Zoe shook her head no.

“Haven’t gotten around to it,” Zoe admitted. “I’ve been going over the tutorial CyberBionic gave me and I’m just trying to figure things out.”

“Plus playing games,” Cee added.

“Mostly target practice with my P750,” Zoe replied.

“Shooting virtual targets?” Terr asked.

“Yep.”

“Why not just use the smart targeting feature” Vee asked.

“I want to improve my own shooting,” Zoe answered.

“Makes sense,” Vee replied. “I was just wondering.”

“Using a simulator that you found?” TK asked. Zoe nodded. “I’m surprised you haven’t made your own.”

“Zoe just said she hadn’t gotten around to coding yet,” Vee said. “Pay attention.”

“I am paying attention,” TK objected.

“Then stop trying to be a smartass,” Newt said.

“I am what I am,” TK replied with a huge grin on his face.

“There used to be a really old game we played on emulators growing up,” Zoe said forcing the others to stop their teasing. “If someone else hasn’t done so already, I’ll see if I can’t code a version of it into MR.”

“What game?” Terr asked.

“Duck Hunt,” Zoe answered smiling at the orc. “It had this funny little dog that laughed in it.”

“Shooting ducks? Really?” Cee replied.

“It was silly fun,” Zoe said. She pulled up an image and even found a video from the net of the game and sent them to Chloe. “See?”

“Hmmm. Ok, that doesn’t look realistic at all,” Cee said sending the files to the others.

“Wow! That looks terrible,” Vee said.

“It looks like something a child made,” Newt added.

“You guys are no fun,” Zoe pouted. “Duck Hunt was the height of fun in the 1980s’ 8-bit era. My parents turned me onto the game, and I loved it as a kid.”

The others laughed. The six of them spent an hour just hanging out before Bill ran them out.