Page 46 of Pandion

“Have you gotten so used to it that you’re now doing it on your own without realising it?” That would be a welcome improvement to the routine.

“No. It was definitely you this morning. I’m sure of it. It was the exact same thing as yesterday and the day before that.”

“You’ve been getting up before me. Did you think I was doing it in my sleep?” He was a skilled empath but not that skilled. Nobody he knew could do these things without being conscious.

“Who’s doing it then?” Kagesawa took off the dishwashing gloves and smear-dried his hands on the sides of his shirt.

“It’s not me.”

“Shit. Am I losing it? Is that what this is?” Kagesawa started pacing back and forth in the little space he had in front of the sink.

“Calm down. You’re fine. It’s understandable you’d mistake it for me if your dream was similar enough to what I was doing before.”

“I thought it was odd that you told me good morning twice. Who else is in my head? It sounded like you!” He stopped pacing but started tapping the counter with his fingers. Harumine didn’t know what to say. “Project to me,” Kagesawa requested.

What do you want me to say?

“That! That sounds exactly the same!” He abandoned the dishes and rushed out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. Harumine followed, although he failed to see what significance the sound of his projections could have. Why would they sound any different in a dream?

Kagesawa popped his extension in and started the diagnostics. The results were the same as what they’d been a week ago, save for the slight improvement in the connection. The changes had been more drastic at first, but while they’d slowed down somewhat, the link was still improving at an abnormal rate.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. It was probably just a dream.”

“I’m going to leave this running for the night. I need to see if it picks something up in the morning.” Going as far as to sleep with the extension attached, Kagesawa had to be fairly convinced there was something wrong.

“All right. Well, don’t worry about it too much. I’m sure I’d be able to tell if there was something seriously wrong with you.” Harumine didn’t want to belittle Kagesawa’s concern, but he also didn’t want the man to worry over nothing. He had a tendency to overreact to things like this. “You were doing the dishes,” Harumine kindly reminded him when he was about to start doing something else at his desk.

“Oh, right.” Kagesawa seemed reluctant to return to it. Harumine gave him a gentle push.You can tinker with your stuff after. One task at a time.

“I need you to do what you normally do so I can save that for comparison.” Kagesawa was setting everything up before going to sleep.

Harumine didn’t mind helping but wondered what else he could do if the data turned out inconclusive like he feared. Kagesawa had been preoccupied the rest of the day and was not likely to drop it until he could figure out what he was experiencing.

Harumine repeated the morning routine and watched the graphs form on the screen. Though his school had had the newest diagnostic and analysis software available on the market, he’d never seen anything like this before. The readings seemed more detailed, but most of it didn’t make any sense to him.

“I coded this tool for my port experiments. You’re right, it’s a bunch of gibberish, but I had a specific need to track certain types of feedback for interference to know what to amplify andwhat not. The data is useless, but the signature should be unique enough to compare.” Kagesawa paused and looked off for a moment. “Um, Satoru?”

“Yeah?” Harumine yawned. He was hoping to have this over with soon so he could go to bed.

“Mind sending me some of those sleepy vibes?”

“Hmm?” Harumine yawned again. When he recovered from his yawn, he realised why Kagesawa was asking. The morning wake up routine was surprisingly effective. He looked ready to go for a run. Harumine in turn, having mustered all of his energy to execute said routine, yawned for the third and fourth time trying to stay awake.

“All right,” he mumbled. “I’m going now. Good night.” He patted Kagesawa’s shoulder, started moseying toward his own room and let all the exhaustion he was feeling gush through the link like a hefty blanket. He could hear Kagesawa yawn behind him.

Kagesawa was up before Harumine again. He was about to head out the door when Harumine entered the living room.

“It’s the same.” Kagesawa called out before disappearing into the corridor.

“Oh?” Harumine got himself a cup of coffee.Exact match?He sat at the kitchen table and waited for Kagesawa to exit the building and head to the park where there were fewer distractions.

Almost exact. You probably wouldn’t be able to match it as well if you tried,Kagesawa projected back. His projections were getting clearer, and the range had expanded considerably. While the link was not overall the same as before, this aspect of it was much better, possibly due to Kagesawa’s improved skills.

So,what do we suppose that means? If it’s not a dream, is it some sort of link malfunction? The fact that it’s not perfectlyidentical makes me think it’s not a repeat or an echo of the same transfer. Where does it come from?Harumine checked the fridge for breakfast supplies and started on an omelette.

I have a few theories, but—Kagesawa’s sentence was cut off by him crossing a road.Or guesses, more like. I’d need to understand the organism better to know what it’s capable of, and I’m not a scientist, but—He dodged a woman walking a dog.From the looks of it, it’s got something to do with the other organism. The problem I have with this is that this morning when I ran normal diagnostics from the organism, it was giving me a list of errors longer than the last time. The health status is still excellent. Comparing the data from before, I noticed that some of the processes it was detecting from the first one before were now moved over to the second, and the second one was far more active. It looks like one might be eating up the other.

Kagesawa’s mental state seemed stable despite this admittedly rather disturbing information. Harumine halved some oranges, squeezed fresh juice into two glasses and chopped the vegetables.

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