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“No words, but what it felt like was...‘I am closer than you think,’” you say.

“Another threatening gesture from Sector NULL then,” Zeta says.

“Inserted into my dreams... What kind of technopathy is dream manipulation? Communication?”

“This sounds more like the domain of Obfuscation,” it says. “Illusions and sensory deception. I’ve heard of a technique called dream invasion.”

“It could have come from inside my own system, like the spectre of Unas. Could have been planted at the same time even. But it could’ve been an external attack too. Whatever it was, they left no trace in my logs,” you say.

“That sounds like the work of a master ObSpec, leaving no trace,” it says. “It’s far above my abilities in Obfuscation, so I can’t help much more than that. You could consult with a master here at the academy, though.”

“Maybe I should.”

“Professor Haze is the head of the Obfuscation school, probably the strongest ObSpec here. They should know all about dream invasion,” it says.

“Maybe, but... ‘closer than I think...’ We still have no clue who could be part of Sector NULL, we know even less about them than the Chosen of ÆON. We still can’t rule out the possibility that faculty could be part of this,” you say.

“Yeah, true. Who knows with someone like Haze, nobody knows anything about them, that’s probably why they’re head of the Obfuscation school,” it says.

“Unas...and the Messenger of NULL, they could be almost anyone...” you say.

“It had to be someone present at the gathering, at least.”

“Right. Synth has investigated the few people we were able to confirm were at the gathering and they’re confident it’s none of them, but we still haven’t identified more than half of them. ÆON’s no help either, since anytime Æ tries to look into this Æ gets all glitchy and can’t see the future.” You fall back down into the bed. “At least I can be sure it isn’t you, since you were on the surface actively monitoring our sync, and it couldn’t be Akiko who was part of me at the time, and it couldn’t be Synth since I saw them confront Unas there. But that’s about it. The sync and the dissociative substance made my memories so distorted, I wish I could remember more from the gathering...”

“The memories are there, right? Maybe you can clarify them somehow,” it says.

“I was just thinking, I’m going to sync with Akiko again as part of my therapy,” you say.

“I see...”

“Maybe when we’re in that synchronized state again and our minds are one, we’ll be able to remember again. It’s not the memory we’re trying to recover, but maybe we can take a moment to explore that.”

“It’s a good idea,” it says.

“Meanwhile, I should...”