I knew from the minds of the crew and the patients that none of them expected anything, let alone to be healed completely. It was a pickle and I needed to decide if I wanted to either meet their non-existent expectations and remain as an oddity or to give them exactly what they didn't expect to happen.

Did I want the notoriety that healing them for real would give me, or did I want to remain as just another strong potential that was released from the Matrix. By the time we reached the hidden mainline into the Matrix that Malachi had given to the captain of the Osiris, I decided that it was better to blow their minds than it was to fade into obscurity.

The deciding factor? First officer Jue's thoughts about her mother and how she always regretted never being allowed to find the woman and to extract her from the Matrix. It was something that a lot of people in Zion pondered over, especially the rescued ones that were taken out as a child.

Did their disappearance register as a death to the system? Were they marked as missing and their families spent years searching for them? How was that whole thing handled? Was it handled? Did the agents just make the parents forget they had a child or did they let them languish for years over the disappearance?

Before Jue logged in, I set her up with a few additions. I loaded in the APC skinned as an RV that Apoc had come up with, for Jue to enter with and to add the other IDs into, just so they didn't pop up around the mainline entrance like usual. It kept them hidden from view and kept them safe.

Jue thanked me for being so thoughtful and she was loaded into the Construct first to gear up, then she was shunted into the Matrix. She did the scout thing around the guard shack at the edge of the park, then went back to the door and loaded in the RV. It looked like crap, just as Apoc said it would; but, it worked and was still functional as an Armored Personnel Carrier.

She marked in the appropriate IDs to let them appear in the seats in the back, then she entered the guard shack and called the ship to jack back out. Once she was out, she relayed the details to her captain in a professional manner, and he looked slightly saddened by that.

I was loaded in first and appeared inside the APC, so that meant the coding worked for the small data shunt. I stepped back out of the way and waited as all five of the first round of patients were loaded in and they appeared on the seats in the back. They looked slightly different than their real selves, since the Matrix let them appear as they thought themselves as and not as they really were.

That wasn't going to make much difference in a minute. My cell phone rang and Captain Thaddeus gave me permission to proceed. I told him to have whatever diagnostic programs running that he had access to and I walked into the middle of the five people giving me disgruntled looks.

Since I was putting on a show for them, and possibly for the data recorders, I made a whole show with doing certain poses, chanting in ancient Latin backwards, and then making my hands glow. I suddenly stopped and took a jumping jack pose, with my feet at shoulder width apart and my arms out to my sides, then I proclaimed the name of the spell out loud, also backwards and in Latin.

All five patients glowed gold as I cast the spell and the five of them gasped as the energy filled them and repaired all of the damage they had been subjected to over the years, both during their careers on a ship and afterwards as they wasted away at home.

Surprisingly, only one of them stood up and glared at me. “This is a stupid trick and I won't stand for it! A light show and weird moves? It's ridiculous!”

“If it's too much for you, then you can leave and log out. The door's there and the phone's inside the shack.” I said and he stomped out and entered the shack, then he logged out.

The other four just sat there, two of which stared at their hands. One had two fingers missing, which he was now poking with his other hand. He could feel them and his brain was telling him that they existed, except he knew they were only phantom appendages and appeared when he was inside a Construct. The difference was, he could actually feel the feedback from them instead of his mind faking it.

“So, do the rest of you want to stay inside for the hour your body needs to finish its regeneration?” I asked and they gave me surprised looks. “I brought cards and a table.”

I pulled out a round poker table and dropped a deck of cards into the middle of it.

“We need chips.” The man missing fingers said. “Both kinds.”

I barked a laugh and used my cell phone to load in stacks of different betting chips and three bowls of potato chips. “Let's start with five card stud and deuces are wild. One eyed jacks break ties.”

The table was immediately surrounded and the man with missing fingers quickly dealt out the cards and grabbed a pile of chips to pull in front of him. Both kinds, of course. He looked at his hand and tossed two white chips into the middle to start the pot.

“Starting bet's ten.” He said and glanced at his cards, then he smirked and tossed in five more white chips.

The guy next to him laughed and met his bet, then raised two white. That started off one of the best poker games any of them ever had. None of them wanted it to end when the hour was up, so the game continued on for another two hours until it was down to two, neither of which were Neo or the guy with two missing fingers.

“I call.” The second guy said and laid his cards on the table. He had four of a kind, all eights.

“Ah, shit.” The other guy said and laid his hand down, which was a Full House, aces over jacks, one of which was one-eyed, so he would have won a tie.

The others all burst out laughing and we all congratulated the winner. He accepted all the chips as a prize and looked immensely pleased with himself.

