Arise: Alpha

Contents

Arise: Alpha

Prologue – 1614 AD

Chapter One – Present Day

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Copyright © 2022 by R J Cajiao

Published through MAH Publishings Ltd

Audio production was handled by Chris and Jessica of Actors Everywhere

Editing by Jack Cameron of CringeWorthyStudios

Editing by Jenny Thomas

Editing by M Evan MacGregor

Cover by Marko Drazic

Typography by May Dawney Designs

Formatting by Emily Godhand

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author/publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction, all characters, places, spells, realities and secrets of the Upper and Lower Realms are entirely my own work, and if they offend you, it’s not intentional. Probably.

Thanks

Okay, so I’ll not keep you long! I’m always at a loss when it comes to writing this, not because I don’t know who to thank, but because there are so many I know I need to recognize.

This time around, I’m going to restrict myself to three groups, first and foremost, you buggers on ‘Faceache’ that share, comment and recommend me and my works. Thank you, damn, that never sounds like enough, but seriously? Thank you! You make it possible for new people to find me each and every day, and it makes a massive difference!

Secondly, my family, as always, they’re keeping me (mostly) sane, making sure I stop and rest and stop shouting at my characters for doing things I didn’t expect. Thank you. Thank you Chrissy for your love and support, Max for being a batshit and cool little dude that I love so much, and Xander. You’ve taken your first steps my little man, and I damn well know you’ll be racing with the best of them in a few weeks!

Lastly I just wanted to thank my ARC team for hammering through the book catching the occasional typo so quickly for me, and my editors for working so hard and diligently, keeping me on the right track, and occasionally warning me that I’m going off the rails.

Now then, if you’re listening, rather than reading this, you’ll be hearing the wonderful narration of Jessica and Chris, you lucky buggers, so thank you both, I wanted to work with you since hearing you read Nathan’s Challengers Call, so I’m damn pleased to have finally got this sorted!

Prologue – 1614 AD

“Again we find ourselves thus, Petros: me drinking fine wine, and eating chouriço, and you nailed to a chair, waiting on your friends to effect a rescue.” Santiago swirled the red wine around the crystal-cut goblet he held before sniffing delicately and sighing. “Ah . . . a tremendous bouquet. Cistercian, of course . . . those clever monks!”

“Peace, Santiago!” Petros groaned. “No more!”

“My old friend,” Santiago interrupted him. “You must see by now—”

“I see nothing! A hundred and forty-seven years since the schism, Santiago, how many times have we sat thus? You or I entrapped, the other trying—and failing—to persuade one to change sides! It will not work! I gave up on you after 1527!”

“Ah yes, the sacking of Roma,” Santiago murmured, smiling wistfully. “I always wished I could have seen the look on Cellini’s face when he realized I’d changed sides!”

“It was contempt! He never trusted you; that’s why he refused to pay your gold until after the battle! Why must we endure this farce time after time! How many deaths have you endured at my hands? And how many have I at yours?” Petros whispered, his head hanging forward and hair falling to cover his eyes as he tugged uselessly at the bonds securing his arms to the chair, gritting his teeth against the pain of the nails and the chafing as the chains cut into him and wound around the oak.

“Very well, if you refuse civility, then you leave me no choice!” Santiago snapped, sitting up straight and slamming his wine glass down. He clapped his hands together twice sharply.

The doors opened immediately as two of his house guards stepped inside, standing at attention.

“Gentlemen, my friend has declined my gracious invitation to dinner, so I ask that you take him outside and remove his head. Be sure to leave his body outside in the road for the rest of his Traidores friends to find!” Santiago gestured to the guards with a lace handkerchief before sitting back and snatching his wine glass up again. “Remember, Petros! This was your choice! We could have at least eaten together like the gentlemen we once were!”

“It is pointless, Santiago . . . as you well know,” Petros whispered as the guards stepped up, one resting a bare blade against his throat while the other began to lever out the nails. “Hundreds of years the others have danced this dance, and still we are trapped following the same steps!”

“You ask me to join you, to while away the ages behind the thrones, pulling string after string, instead of working to tear it all down and build something worthwhile! Or better yet, to destroy it all! We could be free, Santiago! No more being forced to return again and again . . . we were not meant for this! We must be judged!”

“The gods have given us these gifts for a reason,” Santiago replied hotly before being cut off as his guest hissed in pain, the spike of metal finally coming loose with a creak and a gout of blood.

“The gods have abandoned us! They have nothing to do with what we are! The priests and monks suspect . . . the king listens to them even now! What will you do when they come for you? When they find what you—what we—are? Will they bury you again? Or burn you alive? How long before they find the Refuge . . . how long before we must endure centuries of their experiments!”

“The king is a buffoon!” Santiago snapped, waving a hand at the guards. “That’s enough! Get him out of here, now!”

The biggest of the two bowed his head in assent. His swarthy skin was pockmarked, but his muscular build and his brilliant blue eyes made him stand out in any crowd.

“Master, a coach and horses come towards the Castelo from the town below, perhaps—”

“Bah!” Santiago cut his man off with a wave of his hand. “It’ll be his friends coming to rescue him, a pointless exercise! Have the men wait until they are close, then kill them all.”

“Santiago, wait!” Petros implored, breaking off with a hiss of pain as the second guard yanked his head backwards against the back of the chair. “Dammit, you fool, listen! They are not mine!”

“A likely story—” Santiago began, only to be cut off.

“No! I swear it on the light and my hope of peace! My people are not close enough. Kill me, leave me in a dungeon; it matters not, but they are not mine. Kill them out of hand and—”

“You expect me to believe that you care for them now?” Santiago hissed, leaning forward and glaring into the eyes of the man he’d once called his brother. “I saw the plans, Petros! I saw your sickness firsthand, the plague you planned to spread to kill them all! Why would you care if I have these shot?”

“You know me! You know I would not do such a thing!”

“I saw the plans!”

“You saw the plans Bartholomew holds as a last resort! I would never be party to such a thing, you know this!” Petros snapped back at him, then hung his head and let his hair fall across his face. “Santiago . . . yes, you know that I believe we are cursed. Yes, I admit that I wish for the end of days to come, and I and my fellows, men and women you once admired above all others, we work to bring the end about. We do, but as a last resort! We work to discover the truth, the meaning behind what we are—”

“You admit that—”

“Just listen for once in your existence!” Petros snapped, lifting his head. For the love of the god you somehow still believe in, listen to me! Those are not my people, and I am no more a monster now than I was when you rescued me!”

There was silence then beyond the popping crackle of the fire, and the drifting noises of the Castelo below as Santiago regarded the man before him.

“Are his chains still tight?” he asked the guards, who quickly checked them to make sure.

“Yes, master,” the lead guard responded after a second, lifting the nail suggestively as he glanced from the dripping wound to the hammer he’d used to draw it out.

“Then leave us.” Santiago growled, watching Petros intently. “And gather the men. Have them armed and ready to fire . . . but don’t attack the visitors unless they attack first,” he said after a few seconds more.

The guards bowed and left the room, drawing the double doors shut as silently as possible before moving away across the thick carpets with barely a sound.

Meanwhile, the two men watched each other.

“Thank you, Santiago,” Petros said eventually.

“Who are they?”

“I know not, I swear . . . but I had to speak, my soul bears enough burdens without more innocents being added to it.”

“Then why would you do this? You profess to care if they live or die, but the commoners have always been like this! Your mad plans would kill them all, and without any certainty that we would be reborn still!”

“Santiago . . .” Petros sighed, sitting back and shaking his head as he gathered his thoughts. “Think, old friend. We were not meant to live forever, and those among us who dare to ask questions? Who dare use the now-forbidden arts of science to try and get answers to how and why we exist?

“We are hunted by the inquisition! They know something! The others speak of the signs, of the lights in the sky and the seas. And some believe, as you accuse me, that the Devil himself is attempting to steal us to his side. I do not agree, but . . .”

He drew a deep breath before going on. “Much of their argument is valid! We are taught that we must face judgement when we die, that we will move on, that the Lord will take our souls and accept us to heaven or send us to hell. But we do not face judgement, Santiago! I have never seen anything beyond the Grey, the strange lights, or the Great Refuge and its peculiar gifts. When our kind were banned from its halls, we found ourselves another hall, elsewhere—”

“Where?” Santiago asked desperately. “Petros, if you wish my help, if you wish my indulgence before the Council of Elders, then tell me!”

“I cannot,” Petros denied wearily. “We both know what you would—what you must do if I told you. You would lead the others to the Hall, and you would deny us this as well.”

“Petros, you could return to the Blessed—you would be welcomed with open arms!” Santiago whispered hopefully. “Almost a century and a half since the schism, and never once would any of you speak on the secrets that led you to run . . . to share this? The council would absolve you of your heresies—”

“I cannot, nor would I,” Petros said simply, closing his eyes and banging the back of his head against the high-backed chair he was chained to. “You do not understand. I do not speak of this to tease you. Yes, there is another Refuge; it was damaged when we found it. Slow and old, with none of the refinements and comforts of that which you know . . . but its existence proves we are right!”

“How? How does this—”

“Because it proves that all is not as we are taught by the Old Ones! We were told by them that the Great Refuge was created by the Great God to enable the rebirth of the Blessed Eternals. Yet, when we were banished, Eternals ourselves, the Council banished us from the Refuge!

“How could the council achieve this? And regardless of that, in banishing us, that should have been the end of our lines! Entire families lost to the future, yet instead some few found themselves awakening in squalor, ruins long-abandoned, with lights that flashed and voices that spoke to us!”

“The Devil . . .” Santiago started to say, crossing himself, only to be cut off by Petros’s scornful look.

“You know better!” Petros snapped. “You pay lip service at best, old friend, after all we have seen! But no, never have we been approached by another, not by God nor his angels, not by the Devil nor his fallen. We are here, trapped between heaven and hell for all eternity, and the council denies us access to the records!”

“You sought to destroy them!”

“That was one man in a fit of rage! Ulbricht saw the lies the council had attempted to pass off as the truth! He asked questions of the record-keeper, then the next day, the works he’d been studying were banned from his eyes! He was reduced to the lowest level of access, and he’d been studying what we’d been taught were the truth for centuries!”

“He saw the council literally altering the sacred texts, and he called them out on it and was treated like a fool! Should he have burned the text he was given to read? Of course not; it was nearly five hundred years old . . . but it was also a fiction! That is why he raided the vault and led us from our ancient home.”

“You have no proof.”

“Think! Just think for a minute, old friend…” The door burst open suddenly and the lead guard hurried inside, dropping to one knee, right fist pressed to the ground and left to his breast in apology.

“Master! I apologize for interrupting, but the coach . . . it is High Lord Phineas and his entourage. They sent a rider ahead!”

“Get up, Miguel. What does he want with us?” Santiago snapped, setting his glass on the edge of the table and standing quickly, cursing as the poorly placed glass tipped and spilled red wine across the edge of his carpet.

“The prisoner!” Miguel, the guard, replied quickly, rising to his feet. “You are forbidden to question him. He must have his tongue and fingers removed at once, then be bound and ready for collection. None may speak with him—”

“And so it begins. They will question me, old friend, but they cannot have you and the others hearing the truth. They want you to take my tongue, knowing that it will regrow in mere hours, but by then it will be too late for you to learn anything new.”

“Leave us. And Miguel? He has not spoken . . . understand?” Santiago said quietly to the guard, who nodded.

“On my honor, master, not a word has been heard from him since he was captured,” Miguel said, bowing his head and leaving the room as Santiago moved around the desk to stand over Petros.

“I cannot even kill you, to spare you what comes . . .”

“Because what good would it do but delay the inevitable?”

“I—I could remove your head . . . burn it?” Santiago mused, glancing at the fire then back at Petros.

“Not enough time, and even if you managed it, what would you tell Phineas?”

“That you refused to speak, and I grew irate, and decided to have your body destroyed to stop your return—”

Petros snorted. “He would never believe you. And even if he did, he would simply recover my head and reattach it, your fire isn’t hot enough to do the job in time, and you know it.”

“Dog’s blood!” Santiago swore, stalking back and forth in the room before freezing in the doorway to the balcony, staring out and down at the approaching carriage and riders. “There are more than a hundred of them.”

“He must suspect you will not hand me over,” Petros whispered. “Why else bring such numbers? Chained as I am . . .”

“They must have been hunting you already, and diverted here when they heard I captured you.”

“Then this marks the end after all. No more of these cozy chats, for once Phineas has me, I will be interred for the ages. That, at least, still works.”

“It is barbaric. Sentencing you to eternity walled into a cell, hidden in the mountains to go mad? I will not be party to such a thing!”

“You have no choice.”

“Ha! You think not?” Santiago grunted, turning from the road to regard the younger man, reaching out with his dark gift.

The chains shivered, and dust cascaded from them as millennia passed in seconds, rust spreading as the metal decayed, flakes falling free and coating the floor around the chair, even as Petros looked on in shock.

“But . . . but . . .” he whispered in amazement and horror, lifting both hands as the metal that had pinned him to the seat crumbled to dust. “Phineas, he will—”

“He knows not about my gifts. None do who live, save you now. I shall tell him you did this, and that you stabbed me when I tried to remove your tongue, as requested.” Santiago drew his dagger from the sheath on his hip, flipping it over and offering it hilt first to the younger man.

“But—”

“Take it, and leave signs of a struggle, but do not kill my men. They and their families have served me for many years, and well,” Santiago said firmly, turning his back and gesturing to the snowy rooftops of the Castelo. “The stables are closed to you—too many people and soon Phineas and his men will arrive—but . . . a boat is moored by the river below. Take the rope from the wall and a coat, by the gods—it’ll be freezing out there.”

“Santiago,” Petros said slowly, pain in his voice as he knew the risks his old mentor—and until today, his enemy of more than a century—was taking. “If Phineas suspects . . .”

“Then he will need to prove it. I have enough support in the Council to survive this at least, provided you stop speaking and do what must be done!” Santiago snapped, still looking the other way.

“Thank you . . . old friend,” Petros whispered, resting his left hand on Santiago’s shoulder and squeezing once in thanks.

Then he drove the dagger into Santiago’s back, angling up under the ribs and slicing inwards, the razor-sharp Toledo steel cleaving his heart in two.

The older man gasped in pain, even as Petros caught him and gently lowered him to the floor, laying him on his front and quickly overturning the chair and throwing papers about, making it look like the scene of a fight.

Petros took a deep breath, blinking away the tears that stung his eyes before gathering the rope that hung on the wall, as well as the long coat and other adventuring gear from his mentor’s younger days.

He was ready in seconds, the wounds in his hands already down to mere annoyances as he moved to the door and swapped the dagger to his left hand, hefting a club he’d found instead.

“Subdue, do not kill,” he whispered to himself, thinking of the guards that would be stationed outside the room. Then he turned and glanced back at the still body of Santiago. “I will remember this, old friend.”

He gripped the handles and pulled the door open.

Chapter One – Present Day

“Gods, this is sodding paradise,” I murmured, floating on my back and staring up into the azure sky above me. There wasn’t a single cloud anywhere to be seen, the water was warm, and the hangover was fading, a mere dull ache behind my eyelids. I contemplated the faint clouds that sailed gently by far overhead. “It just doesn’t get better than this.”

I closed my eyes again and shifted to keep my mouth above the level of the water. I’d never had the chance to do this much, just relax in the sea, party and play, I’d always thought it was something that only the rich got to do, and not for the likes of me.

I was nothing if not stubborn, though, and after walking away from it all, my shitty day job, people’s expectations, and my much more violent and lucrative night job, along with that minor matter of a police investigation . . .

Then the ex with her possessive crap, the bills; hell, I’d even handed over the keys to my house to the bank, mailing them to the “debt recovery division” in a box along with a fresh turd and a cover letter explaining that the deed was inside, meaning some poor fucker had to open it.

Ha!

Now I was here. The only concern in my mind was that my shift started in three hours for my second job. After I’d finished the first job of the day an hour ago, I had a sweet afternoon of fuck-all responsibility ahead of me yet.

Sure, my credit was so fucked that creatures at the bottom of the ocean had pictures of me sent to them warning them against extending me money, and I had half a dozen companies screaming for my head on a pike, but that was the wonderful thing about bankruptcy: once you hit that point, and the stamp hit the paper, it was all over.

I was officially untouchable by any of them.

I knew damn well that at least two of those debts would send someone out to “discuss” things with me; after all, you don’t accidentally forget to divide up the takings from a robbery and have the rest of the gang smile and wave you good luck, but still. Fuck ’em.

That was why I’d flown here via fucking Toronto. I’d changed flights five times, and with absolutely no plan, beyond getting me and my one hundred and thirty-seven grand out of fucking Dodge.

Now here I was, a new bank account opened under a new name—thank you, Cretan Police; one dead body, unfortunate for him, but fortunate for me; one ID; and five grand lighter, I was now Jamey Sultan, officially at least.

Everyone still knew me as Steve, but fuck it, I’d told them it was my middle name, and nobody here really cared that much. I could cook, and did, in a dive bar by day. I served drinks and did a little bouncing when people got too “handsy” with the girls in a club at night . . . and tried to get laid every night in a twenty-four-hour bar after work.

Yeah, I worked seven days a week, but got laid at least five of those, and got to spend the afternoons doing what I’d always dreamed of.

Absolutely fuck all.

I opened my eyes at a splash, the whoosh of someone moving close by, the sound distorted by the water that filled my ears. I blinked, turning to see who it was, my feet sinking as I stood, looking around and grinning.

“Hi!” the angel called, stroking over closer and reaching out to get her ball from where it rode the gentle swells of the Aegean Sea. “Sorry . . . missed the throw!” she offered by way of an explanation as she lifted the ball and smiled sunnily at me.

“Hi yourself!” I called back, twisting in the water to face her more fully, my feet touching down on the sandy bottom as I stood, running a hand through my hair to stop the water from coursing down my face and obscuring my view.

I checked her out, unashamedly looking her over as much as I could see with us both being in the water, noting that she was doing the same. I thanked my luck that the tides were quiet today, granting me a hell of a sight through the gentle waves.

She was blonde, a little shorter than me, I guessed, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face flushed, and a wide, nervous smile on her face.

She was also absolutely stacked, with a light scattering of freckles and bright blue eyes . . . hell yes, please.

I glanced around the small beach, seeing that here, where no buses stopped, where no apartments overlooked, and where almost no tourists knew—not without a local showing it off—there were maybe five people in the entire mile-plus cove.

“Five people here, and you still nearly hit me with the ball?” I called to her, grinning. “Either you’re shit at throwing, or you really didn’t know how to start a conversation . . .”

“Ah . . . uh . . . crap. Is it really that obvious?” she asked, deflating a little.

“It is . . . but I’m not complaining,” I said, smiling as I stroked over closer to her, watching the way she went even redder and the way her friend turned and swam back to the beach, totally giving us room.

“I’m Marie,” she said, offering me a shy smile.

“Steve,” I offered. “Your friend always so subtle?”

We both turned to watch her as she strolled out of the water, her skin so dark it was almost blue as she smiled and waved back at us.

“You kids have fun now!” she called before walking to presumably their bags and picking up a towel, roughly rubbing at her hair. “Play nice, ya hear!”

“Yes, ma’am!” I called back. “Thanks for the subtle intro.”

She grinned and again waved, this time with two fingers, making me squint in sudden suspicion at the military half-salute before I dismissed it and turned back to Marie with a smile.

“So, does she do this often?” I asked.

Marie shrugged in embarrassment, the combination of the gesture and the chest-deep water combining to make her almost float free of her top and totally derailing my brain.

“I had a bad breakup the week before last. I was supposed to be on this holiday with my fiancé, instead she’s here with me, and her policy is, and I quote, ‘you can’t get a man off your mind ‘til you get one on your body.’ It’s a bit embarrassing, really.”

“Well, it’s not exactly subtle, but you know, the direct approach does have its merits,” I said, rubbing my chin. “I mean, you want to go for it here in the water, or?”

“Uh . . . oh, god, I didn’t mean,” she whispered, closing her eyes as her hand covered her mouth and she clearly replayed the last few seconds of verbal diarrhea in her mind, realizing what she’d said.

“Don’t worry!” I laughed, splashing her playfully. “Seriously, your face!” I crowed.

She splashed me back with a mock snarl on her face, pretending to be offended.

The next ten minutes passed easily, amazingly easily, in fact, as she asked me about my life, and I gave her canned answers, steering her away from my past and instead focusing on hers.

It worked, as it almost always did. Instead of a guy bragging about himself, a guy who shut up and let the girl talk was rare, apparently, and it made my life seriously easier. I didn’t have to bullshit, and could enjoy the view, and she got to talk about herself. Win-win.

An hour later, we were laid on our towels on the sand, talking rubbish. Marie and Amanda were telling me stories about the south of England, about the London guys who never listened, and who thought they were god’s gift to girls, and I joked about “god’s country” in the north.

I’d made up a lot of my past, changing it until it was both simple and unremarkable, but the line I couldn’t cross was pretending to be from the south. A man had to have some self-respect, after all.

I told them about the army, about moving out here and working the bars, “having some time out,” as I put it.

We laughed and joked, had a few drinks, and when the time came for me to get dressed, go get a shower, and then go to work, I did it after several damn good kisses, leaving with not just her number but a promise to come and see me later that night at the bar.

I waved them goodbye and walked up the beach, trying to hide the goddamn tentpole in my pants as I passed a young family. That was thanks to our wandering hands and kisses the last few minutes, and I climbed onto my motorbike, pulling the helmet and sunglasses on, not wanting the setting sun in my eyes.

I glanced back to the girls one last time. Totally wasted effort, I saw, as I realized they were talking and watching the sunset, too. I snorted, starting the engine and pulling out of the carpark.

I pulled onto the deserted highway, taking a left and heading uphill, the road here passing up into low hills and along the cliffs before it sank back down into the more populated areas on the far side.

I cranked the accelerator back hard, letting out the throaty growl, and grinned as I opened her up, my one vanity, as always: my bike.

The wind dried the last of the sea from me, the water whipping away in the slipstream of air as I turned, following the road as it climbed, getting a last glimpse of the sea and the cove I’d been in . . . and slammed the brake on, fishtailing the back around and skidding to a halt. Amanda was thrashing the water, headed to a hand that slapped at the surface of the water as its owner slipped below, pulled by the riptide.

I froze, seeing Marie heave herself up again, splashing frantically, slapping the water and kicking spasmodically as she tried to stay afloat in the clear blue waters of the Aegean. Amanda frantically swam after her as Marie was pulled further and further from her, heading towards the rocks at the base of the sheer cliffs.

Rocks that had multiple signs around warning people of the tide and the number of fatalities that had occurred there.

Warnings like the ones that were all over the beach . . . in fucking Greek. My brain raced through the options, coming up with only two, even as another, much stupider part of me complained bitterly that the signs should be in English, despite it being a Greek island and a place that pretty much only the locals knew of.

Option one: ride down to the carpark. I’d probably make it there in time to see her disappear under the waves for the last time, with no chance to run across the path, down the beach, into the water until it was deep enough to hold me, and then, and only then start to swim out to her, or . . .

I could ride away. Not my problem, after all. I’d barely met them. Yeah, nice girls, but hey, bad things happened to nice people all the time. Hell, I’d done some of them, when they’d owed people money and I’d been sent to collect on it, but . . .

“Fuck it!” I reached up and flipped the clasp on my helmet, throwing it aside.

I hated wearing the damn thing anyway, but the locals had warned me, as had the bent cop who’d sold me the ID—wear the helmet or get a ticket. They’d demand ID, and then it could all fall apart.

Right now, though? If I was doing this, I was doing it comfortable.

I kissed my fingertips and touched them to the badge over the tank, whispering to my bike that I was sorry, before I cranked the accelerator and swerved around an oncoming car, crossed between the barriers, and rocketed out onto the scrub grass and dirt, cycling through the gears as fast as I could, hammering the gas.

The back kicked out, and I dug in deeper, punching harder and steering steadily, smoothing it out. My lips pulled back in a feral grin as I approached the small family who’d just finished climbing the dozens upon dozens of steps up to the cliff-top and were now pointing their cameras out to sea, with little else they could do, filming Marie as she went under.

The camera on the phone in the dad’s hand panned around, tracking me, my bike’s engine filling the air as I raced past, sunglasses on, designer stubble and short hair, the bike and my hard-earned muscles making me look like a fucking god among lesser men as I shot the camera a grin before standing up on the seat and driving it straight off the edge of the cliff and out over the sea.

I waited until the momentum started to slow, the arrow-straight arc of my flight angling downwards, before I moved, stepping forward onto the handlebars and pushing off as hard as I could, diving forwards a few extra meters and arcing into the sea with my hands above my head, a perfect dive that should have netted me at least a goddamn silver medal in the Olympics.

I cut through the water cleanly, my sunglasses making it far harder than I needed it to be to see, but pulling them free would take a half second that Marie might not have.

I’d seen her under the water as I’d flown over the cliff, a half dozen meters to my left, and maybe ten out in front, but the water, despite being clear and beautiful, always made judging distances hard, so I swam hard, as hard as I could, diving deeper and deeper, finally spotting the pale golden fan of her hair as she ceased struggling and slowly sank towards the bottom.

I dug deeper, a momentary memory of a description of my swimming style from my teacher all those years ago surfacing in my mind: “He doesn’t swim, he beats the shit out of the water ’til it gives in and takes him where he wants to go.”

Today it was right; I was too panicked to be graceful, too determined to pause and reassess, or to consider that I was rapidly running out of air as well.

I was coldly furious at the universe for this beautiful, vivacious woman before me drowning, and I wasn’t going to accept it.

I heaved and pulled, kicked and pounded at the water until I hit the sandy bottom, my fingers scrabbling at the sand and small rocks as I dug for purchase. Something solid lay beneath the surface, and pulling hard, I catapulted myself forward as my legs kicked.

It took forever, yet also before I knew it, my outstretched hand closed on hers, and I pulled her close, her back against my chest, as I crouched, planting my feet firmly and exploding upwards with all the force I could muster.

I scissor-kicked as I went, one arm around her chest, holding her drooping form tight against me, while pulling for all I was worth on the water with my other hand.

I could see the surface overhead, the dimness of the setting sun reflecting off the water, yet still it felt like forever before my hand, then my head, then her head, broke out into the rapidly cooling air.

Amanda was screaming from my right, and I turned, gasping down air, and already feeling the riptide trying to pull me that way towards the base of the cliff. I twisted around, searching, and saw her clinging to the rocks not ten feet away, frantically reaching out for me to bring Marie to her.

I shook my head, coughing up water then shouting to her as soon as I had the air to do it.

“No . . . no good! Need to get her . . . to shore!” I called.

“I can’t make it!” Amanda wept. “Marie!”

Tears were clear streaming down her face as Marie hung limp in my arms. Amanda reached for her, despite the rock she was clinging to barely being big enough to hold her, never mind Marie and myself as well, certainly not when I needed to do CPR.

I shook my head and struck out for the shore, knowing the tricks of the cove and berating myself for not warning them before I left, even as I called to Amanda and promised to return for her.

It didn’t take long to reach the shore. Others who were further along the beach had come running, and by the time I was hauling Marie onto the sand, less than two minutes later, an off-duty lifeguard was ready, an ambulance called, and he had her coughing up water in a fountain in short order, followed by bile and seemingly the remains of her lunch or tea.

As soon as I was sure she was alive and safe, I staggered out into the water again, the darkness that was coming in enough to make the rocks hard to see, let alone the dark-skinned woman who clung to them, sobbing.

I made it to her without incident, grabbing onto the rock and reaching out, only to have her pull back, trying to push herself into the rock as she let out a little scream.

“Fuck’s sake, Amanda!” I grunted. “You want . . . to be rescued or . . . not?” I asked her, exhaustion filling my voice, even as her head popped up over the crook of her elbow, her eyes red rimmed and puffy from the weeping.

“Marie?” she asked me, her voice hoarse.

“Probably . . . trying to fuck the . . . lifeguard by now. Can we go before . . . that happens? I think I deserve it more . . . surely?” I managed to gasp out, and she threw herself off the rock and into my arms, sending us both into the water, where she panicked as she felt the riptide take us and thrashed about wildly, breaking my nose with a misplaced elbow.

I sank under the water, the world exploding in stars as I wiped at my head, a sudden cloud of blood floating free and surrounding me. I sank downwards, Amanda kicking herself free, desperately reaching for the rock again and half-dragging me into it. I reached out, my hand bloody as I slapped it against the surface of the rock, only to have it . . . glow?

I paused, my brain swimming more than my body as the stone glowed around the bloody handprint, and somewhere beneath me, the riptide changed, suddenly buoying us up and swirling us away from the rocks, back towards the shore instead.

Amanda was still flailing uselessly, even as the tides seemed to be half-carrying us in the direction of the beach. I growled in frustration, banishing the strange glow from my mind as I kicked out, half-carrying, half-dragging her to the shore.

By the time I’d hauled her up on the sand to the small party of rescuers, I was utterly fucked, bloody, exhausted, and I just knew I was going to be late for work.

I managed to get myself upright, wiping my bloody nose and snorting a mess free that I shook into the sea, giving one of the crew of the ambulance room to check Amanda as well.

I coughed and snorted a bit more, then waded into the water, ducking my head under and wiping the blood free before standing up and shaking my head, looking back.

“What the . . . oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered in disbelief as they closed the door at the back of the ambulance, and a few seconds later it started up, bouncing across the uneven hard-packed earth at the back of the beach, headed for the road.

I turned back, and I looked out to sea, to the water that was now the grave of my beloved motorbike, and I cursed again. Not only had Marie and Amanda now basically fucked off, leaving me on the beach, without so much as a thank you, but . . .

I was torn between pride that I’d done it—I’d damn well saved them both—and serious fucking irritation. I mean, I’d saved them both, and here I was, standing in the water up to my balls, my phone no doubt fucked, my wallet full of water, and my fucking bike at the bottom of the sea!

I struggled back to shore and walked past the gaggle of people who were all talking about it, totally ignoring me, beyond one trying to shout questions about had I seen anything. Fucking idiots, who’d they think just saved them?

I spent the next hour trying to get my phone to work, stomping along the road until I reached a bar, and finally found an occasional drinking buddy who let me borrow his instead.

I called work, apologized, and got the good news that I was fired for being late again. With a growl, I called the boss a cocksucker, handing the phone back to my mate and marching out of the front door in a strop. I wracked my brain for ideas of where I could earn the money to replace my damn bike and pay my rent… like welding with Tommy, or bouncing for Stavros… nah, I wasn’t that desperate.

I spent most of the miles walking back to the apartment muttering to myself about how no good deed goes unpunished before collapsing onto the bed, my clothes all thrown unceremoniously across the balcony in the hope the sun would save them as I passed out.

I was officially, and totally, done with this fucking day.

Chapter Two

I woke up hours later to someone hammering on my door like a dick, and I staggered upright, still more than half asleep and swearing as my face throbbed with every heartbeat. I stumbled, half-blinded, across the floor to paw at the door, and yanked it open, letting the sunlight stream in.

“Gods, man, you look like shit!” Dave said, waving at my battered face.

I grunted and turned away, blinking and trying to get my night vision back as I walked back into the apartment, heading to the bathroom. Dave slammed the door, cursing the cheap shitty construction that never closed properly.

“So come on then, hero, tell me all about it!” Dave called through to me as I used the facilities. The thud of him kicking his shoes off, then opening the fridge and pulling out a pair of clinking glass bottles filtered through as I did.

I hit the flush and winced, looking at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Black eyes greeted me, bringing their third wheel the puffy nose. Dried blood covered half my damn face. I grunted, knowing what I had to do as I ran my finger down the bridge of my nose.

It throbbed like the devil was playing with it, beating it in time to my heartbeat, and I knew what that meant, so I had three choices. I could be a pussy and ignore it. I could be an even poorer pussy and go to the doctors, or the hospital, have them drug me and then fix it, before charging me a fucking arm and a leg, or I could man up and do what needed to be done.

“Dave!” I snapped, and he came over to the door, pausing on the other side.

“What?” he called through the wood.

“Get your arse in here.” I grunted at him.

He opened the door, looking out of the corner of his eye to confirm that Mr. Happy was safely out of sight before strolling in, holding a beer out, and looking at my nose.

“Fuck, that’s not good,” he declared, wincing.

“I know that, you dick,” I retorted, taking a deep breath and saying the words I really didn’t want to. “Fix it, will you?”

“You sure?” he asked.

I nodded, taking a swig from my beer before setting it on the sink.

Dave nodded in return, took a drink of his, then pulled a wad of toilet paper out and handed it to me. “Put that under your nose, then. No need to get it on the floor.”

I took it and balled it up under my nose, waiting as he reached out, gently probing the cartilage until he was sure where the break and swelling was, then closing his hand over it, holding the broken sections ready.

“On three,” he said, giving me a respectful nod. “One . . . two . . .” Then, before I instinctively tensed up, just as the word “two” left his mouth, he snapped my nose straight again, breaking the cartilage further but setting back where it should be this time.

“Shit!” I snarled, the word coming out more like “thit” due to the nose, the wadded up toilet paper catching some of the blood en-route.

I blinked quickly, tears stinging my eyes as I leaned forwards, trying not to sniff as more and more blood fell into the porcelain basin, painting it a vibrant red interspaced with black clots that looked terrible.

I waited a handful of seconds, ignoring Dave’s bloody stupid questions like “are you all right, mate?” as I reached up, building myself up to it. Then I gripped my nose at the bridge, and squeezing gently but firmly, drew my fingers down.

It damn well hurt, it really did, but I snorted it out, covering the sink in clots of dried blood, and instead of the blackened crap, it was all fresh claret now.

A handful of seconds later, it’d more or less stopped. I stuffed some paper up each nostril, much to Dave’s amusement.

Dave patted me on the back before wandering off, clearly giving me a minute to myself, while also avoiding the mess that I needed to clean up. By the time I’d finished cleaning the escaped blood splatters away and wiped the sink down, I slowly edged the wadded-up paper free of my nose and sighed as no more blood escaped.

“Damn, that stings,” I mumbled to myself, finishing off my bottle of beer and strolling out of the bathroom, the empty bottle in hand.

I stacked it with the dozens of others on one side of the tiny “kitchen” before grabbing two more out of the fridge and joining Dave on the balcony.

He’d taken my clothes and moved them around; the shorts were laid out neatly, while the white T-shirt was balled up in the corner. I glanced at it and got a snort from him as he took the bottle I offered him.

“That’s a write-off, mate. Looks like you’ve tried to clean up a murder!” he warned me.

I picked it up and took careful aim, throwing it off the balcony and into the dumpster at the end of the little apartment block two floors down.

I’d rented this apartment for the summer, figuring I’d find somewhere better and cheaper soon, but in truth, it suited me well, even with Dave—who I’d met two days into arriving here and who had practically moved in by the end of that weekend.

He shared the general jobs, made sure there was always beer in the fridge, and kept me from making the apartment into a complete slob pit. I called that his share of the rent and ignored the fact he actually earned the same as, if not more than, I did, yet never offered a damn cent.

The apartment was small and crappy, on the third and top-most floor, with a single lounge area, two bedrooms, and a bathroom, as well as a tiny balcony that faced the rising sun.

Usually, that meant they’d have trouble renting it out, considering how hot it got here. So the owners had invested in a good A/C and reflective blackout blinds. When I’d moved in, it’d been heaven, a fresh start, and even now, it just felt like home.

Despite the fact that the entire apartment block used the same two dumpsters, and they sat practically below my balcony, and it was cooked all day by the damn sun.

Plumbing in Crete isn’t that good, so you can’t flush used, shitty toilet roll down the pipes. Instead, you had to wipe then put it in the bin, meaning that the dumpster absolutely reeked, but fuck it, for the first time since I arrived, I couldn’t smell it.

“Man, you really need to find a new apartment that’s not as fucking smelly,” Dave said idly, taking a swig as I ignored his often-repeated comment. “So come on then, hero, tell me everything.”

I frowned at him, remembering him calling me that before as well.

“What’re you on about?” I grunted at him, and he looked at me with a much put-upon expression and sighed.

“What, because you do that kind of shit so often you don’t know? Come on, dude, spill. What the hell happened, and how the hell did you pull that dive off? You, my friend, should be dead!” he said, pointing at me with the neck of his beer bottle, shifting around in the cheap, hard-plastic garden chairs that he’d looted from somewhere the week before last.

“I mean, how the hell did you hear about it?” I countered, getting a condescending shake of his head in reply.

“Oh man, you know better. You know me, I hear everything!” he said, trying to pass himself off as some kind of Delphic Oracle, before shrugging and going on in a much more honest tone. “Plus, the footage was already doing the rounds when the girls turned up at the bar looking for you. They told Stavros everything.”

“What footage?!” I asked, shocked. He pulled out his phone, taking a swig as he looked for it, scrolling through the various social media feeds. “And the girls—which one was doing the asking, and are they okay?”

“They were both asking. Apparently, they came looking for you to thank you. I’m betting you can swing this into some ‘personal’ thanking from them both, to be fair. But if you aren’t going for one, just say the word, I’d take either, happily.” Dave went on, talking about Marie’s tits and Amanda’s ass, before getting far more detailed. I tuned him out as he passed the phone over, watching the small screen as the video played.

It was jerky, zooming in on Marie’s hand as she frantically waved for help, before panning back out, showing both the girls, before looking at the cliff and the dozens upon dozens of steep steps climbing up to where they were, even as a female voice begged for someone to do something and a male voice, both off-camera, sadly saying that nobody could get out there in time.

Then a child shouted an excited warning, and the camera blurred around, the setting sun flaring some of the video out, only to clear just as I raced across the dirt path into my closeup.

Time seemed to slow as the film steadied, catching me full on as I grinned at the camera, sunglasses on, designer stubble, buffed-to-fuck muscles straining the confines of my plain white T-shirt . . . fuck, I looked awesome! Like I should have a brand of aftershave rolling along the bottom of the screen or something.

The video seemed to speed up again, watching me as I raced off the cliff edge, stepping casually up onto the handlebars and diving off the end, hitting the water like a sodding Olympic athlete and vanishing into the darkening waters of the Aegean Sea.

Voices panicked as the recording rolled on, until a handful of seconds later I burst up out of the water, Marie held triumphantly under one arm as I swam.

The video cut off there, and I shook my head in wonder before playing it again and again, until Dave finally reached over and took it off me.

“So come on then, mate, speak up, what happened and why? I mean seriously, balls of steel there, man, the title says it all: ‘Hero Swoops In!’ and the fucker has over a million hits already. I doubt there’s anything better on the news now, not anywhere in the fucking world!” Dave babbled on, shaking his head as he checked the views.

“What?” I asked him suddenly, as the words, and the reality of the situation, came crashing down around my ears.

“You’re a fucking celebrity, man! Seriously, there’s entire news departments searching for you right now, I’ve got some dick from the BBC messaging me after I said on social media that I knew you. Fucker’s offering no cash yet, though, but I bet I can get the Sun to pay a nice whack,” he muttered, voice trailing off.

Dave rubbed his chin, shrugging. “Right, I’ll get us another beer, you tell me all this shit, then I’ll give you that bird’s number, and we’ll go see if we can both get laid, deal?” he half-demanded and half-asked, already up and wandering inside as I sat staring out at the mid-morning sun, my heart thudding in a chest that felt like cement had already been poured over it.

I was a celebrity. That translated into one thing for a man like me.

I was a fucking dead man.

You don’t let someone vanish, not like I did, not with all the money. You make an example of them.

Dave came out and took a seat next to me, pressing for details, and I gave him them as best I could, speaking woodenly as I tried to process everything.

I had to get out of here. I had to get somewhere I could disappear, and that meant . . .

“Shit!” I cursed, realizing that for a short time I might have to do something truly horrific. I might have to go somewhere without the internet.

No porn, no answers to every question at the tap of a button, no stupid cat videos, no hours of mindlessly scrolling, no porn, for fuck’s sake!

“I need to get to the bank…” I muttered, frowning as I thought. The local branch knew me, they’d asked zero questions when I put the money in, and had barely glanced at my ID, so hopefully they’d do little more when I went in and transferred it out. After all, if I tried to do it online, they’d want me to answer those damned questions… and I wasn’t sure I could remember the answers I’d given last time. I nodded to myself, before turning to Dave.

“Dude, my bike’s trashed. I need yours, or you can give me a lift to the bank, right?” I asked him, already standing up, ready to go and get changed.

“The bank? Man, you’re not right in the head, are you? It’s Saturday. They’re closed ’til Monday,” he warned me, clearly concerned and growing more so as I started to swear like a pirate with a splinter in my dick. “What’s up, man?”

“Did you tell anyone where I am? Did you speak to anyone about me?!” I asked him grimly, my mind spinning faster and faster.

“What? Uh . . . just this one dude. He wanted to know where we were right now, I told him I wasn’t saying shit before I checked with you. He said he was an old friend of yours, said he lost touch and wanted to catch up.”

“What was his name?” I asked him, my balls shriveling up even as the words left my mouth.

“Kev something, uh . . .”

“Sinclair,” I whispered. “It was Kev Sinclair, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah!” Dave said, relaxing, thinking it was all okay because I clearly knew him. “Why?”

I turned, leaned on the balcony, and looked out, seeing this wonderful shitty view and knowing damn well that it was going to be the last time I’d see it. Hell, if that sadistic fuck was coming for me, it might be the last time I saw anything. I stared for long seconds, ignoring Dave’s questions, feeling it build.

Eventually, when the pressure got too much, I did it; I let it out.

“FUUUUUCKKKKKK!” I screamed into the calm, mid-morning air, startling several seagulls into flight.

“What the hell, man!” Dave cursed, falling off the side of his chair and barely catching himself on the wall, leaving a narrow line of scraped-clean skin on his wrist and a fresh smear of blood on the alabaster paint as he shrugged himself free, hissing in pain as he looked at his grazed arm.

“You have no idea how much you just fucked me over,” I replied coldly, striding back inside and grabbing my suitcase from on top of the wardrobe, slamming it down on the bed and starting to pack.

I sorted through the things I had to have first, a few daft little items, my grandfather’s watch, the old family signet ring, a multi-tool I’d gotten years ago that went everywhere with me. Silly things, damn stupid things really, but when you pared everything else free of your life, the little things became seriously important.

Once I had the watch and ring on, and the multi-tool in the bag, I started packing clothes, slamming them into my bag with far more force than necessary, ignoring Dave’s questions.

He finally grabbed me and spun me about to face him.

I snarled, pulling my fist back, and he backed up, hands raised and palms out as he patted the air between us calmingly.

“Whoa, man, chill the fuck out. Steve, seriously, man, what’s wrong?” he asked me, and for the first time I saw concern past the happy-go-lucky exterior.

“He—you—oh, for fuck’s sake!” I snarled.

I grabbed a handful of shirts and threw them into the suitcase before striding the three steps to the counter and sweeping up a bottle of Appleton rum. I pulled the top off and took a heavy pull before speaking further.

“I was in on a robbery a few months back . . . and it went tits up, all right? We were promised a hundred and fifty grand apiece, then it turns out there’s not even a hundred and fifty grand in total. The asshole who planned it fucked up. Or maybe he didn’t. He knew I’d say no to twenty-five, but a hundred and fifty? Well, when I found out how much there really was, I did a fucking runner . . . with the money,” I admitted after a few seconds of glaring at my friend.

It sounded ridiculous, insane even, that this was something that real people did, not just idiots in books and movies. But here I was, in all my glorious proof, and I should be the one that knew better, all things considered.

“And that Kev dude,” Dave asked slowly.

“He’s an enforcer, yeah.”

“And I told him I knew you.” His cheeks turning pale, Dave reached out for the bottle.

I looked at him for a long second before taking another pull and passing him the bottle.

“Yeah,” was all I could say.

“Okay, so we run,” Dave said, shrugging, then taking a long drink. “Hide on the other side of the island. It’s a big place; he’ll never find us.”

“First of all, it’s not. It’s a fucking island, and it takes a couple of hours to ride from one end to the other. I know, I used to do this shit. Second, he’s an animal. Seriously, this is what he does—he finds people, and he fucks them up. That’s why I stayed off fucking social media and more. Hell, man, I flew through sodding Toronto before I came here! Third . . . what the hell is this ‘we’ shit, mate? He’s not after you,” I said, reaching out for the bottle.

“He will be,” Dave said, taking a swig then handing it back. “I told him we lived in Zante and were over here for a night out. He thinks we’re on the ferry going back there.”

“You fucking legend,” I whispered after a minute as I thought about it. “You think he believed you?”

“Yeah, man, I gave him the name of a bar I used to work at there to meet up to ‘surprise you,’” Dave said, grinning.

“Why’d you do that?” I asked. “You didn’t know who he was.”

“Nope,” Dave admitted. “I just like fucking with people.” He shrugged and grinned at me. “I’d planned on us going there for real to meet him, was gonna see if I could convince you to move there. Good bars, better food, and besides, I’m starting to get a totally unfair reputation here, for some reason.”

He shrugged, and I stepped in, grabbing him roughly and giving him a hug.

He laughed and hugged me back before shaking his head as I let go and stepped back, my head spinning as I tried to think.

“Okay, flights! Check the flights, man. He’d be flying out of Newcastle, but check any of the northern airports. When could he get to Zante, or to here, just in case he didn’t believe you?”

Dave nodded and pulled out his phone, getting to work, even as I resumed packing, this time taking a bit more time to do it right.

It took him half an hour, scrolling through I don’t know how many sites, but eventually he had an answer for me.

“Monday,” he said, shrugging. “Only one flight to Crete from the UK over the weekend, not counting the one that left two hours ago, and that’s from London, arrives late tomorrow night. Zante, there’s two flights, but I told him to meet us on Monday, so he’s probably going to wait until then at least. Worst-case scenario, he asks around when he gets there, finds someone that knows I moved here, they tell him where, and he still needs to wait for the ferry on Monday or get the first flight over here on Tuesday.”

“Okay. I wait ‘til Monday, get the cash, get the first flight off the island, and Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt—I’m gone again. Next time, I keep my head low and leave the girls to drown,” I said grimly.

“Bullshit. You’ll still go help them, you know you will,” Dave said, grinning. “So where we off to, then?”

“We?” I asked him, one eyebrow rising in question. “Dude, I’m being hunted by nut-job enforcers. You don’t need this shit, and before you feel guilty, that video went viral. They’d have found me anyway.”

“True, buuuut . . .” he drawled, “I’m bored to shit here already, and I gave up my life back home because I wanted some adventure. So fuck it, better to have a friend watching your back, right?”

I nodded gratefully.

“Yeah, man, thanks.”

“Soooo, how much cash we talkin’?” he asked with a grin.

I snorted, which hurt like fuck. “A little over a hundred grand.” I admitted with a wince.

“So, a hundred grand as in that’s what you had, or . . .”

“A hundred still,” I said. “Plus another good few from selling all my shit off, and a couple bank loans, a credit card.” I shrugged. “I’d been planning it for a while.”

“How much in total?” he asked, eying me.

“After buying my bike, and the fake ID and shit? A hundred and seven grand left over,” I said honestly, figuring it was better to know now if he was going to betray me.

“Fair enough,” was all he said, taking back the bottle we’d been passing between us and swigging from it. “So, as we can’t go anywhere until Monday, I suggest you call her.” He handed me his phone, flicking it to a number marked as Marie: hot tart. “And I’ll see about making the apartment more livable for when we bring them back and bang them.”

“Man, you never fucking change,” I said, shaking my head.

“’Course not, man. It’s why I’m so lovable. Now get fucking dialing. Here,” he said, leaning over and hitting the videocall option, before I could jerk it away or cancel it.

The phone vibrated in my hand, ringing merrily, and for several long seconds, I just held it, trying to decide if I should hang up or not, but before my traitorously hovering thumb could touch down on the button, she answered.

Chapter Three

“Steve?” she asked, both shocked and elated. “Is that you? Oh god, your poor face!” Her hand came up to cover her mouth.

“I don’t look that bad, do I?” I asked with a little grin, and she shook her head, beaming at me even as her eyes welled up.

“I . . . we came looking for you at the bar,” she said.

“Yeah, I got fired, late for work.” I snorted, forgetting already that it hurt like hell.

“Because you were saving my life,” she said, a flare of anger clear on her face. “We told the manager why you were late, then started showing the video around the bar. Everyone was calling him an asshole by the time we left!”

“And you saved me, too!” Amanda called, bouncing into sight and blowing me a kiss, even as she pressed a hand across her chest, clearly having been sunbathing topless nearby. She noted the way my eyes strayed to her chest, and when they returned to her face, she grinned knowingly. “We owe you . . . drinks on us tonight?” she asked.

Marie turned the phone, cutting Amanda out as she nodded to the camera.

“Yes, please, seriously, let us take you out. Your friend Dave said—”

“Hi, girls!” Dave called, leaning in, and this time it was my turn to tilt the screen, cutting him out of it as I elbowed him backwards. “Hey! We’re up for drinks!” he called as I stood up and moved out onto the balcony, making the point of dragging the glass door closed behind me.

“Are you okay?” I asked her. “You didn’t look so good yesterday.”

“I’m fine . . . clean bill of health,” she said, rolling her eyes and nodding. “I’m a crap swimmer, so it’s not the first time I’ve nearly drowned. They wanted me to stay overnight in the hospital, but it would have cost a fortune, and they only wanted to watch me anyway, so I left.”

“She wanted to come thank you personally!” Amanda called from somewhere off camera. “So do I!”

Marie dipped her head, her hair falling forward to obscure her face for several seconds as she got control. When she straightened, her face was flaming red as she took a deep breath before smiling, clearly choosing her words carefully.

“Yes, I wanted to see you, to thank you, and to maybe continue where we left off. But right now, I need to go and murder my best friend, to stop her from saying things out loud that should be kept as a surprise at the very least. When I’ve hidden her body, where shall I meet you?” she asked with brittle politeness.

“My apartment?” I offered.

She paused for a few seconds before brightening into a wide smile, clearly enjoying the blatant approach as much as the chase.

I ostentatiously winked at her.

“Fine. Send me the address,” she said, grinning an excited and nervous tight-lipped smile. One that froze when I spoke up again.

“And bring Amanda,” I said, waiting as I saw the uncertainty in her face. Clearly, she was open to the idea, I guessed, but she was also either nervous about it, or didn’t want to share. “Dave lives with me!” I finished, grinning and getting a relieved grin in return, as Amanda leaned in and asked to see Dave.

I tilted the camera, showing him replacing the sheets on his bed through the window, and she shrugged before telling me she would be there, too.

I wasn’t sure if I was reading more into the look she gave me, but I was damn curious, especially as she’d stopped trying to cover her chest. As Marie signed off, I considered that we’d hopefully all go out for beers and food . . . at some point.

“Okay, dude, they’re coming over, but—” I broke off, having walked back inside. Dave offered me a high-five just as someone banged on the door.

It was the first time since I’d rented the apartment that anyone bar Dave had done that, in the months since I moved here. My asshole immediately puckered up, and tried to decide if this was the ideal time to start making neutronium or paint the inside of my boxers a new color.

“Can’t be, not yet,” I mumbled, staring at the door then back to Dave.

“Dude, don’t leave me fuckin’ hangin’,” Dave said, patting the air impatiently.

“Did you forget the part where I’m being hunted by a murderous fucking lunatic?!” I hissed at him.

He shrugged. “We already figured it can’t be him for days, right?” he said, giving up on the high five and moving to the door. Before he reached it, though, he paused, looking back at me, and gestured to the side of the room, out of sight of the door.

I took the hint and nodded, moving over and ducking out of sight of the door.

Dave opened the door, painting his best smile on his face, before freezing. I heard a voice speaking Greek and Dave responding haltingly before sagging in relief and turning directly to me.

“Oh thank fuck, dude, it’s for you,” he said, stepping back and walking away as a short, barrel-chested Greek police officer stepped inside, glaring at me when he followed Dave’s gaze, finding me pressing myself against the side wall and trying to hide.

“Jamey . . . Sultan?” he asked me, and I hesitated before nodding.

He stared at me for a long minute before pulling his phone out and setting a video to play, looking at the recording, pausing it and then at my face, then down at the recording again, before showing it to me.

“This you?” he asked me bluntly, and I nodded, hope filling me for a split second that I was going to get a reward or something, before he pulled out a sheaf of papers and shoved them into my chest.

I looked at them, frowning, trying to make out what they were, before seeing one I did recognize . . . my bike registration.

“That your bike?” he asked, and I nodded absently, trying to make sense of the papers. They seemed to be about containing oil spills from tankers, and . . .

He strode past me, moving to the wardrobe, pulling open without so much as a “do you mind,” and gestured to the standard safe all these apartments had built into the wardrobe.

“Open it,” he ordered.

I frowned, starting to shake my head, as he laid his hand on the butt of his gun threateningly and pulled off his sunglasses, nodding to the safe again. “Now.”

I hesitated for another few seconds, trying to decide how to handle this.

Dave stepped in and unlocked the safe, grinning self-consciously at the look of shock on my face.

“Sorry dude, saw you do it once,” he admitted as he stepped back, taking up station by my side. “But seriously, when Greek police tell you to do something, you fucking do it. They don’t piss about,” he warned me.

The cop nodded to him approvingly, pulling out my little travel case of documents, emergency money, and so on, and started searching through them, pulling my passport out last of all and examining it, then looking at me, then the card, then holding his hand out and clicking his fingers.

“Wallet,” he snapped, and with a quickly sinking heart, I handed it over. He pulled out my ID, comparing the photo and the name to me, then to the passport, which was in my real name, then back again, before shaking his head disgustedly.

“You’re packing?” he asked me.

I nodded. “Next flight.”

“Not until the cove is cleaned up, you shit. Get the bike out, get the leaked petrol cleaned up, then come see me. A thousand euros, and I’ll give you this back . . . then you leave,” he said, waving my passport at me and dropping a card with his name onto the floor.

He took my emergency cash and the half-stuck-together bank notes I’d had in my wallet that had been submerged, then turned and walked out of the door, putting it all in his pocket.

“What the fuck?!” I whispered, shaking my head in shock.

“You just got shook down,” Dave muttered, half-surprised, half-horrified, and he shook his head in disbelief. “I mean you hear stories, but fuuuuuck!”

“I don’t fucking believe this,” I mumbled, collapsing into a chair and taking my head in my hands, dropping the papers onto the floor. “It’s true . . . no good deed goes unpunished!” I moaned, shaking my head in denial.

“No, look, dude. It’s not that bad, right?” Dave said quickly, reaching down and picking up the papers. “I mean, you’ve got the money . . .”

“And what’s to stop him upping the amount when I go!” I snapped at him, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “Gods, I feel sick,” I muttered, trying to figure out what to do.

“Okay, look, man, there’s nothing we can do right now, right? You know they can’t get here until Monday, and you can’t get the money out ‘til then, so there’s nothing to worry about. Tomorrow, we go down the beach, see what we need to go get the bike out, pay someone to dredge it up or something, and clean the area. Man, money makes it all simple!”

“And if I spend it all, I’ll be hunted and broke!” I snapped at him, shaking my head. “It’s for emergencies!”

“You’re gonna get kept here until you pay them and sort it out, maybe getting murdered by a debt collector. I’d call that an emergency,” Dave muttered, shrugging.

“Fuck’s sake, man!” I snapped at him, picking the pages up, and scouting through them, seeing there were pages on some fragile ecosystem in the dunes, a restricted nesting site for some stupid bird, and the damage that petrol can do to them, followed by calculations on how much petrol a bike like mine could hold, and finally the registration documents for it, along with the address here.

“Okay, okay, look,” I said, my mind racing. “The tide’s out now, right?”

I checked the time. Dave nodded, and I went on quickly.

“The tide will be its lowest for the day. If I can get the bike up now, or to the shore at least, make sure it’s away from some stupid fucking bird’s nest, then at least there’s a chance I can get this sorted fast. Give me your keys,” I ordered, holding my hand out.

“Hell, no, you already trashed one bike,” he said adamantly, crossing his arms.

“Shut the hell up, you idiot. Your bike’s a shit tip, and you know it. It’s got barely a hairdryer on there, never mind a motor, give me the damn keys.”

“You break it, you owe me a new one,” he countered, holding onto his keys, and I nodded, shrugging.

“Yeah, fine, fine. Look, I’ll go straight there, have a look, and come back. You keep the girls happy. We’ll all go out for drinks later, right?”

He brightened at that. “Oh yeah, fine, no worries, mate. I’ll look after the girls,” he promised, leaving me in no doubt as to what he meant. I resolved to be quick, before he had the chance to alienate the pair of them entirely.

I dressed quickly, pulling on a worn pair of combats, my comfy trainers, and a plain white T-shirt, as well as keeping on the watch and ring, then put my depressingly empty wallet in my pocket again. I had cards at least, so I could still withdraw at the ATM, and considering how Dave had just demonstrated that he knew my safe code, I wasn’t leaving temptations like my cards around.

I jogged downstairs, the back and forth, narrow stone steps making me fear for my damn life as they did every time I moved down them too quickly, and I hopped onto Dave’s bike, sneering unconsciously at it.

It was a “worker’s bike,” which meant it was shit, like really shit. Basically a seat on an engine, brakes that sort of worked, and a frame that was a cross between an idiot’s first welding attempt and the really old push bikes that people used to have with the basket on the front to carry their shopping.

“I cannot believe I’m riding this,” I muttered to myself, pulling out of the carpark and heading down the hill. It didn’t take long, thankfully, to reach the cove, pulling up on the clifftop and parking there before walking over, past a handful of gawking locals who chattered away about how mad you’d have to be to do what “that lunatic” did, and how he should have let them die, because now the cove was ruined forever by the petrol that had leaked out.

I bit off a retort, telling myself they had no idea who I was, and they’d not really mean that, not if they saw the girls really in trouble. Then I climbed down to the edge of the cliff, sat on a rocky outcropping, and sighed.

I couldn’t see my bike.

Not clearly, anyway. Not for the damn shimmering petroleum smear that floated across the surface of the water, spread out well and truly across this end of the cove, and the dozens of tiny fish bodies floating belly up.

I slowly made my way down to the shore, watching as the tide came in and out, and I tried to figure out a way to sort this out. The fuel was fucking the cove, badly, and I honestly didn’t know if it was the entire tank floating out there already, or just a bit of it, or what, so I accepted my fate and stripped off down to my shorts.

There was only one way to know what was happening down there, and that was to go down and damn well find out myself.

I snorted at my own stupidity, but I also knew two things: first, if I could get the bike to shore somehow, or at least plug what had to be a damn hole in the tank, then I’d save myself a sodding fortune and hopefully be able to fix it all a lot sooner.

Secondly, Dave was right; you never, ever fuck with Greek police.

My only chance of getting the hell out of here, hopefully with my fake ID as well, was to make sure that they were not only happy with my work, but they were ecstatic. So, for now, that meant getting my arse down to the bottom of the cove and looking over the bike.

I had a slight advantage in this in that I had three things I could damn well use in this all stored in the bike’s storage pannier. Namely, goggles, a towel, and a tub of wax. Yes, it was hair wax, but it was thick as hell, and I had to believe that it’d offer at least a little protection for the damn petrol tank.

All I had to do was make sure that, when I swam out, I made it under the water before the petrol got in my eyes . . .

I sighed and accepted that it was going to sting a little, and quickly hid my wallet and the bike keys under a large rock at the foot of the cliff. I walked out into the water until it was up to my lower chest, then, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I started to swim.

I made it out to roughly where I guessed the bike was, being unable to see it for the scummy floaters, and having kept my head above the water all the way so far. I paused, treading water, and wondered about the lack of the riptide.

It seemed a bit weird, considering how fucking deadly the damn thing was, and how many were known to have died here. I mean, there were always flowers and so on laid at the cliffs in remembrance, so it being gone now, just when I needed it to be, made me feel seriously uncomfortable . . . but admittedly not as much as the thought of the people I’d done that job with and their friends finding me. I took a few short, shallow breaths, then a long, deep breath and covered my eyes as best as I could, before ducking my head under and opening only my right eye.

At first it was all right, a slight discomfort, but opening your eyes underwater was always a bit like that, and I soon forgot about it as I spotted both my bike and the thin trail that was snaking up from the tank.

I dove down, kicking steadily, and reached the bottom fairly quickly, reaching out and grabbing the pannier on the back, angled upwards as it was.

I pulled myself down, my feet sinking into the bottom with a little cloud of disturbed sand, as I tugged and yanked on the clasp that held the pannier closed.

It opened after a few seconds, releasing a short burst of bubbles that flowed past me in a shimmering cloud, and I grabbed the towel and goggles, before crouching and kicking off hard, pushing myself up through the water as fast as I could.

