You remember this day -- a couple days after you came back from the Tachyon, after Jerry handed you a hastily scribbled note with an access code to the IPS-N license server, after a day and a night spent in MechLab to configure everything just so, after you got a mail from the printer telling you that print job #392.023.ef1.ac5 completed successfully -- when you walked up to the crew chief doing final adjustments. But things are shifted; it's not MacArthur, doing the checkup and turning to look at you with slight disapproval -- she's over there -- it's a person that waking you have never seen in your life but that dream you knows and talks to with easy familiarity from years of being on maintenance crews together, a man that looks like Loki Valentinian but older that you know as HB...
You see Jerry. You watch his hands shaking as they come up to his face, covering his eyes; getting steadier as they move down, adjusting his tie; calmer still as they they close up his pilot's vest; perfect