*

“Please tell me I didn't sit here and wasted all that time watching a stupid and meaningless poker game.” One of the patients commented. None of the other patients or crew members missed the fact it was the one that had rushed to log out.

“Hey, it was a great game.” Another man said. “I thought Neo had that fifth hand, though.”

“Carl's a good bluffer.” One of the crew of the ship said and looked at the other crewmates. “Let's start logging them out.”

The four remaining patients of the control group were logged out and all of them were surprised they felt so good. The man with two missing fingers stared at them like they were going to bite him if he looked away from them.

“Come on, people. Move it!” Captain Thaddeus said to them and the crew members ushered the patients out of the barber chairs. “We're behind schedule.”

It took a lot of jostling to get the crippled patients strapped into the chairs. The others patients couldn't help, because of the limited space around the login station. The missing hands, arms, feet, and legs, made for a trying time to get them situated. Complaints filled the air for quite some time before the last man, with two missing legs at the knee and a missing arm at the shoulder, was finally put into place.

Even with the evidence that some healing happened, none of them believed that Neo's healing spell would regrow full limbs. But, they were tasked with trying it and trying it they would. Neo had stayed inside the Matrix and waited patiently for the next five test subjects.

As soon as the last grumbling man was sent inside, Neo barely said hello to them before he did the same ridiculous moves and chanting as the last time. At least it looked the same, until he finished with a different pose and the golden glow that covered everyone was twice as bright. He wavered on his feet, as if exhausted, and he stumbled backwards to sit down on one of the seats.

“I'm... gonna sleep.” Neo mumbled and collapsed forwards and fell onto the floor in a heap.

No one tried to help him, mostly because their digital selves reflected their real selves. They all still had the same missing limbs as they did in real life and they were also strapped into the digital seats in the back of the APC. With only one of them with two working hands, he decided he would let the guy that gave him false hope, stay on the floor where he deserved to be for playing such a cruel trick.

*

“I think we didn't think this experiment through.” Someone commented and no one said anything, because all they could do was wait until the hour needed for the experiment was up.

None of the patients inside the Matrix could log out without answering the phone, and none of them could walk or free themselves to do so. They just hoped Neo woke up soon, because if he didn't, and the experiment didn't work, then there was no way to get anyone else out of the Matrix.

Jue went to the ship's operator and shook the man's shoulder to get his attention. “Can you bridge the training system into the Construct? If I can log in, I can check on Neo and can keep the patients company.”

The man shook his head. “They're completely separate systems for a reason.” He said and sighed. “We also only have six slots in the mainframe to log people in, so even if I did run a patch and extra cables, there's no way to fit you in.”

Jue made a sound of frustration and her fist hit the bulkhead beside him. “We need to change our operating procedures if something like this is possible during a simple experiment!”

“It's not something we've encountered before.” Thaddeus said and the operator nodded. “We only have five crew members that are capable of logging in, so we've always had a free chair or two for someone else to log in.”

“I'll add a note to pass on to Zion Control.” The operator promised. “Now that we know something like this can happen, we can plan around it and always leave a spot free for a rescue attempt.”

Jue sighed and walked over to where Neo was logged in and she placed a hand on his neck to check his pulse. It was weak and slow, so he really had passed out and wasn't only asleep. She didn't know that Neo was faking it, both inside the Matrix and in the real world, to show them that he wasn't going to be healing people constantly.

He would never have any time to spend with his family if he had to stay on the Osiris with a constantly rotating group of patients. Letting them think it wiped him out to perform the same task that he could do as easy as breathing, would give his actions a more believable feel than just waving his hand at people and fixing all of their ailments.

“Please be okay.” Jue whispered and her hand slid down his neck, across his nicely knitted sweater, down his arm, and she carefully took his hand. She knew from experience that people inside the Matrix moved their hands in real life and didn't want him to accidentally crush her hand when he woke up. “I need you.”

Behind her, Thaddeus closed his eyes and took several breaths to calm down. He knew she didn't mean it like it sounded; but, it still hurt that she was going to another man to ask for help. They had been skirting a case of insubordination with their flirting and growing closeness, then Neo came along and had to mess up the entire situation.

“I'm going to go write that report.” The ship's operator said and walked away.

That seemed to be a universal clue for everyone to leave and most of them did. The five patients returned to their bunks in the cargo bay and the other two crew members of the ship went off to do some work. Thaddeus hesitated to leave his first officer alone, then sighed and went to his own cabin to do the paperwork he had been putting off and to write his own reports.