Just before I got to the surface, I opened my right eye wide and swiped at it with the towel, scrubbing it as fast and roughly as I could, the itching and tingling changing to a burning sensation as I frantically tried to get it clean.

I closed my eye again just in time, my face bursting up through the surface of the water, and I shook it wildly, wiping my face hard and pulling the towel up and wiping at my face as best I could while treading water.

I kept the goggles underwater, then, once I had my face as clean as I could possibly make it. I thrashed the water to try and clear away as much of the gas as possible, before putting the goggles on and diving down.

I quickly found, by the time I reached the bike again, that not only had I completely wasted the time I’d spent trying to clean my eyes, but that the rough wiping of my eyes had actually made it worse.

I grabbed the bike and stared at it through watering eyes, blinking as I tried to see the leak in the tank. Thankfully, the sun was up, so the light was helpful, if not entirely enough, but after three dives and returns to the surface, I’d managed to locate the hole and had layered the entirety of the hair wax pot over the tiny crack.

It was impressive that it lasted a whole three seconds before it came away, floating free in a little cloud, and I did the underwater equivalent of the oh god, why do you hate me dance, including trying to kick the bike in frustration.

I got absolutely nowhere and decided to move the bike instead, planting my feet and heaving, then pushing, then pulling, before doing the stupidest thing I’d ever done by examining the front wheel of the bike, trying to make out why it was so tightly wedged.

I crouched, sweeping the sand and small rocks free, my eyes burning and my air running out, lungs aching as I caught my hand on something sharp and cut it, releasing a small cloud of blood into the water.

I gritted my teeth and glared at the offending edge, seeing that the front wheel had, in fact, punched through into something below when it’d sunk to the bottom. Whatever it was, if I could just free the wheel, I could push and drag the bike across the mainly sandy bottom to the shore, I had no doubt.

My air was getting really low now, and my lungs were crying out for the sweet air above. But I decided to just try and get it free, then I could float a little and relax for a few minutes . . .

I sank back down, swept more of the sand away, and pulled myself towards the ground, crouching half under the bike. Thanks to the angle it was at, the front wheel was buried and the back one sat atop a rocky outcropping behind me. I wriggled my fingers into the gap between the wheel and the rock that was holding it trapped.

I tugged at the edge, feeling some of whatever it was flake away. The sand shifted slightly, and I thought I felt a little give, further down to my left, so I moved there, paused, then admitted defeat in the battle for a breath, and kicked off for the surface. I caught my breath and waited, getting my heart back under control and ignoring the shouts from the beach as people asked what I was doing and if I was mad.

I dove back down again, my eyes burning like I’d cut ghost chilies and rubbed them into the damn things. I could barely see by now, and I frantically found the section I’d been at before, determined to get the bike free and see if I could move it just a few feet, thinking maybe I could lay it on its side on the towel and bury the tank in sand or something to stop the leak.

I wormed my fingers in, tugging, thinking far more about the possible ways I could stop the leak, and if the towel was long enough to tie a knot or soft enough to maybe jam into the crack . . . when I felt a little give in the surrounding rock.

Weirdly, it wasn’t when I pulled, it was when I pushed. I grabbed the more stable section in my right hand, the weaker area in my left, and pushed down, hard.

The mass held for a long second, long enough for stars to start to appear before my eyes, then it suddenly snapped free and tumbled down into a black cave below me.

I fell forward, the sudden release of the mass and the lack of anything to hold myself up making me grab at a support before me. I blinked, recognizing that it was an actual support, an arced support beam that curved up and ran parallel to where I stared down wide-eyed,. I had just enough time to stare in wonder at the sight that was revealed by the slowly sliding sand around me and the soft glow of the sun above.

It wasn’t a cave at all, it was a structure, one with a handful of support beams running under me, rusted away by time and saltwater, covered by sand and stone.

Then the bike toppled over, catching me in the back, and drove us both down into the darkness of the structure.

I fell slowly, yet with an inexorability that made it far worse than if it’d been fast. Landing at the bottom of the structure a few seconds later, I floundered, despite my best efforts to get out from under it, with my bike on top of me.

I bit down on the inside of my mouth, frantic to not let go of my miniscule amount of air as the heavy bike crushed me against the floor, the coppery tang of blood filling my mouth.

A metal floor, or maybe a wall, depending on what this was, lay ridged with corroded and blackened patterns. The metal under me was solid but strangely slippery as I shoved and pushed against it, trying to lift the bike up and off me.

I twisted around and around as best I could, trying to keep calm. The bike was heavy, yes, but it wasn’t that heavy. I could lift it if I needed to. After all, I had to on a daily damn basis. This was just a matter of leverage, something I had virtually fuck all of, but that was something I could change.

I felt around, feeling the ridges behind my back and squinting at them, after I gave up on the wall to my left. They were circular, under me at least, running to my right as I twisted around, laid as I was on my back on the floor, and I squinted at the shape they formed.

It looked like a doorway. Like the kind you see on subs and ships, with the weird little wheel in the center you turned to stop the water getting in and lock it, but instead of a wheel, there was a raised circular pad, and it was just out of my reach.

I twisted around as the desperate need to take just a little breath started to overwhelm me. Frantically, I pressed my back against the corner where the wall met the floor, and pushed as hard as I could with my shaking arms.

Dragging my legs up to my chest shifted the bike up and over. It clanged onto its other side, vibrating the floor as I pushed off, desperately flailing for the surface.

The world above grew fuzzier by the second. I couldn’t make it up, not through the gap I could barely see at all now.

I had to try, though . . . I had to.

My hand flailed to my right, then came down on something warm and smooth that turned as I pressed down. A sudden eruption of bubbles flooded past me, rocketing up towards the surface and spinning me round and round. It lifted me atop them until I blindly slammed my head into the underside of the structure, inches from the hole I’d been aiming for.

My last sliver of vision was of something like an octopus blocking out the light above . . . then darkness took me.

Chapter Four

I woke sometime later, shivering uncontrollably, pain radiating from a dozen places. I wheezed, then coughed and shifted around, finding I was laid curled up on an old, cold, metal walkway, like the ones that I was used to seeing in factories and so on, made up of overlapping braces.

I lifted fingers to my face and chest, shivering even more uncontrollably as I winced, matching lines etched into my skin by the pressure of my own body weight. I twisted around, bringing my legs up and wrapping my arms around them, teeth chattering as I tried to make my brain function.

I was alive.

I came insanely close to not being so blessed, though, and I had no idea where I was or how I got here. I was freezing cold; I ached everywhere. It was pitch black, and the last thing I remembered was sinking into the darkness with the bubbles streaming past me.

I made myself think about it, even as I shook more, slowly curling up into a ball as I tried to make sense of the last thing I remembered.

I had a vague recollection of something like a spider or an octopus, all hard edges and multilegged, and . . . I reached up slowly, having to peel myself off the ridged metal deck and hissing as blood returned to areas that had done without for some time.

My fingers tentatively reached up and touched my throat, feeling the ache and the developing bruises, the rawness on the inside as I swallowed that told me something had been inserted into it roughly.

A childish part of my brain shouted up immediately that I recognized the sensation from the time they’d had to pump my stomach after my drink had been spiked, not from my sexual escapades. I snorted, finding momentary refuge in my own stupidity as I tried not to acknowledge the terrifying, blurred memories of the spidercrab thing attaching itself to my face and ramming a tube into me.

My stomach roiled as I failed miserably. I grabbed at it, sudden visions of chest-bursters ripping their way out of me, or some kind of weird subterranean metal spider’s eggs eating me from the inside out . . .

I sat there, hunched in around my grumbling stomach, feeling raw, violated, weirdly hungry, and sodding freezing for what seemed like forever before I realized I’d been able to hear a clicking and buzzing noise from somewhere below me since I’d awoken.

Putting my eyes to the gaps in the deck and staring down again, I shifted. But after a minute, I had to accept that I couldn’t see anything. My options were stay where I was and probably freeze to death, if I was lucky, before whatever happened, happened.

Or . . . I could go find the little bastard thing and try and figure out what happened. Maybe if it’d put something inside me, it could get it out again? Or failing that, maybe I could kill the bastard, if it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination brought on by hypoxia.

I searched around where I’d awoken, suddenly realizing that not only was I dry, but I was in the middle of a walkway that appeared to be laid on its side, like a mesh gantry that would cross over something . . . it was a normal enough structure that it made me think about where the hell I had to be.

There was no light, but the metal lay beneath my fingers, as well as railing on one side. In fact . . .

I traced the way the railing lay, and the mesh patterning underfoot, before standing and reaching up overhead, finding an identical mesh pattern there as well.

Okay, so I was standing inside a metal mesh C shape with hard lines. The middle of the shape, to my left, was made up of solid, if cool, metal, making me groan.

It wasn’t a mesh gantry way, it was a normal bloody one with mesh sides!

Wherever I was, the damn thing was canted on a ninety degree angle!

That meant that the structure, or the ship, as I was thinking that it was an old battleship or something, probably from World War Two, or a sunken container ship that’d been forgotten or hushed up, was laid on its side.

Now then, dismissing the weird-ass memory of the spider thing, which was probably just a mixture of hypoxia and an octopus swimming by, and adding in the humming noise . . .

I paused then, trying to figure it out.

Logically, if it was a container or battleship, and it was under the sea, as well as airtight, it would either be well known about—it wasn’t, but I’d definitely fallen through rusted metal, and that doesn’t happen overnight. Neither did the accumulation of the thick sand and so on over the top.

But . . . someone had to have brought me in here. You didn’t get from drowning in the sea to laid on a sodding gantry without someone putting effort in, after all.

If, and only if, I was actually inside the structure I’d found—I mean, I might have been taken somewhere else and dumped for shits and giggles, but that didn’t bear thinking about.

So if I was inside the structure, it had to be old. Like World War Two at least to be that corroded, surely? I mean, I’d seen programs on the Titanic, and it was over eighty years for that, but the metal was still there. Yeah, it was rusted to fuck, but . . .

Okay, if I decided that this was only thirty years old, picking that as a date because I knew the old Tuxedo Royale and Princess ships that had been floating nightclubs I once drank in had been at least that old, so it seemed reasonable that the metal must last at least that long . . . or their hulls would have fallen out long since.

So. Thirty years. What could be humming below?

It couldn’t be a generator, not unless it was maintained, so again, following logic, there had to be a way in and out. The gantry I was on was solid . . . ish. And I turned away from the noise, and in only a few feet, I found a wall and a sideways standing door, making it clear that wherever I was, it was definitely on its side.

It was another of the porthole-type doors, but search as I might, there was no lever, no controls, and no damn window!

I spent at least two minutes, working from edge to edge, before I found a small, raised pad attached to the wall. It was square, and it felt . . .  well, it felt weird. There was a hard metal lip around it, like you get on an early first-gen tablet or something, but where the screen should then be glass, it was . . . spongy.

That wasn’t the right word.

It was flexible, soft but strong, like a liquid crystal display, but without power, and that made no damn sense at all.

If it was that, then how the hell did it get here? And why? That, in turn, meant I was totally wrong about the structure, unless it was some kind of government or private facility under the sunken ship?

That didn’t make any sense either. To build it, you’d have found the ship . . . and just like that, I was back to the questions about there being a ship at all, and how long it took metal to rust.

After another minute, I gave up and banished the thought entirely.

Wherever I was, this door was clearly locked or unpowered or whatever, so that left one choice: find the source of the noise, because there’d have to be maintenance gear there at least, or someone would come looking if I managed to shut it off, then they could let me out.

I stumbled on, coming to a flight of stairs leading sideways, then doubling back on itself. That required me to clamber around the banister and hang, before dropping to the other side of the stairs, landing with a bang and making the entire structure shake violently.

I clung to it for long minutes, frantically telling myself that I was fine, and that all this was in my head. I was actually in bed, worn out from some marathon sex session, having a really weird lucid dream.

That’s it. Just a dream, I told myself, scurrying along the wall, following the stairwell as it went down and down, or in my case, along and along, back on itself time and time again.

Twenty minutes later, with my feet now starting to throb above my other gripes, I stumbled to a halt as movement up ahead echoed clearly, the tapping, buzzing, and clicking making me suddenly aware just how fucking stupid this whole exploring had been. I’d not even taken the time to find a weapon of any kind.

I paused for long seconds again, finally admitting to myself what I had been trying not to think about all this time.

I was totally going to die in here, in the . . . dark?

As I shuddered, I noticed a very faint light. As accustomed to the dark as I’d become, I’d probably just missed it. It was faint, but it was there, and it sure as shit wasn’t the magical kind that all fantasy trope caves had to have by universal law in case a human adventurer accidentally wandered in.

I leaned out as far as I could, confirming that yes, the walkway had a strip of light that radiated from underneath. It was fine, and there were only very occasional ones working, and they were working at a level that was closer to the stand-by light on the TV, but there was light now.

That meant, to my mind, that this had to be a modern structure of some kind. Yeah, maybe it was still abandoned, but no sunken secret hideout from the World Wars would have electricity still, let alone LED lights. That meant I had to be somewhere that had access to the beach and so on. After all, there’d need to be a way for people to get in and to repair and refuel the generator or something.

With that thought in my mind, I straightened up, feeling much better, and set off again, moving quicker and louder, more than half convinced now that it’d all been a hallucination, and that . . .

I took another stairwell, jumping down to the next section, then turned and skidded to a halt, half-falling in my utter terror as I tried to stop, finding the spider thing from my nightmares hunched in the corner of the walkway before me.

I staggered, my bare feet numb from the repeated bruising and battering they’d received from the mesh floor-wall, and slipped. Falling over, I landed hard on my ass with a clang that reverberated off the walls, echoing all around and fading into the distance somewhere below. The entire damn stairway shifted slightly, and a series of pings and clangs let loose as somewhere an overstressed connector let go.

As that released, the next connection was met with increased load and let go as well, and another, the walkway shuddering and creaking as it started to lean to one side.

I grabbed frantically at the walls around me, having shuffled back into the corner of the stairwell in my shock, and I gaped. The spider thing sat across from me didn’t react at all, even as the entire edifice began to tilt wildly, shaking and shuddering.

I grabbed onto the floor before me, my fingers sinking through gaps and curling around the far side. Pulling myself forward into a crouch, I found myself suddenly convinced that, while the spider thing might survive this stairwell collapsing, I sure as shit wouldn’t.

I gritted my teeth and yanked hard, pulling myself up and forward as I shoved off with my legs as well, rushing at the thing. It remained still, hunched, and as I rushed close, turning and jumping down to the next section I spun, watching below me and to the right as best I could. I noted a total lack of interest from the thing.

“It’s dead,” I whispered without thinking, slamming into the floor and blinking as my more immediate problem leapt back into my mind. The force of my landing tore more connections between the stairway and whatever was making it stay upright.

I bounded off again, rushing forwards, turning and leaping to the next level, twist and repeat. The speed and force I was using to stay ahead as more and more of the higher sections bent out overhead and started to fall, crashing past me, meant that, even as I passed sections that probably would have been fine, I was breaking them as well.

I managed four more revolutions before my blood-slicked right foot went out from under me on a landing. I screamed as I first did the splits—something I’d never been able to do—and then caught both my big and second toe in a gap, snapping them as I fell.

I hit the deck, rolled, and bounced, crying out as I pulled my legs up to my chest, feeling like my balls were attempting to become earrings. I grabbed at my toes, my hands encountering not just the bloody, torn flesh where my toes had twisted and broken, a sliver of bone poking through the top of my right foot at the base of my big toe, but also the numbed, torn, and shredded mass of the underside of my feet.

Wet muscle, gaps in flesh, and what my mind shudderingly identified as probably bone passed through my awareness, before I managed to jerk my fingers away. The section I was in came free of the supports, following the rest down into darkness, the lights on the underside of the walkways failing as more and more sections broke away.

I felt myself lifting, lighter in the air as I fell. I grabbed at the side of the wall closest, pulling myself in tight, before being met with a bone-jarring thud as the walkway landed atop the others that had gone before.

I bounced, screamed, and fell again, landing atop more twisted metal and feeling a rib break. My forehead slammed into something hard and unyielding, and the world winked out.

I came to some time later, laid on my side in a small puddle of blood, shaking with the cold as my body tried to decide if shock was a sufficient response to all of this, or if it should just skip straight to death.

I mentally selected death and hoped it’d come soon. Lying there on my side in the darkness, shivering, my body screamed in pain as each, and every part of me tried to speak up and declare itself as the most damaged over the others. But after an indeterminable time lying there feeling sorry for myself, I forced myself to roll over and look around. Soon, I would die for real, and it wouldn’t be a flick of a switch, it’d be days or weeks here in the darkness, one drop of blood at a time, unless I found help.

I forced myself to take my time, looking around the room slowly, and trying to make anything out I could. There was a floor, obviously, and I laid atop it on a pile of broken metal. Faint lights somewhere to my right, along the wall, seemed to lead up above me, breaking off suddenly. I swallowed hard as I realized that, with this place being laid on its side, that was probably the stairwell I’d climbed down to get here, and it was high above me now . . . no way out that way.

The “floor” and “wall” where I was laid meant that I was in the corner of a large room, and the combination of damaged, old metal, the smell of rust, and the open wounds meant that infection was a certainty, and with my feet as they were . . .

I forced myself to think, stripping my shorts off and tearing them into strips. Using them to bind the open wounds on my feet, I couldn’t help crying out as I pulled them tight; parts of my feet popped in ways they never had before.

“I’m so gonna have Frankenstein feet after this,” I mumbled, forcing myself to my feet and swallowing hard at the pain as other wounds, especially my ribs, all made themselves clear again.

I limped off, heading across the floor in a random direction before stopping and forcing myself to think logically. The floor for me now had been the wall whatever this was built. Doors wouldn’t be in the wall where people couldn’t reach them, so there had to be floor where it met the wall, meaning my only chance to reach it was to climb the wall upwards.

I checked the wall, finding it was made up of panels, each seemingly identical, and four feet square or so. That was a distance I could reach fairly easily, with a small gap between each one that was just big enough to wiggle my fingers into, giving me a handhold that, while not great, was easy enough.

I started to climb, encountering my first issue before I even lifted my body up. My feet screamed in protest, especially my broken big toe. It was impossible to climb without banging, jarring, or rubbing it against the wall, leaving a smear of blood as I went.

I turned my right foot as far sideways as I could, jamming my little toes into the gaps and doing my best to just not use them, relying mainly on my upper body, heaving and pulling as I went.

I tired quickly. Blood loss, the cold, the lack of water, and the debilitating burning in my eyes from the petrol all combined with the wounds I’d suffered to make me whimper as I went, teeth gritted, climbing the wall.

I managed to find the door only a few minutes later, thankfully, and I dragged myself up and over the lip of it. Collapsing on the far side, I was too exhausted to even wonder at the strange lip of the doorway, the recessed gaps the wall on either side, or the lack of an actual door. Instead, I forced myself to catch my breath on the move, starting off down the corridor, driven by desperation.

I came to a cross corridor, one that had once gone left to right, and now went up and down for me. The gap was too large to jump, so I clambered around the side and went down the wall, hand over hand, occasionally swearing and cursing as I lost fingernails, slipping as I lost my grip from the blood that dripped and ran and the rapidly encroaching numbness again.

For two hours I went, climbing up and down corridors, entering rooms that were empty and silent, as near as I could tell, forcing myself to climb the walls, following the original line of the floor, until finally, I found a light that was different from those around the place so far.

As I’d moved here and there, small lights glowed, allowing me to see slightly in the darkness, creating a point to aim for more than anything else. But as I turned a final corner, dropping to the ground from yet another indeterminable climb, I saw a fresh light glowing far ahead at the end of the hall.

It seemed blindingly bright, even at this distance, and I blinked, my darkness-adjusted eyes tearing up as I frowned and squinted, shuffling into a run, headed straight for it.

The light illuminated the corridor enough to see the various piles of debris, the holes in the walls I’d passed again and again making me wonder what pockmarked hell I’d ended up in. I staggered around them, or jumped over, hissing in agony as I landed before stumbling on again.

The corridor seemed to take forever to cross, but eventually I reached the end, staggering to a halt, as I examined the door the light shone around.

There were cracks in the seal that ringed it, letting the light shine out. As I reached out, a wonderful sensation radiated out: warmth!

I pawed at the cracks, shivering anew now that I felt the cracks’ heat, and I frantically began to search for a handle.

There wasn’t one.

There wasn’t a fucking handle!

I scrabbled at the edges of the fissures, tugging and gibbering, determined to get to the heat, before I stopped, my heart hammering.

I’d heard a sound beyond the door.

I hunched there, my fingers pressed to the openings, staring at the oblong slab of what felt like metal. After a few seconds without hearing the sound again, I reached up, seeing the circular disc that I vaguely remembered from when I was underwater.

I touched it tentatively, getting no response but feeling that it was warm and smooth. I gently laid my palm on it, before yanking it back immediately as the disc glowed and started to turn.

It froze, then turned back to its original position. I tried again. Touching then releasing, after a few seconds of testing I found that any pressure from my palm would make it rotate. Releasing the pressure would return it to its normal position, and if I touched with a finger only, it was locked solid.

I pressed my palm firmly against it and turned, and the disc spun easily, turning ninety degrees before flashing. The door whisked open, splitting into a dozen segments that flashed back into recessed areas of the wall. I tumbled forwards with a cry, blinded by the piercing light.

I slammed into the room, falling to the wall, or floor, as it was to me, in the room beyond. I lay there, stunned, groaning, hot tears tracking down my filthy face as I ran my tongue over a broken tooth, sharp fragments scoring the flesh, even as I blinked over and over, trying to get my eyes to adjust fully.

I heard a whoosh from the doorway, and the door was back, solid apart from the cracks, and the rest of the room . . . it was gleaming white and blue. Gold tracing ran across the walls, with reclining ribbed seats that dangled loose straps here and there.

The room was filled with what my worn brain could only interpret as medical equipment, with a multi-armed thing, all tubes and metallic legs, hoses, and more hanging from the ceiling. Nothing moved in the room, but as I searched, I found one thing that gave me a little hope and a great deal of trepidation.

A tube filled the center of the room, twice as thick as my body across, going from what must have originally been floor to ceiling, and just in reach if I climbed across several of the seats between me and it. I knew instinctively that it was the source of the warmth. A ribbed lounger that looked like a cross between a modern, one-man hammock and a blow-up floater for the pool waited inside.

I moved forwards, exhaustion driving me to stumble, wounds and blood loss dulling my mind, as I clambered atop the seat, then another, then another, reaching out and pulling myself up and onto them, ignoring the bloody marks I left everywhere, ignoring the pain, feeling the blessed warmth increasing as I got closer and closer, until I reached up and snagged the surface of the tube, a flashing blue button attracting a fingertip that left a blood streak behind, before the door released.

The top whooshed upwards, splitting into separate segments. A screen slid forwards to hang ready for input, glowing symbols and pictographs just in sight, with a similar screen showing inside the tube.

A wash of warmth, of welcome heat in fact, radiated from the ridged bed that lay inside. I gritted my teeth, clambering up, straining, feeling my legs kicking aimlessly. My arms hauled me up bodily, my broken toes bouncing off the side as I rolled myself over the lip and into the bed, even as straps slid out of recesses and reached to secure me.

I shook and shuddered, feeling terrible. Blood loss and the sudden feeling of warmth was comforting enough I ignored the snaking cables, straps that reached out and wrapped around me tight, pulling me into position and holding me, as the tube let loose a hiss and a mechanical whirr, closing over me.

I should panic.

I couldn’t summon the energy. As I blinked at the screen, it shifted, moving to a more central position, as though trying to get my attention, bobbing up and down until I looked at it, blinking fuzzily.

There were three lines of pictograms, each flashing gently white on a field of blue, with two buttons—or so they seemed to my addled brain, pulsing below the lines of text.

One was white, shot through with green spidering, like marble with flecks of coloration, while the other was a warning red and flashed, a series of images inside the red box appearing to count down slowly.

The screen shivered again, and I shook myself, the warmth of the capsule tube thing almost sending me to sleep. I reached out without thinking, drawn to it in my stupor and tapping the white and green icon, uncaring, finally warm, my body sliding into shock.

The lights dimmed, and a bright pulse of blue light flowed up me, then back down. Additional lights appeared, and more and more of the capsule opened, small tubes, nozzles, and more coming into view. My heart rate doubled. Now panic found me, at this final step making it through the fog of my exhaustion and wounds before a hiss of gas releasing sounded, and the world spun away into darkness.

Chapter Five

I woke sometime later, still inside the tube, but with my brain no longer foggy, or at least, not as foggy as it had been.

I was still battered to shit, seriously so, but I was warm, and . . . and a goddamn tube was plugged into me! No, dozens of them were!

I was butt-sodding-naked, and I had a dozen leads and tubes and pipes all snaking into me! I reached down, grabbing ahold of one set that were over my stomach, with the intention of yanking them out, until my touch let me feel that there were more to the tubes, on the inside!

I looked around frantically, trying to make sense of what the hell was going on, before finally fixating on a screen that I vaguely remembered seeing before now.

Communication System Failure . . .

Containment System Failure . . .

Ship Systems Non-Responsive . . .

Initiating Argus Protocol . . .

Nanite AI Rebooting . . .

Please stand by . . .

Systems Reboot Complete in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Communication System Failure . . .

Containment System Failure . . .

Ship Systems Non-Responsive . . .

It repeated over and over, running through a blur of languages and the same set of errors, until my finger tapped the screen, and it paused, then brought up an entire new section of text.

Terrestrial Biological Weapons System Detected  . .

Communication and Identification Package Installed, Attempting Link in 3 . . . 2  . . . 1 . . .

I screamed as a mass of unfiltered noise seemed to slam into my ears, a flashing kaleidoscope of lights blinded me, and my skin seemed to be being rubbed by an amorous red-hot cheese grater, making me thrash about in panic.

Then, as quickly as it had started, it was over.

I was slumped in the tube still, several of the tubes ripped free and dangling, and blood running from the entry and exit points.

“What the hell,” I mumbled before a single flashing light got my attention.

It was a line of text appearing before my eyes, and I swiped my hand back and forth through it, trying to work out where it was, until I realized it was printing in my vision.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

Do you understand this message?

“Wha—”

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

Do you understand this message?

It printed out again from scratch, then started to rewrite itself, I recognized German, then Spanish, then what I guessed was Mandarin Chinese. While I’d understood the first two, languages being something that came easily to me, my Chinese was limited to being able to order chicken satay with a side order of chips, taught to me by a cute girl who worked in her parents’ takeaway years ago.

“I understood the English?” I mumbled aloud, and the text stopped writing, flashed for a brief second, then was erased as the first message popped up again.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

Do you understand this message?

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I understand the message.”

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

State reason for access to Facility #6B

Have you been sent to assume control?

“Yeah?” I tried hopefully, no clue what was going on.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

Falsehood detected!

System shutting down . . .

“Wait!” I snapped, forcing myself upright as I called out, my voice echoing around inside the tube. “Wait, no, I just woke up, where the hell am I?”

Secure Facility #6B has been deemed irrevocably damaged. Communication has been lost with Primary Facility, Argus Protocol has failed.

State reason for access to Facility #6B

“I just woke up,” I mumbled again, my head sagging forwards to rest against the inside of the glass as I tried to make sense of all that had happened.

Final Communication Attempt with Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

State reason for access to Facility #6B

“I need help,” I whispered, closing my eyes, exhaustion rising again, the blood loss, the exertion, the stress, all of it combining to do terrible things to me.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

Request for aid has met Sigma Test.

Systems are damaged, reducing operational options to three.

Select one of the following forms of assistance:

1)     Partial Nanite Reboot

2)     Weapons System Realignment

3)     Support Package

Systems assessment underway . . .

Recommended Option: 3

Current nanite population is insufficient to permit full permeation and reboot. Systems unlikely to regain optimal operational capacity.

Weapons System is identified as Ursus Class. Current biological form is deemed as substandard and unlikely to survive realignment.

Support package includes:

1)     Existing nanite realignment and access protocol wipe

2)     Nanite recovery tool integration

3)     Basic biological enhancement package

“I don’t know what any of that is,” I whispered, seeing a new message pop up.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603 has been identified erroneously by security systems as breaching perimeter. Power will be cut to this location in five seconds unless medical priority is established.

Request for aid has met Sigma Test.

Systems are damaged, reducing operational options to three.

Select one of the following forms of assistance:

1)     Partial Nanite Reboot.

2)     Weapons System Realignment

3)     Support Package

System offline in 3 seconds . . . 2 seconds . . .

“Support package!” I shouted frantically. “I want the support package!”

The lights that had welcomed me into the room dimmed suddenly, and bolts locked in place over the door with a heavy and disturbingly final ker-chunk, making me curse, thinking I’d waited too long, when a final message popped up.

Support Package Approved . . .

Emergency power allocated to installation process. Beginning in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

I looked about frantically as new sounds started up, looking up above my head as a section opened, and what looked to be a sodding line of razorblades on independent arms came into view. The recliner morphed suddenly, flowing up and around my hands and feet, enveloping them in a substance that was as pliable as marshmallow for a second, then felt like steel.

Thin bands flipped out and across my chest, yanking me back into place against the back rest, even as more whipped around my head, stiffening into solidity as soon as they were in place, rendering me totally immobile.

I felt a horrible slithering sensation as the tubes retracted, the sections that were inside me being drawn out in a blur as blood splattered the inside of the glass, and the razors continued to descend.

“What the hell?! Whoa, no! This isn’t what I want, I changed my mind!” I screamed, and a new section near my right ear opened up, as a new arm flowed in, shifting around and carrying a set of tubes and pumps that looked weirdly organic, even as others moved into position over me.

Commencing basic endoskeletal strip and integration . . . estimated time to completion: 1.4 revolutions.

Prepare yourself, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603. Stores of anesthetic have been drained.

“I’m not prepared! I’m fucking not!” I screamed as the blades hit the top of my scalp, cutting in and peeling the skin back, each of them running independently and cutting a one-inch-wide strip of skin free, exposing the flesh, fat, and muscle underneath, as other systems moved in, cutting, inserting and upgrading, even as I screamed in pain and horror, and the tube walls were dyed red with my blood.

And it went on.

And on.

And on.

Seconds became minutes, which became hours, as tubes flowed in, attaching to me and pumping in fresh bright red blood, even as details flared all around me.

Systems failed in whatever facility this was, as biological collection devices were reawakened from their long slumber and sent out to harvest and process material to replace the losses I was suffering.

Security systems were cut off by protocols I couldn’t even guess at, raging and trying to find a way around to reach me.

Sections of the facility, miles long, travelling out to sea and deep under the island, dimmed and became totally unresponsive as the meagre resources of the facility were diverted from maintenance to repairing me, to upgrading me.

Energies swirled in the air and the seas, the earth, and the void above, and they bent ever so slightly to touch me as I was read and examined.

Information was being broadcast to other facilities spread around the world, but the communications breaches and failures meant that, if there was a response, it was lost forever.

Finally, I screamed in horror and denial as a small, circular device flowed into place above my right eye, then slid open as razor-sharp spines, thinner than a needle but numbering in the dozens, were extruded.

The disc they were attached to started to spin, and in less than a second, there was simply a blur. A blur that slid forwards, until it cut through the eyeball and deep into my skull, the loss of my eyelids preventing me from even being able to shield myself from the sight of the flexible arm drawing back, dripping.

I stared at it with my left eye, now blind on the right, a gaping wound where my eye had been, as tiny systems were moved into place and sank into the hole. Then another arm moved into place and projected a light into the hole.

I screamed and screamed and screamed.

A hundred times, I started to pass out. Each time, as the blessed, painless darkness rolled over me, electrical connections surged to life, shocking me, forcing me back into wakefulness. Later, I would wonder if there had been a reason that I needed to be aware through it all, or if the machine was just a horrible, sadistic fucker.

Hours passed as more and more arms entered and left. Pain beyond my wildest nightmares became commonplace as things were done to me. Restrained as I was, I could only scream, until eventually, that too was taken from me, when a device was inserted into my mouth, and my jaws were cranked wide open.

My teeth were examined, and those with fillings . . . they were torn free, then replaced.

Blood ran into my throat, choking me as it flowed into my lungs as I lost myself to panic. And then, as light tinged ruby red reflected off the blood-soaked inner tube, additional systems flowed into the tube. My left eye was taken, leaving me howling in pain-filled blackness.

Heat rolled over me, then icy cold, the feeling of being dipped into a boiling vat, then the horror of a thousand needles jabbed me. Bright flashes of light shocked me, then vanished with no explanation. Sounds shattered my eardrums, then the faintest tinkle in the distance. On it went, until eventually I was left in unfeeling sensory deprivation.

Finally, some thirty-three hours or so from my mistaken agreement, a pulse of light flashed three times, then twice, then once, and suddenly it all came rushing back.

A cold breeze tickled my skin as the tube whooshed open, unhinging and releasing me to the cold air of the medical chamber.

I blinked, suddenly aware I could see with startling clarity. The interior of the room leapt into focus, despite the darkness.

I could see . . . hell, I could see! It wasn’t just that I could see in what had been almost total darkness before, especially as the tube that had been lit with a warm golden light was now dark and inert.

It was that I remembered my eyes being sliced apart and removed, I remembered tiny crystals and more being inserted into my sodding brain via my eye sockets, for fuck’s sake!

Yet now, here I was, and . . .

Security lockouts disengaging . . .

Protective Systems offline in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

I saw the text displayed in my vision, counting down as I sat forward, then the locks on the doors released with an audible shuck as they slid back into the walls, then . . . then the door opened again, irising back, to show three of the octopus-spider things crouched waiting.

Security Sentinel

Robotic Minion

A basic Class-One Security Sentinel. What it lacks in capacity, it makes up in cost and ease of replacement.

Capabilities:

Laser: Class-One Sentinels are equipped with basic Gamma Laser Optic, permitting a 10-second burst that can cut through up to 12 inches of steel before requiring a recharge.

Stun: Class-One Sentinels are equipped with basic Lightning Discharge Facilities to discourage predators and to enable effective crowd control of lesser beings.

Sonic Disruption: Class-One Sentinels are equipped with low-level Sonic Disruptors designed to damage and confuse their prey, adding to their crowd control capacities.

Durability 10/10

Class One

Time seemed to freeze as I saw the sentinels moving forwards, and the information that popped up was suddenly there in my mind, like I’d always known it, before vanishing with a shimmer.

I felt capabilities that I’d never known before unfurling in my mind, and a single flashing red light popped up the very corner of the bottom right of my vision.

I mentally tapped it, feeling that was the right thing to do, and the world slowed even further.

Combat Enhancements: Active

Time has been slowed subjectively at a ratio of 2:1. Time remaining: 11 seconds . . .

This flashed up even as the sentinels, as I now recognized them, stepped inside. They clattered forwards. The blurred shapes that I’d made out underwater and then again in the stairwell were different from these.

Where they were designed for recovery and maintenance, these were pure killing machines.

The eight arms of the others were cut down to five here--though as they ended in razor-sharp claws, and I was butt naked--that was little consolation.

I rolled to the right, out of the recliner in the tube to fall to the wall/floor below. All three opened fire, lasers slamming into the recliner and melting it to slag, then tracking down as I dove forwards, rolling and coming to my feet.

They stood in the doorway, seemingly halfway up the wall, spread out side by side. The combat enhancement was enough to let me dodge back and forth, the laser a millisecond too slow as I sprinted at them, angling to the left.

The nearest one stepped out, levering itself forward and searching for me even as the others scuttled aside as well, having to move further into the room to see around their companion. I reached out and grabbed it by an extended leg.

I was acting on instinct as I pulled hard, dislodging the robot from it precarious perch, then shoving it backwards, even as I felt and heard the crackle of discharging electricity.

It flew back far easier than I expected, landing between the other two, legs akimbo across them. Its electrical or lightning power discharged, sending all three tumbling into the room. I jumped up, catching the lip of the door and rolling over it and into the corridor behind them.

I came to my feet, hearing the clatter as the robots sorted themselves out behind me, and I sprinted for the far end of the corridor, able to see the footprints I’d left on the way here, the dried blood clear.

As I sprinted, the ground flying by beneath my feet like I’d never known, information kept trying to pop up. As I reached the first intersection, jamming fingers into the small gaps I’d used to climb down, and starting back up, I let the data rise.

Whatever had happened while I was out, I was fully healed now. A screen pulsed weakly before me, flickering, but showing a map of my body.

It had pathways traced out, anchor points for things to be attached to my bone structure, sections that showed internal spaces that were ready for upgrades, lists of systems that could be inserted, but all the descriptions were full of random symbols, placeholders as a result of the damaged facility. There were technological marvels literally at my fingertips, and they were sodding broken.

Two systems glowed green, while everything else was either black or grey, and I focused on them. One was in my head, and I looked it over as I climbed, reaching up as I went, pushing my hair aside and feeling a narrow band of raised scalp, sensitive to the touch, with something hard underneath it.

I froze, my hand tracing the outline as a basic description popped up.

Remote . . . . . . access . . .

Facilitates . . . access to . . . . . . Integration . . . Control.

That was all I could see, but between the description, the knowledge that was somehow in me, and the location, I could make a decent guess. It was a modem, or something like it, a wireless access chip to interface me with the facility and other tech.

I reached out to the facility, getting no response, and I looked down at the other section that flashed green. It was the inside of my right wrist. As I brought it around to stare at it in the dim light of the screen, I could make out two tiny ports buried in the skin.

They opened and closed, a thin filament sliding out, waving around then retreating again. The description was just all symbols that made no sense, but I got an impression of a more complicated access tool, something that could allow access to systems that weren’t on the net, either through those access ports or through the reinforced ones between the knuckles of my right fist.

I continued to climb as data swam up from the depths of my mind. Anything about the “Masters” seemed to be blocked away, as if I needed to have permission to see that—the same for the facilities, and hell, practically everything else.

I got a sense of potential, or a capacity to unlock further capabilities, information, and more by using the system embedded in my right arm. I knew, somehow, that my “nanites” were both blank and ready.

The fact that I had them at all in my body was something of a concern, considering I’d seen no end of horror movies when shit like that went wrong. Hell, one of the exes had been a heavy sci-fi addict, and she’d gone on and on about the “singularity” as she called it.

The day when we constructed a machine that would replace us, wipe us all out, and insert tiny biological devices into us all to variously control, kill, or upgrade us, depending on if she was in an optimistic or pessimistic mood.

I’d not really given two shits, convinced that what would happen, would happen regardless. As such, if we had little time left, well, fuck it. Might as well have some fun while we could.

Now I felt the blank nanites inside me, and I realized, scanning through this interface, that I wasn’t the only one.

We all had them, and we had them in the tens of thousands, ready to replicate, but banned from it.

We should have them in the billions, ready to rebuild us, to heal our wounds and who knew what else. Instead, they’d been locked down tight, controls put on them, rendering them inert and simple passengers.

A thousand questions filled my mind, but the sound of clattering metal feet below me drew me back to reality as I reached the edge of the corridor and pulled myself across it.

I rolled, coming to my feet, then sprinted forwards, the ground seeming to fly beneath my feet as I ran, until all too soon I reached the next wall.

This one I ran at, at full speed, jumping and kicking off. I amazed myself with the height I reached, my fingers scrabbling as I grabbed handholds and pulled myself upwards. A grin stretched my lips.

I couldn’t help it; this was fucking amazing!

Instead of climbing carefully, pulling myself up hand over hand and making sure of my grip and my footing each time, I leaped up the wall, seeming to barely touch it as I raced to the next section, rolling into the next corridor and onwards.

In less than ten minutes, I covered what must have taken me three or four hours coming the other way, and in mere minutes more, I was rolling over the edge of the corridor opposite the section I’d entered.

This time, when I ran down and into the room at the end, I could see, and my feet came to a halting stop, eyes wide as I stared up and around.

Whatever this facility was, it was sodding huge.

The stairs I’d climbed down were one of two sets, the other just visible in the distance, with a veritable shit-ton of heavy machinery between where I stood and there.

Looking it over, I received popups that I closed over and over again, sighting the various sections of broken machinery that were identified as being used in the processing of “heavy metals” from the surrounding seawater.

I saw great intake valves, long silent and dead, and as I focused, a schematic of the intakes popped up, along with a flashing “Safety System Override” warning on it.

As I watched, it slowly shuddered as the override was removed. The water began to whoosh back inside a single intact processor in the distance.

It was the riptide, I realized. If I was truly just below wherever I’d entered the facility, then the riptide had to be just above that, and if it was still capable of processing the water, well, it’d create a hell of a mess up there!

Whoever had set the sentinels on me had clearly reactivated the water purification systems to stop me getting out that way. Well, fuck them; they were in for a surprise there. Now that I knew they believed I could escape this way, well, I was damn well going to!

I twisted around, searching the walls and floor. The same sections and breaks that I’d been using to climb so far stretched out ahead, and I paused, listening carefully behind me.

I could hear the sentinels faintly, but they’d definitely fallen behind.

I nodded to myself and moved up to the lip of the doorway, gripping the gap in the wall where the sections were obviously joined together, and started to climb.

It was . . . easy.

Well, not fucking easy, not that, but like having a good workout at the gym, or rock climbing with friends. Take out the threat, which I was doing my best to block out, and it was . . . yeah. It wasn’t bad.

I continued upwards, deliberately not thinking about what I had to do soon, and because of the way these things always worked. It seemed like sodding seconds before I reached the far wall, or to me, with this angle, the ceiling.

I paused, taking a deep breath, and knowing that the easy section was over before reaching out and slipping my fingers into the tiny gaps I’d been using to climb so far.

Climbing the wall wasn’t so bad, mainly because I could literally wiggle my fingers in. As long as I got my fingertips into the gaps, I was golden. I could wedge my toes into any gap that my finger fit into—well, most of my toes—and gravity and years of rock climbing kept me attached to the wall no worries.

The issue was . . . I’d reached the top.

Now I needed to use those same handholds to climb across the ceiling.

There was a slight gap behind each section. I’d been using them for a while, so I had no reason to think they’d go anywhere, but . . .

There was a massive difference between climbing a straight ninety-degree wall with decent grips and swinging my ass out over the sodding void and essentially doing pullups for thirty or forty meters using only my fingertips wedged into a crevice.

I reached out, wiggling my fingers into the gap, feeling the cool metal and the narrow ledge behind, and gave it a little tug, just making sure. When there was no movement, I let out a breath.

I honestly wasn’t sure if I was relieved or pissed.

If it’d been loose, I’d have climbed back down and . . .

A clatter rose from below me, and I looked down, seeing a sentinel clank out onto the wall and turn straight up, using the gaps I had, and . . . and a fucking purpose-built leg that slid in and gripped, letting the bastard climb up like it was walking on the flat!

It wasn’t fast, but it was steady, and I swore, my time to consider well and truly used up.

I swung out, ramming my other hand into the gap, released the first one, and swung again, essentially using the gap like I’d used the monkey bars on a climbing frame as a kid.

It took seconds to move out far enough from the wall that I knew I’d be a goddamn pink smear if I slipped, and another minute to make it far enough that I could see the gantry way where it led to the door through which I’d presumably entered.

I had a choice to make.

I could clamber across another twenty meters from my current position, then drop into a gantry way and lower myself down hand-over-hand. Then I could drop onto the section I’d woken on and try and get that door open.

Alternatively, there was a second gantry way, thirty meters further along than that, and as near as I could tell in the very limited light, there were two doors that led off from there.

I kept going, moving across the ceiling, getting closer as I tried to decide, before the choice was taken away from me.

I felt the pain in my left forearm at the same time that my hand released against my will, and a hiss sounded out.

I yanked my arm in close to my chest, crying out as the pain suddenly ratcheted up massively, and I frantically rammed my right into the gap nearest, swinging me sideways a little before I felt my fingers sliding, the gap and the angle all wrong.

“Fuck, fuck, FUUUUUCK!” I snarled, reaching up and trying to grab another section with my left, but finding the fingers wouldn’t close, not properly.

I started to slip, frantically kicking myself forward, twisting my hips and reaching with my legs as the fingers came fully free . . . and I fell.

Chapter Six

The gantry way was a little over a meter from me. As I fell, the swing I’d managed to impart was not quite enough as I picked up speed, and my mind filled with terror.

I reached and I wished, demanded, hoped, and fucking prayed, all of it, and . . . and the “nanite recovery tool” reacted.

I felt a pull, like something inside me was being dragged out, and a pair of tubes, maybe a millimeter thick, ripped free of my hand, driving out from between my knuckles in a spray of blood.

The tubes wrapped around the metal gantry and retracted, swinging me in tight. I grabbed at it frantically, managing to wrap my legs and most of my left arm around it. I took my weight as much as I could as pain radiated out from my right arm, and all the way up to my brain and down to my heart!

I screamed, and the tubes released in reaction to my subconscious demand to stop the pain, and again, I fell.

This time, it was only a short distance, my legs twisting me around the lip of the gantry way as my left hand flailed uselessly. My little finger caught in a gap and snapped back, tearing the joint open before I managed to get my right hand back into place and grab onto a bar.

This time I stopped dead, and I damn well clung to it, panting, before looking up at the sentinel that had hit me.

It was clambering forwards, steadily, clearly the base model, and unable or unwilling to rush.

Its laser, a small orb that sat atop a cylinder that in turn was ringed by a disc the legs were attached to, began to glow again, and I snarled at it. I looked back down, judging the distance, and before I could think better of it, I flung myself free again, plummeting a dozen meters until my outstretched right hand caught the lip of the corner, flipping me into the adjoining corridor.

I crashed into the gantry, the wind knocked out of me and my right knee twisting and giving way before my head slammed into the metal, ringing my bell and leaving me there, senseless, for several seconds.

I lay there, my various wounds clamoring for my attention. Each declared that they, and they alone, were the worst injury, and I had a momentary new appreciation for those mad bastards that had twins, or worse, triplets and more to demand their attention all at once all the time.

I rolled to my side and pushed myself up to all fours, the gantry clattering and shaking as the sentinel made its way down. The hole in my left arm had burned through the underside of my limb, at least an inch long, leading towards the top.

No fucking wonder my goddamn arm had given up; it looked like someone had hacked a fucking axe into my underarm!

I snarled, fury building as the day’s events came back to haunt me, even as I reached down and snapped my left pinkie back into place. The flare of pain did wonders to clear my head as a light grew, clearly emitted from the sentinel as it clanked its way down to me.

I twisted around, shoving myself upright, just in time for an arm with a three-fingered claw to clamp onto the edge of the gantry and swing itself down and around.

The placement it was using made it clear that it expected me to be running or at least further down the gantry somewhere.

Instead, I mentally demanded that time slow again, receiving a popup as I did so.

Combat Enhancement System: Unavailable

Charge insufficient to activate for full period . . .

3 seconds available . . . activate?

I demanded it work, and it did, triggering and making everything suddenly happen like it was flowing through molasses.

I saw the laser-orb thingy twist around to align on me, but before it could fire, I was already moving.

My left arm might have fuck-all strength for grasping, but it was an efficient club, and I smacked it in the center mass, making it swing wildly from the arm that still connected it to the gantry.

I realized something that I’d clearly missed in my panicked flight before.

The “custodian” class, the octopus thingies that had saved me and laid broken-down all over the place, were about a meter high and solidly built, clearly the workhorses of the ship, but these?

The arms were about a meter long each, but the actual body, the cylinder itself?

It was maybe twelve inches long, that was all.

It was also inside a disc that the legs were attached to, and while it gave it flexibility, being able to flip all directions, the disc itself . . . well.

Action was as fast as thought.

I grabbed onto the cylinder with my right hand and pulled as hard as I could.

There was a twist and a pop before the lightning triggered, slamming into me and making me scream in pain.

Poor choice on the sentinel’s part, though. As it made my muscles tense up and contract, it essentially provided me with a little extra pull that resulted in me still managing to yank the cylinder free of the disc entirely.

I dropped onto my back, twisting and thrashing as the electrical attack ripped through me. I bit my goddamn tongue before it was over, but when it was?

I lay on my back, and the cylinder was a few inches away, facing the far wall over the gap of thin air, and it was fucking still.

I could hear a whirring and clicking coming from it, then a painful burst of noise whipped out, echoing around the chamber and making me grit my teeth.

But it was pointed away from me, and compared to the shit I’d undergone in the tube?

It was the equivalent of harsh language.

I snarled and reached out, fully intending to grab the cylinder and throw it over the edge, letting it fall all the way to the ground, when my arm gave a twitch of its own, and a new screen popped up.

Hostile system detected.

Attempt hack?

I froze, reading and rereading the options, before grinning like the fuckin’ Cheshire cat.

“Oh yes, hack!” I snarled aloud, unnecessarily.

The ports between my knuckles opened again, and the tubes slid out, this time much shorter and clearly damaged. They locked onto the back of the cylinder, then split into dozens and dozens of smaller tubes that branched again and again, driving into the depths of the machine.

I realized that they must be an example of the nanotech that the nanites implied, because, stare as I might, they seemed perfectly smooth. Where they branched out, the tubes simply slimmed down, splitting off tributaries and more, but nowhere was there a blocky section, a misshapen bit, nothing.

If it was made even by the most modern of tech, there would be lumps and sections; that was obvious, this . . .

This made it clear I was seeing a form of tech that was literally hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of humanity.

That, well, that made my balls shrivel.

Friends of mine, and the sci-fi nutjob ex—who, to be fair, was actually a far nicer person than I was, which rankled when I thought about her—had all talked about aliens and what it’d be like to make first contact.

I hadn’t really been interested, believing that if aliens came down from the heavens, they’d pick someone hopefully better suited for the job. Not a politician—I mean, that was just stupid. They’d pick someone with a working brain.

Like a leader in tech who made cars and space shuttles and shit.

“Please for the love of all that was holy, not me, and not a politician,” was all I’d ever contributed to the conversations, really, when they’d had them.

I’d spent most of my time doing little deals or making calls, sorting issues out, and generally making a little side cash with a hustle or two.

I’d listen, find out what the tech guys like them had wanted, figurines and so on mostly, then I’d do a little digging, find them, buy a handful and whack the prices up, then start conversations about the way they’d “jumped in value” on the various sites.

Then I’d sell them all, making money on the artificial boost I’d created through fake accounts.

While I’d been there for the first contact conversations, I was woefully unprepared when realization struck.

I stared at the cylinder as the tubes split and split, infiltrating the system, and cracking it open to me like a fuckin’ egg.

System Optimization Point gained: HACK

By hacking a hostile system using your augmented capacities and boosted by your unused mental capacity, you have gained a single point to assign in HACK, please assign this now, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603.

A tree system popped up before me, with the title HACK at the top. Three lines led to three levels below, each of which had additional lines leading off from there, but black and dim, making it impossible to see what lay beyond without selecting one of the three.

I pulled them up, glancing from one to another, grunting as I read the titles.

I had Stealth, Information, and Control as options, and a stream of data about interlinking and supporting “frames,” whatever they were.

Basically, I now knew that I could invest any HACK points I got into the skill trees and get various gains. All of the options were valuable, but they could work in synergy as much as alone.

If, for example, I went down the Stealth route exclusively, it would essentially make it impossible for an opponent, be that a monitoring system or whatever, to tell when I was in the system.

That was great, but it came at the expense of things like directories. So while I could get in and stay undetected as long as I liked , it would take me forever to find anything.

Information, on the other hand, if I went straight down that path, would let me find whatever I needed and fast, but it’d be blatantly obvious I was in the system, and I’d set off every alarm in the world.

Lastly, Control meant that I could assume control over the systems, literally, but any system connected to the one I took over would go nuts most likely, reporting the attack. While I’d have command of the system, I was back to it taking forever to find anything, and once I left, well, it’d be obvious what I’d been doing.

I also knew that if I mixed and matched, I’d be better off, but I’d not have the advantages that a pure glass-cannon build had with things like this. If I say, went down the Stealth and Information paths fifty-fifty, then I’d be able to get in and out of the systems with no one the wiser.

It’d just take a fuck load longer, and if I found hardened systems that required I take over the system instead, I was fucked.

I paused for a brief second as the prompt flashed at me, then I grunted and made my choice.

I didn’t know anything about the system I was accessing, so I had no clue if there was a big red button inside or a billion lines of code to make it walk. Stealth was useless at this stage, as they knew I was here, and Information . . . well, I needed it, but I didn’t need it as much as I needed Control.

I selected that, and the cylinder shuddered under my grip as my nanites streamed out, following the lines of access and assuming control of the little sentinel. New screens popped up, dozens of them, offering tantalizing insights into the facility, even as mind-numbing pain radiated through me as an ice-cold data download burned through my brain.

It seemed to take forever to pass, but when it did, and I could breathe again, I stared down at the little machine quivering in my grip, shocked at the massive gulf of tech between where it was, as the most basic of the facility’s units, and where our tech levels sat on Earth.

I’d have loved to search, to find out what was going on, but at the end of the day, I knew the important detail already, namely that I was being hunted.

There were three shots left in the laser before it needed to recharge, and there were two more of these little bastards clambering up the wall in the distance.

The lasers were short range, so that meant no picking the fuckers off from here. I felt the final firewalls fold under the concentrated assault of my own nanites, then the cylinder stopped quivering, seeming to suddenly welcome me?

I twisted it around cautiously, staring down into the eye and watching the laser, just in case, but it felt entirely non-threatening now, and it was actively . . . waiting?

I kept watching it, just in case this was a trick of some kind, but when I flipped it over and slid it back into the disc that had housed it, connecting the legs and so on up, it clicked and whirred happily. Then my nanites and the tubes all retracted back into my hand, leaving me feeling a bit weird as I looked at the hanging sentinel.

It literally hung there, watching me, waiting, and I backed up slightly, moving back from the edge where I guessed the other two might start shooting soon.

It moved forward, following me.

“Ambush the others. Kill them and protect me,” I said with a grunt, not really sure what the hell I should be telling it. That seemed to do the trick, as it slid to one side and lifted itself up to press itself against the ceiling of the gantry, hiding as well as it could.

One of the legs hung limp, clearly damaged when I tore the cylinder free. The others worked fine, though, so I reached out a little hesitantly and lifted the segmented leg up, tucking it into place against the cylinder, and awkwardly patted it.

“Sorry about your leg,” I muttered to it, then shook myself, adding in a growl, “Fucking lunatic. It tried to kill you.”

I headed back down the corridor, moving in the opposite direction to the stairwell down that I’d so thoroughly wrecked last time.

It took less than a minute to reach the doorway, and as I did, I heard the sizzle of lasers burning into something, followed by the crash of falling metal.

A small light flashed in the corner of my vision, and I pulled it up as I slowed, looking the door over as I read the notification with half an eye.

WAR POINT GAINED!

A Class-One Sentinel under your control has defeated a unit of equal size and strength, gaining you a War Point to assign as needed, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603.

“Stop fucking calling me that!” I snapped at the prompts, grunting as a new screen popped up.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603, please assign your War Point now:

Command and Control

Infiltration

Assault

The layout was different for this one, but as each option popped up, a little background data seemed to seep into my brain with it, making me grunt as I looked it over.

Command and Control was literally what it said. A point put into that tree would unlock bonuses to remote controlling devices, such as more sentinels, getting them improvements and upgrades, unlocking better capabilities, and more.

Infiltration was a joint tree that I could use to unlock stealth-based facilities in the units I controlled, or in myself . . . somehow. It would boost my abilities in HACK as well as others, so that was tempting.

Lastly, Assault was a personal tree that would work with others to boost my own fighting capabilities. It seemed insane that I even needed to consider that, but . . . I needed to get the hell out of here, that was for sure. Frankly, while Assault might help me later with things, Infiltration would help to get me the hell out of here right now!

I selected that and saw the tree unlock, three more options lighting up beneath it. Then I gasped, dropping to one knee as I hissed in pain, shaking myself as I tried to blink sudden tears away. But before I could do more, another hiss and zip of lasers firing behind me made me banish the screens.

I looked back, seeing two sentinels wrapped in each other’s arms and legs as lasers fired. They maneuvered for advantage, twisting each other’s cylinders aside at the last second as bursts of laser fire carved sections of the gantry free, causing them to fall to the ground far below.

“Fuck! Jump!” I called to my sentinel, my command seemingly either clear enough, or somehow carrying my intention as my sentinel grabbed onto the other and leapt off the edge of the gantry, tugging arms free as it went. The two plummeted to the ground far below to land with a crash that echoed up even over the whoosh of the water processing plant.

WAR POINT GAINED!

A Class-One Sentinel under your control has defeated a unit of equal size and strength, gaining you a War Point to assign as needed, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603, please assign your War Point now:

Command and Control

Infiltration (1)

Assault

I dismissed the screen as soon as it popped up, having no time for that shit. I slapped my right hand over the control panel of the door, one that I could see clearly now my eyes had been . . . altered.

The ports on my hand opened without pause, the tubes extruding and locking into place, burrowing down and down into the facility security system.

Seeing walls popping up in my vision as I went, I dug deeper. For some reason, the system interpreted the HACK facility into terms I, a man whose primary uses for a computer were either gaming or porn, could understand. Doors and walls appeared all around me, layered over and over to form a three-dimensional cube.

Where the sentinel had essentially been hacked by my internal systems with very little input from me, this . . . this was the opposite.

I could feel my new internal system and the security system that was attempting to hunt me down battling each other to a standstill, one that would result in my death if I stayed here too long.

I knew, instinctively and logically, that I couldn’t wait for them to fight it out. If I did, I’d be fucked over by more sentinels sooner or later no doubt, or the security system would beat my brand-new baby system.

Yeah, apparently my own system was using my “unused cerebral capacity,” which was nice and all, but . . .

I reached out, my left arm aching and spasming as I tried to move my fingers, my right glued to the panel, and the walls around me shifted in response to my fingers’ movements.

Trying to make sense of it, I spun the walls around until two of the doors lined up, and a wall vanished.

“It’s a damn game!” I had to guess that my subconscious was showing this in a way I could understand. I reached out again, flipping the outer layer around as I examined it more closely.

The box that hovered before me had six sides, and each side had a door in a different place. The panels could be manipulated, twisted to the left and right, bringing the doors into alignment.

I frowned, thinking it was a little simplistic and it couldn’t really be like this . . . and the system blurred. Lines of code appeared, sections that I guessed were hunter-killers searching for any exterior code, and my own infiltration package frantically burrowed through section after section, searching for the correct access points.

I got a glimpse of a world of code, billions upon billions of alien symbols that had more in common with genetics than numbers or letters, and my brain seemed to spasm in fear.

I mentally rejected the images I’d seen, and the three-dimensional cube reappeared, with the doors to line up.

I sighed in relief until I noticed that the other side was increasing in the number of walls . . . and I swore. While I was fucking about, the security system was adding in extra firewalls to prevent my escape!

I flicked my fingers, mentally twisting the cube as I did so, and another door aligned, the wall flashing and falling in on itself to vanish into the level below.

I turned the box sideways, presenting a fresh wall, and spun that to the right section, then another, then another. Seconds blurred as more and more walls appeared and vanished. Sections bloomed upwards as the security AI, as I guessed it must be, attempted to block me out, and then fell back as I twisted and aligned new sections.

My left hand stopped moving as I discarded the crutch of physical movements to control it, and the speed increased. I spun and clicked more and more sections into place, the walls dropping away as I went, the cube dropping from sixteen levels and six sides to twelve, ten, six, four . . . two.

The final level, I moved them all at once; I was that far into the zone, my mind functioning like it never had. The man who’d dropkicked a Rubik’s cube into the river after three attempts now twisted a three-dimensional geometric shape in six different directions, timing it perfectly for all the walls to fall in at once.

A beautiful symmetry emerged as all the walls, each composed of a weak, blue-green light, fell inwards, seeming to vanish into infinity as they broke apart. Then there was a flare of golden light, and the door unlocked with a clink, a hiss . . . and a sudden fucking deluge of water!

Chapter Seven

I was slammed backwards as my hand released the control panel, bounced back by the water and almost sent over the side before my frantically grasping fingers caught in a gap in the gantry, stopping me as more water fountained past.

I started to panic, thinking the sea above must be emptying into the facility, and that I’d just killed myself, when I realized the pressure was dropping. The high-pressure wash of water changed, slowing and dropping from a waterfall to a river, a stream, then a drain.

Hair plastered down, I stared up and into the next section. It was a dimly lit chamber, and one I quickly knew the reason for.

It was an airlock!

I pulled myself forwards, noting the set of interior doors that were opened as well as I dragged myself in, and I growled in annoyance.

Clearly, I’d opened two sets of doors here, rather than just one, as it made sense the makers of the facility wouldn’t want to drain the fucking sea into itself each time they went out, but rather than me just opening a small airlock, then passing out into the main one? I’d opened both.

I stepped inside and slapped my hand to the control panel on the inside, feeling it respond instantly, seemingly accepting me as having command in the local area after the little contest I’d just won.

As soon as my hand activated the screen, the door behind me closed, as did the one before me, letting me look around in a small, glass bubble as the next section flooded again.

The room I was in—not the tiny section I was secure inside, but the overall room—was maybe ten meters square and twenty high, still sealed and mostly intact. As it filled with water, I watched, waiting and eyed the collapsed side of the structure where a good thousand tons of stone and sand made it up.

The secondary enclosed section I was in was small, maybe three meters cubed, and clearly opened up into the main airlock when it was full, or drained, to access the facility.

The issue was, the facility still gave the impression of being on its side somehow, and that meant that “up” as it had probably originally been—and where the only working exit was, considering that what had probably also been an exit was filled with rubble—was twenty meters to my right.

Okay, not a major issue. I could hold my breath for that distance. Probably, I mean. I’d heard Navy Seals did it, and much further, I’d just never had to try myself.

So I could probably do that. The issue was, I didn’t know how far the swim was to the surface after that.

When I’d woken up, I was dry, mainly, meaning that when I’d been brought inside, I’d been there for a while, but that didn’t explain how I’d made it. The only memory I had was of how raw my throat had been.

I rubbed at it and grunted as the last of the water filled the room around mine. A new appreciation manifested for how hard porn-starlets worked as I banished the feeling of the red-raw throat and instead started drawing deep breaths, filling myself with as much oxygen as I could.

I reached out, finding an identical panel on the opposite side to the one that let me into the ship, and I tapped it, a red light turning green, and I tapped it again before the seemingly glass sides of the capsule retracted into the floor, and water hammered down atop me.

I was driven back against the door, grunting and letting a little of my precious air escape by reflex before I could bite down on it. Then I gathered my legs beneath me, and I kicked off, heading to the top of the room, where I saw another panel glimmering faintly.

I made it in about forty seconds, my lungs straining for air as I pressed the button and waited, my heart rate rising as I only now considered that if the security AI was a sneaky fuck, it might have actually let me into here, and now cut the power to the panels, leaving me to drown . . .

The panel blinked . . . and the roof irised open smoothly. Yeah, it stopped at six meters across, rather than all the way open, which I guessed it could do, but I didn’t care; I stroked for the gap as fast as I could.

I was halfway through when a mental image of the iris closing and cutting me in half filled my mind. I swam faster, but it didn’t happen, and a few seconds later, I braced my feet against the sandy bottom outside and kicked off, swimming furiously for the surface.

The bubbles of air that I desperately fought to keep contained were escaping, flowing up in a silvery stream, and I followed them, hauling away at the water around me and kicking with all my might as I approached the surface.

My left hand was the first to break free, and then my head as I desperately gasped in a massive lungful of air. The speed I’d been going was enough to lift me half out of the water, only to fall back and nearly drown myself as I tried to draw in another fast breath.

I coughed and spluttered out a load of water and kicked my legs, keeping myself up as I fought to catch my breath. Gasping down lungful after lungful of the sweet, warm air, I blew out a long breath and twisted around, looking out at the dark sea.

It was night, clearly, and the goddamn cove didn’t have a single light anywhere in sight, of course. The clouds were low overhead, and there was a steady breeze, a cold one—for Crete, at least—and I was forcibly reminded that I was goddamn naked as I spotted the beach I was looking for, a little more than a mile to my left.

Mentally thanking my luck in the night-vision optimization of my eyes, I set off, swimming quickly for the shore, hoping against hope that my damn keys and Dave’s bike would still be there.

It took far less time than I thought it should, at a little under twenty minutes or so, before I felt the sandy bottom touch my feet, and I nearly shit myself when it did.

Yes, it was the Mediterranean, not the horn of Africa, but between the wound in my arm and the various cuts and scrapes I’d picked up in the journey, I’d had visions the entire time of a goddamn great white shark singing a theme tune while it closed on me.

The worst part, realistic or not, was that I was morbidly convinced that its first attack would be to take the sausage out.

By the time I stumbled up out of the water onto the packed sand of the beach, I was damn well determined that I’d never go skinny-dipping again, not even if the girls that invited me were naked, hot, and there were multiple.

Never again!

I hunched over, catching my breath, and for about the fifteenth time, I closed the popup that tried to appear as the flashing light drew my eye.

I focused on it, and demanded the fucker stop that, changing it to a slow blink that would only open if I actively willed it.

I had no clue how that worked, but when I glanced at it and waited, not thinking that I wanted to see it, and nothing happened?

Bingo.

I stood up, arching my back and twisting at the waist, feeling the little pops and clicks as my muscles settled from the hard exertion, casting about to make sure I was where I thought I was.

Sure enough, half a mile or so away, I could make out the crash of the sea around the intakes, or as the rest of the world thought, a riptide.

I started jogging in that direction, picking up speed on the waterlogged and compressed sand, until I was fairly flying across the top of it, and I couldn’t help but grin as I did.

It took seconds, or at least it felt like that, my muscles barely warming up to the new rhythm before I slowed, casting about until I spotted the rock, half-hidden at the base of the cliff.

It was inside the water mark, so yeah, great, my wallet was even more soaked than it had been before, the chips in my bank cards were probably well and truly buggered by now, but . . .

The keys were still there!

I grabbed them and my wallet, then set off still shaking the clumps of sand off both of them, as I walked across the beach and up to the carpark.

Joy of joys, the bike was there as well!

That was a massive relief, considering I was about twenty miles from the apartment, and I really didn’t want to run that distance naked.

Or at all.

I managed to get the bike started, after a minute or so of swearing, and thoroughly cursing Dave for being so goddamn cheap when it came to his ride.

It was always hard to start up, and I’d been riding for ten years. Dave’s bike was undoubtably the shittiest and cheapest bike I’d ever ridden on, and that included the bike I built out of scrap in my goddamn garage when I was seventeen. It barely had a motor, or lights. It was basically powered by something most women would consider was too weak to dry their hair, and it made a constant puttering noise as it went. The wheels were bare, it had one mirror, and the speedometer didn’t work. Neither did the fuel gauge.

It had a seat, again a crappy one, but once Dave knew my rusty starfish had been gracing it for twenty miles, I had no doubt he’d be burning it anyway.

I pulled out of the carpark and up onto the highway, the breeze doing wonders for my sense of humor as I went, the weak light of the headlight barely keeping me on the road as I turned up the speed as high as I could.

It was awful, yet glorious.

I loved riding a bike; hell, I loved going fast. I’d loved anything at all I could get to go fast enough to hurt myself on since I was a kid.

My parents and I didn’t really speak. Mother had buggered off when I was a kid, and my father had remarried. My new step-siblings and I never got along, and as soon as I was old enough, I’d left home. The only happy memories I had growing up in that shithole were when I was out on a bike, and when I’d left them for the last time a few months ago, just as a big “fuck you,” I’d said the magical words.

“Just nipping out for some smokes and a pint of milk from the shop, be back soon.”

Bet that’d confused the shit out of them, considering I didn’t smoke or live with them, but fuck it. It’d been worth it, even if my father hadn’t recognized they were the last words my mother ever said to either of us.

Now here I was, confused, battered, and butt-naked, but sat on a bike, hammering down the highway in the dark in Crete with the wind in my hair and my nuts bouncing merrily.

By the time I pulled up outside the apartment, I was a little less sanguine about the whole thing. The seat was sodding uncomfortable. It’d had a tear repaired at some point with duct tape, and the edge of the tape kept pulling hairs out of the undercarriage. Add to that, doing sixty miles an hour in the dark while bare-ass naked, even in the Med, was a chilling experience, and I was damn well ready to get some clothes on.

I hopped off the bike, cursing as I lost a few more hairs, and braced it against a wall—the stand always folded up—before grabbing my wallet from the little storage area, and the keys, then jogging up the three flights of stairs.

I made it to the top and slowed, hearing voices inside. I paused, listening hard, wondering who the hell was in there.

The lights were on, but Sod’s law, so was the one at the top of the stairs, so if I moved too close to the window, they’d see my shadow.

The apartment was the only one at the top of the building here. The building itself was made up of three levels, and shaped like a U with very shallow arms. All the apartments faced inwards towards what had been intended to be a pool and garden area, with a balcony that overlooked it and the entrance to the apartment at the back of the building. On my section, I was the only one at the top.

It meant added privacy, but I rarely brought anyone back besides Dave, who’d basically followed me home like a stray I’d accidentally fed.

The front door to my apartment was a narrow balcony with the stairwell terminating in the middle, a bare stucco wall to the right, the front door in the middle, and a cracked and filthy window to the left.

The space to the right was filled with a collection of pots and planters that the previous tenant had abandoned and I’d never gotten around to removing, and the left, well, it had a light that would effectively skyline me against the window for anyone inside to see.

Instead, I moved to the apartment on the floor below mine. The key to the door was held in a small, secure lockbox that in turn was accessed by a code, but the same guy who owned that apartment also owned mine, and the dumbass had used the same code.

I’d already had a little mooch around it, swapping a few bits and pieces out for broken furniture from my room, and I slipped inside soundlessly now, moving through the apartment quickly until I reached the balcony on the far side.

The smallest apartment on the block was mine, basically because, as you built upwards, you built smaller, like a pyramid, slanting backwards. So as soon as I was out on the balcony on the level below, I paused, listening to see if anyone had recognized the tell-tale sound of my entry.

There was silence from above for several seconds, while I held my breath, before a low argument broke out again, and I frowned. One of the voices was Dave’s, that much was clear, but the other . . . it was familiar, vaguely, but not that clear, and I couldn’t place it.

It was clearly male, though, and pissed off, which made me worried for my friend.

I moved out onto the balcony and looked up, unable to see anything for the angle, beyond that the glass doors that led out were mostly closed.

The door was cracked an inch or so open, with the mosquito mesh curtain covering it, and no lights on this side. I grinned to myself and flexed my left hand, feeling the ache, and some weakness, but it was manageable and healing incredibly fast. I climbed onto a shitty chair, then jumped, grabbing onto the lip of the floor above.

I pulled myself up, a motion that was seriously easier than the last time I’d done this, when I’d locked myself out drunk a fortnight ago.

This time, the only impediment was my left arm, and even injured, it seemed stronger than my right had been before all of this. As soon as I had a decent handhold, I reached up with the left, gripping the decorative metalwork, and pulled myself up a little further before shifting and reaching up with the other hand. It was a little awkward; I was climbing with just my upper body, after all, but . . .

It was a hell of a lot easier than clambering across the goddamn roof of the facility I’d just escaped from had been.

I pulled myself up and over the last bit, carefully dropping to the floor on the balcony and taking the few steps to crouch by the wall, ears pricked as I listen to the voices inside.

The music that was playing on Dave’s shitty little stereo had made it more difficult to identify what was being said as well, but now that I was here, I could hear it clearly.

“I told you, man! He went to the beach where he lost his bike, fuck. It’s no great secret; everyone knows he went there now,” I heard Dave saying, his voice quavering a little, and clearly tired as he repeated something I assumed he’d said a handful of times already.

“Yeah, well, everyone knows you live in Zante as well, so quit bullshitting me, kid. You know better,” the second voice said, and I almost groaned aloud as I recognized the speaker at last.

Mikhail Fedorov, part-time bouncer, drug dealer, wrestler, and all-around scumbag for hire. He was known and feared in the area with good reason, mainly because he was a fucking psychopath, and was rumored to only be a free man because of his ties with the mob.

Personally, I thought it was bullshit, but I’d seen him beat a guy half to death and get told essentially “don’t be a naughty boy” by the local police, so there was clearly something there at least.

He basically was my local equivalent, but meaner, stronger, and being former Russian army, well, he probably had a lot more experience than I did.

“I told you, Mik!” Dave said quietly, clearly exhausted and scared as he spoke. “That’s all he told me. He said that he needed to go check on his bike, see if it still ran, if he could get it out. Hell, you know what the local police are like! They came here, kicking off about the bike’s leak, said it was killing the birds or something.”

“Birds—” Mikhail snapped, clearly not believing him.

“On the table, there! No . . . to the left. No, man, under the pizza box! There!” Dave pointed and described as Mikhail moved, grabbing stuff and idly chucking it onto the floor.

I risked a glance in, sweeping my eyes from right to left. Dave sat on the end of his bed, his right eye swollen shut and lip busted, top ripped and looking generally disheveled as he spoke, with Mikhail out of sight over closer to the front door.

“That’s what the police brought, sent him there. He borrowed my bike, for fuck’s sake, took the only key I have. I mean, hell, it’s still there! The girls and I went to see if we could find him.”

“What girls?”

“The ones in the video, the ones he saved.”

“Where are they? Perhaps he is with them, no?”

“No, man. They would fuck the lucky bastard, both of them would have, they were clear enough about that. But he fucked that right up by vanishing. Nobody knows where he is, he just vanished, like a fucking fart in the wind.”

“Here, you call these girls, tell them that they come here, he is home. They come, I question them, and let them go. They don’t, then I know they know where he is, and I visit them next.” I saw Dave’s phone thrown to him. He caught it awkwardly, the bottom fingers on his right hand bent out of place and clearly broken.

I felt my blood run cold as he fumbled the phone, and I stared wide-eyed at him from where I was hidden, slowly cursing under my breath.

“You think I’ve got their number? Girls like that? He had their number, not me, and they flew home tonight, or somewhere, they said they had a flight to catch,” Dave said quickly.

I cursed mentally again; the fucker was a terrible liar . . . even if he did have balls.

I saw Mikhail step back into view and punch Dave once, full in the face, hard, before picking the phone up and forcibly using his finger to unlock it.

I knelt there, discarding plan after plan as I tried to decide what to do, but before I could make a decision . . .

“Steve?” a familiar voice called out from the other side of the front door, quickly followed by, “Dave? I saw the bike downstairs, did you find him?”

Mikhail moved faster than I could believe for such a big man, crossing the space to the door in an instant and yanking it open, grabbing Marie by the arm and dragging her in. He slapped a meaty hand across her mouth, cutting off the scream before it got out.

“Ah, the pretty one. Strange to find you here, missed your flight perhaps?” Mikhail grunted, grinning down at her as she tried to kick him, twisting at the waist to take the kick on the tree-trunk-thick leg then gripping her by the jaw and lifting her by it, making her whimper in pain and shock.

“Oi, dickhead!” I snarled, slamming the balcony door open, and stepping in, in all my bare-arsed glory. “Try picking on someone your own size!”

“Steve,” he said, spinning around and dropping her to the floor before looking me up and down, then snorting. “Out for a little stroll perhaps?”

He cracked his neck and flexed his hands, curling them into fists.

“None of your business, dickhead,” I said, stepping inside and keeping my gaze locked on him. “Get the fuck out.”

“I think not,” he said, smiling and spreading his hands wide. “An old friend of mine asked me to find you, and to bring you to him . . . seems you owe him money, yes?”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“I am paid to recover the money and you, or just you . . . in recognizable bits.” He shrugged. “You want your friends to live? You come quietly. There is room in my trunk for more than one body, and I get paid either way . . . you know this game, I think, yes?”

“You’re a dead man,” I warned him as we slowly circled each other, and he snorted.

“Many have tried this. Come, let me show.”

I growled low in my throat and attacked, stepping forward. He leaned in as I punched out, once, twice, then a third time. The first two deflected easily, while the third he blatantly let land.

It slammed into his left cheek, and it felt like I punched a brick wall, then he returned the blow.

A single punch to the left side of my face and I staggered sideways. Hell, even with my new abilities, I’d not seen the fucker coming. Then three more hits, a punch to the gut, an elbow to the spine, right where my neck met my back, followed by him grabbing me by the shoulders and kneeing me in the face. Then a crackle shot out as something was triggered. Light bathed the room for a split second before he applied a handheld taser to my throat.

The next thing I knew, I was laid on the floor, coughing up what felt like a fucking lung, and I was trying to make sense of the world.

I’d served five years in the British Army. I’d toured the fucking sandbox and spent time in Northern Ireland. Hell, I’d played rugby in the forces’ “friendly” games, between the Army, the Navy, and the RAF and they were generally anything but goddamn friendly.

The Army and the Navy played nasty with each other, while basically ignoring the posh flyboys. The only time the forces ever gave up trying to beat each other was if there was someone else to beat. I’d spent years trading on my size and looks, rarely having to do anything more than give some fucker a good kicking, not outside of an actual combat zone, but . . .

I was trying to catch my breath, trying to work out where the hell the truck that had just hit me had come from, when fingers grabbed me by my short hair and dragged me upright, staring at me with a wide grin on his face. He turned his phone around, making me see the dialing screen.

It rang twice, then the video call was accepted, and I saw the face of Sinclair the enforcer laid on his back on white sheets.

He grinned evilly, teeth gleaming in the reflected light from his phone, before shifting around and flicking a bedside light on, letting me see him clearly.

He was a big man, just over six and a half feet tall, wide-shouldered and built like a brick shithouse, with a massive beard and hair that would be called a mullet on anyone else. Hell, it was a fucking mullet, just nobody was stupid enough to point it out to the big, scary bastard.

“Steve!” he said with a wide smile, his voice rough and proclaiming a sixty-a-day habit if nothing else did. “So good to see you! We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“Hey, Kev.” I grunted, snorting and spitting out a bit of blood. It was my floor, after all. “Call off your dog, and I’ll get you your money back.”

“No,” he said simply.

“What do you mean no?” I growled.

“I mean no, you little pissant. You steal from us, and you thought you could run away? You thought you were free and easy? Oh no, this isn’t about the money, this is about respect. You shit all over my rep, running the way you did, but you know what? A fuck ton of blood will make everything better. You know how the game is played, an eye for an eye.”

“Aye, and you’ll get it, no doubt . . . but there’s two others here, a guy I let crash on my spare bed and his girl, that’s all. They don’t know shit,” I said, trying to make out that I barely knew them.

“Then that’s just too bad, isn’t it?” he said clearly. “Wrong place, wrong time, burglary gone wrong. These things happen.”

“You gotta be shitting me. Come on, man, you’re not serious,” I whispered, eyes opening wide as I got my feet under me, then Mikhail pushed me to stand with my back to the wall.

“Mik!” Kev called, and the bruiser turned the phone to face him, releasing my hair and grabbing me by the throat instead.

“Kev,” Mikhail grunted.

“Get the money from him. You get half as a finder’s fee, as agreed, but I want him to suffer. I want photos, videos, the fucking lot.”

“And the other two?”

“Kill them as well.”

“The girl, she’s pretty. Will be missed.”

“Then make hers look like an accident. Make the dickheads’ deaths clear, though—this is an object lesson. Turn me round before you go.”

Mikhail turned the phone back around, and Kev grunted at the sight of me pinned against the wall, fingers around my throat, and started to laugh, making my blood boil.

“Show me the other two as well,” he ordered, and Mikhail shifted, glaring at me warningly not to try anything as he pointed the camera at Marie on the floor, who was clearly in shock, her mouth opening and closing without any sounds coming out, and then Dave, who was just sitting up on the bed, looking like shit.

I glanced around the room, trying to figure out a way to get free, and to take this fucker down, despite the apparent ease he’d just shown in kicking my ass.

Old training kicked in, and I started to catalog my strengths and his weaknesses, searching for something to even the odds.

Admittedly, being naked wasn’t a strength in this situation, but still, I was only naked because of everything that had happened, not my own stupidity, and . . .

Everything that had happened.

If what I thought had happened had actually happened, then I wasn’t an ex-army fuckup who’d never had a meaningful relationship with anything besides a goddamn Chinese takeaway.

I was a biological weapon.

And I had options.

Chapter Eight

I pulled up the screens that had been trying to pop up for seemingly bloody forever, and I found myself grinning as I dismissed all but two.

WAR POINT GAINED!

A Class-One Sentinel under your control has defeated a unit of equal size and strength, gaining you a War Point to assign as needed, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603.

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603, please assign your War Point now:

Command and Control

Infiltration (1)

Assault

This time, instead of Infiltration, I picked Assault, and a whole new slew of data popped up, along with a single selectable option that glowed a friendly golden color.

Tactical Enhancement Systems Upgrade

To enable access to combat enhancement systems, as well as to utilize the basic weapons systems, all biological weapons are fitted with a Tactical Enhancement System.

Activate?

I approved it, and I hissed in pain, barely feeling the punch that came when Mikhail was finished on the phone, the feeling of red-hot needles burrowing through my brain making me insensible to anything else.

When I blinked my eyes open, though, the world was a very different place.

The entire room was suddenly overlaid with a grid system, one that faded from sight, but as it went, I recognized the purpose.

It was mapping the entire space.

I saw knives, simple kitchen knives, the evil-looking fucking breadknife, the laughably bent one we used for butter—all of them were suddenly outlined in red.

Beer bottles were examined and marked, the neck suddenly marked as a perfect shape for a reverse grip, the shitty table was marked as easily destroyed, the legs removable and usable.

All of it flared in a split second, and then it was gone, the entire room fresh in my mind as Mikhail drew back his foot and swung a kick at my face.

I saw the move out of the corner of my eye, and the threat matrix activated, approving the automatic block. My left elbow twisted and repositioned, the bone pointed and ready. I shoved off the ground with my right, ramming the tip of my elbow into the underside of his kneecap with enough force it twisted, then I grabbed the top of that foot with my right hand and yanked it to my right, while driving the elbow into the inside of the knee.

He cried out in surprise, twisting to keep from having his knee dislocated. I released his foot, only to punch up from a kneeling position with an uppercut that would have won me praise from my old army boxing coach . . .

. . . had it been aimed at a chin, rather than Mikhail’s crotch.

He literally lifted off the ground with a sound the likes of which I’d never heard a grown man make. It was a combination of a pained grunt, a gurgle, and a prayer to all the gods and angels to reconsider what had just happened.

He fell forwards atop me, and somehow, despite the fact that his balls were probably more like fucking two-dimensional circles now, he still managed to attack.

He landed half across me, reaching for my throat and snarling his hatred. The options flitted into my mind as the combat system went fully active.

The counterattack was an instinctive thing, a combination of the still-activating system and my own past scuffles and brawls, and had been a sort of hybrid act. Now, though . . .

Options flooded my mind, branching off in dozens of ways, but the world seemed to slow as I received them.

Response Level:

Non-Lethal: 1-5

Lethal: 6-10

Please select required response.

I could feel the additional data behind the two seemingly simple options, and I couldn’t help my teeth pulling back in a feral grin as I made my choice.

Non-lethal and lethal levels were pretty damn obvious, but the counter of one to ten was defining, essentially, the brutality level. Non-lethal level one would leave him able to walk it off, eventually, while level five was permanent disability and bed-bound. Lethal levels six to ten on the other hand, well, they went from snapping his neck or using a shock technique to stop his heart, to literally disassembling him digit-by-digit and limb-by-limb while bathing in his blood.

He had planned to kill me and my friends, though, so he brought this on himself, I decided, selecting “lethal” and “seven.”

The world changed. The lines that had overlaid the room had faded entirely, but now as I moved, I saw a ghost image of my movements projected ahead of me, and I could feel the responses and required force.

I rolled onto my back, bringing both hands up with my palms together as if I was about to pray. Then I shoved them up between his own reaching hands, as I coiled my legs under him, planting my feet against his hips.

I twisted them open as I rolled back, palms flat, and facing him, then grabbed his thumbs, as his hands were shoved wide of my throat.

I wrenched both of his thumbs back with as much force as I could bring to bear, which thanks to the facility’s upgrades, was significantly more that I’d ever had before, then I kicked out with all my might.

The guide had recommended a much lower level of power be used, but I was pissed, I was hurting, and I was coldly determined to make this memorable.

He flipped over me, crashing into and through the glass doors to the balcony, shattering them and sending glass everywhere. Mikhail screamed in pain as his thumbs were nearly torn off.

I’d bent them backwards with a hell of a lot of force, snapping ligaments and tendons, then I’d kept them facing one direction while his entire body flipped around them.

I released him and rolled to my feet, glaring at him as he howled in pain and fury, writhing as he tried to get up, and I smiled.

It’d take serious surgery to save those digits now, let alone actually have them work again at any point, and as to the fight? Yeah, that was an issue for him now.

I got up and shook my head, rolled my shoulders, and flexed my fists as I looked to Dave and to Marie.

“You two okay?” I growled at them and got disbelieving stares in response. “Get anything you need and wait downstairs. You can’t come back here now, and you don’t want to see this,” I told them, turning and picking up the phone and redialing Kev.

“Hey, dickhead,” I said conversationally as he answered. “This is all on you.”

“What? Mik, tear him a new fucking asshole, and make it painful!” Kev shouted, and I carefully set the phone down on the bed, propped up so he could see everything. Mikhail kicked the glass free of the doorway and stepped back inside, moving a lot more warily as his hands flowed back and forth.

He moved in a guard stance, clearly no longer underestimating me, and aside from a few gashes in his face and clothes—and yeah, his thumbs—he seemed all right to continue, which was impressive, but . . . I’d only just started as well.

I saw the gritted teeth, though, and the wide eyes as he watched me. I stepped to the right, waiting as Dave moved past and grabbed Marie’s arm, dragging her to her feet as the pair ran for the door.

Then I reached down and back without looking, picking up a plate with my left hand and sending it spinning up to smash the lightbulb, even as my right hand closed around the handle of the oldest and most lethal knife I owned.

Forget survival knives or the gloriously gleaming things that master bladesmiths created. This thing was used for slicing tomatoes and occasionally more. The handle was worn to the point it had finger grooves in it, and the blade itself was thin enough it seemed to disappear if you looked at it sideways; it’d been sharpened that many times.

It had to be thirty or more years old, and it was the unnamed terror of the cutlery drawer. Reach in without paying attention, and you were going to bleed.

He stepped inside, the light in the room flaring in a shower of sparks before going dead. Dave, bless the idiot, saw what I’d done and flipped the switch on the way out that illuminated the top of the stairs, banishing that light, too, before calling back to us.

“Steve, fuck him up!”

“Oh, I will,” I murmured, all fear gone as I watched the dozens of ghost images that flowed out from him. We slowly circled each other, the only lights now coming from the broken balcony door and the bar below, and the little illumination from the phone screen.

I stood waiting in the darkness as he kept moving, eyes opened wide as he tried to make me out. I crouched low, following the guide, and waited.

He took two more steps, still looking for me, then froze, unable to see or hear me. Kev shouted out, demanding to be told what was happening.

“Shut it, fool! I must listen!” Mikhail barked at him, and in the second he was distracted, I moved.

I dove forwards, hitting the ground to his right and rolled past him, straightening up and slashing the knife out across the back of his right leg before grabbing his arm and using it to pivot him around, even as he reached for the bloody gash and screamed.

I slashed across his stomach, then slipped back into the darkness again, standing stone still as he fell to the floor, one hand pressed to the severed hamstring and the other across his abdomen, holding his insides, well, inside.

“Stop,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Enough! You win.”

I stayed silent.

“I said you win, I leave you alone.” He tried again, this time starting to try and drag himself upright, clearly intending on heading for the door.

“What? No! You owe me, Mik! Kill that little fuck, or I’ll come for you myself!” Kev roared.

I stepped out of the darkness, slashing the blade across first one, then the other of Mikhail’s triceps from behind, making him scream as he fell forwards onto his face, blood spraying and arms useless.

“What the hell’s going on there!” Kev shouted in fury. “Fuck this shit, I’m coming out, and I’m gonna deal with you both myself!”

I picked up the phone, twisting it around and aiming it at Mikhail’s face, the light illuminating the fear and pain, and I heard Kev stop dead.

“Mik?” he said slowly. “Mik, are you—”

“No,” I said flatly, keeping the camera pointed away from me. “No, Kev, he’s not ‘okay.’ This is your only warning. Stay the fuck away from me. I know what you would have done, and what you told him to do. You try coming here? I’ll gut you like a fucking pig.”

With that, I squeezed the phone as hard as I could, feeling the screen crack. Then I dropped it and stomped down hard on it, shattering the glass and ending the call.

“I forget this happened,” Mik whispered, and I stared at him in growing anger.

He was offering to forget what had happened? He was basically saying he’d let me walk away now? Walk away, when he was going to kill me, my friend, and Marie? Just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Like I was just going to casually nod and shake hands, shrug it all off?

I crouched before him, the faint light that filtered in through the broken glass enough that he could see me as close as I was. I studied the ghost images, seeing five now: two where he attempted to attack, both judged as low probability; one where he tried to escape, a high probability of the attempt, but a very, very low chance of success; and two where I killed him.

One I stabbed out, driving the blade into his eye and then brain, quick, clean, and lethal.

The second . . . the second option was a lot more interesting.

I could see the tubes in my arm extending and driving into him.

I felt a strange yearning. A desire, a need, and I knew it wasn’t mine. I considered the options before me. I could leave him alive; he’d probably learned a valuable lesson and would never fuck with me again, but . . .

He did this kinda thing regularly, and fuck knew how many times he’d murdered others.

If I left him able to do that, were those deaths not my responsibility, moving forward? If I had the capability to deal with him, once and for all, did that not mean I had the responsibility as well?

The police clearly had a deal with him; I doubted they knew about deaths, but beatings and extortion, yeah, I could see that being ignored for a cut of the profits.

Most police were good people, in my experience, but there was always one at least who slipped through the net who was as much criminal as anything else, and clearly this asshole had found one of them.

I sniffed, looking into his eyes, seeing the fear and the hatred.

No, if I left him alive, I’d find him coming for me later, and if not me, if he’d learned his lesson there, he’d go looking for Dave, Marie, or who knew who.

“You know what you do with a rabid dog?” I asked him, and he frowned, his head tilting to one side slightly as he puzzled through what I’d said, before his eyes opened wide.

I lifted my right fist into the air, then pointed it at his face. The ports opened, and the nanofilaments flowed out, forming two thin spikes. Then I rammed them down, sinking them into his eyes as he quivered and shook, his scream muffled by my hand.

Nanite Harvest In Process

Estimated Harvest:

4% Compatible Nanites

15.86% Corrupted Nanites

Recommend Storage of Corrupted Nanites until purification can be completed.

I frowned, reading it over, then grunted, seeing the next prompt pop up as the tubes dug deeper, and the quivering and screaming stopped.

Congratulations, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603.

You have survived combat with another BWV Identified as #113241506931.

As your Combat System is now fully active, and paired with an active Nanite Recovery Tool and Biological Enhancement Package, you may choose from the following options:

1)     Harvest 0.1 Point of Strength

2)     Harvest 0.1 Point of Endurance

3)     Gain 1 Point of Specialization

I glared at the details, knowing somehow I needed to make the selection before I reached the end of the harvesting process, so I selected the specialization point.

Congratulations, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603, you have gained one Specialization Point. Please allocate this now.

Available Skills to upgrade:

WAR: (2)

HACK: (1)

HARVEST: (0)

I paused as new data flowed up into my mind, and I quickly examined it, knowing I couldn’t waste time here. I already had a point in HACK, and it’d damn well saved my life in the facility, then two more in WAR, one in Assault, and one in Infiltration, but HARVEST . . .

I selected it, figuring it was best to get as much as I could, and that I’d figure this shit out later when I was somewhere safe.

HARVEST POINT GAINED!

Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603, please assign your HARVEST Point now:

Stat Harvest

Nanite Harvest

System Replenishment

I pulled the options up, seeing it was literally as I guessed with regard to the stats. Essentially, there was a description of my body, and I could apparently improve certain aspects of myself.

Strength, Endurance, all the old-school roleplaying descriptions were there, and I quickly banished that for now, determined that I’d look it over again later, but I understood the basics.

I could somehow syphon off the stats of another, only a single point at the minute, but if I invested in that tree, I guessed I’d be able to gain others fairly quickly.

Nanites, well, that was obvious as well. I was apparently infested with them, and so was Mikhail, who’d been identified as another Biological Weapon Variant, or BWV. It seemed that there was a limited number of nanites inside us, and most of his were corrupted, but could be purified . . . somehow.

Lastly, there was System Replenishment, and the mental image and data that flowed up as I examined that, well, it made me gag.

It was essentially an advanced form of cannibalism!

The system would syphon off sections of his DNA and worse, breaking him down at a molecular level to repair me, and in the process, I’d gain a fraction of a point increase in all stats.

The only reason I didn’t wipe that option straight off the table, was the realization that what would be left over . . . well, it wouldn’t be recognizable as a body, not really.

If the room hadn’t been totaled by the fight, by the blood spray, and without Kev knowing where I was? I could have used that to heal myself fully and essentially dispose of the corpse.

Not an option now, though, not really.

I wanted the extra stats instinctively, but I needed to be realistic. Regardless of anything else, nanites gave me options, and I got the feeling that was the path to power . . . so fuck it.

I selected Nanite Harvest, and the system unlocked further, with a new popup appearing.

Nanite Harvest Option Selected

Future nanite harvesting will be 10% more efficient and gain an increased chance of usable data being recovered.

“Data? Fuck it.” I grunted, feeling a shudder run through me as something changed, mainly focused in my right forearm where I knew the recovery tool was hidden.

The tubes released, flowing up and out of the eyes of Mikhail, the former enforcer who’d clearly been happy to kill us all.

I let him sag back, his head banging against the stone floor, and I stood with a sigh, examining my feelings.

I’d killed before. I’d come under heavy fire in a few ambushes, and I’d been given therapy, the army enforcing it on me as a consequence of the act, but . . .

I’d not had the reaction that some of the squad had.

Yeah, I’d been a bit uncomfortable. When I let myself concentrate on it, really drilling down into the act, I’d understood their feelings, that it was wrong and that it was a terrible thing, and sad, et cetera.

But I’d not felt it.

I’d written that off to the fact I was trained for it, and I’d been attacked. Yeah, it was a shame and all, but they’d started it; they came at me, firing bullets. I didn’t go to them. I was on patrol, helping people, when they tried to kill me.

I’d only told one of those I served with, an older sergeant from another platoon who’d seen it in me, apparently. We’d gotten back to RAF Brize Norton, our plane touching down at the end of the tour. I’d trooped off with the others, waiting for a coach to take us onwards. I’d sat on a pile of my gear, watching the world around me, when he’d stepped up, kicking my boot, and jerked his head off to one side.

We’d moved off, and stood in the lee of a building where he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, totally disregarding the glare an RAF soldier gave him, considering he was leaning against a “no smoking” sign while he did it.

“Don’t talk, just listen, lad. I ain’t saying this twice,” he said after a long drag. “There’s a lot of soldiers who are nice guys. There’s a lot more who are here for the money, and because they’ve got nowhere else to be. Both those kinds will plod on and do whatever they do. Fuck them. There’s one last group.”

He paused and looked at me, changing tack.

“I’ve watched the body-cam footage. When you were under fire, you didn’t scream or hide; hell, you barely used the cover, you just fired again and again, sighting in carefully and making sure of the target before moving onto the next one. Most of these maggots hid or cried for help. You’ve a gift, lad. If you ever want to make the most of it, drop me a line.” He handed me a small piece of paper with a telephone number on it, and that was it.

He’d walked off then, leaving me to it. I’d stuffed the number in my pocket, returning to the others just in time to drag my gear onto the coach.

In the days that followed, as we returned to our base and I went on leave, then a week-long drinking session on the beaches of Cyprus, I kept the number in my wallet.

Towards the end of the holiday, sitting on a cheap chair on my apartment balcony in blistering heat, hungover to buggery and drinking again already, I’d looked down, seeing the girls playing in the pool below and the guys chasing them, hearing the shouts that came from people that were supposedly my peers and seeing barely more than playful kids.

I dialed the number and leaned on the warm stone, bottle in hand as I lifted the phone to my ear, and spoke two words when it was answered.

“I’m interested.”

That had set me off on a two-year adventure, one that was both terrifying and wonderful—and boring as fuck. I was part of a small advance recon unit that was sent to suspected future warzones to examine the area. I got into a fuckload of little fights, did a little backstabbing—the figurative kind, not the bloody one—and basically backed up a small team of the scariest motherfuckers I’d ever met.

By the end of my service, when I left, it wasn’t because I’d seen things I couldn’t handle; it was because I was bored.

I’d been promised fights and danger, and while I’d gotten both, I’d also felt like I’d never really been able to go all-out.

The only time I’d felt truly free and alive was when we were storming some shithole and the lead was flying, when I could feel the others around me, and the world seemed to boil down to just this room and just those people.

I’d been in some hairy spots; I’d been under fire, and I’d made an actual difference. I was sure of it at the time, then I saw new dickheads move in and do exactly what the old dickheads had been doing. But because these ones smiled at us instead of giving us grief, we left them to do their thing, and it rankled.

I’d survived two goddamn years in hot zones and three in the regular army, and I still hadn’t had enough.

Sure, it made me sound like a psychopath, but it also made me damn sure I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Instead, it felt like I was wasting my time. Then, as I got forced into more and more therapy by the army, some wanker on the other side of a desk straight out of university telling me that I should feel this or that, it only got worse.

I started to believe them, that I should feel this or that.

That meant that there was really something wrong with me, so I did the only thing I could do, and I buried my instincts and tried to be another good little worker bee.

The mounting pressure wasn’t released when I left the army and when I got home and did shitty job after shitty job, getting a house and a girlfriend and a fucking mortgage and a job with a goddamn tie and the rest . . .

Until the relationship broke down, and she fucked off, I’d been telling myself I was doing what I was supposed to.

I’d been telling myself I was happy.

But when I told the world to fuck off, took the job, and took the money and ran, that was the first time I felt like I was actually having fun again. Like living on the edge was what I needed.

Now, standing over the body of the man I’d just killed, blood spreading out from his wounds across my floor, I felt it again.

A familiar thrill that I knew I shouldn’t be feeling.

I’d finally killed again, and yeah, it was for the right reasons, but . . . I wanted more.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to examine that. I had killed a man, and I liked it, and—

“Steve?” Dave’s voice called out from the stairs, and I spun around, the combat system sliding up into primacy again, tracking him as his head appeared over the lip of the stairs, staring futilely into the darkness. “Are . . . are you okay, mate?”

“Aye,” I snapped after a few seconds, then I sighed and stepped closer to the doorway, letting the faint light from outside, from bars in the distance, and the moonlight that filtered through the clouds illuminate me as I did so. “I’m here, mate.”

I did my best to wipe the edge from my voice, getting a nod and a twitch of a smile from him.

“You okay?” he asked again.

“I’m okay, look—”

“Is he dead?”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Then get your fucking gear, and let’s go,” he said quickly, stepping back down the stairs to look around, making sure nobody was coming. “We need to be long gone before anyone finds him.”

“I . . .” I started to say, then I paused.

I’d been expecting them to have gone, to have left me. I mean, they never signed up for this. Hell, none of us had, but they also didn’t kill him. They could go to the police and tell their story, and with their injuries? They’d be believed.

I couldn’t do that.

The wounds I’d left on his body—hell, not even including the fact I’d just “harvested” him for tech that wasn’t supposed to exist yet—I’d cut him up badly first, well past the point of “self-defense” being a valid argument.

“Fuck’s sake man, come on! Grab the suitcases and—”

“Suitcases?” I muttered, then the memories came back, hitting home fast. I’d seen the suitcases, mine and his, standing in the corner of the room when I’d fought. I’d ignored them as unimportant, but now . . .

“Yeah, man, I packed them both up! If we’re not here, we can’t go to fucking jail! Come on!” he snapped, hurrying up the half flight of stairs and pushing into the room, freezing as he saw the barely identifiable body in the corner and smelled the blood in the air. “We . . . uh . . . what—” he started.

I shook myself, stepping around him and moving to the safe in the wardrobe. I punched in the code and took the little I had left in there before turning to catch a pair of jeans being thrown at me.

“Put those on, for fuck’s sake. I don’t need to see that, certainly not again!” Dave hunted around in my suitcase, pulling out my trainers and throwing them, then a T-shirt at me.

I caught them all, one after the other, then stepped up and shoved my things into the case, looking around the apartment, seeing it clearly despite the darkness, thanks to my improved eyes.

“Man, that’s freaky,” Dave muttered, and I looked at him quizzically.

“What?”

“Your fucking eyes, man. Look like a damn cat’s the way they catch the light. Fine, whatever, let’s get outta here.”

I finished pulling my jeans on, then stepped into the trainers.

They were my favorite pair, but I’d snapped a lace a few days back and had been wearing some cheaper Velcro ones while I looked for replacements.

Now it meant that they were looser than I’d like, but fuck it. I pulled the T-shirt on, then paused at the reek of cheap vodka entering the air.

I looked over to see Dave had upended the bottle over the body, then piled a load of the papers on, including those that had my tenancy agreement and more, and was covering Mikhail’s remains with them, and anything else that would burn.

“What about—” I hissed, before cutting myself off. The simple truth was that a fire here, well, it wasn’t a bad idea.

The apartment was at the top of three, and while the middle one wasn’t let out at the minute, the bottom one was, but to an arsehole who used it as a holiday let, anyway, so it was probably empty. We weren’t attached to the other buildings, and even if we were . . .

Well, they were all stone; they’d survive.

I grabbed another bottle of rotgut and ripped the top off, splashing half over the body, taking a long swig, then I ran it to the wardrobe, splashing it down enough I was sure it’d catch.

Then I followed Dave out onto the front balcony and we exchanged a long look, taking a swig each from the bottle he still held.

“It was a good apartment.”

“It was,” I agreed.

“Want to do the honors?” he asked, stuffing a rag we used for cleaning into the neck of the bottle and upending it, making sure the cloth was soaked as he pulled out his lighter and lit the end.

“Thanks, man,” I said, well aware I was probably leaving a fuck ton of evidence about the place, but if we could get rid of the majority of the fingerprints and DNA at least, well, the tenancy agreement led back to poor old Jamey.

I waited while Dave got down the first flight of stairs, then I hurled the bottle in, aiming for the wall directly above the body. The glass shattered, and flaming booze rained down, igniting the pools that were laid around the room already. It went up with a solid whoomph that I felt as much as heard.

I slammed the door, then headed down the stairs, knowing damn well the fire alarm was broken, as was the sprinkler system.

I made it to the ground a handful of steps behind Dave, finding Marie sitting wide-eyed in a hire car, one of the little rip-off jeeps that looked like you could pick it up and toss it if you needed to.

We chucked our bags in the back, then climbed in as she drove off, skidding at first, until Dave muttered that we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves, and she slowed down.

She drove woodenly up onto the highway, then along for a little while, until her phone started ringing. Pulling it out, she glanced at it, then sniffed and answered it. The windows were down, meaning it was difficult, but even with her voice low, I made out most what she said.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“ . . .”

“No, I’m okay.”

“ . . .”

“You . . . Mikhail was there.”

“ . . .”

“Yeah, he’s dead. Yeah, he’s here. In the car, I mean, and . . . look, we’ll be there in a few minutes, just . . . no, honestly I’m okay. Steve did it.”

“ . . .”

“Trust me, we need them.”

“ . . .”

“Bye.”

With that, she closed the phone, some weird flip model that looked more like it should be a mirror or something than a phone, and looked at me in the mirror.

“You need to explain yourself.”

“Yeah,” I started, wincing, and she shook her head.

“The truth, Steve. When we stop, I need the truth. You owe me that, at least.”

I owed her that. Those words rolled around and around as she took a slip road off the highway, pulling down towards the main strip and a few of the larger hotels at the back.

“We can’t go in there,” Dave interrupted her, gesturing to the left. “Pull over and drop us off by those trees.”

“What? Why?” she asked, confused.

“Cameras,” he said simply. “Even if they let us walk through with the cases, which they won’t, they’ve got cameras all over. They’d see us, and we need to clean up first.”

“I should have thought,” she muttered, taking a deep breath then going on brittlely, looking at me in the rear view mirror. “Well, what now, then?”

“The Greek bar back there,” I said after a few seconds. “It’s an old one, no cameras, I bet. We can go and get some food, and . . . well. Talk, I guess.”

“Fine. You two wait there. Leave your bags in the car,” she ordered after a few seconds, and I nodded, climbing out under the trees, missing whatever Dave whispered to her.

A few seconds later, he was out, and despite my climbing paranoia at what he might have said, I decided to trust him. The pair of us walked back the few hundred yards to the bar.

Chapter Nine

“So . . . I guess you’re not dead, then,” Dave said after a few minutes.

We’d entered the bar and sat at the back, a booth that was about as far from everyone else as it was possible to get, and a remarkably surly waitress had deposited our beers with a grunt before fucking off to make the cocktails that “the girls love, their favorites, trust me,” according to Dave.

“Nope, I’m still here,” I muttered, picking the beer up and swigging from it. My mind was rammed full of things, and I really needed a little time to just sort it all out, just a quiet few minutes where I wasn’t getting stared at by Marie, questioned by Dave, or . . .

“Here. Thirty euro,” the waitress snapped, slamming the drinks down and holding her hand out, all the while staring at the battered state of the pair of us with scarcely concealed contempt.

“That’s not what we ordered,” Dave said after a few seconds. The multicolored and layered cocktail looked great and all, but . . . “Pornstar martini, I said, and that’s a fucking Rainbow Paradise.”

“It’s all the same. Thirty-five euro,” she snapped, clicking her fingers.

I grunted. “Fuck it, pay her.”

“Me?” Dave asked, apparently shocked.

“Want me to pay, on my card?” I asked pointedly, and he flinched.

“No, noooo, good point,” he muttered, reaching into a pocket and pulling out his wallet like he was parting with teeth. He handed over forty, and she pocketed it, walking off back to her group of friends by the bar and sitting down. “What? No fucking change?” he called out, and I kicked him under the table.

“Shut it, we need to be quiet and hidden remember?”

“Yeah, because we’re fucking murderers!” he hissed at me, his face suddenly furious.

I froze, swallowed hard, and straightened up.

“Now, look . . .”

“No, you fucking look! I’m your mate, but you were willing to fucking leave me hanging there. He’d have fucked me up bad, and you know it. Then a nice pair o’ tits turns up, and suddenly you jump in to help? Fucking arsehole.” He sat back, glaring at me and swigged from the bottle.

“Okay, look,” I started again, only to be cut off when he shook his head.

“Nah, wait ‘til they arrive. I want to hear it all, not get fucking interrupted when you have to start again.”

“Fine,” I snapped back at him, sitting back and taking a swig of the beer.

It was a local one, and it was goddamn warm. Either we really weren’t welcome here, or it was some kinda private bar, because the locals were laughing their arses off while they drank cold imported beer and served us warm piss in a bottle.

I shrugged, settled back, and tried to organize my thoughts, rolling myself back all the way to waking up the inside “Facility #6B.”

I’d had to assume that my blood, containing as it did, nanites, was enough to trigger the emergency shutdown of the purification system. The medical AI, which was what I had to assume had interacted with me, had said it removed the protocols on said nanites, activating them.

That meant that there had been protocols that kept them inactive, surely, a reason that I had them, but they did fuck all. Now I was identified as a Biological Weapon Variant and a fuck load of numbers. A biological weapon didn’t necessarily mean a virus, although humanity was often none-too-jokingly referred to as a virus.

It could also be viewed as a literal weapon. Our species, I mean. I remembered watching a program, or maybe a movie, where the main bad guy was out to get humanity and hated us. He pointed out that we weren’t mammals, that mammals tried to live in balance automatically with their surroundings, but that only one other creature just fed and replicated the way we did.

A virus.

What if we weren’t mammals or a virus though, not entirely.

What if the reason nobody could find the “missing link” was because it didn’t exist? What if instead of a link between chimpanzees and more evolving to us, what if we were what happened when you got an evolved ape, and then experimented on it?

What if we were what the system called me? A biological weapon.

Fuck . . .

I thought about it, more and more details making sense slowly for me, the way we only seemed to make great tech advances during war, the way we loved it. Well, not war, per se, but the danger, the adversity, the growth.

We loved to experience it, admittedly in as safe an environment as possible. Hell, we loved our movies and stories about fighting and death, but what if the reason we did that was because we were literally weapons, and we were looking for an outlet, subconsciously?

If we’d been created as weapons, forcibly evolved, then that implied a third party, someone who did the deed. That, well . . . that was logical, and moving along the line of that thought, I found three things. First, to need to develop a biological weapon, you needed to be advanced, and at a point where we as a species were, at best, hitting each other with rocks.

Secondly, that meant they weren’t from here, as there were no signs of advanced prehistoric cultures that could do that kinda shit, so yeah, aliens.

Third and final, you didn’t create a biological weapon unless there was a need. And a powerful one at that. It was too risky; what if it turned on you, after all? Also, why start the process, then fuck off? Why leave us like this, half-finished?

I glanced at Dave, seeing the glare he was aiming at his bottle, all the while alternating between scratching his nuts and rubbing his swollen eye and lip. Definitely half-finished, I decided.

“You’ll end up with the clap,” Amanda said smoothly, sliding into the booth next to me and speaking to Dave, who jerked upright, pulling his hand away guiltily.

He grunted. “Don’t know what you mean.”

Amanda turned to me and smiled, her brilliant white teeth and blue-black skin an amazing contrast in the darkness of the bar.

“Come on, hero, scooch along,” she said, bumping her hip against mine.

I smiled unconsciously, straightening up and moving deeper into the booth, while Marie sat opposite me, next to Dave.

Amanda took one sip of the drink, then winced, sliding it to the side and looking at the barmaid, one eyebrow raised.

She was over in seconds, all smiles for Amanda, as she explained in a low voice that there must have been a mistake, and the drinks, ours included, would be replaced.

“What the hell?” Dave muttered as Amanda looked around, a smile on her lips.

“We come here some days for lunch with some friends, so they know us,” was all she said, but the way the waitress had looked . . .

“She was afraid of you,” I said slowly, my instincts kicking in as she shook her head.

“Mistaken identity, that’s all,” Amanda said firmly. “So, hero. Your turn to explain, I think. Marie told me what happened in the apartment.”

“Well, there’s not much to say, then, is there?” I countered, looking from Marie, who was strangely silent, to Amanda, who was all business, which set alarm bells ringing.

“Oh, I think there’s a lot to say,” Amanda said, smiling. “So, Dave told us about the money, and the people who’d be looking for you—”

“Fuck’s sake, Dave!” I snapped at him, throwing my hands up in disbelief. “Seriously, nobody knew about me, nobody! I do one goddamn good deed, and the world knows! What’s next? You got an advert running on faceache? Billboards? A fucking town crier walking about with a bell?”

“He told us when you went missing,” Marie said quietly.

“After trying to get us both into bed,” Amanda added in, rolling her eyes.

“Well . . . you know, I was just trying to pass the time.”

“You were trying to get laid.” Amanda snorted. “But despite that, he’s not all bad,” she added, looking at me. “When you didn’t come back, and after we’d made it clear that neither of us—one at a time, separately, or together—were fucking him, he got more concerned about you. We took our car, came to the beach and searched for you, found the bike, and that your bike wasn’t in the water anymore—”

“She dove in, swam out with a torch,” Dave added, then winked at me and mouthed “naked.”

“I wasn’t naked.” Amanda sighed, rolling her eyes. “I just wasn’t getting the rest of my clothes ruined by the water. I stripped down to my panties and swam out, had a look about. Thought I saw a cave, but when we went back the next day, I couldn’t find it.”

“Figures,” I muttered, taking the now-cold beer the waitress handed over and nodding my thanks.

“Go on?” Marie asked, and I paused.

I couldn’t tell the truth, not all of it. I mean, hell, I was pretty sure that what I’d found was an honest-to-god spaceship, and best-case scenario, they’d think I was delusional. Worst case was they believed me, then I suddenly had others wanting a slice of the action.

“I got attacked,” I said slowly; it wasn’t a lie, after all. “I don’t know what happened to the bike. I’d just got it free, but when I came to, it was gone, and I was trapped. It took a while, but once I got free, I made it back to the beach, got the keys and my wallet, then brought the bike back.”

“And then you waltz up the stairs and beat a guy to death with your bare hands?” she asked.

“I heard voices in the room, and knowing that Dave had already let that prick Kev know where I was, or might be, at least, I used the spare key for the apartment below. Then I went through and onto the balcony, then climbed up onto ours. Looked inside and saw Mikhail. He’s basically a scumbag in the area, known for a lot of violent crime, but somehow always overlooked by the police. Anyway, I saw him hit Dave and demand to know where I was—”

“Then I knocked on the door,” Marie whispered, her hand going unconsciously to her neck, and I nodded.

“Then Marie knocked on the door, and he grabbed her. I couldn’t leave either of you to him. Best case scenario was he beat the shit out of you.” I looked at Dave. “And, well, I don’t like the sound of ‘look like an accident’ for anybody,” I said to Marie.

She nodded, ducking her head and not wanting to meet my eyes, her hair falling forward to hide her face as she folded her arms across her chest.

“Then what?” Amanda asked, and I shrugged.

“Then we fought, he got me pinned, called his boss who said he wanted all three of us dead, and that it was just tough luck in the others, and, well, he had a terrible accident,” I finished with a quirk of the lips.

“Fatal?”

“Well, I bloody hope so, considering we set fire to him after,” Dave interrupted, glaring at me. “I still think you would have let me get a kicking if she hadn’t interrupted.”

“If I thought all it would have been was a few punches and a kick?” I asked, shrugging. “Yeah, I probably would have, to be honest.”

“I fucking knew it! You—”

“But when it was obvious that it wouldn’t be? Fuck’s sake, say it’d been anyone else, not Marie, but the kids from the bar or something? He might leave a single witness, if he thought you’d keep your mouth shut, but two? Especially when one of them isn’t a worker? She could have got on a flight in a few hours and been safe, but there’s no way that he’d let her go. The fucker would have killed her without a thought.”

“He’d have never been seen again if he’d done that,” Amanda said flatly.

I stopped, glancing at her and quirking an eyebrow.

“Explain that,” I said, having heard the adamantine assurance in her voice.

“Look, maybe . . . maybe we weren’t entirely straight with you,” Amanda said slowly, watching my eyes and taking a drink from her cocktail.

“Amanda, we should wait,” Marie said, but she stopped when Amanda lifted a single finger in warning. I caught the look, and the way she responded, and I sat back taking a drink as I waited.

“Let’s just say we’re not as alone as we seemed, okay?” Amanda offered.

“Boyfriend?” I asked.

She snorted, shaking her head.

“Girlfriend?” I tried again.

“No romantic connections,” Amanda said with a smile, clearly enjoying the game.

“Okay, so you’ve got a guardian angel or two, family?” I guessed, and Amanda lifted her right hand, giving it a little wiggle from side to side, hinting that it could be seen that way, but also not. “Okay . . . they know you, and they’re scared of you.” I pointed the neck of my beer bottle to the locals at the bar.

She shrugged while the others stayed silent, finishing her cocktail.

“You know about Mikhail, but you’ve sure as shit not been around the bars much before, not this season at least. So you’ve not just been working or partying elsewhere. She’s burned from the sun, and you were happy to throw her at me, as well as dropping hints you were up for some fun with us as a group. That says ‘holiday’ to me, but maybe it’s a working one?”

She nodded slowly before reaching over and taking my beer from my hand and taking a long drink, then lifting the almost-empty bottle into the air and waving it, without looking at the bar.

“You’ve been the one who’s focused since we met. Yeah, fun, but still, and it’s you they’re afraid of, not her,” I pointed out, flicking a finger to Marie. “That says to me that, if it’s a work do, you’re in charge.”

“My family is . . . old,” Amanda admitted. “We’re owed a few favors, that’s all. When Marie and Simon split, it seemed a good time, and we had a few possible jobs to do out here, anyway . . . and we are close friends, after all.”

“Sounds interesting,” I said, breaking off as three men and another woman entered the bar, moving straight across to our table. “Heads up.”

I grunted, straightening, not liking the way that Marie jumped to her feet, but Amanda stayed put, not even looking around. Dave looked from her, to me, to them, then downed the rest of his beer and slid the bottle out of sight under his armpit, gripping it by the neck.

“Steve—” Amanda started, smiling knowingly as she glanced over at the newcomers finally. “Meet Jonas. He’s the leader of our team out here. Jonas, meet Steve Barr.”

I froze as, for the first time in months, I heard my real second name.

“What, you think we don’t do background checks?” she asked with a low chuckle as Jonas and the others surrounded the booth, staring down at me.

One of them spoke quietly to Marie, making sure she was okay, but apart from that, all eyes were on me.

Sat as I was at the back of the booth, I couldn’t get out quickly, nor stand. It was shuffle my arse along the seat at best, so I offered my hand, and Jonas took it.

He was a big man, one of the biggest I’d seen, white-blond hair drawn back in short style, with a well-trimmed beard and a weather-beaten look that spoke of a lot of time outside. He moved with an easy grace, and when he shook my hand, there was none of the “manly dominance” thing going on.

He simply exuded a sense that, if he didn’t like me, he’d rip my arm off and beat me to death with it. He sat down, next to Dave, who shuffled in a little, glaring at him and clearly wishing he had Marie back instead.

“So,” Jonas said, an accent straight out of the American South clear in the drawl as he reached up and scratched his cheek idly. “This the new hire?” he asked Amanda, who shrugged.

“Thinking about it,” she admitted, and I glanced from her to him and back again.

“Clearly I’m missing something,” I said.

“Well, Steve, it’s like this,” Jonas offered, snagging a bottle the waitress set down before him and smiling his thanks at her before passing the others out himself. “I represent an... organization... that likes to keep track of exceptional individuals. We believe in making the world a better place, and frankly, we don’t really care about the rules a great deal. Not to say that we’re above them, just that we’re sort of . . . off to one side.”

“Right,” I said slowly, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Now normally, we’d be doing a lot more careful introductions, especially to someone like yourself. We don’t like to be told no, after all, and when we are, well, we take steps to ensure that you don’t tell others about us.”

“Bullet to the back of the head and a few feet of dirt?” I asked.

He laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “Aw, hell, no! Ha!” he snorted, shaking his head before going on, a wide smile still in place. “No, if we wanted you dead, you’d be dead already! If we want you to be silent, well, we prefer to ask nicely, buy up your mortgage, maybe that of your parents and a few others close to you . . .”

“And then you can up the interest rate, and we’re all homeless if we say anything?” I suggested.

He shrugged. “I’d rather say it was an investment, one that comes with a generous interest rate and repayment terms, provided you behave.”

“And if we don’t?” Dave asked, and Jonas glanced down at him, before snorting.

“Then yeah, maybe you’ll wish your friend had left you with Mikhail.”

“You know him?” I asked.

“I know of him, him and a few others,” Jonas admitted. “Do you understand what the current justice system is, Steve? At its heart, I mean?”

“Fear,” I stated flatly, and he smiled, pointing a finger at me and nodding.

“Smart man! You know, Amanda, I like him.”

“Fear?” Dave asked, shaking his head. “No, it’s about punishment.”

“Doesn’t work without fear,” Jonas said firmly. “Look, Dave, let’s say that you’re a thief—”

“Hey!”

“Hypothetically, of course.”

“Oh.”

“So you’re a thief, and you haven’t been caught with your hand in the cash register at work, nor have you been caught pocketing the difference when you ring up the cheaper drinks, or not sharing the tips, or . . .” With every detail, Dave’s face got redder and redder, until Jonas paused, smiling a wide, pearly-white smile. “Well, let’s just say it’s established that you steal. Now let’s say that the manager of the bar you work in gets an anonymous tip, letting him know the details, what to watch for, where your stash is, all that kinda thing.”

“I-I don’t—”

“Now, you see, Dave, that’s fear. You’re afraid, afraid that in this case, you’ll lose your job and your stash, despite the fact you’re involved, literally, in a murder. Still, you’re afraid. Now, we could stop there, and you’d probably behave yourself. For a while. But, let’s take it a step further, say you’re caught and arrested. They make an example out of you, and put you on trial.”

“For a few euros?!” Dave squeaked, making it very clear that it wasn’t hypothetical at all.

“Exactly, seems excessive doesn’t it? But you know, maybe the evidence points to you for that murder as well, maybe you’re looking at a trial where the only hard evidence is that you’re a thieving scumbag. The court takes that and decides, yeah, on the balance of probabilities, you’re guilty. You go to jail. People are afraid of losing what they view as theirs, Dave: their money, their freedom, their self-respect.”

“But it doesn’t work,” I said, and he nodded, pointing one finger at me.

“Exactly. The issue with using fear is that, if the balance is out, it fails. Let’s say all of that happens to you, Dave, but it comes down to this. You have a chance to be set free, the whole thing written off, provided you get the winning side of a coin toss.”

“A coin—”

“Just go with it,” Marie told him.

“Okay.”

“So a coin toss. That’s a fifty-fifty chance, right?” Jonas said, smiling. “So let’s say it’s not a fifty-fifty, let’s say it’s worse odds, for me, than that. What’s the prosecution rate at the minute?” he asked Marie.

She sighed. “For which crime, sir?”