After a few minutes of quiet, Jue glanced around and noticed that she was all alone with Neo and the five crippled patients. She paused for a moment, then let Neo's hand go briefly to slide a cargo crate over to his side and she sat back down and took his hand again. It was for her own reassurance that she did so, just to make sure if anything else happened to him, she would be the first to know.

An hour passed, then another, and Jue had watched in awe as all of the patients had their stumps grow. She estimated another few hours for them to finish and she was sure that Neo was going to wake up when they were fully healed. It was just a feeling she had and couldn't explain it. Her eyes went to the monitor that showed off the Matrix code and she regretted that she wasn't as adept at the others with seeing things in it.

Jue stayed there the entire time and ignored anyone else that showed up to check on her. She even skipped going to get something to eat, because it was getting close to when she felt Neo was going to wake up. She wasn't sure why she thought she needed to be there for him, though. They didn't know each other and they hadn't become fast friends when they met.

That was when Jue had the distinct feeling that Neo knew she was close to having a full relationship with Thaddeus. How did she only guess that now? Neo had pretty much avoided the both of them after they were introduced, even though Thad was the captain and she was the first officer, whom were in charge of the experiment.

The thing was, Jue was reluctant to cross that last line and admit she was in love with the tall muscular black man that haunted her thoughts constantly. Was it because she was scared to lose him, or was it something else? Her reluctance only made her thoughts more reluctant to admit it. Their dangerous life made making a commitment to each other much more difficult than it should be.

“Maybe I should ask you for advice?” Jue asked the unconscious man whose hand she held for so long that she didn't even realize how long it had been. “What should I do, Neo? Do embrace what I have, and accept that's what I have, or should I throw caution to the wind and find any happiness that I can?”

At that moment, Neo sucked in a sharp breath and his vitals jumped back to normal.

Jue took that as encouragement and she kept hold of his hand as his eyes darted around behind his closed eyelids. She knew then that he was waking up inside the Matrix and she hit the intercom button to have her voice heard all over the ship.

“Neo's waking up!” Jue exclaimed and let the button go. She knew that simple phrase would bring everyone back into the main area to witness what was going on, since Neo was the only one mobile inside the Matrix and would be the one to send each of the patients out before he logged out himself.

It wasn't until Jue stood up that she remembered the experiment and her eyes went to the other five people logged into the Matrix. Her eyes widened when she saw her prediction had come true. They had all their hands and feet, fingers and toes included, and each of them were now whole once more. She glanced at the monitor for the Matrix and saw that nearly five hours had passed.

The crew and the captain came back in a rush and they looked at the Matrix monitor for a moment, before the operator went to the main operating station and started making calls. The crew logged out each of the patients and they all took in gasping breaths as they exited the Matrix. Why? Because the limbs they had grown inside the Matrix were in real life, too.

Neo was the last to exit and he opened his eyes to see Jue standing over him with his hand in hers. He gave her a smile and she reached under the barber chair and took out the brain spike device.

“Thanks for... staying with me, Jue. You can... leave me here. I'm wiped out... and I... need to... sleep...” Neo trailed off and his head slumped as he fell asleep.

“What a pussy.” One of the men from the first group of patients commented.

A fist slammed into the man's face and he cried out as he fell to the floor. He looked shocked as one of the men that had just logged out had stood up and punched him with a hand he didn't have before.

“Shut your mouth or I'll shut it permanently.” The other man said and rubbed his knuckles. “God, that felt good.”

“You beat me to it.” The man next to him said and stood on legs he didn't have before. “I don't care how Neo managed to give me my feet back or why I can walk without trouble after years of being bedridden.” He took a step forward and held up a fist. “He did it and you will keep your stupid mouth shut about it.”

The man on the floor cowered slightly and silently decided that he might want to rethink running his mouth when he was around people that were much tougher than him.

“Are we actually going to leave him there?” One of the others asked and motioned to a smiling Neo that was slumped in the barber chair.

“No, take him back to his bunk in the cargo hold.” Captain Thaddeus ordered. “We need the chair free, just in case.”

Jue couldn't argue the order, not after their revelation about always leaving one chair free for emergency logins. She called two of the crew to help her and they carried Neo out of the main area and back to the cargo hold. The other patients followed them, even the cowed one, and the main area seemed overly quiet once more.

Thaddeus let out a soft sigh as his first officer went with them and he knew what she was going to ask the man, now that his healing ability was proven. It was still unbelievable, except the proof was literally walking away under their own power, when they had to be carried on a stretcher to get to the login station before.

The operator patted his arm as he passed and went back to work. Thad turned around and hoped that Neo talked some sense into Jue and let her know that her mother wouldn't survive the transition from living inside a dream world and waking up in reality.