“Pick one, make it one in the UK, so he can understand the system is a bit more formal than it can be here. Not that Crete can’t be formal, but, well, it’s a party island, so a lot goes undeclared and unreported,” Jonas said with a smile.

“Rape is at one point seven percent for a successful conviction,” Marie said woodenly.

“So I throw a hundred coins up in the air, and that’s what? The chance of all but two landing tails and staying there?” Jonas suggested. “Now, and to be clear, there’s no evidence of this in your background, so this isn’t an accusation. So let’s say you raped someone, you raped ten women even, with not even a two percent chance of you being convicted, and that’s if it’s even reported, what’s to stop you doing it again and again?” he asked. “If you’re a scumbag, I mean, not simply the fucking basic human decency that stops everyone else from even considering it.”

“Fear,” Dave said slowly. “You don’t want to risk going to jail.”

“Okay, now let’s say that jail isn’t the only option,” Jonas said with a grim smile.

“Go on,” I offered.

“Let’s say that if the courts can’t deal with things, because the lawyers get the fuckers off, then there’s another system in place, one that you can appeal to. One that deals with crimes using real fear.”

“Fear of . . . ?”

“Let’s say if you’re a rapist, and we catch you?” Jonas offered. “You lose the capacity.”

“First offence?” I asked.

His smile was dead serious and sure. “Won’t be a second.”

“What’s the chances of mistakes?”

“Always possible, but . . . let’s just say that we have access to a lot of systems, back doors opened and set up by . . . concerned individuals.”

“And Marie and Amanda?” I asked, glancing at them.

“Lucky coincidence, mainly. Marie and Simon split; she was coming out here on holiday, Amanda tagged along in his place, did a little recon while she was here, drew our attention to a few people, and made it clear they’d not be missed. We flew out to have a look around.”

“And what do they do, in your . . . organization?”

“I’m records and investigation,” Marie piped up. “It’d have been a different situation had Amanda been up there instead of me.”

“I do . . . well, I’m bait,” Amanda said with a sunny smile.

I snorted. “Fuck, okay. Yeah, I can believe that, but . . .”

“But?”

“But you panicked, when we were in the sea,” I said slowly.

Instantly, I felt Amanda stiffen, even as Jonas reached out and took her hand.

“We all have our fears, Amanda, and considering your past, that’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said firmly, glaring at me. “And a gentleman wouldn’t have said that.”

“I’m no gentleman,” I agreed. “But she did panic, and if she panics because of a riptide, when else is she going to panic?”

“Boy, you’ve no idea what she went through. For Amanda to even be in the sea? That’s a level of sheer bravery you’ll never be able to understand,” he snapped at me.

I looked at him, feeling I’d gone too far, but . . .

“No, it’s a fair point,” Amanda said simply, patting his hand before releasing it. “Steve, I’ve drowned before, okay? That’s an experience that leaves a mark, especially . . .”

“Especially when you see your friend doing it,” I finished. “Fuck, sorry, Amanda. That was a dickish thing to say.”

“It’s fine,” she said with a hard smile. “So we’re here in the Med, doing a little work and pleasure, you might say. Then we found that our information on a few people leading up to and including Mikhail was accurate. While I’m getting ready to go play bait—”

“I come knocking to see if you’d turned up yet, and he opens the door,” Marie finished. “I panicked. I’m not a field agent, not at all. For me, this was literally a holiday, one where Amanda was going to watch over me, and Jonas and the guys were about, if we needed them.”

“Okay, so you’ve done some digging on me,” I said with an internal grimace. “And you still want me?”

“On a trial basis,” Jonas conceded with a faint smile. “Let’s say that you’d be an ideal candidate normally. Even your genetics check out, but . . .”

“But?” I asked, wondering what the fuck my genetics had to do with anything.

“But we operate in the shadows, and you, well, your little stunt made you famous.”

“You’d rather I’d rode on by?”

“Hell no,” he said, shrugging. “We’ll remove the clip from most of the hosting sites, if you agree. It’s not perfect; even we can’t make every trace disappear, but we can do most of it, maybe get an edited version out there that looks a bit less like you.”

“And Dave?” I asked, well aware that the conversation had been very much about me so far.

“Well, he’s a cockroach, basically,” Jonas said, getting a glare from Dave. “But . . . he’s one with skills and clear loyalty to his friends. That goes a long way, in my books. With a little training, he could be useful. After all, as far as we can tell, he vanishes into the crowd and basically steals anything that ain’t nailed down. He’s a natural rogue. A little training and motivation, maybe we can make use of him.”

“And why would I bother?” Dave asked. “You’re clearly not interested in me, and—”

“A hundred grand a year, plus expenses,” Jonas said simply.

“—and I’d love to work for the betterment of fucking society,” Dave finished quickly. “I still get to party, drink, and have sex, right?”

“You do, but it’ll be who we ask. We tell you to seduce someone to get information, you do it,” Jonas replied.

“Dude, I’d fuck you after a few drinks, let alone for that money. I’m in.” Dave scoffed. “But seriously, I’m straight, okay? Well, most of the time. No whoring me out to guys.”

“We’ll see,” Jonas said unconvincingly, and I had to smile at the look on Dave’s face. On one side, yeah, I knew he was straight, or at least as far as I knew he was, but on the other? He was the most money-focused person I’d ever met.

All eyes turned back to me, a hush falling over our corner of the bar.

“Sounds interesting . . . I suppose,” I said.

Chapter Ten

“That’s a very lukewarm response there, Steve,” Jonas said calmly. “Care to explain?”

“You up to date with my evening so far?” I asked.

He nodded as Amanda reached up and tapped a cunningly colored earpiece to draw my attention to it.

I glanced from one to another of the team, seeing they all wore them, and grunted.

“So, you were listening to everything I said to Marie and Amanda, then. Okay, makes it easier, I guess, no need to repeat myself. So tonight we’re on the run, thanks to that dick Mikhail and Kev, and murderers, but you don’t see this an issue?”

“Not really. We can make some of it go away, and as for the rest, well . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Look at it this way. You’re interviewing for a job, as a prospective recruit. Your papers and such are being held by a dirty cop in the local precinct. We need access to some data that’s on the systems there, while we’re at it. We could hack our way in, but it’d be a lot easier to access the system from the inside, so . . .”

“We send you in, you steal back your stuff and delete whatever file they have on you, install one of our specialist bits of kit in a computer linked to their servers, and boom. Get out. If you can do all this, no bodies and no alarms, well, we’ll view it as proof of capability,” one of the others said, setting a small USB drive on the table between us.

“What is it?” I asked, picking it up.

“A back door. Don’t worry, nothing nefarious, simply a way for us to get into the system quickly, should we need to do any snooping.”

“You don’t think they’ll have firewalls and that kinda shit?” I asked.

“Oh, they do, and we can get past them, but again, this is an easy solution. You get to prove yourself, and I get to save a day or two bent over a keyboard.”

“That’s Dan. He’s our tech specialist; he and Marie take care of anything on that side of the things for us, while the rest of the team are more physical,” Jonas offered.

I grunted. “What’s the rules?”

“Don’t get caught, and if you do, don’t kill anyone,” Jonas said simply.

“And that’s it?”

“Pretty much. We’ll be evaluating you, so we’d like to see skills that are useful to your life with us, but . . .”

“Let’s go back to that,” I said firmly. “I met these two on the beach . . . what, five days ago? Now you’re hiring us to essentially kill people and be spies, ’cos that’s basically what you’re saying, right?”

“Yes and no. Steve, regardless of the speed of this, you have been checked, as has he. We’re a small team, and each of us are specialists in our relevant area, but we’re also a new team. The organization we represent have given us five years to provide results, to prove that this is a valid avenue to help clean up the world. We’ve been operating for nearly a year now, and it’s become clear that we needed at least one more front-line operative. Dave isn’t combat-capable, which is why his wage is lower—”

“Hey! I’m no pussy . . . wait, he’s getting more money?” Dave interrupted.

Jonas smiled, glancing from him to me. “You’re on a hundred grand until you prove yourself, Dave. Get some combat skills, and we’ll talk about more money. As for you, Steve, two hundred fifty grand a year, US dollars, as we spend a lot of time stateside.”

“Who provides the funding?” I asked.

“Those we ‘visit.’ You think taking a drug lord down doesn’t come with perks? Anything they have becomes ours, used for the mission, and a little as bonuses for exceptional performances.”

“Who’s the organization?”

“Not your concern. You earn a place with us, and in time, you’ll find out. Spend a year or two in the team, maybe they’ll pick you for a higher role. Hell, maybe you’ll pick yourself . . . or your genetics will.”

“Genetics?” I asked again.

He shook his head. “Not important. Let’s just say that those with certain genes are looked upon more favorably.”

“And before you get all offended about genetics and that side of things, bear in mind both mine and Marie’s families are included in this, so it’s not that kinda genetics,” Amanda said, smiling as I glanced from her, with her skin so dark that seemed to suck in the light, to Marie, who looked like she went full-on lobster after a day in the sun.

Hell, as I looked at Marie, I spotted the tell-tale redness to the chest and discomfort in the way she kept adjusting her bra strap that said she’d burned herself already.

“Okay. So, the police station. What do we know about it?” I asked, dismissing the genetics comments again.

“Plenty, but if you’re asking what we’re sharing with you? Nothing,” Jonas said. “This is your chance to prove yourself, to show that our interest is worthwhile.”

“How long do I have?” I asked, my mind already rolling down the road.

“We’re working the island for the next three days, then we move on. You can reach out to Amanda or Marie; they’ll be around the hotel and relaxing for some of that time. Or, you can come here, sit in this booth, and we’ll come to you.”

“Fine,” I said, palming the drive and shuffling to the side, bumping Amanda with my hip. She moved, climbing out of the booth as the others made room for me, waiting for an answer. “Be back soon.”

I set off walking to the door.

“Wait up,” Dave said, starting to get up, only to be stopped by Jonas.

“Ah-ah! You get a different trial, my son. See, your skills are better suited to—”

I nodded to him that it was all right, waving him back to his seat, and headed out of the door, seeing the others watching me as I went, but none of them moved to offer advice or help at all.

“Fuck it.” I grunted to myself, stepping out into the warm night air, and taking a deep lungful of it, enjoying the sudden peace.

I turned and hopped down from the raised curb and onto the road, wondering why the hell the Greeks always believed you needed the sidewalks to be at least twelve inches higher than the road, when in the UK it was five or six if that.

I shook the stupid thought free and headed on, mind whirring away. I’d agreed to this trial or initiation far easier than I should have for two reasons, really. First and foremost, I was a murderer. If I didn’t remove the link between me and that address, which by now had to have at least been visited by the fire department, then I was fucked.

The only place that my actual ID linked me to it? The cop who had come looking and had taken my actual ID out of the safe. Beyond that, it was all linked to Jamey, and if they did a little digging there? Well.

It’d lead them down the line of police corruption, which would muddy the waters enough that I could be away from here before they figured out that it was me who bought the ID.

I’d made sure there were no photos of me in the apartment, nothing that named me as Jamey, so with the room burned, hopefully enough that fingerprints and so on were buggered?

The only links to me on the island were that I flew in and would fly out soon. No reason to think I was any different from any of the other workers getting paid cash and kept off the system by most of the bar owners.

Also, secondly, I was bored to shit. I’d always hated the scum like Mikhail who strode around like they owned the island, did whatever they wanted, and, yeah, I liked the idea of bringing a little balance back to the world.

After my time in what I was pretty sure was an alien fucking spaceship now, I had a whole new set of skills and capabilities. I basically needed a chance to think my way through things, but if this little gang didn’t work out, which I doubted it would, then I was probably going to be operating in their sphere of influence, anyway.

After all, I could harvest nanites from those I killed and seemingly use them in some way. If I could make the world a better place while I did it? I mean, I didn’t hurt people without a reason, usually, but maybe this was my chance to fix things a little?

I’d been a bit of a shitbag since leaving the army, since losing that outlet for who I was. I’d done some morally questionable things, and cutting the rest of the small team out of our takings in the robbery was the least of them. Hell, I’d done much the same kind of work as Mik had, collecting on debts for people and giving the occasional kicking, but I’d had a line, one that I wouldn’t cross.

But the scum that preyed on people like Marie on holiday? The rapists, the murderers—hell, the assholes who beat up pensioners in their own homes and robbed them?

I’d kill them all day long.

I’d be making the world a better place, regardless of this little gang initiation they were offering. Maybe it’d enough that one day I could look myself in the eye in the mirror and be proud again, rather than just tolerating the man I saw. I strolled along the road, headed back towards town, while I thought about the situation I found myself in.

As of yet, I wasn’t being hunted. Hell, most of the island had no cameras, even now, but we’d wanted to stay out of sight for fear of being traced after Mikhail was found, that was all. No, there weren’t that many cameras around, beyond the hotels and places like the police stations and so on.

The bars mainly didn’t have any. They’d have one over the tills, to make sure that people weren’t doing what Dave apparently was, but yeah, trust that fucker to do it and still get away with it.

Beyond that, the bars had few cameras, mainly because they all still used Kamaki, despite them being banned. Kamaki were usually the beautiful people, the prettiest girls and the best-looking guys who would grab people walking past the bar and drag them in to “have a drink with me.” It was a scam. They got led up to the bar, deposited, then the guy/girl walked back out to grab another idiot, but it worked.

The Greek islands were dead against it these days, for some reason, despite it being a long-standing ploy that damn well worked, so the bar owners always had them just sit back and relax as if they were customers when the police drove past.

The police, in turn, knew that it happened, but they didn’t want to catch the workers and do damage to the bars’ takings, so it was all a kind of ball and cup game.

That was good for me, though, because it meant that, I was probably still off the radar. All I had to do was get my ID back from the police and make sure I wasn’t in the system anywhere else.

To do that though, well, I needed to do some snooping.

I set off jogging down the road, my snapped laces making it awkward for the first hundred meters until I managed to get the trick of running without losing it, and a handful of minutes later, I was out onto the main strip.

The bars were in full swing, the music blasting, and the drunken idiots were already staggering, so it didn’t take long to find a guy passed out in a hedge.

I kicked his feet once, telling him to get up, and when all I got was a vague mumbling, I quickly pulled one of his designer trainers loose and jogged on, unlacing it as he cried out and tried to get free.

I tossed the shoe, keeping the lace, and took a left, then a right, making it into one of the back alleys between the buildings, and I hopped up onto a low balcony to sit and relace my shoe.

Once that was done, and I was feeling a lot better about myself, I headed down the street, ignoring my rumbling stomach as I looked for the building I knew was here somewhere.

The main street of the town was a mess. It’d never really been intended as a party town; it’d just happened as more and more bars and more and more hotels opened. People would buy and sell the little shops and houses that had been there, resulting in a weird amalgamation of studio apartments, hotels, and bars of all different heights and levels rammed up alongside each other.

The building I was looking for was one of them, a hotel that had been shitty even by local standards, run by a couple who hated tourists while being financially dependent on them. The resulting atmosphere meant that anyone who stayed there not only never went back, but left reviews that made it clear why.

That meant the hotel had closed after only a few years, bought out by a chain, and was now being renovated into a much more up-market property.

While it was getting worked on, though, it was open to the air, and was the tallest building in this part of the town.

It was also conveniently directly across from the police station, and that was exactly what I needed right now. I paused at the back of the building site, the marks in the dust and grime making it clear someone had entered recently. I swore under my breath, reaching up and pulling myself up onto the lowest level of the scaffolding as quietly as I could.

It was cheap, the wood resting atop the metal posts rather than being properly clamped in place, and as I climbed, I listened carefully, figuring all I needed was some drug addict attacking me thinking I was a demon or something.

I could hear giggling and the various sounds of passion from the middle floor as I moved past it, and after a quick glance in the shell of a window, I moved on, grinning to myself as I muttered under my breath.

“Lucky boy!”

I made it up to the fifth and final floor, then pulled myself up and over onto the roof, grunting as I nearly fell through, part of it having been removed to make space for what looked like a new air conditioning system.

I stood and ran lightly across the exposed bars until I reached the front of the building, then hunkered down in a small, finished section, getting comfortable. I looked over the police station, having never seen it or the street from this angle before.

The bars were visibly more restrained here, the perimeter fence around the police station standing proud and aloof as tourists, mainly drunken Brits, staggered past. But the music still floated up happily, even if it was less wild than further down the street.

I settled myself down and stared at the building opposite, not knowing how the hell I was supposed to do this. I knew how to use the device in my arm now, both for hacking and for harvesting, but the device in the back of my brain?

I started with a little concentration, looking inwards as I thought about the system and all I knew it could do. It could hack, it could harvest, and it could upgrade its capabilities, but that couldn’t be all it did. First of all, because the damn nanites had to be useful for something. Even corrupted as they were.

A new prompt popped up, and I opened it, seeing a mass of squirming lines of code that was utterly meaningless to me at first.

I tried following the lines, finding that focusing on a single area froze it so that I could look. But it was useless, I had nothing to compare it to. Instantly, a second section popped up, and I knew that one.

I felt it.

It was my own nanite stream, thousands of tiny nanites that streamed back and forth throughout my body, repairing as they went. They were like the white blood cells in my body, attaching themselves to things they didn’t like and destroying them, examining data and more.

Using that concept, I looked at the other mass, and just saw . . . a mess.

I searched and searched, seeing so much but understanding none of it. I was about it give up when I noticed a pattern. It was twisting around, burrowing into another section of code, and rather than freezing it, I watched it, saw the way it moved, and then . . .

I grunted, shocked. “Fuck me.”

The nanites were showing themselves to me as code here, but without something to parse them, they were useless, until you examined the damn patterns!

They were genetics!

They were the double helix of DNA, hundreds, thousands of copies of patterns that flowed into and across each other, mixing, flowing through each other, but doing nothing else. These were thousands of corrupted nanites because they were copies of their original DNA!

I twisted the image around a few times, trying to make sense of it, before giving up. I suspected they were people’s DNA, probably that of Mikhail and his ancestors, a copy of each and every one that was passed down to the next generation. If that were true, the vast majority of anyone’s nanites, if they were programmed to limit their number as I suspected, would be . . . trash, essentially.

Say there were a thousand nanites in each person, and this had been happening since we started to use clubs and discovered fire? Hell, Generation Z and the Millennials and so on were what, fifteen years apart?

If that was what we were classing as a generation, then it’d been what, a hundred and thirty generations since the calendar changed?

So, since we discovered fire, it had to be at least a few thousand generations . . . so maybe that was why people couldn’t do anything with the nanites? Maybe they were all trashed?

The wipe that the medical AI had done on me had essentially reset them to factory settings, and while I didn’t know what I could do with them yet, if I could clean them up, they had to at least help me with my healing, right?

I resolved to figure that out later on, but I felt a little better about that hunger to get more nanites now, at least.

I sat there, staring at the police station blankly, seeing it but not, as I tried to think of how the hell I would access this system, and I remembered the screen that had shown me my body.

As soon as I thought about it, it popped up, clearly happy to help. Again, I checked it over, seeing the same as before, anchor points on bones for attachments, clusters of nanites bunched up, as if being stored for later, sections that showed as red, orange, yellow, and black, but mainly I focused on the green.

The system that sat between the bones on my right arm, meshed into the gap there, was the recovery tool. The tubes sat comfortably retracted and ready. With a thought, the tiny ports opened in the underside of my arm and between my knuckles’ iris, the tiny tubules flowed out.

Concentrating on it, I learned more than I had before, finding that the nanites that made the tubes up were literally flowing out of the rest of my body to form them, growing them in milliseconds before breaking them down again as they flowed back inside when I retracted it.

While their primary purpose was harvesting, they could be used for other things, like hacking, as I’d done before, making it a lot easier, as I was physically connected to the target.

The real remote hack though, that had to have come from the second kit, the one that sat at the base of my brain.

I reached up, fingers questing nervously, until I found the slight bump of the rectangular installation. Thinking on it brought up the same popup before my eyes.

Remote . . . . . . access . . .

Facilitates . . . access to . . . . . . Integration . . . Control

This time though, I wasn’t being chased by fuck knew what kind of robots in a sunken facility under the sea.

“Okay, so it’s a remote access system, and it facilitates what? Something, then access? Remote maybe? Remote access to . . .”

I mumbled on,  trying to figure out why the hell it didn’t do anything, until the map of my body appeared again in my mind’s eye.

The connections between the kit at the base of my brain and my actual brain?

They weren’t complete.

There were five lines of nanites running from there out and into my brain, but where they snaked around and sank in deeper, which kinda freaked me out, I could also see that they weren’t finished.

Sections glowed a bright red to a dark vermillion, with entire sub-sections outlined in black. That seemed ridiculous. “Outlined in black” seemed impossible. Hell, it’s black, it should vanish. And reds and vermillion shouldn’t stand out against brain matter, but it damn well did, and the more I looked, the clearer it became.

The reason I couldn’t use the system was because it wasn’t fucking connected! I focused on it, seeming to zoom down to microscopic levels. As I did so, a popup appeared.

System Upgrade Options:

Cranial Integration: 1/10: Integration of system with cranial tissue is incomplete. Current access to internal systems is limited. Access to external systems not available.

Physical Augmentation: 1/10: Baseline Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603 has been upgraded to Level 1. Further upgrades require nanite investment.

Mental Augmentation: 1/10: Baseline Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603 has been upgraded to Level 1. Further upgrades require nanite investment.

Technological Augmentation: 1/10: Baseline Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603 has been upgraded to Level 1. Further upgrades require nanite investment.

Nanites available to invest:

Active: 10,000

Inactive/Corrupted: 1,586

Nanites required for system maintenance: 8,000

Assign Nanites?

I blinked and nodded slowly, accessing the next page and staring wide-eyed at the words that hovered before me.

Identifier: Biological Weapon Variant # 113782491603

Species: Human

Nanites available: 10,000

Threat Level: PHI

Corrupted Nanites: 1,586

Stat

Current points

Description

Effect

Cost to Upgrade

Body

1.1

Physical strength and capacity to absorb damage

+1 resistance to damage

1100

Reactions

1

Mental and physical reactions

Time Dilation= 1*1.1*10=11 seconds

1000

IQ

1.0

Intelligence and the capability to utilize it in the real world

1000

Nimbleness

1.1

The capacity to utilize tools, weapons, and small devices

+1 to success with devices

1100

Dexterity

1.3

The ability to dodge and utilize larger items/devices

+3 chance to dodge

1300

Karmic Luck

1.3

The likelihood of an action to spawn an adverse/positive reaction

+3 chance to gain a favorable outcome in games of chance

1300

Perception

1.1

The ability to differentiate between details and spot threats at a distance

+1 likelihood to spot concealed items, details or traps—see Reactions

1100

Control

1

The ability to control external systems

5000

Cybernetics

2

Integration of cybernetic and biogenetic augmentations and how likely they are to work.

2000

Resonance

4

The capacity to use and integrate devices that require elemental resonances

4000

I glanced over the details, figuring that most of it was pretty obvious. My name for example, which I still couldn’t bloody change from “Biological Weapon Variant.” I could use some of the nanites I had to upgrade my capabilities as well. Clearly, using them would fuck me up a bit, though, in terms of healing and so on, but if I could make myself faster and stronger, maybe I wouldn’t need that as often?

Well, either way, I had fifteen hundred corrupted nanites, so if I could figure a way to cleanse and use them, I would.

I needed eight thousand for the system’s normal running costs, so I sure as shit wasn’t risking that, but two thousand of my points? Yeah, I could spend that, I figured.

I’d like to be stronger and fitter—who wouldn’t?—but body was still out, as it wouldn’t really help me here. Reactions were the same. Yes, when in a fight, that would be useful, as I was guessing that was what I’d done before, turning the tables on the sentinels by speeding up my awareness or slowing time or whatever, but right now?

I needed access to the police systems. That meant either IQ, Control, or Cybernetics. Control was out straight away, as the cost was five thousand nanites, leaving me with either one point in IQ or one in Cybernetics.

It was fairly obvious, really.

I chose Cybernetics, approving it when it asked me if I was sure, then lay back down, getting as comfortable as I could when it warned me that it’d begin in five seconds . . . four . . .

I lay there, staring up at the dark sky, seeing the occasional star peering through gaps in the cloud cover, wondering what this was going to be like, when I got my answer.

It was sodding boring.

Literally, a slight itch spread across my body; here and there it was more like an ache, like when I’d had flu, that bone-deep . . .

“Holyfuckingmotherofacheesecracker!” I hissed as it felt like my brain was stabbed with a red-hot needle!

I rolled about, thrashing uncontrollably as I wallowed in my own private hell, tears leaking from between my tightly clenched eyelids.

At some point, I must have rolled too far to my right, as I suddenly felt weightless then experienced the pain of an impact. I had fallen through the unfinished roof, crashing onto the stone floor a level below, barely noticing; the pain in my head was so bad.

It might have been seconds or hours that passed, but eventually, when the pain drained away, the night was still dark overhead as I stared up through the missing roof panels.

I slowly uncurled, breath hissing out as I relaxed, hands coming down from my head, honestly expecting that they’d be covered in blood, but . . . they were clean.

Well, they were dusty. I was covered in what looked and tasted like cement dust, but . . . but I was okay, and as I listened out, I realized I could still hear the revelry going on outside.

I couldn’t hear the couple below me anymore. That could be because they’d finished playing hide the sausage, or it could be because the sound of me falling through the roof had put them off their stroke.

Either way, though, I couldn’t hear anything from below, and when I slowly sat up, groaning as little pops and clicks sounded out, there still wasn’t any sound, so I dismissed them as unimportant.

I looked around the room I’d fallen into, clearly one of the apartments, roughly square-shaped with grey walls of poured concrete and a narrow doorway to either a small broom closet or a goddamn tiny bathroom, judging from the holes left for plumbing.

I passed through the rooms quickly, finding a window with scaffolding outside, and clambered up and out, moving slowly and carefully, after making sure I was on a side that didn’t face the police station.

Two minutes later, I was settling my ass back down where I’d been before, rubbing my side and staring down at the hole in the roof.

I glanced back across the road then brought up the notification I could see waiting for me.

System Upgraded

Cybernetics Integration has increased from 2>3

New capabilities unlocked!

Remote Access to Unshielded Systems

Remote HACK

+1 Perk Available

I couldn’t help but pull up the Perks, seeing a vast array of details scrolling past my mind’s eye, almost all of them totally useless or meaningless to me.

“Sort by available capacity?” I muttered hopefully, and the screen froze before shrinking massively.

Now there were fewer than a dozen, and all of them were clear.

Advanced Calibration: Integrate weapons with HUD

Firearms: Integrated sights and HUD, available after advanced calibration

Sharpshooter: Advanced optics integration

Jack: Nanite harvester jacking capability increase

Boost: Muscle density increase

Edged Weapons: Internal hardpoints for hidden blades: 1 available

Cycle: Absorb electrical charge from supply, then discharge into a set target

Cloak: Integrated cloak

Practice: Increased training speed

Power Storage: Internal power storage for augments

Mechanic: Intuitive knowledge of mechanical systems

I read and reread them, each of them coming with a little additional knowledge. For example, these perks were all both powerful and seriously basic.

They were the starter, or level one, versions; the Cloak, for example was essentially an invisibility capability, which was exactly what I needed . . . except that invisibility was level ten.

Level one just slightly blurred me, and it used a shitfull of energy to do it, so I’d need an internal power storage as well, preferably several levels of it. Getting one of those would open the door to much more interesting upgrades.

I could also sense that if I got, for example, Edged Weapons, then I’d essentially never be unarmed again, as I’d be able to construct a thin blade for my left arm, one that would retract when not needed, but when I did need it? Fuck yes, massively useful.

I had to get the data from the police station, though, regardless of anything else, or I was fucked, so . . .

I chose the Jack increase; it’d help with hacking, with nanite harvesting, and more, but it’d also speed up intrusions, making me a more effective hacker overall.

Once I had that chosen, and I could feel the itch of the harvester being upgraded in my right arm, I focused on the other options.

“Remote HACK,” I muttered, not knowing yet how to activate it, but as soon as my intention was clear, the scene before me was overlaid with a grid system, one that swept right to left, then up to down, and in the process.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, shocked. I could suddenly see electrical patterns, the broadcast points of Bluetooth signals, the cameras, and more.

Electrical impulses flowed up and down cabling, and the world . . . it was like a riot of colors and overlapping signals, one that took a few seconds to pare down.

I wiped out the stuff from around me first, the overlapping signals that flowed in from right and left. Then I excluded the street below and the barrage of neon flashing signs and more.

It took more time to cut out the overlapping signals that seemed to pour over the police station, until I picked out the antennas that stood on the roof in the middle.

The police station was three levels high, flat-roofed, with a solid five-foot-tall wall around it and a wire mesh fence atop that, extending the overall height to ten feet.

There were spaces inside for parking a dozen cars and two bikes, a large gate that was left open, and the upper floors of the police station were in darkness.

I grunted, locking in on the antenna properly, seeing that same three-dimensional cube appear, the doors and more spinning as I examined the police station’s encryption.

It was fairly complex, three levels deep, but the doors were large. Unlike the facility AI I’d battled against when I’d first got the system up and running, it didn’t counterattack, nor did it add extra walls in.

I mentally spun the sides for a few seconds, aligning them all up, and then the system collapsed, letting me in.

A thousand screens opened up before me, and a warning tingle buzzed from a monitor program hunting somewhere nearby, but there wasn’t anything I could recognize as an index or a search function.

Add to that, I didn’t speak Greek, let alone read it. A little effort yielded a translation function to my system, but it was slow, and had to examine each section individually.

I pulled up everything from electrical bills to private emails. I found out that Janos was fucking Maria, that he was married, and that she was threatening to tell his wife, and a thousand other things.

I found camera feeds, flicked through them, then mentally tagged them for easy access later, and moved on.

Minutes became hours, until finally I found what I was looking for: personnel records. I pulled them up one-by-one, flicking through them and comparing them to faceache and more, until I finally found the arsehole I’d been looking for.

Acestes Jani Baros, that was the bastard.

I quickly cross-referenced the system, bringing up other sections linked to it. Not only was he gone now, but according to the tracking cards they used for the interior doors, there were only four people inside now. Four police, anyway.

I located his desk, rewinding the cameras that were close by, and watched him drop my ID into a drawer, before putting my goddamn money into a small safe under the desk.

I couldn’t make out the code he used, but fuck it.

I knew where he sat in the building now, and where my ID was, and that his desktop was wired into the main system.

I considered possible ways in, discarding them until I decided that outright balls was the one I’d use.

The police station was only recently finished, I knew. It was supposed to be a temporary one, a stopgap while they chose a better site and raised the funds for a new station, but I knew the truth.

Nothing is more eternal than a government “temporary” solution.

All I needed was . . . I stood up and scouted around the building site, pulling back covers and more, then moving down to the next level and the next, grinning when I found marks of a bare arse on a dusty bench and footprints that looked to have had a good time.

Under the bench, at the back, was what I needed.

A high-vis vest and hard hat, and they were from the company that did the data links for the area: Itano! And beneath them lay the motherlode—a clipboard with papers bearing the company’s official logo.

I pulled them out, checked them, and found they were clean enough, if a little dusty, and popped both on, strolling down the steps and across the road from the building site, then right in the front door of the police station.

Chapter Eleven

I marched right up to the front desk, finding it empty, and pressed the bell, hearing a snarl from the back room as someone shoved their chair back and stormed out.

“Hi mate, sorry to interrupt!” I called to him, grinning. “I know it’s late. I’m from Itano, the company that’s working the site across the road, and we’ve got a data connection that’s showing up as linked to here. Boss told me to get down and check, make sure it’s not live. I was here putting your data connections in a few weeks back. Ummm, Adamos, isn’t it? You remember me?”

He glared at me.

I sighed, leaning on the desk and showing him the collection of papers I’d scrounged up from the site across the road, before going on.

“Look, Adamos, we’ve got two choices here. First off, I report there may be a data breach here, they cut the station off from the net, and all your computers are offline while they investigate. That’s a week, maybe two, and you’ll all be back to working out of the station outside of town again, or—”

“Or?” he snapped quickly, glaring at me.

“Or I log into the server, close the data link down, and report that it’s fixed. They’ll still have to investigate—you know what they’re like—but it’ll mean you don’t get cut off.”

“Is this your fault?” he snapped after a few seconds. “You didn’t do the job right the first time?”

“Hey! I was rushed to buggery, mate. You all wanted me out of the office! Janos and Maria kept telling me that I had to leave early. I warned them that I couldn’t test it properly!”

“Those two.” he snarled, closing his eyes. “I should have known!”

“Look, you should have an email there telling you I’m coming, right? From Itano?” I gestured to the back room. “Seriously, either I can go and look it over now, and hopefully fix it, ten-fifteen minutes tops. Or I can go home. Tell my boss you said no. I still get paid, and I get to work on the jobs on my list that actually are my responsibility.” I straightened up, jerking my thumb back over my shoulder towards the door.

I paused for a few seconds, doing my best to act bored and annoyed, relying on the fact that you never messed with someone who had more shit going on than you and who could fuck your day up more.

He looked back at the room he’d come from, clearly thinking about checking the emails, before a pair of drunken girls staggered in, nearly taking the door off its hinges as one fell over, the pair of them covered in tear-streaked makeup and screaming at each other while trying to accuse the other of assault.

Three more paced outside, shouting and pointing. I shook my head, feigning disgust to Adamos before taking a step back.

“Look, it’s fine. You’ve got this to deal with. Just message my boss back and tell him I came out. I’ll report the breach. Dammit, can you message him now? I’ll have to cut you off in a few minutes—”

“No!” he snapped, shaking his head, then pressing the buzzer that unlocked the door to the left. “Go fix it, but remember, cameras. They watch you!” he warned me.

“Don’t worry! I want to get out as quick as I can!” I promised him with a smile, ducking into the next room and grinning evilly as soon as I was out of sight.

The camera system hung in the edge of my vision, and I moved quickly, slipping around the two occupied desks, nodding to the pair who barely glanced at me, seeing that I was inside and not running, clutching papers and clearly on my way somewhere.

I headed straight across the room, out into the corridor, and turned left, pretending I knew where I was going.

As soon as I was out of sight, I pulled up the cameras and studied them for a few seconds, nodding to myself and following the glowing, thick lines of data cables I could sense even through the shielding.

It took a few minutes, but I found the server room, a keypad outside that opened to me in less than a second. Then I slipped in, pausing at the massive stacks of high-tech gear, reveling in the cold as the air conditioner worked overtime to keep the servers’ temperature down.

I slid around the first few, moving to the one at the back with the data-pad lock, and repeated my trick again, popping the lock and sliding the USB drive out of my pocket and plugging it in with all the other random-seeming crap that was there.

Then I waited a few seconds, half expecting something to happen, before grunting and closing it all back up.

I slipped out of the server room, finding a set of stairs, and paused on the second level as I heard raised voices. I broke into a run as an argument started below.

I didn’t know who was going for it—might be nothing to do with me—but fuck it. I made it up to the next floor, the lights triggering as I disturbed the motion sensors. The sudden illumination startled me, making me curse as I paused, reorienting myself to find that prick’s desk.

I moved as fast as I dared, knowing if I was too loud, they’d come up from below, but I couldn’t help myself.

I got to his desk, finding the damn drawer was locked. Snarling in frustration, I checked the cameras again.

The front desk was manned by two of them now, and there was another car parking up at the front . . . it was a fucking shift-change!

Shit!

I had no damn time!

I rammed my right fist down on the safe’s door, the nanofilaments flowing out and sinking into the keypad, inputting a new code that it quickly accepted, and I yanked it open, finding a few thousand euros inside, as well as a pair of IDs, a memory stick, and a few small memory cards. I pocketed the lot, pulling his key out last of all and using it to unlock the desk, grabbing my ID and all the papers inside.

I locked it back up, chucked the key back into the safe and relocked that, then rammed the papers, all bar my own ID, into the shredder a few desks over, wincing at the noise as it woke and buzzed to life.

The mess that was left over . . . well, I knew they could reconstitute it, but only if they thought of it.

I broke the mass of shredding up and swirled it around and around in the bin, then moved across the floor quickly, flattening myself against the wall at the top of the stairs as a sleepy cop stomped his way up them.

He made it to the top of the stairs just as I triggered the lights to the right, drawing his eyes in that direction, then I slipped behind him and stole down the stairs.

All the way expecting to be shouted at and told to stop.

Thirty seconds later, I was slowly closing the fire exit behind me, the alarm severed, and grinning to myself as I reached out, wiping the cameras’ recording for the last hour and looping the feed.

Then it was done, and I moved down the side of the building, pulled off the high-vis jacket and the hat, before walking through the main gate and into the slowly dispersing crowds of drunks as the bars closed.

Twenty minutes later, I was at the top of the road, taking a seat at an all-night junk-food eatery, and ordering enough to kill an elephant, as the post-mission nerves cut in, making my knees shake.

I’d been running on sheer adrenaline since the damn day before last, and finally, finally I was sitting and just waiting.

The pizza arrived first, followed quickly by the fries and a hotdog, then the burger and soft drinks, the tired-looking waitress frowning as she watched me powering through more and more food, looking like it’d been weeks since I’d last eaten.

The ham and pineapple pizza was good, twelve inches, just enough to take the edge off before I attacked the burger, the fries vanishing in seconds right afterwards.

The second round of soft drinks arrived, and the server, unspeaking, cleared away some of the empty plates as Jonas slid into the chair opposite me.

I narrowed my eyes at him, then moved my hotdog and the last few remnants of my food closer to me, then went back to attacking it as he started to speak.

“I’m impressed,” he admitted. “We set up a drone overhead, thinking we’d watch you scout the place out a few times before you asked for help. Instead, you watched it for a while, apparently had a seizure, waited another few minutes, then strolled in the front door, then out the back. You got the spike straight into the server, which I know Dan is ecstatic about. Much less likely to be found and a better connection. Good one.”

He paused, then stole a fry, dipping it in ketchup while watching me.

“I’m curious, though; the camera was looped, just for the hour that covered your visit. Dan could do that. Hell, he could do it easily enough it’s barely worth mentioning . . . but he’s a data-rat. It’s his bread and butter. Nothing in your past suggests you’ve had that kinda training.”

“I used to date a tech-type,” I muttered.

“Sarah-Ann,” He identified. “Thing is, she’s a game designer, makes 3D shapes and backgrounds for a living. Not that she’s not talented, but . . .”

“But you think she’s a good girl and wouldn’t stoop to such a thing?”

“No. No, she wouldn’t, and you were barely computer literate when you dated her. As near as we can tell, your login on your shared machines basically cruised for porn and trawled selling sites—”

“Fuck you, Jonas,” I snapped. “You wanted me to get you in, I did it, now you want to know the ins and outs of a fart? Just say it.”

“Fine, when’d you learn that?”

“Recently, I’ve been trying to get some new skills under my belt, made friends with a hacker to make sure anyone coming looking for me didn’t find me. Obviously, the video was too much and too fast for her to stop.”

“What’s her name?”

“None of your goddamn business.”

“There’s no trace of her around you—”

“Shows she’s good, doesn’t it?” I tried.

“She’d have to be very good to hide that well, but I’m satisfied you’re not a plant, put it that way.” He snorted. “You’re too dumb, for a goddamn start.”

“Yeah, well, love you too,” I grumbled.

“So you always eat enough for three men?” he asked, gesturing idly at the table.

“I get hungry sometimes,” I muttered, grabbing a fry before he could.

He smiled genuinely, for the first time.

“Well, that’s not a crime, shows you’re healthy in my eyes. Come on, Dave has his job still going on . . . data recovery. Wanna see how he does?”

“Fuck yes.” I grunted, clambering to my feet and wiping my mouth on a napkin, before pulling out a ten-euro note and leaving it on the table with the crap to clean up.

“What, were you raised in a barn? You aren’t gonna clean that up?” he asked me, clearly not approving as he nodded to the tray holders off to the side.

“The waitress is busy. If I leave the note on a clean table, it’ll be gone before she sees it. Looks weird and creepy if I flag her down to hand it over, as well as making me more memorable. Leave it on the table with trash? She’s more likely to get it and won’t be as pissed about the mess,” I explained as we wove our way through the tables and jogged down the three steps to the road. I followed him to a small jeep. We climbed in, and he drove us along the beach and out, following a dozen small roads until we hit the main road and headed further inland.

Half an hour later, he’d barely said two words to me when we reached the outskirts of Heraklion, the biggest city on the island.

“What kind of a mission is he on?” I asked for the third time, and he sighed.

“You don’t take a fucking hint, do you, kid?” he asked me.

I shrugged, glancing out of the window at the greys, whites, and browns of the land and the buildings around us before responding.

“I’m bored to shit, Jonas. You’ve said fuck all about this group or its aims, beyond that I’d be killing nutjobs for money. Now I’m clearly not bothered by that, considering the night I’ve had, and my background, but still.”

“If you’re going to kill for me, you want to know more?”

“Yeah, basically.” I shrugged. “Look, mate, I wasn’t looking for a job, and if not for the situation, well—”

“You needed something to keep you busy,” he interrupted. “Tell you what, Steve, how about you tell me how many murders the island’s had since you got here?”

“No idea, three? Four?” I asked, practically pulling the numbers out of my arse.

“Twenty-seven. Six reported as murders in four months, the rest as ‘unfortunate accidents,’ and the average annual murder rate for the whole of Greece is fewer than a hundred a year.”

“So there’s a nutter on the loose?” I asked, sitting up.

“Two, as close as we can tell,” Jonas answered simply. “There’s been at least eleven killed in the same area, mauled to death—”

“The dog-fighting ring?” I asked.

“Yeah, dog fights gone wrong?”

“It’s what people say. Basically, there’s two gangs over this way. One’s disposing of the other in dog-fighting ‘accidents.’”

“And these people were gang members?”

“Not as far as I know,” I admitted. “It’s just the rumor. I’ve . . . I’ve been keeping a low profile.”

“You were hiding,” he countered, flicking his sunglasses down and fixing me with a glare. “You were hiding from the world because you stole money and wanted to lick your wounds after your girlfriend dumped you for being an emotionally stunted, fucking useless waste of skin.”

“Hey, fuck you, dickhead!” I snapped, eyes flashing.

“Alright, then where’s the lie?” he asked.

I glared harder at him, seething.

“Fuck you,” I said after a minute. “Pull over, I’m outta here.”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s how it is?” I asked, cracking my knuckles, and he snorted at me.

“Steve, seriously, did the quote seem familiar to you?” he asked.

I frowned. “What?”

“The quote. ‘Emotionally stunted, fucking useless waste of skin.’”

“What about it?”

“You wrote it, three weeks ago, sent it to her. When she didn’t respond, you went off the rails, drinking more and fighting. Truth is, she didn’t respond because she didn’t get it, not because she doesn’t care.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“That’s part of my point about you not being tech-savvy, Steve. You sent it to her work email address. She’s in IT, and the company filters for profanity, so it never got to her. Your message got caught in the spam filter and deleted when it was raised with a manager.”

“Clarke,” I stated flatly, thinking of the miserable little bastard who was always pushing her to go on a date with him.

“The same,” he agreed. “Look, you’ve been off the rails for a while, and instead of doing what you arguably do best, you’ve been drinking, fucking, and hiding. You could have investigated these deaths. Hell, anyone could have, but nobody did.”

“Nobody? The police—”

“The police are looking the other way, cleaning up the bodies, and leaving it alone. As near as we can tell, it’s not bribery, either. More like a conditioned response. They don’t do this with anything else, but murders in a very specific area? They clam up and bury it. We only know about it because we look for these exact things.”

“And Dave’s what? Investigating a murder?” I asked in shock.

“Nope, he’s doing what he does best. He’s sitting in an all-night bar trying to seduce a pretty woman, one who, this time, actually has been chosen for more than her looks.” He glanced at me before looking back at the road ahead. “She’s been digging, looking into the murders, and she’s had some death threats. Dan’s spotted a pattern and traced it back to a local gang, one that is surprisingly friendly with the police.”

“And what’s Dave’s job?”

“Literally, keep her busy. Do whatever is necessary, but stay close to her. Dan’s putting taps in place, so we should get some notice before anything goes down. Paul, our other front-line man, is needed elsewhere, as is his partner, Courtney.”

“So what are we doing?” I asked, and he leaned down, pulling a drink out, shifting to steering with his knees as he unscrewed the lid.

“We’re going to go and watch over them, truth be told. Amanda is already there, but she’s getting hit on enough she can’t maintain her cover without responding, and it’s starting to piss her off. Believe me, regardless of your classy little mention about her condition in the sea, Amanda is not someone you want pissed at you.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” I grumbled, embarrassed all over again at that. “So if Dave manages to seduce her?”

“Then he’s a lucky boy. She’s not just smart, tenacious, and strong-willed, she’s damn pretty, too.”

“So he’s to seduce a pretty woman, and I get to break into a police station. Not really seeing the same level of difficulty, here.”

“That’s because you don’t see it. Dave gets to spend the night trying to chat her up, yeah, but he knows that if she tells him to get fucked, then he’s failed. You bluffed your way in the front door, go you. Well done. He’s bluffing his way into a pretty woman’s confidence, when she’s getting death threats and more. If he can do this, his moniker will be fucking Golden-Tongue.”

“So you don’t expect him to succeed?” I asked.

“Truthfully? No. We were putting Amanda in, expecting that he’d screw it up, then Amanda would make herself known. He goes to admit defeat, and she slaps him, calls him an animal, whatever. She’d have used that as her in to get talking to Anne. From there? She’d have managed to keep her close.”

“So, you set him up?”

“No, we gave him a genuine chance; we just expected him to fail, that’s all. Marie and I already tossed Mikhail’s apartment, and we recovered enough money that we’d have simply paid Dave off and left him to drink himself into a stupor while we vanished.”

“And if he succeeds?” I asked.

“Then he’s in. I’m a man of my word, Steve. Just like you got your foot in the door with that little trick back there.”

“Okay, so what are we doing now?” I asked.

“We’re going for a drink. We’ll go join Amanda in the bar, see what she’s got to tell us, and see how Dave’s doing. Then, if he messes up, well, we’re in place and ready. I have to admit, I expected to walk away without either of you, but—”

“Walk away?” I grunted. “If I got caught back there, you were going to leave me, weren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Yup? Fucking yup? Prick,” I snapped at him.

The bastard only grinned.

The rest of the drive passed in silence as I pulled up the gently flashing notification in the corner of my vision.

Quest Uncovered!

The local Support Class is being decimated by an unknown force. Investigate and free any captured Support Class Workers.

Reward:

+1 War Point

+1 Espionage Point

I read it carefully, then banished it, figuring I’d reread it properly later, too pissed to care right then.

We made it into the old city an hour later, and he grunted as his sat-nav updated, forcing him to take a dozen small back streets to get back to a turn-off he missed. We pulled up atop a raised carpark to find Amanda enjoying the early morning sun, looking out over the city as she sipped a soda.

“About time you made it,” she said as we walked up, pulling a pair of drinks out and passing them to us, then grinning as I made a face at the crappy taste. “It’s all they had that wasn’t booze,” she apologized.

“Should have got the booze, then,” I told her.

“This time in the morning? Sitting near a shrine? Not a good idea. Draws attention,” she explained, gesturing to the small shrine off to one side.

I looked her over, seeing the vibrant red dress, the cut-away sections that almost, but not quite, revealed more than a swimsuit would, and cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, ’cause you’re just blending in . . .”

“Tourist,” she said with a sunny smile. “The locals all think we’re whores, anyway. This way, they’re looking at my legs and ass. I go get changed, none of them would recognize me.”

“I don’t know,” I offered with a faint smile. “I’ll not forget you.”

“Charmer,” she shot back, but she still smiled as she made room on the bench for me.

“Seriously, I’ve never seen eyes like yours—” I started.

She snorted.

“What?”

“Sorry, Steve, it’s literally the first come-on I get most nights. Yeah, Nigerian skin tone and bright blue eyes are a rare combination, but damn, I expected better from you!”

“Give him a break. He’s had a hard night,” Jonas said, sitting on the other side of her and cracking his drink one-handed. “So, where are they?”

“Apartment block dead ahead, second floor, third from left side. Lights are on still,” She rattled off, nodding in the direction before turning to me. “So I hear you just walked in the front door, bold as brass?”

“People leave anyone in a high-vis alone . . . figure they’ve got a right to be wherever they are.” I grunted, leaning back and putting my left arm around the back of the bench seat and behind Amanda.

“Smooth,” she whispered, sitting back and relaxing against me.

“I try,” I muttered, staring at the apartment ahead, totally unsure as to what I was doing with Amanda.

I’d started with Marie, and she’d been clearly interested. Amanda had made it fairly obvious she was fine with the idea of joining in, or just hooking up with Dave, or me separately—basically a standard Greek holiday “romance,” no strings, no thought of beyond “shall we have some fun,” and that’s it.

Now there was a hell of a lot of extra complications, both because we’d be working together, and because I liked her, which was a step further than I usually went.

I glanced down at the gentle swell of her breasts concealed by the dress, and remembered how much more impressive she’d been in the bikini, wondering if she was deliberately dressing down here, or if that had been a push-up . . .

“There,” she said, sitting forward and cutting off my speculation.

“The van?” Jonas asked.

“It was outside the bar, three men in it, one in the bar, obvious lookout type.”

“They after her?”

“Looked like it. Few times, they got distracted by girls on their own, but gave me a wide berth, seemed to be after something in particular.”

“Drugs?”

“Not sure,” she admitted after a few seconds. “Seemed like the lookout was trying to get close to her drink a couple of times, but Dave boxed him off, and he either gave up or . . . ”

Four men left the van, moving in a tight group and heading for the stairs that led up.

“Fuck, it’s a hit! Come on!” Jonas started heading to the van, as did Amanda.

“Then let’s take them!” I snapped, pointing at the van.

Jonas shook his head. “It doesn’t look far at this angle, but that drop off is sharp, twenty feet at least. Land badly, and you’re breaking a leg, then your friend is lost. Trust me.”

The seats we were sitting on were on a section of the old curtain wall that surrounded the original city. They’d been mostly demolished, but the area between where we sat and where the apartment was, while only fifty meters across at most, it was twenty feet, or six meters below the level we were on. Then it was all gardening beds and abandoned rockery, followed by a wall that was the same height on the far side to scale to reach the road.

I gritted my teeth, but I followed them, climbing into the back of the jeep as Jonas spun it around, Amanda claiming my seat.

“What’ve we got?” she asked him, getting only a grunt. “Seriously?” She rolled her eyes. “What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?”

“We’ve got him as well. Hopefully we don’t need too much. But . . . ”

“But?” I asked, hanging onto the roll cage in the back as I was bounced from side to side, before giving up and standing up, holding to the bars as I looked around. “Seriously? You couldn’t get a goddamn jeep with seats?!”

“Blends in easier. You try getting a Ferrari everywhere we go!” Amanda called back as Jonas floored it, accelerating down the back and . . . in the wrong goddamn direction!

“What the fuck?” I snarled as Amanda shoved me back, getting my feet off a case that filled the bottom of the jeep.

“The wall is a mile long. We need to get round it, but . . . fuck’s sake, Steve, get out of the way!” she snapped, flipping the latches that held the box closed and yanking the lid back. She pulled two earpieces out of a box, passing one to me as she plugged hers in. Then, still trying to get it seated, she started uncovering and snapping the rotors into place on a UCAV drone.

I looked at it in shock, having had no clue that the battered, scruffy case I’d been standing on had held . . .

The damn thing looked more like it should be US military tech or more. It was a quadcopter in design, four separate rotors on each corner with a delta shape hanging beneath them, and three separate cameras hanging from that, and below them . . .

“Holy fuck. Is that a—”

“It’s a gun, yeah. It’s shit, though, so don’t get your hopes up, believe me,” Amanda said lifting the drone fully clear and flicking several switches underneath as she activated it. “Dan? You there? Good! Looks like Dave and Anna are getting hit by a small team. Grey van. . . . Yeah, we’re trying . . . no . . . yeah, why the hell you think I’m calling you? Fuck’s sake, man!”

“Dan, get the fucker in the air!” Jonas snapped.

I glared steel daggers at them both, hearing nothing on my side, until Amanda took pity and reached up to me, gesturing me to lean down.

She clicked the earpiece, activating it and changed the channel, making me jump when Dan’s voice suddenly filled my ears, clearly pissed off.

“. . . told you before! I need notice if you’re using it. Fuck’s sake, I need a goddamn signal at least, I’ve barely got 3G here!”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re useless?” Amanda snapped, only to have Marie’s voice come over in place of Dan’s.

“No, seriously, people, we’re in a damn sewer trying to feed the cable through. There’s barely enough signal for the call, and that’s only because we thought to set up a relay. You’ll have to control it from there.”

“Give it here!” I snapped, reaching down and tugging the controller free of the box, only to have Amanda tear it free and shove the drone at me instead.

“She’s a half a million dollars, and that’s to us. Believe me, you’re not flying her,” Amanda snapped, popping the antennas up and flicking switches.

I glanced down at the drone, then at Amanda and Jonas, making sure neither of them were watching, before I reached out with my nanites, checking the system.

Nanites available to invest:

Active: 8,172

Inactive/Corrupted: 1,414

Nanites required for system maintenance: 8,000

Assign nanites?

I selected yes, pouring the nanites into the drone. I knew a hundred and seventy two wasn’t many, but clearly my systems were purifying the corrupted ones slowly, and even a few might be the difference between Dave’s life and death.

“Hey!” Amanda called.

I blinked, focusing back on her.

“Throw it!”

I glanced down at the spinning blades, then the trees on either side of the road and timing it carefully as I threw it upwards, clearing the low branches as Amanda twisted the controls, taking the drone up and over the wall.

“Okay, it’s on its way,” she called to Jonas, staring at the screen before her and muttering as she guided it higher and higher over the wall, twisting around and scouring the streets. “Shit! Van’s gone. They’ve taken them,” she reported. “Wait. No, uh . . . there! Two streets north, heading n-south! They took the south exit, heading onto . . .”

She rattled off street names, while I frantically tried to keep up on the map, directing Jonas.

A handful of minutes later, we were on a highway, picking up speed. Amanda cursed again.

“What?” I asked.

“Another drone! Looks like a civilian model, trying to keep up with us.”

“Take it out,” Jonas ordered her. “If it gets clean pictures of the UCAV, it’ll cause a shit ton of issues.”

“How?” she snapped back. “I’ve used the damn gun on this thing once. Dan uses it all the time, and he can’t hit shit!”

“Just do it!”

“Fuck!”

I stood, staring upwards, seeing the UCAV flying ahead of us, a mile or so in the distance, and a smaller, fast-moving dot next to it.

I focused, squinting, and activated the remote access capability, almost driven to my knees by the mass of data that assaulted my senses from overlapping cellphones, radios, Bluetooth—hell, even the goddamn highway had tech embedded in it!

I had to select sections and just blank them out, trying to cut the overpowering mass down. It took seemingly forever as Amanda argued with Jonas, refusing to fire on the other drone unless she had a reasonable chance of hitting it, citing the risk of civilian casualties and how much worse that would be.

I frantically selected signals, swiping them aside and cutting them off. Then I saw a cell tower ahead, by the side of the road, and I selected it, pulling up the encryption and frantically spinning the locks, aligning them as quickly as I could, then pulling the plug on the actual cell tower.

The signals that were blocking me were suddenly halved in number. I grinned, focusing in tighter, finally seeing the drone’s carrier signal.

It was thin. Hell, it was barely intact, at the ultimate outer edge of its range, snapping photos frantically as its controller tried to get a clear one.

Then I was there, snagging the line and racing back down it, flashing back past us into a housing estate, a large gated community, a single house on a small hill, and an encryption that was actually slightly better than the one the police had on their servers.

It lasted two and a half seconds, then I was inside.

I didn’t have the time to search the system. Already, I could feel we were reaching my own maximum range . . . so I slammed a new encryption into place, the most complicated I could, a dozen walls, all one atop the other, the smallest possible door in each side, and then a dozen more. I added rotating locks, keys that changed depending on the access used, and a dozen other concepts I didn’t even understand, I simply felt.

As all of them slammed into place, I activated the web camera, seeing a slovenly man, hair and beard unkempt, a bedroom that looked to be chock-filled with expensive crap, but . . . it was all filthy, piles of clothes screwed up and left in the corners. A dusting of sugar across one cheek spoke of a doughnut hastily discarded mid-bite.

He was panicking, frantically hammering away on a keyboard I’d already deactivated, and I grinned to myself as I printed a short message across his screen.

“Better luck next time . . .”

Chapter Twelve

I blinked the vision aside, coming back to find my grip releasing on the roll cage of the jeep as I slumped backwards, about a half second from falling out as Amanda spoke up. My head felt like it was splitting open.

“It’s all right! Looks like they left their range. The drone just fell outta the sky.”

“Next time, shoot the fucker!” Jonas snapped.

I grunted my agreement, sitting down and clutching my head.

We bounced across a pothole, and I swayed to the side as he swerved between traffic.

I reached up, feeling a warm wetness on my lips, tasting copper and salt.

“What happened to you?” Jonas called back.

I grunted, lifting bloody fingers, staring hard at them.

“Your fucking terrible driving!” I barked, the first thing I could think of.

He flashed a wolfish grin. “Next time pay attention, then!”

“Fuck off,” I mumbled, waiting as the headache faded, blinking white and red lines away, slowly focusing in again as I deactivated the remote access.

It was like a switch had been flicked. The overwhelming pain of sensory input vanished, and for a long second, it felt like my head was a balloon, ten times too big and filled with silence. Then I blinked again, and the world flashed back into place, with only a fading memory of pain to warn me against doing that again.

“Where are they?” I croaked out, and Amanda angled the screen to me, letting me see.

“Half a mile ahead . . . shit, they’re taking the slip road off!” she called to Jonas, the fabric back of the jeep making for a far louder journey than I was used to.

“Which one?” Jonas called back, and I nodded unthinkingly as we passed a sign showing two upcoming.

“Second one, the veg market!”

“Think it’s a base?” I called, getting a grin from Jonas as he nodded.

“Hope so! No offense, kid, but all this recruiting’s left me with a need to kick some arse!”

“You and me both,” I muttered, standing and sticking my head out again, bracing myself and wiping a handful of blood free, then flipping it out into the streaming wind, grinning at the thought of the sportscar we’d just passed getting it all over their windscreen.

Jonas had us weaving in and out of traffic, horns blaring as we went, and in the distance I thought I could see the grey van reappearing as it took a turnoff.

“Turning right off the highway!” Amanda shouted, and I nodded, focusing in, loving the fact that my eyes seemed to have a built-in zoom function that went farther now.

It wasn’t as good as a real one, not a powered scope, but compared to the MK1 eyeball? Massive upgrade.

The van dipped back down out of sight on the far side as Jonas started asking what was there, and Amanda took the drone higher, scanning about.

“No clue. Some big mound and what looks like a church at the top, a load of abandoned buildings here and there, some businesses, most closed-up but . . .”

“But?” he called.

“But we’re not far from one of the old catacomb entrances—”

“Shit, that’s all we need!” Jonas snapped, tapping his earpiece. “I’m calling it, guys. Fuck your job, get out, and get here. If they get into the catacombs a half mile ahead of us, we’ll never see them again.”

“We’re two, maybe three miles out.” Marie’s voice came over the radio, quickly followed by the others chiming in.

“On my way.”

“Incoming. ETA fifteen.”

“Okay, people, they’ll follow the tracker on the jeep to us. We need to catch these fuckers before they get away with their targets, though, so hold the fuck on!”

With that pathetic amount of notice, Jonas twisted the steering wheel and cut to the right, ignoring the upcoming slip road . . . instead driving straight up and onto the scrub by the side of the road!

I clung on for dear life as Jonas started whooping and Amanda burst into cheers. I couldn’t help but stare at them in shock, and then . . . then I realized I was grinning as well.

Jonas took us across a section of scrubland, bouncing and jarring wildly, before rocketing out from someone’s garden. The mesh fence tore as we smashed through, then landed hard on the road the van had taken.

“Fuck yes!” I called out. A wild euphoria rose in me, battling with my concern for Dave. This . . . this was what I was missing, what I’d needed! I never felt so alive as I did when I was living by the seat of my fucking pants, and now?

Now I was alive!

The jeep bounced, tilted slightly, then crashed down on all four wheels again. It kicked up a gout of dust and loose stones as we tore off after the van.

Corners and narrow sections appeared and blurred past as Jonas showed why the hell he was the driver, handbraking around corners that I had no clue how he anticipated . . . until I glanced down and saw the way that Amanda was holding the screen.

She’d split it, half showing the view she was working off, following the van, the other half showing us from above. Without thinking, I lifted one hand free, waving, and seeing myself doing it on the video.

Until he took another corner, and I almost lost my grip, swinging wide on the back as I frantically grabbed at the bars again.

“You having fun up there?” Jonas shouted.

I grinned wider, heart hammering as I shouted back to him. “Hell, yes!”

“Glad to hear it!”

“Two hundred fifty meters, right-hand turn. They went under an outcropping,” Amanda interrupted, and Jonas nodded.

“They stopped?”

“Didn’t come out the other side,” she admitted, and I squinted into the distance, trying to make anything out.

This part of Crete was all rolling hills, even on the outskirts of the city, dotted here and there with twisted trees, stunted by the shallow dirt and the thick stone that made up most of the island, meaning that, beyond dirt, the occasional building, and trees, there was sod all I could see.

“Hold tight!” Jonas called out as he swung left, then twisted right, lining us up on the narrow entrance as it came up, wheels skidding.

We slid through the gates, the chain that had been draped across them to hold them in place tearing apart as the gate was smashed free with a crash, and Jonas stood hard on the brakes.

I clung to the roll cage, the world spinning as the G-forces kicked in, making me feel like I was on a waltzer as the jeep spun around and around. A blurred snapshot of the van sat abandoned below an outcropping of stone, held up by a half-dozen pillars, and a single door at the back, firmly closed.

The car screeched to a halt, and I almost fell from it, staggering as I righted myself, then leaped free, landing and racing to the van, doublechecking and making sure.

Beyond a smear of blood and the reek of recently departed unwashed bodies, it was empty. I called as much to the others, as I heard Amanda passing control of the drone to Dan. She pulled a bag free of the underside of the seat, slipping the controller inside.

“Weapons?” she called to Jonas, who’d already moved, grabbing the bonnet and popping it free, then tearing something free and tossing it aside as he pulled out an honest-to-god short sword.

“Fuck yes!” I snarled, heading towards him, only to have him pull a long-bladed hunting knife loose and throw that to me. “You’re shitting me, right?” I asked, looking from the admittedly big knife to the goddamn sword.

“You ever use one of these?” he asked, rolling his wrist and sending the tip flashing through a sideways figure eight.

“Well, no—”

“Then be thankful you got a knife.”

“Yeah, seriously, when we started, he barely let me have one of those,” Amanda pointed out, pulling two long kukris out, complete with sheaths.

“Holy shit!” I muttered, seeing them and the way she grinned at me as she settled them onto each hip.

“Don’t even bother asking,” she told me, holding one hand up. “Seriously, I have permission to wear these, and I’ve been trained. You? No chance.”

“Well, fuck you very much.” I grunted, hefting the knife and weaving it onto my belt as Jonas tried the door.

“Locked. Amanda?”

“On it,” she said, dropping to a knee and pulling a small kit out of a pocket.

I did a double-take, having totally missed her pulling goddamn combat pants and a top on, and for a long second, I bitterly resented that lapse of attention on the ride.

“It’s done,” she said after practically no time, the lock releasing as Jonas tugged the handle down. She stood back. “Door’s open; we’re heading in,” she reported through the radio, a flurry of “Good luck” and more coming back.

We followed Jonas inside, Amanda passing a thin torch to each of us as we started to hurry.

“Keep the noise down,” Jonas said tersely, all joking gone from his voice as he took the lead, the light playing across the dirty stone floor as we jogged.

The air was close, as were the damn walls. Hell, the ceiling was as well. We quickly fell into single file, rushing along as we went, the construction material changing from poured concrete to rough-hewn stone.

The deeper we went, the cooler it became. Finally, after a handful of minutes, we made it to a branch in the road, with dozens of prints going in all directions.

“Shit,” Jonas muttered, crouching down and checking the marks. “Too many, and recent.”

“Too many?” I asked, my voice low as well.

“To tell which way they went,” he clarified. “Don’t worry, I’m not giving up on them, but—”

“But?!” I asked, my voice louder than I intended.

“But . . . he’s a recruit, as are you. I’ll do my best to save him, but I’ll not lose my team if there’s too many to face.”

“Too many? It’s a couple of nutters!” I snapped. “You want to back out? Fuck you all! I’ll do this myself.” I started to push forwards, and he shoved me back against the wall. It took him two pushes to manage it, and his expression registered surprise when the first shove didn’t do the job.

“It might be more. Don’t be an ass, or you can wait outside!”

“Try and get rid of me,” I challenged.

“You trying to fail this?” he asked.

“Fail? Fuck your job offer; he’s my mate,” I retorted, shoving him aside and studying the prints going here and there on the floor. “Two ways to go, and no way to tell which is right. You go that way, I’ll go this.” Without waiting for his reply, I set off at a run.

“Dammit, Steve!” Jonas swore, turning to Amanda. “Go with him,” he ordered her as I flicked off my torch and started to run in earnest.

Without the torch flaring out my vision, I could see better, my augmented vision washing the tight corridor in greens and greys that blurred as I rushed forwards. The annoyed hiss from Amanda fell on deaf ears as I quickly outdistanced her, uncaring of hiding my abilities now.

The corridor—passage, really, I supposed—was now entirely rough-hewn and sloping steeply downwards, levelling off, then down again and again. The floor was dirt, marred with the passage of dozens of footprints, and . . . what looked like dogs or something, clear claw marks here and there.

The walls had been rubbed smooth in places, centuries of passage having worn them down, and still I raced on.

Minutes passed, until at last, the passage split again, left and right. I swore, taking the left, hoping that the right would match up with the others eventually.

I was starting to have real worries, thinking that they couldn’t have gotten that far ahead, surely? I must have passed them.

I was about to turn back when I heard a sound up ahead, then another, a low growl that sounded like a dog being challenged and roars of approval.

“Fuck, that’s all I need.” I growled, slowing, thinking I’d found the dog fighters. A scream rang out, and I picked up speed again, pain and horror echoing back as I skidded around and corner then bounced off a wall and took off again, a flickering light up ahead being reflected into the passage.

I slowed, taking this last corner more carefully, but not goddamn carefully enough.

The passage opened out into a circular room, a well of sorts, twenty meters across and easily thirty high, with the entrance I’d just used coming in at the top.

It also immediately cut left as soon as it opened into the room, and I had a split second to make a decision.

There were two men standing before me, yelling something down at a pit far below.

I had the choice of running out into the empty air, or . . .

I shoved off them both, hands hard in the small of their backs, bouncing myself back as they were both catapulted forwards, out over the open air.

Their guttural roars of encouragement and approval were cut off as they both screamed, falling fast. My back hit the wall, and I bounced forwards again, my momentum too much to be easily overcome and my adrenaline roaring in my veins.

In one go, I took the whole room in. Torches were stuck into the walls here and there, giving it a smoky, flickering light. The path I was on ringed the circular room, descending as it went, with two more platforms or balconies where men stood staring down at the pair that had just passed them, and the pit lay at the bottom.

It was ringed by a dozen others, all men again. Some were dressed, some . . . well, they were wearing tattered rags, remains of normal clothes, or were totally naked.

Those who weren’t dressed were generally filthy with long, matted hair and beards, dirt and dried blood covering them. They appeared more animal than human.

They ringed an open-topped cage of old, rusty metal bars, with bloody straw and sand covering the bottom . . . as well as two figures, standing back-to-back, facing off against three more.

The two in the middle were naked as well. One, a woman, judging by the long blonde hair, had an arm across her stomach and blood pouring free, as a massive, bald man stood behind her, facing . . .

I was still moving, feet flashing across the ground, adrenaline keeping me going too fast to stop, or I would have, because it wasn’t dogs that circled them.

They walked upright, or two of them did. The third was hunched down on two legs and an arm, braced clearly . . . but now they all stared upwards at their friends who fell.

They were shaggy, long-haired figures, scrawny for the most part. But while their bodies might have passed for human at first glance, the backward-facing knees, the long feet and hands, and the fucking claws, not to mention the goddamn muzzles and pointed ears told a different story.

I would have stopped; hell, I might be brave, but I wasn’t suicidal, nor, despite Amanda and Marie’s joking, was I a hero. I’d have fucking regretted it, but if I’d not made my presence known yet, I would’ve run back the way I came, tail firmly between my legs.

I was already approaching the next balcony area, though, and as the two figures glanced up, my balls twitched and tried to burrow upwards.

They were men, but in the seconds as I closed the distance, the closest started to change, hunching forwards, shoulders swelling, bones popping and cracking, face deforming outwards as a muzzle started to elongate, teeth moving and lengthening . . .

“Werewolf!” I hissed, the word slipping from my lips without conscious effort. With a shudder, I brought up my right hand, the glint of the firelight reflecting off my blade as I buried it into his chest, taking him over the edge and out into the open air.

He whined as the blade dug into his chest. The razor-sharp edge combined with the speed and force, meant it punched through the ribcage with ease, cleaving his fluttering heart in two.

We fell, me stunned, mind still racing as his change stopped. The body quivered as his hands clutched at me . . . then went limp, just as we slammed into the pit below. Below us, the sounds of his breaking bones rang out and filled the air.

I rolled free of him, wheezing, left arm okay, but my right—the forearm was solid, far more solid than I’d ever been born with. My wrist, though, and hand?

Not anywhere near as strong.

A furry hand wrapped around my throat and dragged me upright, holding me a foot or more from the ground, my feet kicking erratically as the grip tightened, and gleaming black eyes regarded me.

“Whaaat . . .” It started to growl, the words mangled by the jaw, lips, and long tongue, before another called out from the side.

“Miiine!”

I flicked my gaze to the left, even as I reached up, left hand slapping ineffectually at the hand gripping my throat as I tried to use my right.

Harvesting Tool Damaged

Recommend immediate priority repair.

Cost: 1,000 Nanites

Approve?

I spammed the approve, fast and hard, as I saw one of the figures I’d rammed free from the top of the well. He was shaking as he straightened up, rolling his shoulders. Fresh blood covered him as bones shifted, popping into place and healing.

He was changing, fast. As I looked around, trying to pull down a breath, I saw that they all were, the dozen or more men on all sides of the fighting pit. All of them were changing, and they were snarling and snapping at each other, demanding the right to me.

I screamed.

The nanites from elsewhere in my body streamed in an obvious panic mode, making it feel like my veins were filled with boiling lead. They flowed to the damaged area, bypassing minor things like the ribs that were bruised to buggery and the dozens of cuts, bruises, and popped tendons, and worse.

The werewolf dropped me, contempt clear as it spun and roared at another that came too close, beating its chest with one clawed hand before swiping at the interloper.

I felt the ground bang into my feet, which, not expecting it, promptly collapsed, depositing me on my arse. I rolled back from the two closest creatures, twisting around, coming face-to-face with the one I’d killed, its face frozen halfway through the change. I turned in the other direction while the other two who’d been inside the cage already were closing on me, growls rising from deep in their chests.

The two humans in the middle were forgotten, as the final one that I’d knocked off from the top pulled himself free of the edge of the bars, falling into a sodden, bleeding mess on the floor. Bones cracked, and he whimpered, twisting around.

I hissed in pain, flexing my right arm as the bones in my hand popped back into place like they were being welded back together.

“Help!” the man hissed. I glared at him, trying to get to my feet, only to be viciously kicked in the side and sent flying. I slammed into the iron bars of the cage with a grunt of pain, spitting blood as I bit my lip, and fell to the floor . . . then rolled backwards as a clawed hand reached through the bars, grabbing at me.

I rolled aside, the claws leaving tracks in the sandy crap that covered the bottom of the pit, and I kicked out instinctively. Stamping my right foot into the inside of the arm, ramming it against the bars I snapped it back, making the creature howl in pained fury.

I scrambled back. The man grabbed my shoulder and half pulled me upright, even as I barely stopped myself from swinging for him, realizing it was the naked man at the last second.

“Help us!” he hissed at me.

“What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do?” I snapped at him in disbelief.

“You’re here for us?” he asked.

I shook him loose, ignoring the question as I scanned my surroundings.

The first creature to grab me was tearing into another werewolf who was screaming, head thrown back, blood spraying from the slashing claws. It had lunged forwards and sank its teeth into the other’s throat, biting down hard and tearing a great gobbet of flesh from its enemy

The unfortunate creature staggered back from where it’d been gouging great lines in its opponent’s ridged stomach muscles, hands going to its throat as it tried to staunch the spurting blood. With a gurgle and splutter, blood poured into its lungs and it died.

“Miiiine!” the winner proclaimed, pointing one clawed finger at me, and I shoved myself free of the man and woman, stepping forward and looking at him.

He stood nearly eight feet tall. Taller, really, if his head had been straight up, rather than hunched forwards the way he was, but . . . I glanced to the obviously dead one on the floor, then to the one whose arm I’d just broken, seeing him flex it and snap it back into place with a pained hiss.

The hilt of my dagger still protruded from his chest, but unlike the rest, that fucker showed no sign of recovering . . . and as I watched, even the werewolf whose throat had been torn out, while it lay still, was healing.

“The heart,” I whispered, looking at the fucker that was squaring off against me. “The heart needs to be fucked up, is that it? Let’s find out.”

My fear was there still; I was no goddamn hero, after all. None of this shit about being fearless—oh no, I was fucking scared, all right. But I had two chances of walking out of here alive.

First, make this puppy my bitch. Break him and make it blatant and nasty enough that the others held back, that might give Amanda and Jonas time to get their arses in here.

Secondly, if they didn’t make it in? Well, I could die, or . . . I just needed to kill them all.

On the upside, I’d clearly found out what was fucking up the locals.

Ding!

Quest Complete!

You have identified the threat posed to the local Support Class population: Quest Updated!

Terminate all Lycanthropes with extreme prejudice to receive the following additional rewards:

+1 War Point

+1 Weapon Skill

+???? Nanites

I had a War and an Espionage Point available. No time to fuck with the second tree, but I quickly pulled up the War one, the risk worth it.

I ignored both the Infiltration and Command and Control options, diving straight to Assault and found that, after the first level was unlocked, granting me access to the Tactical Enhancement Systems Upgrade, I had three secondary paths available, and they were simple to understand.

Armed, Unarmed, and Ranged were the individual monikers, and I instantly dismissed Ranged. I was about to dismiss Armed as well, until . . .

Nanite Recovery Tool is Online.

I felt my lips curling back in a feral snarl as I realized I had a weapon after all, and I designated that, while opening Armed.

Nanite Recovery Tool Upgrade to Integral Harvest Blade requires 3,785 additional Nanites . . . Queue upgrade?

Approve?

“Approve,” I said around a smirk, lifting my left hand and making a come on gesture, getting a snarl in response. “Come on . . . here, boy!” I commanded, pointing at the floor before me.

The werewolf threw its head back and roared, the sound echoing around the circular room and rocketing away down the passages. Then the head came down, and he lunged forwards, arms outstretched. I twisted at the hip, practically having to limbo around to dodge the claws, but I managed to get a single punch in, my left fist landing on the corded muscles on its stomach without any apparent effect.

I moved away as it spun and roared at me, slapping both hands at its chest in challenge.

I’d took another step back, focusing as I did on the recovery tool, feeling the ports opening and the slightly wet feeling that was all I could identify the feeling of the nanites on my skin as.

I shifted my weight and moved forward, right hand held by my side, and lifted my left, as if I was about to punch him, the werewolf standing taller and slapping his chest in clear invitation.

“Rude not to,” I whispered, my lip curling back, and I slammed my right fist into his chest as hard as I could, extruding the nanofilaments. Sending the nanites burrowing into him, they punctured the mighty heart, stopping it dead.

The massive werewolf coughed once, freezing in place as my nanites flowed, then I got a wonderful popup.

Nanite Harvest In Process

Estimated Harvest:

12% Compatible Nanites

47.29% Corrupted Nanites

Recommend Storage of Corrupted Nanites until purification can be completed.

I grinned and ordered the removal of all the nanites, the knowledge that the corrupted ones would be segmented aside clear in my mind.

Congratulations, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

You have survived combat with another BWV identified as Corrupted/Awakened #107403196142

As your Combat System is now fully active and paired with an active Nanite Recovery Tool and Biological Enhancement Package, you may choose from the following options:

1)     Harvest 0.1 Point to Body

2)     Harvest 0.1 Point to Reactions

3)     Gain 1 point of Specialization

I selected Reactions, hissing as I felt the white-hot needles itching through my body, before opening my eyes again as the figure before me seemed to shrivel.

Howls of shock and surprise rose around me, and I felt the nanites being segregated off, bulking up around the recovery tool, altering it.

As the last few nanites were sucked from the figure before me, which was no longer towering over me, instead kneeling, frozen and very much human again, the changes finished.

I lifted my right hand, flexing it, then clenched my fist, focusing as the twin ports between my knuckles opened fully, the nanites flowing out to form a blade almost a foot long that glimmered wickedly as it solidified.

Silence reigned in the pit for long seconds, until I spoke.

“Come on then, bitches, who’s next?” I called out, gesturing with both blades, missing the wide-eyed Amanda backing away from the entrance.

She’d arrived to find not only a full lycanthrope infestation, but that their latest recruit—a man she’d been thinking would be little more than a fuck toy, one she’d discard when he broke down in fear at seeing the pretty wrapper that coated most people’s realities torn away—standing tall, facing the werewolves as an equal.

She turned and ran, desperate to find Jonas and the rest of the team. She was more than happy to discard the second recruit and the journalist, if it was possible a living weapon could be recovered.

Chapter Thirteen

There were three werewolves in the cage with me. One I’d brought with me from the middle balcony, my knife buried in its heart and two I’d kicked free of the upper balcony, one of which was drained and dead and the other was still broken from the fall, bones still trying to move back into place.

One of the three who’d been in here had been “killed” by another of the creatures, but his body was rebuilding itself quickly, so I had to assume he’d be back on his feet again in short order.

That left two that were combat-capable, and they split to either side of me, growling. I activated the Tactical Enhancement System and rolled my shoulders, seeing the pit erupt into thousands of overlapping potential patterns, each step they made spawning more as older ones died away.

“Fucking come on, then, I’ve shit to do today,” I snapped, stepping to my right and reaching down, grabbing the dagger with my left hand and ripping it free of the dead werewolf.

The patterns changed, dozens of potentials dropping away as the one on my right dug his feet in, leaping forwards. I triggered my time dilation, pleased to note I had twelve seconds now, rather than eleven, thanks to that fucker’s Reactions boost.

I twisted and followed the guiding patterns. I’d had the options pop up, offering the lethality settings, and before they’d even populated, I’d chosen Eight.

And it was utterly fucking lethal, making me think I needed to try ‘10’ at some point.

I dropped to my right knee, both blades punching up. The one I’d gotten from Jonas took the werewolf under the chin and punched upwards, the tip of the blade cleaving into the brain, and I stood as I rammed my new Harvest Blade into its heart.

I used the Harvest Blade to tear its nanites free as I twisted, throwing the now well and truly fucked werewolf sideways. The other ran at me, head low and to the side, arms outstretched.

It hit me just above the waist, lifting me into the air, twisting its head aside, as it pounded me into the bars of the cage.

It pulled back, expecting me to fall, and I did . . . but I did it with blades extended, cutting its throat.

The bars had hurt—fuck, they had, I’d felt ribs breaking—but the best thing about adrenaline and fear?

When you went all-out, it just gave you more strength.

I fell to one knee, another arm snaking around from behind to wrap around my neck, dragging me backwards and pinning me to the cage. My left-hand blade came up, stabbing into the arm that held me even as my right punched out, sinking into the crotch of the fucker before me that stood there, desperately trying to keep his lifeblood inside.

I wrenched the blade sideways, twisting, then tore it free as the arm around my neck released with a howl. I stabbed out, driving the left blade between the forearm bones of the hairy fuck before it could get fully clear. Then I rammed my Harvest Blade through its left eye, pulling more nanites free.

The longer the blade was embedded, the more I could get.

Hell, I had no idea how the fuckers had done it, but these were full of active nanites, and clearly that was what was healing them and letting them shapeshift.

Every stab, every cut of the Harvest Blade removed dozens to hundreds of them, weakening them and making damn sure they’d not be getting back up. But the time I’d spend making sure of one would open me up to the others, others who were even now climbing the bars, roaring in challenge.

I roared back at them, ripping the blade free, letting this latest one fall backwards, blood fountaining into the air.

Taking two quick steps, I turned, reaching the one that had had its throat torn out by a “friend,” and stabbed down. The blade sank in just to the right of the heart, missing my target, but fuck it.

I was too busy watching the others, and the counter that was ticking down . . . eight seconds to go.

I tore as many nanites free as I could, making damn sure the fucker wouldn’t be getting up any time soon as I ignored the options popping up, overriding them all with the determined order that they damn well heal me.

Glaring up at the eleven that clambered, slavering, up the cage, I roared again in challenge.

“COME ON, YOU FUCKS!” I screamed, brandishing my left blade. Wonderful adrenaline rose and washed the world away in a rush of anger.

The first to reach the top leaped off, aiming for me. I yanked my Harvest Blade free, diving forward and rolling, coming to my knees as I spun, hamstringing the fucker before I leapt at him, even as he twisted around to face me.

The snarl of hunger and of fury changed as the pain in the back of both legs registered, the hot snap and slithering feeling as the tendons ripped fully free, his legs collapsing under him.

Both of my blades punched deep, Harvest in the throat, normal in the right eye, making him convulse as he fell backwards, death coming swiftly.

The next five seconds passed in a blur, blood spraying, screams, flashing teeth and more, claws raking, tearing lines across my flesh that sealed themselves seconds later, the skin, muscles, and even bones flowing back together as if never parted.

When time slowed back into its usual primacy—the last three seconds having been highlighted with a pulse of red light that had blended with the blood—I dropped to one knee, panting, the pit filled with the whining and screams of the others.

Three of us were still upright, if you ignored the two humans, one of which was barely conscious through blood loss, and the other, well, he was busily repainting the area around him in various filth and odor as he tried to push himself bodily through the iron bars.

“Come . . . on . . . then,” I panted, flicking both blades, getting the blood free on the floor as I gestured again to the two that faced me.

On the right was the only uninjured one of them all, and taller than the rest. His muzzle and chest hair rippled with silver, suggesting age, if not wisdom. On his left, the only other werewolf that was upright was missing his left forearm, and the right arm was holding his stomach’s contents inside.

“Suuuurrenderrr, huuuumannn,” the silver-furred one growled. “You cannnnot winnn.” He pointed, a single digit extended toward the bodies around him as some attempted to push back up.

“Really? How long . . . does it . . . normally take?” I asked, grinning at him. He looked down, then kicked one of the groaning figures in the side, making him roll over, exposing a long wound in the chest that . . . wasn’t healing.

“Silverrrr!” he hissed. “A hunnnnter, then? Brrrrrave, to come alonnnne.”

“Who said I’m alone?” I asked, straightening up and rolling my shoulders. “Come on, puppy . . . let’s finish this. I’ve got shit to do today.”

“Puppppy?” He snarled. “Thrrree hunnndred yearrrrs I’ve—”

I attacked, feet digging in to launch me faster. I took three quick steps, then jumped back, dodging the slashing claws and swung at him. I whipped the blades across the gap between us, missing his arm by millimeters. He straightened up to his full height and lashed out with a snap kick, landing in the middle of my chest and snapping my sternum. The shock of the powerful blow set my heart and diaphragm spasming as I flew backwards, the blade I’d been given tumbling free.

I landed hard, bouncing, then coughed up a veritable fountain of blood. I lay there for a moment, blinking, stunned.

“Fasssst forrr a huuumannn,” he taunted me, stepping forwards, winding his way through the bodies of his kind, uncaring.

I tried to move, finding my legs—shit, everything from the middle of my chest down—there was nothing! No feeling, no response. My heart was fluttering, my lungs barely working.

Catastrophic Damage Detected!

Prioritizing Host Survivability . . .

Recommendation: Harvest

Harvest . . .

I was half laid across the top of one of the werewolves, fortunately not one I’d managed to drain. This one I’d basically beheaded, making its recovery exceedingly slow.

I twisted my wrist and stabbed it down into the figure below me, feeling the tugging start as it was drained, the combination of the harvest knife and the programming of the werewolf’s own nanites causing them to stream out and into me.

Congratulations, Biological Weapon Variant #113782491603

You have survived combat with another BWV identified as Corrupted/Awakened #109693104582

As your Combat System is now fully active and paired with an active Nanite Recovery Tool and Biological Enhancement Package, you may choose from the following options:

1)     Harvest 0.1 Point to Body

2)     Harvest 0.1 Point to Reactions

3)     Gain 1 point of Specialization

I selected Body this time, not exactly a hard decision to make, and I hissed as new prompts popped up.

Corrupted Nanite Available Storage Exceeded

Current Capacity:

76% Attuned Nanites

784.9% Corrupted Nanites

Excess nanites will be discarded if not utilized . . .

Options Available:

Increase Storage/Weaponize Corrupted Nanites

Approve?

I saw the fucker stalking towards me, clearly taking his time and thinking I was helpless. Fury built in me. I selected Weaponize, only to have it pulse a warning:

BEWARE: Weaponized Nanites will lose ALL higher capabilities . . .

Confirm?

“Weaponize!” I snarled, feeling my body starting to shake and convulse.

“Youuu shake in fearrrr, little onnnne!” The werewolf growled, reaching down, claws extending.

I sneered up at him.

The Combat System was fully active, designating target points across his body, eight in total, both shoulders, the heart, and both wrists, both ankles, and the thick vein in the groin, flashing, waiting for my approval.

“Kill,” I ordered, grinning up at him. My chest erupted in a twisting, frantic mass of snaking tendrils. Streams of nanites ripped forth from my heart like a nest of snakes filled with a desire to slaughter my enemy.

They encircled wrists and ankles, holding him in place as effortlessly as if he’d been locked in stone, then punched through flesh. They expanded, tearing a hole, then switching, draining him, lifting him into the air, holding him there, frozen. His body quivering, as the weaponized nanites drained him of every single nanite he possessed in seconds. Horror filled his eyes as he deflated, his body sagging, no longer capable of the change. Instead, the now-deformed and pathetic figure stared at me, eyes inches apart as I stared back, new life pouring into me.

“What are you?” he managed to gasp out, his muzzle crumbling.

“You can call me ‘Daddy’ bitch,” I snarled as the nanite streams that gripped him at wrists and ankles twisted violently, snapping the bones as the rest tore the last of his life free, hunger flowing through me as they did. Seconds later, I tossed his body aside as I rose into the air, the streams of nanites lifting me, holding me there, proud and upright.

The last werewolf stared at me in shock. Halfway across the pit, the arm that had been holding its guts in now hung loose, no longer needed as its regeneration sealed the wound.

It shook, taking a few steps back, then spun, racing for the edge of the cage. It bounded, grabbing and pulling itself up and out, leaping from the top and racing away on all fours, or three and a half at least, lapping the room as it climbed higher. I stared after it, feeling pissed that it was escaping.

Never mind.

I’d hunt it down later.

For now, though . . . I reached out, two of the nanite streams holding me in place, the other six punching into the bodies all around me. The tubes drained them, sucking their nanites free, dragging them back into me. I shuddered with pleasure as my body changed, the pain dropping away, feet able to support me again as my spine was repaired. The nanites upgraded as they fixed me, responding to my unspoken desires, my determination that no fucker would ever be able to do that again, not take me down with a single kick.

The bodies all around me were abandoned, sucked dry, and I turned, eyes searching for more nanites, ready for harvest.

My gaze fell on the pair of Support Class humans. Weak, pathetic creatures, but they still held nanites, mainly uncorrupted as well, I noted, smiling unconsciously.

I stepped forwards. The weaponized nanites, restocked and withdrawn, began working on increased storage as I designated it unthinkingly. The human body was inefficient, after all, so many places that could be made better use of. The appendix? Pointless.

Loads of people had them removed, so converting that space to a storage lacuna seemed only sensible.

I moved closer to the Support Class humans, noting the way they tried to back up, and the disrespect that showed!

They should be on their knees thanking me, worshipping me as a fucking god! I’d torn these pathetic puppies a new arsehole for them, and now . . . now . . .

I’d killed the werewolves. I glanced back at the bodies, seeing the way they were strewn about, the devastation, the way the nanites rose to my hand with an eagerness that was palpable, the ease of use, and the way that the system no longer seemed separate, the way that it leaped to obey.

I’d not seen a prompt since weaponizing the system; seemingly, it’d not only turned the corrupted nanites into a physical weapon, but it’d created a bridge between my mind and the nanites in far greater depth than I’d previously had.

I looked back at the terrified people before me, no longer seeing the weak and pathetic Support Class humans. Instead, I saw them as people, a parent and child, judging from the similar bone structure, and the way the man tried to edge in front of the younger woman.

“It’s all right,” I whispered, my throat feeling red raw as I gestured him back.

He stayed where he was, clearly terrified, but unwilling to move.

I shook my head, pointing at her. “She’s not got long . . . not with that blood loss. I’m her best chance, unless you think dragging her out of the cage will be less painful as she is?”

“I—I—” he mumbled, eyes still wild.

“It’s all right,” I said, gesturing again.

This time, he moved as I knelt next to her, seeing the injury clearly for the first time. I examined my nanites, flicking menus up, not sure how I did it, but they seemed unwilling or unable to understand the need to heal her.

Seeing that, I growled to myself and instead started gathering up the cleanest cloth I could find, tearing it into strips and using it as bandages. Her eyes flickered open, having closed again just as I knelt next to her, examining her wounds.

“What are you doing!” he whispered, reaching out and grabbing my arm, finding it immovable.

“You want her to live?” I snapped at him.

“Of course!”

“Then you saw nothing. Say it!”

“I . . . mien Gott!!” he whispered, German accent stronger as he stared in shock, watching my skin sealing itself over while I bound his baby girl’s wounds before his eyes.

“Say it! And no, I can’t heal her, before you ask!”

“I—I saw nothing!” he agreed quickly, nodding hard enough he was at risk of snapping his own damn neck. “What . . . what are you?” he asked a few seconds later as I lifted my hand free, leaving only unmarked skin where there’d been exposed organs second before on my stomach.

“Just a man,” I said tiredly, standing slowly and feeling a wave of dizziness flood through me. Warnings blared that I was both filled with “weaponized nanites” and below the recommended minimum levels for “attuned” nanites, despite me being at . . . fifty-eight percent, now that I’d healed my own injuries.

I turned my back on them, walking across the pit’s base slowly. I reached down and picked up the knife, looking it over and noting the damage I’d done to the blade in the course of the fight.

There were chips, cracks—hell, one side looked more like it was supposed to be serrated, rather than sharp and smooth as it had been.

I sheathed it, then moved to the body of the silver one, seeing a glint that came from the neck.

“Nice,” I muttered, kneeling next to him and pulling a medallion free, glancing it over and admiring the intricate patterns that were carved into it. I pocketed it, standing and looking down at my clothes before grunting in disgust.

They were practically rags. The amount of claw marks, hell, some of them . . . fuck.

I had goddamn teeth embedded in me in places, and the skin had grown around them. If the others saw me like this . . . there was no way I was hiding anything.

I looked from the totally healed wounds to the shredded clothes and drew the knife slowly. Hating every goddamn second, and barely able to make myself do it, I cut myself, carving thin lines and digging out embedded teeth where the worst of the rips were, making it appear that I’d been incredibly lucky, instead of healed by fuck knew what.

It took seconds, but they were long and hard, and it wasn’t a euphemism. By the end of it, I was dripping blood again, and I had to order my nanites to leave the wounds alone. Goddamn it.

By that point, I moved to the side of the cage, glaring at it and convinced that there had to be a way out.

There was a goddamn door on one side, a simple latch holding it closed, but it was more than the people could have extracted themselves from without help, that was for sure.

I sighed, grabbing the latch and popping it free. The girl was unconscious. The man, well, he was awake and aware, but covered in . . . fear.

It was what happened when you were naked and afraid, I decided, but I flicked a finger in the direction of the corner of the room as I spoke.

The room we were in was mostly circular, the pit, with its attached cage taking up the middle of the room, but on one side, there was a narrow spit of water that seeped up against the base of the cliff wall.

“You might want a dip,” I suggested, nodding in the direction of the small pool, and he looked over, nodding in clear embarrassment as he picked her up in a fireman’s carry, staggering forwards.

“I can help—” I started to offer, but he shook his head, ducking out of the cage with her and gently laying her down on the sandy ground.

“You need your hands free, in case there’s more of them,” he whispered before heading to the water lapping against the shore.

He slipped into it, scrubbing himself in the barely foot-deep water, clearly embarrassed but taking the chance to remove the evidence.

A minute or so later and he was back, walking towards me, but I stopped him before he could pick her up, stripping my top off.

It was pretty shredded and soaked with blood, but . . . it was better than having the girl naked.

He nodded his thanks, sitting her up and pulling it over her head, then lifted her back up over his shoulder with a grunt, following me as I led the way back across to the ramp.

“Ummm, can I ask a question?” he said after a few seconds.

I nodded absently, listening to a sound in the distance, my enhanced ears picking up something approaching from the passage above.

“Make it quick,” I whispered, drawing my dagger.

“Back there, you cut . . . yourself?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “That happened in the fight. One that was perfectly normal, and I had one blade,” I muttered to him, glancing over and getting a frantic nod as I held the blade up for emphasis.

“You saved my daughter and I . . . anything you want me to say—” he started.

I shook my head. “I wish I could do more, but if anyone asks, I’m just that fucking lucky, understand?” I asked, and he nodded again. “Good. My . . . friends don’t know.”

He nodded frantically again that he understood.

Two revolutions of the winding path later, we were near the top when Jonas and Amanda burst out, skidding to a halt just in time. Jonas’s arms windmilled as he nearly fell over the side.

“Fuck’s sake!” he cursed, taking in the near fall, then the pit, the bodies, and us in one swift glance as Amanda hauled him back by the belt. “Well, looks like we recruited the right one, then,” he muttered, looking from me to the pit below.

“Next time, you give me a decent weapon,” I snapped at him tiredly. “And fucking warn me that goddamn werewolves are real!”

Chapter Fourteen

“What happened?” Amanda asked me

I shot her a glare. “I should be asking you that! Where’s Dave?”

“Dave’s fine,” Jonas said slowly, looking the bodies below over carefully, then looking to me. “How the hell did you kill an entire pack of lycanthropes?”

“With a fucking pen-knife!” I snapped at him, unsheathing the damn blade and holding it up as evidence. “Silver, right?” I asked, and he nodded absently. “Heh . . . thought that was a legend.”

I leaned my back against the wall and slid down it, sitting on the floor, legs outstretched. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the damn flashing notifications.

“Where’s Dave, then?” I asked, and Amanda spoke up instead as I felt someone brush past me.

“He’s with Anna, the reporter,” she told me matter-of-factly, kneeling next to me as she checked my injuries over, then laid her kukri against the back of my arm. Before I could move, the other one was pressed to my throat. “Stay still, Steve. I don’t want to make any mistakes here.”

“What the fuck—” I started to say, anger rising. My nanites quivered inside my chest, ready to respond and defend me.

“Lycanthropes can be a bastard to fight, with wounds you’ve barely noticed getting turning infected. I need to be sure, considering how fast you’re healing.”

I glanced down at my arm, seeing the way the blade was laid, sharp edge ready.

“Do it,” I whispered, understanding the intent as well as the need. She drew the razor-sharp blade across my outer arm, leaving a shallow wound that bled profusely, making me hiss in pain.

She tensed, the blade at my throat quivering slightly, and I wondered if I’d be quick enough to knock it aside, should I need to, when she relaxed.

“He’s clean!” she called, getting a grunt from Jonas, who’d jogged past, heading down.

“Check the other two; I need to make sure of those below.”

“Sorry, mate, I know you’ve clearly had a shitty enough day, but hey. I need to be sure,” she said to the man, carrying his daughter.

He hesitated, looking to me, and I nodded, waving a hand that it was fine.

“A small cut, then, if you please?” he asked her, setting his daughter down, and smoothing her hair back from her face. “Her holiday has been bad enough already. As large a cut as you wish on me.”

“I’ll do no more than needed,” Amanda promised, cleaning my blood off her blade as she stepped over, and quickly cut the girl in the same place as she had me, then the man, before stepping back and watching them both carefully.

“What happens?” I asked tiredly. “If we’re infected, I mean?”

“I take your head,” she said simply. “With lycanthropes, you take the head or the heart, and you do it with silver. Prevents the wound healing.”

“I kinda found that out below,” I muttered. “I meant about the goddamn cutting our arm bit.”

“Oh,” she muttered. “Well . . . when you’re infected, it’s like a burn. The flesh around the edges blackens and pulls back, as the lycanthrope genetics discard the infected area. It’s . . . kind of obvious.”

“So, we’re clean?” The man asked, and she nodded. “Thank the gods.”

“So . . . Dave?” I asked again, and she gestured back the way we’d all come.

“The other way led to a holding area. They were both in there, two guards. Jonas had killed the guards and was freeing them when I got there.”

“And?”

“And I brought him to play after I saw what the hell you’d found, you dumb fuck!” she snapped, the concealed anger finally flaring fully to life.

“What?!” I asked, eyes flaring wide again, having nearly slipped closed again. “You saw—”

“I saw you down there facing a goddamn dozen or more of them alone! A full fucking pack, all because you couldn’t listen to your team lead! You listen, Steve, you listen because you won’t always be so goddamn lucky. If I’d known you’d not listen, I’d have left you outside . . . or better yet, I’d never have put you forward to Jonas! You nearly got yourself infected and grew their pack. Hell, they could have figured out what we were, once they had you!”

“How?” I snarled, back on my feet. “How the hell would they have known what ‘we’ are? I fucking didn’t!” I snarled at her, pointing over the side. “Werewolves!” I roared.

“Yeah—” she started to say, and I jabbed a finger at her, cutting her off.

“No!” I snapped. “No, Amanda! Murderers, you said. Rapist dickheads, thieves, and fucking enforcers! Arseholes who prey on the normal people, not FUCKING WEREWOLVES!”

“Would you have believed me?” she asked. “If I said, ‘hey, by the way, all the shit you were afraid of growing up, werewolves, vampires, the Thini’gal, all of them are real. Oh, and we’re hunters . . . we work for an organization that’s trying to guide the world. We’re recruiting. You want in?’ What the hell would you have said?”

“At least I’d have fucking known what I was letting myself in for!” I snapped.

“You’re a recruit?” the German man asked slowly, looking at me wide-eyed. “You are new to this, and you did . . . that?”

“He’s naturally gifted, it seems . . . and luckier than he has any right to be,” Amanda retorted, blowing out a long breath and sheathing the blades, both now clean, and holding her hands up in a “wait” gesture. She took two long, slow breaths. “Okay,” she started when she’d mastered her anger. “Steve, we’ll deal with this shit when we’re out of here, and back at the bar.”

“First sensible thing you’ve said,” I muttered, getting a glare from her as she went on, turning to the man and his daughter.

“Sir, thank you for letting me test you both. Lycanthropes are a menace, but they’re generally dumb as shit, so yeah. He’s a recruit, again, a gifted one, but you don’t want to know what the team leader, or the fully trained soldiers can accomplish. We’re going to get you out of here. We’ll pick up two more on our way out, and then we’ll get you somewhere safe and checked over better than I can here. I’m going to ask you to think about what you’ve seen, though . . . and what would happen if you told people.”

“If I told people?” he asked, mouth dropping open. “They must know—”

“This happens once or twice a decade,” she interrupted. “Across the entire planet, you ever heard of it beyond legends? No?”

“No, but—”

“If you start trying to spread the word, then they’ll come for you. The smarter and much more dangerous ones. These?” she asked, gesturing down at the bodies below, where Jonas was moving methodically from one to another, stabbing them in the heart and removing the head. “They’re puppies compared to some of the nightmare shit we deal with. Please, for the sake of your family and your sanity, you need to forget this.”

“I’ll never forget this! I’ll—” he started to say, and I cut him off.

“She’s right,” I said, forcing the words out. “If there’s more like this—and worse—out there, they’ve had to be working to keep it quiet.”

“They have a group behind them, one that’s—” Amanda broke off, glancing at the pair, and clammed up. “A conversation for another time.”

“But—but how do we live, now that we have seen?” he asked slowly, shaking his head.

“Exactly as you did before,” Amanda said simply. “I know it’s not easy. Hell, I understand that more than you’ll ever know, but—”

“You get on with your life!” Jonas called from below, having checked the last of the bodies and overheard the conversation. “Tell him about the fund, then get ready. We need to get our asses out of here, too many unexplored passages for my liking.”

“We coming back down?” she called down to him.

He nodded enthusiastically. “Hell yes! A pack this size? I was expecting maybe one or two, and a handful of wannabe puppy-fuckers!” he called back disgustedly.

“How many of them were full-blooded?” Amanda called back to him.

“All!”

“Shit . . . you survived a fight in there, with a full pack of full blooded?” she whispered, looking at me with new eyes. “I was right when I called you hero.”

“Sod off,” I muttered, sitting back and slowly banging my head against the wall. “All I wanted was a filthy bird and a beer, to float in the goddamn sea and get a tan—”

“You’ll get over it,” Amanda said with a smile before leaving me be and checking the other two over more carefully, now that she knew she’d not have to kill either of them. “Keep an eye on the passage, okay?”

She gestured with a small screen as she handed it over.

I reached out and took it, glancing down and grunting as I saw a night-vision version of the passage I’d taken to get to where I was.

“Top button will bring up the overview. Keep an eye on the passages and let me know if you see movement.”

I nodded, pressing the button and glancing over a half-dozen different views, one of which . . . I glanced across, staring at her back and not seeing anything there, but . . .

“Where the hell is the camera?” I asked her.

“Here,” she said, jerking a thumb at the back of her belt, where I could just make out a small disc the size of my thumbnail.

“Damn,” I muttered, shaking my head at how small tech was getting.

I looked over the screens one last time as I caught movement, then tapped one of the images, bringing it to primacy and relaxing as I saw Dave’s dumb ass.

He was leading a dark-haired, clearly local Greek girl across a room, the small torch in his hand flaring out the night vision as it panned across it.

“Dave’s on his way,” I said, and Amanda nodded.

“Good. I told him to get her out, not come looking for us. Show me.”

I twisted the screen around, and she stepped in close, checking the image I was looking at and comparing it to others before nodding. “Well, at least he can follow directions. He’s in the passage that leads to the exit.”

“He’s a good guy.”

She nodded. “He is, a bit dumb and convinced he’s sex on legs, irresistible to women, and clearly thinks he’s smarter than he really is, but that’s nothing new. He’s loyal to his friends, which carries a lot of weight. He wanted to come and help you, despite what he’s seen.”

“He saw them, too?” I asked.

“Jonas killed them, and one that they sent for backup.” She paused and looked at me more carefully. “They did send one from here for backup?”

“Oh, one ran,” I said, nodding. “Little fucker made a break for it when I was fighting the big one.”

“The big one?” Jonas asked, jogging back up to us. “What happened to it?”

“I gutted him, the one with the silver fur.” I grunted, and Jonas nodded slowly.

“Thought so,” he agreed. “You’re damn lucky, Steve. Usually a pack like this has an Alpha. The older they get, the stronger. Once they hit a century, they get a medallion. You see one with one of those, you watch your step.”

“Like this?” I asked, pulling it free of my pocket and tossing it to him underhanded.

“Yeah,” he replied flatly, snagging it from the air and glancing at it, then holding it where Amanda could see it. “Just like this.”

“Fuck, second—no, third tier?” she whispered, a fleeting look exchanged between them.

“Yeah,” Jonas agreed, forcing a smile. “Looks like you just earned a pay raise, kid. Well, you will once you survive the clearing of the site, anyway.”

“Whatever,” I responded, passing the camera to Amanda, who’d stood from the pair and reached out for it. Jonas knelt next to them and started to talk to them, switching to German easily.

I closed my eyes, knowing I should have done that. I spoke German, after all. Yeah, I wasn’t great at it, but the way that guy relaxed as soon as Jonas spoke his own language? I should have thought of it.

I activated the notifications, pulling them up, determined to stop the goddamn flashing.

Quest ONGOING . . .

Terminate all lycanthropes with extreme prejudice to receive the following additional rewards:

+1 War Point

+1 Weapon Skill

+???? Nanites

I dismissed that, figuring that if it was still showing there, then there must be more in here somewhere . . . but there was no way I could tell the others that.

The next prompt was better.

Corrupted Nanite Storage Upgraded

New Options Are Available:

Storage Cleansing: Invest 10,000 Attuned Nanites to Increase Storage Cleansing Rate from 10npm to 100npm

I checked the nanites available, and had to smile.

Current capacity:

58% Attuned Nanites

100% Weaponized Nanites

50% Corrupted Nanites

With a thought, the screen altered, letting me know the conversion rate was simple enough at least.

Current capacity:

58,273 Attuned Nanites

100,000 Weaponized Nanites

50,142 Corrupted Nanites

I approved the ten thousand cost to upgrade the storage, seeing that the storage device apparently converted the corrupted nanites to attuned ones, that I could use.

The weaponized ones, though . . . yeah. The warning was correct, I knew, without knowing how I knew, which pissed me off. Clearly, some data leakage was just the way it was, but at least it gave me hope that there might be a way to learn more soon.

The weaponized nanites were basically reduced to forming linkages, unable to hack or do anything complicated like creating a datalink, but the linkages, as the system identified them?

Fuck, that was still impressive as all hell. They could form structures, like the snakes I’d used to kill the alpha, and they could be as thick or thin as I had the required stores for, so I could, in theory, make armor, maybe?

I could definitely make a better fucking knife than the silver one, and I could suck the nanites out of my targets. Shit, that made more sense, now that I examined the blurred memories I had of the fight.

I’d created a structure of the snakes, then a thin connection in the center had carried nanites up it, and back down . . . allowing me to rip the nanites free of the fuckers.

I opened my mouth, about to ask Jonas about the nanites—they knew about the werewolves after all—then I paused. They used swords. They used physical weapons—separate weapons, I mean—solid and, well, ordinary.

If they could do what I’d done, they’d not have bothered with the swords, right? They’d just have kicked their ass and formed the weapons they needed as they went?

I cracked my eyes a fraction, finding Amanda watching me, her face cold and uncertain. When she saw me looking, her expression changed, a smile appearing.

I forced myself to return it before closing my eyes again.

They weren’t sure of me.

Hell, I wasn’t sure of them. Nothing new or unusual there, but . . .

Yeah. I clearly wasn’t supposed to have done what I had, and certainly not have killed the alpha. That . . . that’d scared Amanda. Maybe not Jonas, but I got the feeling I’d just earned closer background checks, that was for sure.

I flitted through more notifications, mainly weird data, a mass of code that seemed almost understandable. Well. It seemed to have a pattern that was almost identifiable, like I’d be able to see a pattern, if I just stared enough. It was like those pictures that were both an old crone and a young girl, if you saw the trick. Or the one of a guy reading a book or getting a blowjob, depending on how you looked at it.

I dismissed them, figuring I’d check them out when I had real time, before I got to the juicy one.

You have survived combat with a group of BWVs identified as Corrupted/Awakened #96031194502, #111036941692 . . .

As your Combat System is now fully active and paired with an active Nanite Recovery Tool and Biological Enhancement Package, you may choose from the following options:

1)     Invest 0.7 Points to Body

2)     Invest 0.7 Points to Reactions

3)     Gain 7 points of Specializations

I couldn’t help but fucking love that, considering I could boost myself so far, thanks to that one fight, but . . .

The specializations were awesome so far, especially considering that they seemed to be in constant flux, rather than a set path. I’d focused on my harvesting tool before, through the War Assault path, and I’d been able to create the Harvest Blade instead.

I apparently had to choose. I couldn’t split it up and have half and half, so I choose the Specializations. But before I could pull up the options, I felt a kick in the sole of my trainers, and I looked up, glaring at Jonas.

“Wakey-wakey, young’un’, time to go hunting,” he told me, offering a hand. I took it, letting him help me up, then he stepped to the side, gesturing to the tunnel.

“You can lead, lad. Let’s see what you can do,” he offered.

I stifled a growl, setting off into the passage ahead of them. The turns and twists of the path quickly fell behind us as I led the way, climbing and dipping as we went.

I’d been leading nearly a full minute before Jonas spoke up.

“Since you clearly don’t need the flashlight, pass it back. They can use it,” he said, a note of amusement in his voice.

I froze, cursing myself under my breath.

“Here,” I muttered, pulling it free of the pocket and tossing it to him. He was using his, and I’d not noticed, beyond being annoyed by the occasional flare of light from behind that made my night vision flare out.

I was too tired for this shit, I guessed.

The dirt floor passed quickly, too quickly in fact, as after a few minutes, Jonas called me to slow while the others caught up and rested. The German man—Frederik, as he introduced himself—refused to let anyone else carry his daughter.

She was out like a light still, be that from the pain, from the blood loss, hell, from the shock and sheer excess, I had no clue, but she wasn’t even stirring so far.

It clearly concerned Amanda, seeing the way she checked her for bites again. Apologizing profusely to Frederik, she cut the girl’s arm again, despite the first wound still being clearly visible.

“Exhaustion and shock,” Amanda eventually declared, and Jonas nodded, saying it made sense, but that she was to be watched once things were over, “just in case of infection.”

As Amanda nodded her agreement, her fingers casually strayed to the hilt of her kukris. It wasn’t the kind of infection that antibiotics took care of that they were worried about.

As soon as he’d rested, we set off again, the passages flowing up and down, twisting here and there, until we reached the split in the road. Amanda nodded to the right, guiding Frederik that way.

“I’ll get them outside, then guide the others down,” she promised, getting a nod from Jonas, who pointed at the left-hand passage for me to lead the way.

“They going to be safe enough on their own?” I asked him after a few minutes. He snorted, shaking his head.

“Kid, you have no idea what that girl went through to get assigned to my team. Even seeing what you did down there in that pit? If you and her went head-to-head, I’d bet on her every time. Now shut up and listen.”

“To what?” I asked, getting a glare. I sighed, and stopped as he gestured, listening intently.

At first there was nothing, nothing to stand out as different from the sounds I’d heard already: our breathing, the occasional rustle of our clothing, and until a few minutes ago, the huffing of Frederik.

Now, though . . . I made out a single sound.

It was faint, and gone before I could identify it. Then, just as I was about to dismiss it as a figment of my imagination, I heard it again.

I crouched, not sure why I did it, moving low and twisting my head from side to side, listening hard as Jonas spoke quietly from behind me.

“That’s it. Locate it, lock it down, hunt it . . .”

I crept forward slowly, eyes barely focusing, literally just making sure I didn’t faceplant a wall as I zoned in as much as I could.

I paused, kneeling, but instead of listening as Jonas clearly wanted, I pulled up the options I had. Seven Specializations.

I pulled up the War tree, then the Assault one, then Ranged, hoping to find it. I focused on what I needed, then frowned as the section I’d been looking at fell away, and the tree flowed backwards, going up to the War level and dipping into Infiltration instead.

Baseline Stealth Systems Upgrade

To enable access to stealth systems, as well as to utilize the basic infiltration systems, all biological weapons are fitted with a Baseline Stealth System.

Activate?

I approved it, gritting my teeth and trying to keep from showing anything outwardly as a new tree unfurled before me, each with its attendant skills. I just damn well knew this would open up more and more specializations. Assassin caught my eye instantly, mainly because it was cool as fuck, and I’d always loved games where I could play as one, even if I always ended up slaughtering everything and going for “heavy stealth,” as a mate called my methods.

Basically, nobody saw anything if they were too dead to report it.

Thief was interesting as well, and a little feeling let me know that would help with my Hack skill tree, making it a hell of a lot easier to find data and so on. But considering the solid stone walls and the bare dirt floor, not relevant now.

The third and final tree was Hunter, and selecting that let me know that I’d receive bonuses to—surprise, surprise—hunting creatures. It had a little crossover with Thief in that it’d help with Hack a little, and with Assassin, in that they had to find their targets, but where Assassin gave a feeling of building me into a stealth-based, single-hit killer and Thief into a seriously shit-hot stealth type?

Hunter made me think more of what I needed, bonuses to finding things that were trying to hide, not just people.

Fuck it.

There was a massive amount of crossover in all of these options, but this choice was massively important. I selected Hunter, approving it, now down to five points I could spend, and saw the next level of the tree appear.

Senses, Targeting, and Attack. Obvious, really, each granting bonuses to the relevant area. Senses gave a slight bonus to all senses as well as an extra point into Perception; Targeting was all about ranged weapons and would grant a slightly larger increase to my Optical Enhancement, so yeah, my zoom, I guessed that was; and Attack gave a bonus to locating weak spots. No clue how it did that, but fuck it.

I chose to put one point in Senses and quivered, tasting blood as I bit deep into my cheek to keep from making a sound as the world seemed to explode for a few seconds.

Sounds became sharper. The feeling of my clothes brushing against my skin was magnified. Hell, the individual grains of sand I could see in the dirt before me seemed to leap into focus!

“YOU ALL RIGHT?” Jonas screamed in my ear, making me jump and swing at him instinctively. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I glared at him, then realized what I’d done.

“I—” I started, then I swallowed, shaking my head, and tried again. “You startled me.”

The sound echoed as he frowned, leaning in, clearly having to move in to hear me clearly.

“Give me a second,” I said, getting a glare, as I apparently spoke too loud.

I turned back, staring ahead and listening, focusing in . . . and in . . . and . . .

“Ahead,” I whispered, closing my eyes and focusing even more on my ears, having to filter out the sound of our breathing and of the beating of our hearts. “Something ahead. Can’t hear footsteps. More like—”

“Like they’re crawling?” he asked.

I nodded, the sound making more sense.

“Yeah, crawling, with . . . sucking?”

“Fuck,” he whispered. “It’s a nest, all right. We’re falling back.”

“What?” I asked, and he glared at me.

“I said we’re falling back! Move!” he snapped, spinning on his heel and starting to run.

I stared after him for a few seconds, then looked back in the direction we’d been going, seeing nothing. I growled, then set off running after him, annoyed that everything we did made so little sense. He had been happy for me to lead the way, clearly thinking we’d both fuck up whatever was here. Now, though, we were running away, and I’d just wasted points to find this shit out.

It didn’t take us long to catch up to Amanda and the other two, but as we’d gone, a feeling had started in me. A… . . . not a fear, more like a feeling like someone was right behind me, just about to reach out and tap me on the shoulder.

I’d look back, seeing nothing, but every time I did it, the feeling grew stronger and stronger.

By the end, we’d both been practically sprinting, and as we’d climbed the final bank, where the passage passed from rough stone to poured concrete, the faint distant light that filtered in from the open door was a wonderful sight.

Amanda had taken one look back at us, then barked at Frederik to “Run, you fucking idiot!”

He barely got out of the door before Jonas hit it, the door starting to swing back, and he nearly tore the damn thing off its hinges.

I burst free right after him, having to almost throw myself sideways to avoid knocking Dave over. I skidded on the loose dirt and dust outside as I caught my balance.

“What happened?” Amanda called to Jonas.

“Nest,” he called back, blocking the door open and looking around quickly.

“Fuck, a full one?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“If it was, we’d all be dead. No. I recognized the feeling, then the kid heard crawling—”

“Crawling?” Dave asked, looking at me. I shook my head, catching my breath.

“Fuck knows, mate. I just said what it sounded like, then he fucked off like his dick was on fire.”

While I spoke to Dave, Jonas moved across to the jeep, gripping the wing mirror, and tore it free with a grunt. Stepping out and into the full sunlight, he caught it on the mirror and reflected it straight at the door.

There was a scream, mixed fury and pain, and I jumped, backing the hell up quickly. Amanda had moved as quick as she could out into the sunlight and had hurried Frederik out as well.

Dave and I sprinted for the sunlight patches, skidding as we turned around and looked back inside.

“What the hell?” I started, only to hear Amanda speaking on the radio, calling the rest of the team, while Jonas . . . Jonas had changed frequencies or channels or whatever, and was speaking in clipped tones to someone else.

“Okay, everyone. We’ve got a nest. Confirmed, as far as I’m willing to go. They’ve scented us, so it’s fall back to the extraction point. Jonas is calling in backup,” Amanda said, fielding answers from the rest of the team.

I focused on Jonas, filtering out as much as I could, not helped by the way he deliberately cupped a hand across his mouth, presumably to stop exactly what I was doing.

“Nest located . . . entire pack of Guardians. . . . No.”

“ . . .”

“Recent, a year or less . . .”

“ . . .”

“Confirmed.”

“ . . .”

“One more thing . . .”

“ . . .”

“No losses . . .”

“ . . .”

“Possible infiltration . . .”

“ . . .”

“Not, repeat not infected. Dispatched Guardians . . . alone . . .”

“ . . .”

“Possible freshly Arisen.”

“ . . .”

“Confirm.”

He glanced over, saw the way I was watching him, and ground his teeth, passing the mirror to Amanda before turning his back on me and stalking away. The last bit I managed to make out made me even more confused.

“Not Blessed, and unlikely Awakened. Confirmed. . . . Suspect we’ve got a fresh Arisen.”

Chapter Fifteen

Three hours had passed—three fucking hours—time in which I’d been told sod all that was useful, given job after job to keep me busy and out of the way, yet close enough to grab when needed.

I’d have refused the jobs, but . . . I saw the scarcely concealed fear in the others as well as they carried out job after job. They loaded crap into three cars, the back of them already full as I carried box after box before getting in and driving, second in a convoy of three. Dave was kept separate in a different car and Jonas was now openly armed in the car with me, after he’d received a short call that had made him seriously angry for some reason.

“You want to make it any more obvious you don’t trust me?” I asked him eventually, unable to keep quiet any longer.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“You don’t trust me,” I said to him.

“Now why would that be, I wonder?”

“Fucked if I know, pal,” I snapped back at him. “I was happy drinking and fucking ’til you shitbirds stumbled into my life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really!” I snapped at him. “Seriously, Marie made the first move, her and Amanda. Fuck’s sake, it was one of those coves where you only know if you know, a mile-long beach, and like ten people on it, that’s it. Amanda throws the ball and nearly brains me, while I’m chilling working on my goddamn tan!”

“So you weren’t there deliberately, as bait?”

“Bait for what?”

“Marie.”

“Fuck no, never met her before this, and she came on to me. Shit, man, Amanda was there. She must have told you this!”

“She told me all about it, as did Marie. The report was clear.”

“Report?”

“They both wrote reports, and I had to add my own assessment.”

“Fuck’s sake, what are you? The army?”

“Told you what we are.”

“Aye, that’s bullshit as well. You said you hunt dickbags like enforcers that go too far, murderers and more. Next thing I know, I’m fighting a goddamn werewolf, and you’re running like your dick’s on fire, leaving me to face something that’s got you terrified.”

“You got a question, or you just throwing a fit?” he asked me coldly, one arm holding the handle that hung from the roof of the crappy car and other resting on the drawn handgun in his lap, mirrored sunglasses making it impossible to see his eyes as he watched me.

“You fucking left me.” The words tumbled out as I finally admitted them to myself as well. “You knew what was going on, and you left me.”

“I told you to run.”

“You told me fuck all about what we were facing in there!”

“You’d have liked the truth, would you?”

“Of course—” I started, only to be cut off as he shrugged and spoke.

“Then shut the fuck up and listen, Steve, because I’m not saying this twice. Fine. I approved you and that idiot Dave because we needed more people. But despite what the others think, it wasn’t to ‘share the load.’ I needed bodies. I suspected there would be one or two lycanthropes in there, and a few idiots to soak up a bite or two would have let me keep my people safe.”

“You fucking—”

“You want to hear the rest or not?” he asked, and I shut my mouth, swallowing both my words and my need to drive his teeth down his throat. “Good boy. Okay, so yeah, you were redshirts. Expendable. Don’t get me wrong, brave and resourceful ain’t easy to find. If you’d survived? I was planning on giving you a real chance, training . . . hell, I’d even have paid you, after all.”

“A bullet in the back of the brain?”

“No, a real payday, I mean, and actual training. Anyway, I figured if there was a lycanthrope, then maybe, maybe there would be a vamp as well. Rare as shit, but nobody lets lycanthropes out in the wild without something to watch them. They go feral, spread, and set up a pack to go hunting with. That’s what I figured we had, once I saw the numbers. Then you pull this out.”

He reached into his jacket—keeping the gun in his other hand, I noted—and pulled out the medallion, examining it more carefully in the light of the sun.

“You know what this says?” he asked.

I frowned at him. “I didn’t know there were words on it.”

“Well, yeah, okay, not exactly words many can read, I’ll give you that. It’s Latin, you speak that?”

“Nobody speaks Latin.” A memory from a film popped up. “It’s a dead language.”

“Heh, if only.” He snorted, then spoke words aloud that meant fuck all to me. All I recognized was a lot of ums and ats at the end of the words.

“Listen, mate, English, all right? I barely speak English, let alone that shit,” I told him, getting another measuring look. “What?”

“Just wondered if you could speak it, that’s all,” he admitted, reading it again, in English. “Instrument of the Master’s will. Awakened in the year of the Lord, 1719.”

“Right?” I asked. “He said something about being three hundred years old—”

“And there we go again,” Jonas said with a shake of his head and curl of the lip. “Just as I start to think maybe I’m wrong, maybe, just maybe, you’re one of those genetic flukes. A born soldier, like Chesty Puller.”

“And?” I asked even more confused.

“And then you say shit like that. You spoke to it? Had a fucking conversation with a three-hundred-year-old werewolf—”

“He was telling me he was going to kill me. I called him a puppy and he kicked off, saying he was three hundred years old.”

“And then?”

“Then I fucked him up, what, you think I put a collar on him and took him for walkies? Rubbed his belly and promised him a fucking gravy-bone? Shit, man, I was in a goddamn fight. I had to keep him off-balance.”

“Off-balance,” he muttered, fingering the gun again and tucking the medallion away. “Okay, look, you want some advice, kid?”

“Go for it.” I shrugged, slowing and following the car ahead as we pulled off the highway and started to climb up into the hills again. We’d passed practically everything I’d thought we might be heading towards, and I was thoroughly damn lost now. The island wasn’t that big, maybe a hundred and fifty kilometers end-to-end, and thirty top to bottom at the very widest point, so over the weeks I’d been here, being a man who loved my bike, I’d basically tried most of the roads out.

“When things kick off later, remember which side you’re on.”

“And . . .”

“That’s it.”

“Well, that’s some fortune-cookie shit right there, Jonas. I mean, seriously. Hey, here’s some advice for you, you ready? ‘You may encounter obstacles in life’.”

“Very true.”

“Fuck off.”

The conversation got nowhere after that, and the next bit passed in silence.

Twenty minutes later, we passed a truck, a heavy-load one, ram-packed full of people, bouncing down the road. All three of the cars had to edge up onto the dirt by the side of the road and wait for them to pass before we could keep going.

“Kriti Salt Mine,” I read off the side of the truck absently, and Jonas nodded.

“They hate salt, especially if it’s blessed. Fuck knows why. Lot of theories, but little is really known beyond that,” Jonas muttered, his mind clearly elsewhere.

“What do?”

“Vamps.”

“Vampires.”

“Yup,” he replied, going back to staring out of the windows.

“So, you going to give me a goddamn hint, then? You know, like you failed to do before with the werewolves and the silver? Maybe a way to kill them?”

“Do I need to?”

“To what?”

“Give you a hint?” he asked me sarcastically.

Finally, I stamped on the brakes and pulled the car over, the jeep behind us slamming theirs on as well, fishtailing to a halt.

As soon as the car was stopped, I popped the seatbelt off and rammed the door open, almost taking the battered thing off its hinges.

Then I was stepping out and turning, looking at the others, seeing the way the car ahead of ours had skidded to a halt, and the way the others were all both obviously armed, and were getting ready for trouble . . . from me.

I looked back at the jeep, seeing Courtney had a fucking rifle up and locked in on me, her husband Paul stepping out, holding . . . holding a damn axe that was almost as big as he was!

The girls and Dan were there, ready with guns and knives, and the only person who wasn’t watching me and waiting for me to attack them was Dave, who started to get out, confused as shit, before he was grabbed by Marie and dragged backwards, clearing Amanda’s line of sight for her shotgun.

“Listen, I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but either you start telling me shit right now, and I mean RIGHT NOW, or you can ALL GET FUCKED.”

“Get in the car,” Jonas ordered, crossing his arms and leaning on the roof. “You want to live through what’s coming? You drop the act, you tell me what the hell you are and what bloodline, and you get to defend yourself as part of the team.

“If not? You want to keep playing this game? We leave you here. Nearest cover is three miles that way. Nice little collection of houses, not even big enough to be a village. Few families you can draw the vamps to if you go that way.” He gestured behind us and off to the left.

“Or you go that way. Six miles, small church, bet they’ll be overjoyed with what you’ll have following you. Probably arrive just in time for sunset, if you run damn hard, considering it’s less than an hour away, and the hills around here. Should provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for them. Or . . . you drop this shit.”

“Drop WHAT?!” I shouted at him, furious. “I’ve been nothing but straight with you. Fuck’s sake, I’ve been helping you all this way!”

“Well, there’s the chance that you’re genuinely freshly Arisen, despite what the Blessed had to say on my most recent call, and that’s despite every fucking gene-sample they’ve run, in which case, well, it’s a fucking crying shame. You could have been a great asset to the team. I’ll be very sad and all that, raise a beer to your memory . . . if I remember. Or you’re a plant, and a seriously good one. Either way, your chances of living through the night, even with us? Slim. Alone? Fuck-all chance, not as an unevolved human.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you want to live, you get in the car, and you spill. You tell me everything. Otherwise? We leave you here, and you get to choose: you draw the vamps to innocents and die with that on your conscience, or you try and run, and you just die tired.”

“So what, you think I’m hiding something from you, and you brought me out here to use me as bait?”

“Nope. I was planning on keeping you close ‘til they come, then watching you and seeing what you pulled out when your life’s genuinely on the line this time. When the vamps come, and you find that silver just pisses them off? That they regrow limbs and can practically fly, if they’re old enough? Then you’ll either show what you are, or you’ll be dead.”

Jonas stepped around the car, stopping at the driver’s door and pulling it open, his gun still held firmly in his hand, at the ready.

“See, I was going to do all that, but now? Now you’ve crossed that line, that tiny little point where you go from ‘worth the risk to see what happens’ into ‘too much of a fucking risk to permit’.”

“So what, you’re gonna shoot me?” I asked as Dave started to kick off, only to go very quiet as Dan pressed the barrel of his handgun to the back of Dave’s head.

“Nope, just not gonna help you either,” he said, sitting back into the car and closing the door before leaning one hand out of the window, making sure the gun was pointed enough at me to keep me back. “So, you live through this? We’ll have a little chat, a straight one. We’ll be at the Salt Mine, two miles that way.” He nodded up the road we’d been following. “Show up before first light, though? I’ll shoot you in the face myself.”

With that, he gestured to the others, and they got back into their vehicles. Dave was clearly considering making a break for it, when I called to him.

“Don’t.”

He looked back at me, mouth opening and closing.

“Go with them. It’s your best chance. I’ll sort this prick out later.”

“Humph. Well, I’ll be waiting kid. Survive the night, and I’ll even buy the beers and apologize,” Jonas said, pulling away, along with the others.

I gave him the middle finger, holding it until he was out of sight before cursing and turning in a circle, not sure what the hell I should do with myself now.

“FUCK!” I shouted, letting all of it out in one go, then forcing myself to look about, tamping down my emotions as much as possible and thinking.

The road I was on was literally dry dust and compacted stone, coated with a thin layer of salt from the trucks that ran back and forth all day. The ground rose on the right, if I faced the direction they’d just gone, climbing upwards into a small hill. The land dropped off to the left, into a valley—dry, like the rest of the fucking island, unless it rained heavily—and ran what looked like all the way to the sea, despite jinking left and right every few hundred meters.

I had two clear choices. Well, four. I could sit on the floor and have a tantrum, or pretend I didn’t believe that dickbag, and set off for the nearest bit of civilization.

I did, though, and while I was certainly the man to kick someone’s arse, especially after all of this shit, I wasn’t one to just have a tantrum.

That meant I could climb the hill and see what was coming, or I could descend the valley, and wait down there.

The advantages of the hill were that I’d have the high ground, and fuck you, Anakin, it does matter, as you learned. Then, I’d be able to see them coming . . . provided they couldn’t actually fly, as he’d sort of warned they might.

But I’d be sky-lined and easy to find. Or, I could go down, and hope I could find a cave or something, hide in it, and at least be able to stop them from encircling me.

Buuuut . . . while the island did have caves, I had no clue how to find one, or how to make use of the terrain to locate likely places. As far as I knew, the only way I was going to find a cave here was if I fell in the fucker, probably breaking my leg in the process, or if I had a phone and checked the internet.

Which I didn’t have.

I did, however, have four points left to spend, and while Hunter might do a little bit to help, I had to bet that fucking Assassin would be more fun.

“Yeah . . . you think you’re coming for me, bitches? Let’s play,” I muttered, sitting down on the ground and pulling up the options, reminding myself that I was the weapon, and fuck anyone that thought differently. I wasn’t the prey, and anyone who thought I was would be in for a fucking hell of a surprise.

The Assassin tree was simple and easy to navigate, but fuck me, I wanted it all. Where Hunter was all geared towards upgrading the personal capabilities, Assassin was all about getting the kill.

I had the additional trees of Skills and Abilities, Personal Equipment, and Terrain Augmentations. A quick glance over them gave me a basic feel for the contents, despite the fact I’d only really find out once I chose that path and spent another point.

Skills and Abilities was the obvious one, somehow granting me abilities, like . . . I couldn’t make sense of it, not really. Something about concealment, vanishing, distraction, and massive damage. I liked it, but before going for it, I checked the next.

Personal Equipment would aid me in actually crafting things! I got an impression of a data download, learning to make weapons, poisons, and more. Things that I could make that would work in combination with my nanites, as well as using my nanites more. A hint of armor, or using them to quieten my footfalls, and oh, yeah. Making it so that I could climb easier and more.

I liked it. I wanted it. I moved on.

Terrain Augmentation was all about using the environment, making traps, adjusting things. Things like extruding nanites to make blades and more, then attaching them to the terrain! I could make shit like razor wire!

Oh, I wanted all of it. Fuck, I did!

I knew that again, because all aspects of this upgrade tree were in a constant state of flux, always growing and changing with the things I did and the uses I put the system to. There was literally nothing that wouldn’t be a bonus for me.

That also meant, though, that the decisions would grow harder and harder as I went deeper.

I knew the long-term best choice from these three options was probably Personal Equipment, because I could make all sorts of weird and wonderful shit, but . . .

I needed to be able to level the playing field. If they could fly, then Terrain was out, because I had too little data to make an informed choice there.

I could make nanoblades as thin as silk, let enemies cut themselves to ribbons as they snuck up on me, surround myself, then sit thinking I was safe, only to have them swoop down from above and yank my head off.

No. Terrain was out, and because I had no sodding time, I had to put the Personal Equipment on the back burner as well, at least until I’d seen what Skills and Abilities held.

Pulling up the option, I sank another point into it, shivering as I felt a data dump from somewhere, fuck knew where. I’d probably freak myself out over it later when I had some time to think, and to really drill down into it. But either way, selecting the Assassin and Skills and Abilities paths came with a deluge of cold data.

It felt like I had a thousand ways to kill someone just poured into my brain. It wasn’t specific knowledge; well, it was, in part. I could suddenly see a hundred different ways to take that prick Jonas apart, literally. Areas I could hit to numb the flesh, to stop blood flow, ways to deaden the nerves and more.

The majority of the knowledge, though, was about the actual biological systems, like the blood makeup for upright sentients, the necessity for nutrients. It was a thousand different biology lessons, all on a billion different forms, creatures I couldn’t imagine, and yet . . . I blinked, and it was gone.

I knew it was still there, ready to be recalled, data that could be specifically tailored, basic, not covering the kind of specifics that would be massively useful, but . . . but I knew a little about how to kill, well, anything.

I knew beyond doubt that there was a way to kill a fucking squid with a single pinprick.

I’d never so much as eaten calamari—it looked like a rubbery, slimy onion ring, after all, so hard pass there—but I knew I could kill one.

The next set of options I scanned through quickly, eyes searching.

Assassin Basic Skills

Conceal: Nanite Flux

Distract: Dart

Eliminate: Trauma Burst

I liked the names, that was for sure.

Nanite Flux used my internal nanites, spreading them across my skin in a thin coating, then changing their color. Essentially, it was a nanite version of the chameleon’s natural ability. I liked it.

Dart allowed me to create a solid dart—or knife or ball or whatever—of my nanites that I could separate off and throw. It’d make a noise, or some other distraction. It was simple, and very basic. I couldn’t make a simulacrum of myself, after all, although I knew if I went far enough down the line, I would be able to. But once thrown, well, they were lost once their charge was expended.

Lastly, Trauma Burst was a nanite deathblow. Basically, it allowed me to spread a tiny amount of nanites across a weapon, and on meeting flesh, they’d unleash their stored energy.

It was like a tiny explosion, which was clearly bad enough, but the option of up to a five-second delay made it even better.

The first level would be left as they were on infliction, so if I cut the skin, but not very deep, it would be deposited where I’d hit and do limited damage. There were upgrades to the skill that would let me give it a few seconds while they burrowed in deep, then they’d detonate.

Hell, it hinted at the option to throw daggers of pure nanites that would sink into veins and flow to the heart!

The first level was damn good, and it would only get better.

I chose that.

There was just no way I could not, especially considering what I had to come. I selected Conceal as well, knowing that even limited as it was, it had to be better than nothing.

Once I’d taken both options, now having only a single point to spend, I reread the options, seeing they’d both changed.

Assassin Basic Skills

Conceal: Nanite Flux (1)

Distract: Dart

Eliminate: Trauma Burst (1)

The new Nanite Flux let me make more detailed changes to my nanites, essentially making it much more likely that someone looking for me would miss me on the first glance, while Trauma Burst added a second option beyond the delay timer.

I could add up to three additional hits, each one depositing more and more nanites, before the timer went off. Essentially, it added a stack ability like in games, where the timer reset on each hit, up to three times. I liked it.

Hell, I really did want it, and I liked the Conceal option as well. I nearly chose both of them. Well, either, as I couldn’t, you know, have both, but . . .

I needed to spread myself thinner. I didn’t know, which was the goddamn problem. I didn’t know if any of these tricks would work at all.

If I went all in on Conceal, and vampires used sound instead of vision? Wasted both points. Same for the weapons. What if they were insubstantial as fucking mist? Or who knew what else?

I selected Personal Equipment before I could change my mind.

Three new sections popped up, despite me not having the points to select any of them now, and I stifled a growl at what I saw.

Crafting was the first, including poisons, disposable weapons, and more, such as needles for carrying said poisons, and a thousand other things beyond.

Traps and Augments was somewhere I know I’d be tempted time and again, as I sensed deployable razor wire filaments, nanite equivalents of bear traps, practically invisible until triggered, and best of all, weapons that could be remotely deployed and controlled. Things like nanite cluster-bombs!

Finally, Nanite Manipulation. I felt the potential of that one. Literally, it was all about using my nanites in new and interesting ways. I could create armor, weapons—hell, I could create a coating for my feet that would cushion any sound I made. There was an insane number of detailed variations I could make going down that route, but to get from where I was, barely able to control them at all, would take time.

The data download I got for Personal Equipment, though, was intense. At first, it didn’t seem that bad. I could see enough to tell the next levels, after all, and to sense the details, but . . .

It just kept going.

Seconds turned to minutes, and still it kept going, making me really worry I’d just killed myself with my greed. I sagged, unfeeling, onto my back on the floor, and had just enough control to trigger Conceal before the world dissolved into streaming data, and I fell inwards.

Chapter Sixteen

Code.

The world was transformed into swirling code as I fell deeper and deeper into the nanite flux, data pouring into me as I tried to find my way, a billion details growing and spiraling before my eyes, and still I fell deeper.

I saw huge constructions of data, creations like towers that rocketed into the sky, constructed from a trillion lines of code, and I knew that I was expected to make sense of this, much in the same way I had with the locks and more in Hack.

I fell endlessly, or so it seemed to me at first, data streaming into me in uncontrolled bursts, seconds dopplering into the distance as I felt myself fragmenting. My mind seemed to suddenly be splitting off into echoes, each of which looked in a different direction.

I fell now, surrounded by more versions of myself, the world growing more and more complex instead of simpler as I tried to make sense of it. The rabbit hole grew deeper and deeper as my mind struggled to make sense of this new reality.

I could feel myself getting lost, and I recognized a serious risk. I could literally lose my mind here!

I focused in, closing my mental eyes and ignoring the data that still flooded in, as well as the pain.

Instead, I focused on stopping the fall. I focused on controlling my inner ear, stopping the mental tumbling, in favor of the fact that I knew I lay on my back.

Once I had myself stopped, I opened my eyes again, banishing the majority of the data that streamed past me, ignoring it and dismissing it. Instead, I focused in on the streaming code before me, and the tower that I’d been falling down slowed and finally stopped.

I looked at it, seeing the alien code and human code alike hovering before me, all equally meaningless.

The code I recognized was only because the words made sense, well, in terms of the various degrees of “sense.” I recognized them as having meaning, while the alien symbols were totally meaningless at first.

I looked at the human code, though I didn’t know code. These nanites were essentially thousands, if not millions of years old, or the codes were.

That meant that they couldn’t be using human code as I saw it, so my brain was showing me this, my subconscious presenting me with something I could work with.

That meant that logically, I could solve this puzzle . . . if I had to.

I followed a single line, noting the symbols at the beginning and the end. They encapsulated the code of other lines as well, that they repeated again and again, and that meant . . .

I pulled up another section and compared them, finding that the data was repeated in set patterns, and with a thought, I pulled up a sample of the Weaponized Nanites, seeing a much, much simpler version of the same code.

Thousands of repeating sections, ones I could identify in the other were used in both, but the weaponized variants were just the same sections over and over, while the others had billions of other codes.

I realized that, in stripping the higher functions away from the weaponized variant, leaving only the ability to form simple shapes and to control them, I’d also given myself the key to understand the damn things!

I saw simple structure forming and dissolving, the code flexing and shifting, sections flowing forward into primacy, then falling away.

Here I found depth, height or width instructions, as the form created flexed from a single nanite thick to a thousand deep in an indestructible block and back again.

Words started to make sense, slowly, as I examined the code, pushing and pulling and seeing what happened.

This was magnificent, and also far too slow. I remembered the mirror images of myself all falling, and suddenly there were two of me? Us? Sitting side-by-side, staring at the tower, and I felt “him” examine another section, as our paired minds made sense of the nanite code slightly more.

I examined another section, and seconds later, I understood what he’d recognized, and, using that information, my own made slightly more sense.

It worked. Suddenly, there were a hundred of us, the maximum I could reliably split myself, somehow, and all of us were cataloging and learning.

Seconds passed, then minutes, as the tower slowly made more and more sense.

After what seemed forever, the fall of data stopped, and finally, finally, my mind relaxed, and my eyes blinked.

I lay on my back again, staring up at the dimming sky, a faint memory falling away from me as I flexed my nanites, consciously shifting them across my skin.

I felt them, and I knew how to use them, finally.

It was basic, my control. Hell, I sure as shit couldn’t make them, but I could control them, and that would have to be enough.

I looked about, seeing nothing had changed since I arrived, nothing I could sense either, but . . .

That wasn’t true.

I couldn’t see, hear, or smell anything, but I felt . . . something.

I felt fear.

Slowly building, slowly growing stronger.

It reminded me of the feeling in the caves, just before we escaped.

I couldn’t see anything, not anything out of the ordinary, anyway, but . . .

I glanced to the left and right, my Conceal rippling with my movement. I swore, rolling right and into a slight depression left by the over-large wheels of the trucks.

It was a slight dip, clearly worn into the dirt where the drivers had cut the corners, or had lined themselves up for the next, creating a slight depression and nothing more.

Laid in it, I was slightly lower than I had been, no longer a discolored patch of the road. Instead, I was a discolored patch of earth by the side of it.

I lay there, the feeling building, seconds passing, before I cursed and rolled to my feet, darting a dozen meters to the right. I crouched, pressing my back against the jagged rocks that made up that side of the road. A tree hung half out and over where I crouched, casting a tiny bit more shade than the last spot.

I pushed myself as far back as I could, activating Conceal again and swallowed hard as the fear continued to rise.

I couldn’t understand it. I was feeling fucking terrified, but there was nothing here!

I focused in, deliberately slowing my breathing, doing as I’d done in the tunnels, focusing in as tight as possible, but this time on my own body, rather than reaching out to listen.

I focused on my heart, feeling the hammering in my chest slow, even if only fractionally. It worked, and I made it my entire focus, burying myself down and visualizing myself as small and calm, a stone by the side of the road, that was all. I forced myself to stare out of an emotionless state.

Eventually, my heart was beating at a steady rate again. The world was calm, or so it seemed. Fear hung there, but now, when my heart was calmly beating and I was as emotionless as possible, I managed to control the fear a little better.

I forced myself to ignore it, instead expanding my senses, ignoring vision and rest, all in favor of hearing.

Still, at first there was nothing. No sounds I could identify as not belonging, anyway. There were the sounds of the wind in the trees, the occasional whistle and hoot of birds, the buzz of insects, and . . .

The sound of footsteps.

I felt my heart lurch, and I focused on it, forcing it to remain steady as I stared forwards, not daring to move to look around.

The footsteps went silent, a crunch the last sound they made, as if they shifted or pressed hard, and a fluttering, like a flag in the distance, or maybe . . .

Suddenly, a figure landed a dozen meters away on the road, and the sound made sense! It’d been that fucker jumping.

And if he’d just jumped, from somewhere out of sight, that meant his muscles—

I stared at the figure as he straightened up, looking around slowly.

He had dark hair cut into curtains with a tail at the back of the neck, which he flicked back absently. His collar was a deep red, or black, the color impossible to make out in the dim light as the last of the sunlight vanished, and he sighed, clearly relieved.

He looked around, brushing his arms and legs as though expecting dust. Then he straightened his shirt and tugged his waistcoat straight, frowning as he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt.

He wore tight trousers, formal-looking ones, and fucking shiny shoes, which, considering the road . . .

“Damned dust,” he muttered.

His accent was southern English, posh, refined. I instantly distrusted him a hundred percent more than I had several seconds before, even allowing for the fact that I was pretty damn sure he was an immortal vampire here to kill me.

“Well?” he called out, turning slowly.

“Nothing,” hissed a voice from my left, and I nearly pissed myself, barely managing to stop my instinctive jerk of the head. “Something is near . . .”

“I know that. They’re at the salt mine.” The Englishman sighed, lifting his left hand and clicking his fingers. “In!” he snapped, his voice clearly used to issuing orders, and in response to it, a figure slithered down the rock next to me, literally missing me by inches. I held myself still, stunned by what I was seeing.

It was like a mixture of a snake and a lizard, but . . . but it didn’t seem entirely solid, either.

The thing made a soft sucking sound as it moved. I watched the way it gripped the rocks, the fingers on one hand shifting to press into gaps that shouldn’t have been able to hold it.

I watched as three more, then another two appeared, slithering up and down from all angles to gather around the vampire that stood straight-backed in the middle, waiting for them.

I frowned, wondering what exactly they were, and something I’d forgotten about in all the stress and strain so far popped back up into my vision.

Ghoul

Biological Weapon Variant

A devolved and heavily disfigured failed experiment, the Biological Weapon Variant classed as Ghouls are simplistic in mental capacity, having had their abilities enforced through a genetic bonding carried out by a vampiric variant.

Capabilities:

Bite: Ghouls have a powerful bite and can distend their jaws to ensure they can lock onto a target.

Semi-Solid: Ghouls are creatures that have had their genetic code damaged, granting enhanced regeneration, hearing, and removing any need to sleep, but are no longer entirely solid. While this aids them in climbing, it also results in greater weakness to fire and slicing attacks. This grants greater resistance to blunt-force trauma and penetration attacks.

HP 97/100

Vampire Servant

I froze, reading it over, then looked to the vampire and did the same, seeing a vastly different level of strength.

Vampire Lord

Biological Weapon Variant

One of several successful BWVs that were granted further augmentations, the line designated as Vampiric spawns several greater strengths that warrant greater investment, despite the attendant personality augmentations and increased instabilities.

Capabilities:

Enslave: Vampires are all granted the infective Enslave ability, enabling them to inject a sample of their genetic template into a lesser creature, hijacking their nanites to enforce obedience. As the Vampire ages, going from Fledgling all the way to Prime, they learn to adjust the effect of their bites, creating more powerful servants.

Enhanced: Vampires gain a baseline ability to integrate nanites harvested from their prey. While this ability is subconscious and undirected, it results in a higher concentration of nanites in the bodies of Vampires, which in turn grants them significantly higher strength, speed, and reactions.

Fear: Vampires automatically generate a Fear cloud that makes it more difficult for prey species to focus and control their actions, as well as driving all but the strongest-willed before them.

HP 500/500

Vampire

They were humans, or Biological Weapon Variants like me, then; they’d just gotten access to more nanites somehow, and while they couldn’t control them the way I could, they could still absorb and use them.

Just like that, the world had changed as I understood for the first time that they weren’t some supernatural mumbo-jumbo. Instead, they were just people!

Yeah, they were freaky-as-fuck looking, and okay, so they were clearly batshit crazy—murderers, in fact, looking at the details—but I could understand Jonas and the others being terrified of them, especially with the Fear effect as I now saw it described.

I still felt it, that was for sure, but it I didn’t feel it the way I had. I could—I could sense it, but it was like a vibration in the air, and once I identified it, recognizing the cause of it, my nanites shifted, adjusting themselves to block the effect.

In seconds, I was staring at the small group, and all fear had vanished. Well, the outside fear had, anyway. The internal, perfectly natural fear of facing these fucking nutjobs, well, that was still there.

“Something is close by. You two, find it. The rest of you, surround the salt mine, capture anything you find inside. They killed my guards, and I want to play with them. Go,” the vampire snapped at them. Like a pack of dogs, they spun and bolted up the road while the vampire himself glanced around, clearly more interested in what was up ahead than what was close by. He was about to leave, crouching, ready to jump, when something disturbed him. He twisted around, glaring off to one side.

I heard the crunch of someone else landing, and the glower was wiped clean. He went to one knee, hissing something at the ghouls, who prostrated themselves in fear.

Footsteps approached. I stayed as silent and still as possible, wondering what the hell could have this effect on the poncy little bastard, when they stopped, still out of sight.

“Davos,” a new voice called.

The vampire, apparently called Davos, lifted his head. “Yes, lord?”

“Subdue them quickly. I wish to discuss the future with the One.”

“Yes . . . lord?” he asked, clearly going to obey, but confused. “You wish to speak to one in particular? How will I know which one? After all, in battle, accidents happen. I would not wish to offend you by killing one you—”

The one out of sight cut him off with an echoing laugh.

“Do not fear, Davos. If the One is here, you will not kill them in error.”

“If you are sure, lord.”

“Tell me, Davos, what chance do you believe you have against me? Should you attempt to kill me, I mean?” The voice sounded amused.

“N-none, my lord! But I would never—”

“Exactly. Remember that, and remember that if a freshly Arisen is truly here, you have as little chance against them as you would me. You are to find him or her, and I will take care of them.”

“Yes, lord, and the others?”

“I wish to meet this one. As such . . . subdue only.”

“I . . . I already dispatched my ghouls, and they may—”

“Then you’d better be quick,” the new voice hissed, and Davos nodded.

“By your leave, lord?” he asked. Apparently receiving a nod, he spun around and launched himself into the air, vanishing into the distance, while the two ghouls that were told to search the area whined and apparently pissed themselves as the hidden figure moved closer, pausing just out of sight.

“Davos is young and weak to his passions and hungers, as all his kind can be, enamored with the pleasures of the flesh still. I have dispatched him to subdue your friends, as you heard, not kill them, because I believe a frank discussion of your future is in both our interests.”

There was silence as he stopped, and I stayed hidden.

“Come, now. I can sense you. Although your gifts are different to those most of us possess, it doesn’t mean you can stay hidden, not from our kind. Why not step out and speak frankly? Surely, it cannot be out of fear of the ghouls?” There was a blur and a scream, followed by the sound of wet meat hitting the road. Before I could blink, there was another man standing in the middle of the road, and one of the ghouls—

It looked like it’d been dropped from orbit.

He slowly straightened up, sighing as he shook his fist free of ichor, before twisting around, staring at everything and anything.

The second ghoul pressed itself down against the road even harder, clearly terrified. The figure was dressed normally in smart blue jeans and a long-sleeved white top, now coated in bits from his killing of the ghoul. He stopped his turn, facing half-away from me, and sighed.

“Very well. I can sense you, you know?” He sighed. “But fine, you trespassed into Davos’s nest and killed his pack. I care not for that, but he was able to identify you and your friends by their scents, and you . . . well. You left traces that I recognized instantly. Hence, I travelled here as quickly as I could, to offer you my protection.”

Silence.

After a minute, he sighed again, then shrugged.

“If you have any concept of what you are, and I am, then you know how far above such creatures as these”—He gestured to the corpse on the floor by his side with a grimace—“we are. Davos will abide by my command to capture your friends, but his own nature will limit him. Eventually, he will come to the conclusion that, if he was to feed on an Arisen, he would in turn ascend. He will then kill any he has taken and feed upon their remains. My commands will grant you a little time to reach the fight, but what happens then is your choice.”

He turned and started to walk away, calling back over his shoulder as he went.

“The old Minoan Yard, sunrise. If you wish to discuss what you are, I will be there.”

With that, he crouched and fired himself into the air, the whipping of the wind that came from his clothes a powerful snap, as opposed to the fluttering of Davos’s movements.

I stayed crouched there, waiting, mind racing as I tried to make sense of what the hell I’d just heard.

The guy who made the vampire shit himself—and just splattered the ghoul like a fly hitting a windscreen at seventy—wanted to meet me at a deserted old jetty?

I knew the Minoan Yard; it was basically the ruin of an ancient shipyard, now a simple jetty that had a nice hotel and some bars nearby, and some seats. Hell, I’d ridden past it and planned on returning to it someday, should I meet someone I really wanted to impress, but . . .

The ghoul sniffed and moved forwards slightly, giving off a faint growl as it started to follow what I guessed was my scent.

I glared at it, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with it. I mean, I’d seen what that guy did, but unless they were made of basically water with a balloon stretched over for skin, there was no way I could do that.

It growled again, and I gritted my teeth, knowing I had no choice. The guy apparently hadn’t been able to see me, as long as I stayed perfectly still, but fighting this thing meant letting my Conceal go, and it wasn’t going to fuck off, clearly.

A shiver ran through me. I couldn’t sense him anymore.

A burst of gunfire rang out in the distance, then another and another, and that was it. My night was decided for me. No chance of staying hidden here, not now.

I focused on my right fist, and the Harvest Blade slid out, forming a solid spike a foot long and razor sharp.

The ghoul froze, seeing a shimmer, and crouched, slavering, before hissing again.

“Found youuu,” it managed to get out before I rammed the spike deep into its mouth as it lunged forwards, its claws sinking into my arm to hold me in place as it bit down.

Base Neurotoxin Identified: Nanites Assessing . . .

Countering . . .

There was a second in which we stared into each other’s eyes, the ghoul looking pleased with itself. My blade apparently wasn’t thought of as a threat even buried in its guts, and the ghoul sank needle-sharp pointed teeth around my forearm . . . until it stopped with a clink.

I felt something, presumably the neurotoxin, spreading at a terrific rate, making my muscles slow and tremble.

It tried again, its teeth meeting the harvesting tool that sat between and around my bones and stopped dead. The look of confusion lasted for a split second as I felt the nanites flush the neurotoxin, and I reformed the Harvest Blade. It flowed down around my fist before jutting up and down, forming a crescent moon shape that bisected the throat neatly. I grabbed the ghoul by the forehead with my other hand and twisted my right arm violently.

Its teeth skittered across the harvesting tool, slicing my flesh but doing little else. I beheaded it, then flexed the blade again. Changing its alignment, I tore the head clean in half, draining the nanites as I went.

The skull collapsed and shriveled as I discarded it. I punched the blade into the body, stripping it as well, receiving another few hundred attuned nanites as well as a few thousand corrupted ones.

I shifted them into healing me quickly, then harvested the other corpse as well, taking the seconds it required because I couldn’t afford not to, even as more gunfire rang out behind me. I dismissed another prompt that tried to pop up, telling me that the nanites were developing basic counters to ensure that the neurotoxin was rendered harmless in future.

Whoever that had been, he terrified the vampire, but the vampire, in turn, had to be at least as powerful as I was, considering the fear that Jonas had shown.

The guy who’d just fucked off seemed to think this was a test of sorts, but . . . I banished the thought that I might not be able to do it even as it formed, yanking the blade free and turning, about to race up to the mine, when a slow golf clap came from behind me.

Twisting around, I found the figure from before standing a dozen meters away on the road, smiling as he clapped his hands in seeming approval.

“Oh, don’t let me distract you. I look forward to our chat, young Arisen.” He bowed his head slightly in respect, then turned and vanished again, making me curse, considering what he’d seen. Of course, he hadn’t just buggered off . . . and he might be doing that again now.

Gunfire. A wild, sustained burst. I spun with a snarl and started to run.

Chapter Seventeen

I raced up the slope, feeling myself hit my old top speed but I still had more in the tank to give. I dug deeper and deeper, pulling the system up in part of my vision and loving that it learned what I wanted the more I used it.

Now, the screen appeared, but partially transparent, so, I had no problem running on as I pulled the details up.

I had fifty-eight percent nanites available, a number that converted to fifty-eight thousand, two hundred and twelve individual nanite clusters, and that in turn, well . . .

It was time to do some upgrades.

The cost climbed per level I invested, but a quick mental flexing gave me the option to increase all my stats significantly, or . . .

Or I could choose to develop a few areas, and instead of becoming strong, I could become superhuman.

My Reactions, as an example, were at one point one, with one being the baseline for humanity. Each time I increased it would improve it by one point until I reached Reactions that were literally twice that of a baseline human.

That however, would cost . . . let’s see. It was currently eleven hundred, and would be twelve with the next one, climbing by an additional hundred with each upgrade. Thirteen thousand five hundred.

I could do the same with Perception. That would cost another twelve thousand four hundred, since Perception was already at one point two.

That would allow me to push my time dilation up to forty damn seconds! With forty seconds of being faster than them? I had to believe that would give me the time I needed to kill these fucks and save the others.

And . . .

That would still leave me with more than thirty three thousand points. And that, well, that was enough to boost my Body by five, and my Intelligence by the same amount.

Even with all of that in place, I still had just over twenty thousand nanite clusters available.

Enough to make a hell of a difference to me, especially considering the differences that I’d found from improving a single point or two.

I wanted to add them in. Hell, I wanted to spend all of them. Even knowing that, realistically, I’d have to be a bloody idiot to do so; I needed them for healing and the actual systems I had in me.

The minimum I needed was eight thousand, but that’d also slow my healing significantly. I glanced down at my arm, where the silvery metal of the harvesting tool was vanishing beneath the bubbling mass of nanites as they healed me, and I gritted my teeth.

I wanted to spend them as well, but I couldn’t. I’d done all I could afford to for now. Maybe once I’d harvested the ghouls.

Amused, I snorted to myself. The ease with which I’d thought I could harvest a half dozen damn ghouls was scary.

I approved the changes and had a split second in which I realized I’d made a very, very big error.

I screamed through tightly clenched teeth as I hit the floor, twitching and rolling over and over until I came to a halt, pain wracking me as muscles flexed and tore. Skin split, bones fractured and my brain was hard rewired with double the connections it’d had before.

It was like a star going nova in my vision, and time . . . time seemed to stretch out as I writhed in agony. I wanted to pass out, to lose myself in the welcoming blackness reaching for me.

I couldn’t allow it, though, because I had no way of knowing if I did, how long I’d be out for. I might be out for a minute, or a day, or a month, and any time at all might be enough not only for the others to die, but it might be enough for another ghoul to find me and simply chow down.

I rolled onto my stomach, forcing my arms under me, and pushed up on shaking limbs.

My vision doubled, then tunneled as I forced myself up with a growl of effort, shaking my head and sending blood splattering as I did. I made it to my feet, swayed, and nearly fell, overcorrected and nearly fell again before managing a step, then another. Then I staggered forwards, forcing myself further up the road.

Each step sent horrific pain surging up through me as my muscles rebuilt themselves. Nanite clusters spent themselves in an orgy of growth and destruction, bones fracturing as they forcibly adjusted.

A tooth crack as bones in my jaw adjusted, then it was popped back into place and grew again, the damage overlaid with fresh enamel even as it was repaired.

I staggered . . . and ran on.

My stumbling feet smoothed out as the pain slowly diminished, the fire that raced up and down the marrow of my bones leaving me famished but stronger, larger, and ever-so-slightly compressed in clothes that were now a touch too small.

I raced on, feet falling with increasing speed as my gait evened out, and my body was accepted. Then the speed increased again, and I rocketed up the road, bends coming as fast as I’d taken them in the car on the way up.

The wind of my passage rushed in my ears, and the distant gunfire tailed off as the screams started.

I clenched my jaw and ran on.

I’d save them all, even Jonas, I decided. Nobody was killing that dickbag . . . not yet.

He’d literally left me on the road to die to goddamn ghouls and a vampire.

He’d pay for that, and I wasn’t having any other fucker rob me of that. The others, I’d save, and then tell them to fuck right off, aside from Dave, who’d been clearly willing to risk it all for a mate, even though they had guns literally to his head.

No, nobody was killing any of them, not unless it was me!

I passed a sign, then another, and jumped as the entrance came into sight, a rising cliff of stone on either side of the road. The entrance and the road that led through it, were cut into the rock, before veering to the right and into a wide yard for parking the vehicles.

I heard screams from below, so I ignored the road to the right, grabbing onto the rough rock of the cliff on the right-hand side, and jumped. I dug my fingers into the wall as I raced up it; the changes wrought by the combination of the points I’d spent and the Personal Equipment unlocking combined to make it almost as easy to leap up the cliff as it was to run on the flat below.

I flexed my fingers, feeling a burst of pain, then they were tipped with nanite claws. The machines wove through my hands, forming incredibly hard bonds that allowed me to dig them into the wall and catapult myself higher.

I burst over the top of the cliff wall, soaring into the air, and barely managed to catch myself, landing on the rough rock of the top and skidded, digging in claws that grew over my shoes as well.

I managed to stop just in time, a small cascade of gravel and dirt tumbling away down the far side as I looked down at the bowl-shaped depression before me.

Ramps and slopes were cut into the sides to let the vehicles pass, as they dug down and into the rock below, mining equipment normally chewing the precious rock salt free and transporting it away in the hundreds of tons at a time.

Now, the bowl was filled with much more sinister movement, as the others attempted to retreat into a small space carved into the wall, while the ghouls clambered down the rock. One lay on the floor beside the body of Dan, half torn apart in its death throes.

Three more ghouls stalked the retreating figures, their rifles and shotguns hanging loose, magazines clearly empty, and most of their handguns expended. Marie frantically tried to clear a jam in hers, while Jonas and Amanda spun, dancing with their weapons all ablur.

I took the scene in all at once, seeing the amused vampire standing with his back to me, a dozen meters from the people I’d begun to consider friends.

They, in turn, were backing away from what I had to assume had been their first choice of a refuge as more ghouls poured out of a larger cave, hissing and reaching, claws glinting.

I saw Courtney half-carrying Paul, whose right arm hung limp, almost torn from the joint, his axe laid on the floor before Davos.

Blood ran down his arm, too fast-flowing to clot, clearly declaring that, unless he got immediate aid, he’d never use that arm again, at the very least.

Courtney had her sniper rifle in one hand and supported her husband with the other, lifting the gun and firing it one-handed as the vamp reached for the axe, the bullet missing him by inches as the recoil of the powerful rifle threw her aim off.

“Goddamn it!” she snarled, forcing herself to throw the rifle aside. She yanked a handgun from her thigh, flicked the safety off, and fired five shots in quick succession at the nearest ghoul.

All five hit, or so it seemed from where I stood, but the ghoul simply staggered, then hissed, stepping forwards as Jonas and Amanda spun and sliced, taking a ghoul down, then another, before one of them managed to hook its talons in Jonas’s leg. He cried out as Amanda spun back, hacking down and took the extended hand off at the wrist then kicked the ghoul in the face.

Jonas collapsed to the floor, and Marie abandoned trying to clear the jam, instead ramming the gun back into her thigh holster and grabbed Jonas under the arms, pulling him backwards, dragging him across the floor as he started to shake.

Paul pushed himself upright, saying something to Courtney before staggering forwards, falling to one knee, and grabbing Jonas’s sword. Courtney opened fire, taking two more ghouls in the head, barely stopping them from reaching her husband.

He lurched back to his feet, dragging the sword around and stabbed out, taking another ghoul in the throat before the vampire blurred.

Davos seemed barely to move; he simply was a dozen meters back, then he wasn’t. He batted the sword free, grabbing Paul by the throat and hoisting him into the air.

He said something I couldn’t make out, even with my insane hearing, over the shouts and cries, then threw Paul backwards, taking Amanda and Courtney down in a tumble of arms and legs before staggering and swearing as Dave appeared, a shotgun in hand. He pumped it again and raced forwards from the space where the others were retreating.

Davos howled and blurred again, catching the barrel of the shotgun and yanking it upwards, causing it to discharge harmlessly into the air. Dave screamed, the trigger guard snapping his finger as the vampire’s other hand closed around his throat.

Davos lifted him into the air, snarling something about a pathetic snack, and I kicked off, unable to hold back any longer.

I leaped as hard as I could, half-knowing and half damn well hoping that my enhanced body would be okay falling from this height.

The boom of my impact echoed around the lowest level, magnified by the shape of the excavation into a far more dramatic arrival than it strictly should have been.

I slowly straightened from the three-point landing, right fist pressed to the ground, right knee down, left leg extended, left hand thrown back.

“That’s enough, fucknut,” I called to him.

He tilted his head to one side, casually throwing Dave aside and sending him into a wall with a resounding crack of bones. Dave slumped to the floor, leaving a bloody trail on the wall.

“You,” he said simply. “You are he.”

“I am.”

“Then these are simply meat, yes?”

“No.”

“Surrender, or I’ll slaughter every one of them. Slowly.”

“Touch them, and I’ll tear your head off and shit down your neck, Davos.” I offered conversationally.

“How do you know my name? Kneel, or I shall beat an answer out of you, dog.”

“I have a meeting with your master after this,” I said, my voice hard. “I’ll be the one beating some respect into him. You think that you get to give me orders?”

“Take him,” he barked.

The ghouls leapt into motion, while Davos stood idle, picking bits of shot from Dave’s hit out of his side as his skin reformed.

The nearest two ghouls raced forwards, and I waited for them, wanting to make an impression on him, well aware that if he chose to kill the others while I was busy, there was no way I could stop him. I had to keep his attention.

I lifted my right hand, ignoring the others and dismissing that they were seeing all of this. I flexed my will, and a glistening sword of nanites flowed out, four feet long and with an edge that could carve my name into a fucking atom.

“Last chance to back off, Davos,” I said into the silence that suddenly filled the mine. We exchanged a long look, where I thought for a split second he was actually going to do it.

Until a ghoul leapt from behind me.

I heard the scrape on the ground as it leapt, the displaced gravel, the huff of effort, and the growl of anticipation. I spun, slashing sideways, taking the creature in a downwards arc, slicing it into two roughly equal halves from the neck, my blade erupting from the thing’s crotch, and I twisted back to the entire pack bounding forwards.

The closest two closed the distance at almost the same time, the one on my right meeting my blade and having its head bisected as I swung the blade up, carving its skull apart even as I clamped my left hand on the other ghoul’s face.

The slavering jaws tried to twist up to enclose over my hand, but I closed my fingers tight around it. Yanking up, I dropped to one knee and slammed it down into the ground. The back of its skull shattered with a sound like a melon being dropped from a great height.

I straightened up, flicking the blade across the corpse that still dangled from my hand, and I carved this corpse in half as well, the Harvest Blade tearing the nanites free as it cut through.

“Impressive,” Davos said slowly, reaching down and picking the axe up before smiling at me as I proceeded to beat his ghouls like red-headed stepchildren.

I slashed the blade back and forth, using my left arm like a blunt weapon and shield combined, blocking and beating them aside, while the weapon in my other hand sliced them apart as they closed the distance.

Three ghouls moved at once, one from the front, one the left, and another leaped from the wall, plummeting down towards my head from above. I darted to the left, two quick steps, and I snap kicked the leftmost ghoul in the stomach, making it fold over. Grabbing it by the back of the neck and dragging it forwards, I pivoted around to be behind it as it staggered into its friend that had been coming from the front, only to have the third land atop them.

I looked at Davos, whose glare had turned icy, and I hefted my right hand. The blade morphed into a crescent moon, two feet wide and a foot out from my fist, braced by a fluted pillar.

I leaned forwards and rammed it down into the writhing pile of bodies, driving it deep, and watching him as the Harvest Blade fed on all three at once.

“So . . . you have some impressive tricks, young one, but I know what you are—”

“Really? That makes one of us,” I said idly, straightening up and yanking the blade free with a jerk, the crescent folding back in as I stared at him, a reformed sword jutting from my fist now.

“You . . . you don’t know?” he asked, clearly confused.

“Every other fucker thinks they do,” I said, drawing a deep breath and deliberately letting the final ghoul leap onto my back and sink its teeth into my shoulder, claws hooking around into my chest to deliver its utterly useless neurotoxin.

“Fool!” Davos smiled and launched himself forwards, left hand reaching, right hand drawn back and axe lifting into the air.

I shrugged, letting the weaponized nanites loose.

The first thing I did with them was pool them flat across my skin over my left shoulder, neck, and down my body, forming an impenetrable barrier to the ghoul’s teeth, forcing them out again, but before it could fall, the spikes jutted out.

I punched them into the ghoul, piercing the skull, the chest, and the throat all at once, then I pulled.

In the time it took Davos to cover the distance between us, less than a second for the others but longer for both of us, our Reactions and Perception so much higher than baseline humans, he realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

The ghoul was withering on my back as I tore its nanites free, using them to repair the damage it’d done, and I stepped forwards as well.

The vampire had intended on grabbing me and possibly cutting my weapon free, thinking I’d be defenseless then. Instead, as it landed, the Harvest Blade shrank and reformed into a punch dagger three inches long.

I drove it into his chest, catching the descending axe by the haft and stopping it dead as his left hand closed on my own right forearm.

His eyes widened in shock, feet coming up, about to kick off, to throw himself backwards, when the punch dagger shifted, the tip splitting into two where it erupted from his back and flattened to left and right, forming a T and holding him in place as I tore his nanites free.

My own eyes widened as I felt them. Not dozens, not even hundreds as I’d found in the majority of the lycanthropes.

He had tens of thousands.

His body was saturated in them.

Not only that, but they weren’t all corrupted. The majority, yes, but the amount of attunable nanites in him . . . it was like a firehose switched to reverse as I drank the nanites, tearing them free in their thousands.

Something landed next to me with a shockwave boom. I was smashed loose from the vampire and sent hurtling through the air to slam into the far wall. Cracks radiated out from my impact as I slumped to the floor, stunned, my mind still half-drunk on the nanite influx.

“Lord Shamal,” Amanda called out, only to be cut off.

“Silence.”

The calm utterance rang in the air, clear, powerful . . . and everyone obeyed instantly.

I coughed blood onto the floor, the salt and rock dust coating everything in a powdery white dusting, making my blood appear black by comparison.

I felt an insane urge to apologize to this . . . creature, this lord, for not obeying its order to be silent, and for a half-second, the only reason I didn’t was because he’d ordered us not to speak.

Then my nanites kicked in and dampened the sound as a screen popped up before me.

Audible Suppression Field in effect: Countering . . .

The fucker was using some kind of ability, like the damn vampire with its aura of fear, just more powerful!

“Yeah, fuck that.” I grunted, straightening up and pulling my nanites in tight around me, the increased mental capacity allowing me greater control as I focused them around the wound. Bones popped and clicked as they snapped back into place.

Fragments that had pierced my lung were absorbed and broken down, even as other nanites formed replacement structures, rebuilding the missing sections as I wiped my chin, then flicked the blood free onto the floor.

“Impressive,” the other figure stated in a flat tone, ambling forward in an unhurried stroll. He held the writhing, gasping vampire in one hand for a long second before he seemed to remember him, then casually tore his head off with his bare hands, discarding the corpse to the floor and striding on.

He was dressed in a smart suit, clearly expensive and fitted with precision, a gleaming white shirt open at the throat to show a tarnished, thick necklace of silver links. A watch on his right wrist reflected the little light down here in the pit, and a bracelet on the other arm did the same, with expensive leather shoes crunching across the gravel towards me.

I glared at him, consciously examining him.

Variant #30901346007

Biological Weapon Variant

WARNING : Evolved intact Biological Weapon Variant #30901346007 detected. BWV is EPSILON Level Threat; recommend disengage!

Capabilities:

????: ?????

????: ?????

????: ?????

HP ????/????

EPSILON LEVEL THREAT

“Well, that’s fucking informative,” I muttered, glaring at the figure that strode forwards.

“It appears I was wrong in my assessment, Jonas, my boy. My apologies,” the man murmured, examining me. “Clearly newly Arisen, yet with unique gifts. Very impressive.”

“Thank . . . you . . . lord,” Jonas managed to force out as the man continued to close with me.

“I am Lord Shamal of House Arthus, and I shall be your sponsor,” the man started, looking at me like I’d seen posh wankers examining horses before races before, and my hackles rose. “You are fortunate in that you were found by the Blessed, rather than the Accursed. I shall guide you as you grow and ensure you understand your place in the grand scheme of things—”

“No.”

“—ensuring your abilities have the . . . what?” he asked, frowning, finally looking me in the eye rather than at the blade and roughly formed half armor I’d managed to create.

“I said no.”

“I heard you, boy. I meant what do you mean, no? I don’t think you understand your position,” Shamal sneered.

I had to keep myself from shoving him aside and storming off. The only reason I didn’t?

I could feel the nanites in him.

If I had tens of thousands—hell, counting my weaponized ones, I had well over a hundred thousand now—he must be practically made of the fuckers. I could sense millions, possibly billions of them, and I knew instinctively that, should he choose, he could rip me apart as easily as I beat the ghouls, if not worse.

“I understand just fine,” I said slowly, forcing myself to smooth my voice as much as possible. “You turn up late to the party, ignore your people who are f . . . bleeding out, and throw me about like a child. Then you look at me like a pet you’re thinking of training.”

“And?” he asked.

“And I’m no fucking pet!” I snapped, getting a snort of amusement from the insufferable prick.

“To me, you might as well be, boy. But very well, I accept your point.” He looked across at the others, assessing them, and nodded once. “Jonas . . . consider your team as having proven their worth. You have located a fresh Arisen, and for that alone, your project will receive ten years’ support, as well as a personal marker from me before the Council.”

Shamal reached into a pocket, pulling a slim, silvery card free and squeezing it gently. A holographic screen popped into existence before him.

“Lord Shamal, how may I serve?” The man sat as if he’d been waiting for the call, immediately bowing his head and clapping his right fist to his heart in salute.

“I require a medivac to my location for . . . hmmm, better make it the entire team, and . . . yes, send an executive lift for myself and one other,” he said, absently glancing at me, before turning to face me properly and fixing me with an evaluating stare. “You have a choice, boy. You’re too valuable to be left free, so either you accept my patronage and all the gifts that come with that, or I shall break you and take you against your will. You may spend the next century attempting to regrow limbs faster than we remove them, or in luxury, as your status entitles you to. I suggest you choose wisely.”

With that, he turned his back on me, clearly viewing the matter as settled.

I froze. The way he moved, the ease with which he’d beaten me and thrown me clear of the vampire . . .

I believed his threat; he genuinely intended that I’d either serve them, and do . . . whatever, or I was a dead man.

No, wait. He thought I could spend the next century regrowing limbs. The werewolf had been three hundred and more years old. That meant . . .

That meant he fully expected that I could survive that kinda scale, as well as having limbs fucking removed!

I took a hesitant step back, pressing myself against the wall, fear rising. Unthinkingly, I triggered Conceal.

Only Dave was looking in my direction at the time, and I saw the look on his face as I vanished, the amazement, and the sneaky determination.

He nodded at me, once, and I saw the faint smile, as well as the look that clearly said “goodbye, my friend” . . . then he pointed up the wall, high above me, and shouted loud enough to draw everyone’s attention.

“You’re leaving me? You bastard!” he roared, pointing upwards. Shamal spun, glancing to where I stood concealed, then to Dave and up, following his pointing finger.

He said nothing to the others, crouching and leaping off into the air, vanishing from sight as he blurred upwards, heading off in pursuit.

I let myself relax slightly, ever so fucking slightly, as the others swore and started moving. Jonas forced himself to stand and make a call, while the others tended wounds and talked in hushed voices about what they’d seen.

“Team Six Actual . . . yes. The lord has left in pursuit. The new Arisen has fled . . . yeah . . . no, no idea.”

“. . .”

“Confirmed, the area needs to be cleansed as well.”

“. . .”

“Good. Team Six Actual, out.”

He closed the phones, then sighed and spoke to the team, unknowingly turning his back to me.

“Okay, people, looks like we earned a bonus and more, ten years fully funded! We need to move on, so view it as a ‘burned’ situation. All evidence, dump it here. Cellphones, watches, headphones, anything with a chip stays here. You know the drill.” He turned to Dave, moving over to him and groaning as he sank to one knee.

“Well, Dave, looks like he abandoned you after all. Believe me, you’re better off without an Arisen as a friend, though. Look—”

Dave punched him in the face, as hard as he could, rocking Jonas onto his ass with a grunt, spitting blood from a busted lip onto the floor.

“All right, I suppose I deserved that,” Jonas muttered. “Look, Dave, you proved yourself. So if you want to live, come with us. Genuine offer this time. Join my team, two hundred and fifty grand, US dollars, and full healthcare. Believe me, you need that, at the very least. Come with us, learn, and maybe you can help him in the future, if you still want to.”

“I’d rather stay here—” Dave started to say, only to be cut off as Jonas lifted a hand to stop him.

“Seriously, you don’t want to, Dave, trust me. The things we fought here? The shit that could get out if people knew?” He shook his head. “There’s a sterilization team incoming, and they’ll melt this entire pit to fucking glass. Nothing, including microbes, will survive. So come on, I know you’re pissed and hurting. Come with us, at least until you heal up.”

Dave was silent for a minute before sighing and nodding his head. Jonas helped him to his feet as lights approached from the far west of the pit.

I couldn’t risk staying where I was, not any longer, and I started to climb oh-so-fucking slowly.

Hell, leaving the vampire behind was painful, but if they were going to “sterilize” the pit, I needed to get out, and now, before the lights could show up.

It took me less than a minute to clamber up and out, but all that time I was nigh on gibbering in fear. The creatures that I’d faced so far, well they’d been beatable, but Shamal?

I needed to get away, far away, and fast.

I rolled over the lip of the pit, and ran for it, heart hammering as a spotlight flashed across the gravel.

I skidded to a halt, pressing myself down as flat as I could in a depression in the ground, trying not to breathe as the dust rose before me.

The light roved closer, flashing to and around a broken-down car… then it flashed across to me.

It paused on me for a brief second, and I gritted my teeth, eyes closed, heart hammering. Just as I was about to leap up and run, they decided that whatever my conceal ability looked like, it wasn’t a guy who had been gutting vampires and ghouls.

Then it moved on, and I almost wept with joy.

It was ridiculous, the damn fear that I’d felt thanks to that dickhead and his clear intention that I was to be a pet. I wasn’t a pet, not for anyone!

I crawled onwards, grimly determined, and grinned to myself when I saw something lying broken off to my right. I changed direction slightly, crawling to it and grabbed Dan’s broken drone.

I pulled it in close and focused, coating it in my nanites, concealing it as well. I made it a few more feet before hearing cursing in the distance.

It was Lord Dickhead returning, I knew, and I frantically pulled up the notifications, searching, dismissing most, until . . . there!

You have survived combat with a group of BWVs identified as Corrupted/Awakened #101169420063, #114206973802 . . .

As your Combat System is now fully active and paired with an active Nanite Recovery Tool and Biological Enhancement Package, you may choose from the following options:

1)     Invest 0.2 Points to Body

2)     Invest 0.2 Points to Reactions

3)     Gain 2 Points of Specializations

I picked the Specializations, and I used both points in Nanite Flux. This made massive difference to my Conceal ability as the edges smoothed out and an entirely new level of stealth became available. True invisibility became closer to a genuine possibility.

Yeah, if I moved, it still created a blur, but now? Rather than just blending in, I knew my nanites were bending light.

I had literally vanished and was hidden, provided I stayed still and no fucker tripped over me.

I was still a long way from being able to move around comfortably in this state, and checked the next level of the ability. I found that it would now start to make only tiny improvements, which made me grind my teeth, but I’d managed to hide from these fuckers with the more basic version, even if only just, thanks to Dave being a mate and helping.

I crawled to a halt, having made it to the base of the wall that surrounded the site, and I hid there, back pressed into a crevice, and stayed as quiet and still as possible, as the Lord of Cockwombles returned.

He flew overhead, his clothes snapping sharply in the breeze, and he vanished straight into the pit.

I couldn’t make most of his questioning out, but he didn’t seem to realize that Dave wasn’t usually a part of the team and seemed to accept that Dave had seen me leap out of the pit, just like he’d done.

“Damn, achieving that level of control already. A hell of a loss. Jonas!”

“Yes, lord?”

“I want him found. Your team may lead the search. Yes, yes! I know you have injuries. You may use digital means, send out others to do the in-person work of identification, but when you find him? You are to alert me and me alone!”

The rest I missed as something that looked like a triangular helicopter swept in from above, dropping a team of five into the pit and lifting the others out via a platform.

I couldn’t help but to stare open-mouthed in wonder.

It looked like all the conspiracy nutjobs’ drawings, a triangular, weird-ass, spaceship-looking thing. As the first platform took the others out, the other lowered, holding the small team of sterilizers who stood clad in reflective suits, and unleashed literal hell in the mine.

Horrific flames climbed as they were winched up. They wore backpacks that held some kind of pressurized goddamn napalm, and lance-looking things in their hands that they used to literally paint the walls and floor.

I lay there stunned, amazed by the sheer destructive power, and then I realized what they were doing.

They weren’t going to stop there.

I rolled, grabbled the wall with the hand that wasn’t holding the drone, and pulled myself to my feet, leaping upwards as hard as I could. The air whipped by as I flew in a parabolic arc, nearly clearing the surrounding boundary wall before having to grab on, one-handed, and pull myself up, kicking higher.

I flew over the top, landing hard. With a roll, I sprinted as fast as I could, kicking up dust clouds as I raced across the hillside. I desperately pushed as hard as I could, convinced that at any second I’d be grabbed up by that arse and dragged off.

I was practically pissing myself in fear by the time I made it to a small line of trees and threw myself down in the scrub brush, frantically activating Conceal again.

I lay there, panting, trying to control my breathing while knowing damn well that it wasn’t an outside force that was making my heart race this time.

It was the sure knowledge that I was relying entirely on luck right now.

Seconds became minutes as a small craft, similar to a jet but with much stubbier wings, touched down briefly. It took off again, followed swiftly by the triangular craft, and I sagged back, exhausted.

Sleep took me in seconds, my only concern that I made sure Conceal would stay active.

Chapter Eighteen

Awareness was slow coming the next morning, creeping back as the sun bathed the hills and the sounds of surrounding wildlife grew.

At first I just lay there, then as memory returned, I looked around. Slowly at first, then with greater urgency, realizing that not only was I alone, but I was exhausted.

I was utterly starving, far worse than I could ever remember being at any point in my life up until now, and that included when I’d been on training and maneuvers with the army, ones where I honestly believed at times that they were starving us for shits and giggles.

I struggled to my feet and realized I was swaying as I made a conscious effort to stand straight.

I looked down at myself, seeing the sorry state I was in. My clothes were torn and shredded. The replacement top I’d borrowed from Paul after giving mine to the girl in the pit? Well, I took it off and tossed it aside.

It was stained with blood and dirt, not to mention plenty of ichor and a liberal sprinkling of dust, salt, and . . . yeah.

I’d slept in a gully out of the way, surrounded by scraggly bushes and more, likely including some wildlife looking to cuddle. Besides smelling of fragrant cat piss, I scratched at my stomach and saw a flea leap free of my belt.

I was, maybe five kilometers from the sea, in a direct line. Three miles, thereabouts, and all I could think about was making it to the beach. Not only could I dive into the sea and get clean, but a Brit walking along the beach half-dressed, carrying shoes and looking like shit, I’d not get looked at twice.

Walking into a village anywhere else on the island, in the state I was in? I’d get anything from an ambulance, if the locals were feeling generous, to the police if they weren’t feeling so kind. Either way, there were good odds that the asshat from last night would have people listening in on all the dispatch radio channels.

Unless… Tommy. I thought about the old bugger who’d taught me to weld, and looked about, working out where I was now, I didn’t think his junkyard was too far away.

I checked my pockets, sorted my belt, and took care of the more basic needs before setting off, heading to the coast, jogging and carrying the drone.

I ran steadily, half my attention on staying clear of anyone and anything, and the other half . . .

Well, I had nanotech, after all.

I poured a small number of my nanites out onto the drone, feeling them going to work infiltrating the system, which was simplistic as hell when it was directly Hack capable, rather than having to be remotely accessed.

Repairs took less than a minute, as did installing new subroutines.

As soon as the system was ready, I triggered it and tossed it into the air. The down-draft from its rotors was surprisingly strong as it took off, climbing steadily, and a new image opened in my mind, showing me the entire area from above.

It worked!

I grinned, and now that I knew where people were and weren’t, I picked up speed.

The ground blurred past underfoot as I broke into a full-on sprint, followed by bounding forwards. I started to jump, sailing through the air with a great whoop of joy.

I landed, stumbled, then pushed off even harder, flying dozens of meters with each jump. The faster I went, the further I went, too.

It felt like only minutes passed before I was slowing, dropping into a sprint, then a run, having to maintain merely human speeds as I cut down next to a road, passing small villages and towns until I recognized a small sign and grinned to myself. I changed direction slightly, going north by northeast rather than straight north, passing through a tiny village that barely had anyone living there.

I slowed on the outskirts, coming to a small, seemingly deserted junkyard. Instead of going to the front, where the doors stood open despite the early hour and the lazily spinning fans showed that the power was already running, I ran around the back, looking for a specific panel on the makeshift fence.

I booted a metal sign that rested against the fence three times and whistled sharply, waiting less than a minute before a concealed gate a handful of meters further down was pulled open quickly.

I hurried through the narrow gap, grinning as I passed a buck-toothed, swarthy man who clapped me on the shoulder in greeting. Then, he glanced around at the narrow space behind me, grunted, and turned back to me.

“Steve, you dumb fuck, last I heard you were dead!” He grinned at me.

I stepped forward, grinning in turn as I hugged him, getting a rough kiss on each cheek.

Pleasantries now exchanged, he stepped back and looked down at me, shaking his head. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not,” I admitted.

“So, not dead?”

“I got better,” I deadpanned before smiling again. “Good to see you, man.”

“Good to see you too, son,” he said, still occupied giving me a good looking-over. “Though I’ve gotta ask, what the hell’s going on with your dress sense these days?”

“Got cut up pretty bad on the beach last night,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t want to know, man. You really don’t want to know.”

“Fair enough. So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company, then?” he asked.

“I need somewhere to get changed. Get the feeling that there’s someone after me, and going on the motorways on foot”—I gestured at myself. “I need a real bike, man, and some damn clothes.”

“Do I need to know what I’m getting into, helping you?” he asked me slowly.

“Honestly, Tommy? I’m being hunted. Not ‘you’re going to jail, my son,’ more rich fuckers with red coats and dogs . . . and I’m the fox. They catch me . . .”

“And you came here?”

“I think I’ve lost them, and I realized I was close. I’ve been up in the hills and—”

“You up there when the aliens came?” he asked quickly.

“Not aliens mate, that’s the rich fucks.”

“Government?”

“Possibly,” I admitted. “Well, they didn’t say they were, but you know what dicks like these are like. They’ll have fingers in it, somehow.”

“Hate the government,” he muttered.

“I know, man, and I know you hate cameras. Only that one by the front, and no internet here. That’s why I knew I could risk it.”

“How you gonna pay?” he asked, all business.

I grinned. “My name no good for credit these days?”

“Depends . . . how long you need the bike for?”

“A day, two at most,” I guessed.

“Fine. But you owe me,” Tommy muttered. “We’ll sort the price out when you get back, but it won’t be cheap . . . and I’ve got spare clothes in the shack.”

He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder to the dilapidated old shack that barely stood in the middle of the stacked bikes and rusting random bits of metal.

“There’ll be welding fer you to do, work that’ll take days,” he warned me.

I grinned. That was how we’d met; I’d heard he was desperate for a welder to help him out, and I figured it sounded like fun. I’d bullshitted my way in the door, acted like I’d seen them do on the metube videos, and totally buggered up.

He’d laughed his ass off, called me on the bullshit, and I’d admitted it. Seeing as I wanted to learn, and I was the only one who’d come knocking, he just laughed and taught me instead.

That led to now, when I came knocking and in need, and true to my hopes, he shrugged and chucked me the keys for a battered—but still sodding amazing—Harley Davidson as I pulled some old oil-stained pants and a T-shirt out of the pile.

“You been workin’ out, boy?” he asked me, frowning as he saw my sculpted physique as I stripped off.

I nodded.

“Something like that, mate,” I agreed, seeing the lack of any scars and the way that even the thin cuts I’d given myself to simulate the lycanthropes’ claws to Jonas had closed up as well. I looked at the dried blood all over me, the smeared, dried ichor, and more. “Gods, I need a shower.”

“Can’t help you with that one. Water’s been off for two days.” Tommy grunted, pointing at a pile of empty water bottles. “Feel free to snag a few of those, though.”

“Thanks, man,” I muttered, grabbing and downing a bottle, a liter of water gulped down in seconds, followed by a second. Two damn liters of water!

It had to be more than I’d ever drank in my life, in such a short period of time, anyway, and yet . . . I could feel my body crying out for more.

I glanced at the water bottles, stacked haphazardly in the corner, still wrapped in cellophane.

“Help yourself, lad,” he offered.

I paused, hand already reaching, before shaking my head and picking one up, but not opening it.

“I’ll chuck it in the pannier. Better not to drink it straight off.”

That got a snort. “Fair enough. Right, anything else you need from me?”

I drew a deep breath, shaking my head.

We both knew that if what I’d said was true, I had sod-all chance of paying him back. If it wasn’t, well, I was either delusional or a thief trading on our past to steal from him now.

Yet, despite those two much more likely outcomes, still he helped me.

“No, mate . . . but thank you,” I whispered, clearing my throat gruffly, tears pricking my eyes at his kindness. “You’re a good friend, Tommy.”

“Bah, I’ll be adding it all to the bill.” He grunted, but I caught the redness in his cheeks and the way he didn’t make eye contact for more than a second, kicking at some trash on the floor. “It’s nothin’, lad. You earned it and more, making the effort with a miserable old fart like me, after she left me. I was crap company.”

“You weren’t that bad,” I told him, feeling guilty as hell I’d not been around for weeks.

“Anyway, probably been robbed blind by now, so I’d best be off, as should you.”

I nodded, and so did he, moving to the gate and tugging it free. It jingled and clattered as loose metal bounced against the chain links. I sat on the bike he indicated, the dozen or so half buried in parts strewn around the yard representing everything from classics to crap.

I reached out, stroking the tank, then twisted the keys, turning the engine over and getting the throaty rumble that always made my pulse quicken. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Tommy—” I started to say, overcome as I realized that, while the bike might look rough, scratched, and a bit battered, the seat having the stuffing pushing through in a few places, it was anything but.

“Take her, lad. She’s not had a good run in a long time, and I’d rather think of her going out in a blaze of glory, running in a chase, than with a whimper, forgotten amongst all these . . .” Then he grinned and held up a hand, telling me to wait before running off, returning a minute later with a full-face helm.

“Here, took it off a lad a few days back, fixed his bike, and he couldn’t pay. Never see him again, I bet, so you make use of it. Might keep those cameras off you for a bit longer as well.”

“Tommy,” I whispered, taking the helmet and smiling as I turned it over in my hands. It was a knock-off copy of a helmet that had been made iconic years ago, and revived by a recent series about a space bounty hunter and his charge, a small green alien child.

It looked . . . well, it was awesome, and probably not road legal, but I didn’t give two shits. I pulled it on, feeling the custom-fitted leather and supports sitting a little awkwardly, but . . . it was amazing, and I loved it.

I felt a hard knock on the top of the lid, and I glanced up, seeing Tommy smile down at me, then gesture me out onto the road.

I nodded once and gave the bike a little gas, rolling her out onto the scrub by the back of the yard and sending him a nod again as he closed the gate, hiding the back entrance.

As soon as he was gone, though, I fed it more, feeling the slight instability as I bounced off the dirt and across the packed stone and pulled onto the road itself.

The back roads here were narrow and crap, but soon enough I was rolling up onto the main roads, the wind tearing at me as I picked up speed.

I gunned the engine, rolling up through the gears as I picked up speed, the drone flying overhead, watching over me. I wove in and out of traffic, the bike feeling like a part of me as I flowed on, at least some of my worries falling away.

I picked up my speed, flashing past a police car and hearing the siren start up. Instead of the usual feeling of “fuck, now I’m in for it,” I just grinned and gunned the engine, quickly outpacing the car.

In under a minute, I was far enough ahead, thanks to the traffic, that I couldn’t hear the siren, not that I’d heard it for long since I was wearing the helmet, but still, now the cars between us weren’t even showing curiosity at the noise, so fuck it.

I looked ahead as the road topped a small hill, then dipped again, and I couldn’t help but grin as I remembered where I was, serendipity coming to aid me.

I gunned the engine even more, checking the angle of the sun and guessing I was two hours past the time he’d said, but . . .

The decision had been percolating in my mind for the last few miles. Hell, it’d been rolling around since I met that prick back at the mine.

The “Blessed” led the organization that Jonas and the others belonged to, so it wasn’t one I wanted to be a part of. Not after meeting Lord Cockwomble, anyway.

Their opposites, the “Awakened and Accursed” as he had called them, clearly dealt with vampires and more and didn’t particularly care either way about the collateral damage such creatures left.

But he’d also shared more with me than Cockwomble had, and he had made it my decision to meet to talk or not. Now that might have been a trick, but hell, I was at least a few hours late anyway, so he might have fucked off, regardless.

I decided I’d go to the Minoan Yard either way. If he was there? Maybe we could talk, and I’d learn something. If not, well, that was fine, too, because I knew there was a bar there that supposedly did good food, not to mention I could have a dip in the sea. Besides, I needed time to think, seeing as I now couldn’t use my bank cards, as I had to assume those dickbags had started to watch them. Or get cash out of my apartment, as we’d burned it down.

I had my passport, but they had to be watching it. Cards were useless, and besides the wedge of cash I’d taken from the copper’s desk and the bike, I had jack shit to my name now.

Time to start again from scratch, I decided, oddly excited by the prospect as I was now forced to operate outside the world I’d grown to despise.

I’d spent my life rolling back and forth across the “civilized” life, alternating between wearing a tie and being a good boy and fighting for my life in the sandbox, then beating people who were late on their debts, culminating in a robbery.

Well, if I couldn’t be inside the system, I might as well embrace being outside it, I guessed, while I tried to figure out where the hell I was going to stand.

I followed the road, climbing again, then dipping from sight. The main road slowly bent around to the right, cut off from view by the climbing cliffs. A short distance around the bend, I took a side road, dipping down to the town below, then a second, leaving the paved street in favor of a dirt track that sent dust billowing up as I raced down it, shielded from view by the houses on one side and the rising hotel on the other.

I slowed and pulled in. The small beach carpark was quiet this early in the morning with only a collection of service vehicles making deliveries and doing who knew what else. As I flipped the stand down, lifting off the bike almost sadly, I smiled to see the restaurant was opening already, catering to a few early-morning passers-by as they headed down onto the beach.

I turned the bike off, pocketing the keys, and moved around the outside of the bar and seating area. I slipped down to the beach quickly, trying to draw as little attention as possible, considering the state of me, but I still drew a few eyes. Mainly because I was still wearing my helmet, and my now-ripped body was filthy.

I hurried down to the water’s edge, passing between the sun loungers already set out by the hotel, and pulled a note out of my wallet, a twenty euro. I added a second, seeing an attendant hurrying towards me, likely to tell me to sod off further along the beach, despite it being a public area.

Until I pressed the two notes into his hand, and his demeanor changed instantly.

“The last one, and bring me a beer and food,” I ordered, my voice coming out muffled but understandable from under my helm. He paused, looking at the notes, then me, and opened his mouth hesitantly. “Meat. I don’t care what kind, just bring meat.” My stomach rumbled. “Keep bringing it. There’ll be more.”

I pulled a third note out and handed it over.

“Yes, sir!” he replied, a wide smile gleaming as he bobbed his head, then tore off in the direction of the restaurant.

I knew I’d given him far too much. Hell, the seats, even with a parasol, were five euros an hour for two loungers. A beer here? Local? Maybe three euros, five if it was an import, considering it was a worker buying it, rather than a tourist.

Getting me a single beer, my seat, and food, it should have been twenty, maybe thirty euros if he brought me a damn steak dinner, considering he’d be ordering it using a staff discount and pocketing the difference, or at least that’s what I’d have done.

The other thirty euros? He’d make damn sure nobody disturbed me now if I asked him to, and it made sure that, as far as he was concerned, I was a good customer. Not a big, crazy bastard in a bike helmet and covered in dried blood.

I headed to the furthest lounger and parasol, barely a handful of feet from the water, and I dumped everything, including the money, into my helm, then stripped down to my boxers and waded out into the water.

I sighed in relief as I sank beneath the gentle, warm waters of the Mediterranean, the sea welcoming me home as I floated for a few seconds, looking back to the shore and making damn sure nobody was close to my gear. As soon as I was satisfied it’d take at least a minute for the nearest people to close the distance, I dipped under the water, folding my legs under me, and sank to the bottom.

I sat there, undisturbed, for some time before kicking back off and rising to the top, head lifting from the water. I checked on my gear again, seeing, to little surprise, the guy I’d met the night before on the road outside the mine had appeared again.

Somehow the bugger had found me, and not only had he made it to my gear unobserved, he was sitting quite calmly on one of the loungers, watching me.

I couldn’t help but grunt as I nodded to him. The server I’d spoken to was walking over now, carrying my beer, but rather than getting out of the water or watching him, as I’d planned to do, just in case he decided to grab my gear and run, I deliberately took a deep breath and sank back down into the depths.

I either had to trust the fucker wouldn’t steal my gear—the guy from the road last night, I meant—or I shouldn’t have come here at all.

I started to scrub, sat on the bottom of the sea, a handful of sand in either hand, as I tried to get rid of the blood and crap.

It took longer than I expected, even using the sand to exfoliate like I was at some posh therapy place, but while I worked, I discovered an unexpected benefit of the greater nanite saturation.

They had to be filtering oxygen directly from the water for me as I worked, or using some kind of ultra-efficiency shit on my lungs.

I’d decided to see how long I could stay down while I cleaned myself, mostly to fuck with the guy, thinking he might get panicky that I’d fucked off again and come splashing out, but he didn’t, and after a few minutes, I accepted that I couldn’t put it off any longer.

Bobbing to the surface, I stroked in to the shore, the deep waters around the sandy beach having made it the perfect place for the Minoans, and now for me as I reached the shallow, sandy stretch and waded out.

I walked up the beach, nodding to the figure laid in the lounger as I approached. He gave a crooked smile, lifting my beer in a salute—half-empty, I noted.

“You better have ordered more of that,” I said in way of a greeting.

“Don’t worry, I did. Oh, and I doubled your food order as well. I remember what my first weeks were like,” he added in passing, reaching around and setting the beer down in the shade cast by the parasol. He stood, brushing his clothes off, and offered a hand in greeting.

“I’m Hans.”

“Hi, Hans,” I responded carefully, taking his hand and shaking it once. “Steve.”

“A pleasure,” he said with a quirk of the lips before sitting back down, leaning back in the lounger and lifting his feet. I noticed he’d taken his shoes and socks off, balling the latter up and pressing them into the former. “I always forget how damn nice this is . . . just to sit on a random beach and drink a beer.” He ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, smiling as he looked out to sea. “I’ll admit, a little friendly—or, at least, non-combative—company makes a nice change as well.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Look, Hans, I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

“I’d be surprised if you did, my friend.” He said. “Okay, do you want the long or the short version?”

“The short one,” I said quickly. “Maybe the longer one later.”

“Seems reasonable. First, if you don’t mind, a drop of your blood.”

“What?” I asked, instantly confused and suspicious.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want it for anything nefarious. I merely seek to ascertain whether you are truly one of us. A small cut. Once it heals, I’ll tell you anything you need to know.” He reached into his coat, which he’d hung on the back of the lounger, and drew a small blade free, offering it to me.

“You don’t need the blood . . . you just need to see that I heal fast?” I asked, waiting for his nod before proceeding. “Keep your knife.” I lifted my right hand and slid a nanite claw out in demonstration . . . and warning. “I have my own.”

His eyes widened slightly, and he grinned as I drew the claw across outside of my left forearm, cutting the skin deep enough to draw blood. Then I focused and felt it seal itself.

I absorbed the claw and wiped the blood up with a finger, sucking it clean. I’d never trust anyone who had vampire servants to get their hands on my blood.

“Impressive,” Hans murmured, leaning over and nodding as I offered my arm for verification. He reached out and smoothed his thumb over the area where the wound had been and nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Thank you for that. While I certainly enjoy talking, well, if a standard human found out what we were . . . I dislike the necessary steps needed to silence them. So . . . do you need me to prove my pedigree?”

I shook my head at his offer.

Considering the ease with which he’d alluded to murder, again I wondered at why the hell I was here. But it was true; I didn’t need him to prove anything. The concentrated nanites I could sense in him were enough to make me have to swallow hard.

The server showed up then, putting three more bottles of beer down, pressing them into the sand, as Hans smiled at him, passing the server another note in payment.

“If you could keep the nearest seats free? My friend and I would appreciate some privacy while we eat,” he murmured with a smile and the flash of a two-hundred-euro note being handed over.

The server stared at the note in shock, then nodded quickly, his smile fit to take the top of his head off. For the first time, I paid enough attention to note that he was maybe seventeen or eighteen, if that.

Considering the low wages in his role, he’d probably just gotten more than he did in a week, and that was a hell of an incentive, especially for a kid.

“So,” Hans started, plucking one of the bottles from the shade and handing it over to me as he settled back. “Is that drone overhead yours? Or do I need to be ready?”

“It’s mine.”

“Might want to send it on a loop, then. Looks suspicious hovering over us like that.”

“Dammit,” I muttered, flicking my finger as I sent new orders to it. Then I groaned, realizing the ability I’d just demonstrated.

“Seems I’m going to spend a lot of my time impressed with you,” Hans said, smiling, then taking a swig from his bottle. “Sub-cutaneous implant?”

“What?”

“To control the drone?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I’d be interested in obtaining such technology . . . regardless of whether you join us or not.”

“Maybe. How about you tell me what you were going to?”

“Ah, of course, my apologies.” Hans nodded, shifting again to get more comfortable, then waving at three girls who’d entered the water maybe twenty meters away and shouted for us to join them. “Maybe later!” he called, getting boos that made him smile again. “Ah, to be so young and carefree again, eh?”

Hans took a deep breath and started his story.

“So . . . nobody really knows how we began, or if they do, it’s the Old Ones, and they don’t speak to the likes of you and me. Or either faction, frankly. So the first point is that there’s always been immortals, regardless of side chosen, scattered across the human race. We’re generally referred to as Arisen, as we ‘arise’ from the base stock of humanity.” He checked to see if I was tracking, then went on.

“So nobody really knows how it began, but we suspect it’s something in the genes. Certain family lines produce immortals fairly consistently. Purebloods, anyway. If the lines aren’t pure, but a candidate is found worthy, well, an Arisen shares their genetics, essentially a highly ritualized blood transfusion, as payment for ten to thirty years of service.”

He took a long swig, then sat forward, looking around, before leaning back and sighing when the food was nowhere in evidence.

“So, depending on how pure the bloodline is, the chances of success climb or fall; best case is around a ten percent chance, as near as we can tell.”

“What happens if it fails?”

“They die. Usually very painfully. It’s . . . hmmm, it’s like the body forgets how to hold itself together, and it dissolves. Very messy.”

“Well, fuck,” I muttered.

“Exactly. Personally, I don’t ascend anyone, not anymore. Been a long time since I chose to do so. Last one I lost, well, she was special.” He cleared his throat at the memory. “So, we’ve always been around, and there are ways that we can increase in numbers, but there aren’t many of us, not at all. Maybe six hundred now, in total. And that’s across the entirety of our civilization, mind you. Most of us are at least a few hundred years old.

“Some are thousands.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Shit,” I muttered, trying to imagine the things that people several thousand years old had seen. Or eaten, my stomach seemed to wonder with an impatient grumble.

“Quite. The eldest among the Old Ones, as far as we can tell, is nearly nine thousand years old. Just take a minute and think on that. She could tell us so much, but she hasn’t spoken in at least two thousand years now. They sit in the Great Refuge like so many bloody turnips, doing nothing, adding nothing to the species. They won’t communicate, except through the Speaker—one of their number who speaks for them, handing down their edicts, like that we shouldn’t interfere with the humans.”

“Humans?” I asked, frowning. “What are you, then?”

“Depends who you ask,” he replied easily. “Personally, I think we’re all ‘Arisen’ or Homo arisus. Then, you’ve got the factions, two of us. Well, three I suppose, if you count the Old Ones, but they have little to do with the rest of us, as I say, so I tend to ignore them.” He took another drink, smiling and waving back at the same girl who was clearly trying to get us to go join them. She’d moved out of the water, stripped her bikini top off, and tossed it to their towels and gear, and was wading back in, waving at us.

“Damn,” he murmured. “I might join them for a game or two after all. No clue what the rules are, but . . . I mean, I’m not that old.”

“How old?” I asked.

“What year is it?” he asked, frowning, then shrugged. “Four hundred and seven. Okay, so I might be a bit older than she is, but still—”

“I don’t judge,” I muttered automatically, though my empty belly was far more distracted than my eyes at this moment.

“No wonder we get on so well!” he approved. “Okay, so . . . factions. You have the Blessed; that’s those stuck-up pricks like Shamal and his ilk. They believe we are blessed by the gods. Pick any god you want to name for it; it changes regularly enough. So, they’re blessed to live forever, and as such, they have the God-given right to guide humanity.”

He glanced across at the restaurant and perked up, smiling as he looked back to me.

“Seems we picked the right place to meet. The food’s on the way!”

I sat up. The server was hurrying over with a tray, and I sighed in relief.

“Sounds familiar,” I muttered, referring to the Blessed and watching the server.

“Doesn’t it just?” he agreed grimly. “Well, I need to go back. Sorry, it’s been a while since I needed to induct anyone like this. I’m a little out of practice. So, let’s start at the beginning. At first there was one group, the Immortals, led by the Old Ones. We were, as near as we can tell, a mercenary army, one that human legends recreated into the Persian Army as their Immortals many centuries later.

“We would battle for coin and for land, taking a small fraction of each land we helped to conquer as ours, and a fraction of the wealth. That was used to build our numbers, buying slaves, indoctrinating them, then experimenting on them, attempting to create more of us.”

“Sounds a bit fucked up.”

“Yes, well, certainly not how I’d have done it, but these were different times, I suppose. Anyway, as time went on, the Immortals grew in number, slowly. We took more and more land, developing it, making it rich and teaching our people, taking the long view with projects until . . .”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“They came for us. Our allies and masters. Empires we’d served for centuries. They came for us, knowing what we were capable of. They dismembered those they defeated, dragging them away.”

“Shit.”

“You know that we can recover from almost any wound?” he asked.

I couldn’t help but wince. “I kinda suspected, but—”

“Well, believe me, we can. The greater the wound, the longer it takes, but it’s possible. To combat that, they dismembered our ancestors and packed their bodies in salt, then entombed the parts in a bronze barrel, setting it over coals, and baked it over and over. Then they bound what was left in bronze and dumped it overboard in the sea.”

“That’s . . . that’s fucked up.”

“Quite,” he agreed. “There was also . . . mmm, how to describe and explain this? There was a way to recover, even from that. A handful of items that would supposedly grant us our rebirth, awakening as if from sleep, reborn anew, but in bodies that were wasted and weaker.”

“Right?”

“That ended, though. The destruction of the Lesser Halls meant that the things that were needed to achieve this were lost. All but the few that were left in the Great Refuge, anyway,” he muttered.

“Anyway, back to the important details. So after the betrayal, we fled back to the Great Refuge, gradually bleeding the following armies. Eventually, after years of warfare, our survivors withdrew, and the humans thought they’d won.

“Centuries passed while we argued, locked in stasis in the Great Refuge, as the Elders forbade ‘meddling in man’s affairs,’ squandering centuries of planning and design. Before we were betrayed, a hundred elders ruled us. By the end of the war, there were only eleven of them, yet hundreds of us.

“The Elders ordered us to obey, and more and more refused. We held our own councils, and the factions formed. When the Elders could no longer command us, they kicked us out. We were granted the choice to return, should we foreswear all oaths and serve a penance to the Elders, and freshly Arisen are permitted to go, once, but after that? Never again. The Instruments of Rebirth were blocked from us as well, but . . . well. It is what it is.

“We are immortal, or close enough, and far more powerful than humans. By many of the old definitions, we actually are gods, and as for the crap that Zeus and a few of his lot used to pull before going all meditative, well, let’s just say that some of the group liked to make the most of their strength.”

“Zeus was one of us?” I asked, stunned.

“Dear boy, examine almost all of the ancient legends, and you’ll find one of us at their heart. More to the point, the real issues between the two factions came once they’d punished those they felt were guilty of betrayal.

“It began when those of us who believed that we were blessed by the gods—while also believing that we are gods, go figure—decided that we should guide the humans into the future. You know, stop the pointless wars, teach them again. But rather than acting as mercenaries and allies, we should rule, be that from the shadows or outright.”

“What actually happened was a land grab. The strongest of them grabbed the biggest cities and the best mines. They began enticing the greatest minds away from their fellows’ cities, and rather than a life of savage glory and simple pleasures, as we had lived under the Elders, decadence reigned.”

“Some of the Factions split; others fell apart and shifted, forming alliances based on greed as much as need. In a few centuries, our own people had finished what the humans’ betrayal started, and no longer were we working for the good of the species, now we were working for the good of ourselves.”

“The Blessed continued to espouse that they were working towards a glorious future, but to reach it? They were treating wars and slavery, plagues, genocide, and more as methods to improve their population. Eugenics, it’s called now.”

I started moving things around, and he did the same, making sure we had some space under the parasol to eat. The server finally reached us, putting two large T-bone steaks down, a mountain of French fries, and a pathetic excuse for a side salad on the plates. We took them eagerly, and the cutlery as the server smiled and asked if there was anything else.

“The same again,” Hans said, smiling back. “Two more steaks, and the beers, my boy!” He handed over another two hundred, and the lad nodded, grinning, before tearing off as we started to eat.

“You know we’ve gone from staying below the radar to being memorable as hell now.”

He shrugged, cutting into the steak and eating gracefully, while I practically faceplanted in mine.

“It’s as good a disguise as many, you’ll find. Nobody cares what we are as the rich, simply what we can provide them with. They see the cars, the money, the watch and suit, all of it. The man wearing it? Strip off and wear a jogging suit, see if they can pick you out of a crowd.” He shrugged, continuing to eat. “Passable steak, I suppose. Over salted and tough, but still, one must consider the entertainment and company.” He nodded to the girls again and smiled openly at the blonde, who’d clearly decided we were going to join them, regardless of our beliefs.

“Yeah, you go play,” I suggested, shoveling more food in, amazed by how hungry I still was. Half my steak was gone already, and if anything, I was actually hungrier than before.

“Just so you can steal my food?” Hans asked wryly. “Believe me, that’s why I ordered more. I truly do remember the first weeks for me. Provided you live as you had been, well, it’s no great change, but should you use your gifts? It drains you, and drains you terribly. It equalizes after a month or so, but until then? Expect to need to eat half again or twice what you used to. And—this part really is a shame—get used to not getting drunk.”

“Why?”

“Something about the change. It means you can’t get drunk.” He shrugged. “Again, go ask the gods, if you wish to know why; the scientists believe it’s down to a series of genetic enhancements we have, but as to what they are? Who knows. It’s one of the reasons your rise is so exciting. Only one other has Arisen, as far as I’m aware, in the last, oh, sixty years or so? Besides a pair of successes in the service path, anyway.

“But back to the history lesson. Where was I? Oh! Yes, so the eugenics proved to be a great success, but they also led to a lot of moral questioning amongst those who had morals left by this point. The result was the Awakened and Accursed, the faction which I nominally belong to.

“Essentially, the majority group believed that, if there was a god, then there must be a devil, and they had cursed us with immortality, keeping us from our ordained meeting with our god.”

“So, you’re Accursed?” I asked.

“Well, we prefer Awakened, and while it started as a small group who believed that we should have that meeting with god. If we couldn’t have it naturally, well, clearly it was a test of faith, and we’d just make sure we arranged it instead.” He paused, twirling a finger around his ear and lifting his eyebrows suggestively.

“They tried to kill the world, focusing on our innate abilities and later, on explosives, plagues and more. You name it, the hardcore crowd have tried it.”

“You . . . want to blow the world up?” I asked him, stunned.

“Me? Personally? No, not really.”

“But you just said—”

“I said the hardcore believers want that. Certainly not everyone. Essentially, the rest of us believed that we might be accursed, but if that’s the case, fuck it, let’s have fun. There were a few centuries of, well, debauchery and so on, but believe me, after a while, that kind of thing really loses its luster, and we all have to grow up.” He sighed, taking a drink and assessing his words more carefully.

“Look, Steve, one of the reasons I don’t generally get involved in conversations like this is because I hate it. I’m one of the youngest of the Awakened, and yet, I feel old. I can’t be bothered with a lot of the . . . crap, frankly, anymore, so I’ll just say it.

“Some of the Awakened are out to destroy the planet, some want to save it, but won’t work with the Blessed because the majority of them are such arseholes. Personally, I’m in the middle. I’ve done things you’d never believe, crimes so dark that, when the end finally comes, the devil himself will step down and anoint me his successor.” He shook his head, eyes distant, before forcing a smile as he looked back at me. “I’ve also helped people. I spent decades wandering the world without possessions, just walking to see what I’d see. Sometimes I was nice, sometimes I wasn’t, but I gave people what they deserved.”

“You’re fucking nuts, aren’t you?” I whispered.

A sudden grin brightened his expression. “I might just be, dear boy, I might just be.

“Anyway, to get back to it, some of the Awakened, like Athena, are focused to a frankly terrifying degree, and want to build an army of our kind, hating and despising humanity. Others, such as my own patron, Petros, simply wish to relax, to enjoy the little luxuries, and to keep our lands free.

“We look united from the outside because it keeps the Blessed from attacking and trying to claim our lands as well, but the days of open combat are hopefully long behind us now. We maintain small private forces, both of humans and of other, less savory creatures, to protect ourselves, as a method of keeping out the Blessed.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, frowning. “So . . . the vampires?”

“Ah! Yes, of course. Well, basically, think of the rest of humans as a base species; you get variations. A version that evolved in vampires is actually a minor one. Some live far out to sea, deep down. Mermaids, but not the kind you’d like to meet, I’ll stress. They live in the deep; it’s damn cold, and there’s little light. Not a pretty mermaid, more like a ‘tear your face off and eat it’ kind.”

“Right . . .”

“So, variants . . . there’s a lot of them, and while we tend to ‘prune’ them, there’s no telling what would be lost if we eliminated them, genetics-wise. Besides, a vampire nest that understands its place? Well, not only do they guard your territory, should you claim one, but they’ll also be a useful place to dispose of annoying people.”

“Annoying . . . people?” I asked.

With a frustrated sigh, he sat forwards. “Yes, okay. This is the awkward part of the conversation, always is. So. People.” He gestured out at the beach and all around us. “I’m not one of those who believes we should eliminate them, wipe them out. Nor am I one of the ‘farmers’ as we refer to them, those who believe they are simply there to be raised and used, discarded when need be, much like a cow for beef or a pig for its bacon. I subscribe more to the group that quite likes humanity . . . but, and make no mistake here, they are less.”

I frowned.

He set the plate aside, dabbing delicately at his lips with his handkerchief, before taking a bottle and sitting back.

“I know it’s not a popular view, certainly not these days, but look at the evidence: we are the greater species. We can come back literally from death, and will. The only way that has been found to completely kill one of us is utter destruction, and even that’s only after being banned from the Great Refuge.

“Even being burned alive is little more than an annoyance. Been there, done that. I lost four months as I healed before reawakening.” He shook his head and went on. “To kill one of us, to truly kill us? Requires a full cremation, and takes days. The ash must be scattered, preferably at sea, or we must be exposed to heavy concentrations of gamma radiation. That’s a new one, admittedly, but it appears effective.”

“So . . . what do you believe?” I asked him.

“I’m . . . well, I’m somewhat of an outcast, frankly. I believe that humans are fun little diversions, something to play with to pass the centuries. But I also step up when called upon by my sponsor, Petros, and I assist him in his aims, when needed. As such, I am involved, but not trusted by the rest of the Awakened.”

“Okay, look. I’m confused to shit now,” I admitted. “Are you out to destroy the human race or not?”

“Nope. I’m here for a good time and a long time. I assist occasionally, especially now that they’re essentially stripping and destroying the planet, so sometimes I take a stance and assist the others. You know, start a war here, stop one there, that sort of thing. Try to keep things clean, tidy up as I go, et cetera, but mainly, I just relax, spend a little time here and there, and enjoy eternity, basically.”

“And you occasionally feed people to vampires.”

“If they annoy me? Honestly, yes.”

“I don’t know if I can be okay with that,” I muttered, then cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m not okay with that, in fact.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “So, do you want to kill me?”

“Not really.”

“Then that’s fine. Look, Steve, I’m here to offer you a choice, and a little advice, that’s all. You can join me or not. I’d prefer you didn’t join the Blessed—”

“Not gonna happen,” I said firmly. “Bunch of dickheads.”

“Then we’re good,” he said with a smile. “Truthfully, I’d like you to join me, the faction if you want, but preferably me. I’ll teach you—and it seems I’ll also learn from you, considering that trick with the claw and the way you killed the ghoul up there.” He gestured back up towards the hills. “But there’s no pressure here. It’d be nice to have someone I can talk to that’s not a member of either agenda, as well. An equal who’s not seeking to recruit me.”

“I can talk,” I said slowly, “but the vamps? The werewolves? I can’t accept that.”

“Not a problem. Tell you what, I have a stable of creatures that protect my property outside Norway. They’re under my protection directly. As long as you leave them be, we’re all good. Hunt any others you like.”

“Hunt,” I muttered, unaware I’d made that decision, but knowing it felt right as he said it.

“Yes. There’s hundreds of species and thousands of groups around the planet. Hunt any and all you want. Hell, as long as you don’t harm my own interests, I could arrange transport.”

I saw the gleam in his eyes, and instinctively I shook my head.

“No, I’ll do what I need to do on my own . . . for now, at least.”

“Capital!” he said with a forced smile. “So, now we’ve agreed to a little détente, perhaps a little hunt of a different kind?” He nodded to the girls playing in the water nearby.

“Ah . . . no. Sorry, I have places to be,” I lied.

“Ah, well, shame. Tell you what, I have a ship nearby, the Odyssey, registered out of Gytheio.” He saw my frown and sighed. “It’s a rather nice little town on the south coast of Greece. It’s sort of an in joke. If you need to find one of my faction, should you need assistance, or if you were to decide to learn more, look for a Greek ship of legend registered in a Greek port. If it’s a yacht, it’s likely to be one of us.”

“Why?”

“Well, you might change your mind—”

“No, I mean why the Greek ports and Greek legendary ships?”

“Oh! Well, frankly, because a lot of our older members are Greeks who had a great many stories written about them. Many of the figures of history are the same.”

“What, like Churchill?” I asked.

“Met him. Stank of cigars all the damn time, I remember him having a terrible time with gout. Great big laugh, boomed around the room. You knew when he was happy, I tell you. Not one of us, just a regular human, if a cunning one.”

“What about, ummm, Jesus?” I asked.

He looked at me, frowning. “I’m four hundred and seven, do the math.”

“I meant is he—”

“Ah, no. The Old Ones won’t speak about him either, so there’s something there. But then, they won’t speak generally, so . . .” He shrugged.

“Da Vinci?”

“Utterly batshit, or so I hear, again, before my time.”

“Mozart?”

“Missed him. I was off my head for about thirty years in the Americas, absolutely lost. Mushrooms and a few interesting experiments that went, in my opinion, totally right. Despite the others’ beliefs.”

“Explain.”

“I was supposed to be working on a hallucinogen to clear out a section of the new world, convincing people it was haunted, putting it in the water, as so little affects us. Instead, I managed to create a variant that affected us to an insane degree. I was honestly convinced for a good fifteen years that I was having conversations with god. Read my notebooks afterwards a good dozen times over . . . still not entirely convinced I wasn’t.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No, it was a strange time. Didn’t help that I spent a lot of the time with a trio of young ladies from a tribal group that were convinced I was talking to the spirits. They kept giving me whatever they thought would help. Believe me, it didn’t. I essentially didn’t come down until two of them died of some plague.”

“I genuinely don’t know if I should laugh or offer condolences here,” I replied.

“It’s been pleasant to reminisce,” he said with a sad smile. “Looking to the future, I’d like you to consider joining us. If there’s anything you need, there are those who study our . . . condition . . . in the group. Once they know you exist, they’ll start to search, and they may not take no for an answer.”

“Lord Cockwomble was like that, too,” I said, jerking my chin the direction of the hills.

“Shamal wouldn’t take well to being refused, it’s true. Regrettably, some of my faction are considerably less pleasant than he is. He, after all, does believe he is helping the species as a whole still, while some of mine . . . well.

“As he knows about you, I must report that you exist. If you were to consider aligning yourself with the group, they would be much more respectful in their examination. All I’ll say, is that if they do manage to ensnare you, claim you have joined me. They’ll summon me, and I’ll confirm it. Best I can do for you.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you help me?”

“Maybe because I can? Maybe because it’d be nice to have someone around that’s not quite so jaded. Maybe just to fuck with the others,” he smirked, standing slowly and looking about as he rolled his shoulders. “Well, the second lot of steaks are coming—they’re both for you, by the way—so I’m going to go and join those delightful ladies. Sure I can’t tempt you?”

I shook my head, and he smiled.

“In that case, good luck, and let me know if you need anything,” he offered, stripping down to his boxers, the girls whistling in approval. Then he took those off as well, getting more approving catcalls before wading out to join them.

I shook my head, ignoring his weirdness, and instead took the steaks.

“Uh, this isn’t . . . I mean . . . he can’t—” the server said, pointing after him.

“Go tell him then, kid,” I said, already starting on the steaks, utterly uncaring of the hotel’s upcoming complaints about nudity . . . and considering the screams and laughter from the water as Hans picked the blonde up and kissed her, perhaps a lot more than just nudity.

It was a party island, after all.

I ignored it and kept eating.

By the time I’d finished my steaks and the beers, I was feeling a great deal more human. Judging by the way he’d disappeared around the headland for a little privacy with the tall blonde girl, Hans was having fun as well.

“You not coming to play?” one of the girls called to me, wading out of the sea and stopping a half dozen meters away, the water swirling around her knees.

“Nope, too much to do,” I said to her, smiling and standing, enjoying the look she gave me, considering she’d only seen me hunched around my food until now.

Where Hans was lean and stylish, the epitome of European handsome, toned rather than bulky but looking like he had each hair trimmed individually, I was closer to a northern bear.

And as I stepped out from under the parasol, getting room to dress, she clearly liked what she saw, considering I was a little over six and a half feet tall now. While I’d always been broad shouldered and fairly imposing, I’d also carried a little extra timber around the gut.

That had been stripped away, and now . . . between the ridged muscle and the boxers I was wearing, I looked more like an underwear model than the average guy on holiday.

She took a few more steps forward, smiling a lot more openly.

“Come on, an hour won’t hurt,” she said, her eyes flicking in the direction the other two had gone, intimating a clear offer of us looking for privacy as well.

“I’d love to, but I’m taken,” I lied, as from the glances downwards she’d made, she damn well knew I was tempted.

“Shame . . . she wouldn’t have to know,” she called, an eyebrow quirked in offer.

I smiled, unable to help myself, reaching for my clothes.

“Play nice!” I scolded her, pulling my clothes on and sighing at the way the jeans sagged and were too short. I put my things in my pockets, including the wedge of money I’d rescued from the police station, seeing the way she stared at it.

I picked my helmet up and shook it, sending a little sand flying, before turning back to her.

“Do me a favor, would you?”

“I practically promised one already,” she said, making me grin.

“True! But still, when my . . . friend . . . comes back, tell him I said thank you, and that I’d be in touch.”

“Your loss!” She turned back to wade out into the sea, and for a long minute, staring at that perfect ass, I was more than a little tempted.

But I couldn’t risk it. For all I knew, their blatant offers and seemingly chance arrival had been orchestrated by Hans, either as a distraction or as a method to get a gene-sample.

I strode back up the beach, passing the server, who smiled at me hopefully. I snorted, deliberately not giving him the money he was obviously expecting.

“My friend is still playing, and he’d take it very badly if anything happened to his stuff,” I warned him, getting a nod as he set off to watch over the clothes, to hell with his official job.

Then I pulled the helmet on and started up my bike, riding up the road that led away from the beach and on to my new life.

Chapter Twenty

I cursed, seven or eight hours later, as I counted out the money I had left, standing naked in the middle of the room I’d hired for cash, in the old town of Malia.

It was a “worker’s deal,” where the woman who owned the place kept records, which in this case meant that she took a photo of your license and passport, but only stored them in a safe, intending them as evidence if something happened to her room.

She didn’t report it anywhere, though, because then she’d need to pay taxes on the income.

I’d deliberately gone clothes shopping when it was at its busiest in the local shops, and before I’d gone in, I’d used my Hack ability, and had taken the power down before entering.

No cameras to catch me out, and no card machines, so when I walked to the front of the queue and waved cash, they were over the moon to take it and wave me on, apologizing that there was no receipt for me.

I got outside, away from the cameras, arranged the room, then turned the power back on, leaving everyone complaining about the power company but relieved it was back on, and nobody was any the wiser.

Now, with food in the tiny fridge and toiletries, clean clothes, and all the basics of civilized life in place, well . . . I had decisions to make.

First and foremost, what the fuck I was going to do with my life? Living a life of idle luxury was clearly out, considering I had a little less than three hundred euros left.

I had a shitfull of abilities, but without a plan, without an aim? I’d just get into trouble. I knew myself too damn well.

I had a love of gambling, one that had taken me to the edge a few times and had cost me too much in the past. Without a reason not to, with money in my hand, I always defaulted to the same things: booze, partying, sex, and gambling. After those, I tended to end up in trouble, because as soon as I ran low on cash, I’d take the jobs that I shouldn’t, thinking it was just the one . . . then boom.

Months passed, and I’d done shit that meant I couldn’t look in the mirror.

It’d taken a long time to dig myself out of that. Hell, it’d taken the love of a good woman. When she’d left me, I’d blamed her for everything . . . but the truth was, the relationship had just fizzled out; it was both of our faults.

She’d picked me up and straightened me out, and at the end, I’d gone straight back to my old ways, then I ran away and crawled into a bottle.

I grimaced, moving out onto the small rooftop patio that my room and three others shared between us, and I stood on the edge of the roof, bottle of rum in hand, and swigged from it, watching the people that meandered here and there below me.

“Hi!” came an excited voice from behind me. I turned, seeing a pair of guys coming out of one of the rooms, both slight of build with wide, nervous smiles and postures.

I nodded in greeting, lifting my bottle. Taking a long draw, I forced a smile. I’d returned to Malia, the town I knew best, for two reasons.

First and foremost, to hide, I needed somewhere without cameras and with a lot of people. Malia’s old town had both of those. Second, if I had to go to ground, better to do it somewhere I knew. If I had to run or fight, here I had an advantage.

Add to that, there were several shops nearby that sold weapons, crossbows, tasers, swords, axes, all that good shit. They did a roaring trade to idiots, mostly male tourists who couldn’t buy that kind of thing back in England. None of whom ever seemed to be thinking about the fact that they then would have to take them on a damn plane to get them back to a country where they’d be illegal.

The same guys that owned the two “competing” weapons shops were brothers, and in reality were close. They’d set up a small store outside the airport that bought the same weapons back for a fraction of the cost the idiots had paid for them, and laughed over the fact that they made a killing, while never really having to buy much in the way of replacement stock.

That little piece of worker trivia we all knew meant that if I got in the shit, I could lead them there, and if the stores got wiped out in the fight? Well, fuck it.

No great loss to the world.

I nodded to the guys, moving past them and into my room, politely declining their offers of drinks, saying I needed a shower.

It was a blatant lie, and they knew it; the water tank was on the roof, and it creaked to buggery when anyone used the shower, meaning they knew as soon as it made no noise that I wasn’t taking a shower. But it was as polite as I could manage to be, considering the thoughts roiling around in my head.

The recognition of my healing, and my recognition of Hans’s overabundance of nanites, meant that, as near as I needed it to be proven, I was no longer a human like my old peers.

The difference was that there was a lot more to the tale. I could understand it; if they rarely had any new blood join them, then they’d be accepting that “this is how it is,” rather than looking for new explanations. Nanites were new to humanity, after all. Hell, as far as I knew, we’d not managed to make any yet, so in the bloodstream, alien versions of them would probably look just like weird proteins or whatever.

Especially as they were inactive.

I could sense the nanites, which meant that they were there, and in massive quantities. But if I considered the attuned and the corrupted nanites, one was a fraction of the other.

I had to assume that, as they couldn’t use the nanites consciously, they were simply harvesting them unthinkingly, or developing more as time passed, filling up with them as centuries passed.

That would mean . . . that would mean that they’d have a portion of attuned, and those would be why they were so much stronger than anyone else. And the corrupted, well, they must be filling them up to a ridiculous degree.

I remembered the comments about the Old Ones and how they just sat there, unmoving. What if, instead of meditating or whatever the others thought, they were frozen in place, trapped inside themselves?

If the corrupted nanites weren’t able to be cleansed, then they’d just fill you up, like wall to wall, slowing you down. That meant the attuned ones that the Arisen had were probably being mostly used to counter the shit from the corrupted ones as well. But the older and stronger these people got, eventually, they’d freeze up.

And the Great Refuge . . .

I had so many more questions. I should have asked more, but I’d recognized—or thought I had—his plan.

If he wasn’t a dick and gave me the answers I needed, I’d come back to him again and again. In time, it’d develop into an apprenticeship in truth, as it’d only be reasonable for him to ask for something in return for his teachings.

It was like the gangs did back home. A little reasonable request, and another, then one that was on the edge of reasonable, but they’d given you so much, so you did it, then the next request . . .

Until, at last, you were looking back across the trail of bodies trying to figure out how the hell you got here.

I would speak to him again, I had no doubt, but I needed to stand on my own two feet. That was why I’d not asked for anything, not money, nor transport, not even a goddamn shower.

I’d paid for my own food, as far as I was concerned, and I’d left rather than enjoy the obvious offers from what I still wasn’t sure were horny girls on holiday, or professional ladies of “negotiable affection,” as the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett had named them.

I sat on the bed, ignoring the low conversations outside the room as I drank the rum neat from the bottle, barely feeling a buzz from it as I thought.

Quest ONGOING . . .

Terminate all lycanthropes with extreme prejudice to receive the following additional rewards:

+1 War Point

+1 Weapon Skill

+???? Nanites

I’d pulled up the outstanding quest without thinking about it, and I stared at it, mind racing. If there was one still alive, somewhere in the catacombs, then there might be more. If I left it there, well, it’d go feral, Jonas had said.

I believed him on that, at least, and I could always do with more nanites . . .

I sighed, taking another swig, and banished the prompt, rereading it a few minutes later when again, in response to my subconscious, it popped back up.

I’d been given a hell of a power here, and basically, I was immortal. That was the top and bottom of it. Looking at Hans, I’d have said at most early thirties. The ladies, despite being maybe twenty each, clearly hadn’t minded his looks.

I had to assume logically that I wouldn’t age now, not any more. And if I could regrow limbs and so on, well . . .

If I wasn’t going to die, which was the point that I had creeping around in my mind, then I needed a reason to live. I’d imagine the number of batshit immortals was fairly high, as an overall percentage of the actual number, and that would be down to this.

I needed a reason, something to live for, instead of just existing. I’d only end up in the casinos otherwise, or worse. I knew myself too well, and if I let myself take a step down one dodgy path and then another, before I knew it, I’d be lost again, this time with nobody that could help me. No, I needed to treat this as it was, a chance to be more, to be better.

I’d been recruited to the team by Jonas on the understanding that I wanted to essentially hunt down the creatures of the night and grow stronger.

Well, regardless of everything else, that, at least, hadn’t changed.

I heard raised voices outside, and I deliberately blocked out the noise and went back to thinking.

So I still wanted to hunt the vampires down and so on, and I wanted to explore the ship. Hell, I wanted to claim the ship.

There was who knew what out there, a few miles away, buried in the sand and silt of the ages. But if I tried to take it, well, unless I was strong enough to hold it as well, I was making a hell of a mistake.

That wanker Shamal would come and take it and make me his bitch as well. It’d be pretty hard to hide a fight underwater, especially if the sentinels I’d fought were just the starter ones. For all I knew, there were ones with nukes wandering around.

I took a swig from the bottle, glaring down at it when all I got was half a shot and air. I grunted, getting up and stomping across the room, dumping the empty one in the bin and pulling out another before slamming it down as the voices got louder outside.

I stormed over, jerking the door open and stepping out, finding a thug, shaven-headed, tattoos running back over each ear, and a collection of metal that had to be halfway to making him a fucking cyborg by weight alone, was threatening the two young lads with a knife.

He shifted, gesturing at me with the knife as if to tell me to back off as he started to turn, already speaking.

“This here’s my town, and there’s a . . . tax—” He broke off, realizing that not only was I a good six inches or more taller, and at least that much wider, I was also utterly unimpressed with the piddly little switchblade.

I reached out, gripped the knife by the blade, and squeezed.

He tried to pull it back, unaware that my nanites had literally bonded the blade to my flesh, and that he had a better chance to rip the flooring tiles up with his fingernails.

“I—I—”

I wrapped the other hand around his throat and lifted, finding it was remarkably easy since the points I’d invested earlier, as I walked to the edge of the roof and dangled him over it.

“Can you fly?” I asked him grimly.

He tried to answer, huffing something out but unable to speak, his face turning purple as he gave up on yanking on the blade and instead started slapping ineffectually at my hand and forearm and trying to kick me.

He tried to dig his nails in, and I ignored it, shaking him like a mastiff would a kitten.

“If you can’t fly, then you’ll die,” I told him. “The next time I hear of this kind of shit going on, regardless of if it is you or not, I’ll come for you. So you make it clear to all your little friends, this stops. Now.”

His eyes rolled up in his head, and I dragged him back over the solid tiles and lowered him, letting him breathe a little.

He gasped in a frantic breath, then another, sentience returning to his eyes slowly. When the first thing he saw was me, panic widened them.

“Understand?” I asked, shaking him and getting a gasped “Yessss.”

I tossed him aside, letting him fall to the floor, gasping for a breath, wheezing and panting, frantically clutching at his neck, the front of his grey jeans stained with fresh piss.

“Get out of my sight,” I ordered him, kicking him in the ass as he tried to push himself up, sending him tumbling down into the open stairwell.

I turned my back on the cries, thumps, and bangs that echoed up from the stairwell and stalked back past the other two and into my room, finally able to think, with blessed silence filling the air.

I unscrewed the top on the new bottle of rum and padded back to the bed, staring at the mirror that stood at the foot of it, and thought.

I had the power to make the world a better place . . . did that mean, as Uncle Ben said, I had the responsibility to do so as well?

Chapter Twenty-One

By the time I dragged my arse out of bed the next morning, I had a plan, or at least the beginnings of one.

It might have started as a plot point written by the master Stan Lee, but it was going to give my life meaning. At least in part.

I’d been reborn into this world and found it a bit of a shithole really. While the stated aim of Jonas’s group to make the world a better place was great—hell, I was well up for it—I wasn’t up for their shitty rules and oversight as well.

I needed a reason to get up, besides to piss and drink more rum, so I decided I would do my bit after all and make the world a better place. I’d dedicate a year of my immortal life to this, and then I’d re-evaluate.

I’d start by hunting the murderers, rapists, and general scumbags that I knew were out there. Being an ex-enforcer, well, it meant I knew a bit about the underbelly of society already, which was convenient.

I had no way of using the funds I’d squirreled away to start all of this, not really. Yeah, I could probably find a way, but not quietly, as Jonas and his pricks—I mean overseers—would be watching it.

That meant I needed money, untraceable, so physical cash or disposable assets. I also needed nanites, a fuckton of them, and I knew of one place that would have both.

Well, not so much a place as a who.

Drug dealers, murderers, burglars, thieves, rapists, human traffickers, all of them. They preyed on society, and so I would prey on them. I’d become the knight of the dark in truth, and in the process, I’d harvest what I needed.

I’d make the world a better place, and then I’d go back and take the ship, clean it out and repair it, fix it up. And, fuck it, maybe I’d take over the world yet.

Or maybe I’d recruit and start a new faction, one that knew right from fucking wrong, despite the fact the world was really all about shades of grey.

Of all the purchases I’d made yesterday, the only things that I actually bothered to check on was my grandfather’s watch and my ring.

Even my damn multi-tool had been in my bag, and that was with Marie now.

I shrugged and checked myself out in the mirror. Nodding in satisfaction, I applied a little aftershave and deodorant, and put my new sunglasses on before locking the room up and leaving, strolling out onto the shared balcony.

I stopped as I accidently kicked a bottle on the floor, and I stooped down, picking it up and looking at it.

It was a bottle of Appleton, my usual brand of rum, full, sealed, and had a small red bow tied on it around the neck, along with a note.

Thank you.

I read and reread it, confused, and my heart started to pound as I wondered who . . . then I remembered the two young guys and the thug. It’d been a nothing encounter to me. After all that had happened the last few days, hell, I’d only been paying a little attention. I’d mostly gotten involved because I was annoyed by the noise, but . . .

It’d made a difference in their lives.

Perhaps a massive one.

I’d been planning to “help” people, but in a more general, society-as-a-whole way. Already, I’d forgotten about the actual people.

I resolved to remember this, and hopefully, it’d keep me more or less grounded, compared to the way the rest of the Arisen existed.

I’d not walk by. I couldn’t afford to let myself do that, as it was a slippery slope I damn well knew already.

I put the rum in my room and headed down the stairs, noting the dried blood that was smeared across the walls, low to the ground.

The stucco walls had a cheese-grater effect on the thug’s skin as he went down. Terrible shame, that.

I moved quickly, weaving through the narrow streets to an old bar and restaurant, pausing outside as if reading the menu on the boards and instead activating Hack and searching. Two cameras.

I reached out to them, flipping through the encryption almost absently and unlocking them, stopping the recording, then releasing them.

I smiled at the waiter as he asked if I needed a table, and sat where he directed, ordering a full English breakfast with a cup of tea, despite the rising heat of the day. No need to be uncivilized, after all, I reflected.

The Red Lion, as the bar was called, was a typical bar restaurant, clearly aimed at serving food to the tourists rather than the locals, considering the menu. It had a wide collection of newspapers stacked to one side as you entered, for those who still liked the feel of paper.

Most places had started phasing things like this out, as the drunken or hungover tourists mainly weren’t interested and could get it on their phones if they wanted, the sight of them was appreciated at least, as I picked one of them at random and started flicking through.

It was filled with the usual. Some politician had been caught breaking their promises and laughing about it, another was telling them off, despite the fact they’d been caught doing the same last week. The police were being sued and were apologizing for a criminal that got a boo-boo in custody, and being lambasted for not doing more to prevent crime at the same time.

That was despite the fact that, if the criminal in question played that they were sick, they had to be taken to the hospital and assessed. With their arresting coppers to watch over them.

So that was two coppers sitting around in A&E with a timewaster, for six hours or more, until a doctor said “time-waster” and the police could finally take them back to the station and process them . . . where a prosecution service would spend thousands on the full legal process, taking weeks and months, and then a judge would let them off with a warning, because the prisons were full.

Or some politician had downgraded the crime in question to a misdemeanor because it increased their chances of re-election, because suddenly there were fewer “serious” crimes being reported.

I sneered, flicking through the pages, wondering. Were they really so self-serving they couldn’t see the greater effect this shit had on the crime rate, or was I deluded about the simplicity of it?

And just like that, I was past the big stories and into deals and general crap. Some celebrity was attempting to prove their worth by using their platform to campaign for this or that, some charity was desperately in need, and a fuck load of adverts were aimed at telling me that I would be more handsome, happier, and more successful if only I bought this or that.

I folded the paper up, tossing it aside, uninterested in overpaid wankers kicking a ball around. And just like that, the paper was done.

I sat back, sipping my tea—after adding milk and a single sugar, of course—and watched the world go by, wondering if the papers and the news were always full of such crap, or if it was just me.

More and more people came and went, the serving staff running around desperately trying to keep up. The wind picked up, the sky grey and overcast as clouds rolled in, an unseasonal storm on its way.

I sipped my drink and watched kids laughing and joking, the hangovers, the joy and exuberance of their first holiday away from parental oversight and surrounded by friends.

They laughed and joked, and I thought about how little time had passed since I was like that.

I was only twenty-seven, for fuck’s sake, but . . . between my army years, those I’d spent dressing as a sheep, and the time that I’d spent just living day-to-day?

It seemed like an age had passed since I was one of those bright-eyed little bastards.

That had been what I was looking for, when I’d grabbed the money and ran. I’d been lost inside, afraid of turning more to the dark, to violence, and losing myself in the ease of it, knowing I wasn’t meant for a life of moderate peace and toil.

After losing her, I’d seen the direction I was going in, heading to the dark, and I’d decided that what I needed was a damn adventure.

Why not, after all?

Now, I sat here, watching the kids all around me, as well as the two families on the outskirts of the bar, their tables surrounded by half-drunk, swearing teenagers, their kids watching open-mouthed and waiting for their parents to step in and start telling people off.

I couldn’t help but smile at the harangued parents, who’d clearly given up and were just trying to survive the holiday now.

Eventually, the food arrived and I wolfed it down, deep in thought as I tried to figure out where the hell I should start.

I could start locally, after all. Well . . . I knew where I was going first.

The catacombs.

It was after that . . . where the hell did I start? I wanted to find the criminals the world wouldn’t really miss, the kind that people would be quietly glad were gone. After all, I wasn’t going to start slaughtering the level who sold weed.

I wanted the fuckers who killed people, but . . .

I needed tech; I needed access to information. Hell, I needed a goddamn team and locals that I could trust to point me in the right direction, in any goddamn direction, actually.

I paused at that thought.

I did need a team, but I needed one that I could be sure wasn’t working for the other side.

I decided I’d think on it later. I had a place to start with the catacombs, and once that quest was done, I’d gain a War Point, at least.

I finished the food and my tea, and left the money on the table, casting a side-eye at a shifty-looking fucker on the next table who immediately started eyeing the money.

He looked up at me, and up further as I towered over him, before swallowing and looking away. Before I moved on, I picked up the money myself, finding the waiter and handing it over, telling him to keep the change. Then I left the bar, getting on my bike and reactivating the record on the cameras as I rode away.

I wasn’t concerned about being spotted by the few cameras on the main street, not at the speed the traffic flow was going and the shitty resolution most had around here, but I made sure to stay well clear of the banks and more, just in case.

I gunned the bike, weaving in and out of traffic. Taking the slip-road up onto the highway, I opened the throttle right up, grinning as I went.

It was sodding glorious, roaring down the motorway and utterly uncaring about little things like traffic laws as I went.

I knew I was risking being picked up by doing this—by Jonas and his team, I meant—but fuck it, life had to be worth living as well.

It seemed like no time at all before I was turning off the road, the clouds of dust and gravel lifting behind me as I headed to the one entrance to the catacombs I knew.

When I pulled in, tucking the bike under the overhanging barrier so it was out of sight and my drone still up high scanning the area, I was relieved to find no Shamal waiting for me. I stepped off, the drone settling into a wide, high patrol, a simple set of sub-routines ticking away and, hopefully, ready to alert me should anyone attempt to enter.

With how deep I’d gone before, I had sod-all chance of being able to receive a message from the drone. If it picked a group ganging together to enter the catacombs after me?

It was to dive bomb them.

Hopefully, I’d hear that.

I entered the tunnels, my sunglasses left behind in the bike’s panniers. I flicked the Harvest Blade out, forming it up and ready as I stalked down the passageway, my vision already changed to show everything before me clearly.

I followed the original passages until I reached the fork in the road. Where Jonas had gone one way and I the other, this time, I followed his path.

I started to jog, not wanting to risk a full-on sprint. After all, who knew what I might find down here? But still, I was more than a match for the things I was most likely to encounter.

The passages dipped and climbed, narrowing in a few places, the walls worn by the hundreds of bodies that looked to have brushed against them over the years, until at last I entered the holding cells that Dave had described to me in one of our rare conversations after we’d escaped here.

There were half a dozen, all recessed into the walls of a small cave, painstakingly dug out, then closed over with rusted iron bars that were black with age and dried blood.

Simply entering the room was enough to make me wince, the stagnant reek of old piss and shit mixed with the sweat of who know how many bodies over the years.

I passed through quickly, barely slowing, noting the patch of dried blood on the floor and the drag marks where someone or something had removed the body of the werewolf that Jonas had supposedly killed here.

Following the marks led me to another fork in the road, only a few minutes along. Crouching there, I examined the tracks on the floor. At least three sets of feet had passed, judging from the sizes, since the body had been dragged through. While they all went down the left passage, they came from and returned to the right, following the drag marks.

I took that path, walking this time, ears pricked for any sounds.

It didn’t take long, maybe another minute, before I picked up the growls and snarls . . . as well as words being exchanged.

Another minute and I could almost make the words out. I was listening so hard that, as I took the next corner, I practically walked out into the middle of the conversation.

There were five of them, two standing facing each other, both werewolves, a creature that looked like an emaciated cat person, sitting atop a . . .

Well, I didn’t have a word for it. It was like a nest, I supposed, a nest of cushions, like someone had taken a swing seat from one of those posh gardens, pushed it into a space that was too small for it, then piled more cushions on it, then set it atop a dais?

There were two more humans standing at the back, on either side of the cat-thing, and they both held staffs, and were dressed in a waist-wrap that made me think of some Egyptian god’s servants.

Silence reigned as they all turned to stare at the passage entrance.

I’d managed to stop myself from just strolling out, but . . . yeah. They were werewolves, and maybe a werecat? Not even asking about the human-looking fuckers, but all of them clearly had some kind of enhanced senses, ones that had picked me up as soon as I approached.

“Hi, I’m here to talk to you about your car’s extended warranty,” I said, unthinking, falling back on autopilot as I walked out into the open.

“What—” the cat hissed.

“Yeah, I’m not really. I’ll admit, I do have some standards, after all.”

“Whooo arrrre you?” one of the werewolves snarled.

I cocked my head. “Seriously? You want to know, or is this a generic bad-guy start to the conversation?”

“You have made your lasssst missssstake, human,” the cat whispered. “Explain how you found usss, and your passssing may be sssswift . . .”

“Oh, okay,” I replied, smiling wide, right hand held behind my back. “Some of your dickheads grabbed a friend of mine. So I followed them, then I slaughtered all of the degenerate fucks that tried to stop me taking them out, followed by some pompous asshole called Davos.” I lifted my blade to where the flickering light of the torches on the walls could reflect off of it, and I went on. “Then I came back to finish the job. Who wants to be first?”

“Kill it,” the cat hissed, and both werewolves leapt towards me.

They were big fuckers, though not as tall or wide as the silver-furred pack leader had been, they were bigger than the majority of those I fought in the pit.

They saw my blade as it was, a three-inch punch dagger, and they assumed that was it.

I smiled at the pair of them, relieved to have such a simple and overt target that I could work out my frustration on as I lifted my right hand and elongated the blade by two feet, ramming it into the heart of the one on the right.

As soon as the blade hit the heart, bisecting it neatly, two additional posts slid out on either side of the blade, stopping it dead against the werewolf’s chest and preventing it from getting any closer as the Harvest Blade started to drain its victim.

The werewolf on the left leapt in, claws extended, and I blocked one-handed, triggering the Combat System and slowing my perceived time. I slapped the hand on the right wide, then backhanded the left.

I rolled my wrist, grabbing the inside of its arm, then snap-kicked it in the stomach, bringing its charge to a dead halt. It found that, thanks to the claws that had flowed across my shoes and anchored my right foot in place, I wasn’t going anywhere.

The claws on my left foot, that I dragged down across its manhood—werewolf-hood?—fuck it, its hanging cock, were also an unpleasant surprise. Or at least I assumed so, given the high-pitched yowl it gave.

Then I tore the Harvest Blade free of its first victim, shucking the drained and freshly desiccated corpse off the end before ramming it into the other’s forehead and repeating the process.

I fixed the werecat with a cold stare, my lip curling in a hungry snarl as I whispered to it.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty . . .”

The cat hissed in fury, leaping free of the nest of cushions, but rather than face me, it spun and raced away on all fours as the other two blocked the exit, teeth elongating and faces growing gaunter as they, too, changed.

I shoved the body aside and strode forwards, triggering my seemingly-inbuilt Examine ability as I did so and wishing I’d thought to do so earlier.

Vampire Guard

Biological Weapon Variant

One of several successful BWVs that were granted further augmentations, the line designated as Vampiric spawns several greater strengths that warrant greater investment, despite the attendant personality augmentations and increased instabilities.

Capabilities:

Enslave: Vampires granted the infective Enslave ability, enabling them to inject a sample of their genetic template into a lesser creature, hijacking their nanites to enforce obedience. As the Vampire ages, going from Fledgling all the way to Prime, they learn to adjust the effect of their bites, creating more powerful servants.

Enhanced: Vampires gain a baseline ability to integrate nanites harvested from their prey. While this ability is subconscious and undirected, it results in a higher concentration of nanites in the bodies of vampires, which grants them significantly higher strength, speed, and reactions.

Fear: Vampires automatically generate a Fear cloud that makes it more difficult for prey species to focus and control their actions, as well as driving all but the strongest-willed before them.

HP 250/250

Vampire - Servant

So, they were vampires, like that prick Davos, just weaker. Where he’d been a lord, they were servants, but they were also armed, the tall staffs they held glinting as they spread out, moving to surround me.

I glanced at the weapons and triggered the ability again, as I realized the damn things weren’t wood—they were metal, the entire length.

Dragon Staff

Blunt Weapon

An innovative twist on the traditional simple staff used by many cultures across many hundreds of worlds, the Dragon Staff is forged entirely of metal, in this case a local variant of steel mixed with a high carbon content, then carved with a dragon in flight. One end is capped with a heavier solid representation of the dragon’s head, granting greater impact damage, while the other ends in a bladed tail.

Durability 100/100

Solid Staff

I pulled my blade back and reformed it as a short punch dagger, since I didn’t want the force of one of these fuckers breaking my wrist if it blocked.

I stepped towards the one on my left as he dropped into a fighting stance, staff held crosswise and ready as the quick sounds of feet from my right and behind let me know that the fucker I’d turned my back on wasn’t going to let that chance pass him by.

I turned, thinking to race at him and try to end the fight fast, only to see the gleaming dragon carved into the end of the staff already flying towards my face.

I leaned to the left, feeling the wind of its passage as it raced past. The little bastard had used it like a spear! He’d driven it forwards with enough power that it’d have killed me outright, had it landed.

I reached up, left hand snapping shut on empty air as he yanked it back. A slight sound from behind let me know I was about to be attacked again.

I dove to the right, landing and rolling, hearing the shhh-ut of expelled air as the one I’d been facing had altered his angle, driving the staff down where I’d just been even as his companion pulled his back from where I’d barely dodged it by diving.

The one on my right pulled the dragon’s head free of the ground, a small fountain of earth falling free, and I growled, focusing.

The Combat System activated fully, pulled into primacy by my need, and the room blurred into a thousand potential movements. The split seconds needed for my brain to mesh with the system were all they needed for one of the staffs to drive forwards, landing a powerful blow to my left knee and sending me to the ground with a scream.

The knee was broken, dislocated as well as shattered, and only the whispered voice of pure instinct telling me that staying still meant certain death saved my life.

I threw myself to the left, landing and rolling, my lower left leg hanging loose, dragged by the movement but utterly unresponsive, beyond nearly making me black out with pain.

The only thing that allowed me to keep conscious?

The memory of fighting through the pain of being skinned alive and upgraded in the ship.

I stopped my roll, the dragon’s head punching into the dirt two inches from my head. Before it could be jerked back this time, I snagged it, pulling hard and dragging him off balance.

He staggered forwards, and my blade flashed up, sinking into his throat, then blossoming out, shifting from a thin blade into a siphon, tearing the nanites free.

I twisted around, dragging him between his companion and me and holding him there as I forced myself to my feet, teeth gritted in pain as the nanites rebuilt my knee.

I held myself on one leg, glaring around the vampire guard in my grasp, watching the other as the blade dragged nanites down and into me, feeding and repairing me, until . . .

The dragon head smacked into the temple of the one I held, snapping his head to the left, breaking his neck and tearing him free of my blade. I ducked, barely in time, as the surviving guard spun, using his momentum to bring the bladed end around, then spinning again, alternate ends flashing forwards one after the other as he spun like a top. I backed up, dodging from side to side.

I dropped to one knee, my left, ignoring the pain, as it barely worked, but it was better than letting the fucker get me with the spinning staff. Thanking the damn combat system, which was the only reason I was still alive now, its predictions right on the money, I grabbed a handful of loose dirt and dust.

I threw it in his face, and dove right, rolling and coming to my feet, then triggering Conceal and stopping dead.

Every instinct screamed to keep moving, to run, to fight, to dodge, but as he backed up, wiping his eyes, I knew it was my best chance.

I had three seconds left on the slowed time counter. I’d barely survived this long, and that was only because of the damn counter.

I couldn’t let the fight go on any longer.

He moved, staring, searching, and unable to find me, twisting around, then back, then looking the other way again, and as soon as he did, I stabbed.

Maybe it was the rustle of my clothing, an instinct, fuck knows what, but something alerted him, and he spun, swinging the staff—

Over my head.

He’d not realized I was still crouched, and the staff passed over my head in a blur, even as my blade entered his stomach, slicing up through the bowels, the lower lungs, and hitting the heart, then, just in case, considering these fuckers, I spawned a dozen spikes radiating out from the blade, punching through everything. The tips erupted from his skin as he looked down, one shaking hand lifting to touch a bloody tip over his heart.

Then I started to feed.

I shuddered with the amount of nanites the fucker had, and I dragged them all free, my storage filling in seconds as the corrupted mass overcame its space even as I frantically assigned more to expanding it, a visual demonstration of my body popping into my vision.

The current storage was a cylinder half the size of my stomach, curved around existing organs and entirely replacing my appendix. Two more options were available, considering the nanites I had: first, absorb another organ, replacing its function with a nanite system, or . . .

I saw my body stripped bare, and the bones themselves replaced, the white dissolving away as a new system grew in its place, a designated storage lacuna split between the two systems, weaponized nanites and corrupted ones, increasing my capacity exponentially, but I’d be heavier, and a little bulkier. The loss of speed would be offset by bones that were unbreakable, but the joints were still weak points.

I hesitated for a second, then put it aside, taking a third option, one that grew from my own experiences, rather than the system-designated ones.

I turned my left hand over, palm open and upraised, and focused down, seeing a faint black spot appear and then grow.

I funneled the corrupted nanites into a ball, roughly the same size as a tennis ball and the weight of a bowling ball; it was that solid and dense.

By the time I was done, my time dilation had long since ended, and the vampires were both long dead. The ball in my hand was . . . well, it was heavy, but it also represented a hell of a lot of wealth, and now, thanks to creating this, I had plenty of space again for more.

I had a hundred thousand weaponized nanites and forty-seven thousand corrupted nanites, with a grand total of thirty-four thousand and seventeen attuned.

I had a hell of a lot of nanites now, especially compared to the standard, which seemed to be anywhere from twenty to thirty thousand, counting both corrupted and attuned ones . . . but considering the hundreds of thousands, if not millions or even billions that the other Arisen had?

I was still dealing in chump change.

I focused, and an upwelling of my weaponized nanites appeared on my left hip, and I pressed the ball of corrupted nanites to it, feeling it attach and hold securely, even as I reached down, picking up one of the staffs.

It was damn heavy, solid as it was, and I hefted it, feeling the weight and getting used to it.

There was one of the fuckers left alive.

Time to go fix that.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I set off jogging, following the tracks in the dirt, slowing only slightly as I passed what I assumed to be barracks and storage areas. Some were bloody and filthy while others were pristine. I slowed in my passing at a collection of fish that looked to be hung damn recently, judging from the water on the floor.

I picked up the pace again, more rooms whizzing by. The last one was heavily barred, and I slowed to press my palm to the lock, half-expecting to find more prisoners.

I formed my weaponized nanites into a key, making it flow into the shape I sensed. Pushing the tumblers up, holding them in place, then rotating, I released the latch with a loud clunk.

A spring also released, attempting to drive a concealed needle forwards, but as packed as the space was with nanites, it went nowhere.

Another notification pinged as “asp venom” was assessed and added to my body, granting an immunity to it in the future, in exchange for a few hundred nanites consumed in the process of assimilation.

I nodded, accepting that as a worthwhile exchange.

I pulled the door open all the way and froze.

I’d found a storeroom, yeah, but what a storeroom.

It held a collection of weird-ass jewelry on several stands, including two sets of needle-like coverings for fingers, a dozen or so gemstones in a bowl surrounded by unlit incense sticks, as well as stacked cash, neatly wrapped in elastic bands.

There were five bundles of cash, and I guessed each to be around the twenty thousand range, considering the thickness.

I liked that.

I grabbed them up, looking around the room, and cursed before pulling my top off and using it as a makeshift bag, bundling all the cash into the middle and tying it up, as well as pocketing the gems.

I nodded to myself in satisfaction, then set off again, pausing only long enough to leave something in the bowl in exchange, surrounded by the incense.

I’d needed a shit anyway.

I set off jogging again, passing through a dozen more sections, paths leading off regularly, and I started to grow seriously worried.

First of all, I’d expected to catch the fucker long since; it was a scrawny thing, after all. But the damn length of the tunnels was more concerning. I mean, I could track my way back out, but the hundreds of side tunnels I’d passed?

There was the potential for not just dozens more of the fuckers hiding down here, but there could be tens of thousands!

I kept going, noting that the floor was still sloping downwards and had been for at least the last twenty minutes. It wasn’t a steep slope, but twenty minutes jogging meant I’d covered a hell of a distance, and now . . .

I paused, crouching, and listening hard. There was a faint sound in the distance, one that took me a minute to make out.

Water lapping against the shore?

I sped up again, following the twists and turns as the sound grew louder and louder, until at last, I was hearing hisses mixed in with words from somewhere ahead.

I slowed, dropping to a walk as I picked up multiple voices, knowing damn well that I’d only survived the fight with the other two vamps by luck.

If the sounds I could hear were more of them . . .

I checked my system, seeing I’d recovered enough for an eleven-second burst of time compression, and that was all, so that wouldn’t help much.

I laid the staff down on the floor, along with the bundle, before activating Conceal and slipping forward carefully, taking a final corner and finding that it opened out into a massive cavern, bracketed with great pillars that soared upwards.

I moved up to the edge, pausing and looking over it, and swallowed hard.

There were fifteen or twenty of the werewolves and werecats below, as well as dozens more of the vampires in the weird waist wraps, all in a half-circle surrounding a single panting creature on the floor I recognized as the fucker that had fled from me earlier.

It was hunched over, shaking and trying to get its words out to a pair of much larger figures that sat atop ornate black-glass thrones at the end of the clear space leading from it.

Variant #8314813648

Biological Weapon Variant

WARNING : Evolved intact Biological Weapon Variant #8314813648 detected. BWV is BETA Level Threat; recommend disengage!

Capabilities:

????: ?????

????: ?????

????: ?????

HP ????/????

BETA LEVEL THREAT

The screen had popped up unsummoned, and I agreed with it. Fuck that shit.

They were both a good forty feet tall, male and female, with skin that was black as pitch and gold plates draped across them in an approximation of clothing. Humanoid, but their faces were like someone had taken a human skull, added in teeth more suited to a deep-sea angler fish, and replaced the eyes with gleaming, white-glowing lures, then had sucked the skin back, vacuum-packing the faces alone.

Their bodies were those of a well-muscled man and woman, but with odd ridges and spikes, like they wore ornate armor under the skin, and only their faces were free of it.

Both were bald, not appearing shaven, but as though they’d never had any form of hair, and seemingly felt no cold nor heat. In the corner of the room, next to a massive pair of tridents, was a pool that must have been fifty feet across, more than wide enough to allow them access to the room.

They sat atop thrones, but rather than being venerated by themselves, they sat on either side of a set of stairs that led to a more human-sized door at the top of a flight of stairs, and the thought of what the fuck might have things like them guarding its front door?

Well, I didn’t want to know. Either way, they were a hell of a lot bigger than me, and thankfully, looking at them and back to the passage I’d come from, too big to get down it. I blinked as my notifications started going nuts, and I moved back very, very slowly before starting to read.

Quest UPDATED:

You have discovered that the lycanthropes serve greater masters than previously suspected, with Vampire Lords leading them. “Terminate all Lycanthropes with extreme prejudice” has been accepted as complete, considering the location and extended situation.

+1 War Point

+1 Weapon Skill

+ 10,000 Corrupted Nanites Cleansed

Additional Quest:

The lycanthropes’ Master and Mistress will shortly become aware of your trespass, and they cannot accept your presence.

Survive the coming onslaught to receive the following rewards:

+2 War Points

+2 Harvest points

+2 Minor Perks/1 Greater Perk

*

You have survived combat with a group of BWVs identified as Corrupted/Awakened #69514434598, #72418352961 . . .

As your Combat System is now fully active and paired with an active Nanite Recovery Tool and Biological Enhancement Package, you may choose from the following options:

1)     Invest 0.2 Points to Body

2)     Invest 0.2 Points to Reactions

3)     Gain 3 Points of Specializations

I nodded to myself. Yeah, that was about what I’d figured. Those big fuckers were beyond me—like, seriously, sod that—but I did have three points to specialize . . .

I put one into Traps and Augments straight away, feeling some of the information unlock, thankfully not so much as to overwhelm me. Then, before I could think better of it, I did what I needed to do.

I’d unlocked the capability to utilize the weaponized nanites as deployable units, but . . . they were simple in the extreme.

I braced myself and sank the remaining two points into Nanite Manipulation and Armor, respectively.

The pain was intense, my grasp on reality all around me slipping. I frantically held on, reaching out one shaking finger, touching it to the wall of the passage about six inches from the ground, then dragging it across to the other side of the passage and pressing it there. Something like a spiderweb in thickness remained, only made of weaponized nanites and sharp enough that anything not reinforced by nanites was in for a very bad day.

I crawled backwards, my sense of balance sliding from side to side as the data downloaded into my brain, and my left eye started to twitch uncontrollably.

I’d made a terrible mistake in activating this now, a seriously big one, but in order to survive what had looked like an unwinnable amount of enemies, well . . .

I needed armor, as well as traps.

Thankfully, the original data download on controlling the nanites, the one that had made it possible to form claws and more, appeared to be the most complex one. This was merely on a level of a master’s degree in engineering being poured into my brain via a white-hot goddamn firepick.

Seconds passed as I shook and trembled, crawling backwards, drawing a veritable web of lines across the entrance.

They led from one side to the other in a mix of vertical, diagonal, and horizontal from six inches off the ground to the very top of the passage.

An angry roar reverberated from the pit—one that made my ears vibrate painfully and my asshole quiver—I decided that was enough.

I turned, took one step, trying to run, and tripped over the bag of loot, stumbling and falling full length.

I grabbed the makeshift bag and the staff and forced myself upright, starting to run, fear building as I considered the kind of abilities those big fuckers must have.

I ran, the sounds of roaring continuing behind me before being cut off by the sound of screams and wet flesh as bodies encountered the razor wire and regretted it.

I kept going, not trusting myself to look back. My weaponized nanites were down to sixty-eight thousand, the razor wire I’d laid behind had cost me thirty-two thousand, and the nanites I had in reserve . . .

I could use them to increase my body or other stats, or . . .

I changed forty thousand into weaponized nanites and began to absorb the ball on my hip as well, pausing as I took a corner to draw three lines—one vertical, two horizontal—then started to run again.

I kept carrying both the dragon staff and the loot, simply because I’d carried them far enough now that they had my scent. Leaving them would be as good as leaving a ball of twine behind me for creatures like werewolves, so I was stuck carrying them now.

I set off running again, covering as much ground as I could. A dozen twists and turns passed, and I was just damn glad that I had the tracks to follow, or I’d have been fucked. Still, when I finally passed into the room I’d fought the other four in, I paused, reaching out, about to attach a new line. Something hit me from behind, and I was suddenly flying.

Landing hard, I bounced and rolled, gasping, looking down at the tip of a dagger that stuck out of my upper chest, driven deep into me from behind.

“You thought you could run?” a voice asked, and I twisted around, forcing myself up and to my feet as a single vampire glared at me from the doorway. “The Xi-Ma decrees you be brought to them, or you’d be dead already.”

Complex Neurotoxin Identified: Nanites Assessing . . .

Countering . . .

I sagged to one knee, gasping as pain ripped through me, before gritting my teeth as my body refused to respond properly.

“Fi . . . ne,” I forced out, flexing my will instead and lifting myself atop a formation of nanites.

“Impressive—” the vamp started to say before I managed a smile, and using another stream of nanites, lifted my right hand high, then jerked it to the right.

His words were cut off as the line of razor wire that I’d attached to the wall, right before he’d driven me halfway across the room, was drawn taut and bisected him.

I forced my nanites to carry me closer, finger shaking as I started to connect it to the wall in a complex pattern, viewing it as already used and needing to make the most of it.

Once I reached the end of the amount I’d drawn out, and despite the fact I could hear others incoming, I dropped myself onto the ground a dozen feet back from the entrance and latched a tentacle of nanites onto either half of the corpse, draining it.

The next two arrived seconds later, a pair of werecats. At the sight of me, they attempted to shoulder each other aside, racing forwards.

They hit the razor wire together and were shredded into a dozen chunks, bouncing across the floor in a spray of blood that coated everything.

I managed to turn my face, but that was it; I still got a hell of a lot of it on me. I growled as the nanites finally started to win the damn fight with the neurotoxin, returning feeling and control to my limbs.

I’d finished with the original corpse and latched onto the other two when another vamp arrived, this one missing his right foot and staggering along on the stump, hissing with every hobbled step as he came. A woman followed, who . . . well, she was missing half her face and one eye, and I couldn’t help but wince at the sight.

They paused, brighter than the werecats, and examined the area between us, the woman crouching and picking up a handful of dirt from the floor and throwing it forwards, illuminating the hanging blades for a few seconds.

The man hissed and started trying to find his way through while she watched me. One tentacle slid forwards, closer to her companion, but she watched and said nothing as it lunged through the gaps, fastening onto his shoulder and dragging him forwards into the blades, chopping him into more chunks.

She hissed and stepped back, but beyond making sure I couldn’t reach her easily, she seemed unconcerned.

“I’ll find you,” she warned me.

I forced myself to my feet, the nanites popping the blade out of my back and a tentacle flowing around to hold it where I could pick it up.

“Not if I find you first, bitch,” I snapped at her, drawing the blade back as if I was about to throw it.

She spun and ran.

I sighed, having had no intention of throwing it. For a start, it’d probably not have made it through the net I’d made across the doorway.

I heard her racing away, and I drained the other body quickly, collecting a pair of rings and a chain with something written on it, just because loot was always valuable, then I turned on my heel and grabbed a torch from the wall.

That was twice I’d bled in this room, and a quick search resulted in a little lamp oil or something similar. I poured it on each of the blood patches I thought were mine, then liberally around the rest of the room as far as I could make it stretch, before backing out and tossing the torch into the middle of it.

It caught instantly, the lines of oil rippling out and catching others. Shallow puddles and more burst into flame, consuming all the traces I thought I could realistically manage. Then I set off again, half-jogging, half-limping, battered, exhausted, and drained again. That damned neurotoxin took more out of me than I’d originally imagined.

By the time I staggered out into the light, relieved to find both my bike still there and the drone calmly circling overhead, I was done with the goddamn day. I dumped everything into the bike’s panniers before setting off, slowly riding down the dirt track and back towards civilization.

I gave a brief thought to what would happen if someone—an innocent human, I meant—tried walking through the catacombs . . . and found my razor wire.

I winced, then considered that, if the option was finding that or the vamps and lycanthropes? It was probably a blessing.

I rode woodenly, barely watching the road, sitting in the flow of traffic, rather than weaving through it, addicted to the speed and grace of the bike. Stuck behind a mom-and-pop wagon that was barely managing to reach the speed limit, let alone exceed it, I stared ahead, lost in thought.

I’d entered the caves, expecting to find a handful of hiding werewolves and to slaughter them, then rock off on my way, secure in the knowledge that I’d probably saved the lives of more “normal” folk.

Instead, I’d found that there were big scary fuckers in the depths, and they sure as shit didn’t like that I knew about them, and for me to find them this easily?

There had to be a lot more, like a lot.

I remembered Jonas making comments about the “world I knew being the goddamn frosting on the real one,” but shit.

If there were things that size down there?

What the hell kept them from storming out and slaughtering everyone?

Besides . . . the Arisen.

Shit. That was it, I realized. The lycanthropes and vamps were in thrall to the big fuckers, and they, in turn, were on roughly the same level as the dickbag that I’d met before, and Hans . . .

The only thing keeping them underground and out of the public eyes, keeping things in a steady détente . . . it was the Arisen, and they didn’t really seem to care.

If the things Hans had said were true, then . . . they were basically an order of magnitude stronger.

They didn’t have nanites, though.

Or they did—that was totally wrong, actually.

They had nanites, but they were only using them on the lowest possible level, literally. They were still locked away from truly accessing their potential . . . and if they found out what and how I was?

It’d become an arms race that dwarfed anything as petty as the nuclear one, especially as once one of them started to unlock their potential, well.

They’d see the power that was within their grasp, basically godhood, and probably go on a murder spree to both make sure that they weren’t overtaken by others, and to harvest them as much as they could.

Once one of them fully converted their nanites . . . I dreaded to think what they’d be capable of achieving.

The only solace, and it was a minor one, was that they had no clue what I’d done and how. They thought I was a fresh Arisen, somehow naturally occurring, and that I’d put myself in a position to get recruited.

The Blessed thought I was some kind of sleeper agent, or innocent idiot they could manipulate. The Awakened? Little better.

That meant I had a little time while they tried to figure out what I was, I hoped.

It also meant that I needed to grow, to increase my capabilities, and goddamn fast.

I blinked, seeing what I was doing, and growled, opening the throttle and pulling around the wagon, then passing a line of cars and weaving in and out of the oncoming traffic, when a little detail reared its head.

I’d done my level best to remove any trace of my DNA from the catacombs, just in case… and I’d also left a fresh turd in a bowl for them. Yeah, it was needed, both as a general “fuck you all” and because, hell, call of nature, but fuck!

Hell with this.

I could feel the mass of data still unlocking, most of it chemical and engineering, and . . . fuck it. I needed time to integrate it, time to figure this shit out, then I was going to go find some assholes to hurt.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I’d basically made the catacombs a bit of a death trap for the lycanthropes, and the big bastards were literally too big to go anywhere in there, meaning they had to be aquatic, mainly.

Well, if they made an appearance anywhere, people would hear about it, and the Arisen factions would take care of that, I decided.

If they were left to their own devices normally, well. They wouldn’t be living underground. They’d be ruling nations.

And building pyramids.

Fuck!

That’s what they looked like! Those mental bastards that the Egyptians used to worship. And the cats? The werecats . . . fuuuuuck.

Okay, new plan. The Mediterranean Sea and the entire Greek and African area was clearly utterly mental. The sensible thing to do would be to get the hell outta here, but if I did, well, I could get on a plane, and definitely be picked up on the various technological systems, or . . .

Or I could do it old school.

I could use the ferries. They were slow as shit, but the majority were as low tech as could be, and if you showed a passport, nobody really cared.

Admittedly, since that damn idiot fucked the UK in Brexit, we were a bit of a pariah nation. But if I was going to be dealing with the underworld a lot, I was fairly sure I could find someone to provide a fake passport.

Plus, I could always Hack the system and make it accept anything. That was a bit of a bonus.

Also, I had a wedge of cash now, a decent one. Surely it couldn’t be that complicated to Hack a phone so that I could have basic internet access and so on? I mean, I could be careful . . .

I pulled off the highway and into the Old Town, still lost in my thoughts, parked the bike up, and . . .

I looked around, seeing the dozens of people wandering here and there in the street, and thought about what I had in the panniers. A hundred thousand or so in cash, jewels, and weird gold and so on.

I locked the panniers, making damn sure they were locked tight after pulling out some cash. Then I slid the staff behind the bike, hiding it as best I could, then strode through the alleys to the main street.

I leaned against the wall, looking up and down the street, making sure nobody was paying me that much attention, despite the mess I was in. Then I activated Hack and started to search, carefully limiting it to only a hundred meters or so.

I still winced in pain as a massive overlapping barrage of signals felt like they were going to burn my damn eyes out.

I scanned over the mass, spotting a guy nearby with wireless earphones. I checked the pattern they used, then searched for similar ones, removing them from the mass. This gave me a slight dip, then I tried the same trick with mobile phones. Hell, that was a massive dip; every damn person on the street was broadcasting all the time, as near as I could tell.

Next was the Wi-Fi. Overlapping fields radiated out of, well, everywhere! Removing that left me with a dozen kinds of signals, but now I simply flicked from one to another, finding the one for cameras, the visual spectrum signal clear.

I tagged them as a threat mentally and felt the system accept it, projecting a field of cover that they provided.

With that done, I grinned, reaching out and disabling two before setting off and strolling across the road and into a small repair shop.

The guy behind the desk was in his mid-forties, maybe early fifties, smoking regardless of the big “no smoking” sign directly behind him, He nodded to me in greeting as I stepped into the blessedly cool, air-conditioned shop.

“Yassou,” he called, taking in the tanned skin. Then he did a double take at the dried blood on my clothes, standing slowly looking me over. He glanced to the camera on the wall and then back to me, reassured that it was there and seemingly working.

“Yassou,” I replied, the local equivalent of “Hi.” I forced a smile, then pointed at the most expensive phone he had behind the protective glass. “I’ll take that one,” I said firmly, pulling out one of the folded stacks of cash and peeling a handful of notes off it, barely affecting its size at all.

“Ah . . . ID?” he asked slowly, eyes wide.

“Certainly,” I said and moved to hide what I was doing from the camera, where I peeled off four more notes, adding them to the pile.

As they were hundred-euro notes, he took the hint and smiled, sliding the entire lot off the top in one go. Some went in the till and some in his pocket. Then he was handing me the one damn cent change, as he rang the sale through the till, pulling the phone out and even popping in a handful of prepaid sim cards . . . even if none of them had credit on, I was willing to bet.

I nodded my thanks to him and left, ducking into the shop next door, picking up a handful of pastries and sandwiches and a bottle of rum, paying. Then I headed across the road and back into Old Town.

Once back at my bike, I popped the pannier open. Acting like I was cleaning it out of nothing important, I dumped the bundles of notes into the bag I’d gotten with the phone and tugged the rest out of the other side.

I got a look from a trio of young girls going past, but it was just an idle curiosity kind of look, and not one of them commented on the bloodstains, their eyes being drawn to my “mighty staff” more than anything. I picked up the damn unwieldly thing from where I’d hidden it.

Entering the building, I climbed the stairs quickly to the top floor and my room. I was halfway through closing my door as the young guys next door opened their own.

I dumped the lot on the bed, and moved to the bathroom, tugging the light switch. Looking at the state of me, I folded the legs on my sunglasses and set them on the counter.

I really wasn’t bad, I realized.

I’d been expecting a lot of looks and had been rubbing at my chest and shoulder when I was riding, trying to get rid of the dried blood. But whether it had been that or the flow of the nanites across my skin, I wasn’t sure. One of them had removed most of the blood, leaving only a few spots here and there that could be missed easily.

The guy in the shop had seen the blood on my right hand—that was a lot more obvious—and the jeans, dark as they were, had passed without comment on the street, but in the blue-white lighting of the shop, they’d been clearly stained.

I grunted, both pleased I’d passed through the mass of humanity outside so unobserved and disgusted with how easily I’d done it.

I started washing my hands, then stripped off, ready for a damn shower, when the sound of hesitant knocking on the door rang out, making me growl.

I grabbed a towel, wrapping it around my waist and tucking it in, making me at least semi-decent, and marched across, looking out of the little fish-eye peep-hole and frowning.

It was the two kids from next door.

I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

They both took a step back, eyes wide as they looked at me, and I frowned, glancing down.

I was decent, so why—

Of course.

They were both probably under twenty, and judging from the lack of exhausted bags under their eyes, the general sheen of health rather than borderline liver failure, and the nervousness, they were new to the worker life on the island.

I was maybe twice their size, heavily muscled, heavily tattooed. The Polynesian designs on both my shoulders always drew the eye, and well, I was basically a half-shaved ape, compared to the pretty boys before me.

“What?” I grunted, annoyed, tired and wanting my damn shower.

“Ah! Um,” one of them said, forcing a smile. “We, ummm . . .”

“Wejustwantedtothankyou,” the other burst out, all in a rush.

“Ah, crap,” I muttered, reaching up and rubbing my face. “You’re welcome, sorry. Not a very sociable person.”

“It’s okay! Umm, look, if you’re new to the area, we could, you know? Help you find a job?” one offered.

I shook my head. “I’m not, but thanks. And thanks for the rum.”

“You’re welcome. Ah, it’s not good to drink alone. We’re about if, you know, you want company?” he tried, wincing as he heard how his good intentions came out.

I smiled then, genuinely, and nodded.

“Thanks. I’m good, though. Won’t be around long, so don’t worry about it.”

I nodded again, then closed the door on them, flicking the lock and heading back into the bathroom, stripping off and climbing into the shower with a sigh of relief.

The shower was glorious, and I stayed in it far longer than I should’ve, considering the nature of the apartments and the shared water tank on the roof, but fuck it.

By the time I stumbled out and collapsed on the bed, still damp thanks to the rough and scratchy cheap towels, my brain was well and truly fuzzed by the mass of data that waited.

I bit down on a pastry, uncaring of the flaky mess it left, and I let myself sink into the data.

Hours passed, literally, as I saw structures, as I played with designs and the world of creation was opened to me. Eventually, I surfaced, answering the calls of nature, cracking open a drink, and eating a few sandwiches absently. I worked through it all, staring into the distance, seeing things that were both new and terrifying in their complexity and potential, and ancient, considering the designs had been incorporated into the data that was stored in the nanites eons ago.

I lay there, designs flowing up and down in my mind, adjusting as I somehow created a virtual design studio, something I’d never used or considered before, and yet, with a thought, it was there.

Within the constructs of my mind, I discarded and created hundreds of designs, until finally, I had a small set of ones I felt like I could use.

There was an order of magnitude of difference between the things I’d created and what I could have created if I had a real clue about these things, but for now?

It was an improvement.

I locked the designs into my mind, able to trigger them at will with a simple thought, rather than having to create them from scratch each time. Finally, I stood, moving into the middle of the room, making sure I wasn’t going to break anything, and closed my eyes, focusing.

I summoned my claws first, literally just thin claws, curved like those of a cat and recessed into my fingers, and I winced as they slid out and back in. As I opened my eyes and looked at them, I saw that blood dripped from them.

“Nope,” I muttered, wiping that design and replacing it with option two, namely gloves that covered my hands and included narrow claws, more like those of a panther: short, yet strong and slightly hooked, rather than curled like a standard cat’s.

They flowed out of the top of the gloves, extending along the fingers but attached to the gloves themselves rather than coming out of my hands, so at least they didn’t shred me as I extruded them.

I nodded, approving that design, wincing at the augmented cost.

I’d spent time working on each section of my body, envisaging exactly what I wanted. For my hands, claws, obviously, but also the ability to grip things like a knife and not get cut to buggery.

That meant the nanites had to be strong and layered over and over. They also needed to be flexible, as I needed to be able to feel through them, which required insanely dense yet pliable designs.

This came from essentially layering levels of nanites one atop the other in different directions, thinner than a spider’s web, softer than silk to the touch and harder than reinforced Kevlar.

It also wasn’t goddamn cheap, at seventy-five goddamn thousand nanites . . .

But . . .

It was a pair of gloves that I could summon anytime I needed, ones that wouldn’t transmit electrical fields so I couldn’t be tasered. It couldn’t be cut, except by a similar level of tech; they’d absorb a hell of an impact.

They were a level of armor I needed, to take on the fuckers out there, even if I’d need to be on a hell of a killing spree to earn them.

Add to that, they were the first version only.

I summoned the second design, looking in the mirror and admiring the result. I couldn’t summon the proper version; hell, I didn’t have enough nanites to do it, but I could summon a simulacrum, and that was enough for these purposes.

It was a helmet, and what a helmet.

It was a full-face version, and it flowed a little down the neck, ready to mesh with a chest piece, which would do the same, and it was a mix between space bounty hunter, with the three lines for vision like an angled T, and a dark hunter of criminals, a black knight from the comics.

He’d been a rich dude by day, and a crime fighter by night, and I liked the example.

I also knew, knew that I could integrate tech into the design. The gauntlets I’d designed, still being nanites after all, could reform to allow me to pass a physical Hack tool through them, and the helm could be redone with access to the internet and basically everything you could normally do on a phone just in the heads-up display integrated with my brain.

Again, seventy-five thousand nanites, and cheap at that price, I supposed. Although, the heavy lifting of the tech was embedded in me, I supposed, rather than the physical design.

I dissolved it and restructured the chest next, seeing it and making a dozen adjustments before I was happy with it. It was a wrap-around design, half-stylized muscle man, like a sci-fi version of a knight’s armor, with the major muscle groups picked out with a thin, copper-colored line running around them. Half-ridged nanotubes mimicked the flow of muscles, like those on the sides of the chest.

The back, running up over the spine, and the front, over the heart and upper chest, were notably thicker, styled like slabs of heavy muscle or metal, protecting the more vital areas.

I nodded to myself, loving the design and how the shoulders, back and around the main slabs, had slight dimples, each a cluster of nanites ready to be activated.

They’d form razor-sharp spikes, and while stubby, more than long enough to pierce a heart if some fucker tried to grapple or get up close and personal.

The cost was insane, at two hundred thousand. I couldn’t even form the full simulacrum, having to summon it in sections, but damn.

The back was next, much simpler—or so it seemed at first glance. It was essentially a slim backpack, or at least that’s how it appeared. But at a cost of a hundred and fifty thousand nanites, it was far more.

First of all, it was a simple storage area. Yeah, both for anything I needed to dump in, and for corrupted nanites, sufficient space for a three hundred thousand batch, but mainly?

It was the wings.

They were designed on those of a fallen angel from the stories, or maybe a male Valkyrie, if there was such a thing? My wings could only be created one at a time for now, and they lacked the detail they’d have in the end, but nobody seeing them would think “he’s some lunatic ex-enforcer with a god complex.”

No, they’d fucking worship me.

They were black as pitch and ate the light, outlined in faint copper and red and covered in what looked like feathers with razor-sharp edges.

They were big, and strong enough that they could literally lift me off the ground. I could fly, if the math that the system had done automatically was right, but damn, they’d be exhausting to use. I’d had to slip out of the design system earlier and use the Greater Perk I’d won in escaping the catacombs to unlock the power-cell capability.

That was an entirely separate five hundred thousand nanites to create the battery storage I needed . . . but once I had that?

I’d be able to fly, all right. I’d be able to outdistance goddamn fighter jets if they tried to take me on.

I’d unlocked the tech with the perk because I damn well knew that the tech had to be in use in the ship already. So I could probably nick it as well, taking the power cells that I could find, like in the bastard sentinels, and using them rather than having to build custom ones.

I loved the wings, though, and I moved on, the nanites flowing back down and forming the upper arm sections much, much easier, and only fifty thousand for both arms, covering from under the enlarged and stylized shoulder pieces of the chest unit, down to the elbow, mainly simple layers laid atop each other with a thicker panel that ran in a cup shape around the outside of the arms.

Again, there was a storage option built in, be that for corrupted nanites, which was more likely, or if I needed to, for a smaller power core, and they also included the elbow articulation and covering, which was fairly complex and heavy duty.

I nodded in satisfaction, moving to the forearms and grinning at them. I’d spent more time on these than was strictly necessary, considering the small space they covered, but they were awesome, and yeah, fifty thousand again.

The base was the same overlapping flex material, and like the rest of the armor, it was both pierce and impact resistant. I’d get a bruise if I was shot at close range, probably, but bugger all beyond that.

Then they were encircled by a thick, armored cuff that ran from just behind the wrist to just before the elbow connection, with the potential to integrate tech embedded in the outside.

I contemplated a weapon, but I had the Harvest Blade, and that was enough, really.

The waist was less exciting, basically just a body-contoured section, a collection of small pouches—because if a utility belt was good enough for all those heroes in the movies, well, it was good enough for me—and armor plating.

It came to another seventy-five thousand, basically because I liked having a pecker and I wanted that state of affairs to continue. The cost was thanks to the area it needed to cover and the storage, as well as my probably excessive paranoia about making sure the armor was thick enough.

The legs were a hundred thousand for the upper section. That was because I’d put fairly thick plates of solid nanites over a lot of the thighs, thinner in the inside and thicker on the front, back, and sides and running down to the knee, with a damn good articulation and joint overlaying my own.

I’d designed a lot of this armor with the idea of countering the goddamn dragon staff and that kind of thing, which meant it needed to be thick, yet flexible in the extreme.

Thank buggery for nanites, basically.

The lower legs had armoring as well, both the outside and the back. Protecting the hamstrings and the hinge joint of the ankle, they would have been cheaper. But I had quite long legs, and I decided to make the most of the basically unused space and created a holster on the left calf for a dozen narrow blades—throwing daggers, essentially—and a power core on the right. Just in case, and for when I had nanites to burn.

Another hundred thousand there, then.

The last to make were the boots, and as a thing that always fucking bothered me, being one of those awkward buggers who always had difficulty finding comfy and nice-looking shoes, I went for a solid boot design, similar to a snow boot, thick and heavy duty with recessed spikes underneath, a recessed blade in the back—only a half inch long, but razor-sharp if I needed to deploy it—and claws on the front.

They overlapped over the ankle and climbed halfway up the calf, stopping just past the point that the armor took over, and like every other joint, they were finished with the nanite “cloth” that would integrate with the next section.

They were also comfortable as fuck, even though they were another seventy-five thousand.

I viewed them as worth every goddamn single one.

Looking the designs over, I saved them, the system acknowledging them, and I sat back on the bed with a thump, making it creak in warning as I shifted before taking another drink and lying back, ready to sleep. I was knackered, and it was from using what was generally my most underused muscle, the brain.

The overall cost, for everything, to have the armor at a level that would not only be possible, but be fully charged and at its maximum capability, ready to go on a worldwide rampage?

It was just under one point five million nanites. One point four-five million of the tiny suckers. Well, more, really, considering that was nanite clusters.

I shook my head away from the math involved with the numbers of nanites in a cluster and just accepted that it was a fuck load.

I could go on a massive, utterly insane physical or mental boosting program for that, I seriously could, but . . .

The nanites were my trump card. Hell, nobody else had access to them at this point, and they were amazing.

The power core wasn’t able to be built of weaponized nanites, unlike the rest of the armor. It required insanely complex details and five hundred thousand of the little bastards that were attuned could make me into an utter god, basically. But I was already planning on trying to steal that from the ship anyway, so fuck it.

The power cores were a different level of tech from anything we had as a species right now, the closest we had being cold fusion, and that was still at a hypothetical level. And this, well, it combined splitting the atom with fusion, and  . . . my mind blanked. I just couldn’t get my head around it, beyond that there was a vacuum involved, and not the kind that you dragged around the house to clean up. I really just didn’t understand it, and the knowledge download for that had been small, weirdly.

Basically, it included the unlocking codes for the nanites to make it and maintain it, rather than the way for me to direct them to do it, so I had to assume that the basic tech was considered well beyond the average weaponized monkey.

I let myself slip into sleep, my final thoughts before my mind fuzzed away in the depths of unconsciousness, were that I’d need to make a decision about the nanites soon. If I was to make a section of the armor or not, and if I was going to, which one?

Add to that, the armor needed somewhere to be when I wasn’t using it, and that . . . well, that was going to suck.

That was another argument for the increasing of my inbuilt storage, which would require removing and reconstructing my bones.

Yeah.

That was definitely going to suck.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I was still tired when I got up the next morning and followed the call of nature before pulling some boxers on and moving out onto the rooftop balcony that was the shared territory of all the residents. Barely awake, I stumbled out and stretched, only noticing the low conversations that were taking place when they were cut off. I blinked, finally noticing the other five bloody people who sat there.

Three I recognized; two I didn’t. And two of those I’d recognized were the guys from next door.

The two I didn’t know were both blonde women, one obviously a bottle blonde considering the platinum color and the darker roots showing through, while the other . . . she was a full-on Nordic goddess type: six foot, slim, and stacked, with a wicked smile and bright blue eyes.

She caught my eye for a second, and then the two guys were speaking, explaining that I was the “hero” who’d saved them from “that thug,” and they were dropping hints about still not knowing my name.

“It’s Steve,” the last person said.

“Dara,” I greeted him with an internal sigh, getting a snort in return.

I forced myself to smile politely. Of everyone, it was sodding Dara who had seen me, which was only slightly better luck than me finding out that Jonas and Shamal were having a gangbang next door and were expecting me to join in.

He was an all right guy, but he was like a dog with a bone, always wanting to hang onto shit and get his money’s worth out of it. “That’s it?” he asked. “Your apartment burns down with a body turning up in it. Everyone thinks you’re dead, you don’t turn up for work, Dave’s vanished, and all I get is your usual ‘Dara’?”

“It’s your name,” I pointed out, taking the seat that one of the guys offered me, already, rubbing my face and yawning, deeply regretting that I’d walked out.

It was a habit I’d developed since moving out here, and it came from a love of the early morning sun and the fact I normally had a private balcony to sit on. I’d walked out without really thinking, and now I was paying the price.

“Yeah. I know, I’ve had it all my life. Shit, man, what the hell happened?!” he asked.

I shrugged, looking at the other four that sat in stunned silence.

“Any chance I could persuade you all to forget you saw me?” I asked and gestured to the bottle blond who’d already reached for her phone. “Seriously, reporting me to the Greek authorities isn’t going to end well,” I warned, getting a blank stare from her.

“Reporting you?” she asked, her voice . . . Australian, maybe? Or New Zealand, I wondered; I always had an issue with Aussies and Kiwis, mixed the buggers up all the time. “Why would I report you? You’re that guy from the video!”

She started looking for it, searching metube and more, cursing when she couldn’t find it, until Dara passed her his phone and set it playing.

“I downloaded it, got it before it got scrubbed from the internet,” Dara told her as the Nordic blonde spoke up.

“Scrubbed?” she asked, watching me.

Dara nodded. “That’s what everyone’s saying. It was up and everywhere, then the next day, nobody can find it, and the versions you can find, well, it’s someone else. Upload the original one, and it’s gone in seconds.”

“Another of your conspiracy theories?” I offered, accepting the beer he pulled up from down by his side and handed over.

“You know this isn’t,” he snapped. “Come on man!”

“Seriously. You don’t want any part of this,” I said flatly, taking a swig, and noticing that the bottle blonde was trying to be subtle about filming me, as her friend watched the video now.

I pulled up the Hack interface and focused on her—and her phone. Reaching out, I found an advanced encryption in place that took long seconds to break, spinning the walls and doors until they aligned.

I slid into the system, seeing that she was recording, but not broadcasting, thankfully. I wiped the storage, erasing what was already there, and then wiped the phone’s operating system for good measure, raising one eyebrow when she cursed, lifting the phone and stabbing at the buttons.

“Problem?” I asked her.

She opened her mouth, looking confused, then realized what she was about to say and shook her head, slipping the phone into her pocket and forcing a smile.

“No,” she lied easily. “Battery’s dead.”

“Shame, that,” I said easily.

“Yeah,” she agreed, frowning.

Dara sat forwards. “Whatever, man, come on! You vanished, didn’t turn up for work, then these girls show up, asking for you, showing that video off, and the place goes nuts. Next thing we hear, you’ve been found, then you vanish again, then your apartment burns down and there’s a dead fucking body in it! It wasn’t Dave, right?” He stopped, looking concerned. “He’s all right, yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s fine, and no it wasn’t him,” I said flatly.

“Then who?”

“Somebody who asked too many questions,” I said, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Get fucked,” he told me with a loud snort. “You’re a big fucker, Steve, and hell, you seem bigger than I remember, yeah, but you’re not like that, so don’t try and scare me.”

“I’m not, eh?” I asked, seeing the confidence in Dara’s face wane slightly.

“Come on, man, we’ve gotten drunk how many times? Partied the night away? Hell, I’ve seen you dance, naked, on a bar top, for fuck’s sake! Stop trying to be a thug!” he said, trying to make a joke of it all.

“Look, let’s just say that knowing me these days isn’t good for your health,” I offered, then sighed, finishing my beer and standing, looking around at the others and giving them a quick smile. “Nice meeting you,” I said to the girls, and I included the guys in the look, ignoring the annoyed look on Dara’s face as I walked back inside my apartment, deliberately moving slowly.

Once the door was closed, I had to stop myself from screaming “fuuuuuck” as loud as I could.

If they spread the word . . .

I moved quickly, dressing then grabbing the two carrier bags and another out of the trash, shoving the clothes and toiletries into one that would just fit in one pannier, then grabbing the phone and the random gear I wanted to keep, as well as emptying the safe and filling the other.

In under a minute, I’d managed to fill the bags, and apart from the dragon staff, which I was still a little meh about, I had everything else stored away.

I moved the bags to the door, hearing one of the rooms’ doors close and guessed by the silence that people had either left or gone into the room. I opened the door, just as the tall blonde moved into view.

I barely managed to keep from cursing.

“You’re leaving?” she asked, looking at my bags.

I sighed, glancing to the side, seeing that the seats were empty now.

“Time to move on,” I said by way of explanation.

“Because Dara recognized you?” she asked shrewdly.

“That and because your friend was trying to film me,” I said flatly.

She cursed. “Sorry, Sarah’s a bit . . .” She hesitated, then sighed. “She’s a dumb bitch out for anything she can get. She’d have uploaded it to her page and tried to get more followers. I’ll erase it before she gets the chance, don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” I said, rather than going into the insanely complex reasons it wasn’t necessary.

“So . . . you’re really going?” she asked slowly.

I nodded, shooting her a quick smile. “Yeah, better for everyone. Do me a favor and hold this,” I asked her, passing the dragon staff to her. She took it, then grunted when I let go, and she felt the actual weight of it.

“What the hell is this?” she asked me slowly, tracing the carvings. At first, she was amazed by the weight, but now, she was running her fingers over it and looking stunned. “It’s . . . it’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, damn well hurts when they hit you with it,” I grunted. Shuffling forwards, my hands full of the two bags, I locked the door behind me as she took the hint and stepped back, giving me the room I needed.

“Someone hit you with this?” she asked, still looking at it and frowning as she did. “It’s beautiful, and the carvings—”

“Yeah,” I agreed, walking past her and down the stairs.

“Hey, wait!” she called after me, hurrying to catch up and carefully edging down the steps, carrying the staff.

“Nope,” I said firmly, half-jogging down the stairs until I reached the bottom.

The little counter was unmanned, and I took the opportunity, leaning through the small window and placing my hand flat on the top of the small safe that the owner thought was hidden there.

I focused, and the lock popped, my nanites working literal magic as far as the world was concerned.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, seeing I was leaning in the window.

“Removing the evidence,” I snapped, pulling the door open and ignoring the money. I pulled the photocopies of the IDs out and flicked through them, retrieving mine and slipping the rest back in, just as she opened the door and peered around the corner, seeing what I was doing.

I closed the safe back up just as she saw the money that was sat in it, then locked it and stepped back, headed for the front door, being followed by an increasingly confused Nordic blonde.

She was quiet as we hurried down the steps before blinking at the motorbike and shaking her head as I slid my stuff into the panniers.

“You’re mad, riding one of those with this? Do you know what it is?”

“Dragon staff,” I muttered, trying to close the latch on the last pannier and cursing when it wouldn’t. I tried to fit things in the smaller bags, as the larger still held the drone.

“I . . . yes! Exactly!” she snapped, shaking her head in amazement. “It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen, and the weight, the condition . . . it’s silver! Did you know that? The head is silver, plated probably, or it’d be worth a fortune, but—”

“You like it?” I asked her, finally managing to close the latch, then pulling my helm around and sitting on the seat, getting comfy before taking a deep breath and letting it out in a long sigh as I accepted that I couldn’t return here.

Shame, really. I’d liked my time in Malia.

“Yes?” she replied. “Well, of course I do!”

“Why of course?” I asked her frowning.

“I work in a museum! I study ancient weapons; I know what this is, and what . . . where did you get it?”

“You like it, you keep it,” I said to her, quirking a quick smile. “Make sure you clean it, though, and . . . what might come for it, well, it’s hunting me. You don’t want to get their attention. Have a nice holiday,” I told her, turning away and slipping my key into the bike, letting the engine rumble into life.

She grabbed my chin and turned my head to face her. I didn’t resist, because, well, why bother. I was figuring another question was coming, when instead I got a kiss.

It was long and soft, her lips warm against mine, and her breath… . . . she tasted of strawberries and vanilla, with a slight bite from the booze she’d been drinking, then she broke the kiss off and threw her leg over the back of the bike, sitting down and resting the staff between us. She reached around me and grabbed the helmet from my hands, pulling it on and adjusted the chin strap to secure it more comfortably.

“I want answers, and you’re not leaving me behind ‘til I get them!” she told me, her voice louder than it needed to be, muffled as her hearing was by the helmet.

“Fuck it,” I said with a laugh, figuring I’d take her somewhere along the way, stop for ten minutes and talk, maybe get a few more kisses out of it, then leave her. At a bus stop or something, but I’d leave her. It was better than having her draw attention here at least. “Why the helmet?” I called to her, pulling my sunglasses out and putting them on.

“I promised my mother I’d not get on one of these without wearing a helmet!” she called back, and I couldn’t help but smile as I pulled out, feeling her long legs lift up and rest against my own. I picked up speed, weaving in and out of the mainly foot traffic in the little back streets until I headed east, along the highway in the opposite direction to the one I’d intended.

I took a few little side roads, then pulled in about a mile and a half away, in the carpark of the Minoan Palace.

“Why are we stopping here?” she asked me, taking my helmet off and shaking her hair out, then itching her scalp, muttering, “I hate wearing those things.”

“Then don’t,” I suggested.

“I told you. I promised my mother,” she retorted. “Now, why have we stopped here?”

“Because I’m sure as shit not taking you to wherever I go next,” I told her honestly. “I don’t even know your name, and if I did? I’d still not take you. Makes it a bit pointless moving on, if I show you where I go now, doesn’t it?”

“I’m Ingrid.”

“Hi, Ingrid. Still not taking you with me.”

“So why bring me here?” she asked.

“Close enough to town you can walk it, far enough that you’re not going to lead anyone to me, and if someone’s searching, they’ll start right where I was. Then, they’ll pick the maximum distance I could have gone and start checking that point. Most likely, they’ll miss a place halfway, because what fool pulls over when they’re on the run?” I asked rhetorically.

“You’re on the run?” she asked, her voice suddenly uncertain.

“Yeah,” I said simply.

“Did you kill someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Intentionally?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh gods,” she whispered, clutching the staff to herself and taking a deep breath. “Okay . . . look, I won’t tell anyone—”

“Appreciate that.”

“—so you don’t have to hurt me.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Really?” she asked me hesitantly.

I crossed my arms. “Look, I got attacked by a dickbag who worked for someone I owed money to. He was going to kill me and my friends. I chose not to let him. In the course of the festivities, well, he came down with a nasty case of dead. The apartment caught fire, and I . . . left.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Because they liked the dickhead I’d just killed; he paid them to look the other way.”

“Oh,” she responded in a small voice. “Now what?”

“Well, as I said before, I let you walk back to town, and I try not to imagine all the horrible things you’ll be thinking of me for that. I get on with my life, just as you do. In the future, you’ll have a wonderful story to tell people when they ask how you got the dragon staff, or, you know, there’s a bus stand right there.” I pointed.

“Why in the future?”

“Because considering the dicks I took that from, you really will need to clean it, and then when you do that and you realize that yeah, it’s actually a genuine staff, not a reproduction”—Her eyes widened in disbelief as I went on—“then you’ll be too busy trying to figure out how to get it out of the country. After all, the Greeks won’t want to let it go, despite them having no claim on it, really.”

“And who did you get it from?” she asked me.

“Someone who was trying to genuinely kill me with it,” I replied.

“And you . . . and this . . . the guy in your apartment was using this?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh! No. Sorry, different assholes.”

“Assholes, plural,” she said slowly. “How many people have you killed?”

“Lost count, frankly,” I admitted.

“You’re a serial killer?” she asked, her voice full of fear and confusion.

“I don’t think so.” I shrugged, not really loving the direction this conversation was heading. “I’ve been defending myself, but hey. Look. Ingrid, it was nice to meet you, and thank you, both for the diversion and the kiss. Being treated like a real person for a change was nice, but . . .”

“But what?”

“But it’s time for me to go, and for you to get the bus,” I said, nodding to the bus in the distance winding its way around the coast road.

“I . . .” she said, looking from me to the bus, then down at the staff in her hands. “I—”

“Trust me. You don’t want any part of this,” I said firmly, if a touch sadly. I hung my sunglasses on my collar and took the helmet from her unresisting hand.

“Can I call you?” she asked me.

“You’d be able to trace the phone then,” I said.

“Then take my number,” she said, fumbling with the staff as she reached into a pocket, pulling her phone out. “You can use a router and a VPN, send it via a load of transceivers and relays, make it untraceable and use a computer. Then you can call or text me.”

“Why would you want me to?” I asked her, honestly confused.

She gave a little shrug. “I . . . I like you, and I want to know if you’re okay, and . . .”

“And?”

“And I work in a museum, okay? Like I said, I know what this is, and how rare they are, especially in this condition! Do you know what this means that it even exists? Let alone that it’s here?”

“That the assholes who had them have travelled a lot?”

“THEM?” she practically screamed at me.

“Yeah, I only took one,” I admitted, scratching the back of my neck with a wince.

“Oh god. Oh god,” she whispered, shaking her head, eyes closed. “I know you said a good researcher follows the path before them, but this? THIS?”

“What?” I asked her, and she opened her eyes long enough to glare at me.

“Hush!” she snapped.

I frowned as she turned her back and started walking back and forth, apparently carrying on a full conversation with herself. She waved the bus on when it slowed, and I sat back on my bike, frowning but bloody curious.

I wondered for a second if she was a sleeper agent, or something like that, but then I figured if they knew enough to have her ready and waiting, well, they’d have come for me already.

“I need to make a call,” she snapped abruptly, stalking back to me and handing the staff over, holding her hand out for her phone. I blinked, having forgotten she’d given it to me. I looked at her number, focusing and saving it into my memory.

I wasn’t sure if it would work, but fuck it.

Then I handed the phone over, and she dialed a number, marching back and forth, cursing when someone failed to answer. Then two more calls, before finally a fourth call got through, and she unleashed a rapid fire burst of Danish at someone, presumably for not picking up the phone sooner.

I didn’t speak Danish, but the body language was pretty clear, and a few minutes later, she paused, holding her hand over the mouthpiece, and turned to me.

“Is there a postal service near here?” she asked, getting a shrug from me. “Urgh! Give me strength!” she called upwards, before going back to rapid-fire Danish.

A few minutes later, she hung up, took a deep breath, then sent a text message, showing it to me after she sent it.

Met a cute Greek guy. Don’t worry, going for a few days in the capital to see the museums . . . back soon, and have fun!

-Ingrid

“What?” I asked, frowning at her as she plucked the helmet from my hands and passed me her phone, pulling the helmet on.

“Now my friends won’t worry. Well, not too much, and you have my phone, so you know I’m not passing messages to anyone about you,” she called, settling herself behind me again, reaching around to pull on the staff, making me let go so she could take it. “I’ll need to message them again soon, though, because they’ll accept it for a little bit, but not long.”

“What the hell is happening here?” I asked her, and she gave me a nervous smile.

“My grandmother was my inspiration. She told me if I wanted to be a great historian, then I have to follow the path the gods put before me, no running off when I find something I don’t like!”

“I’m a fucking murderer!”

“I know. Are you going to kill me?”

“No!”

“Then it’s fine. Look, Agios Nikolaos is a few miles away, okay? It’s a town to the east, and it has a postal site. My lektor will arrange for the shipping from his side, to make sure it gets to the museum.”

“Right?” I asked, totally confused.

“So you take me there, and we’ll send it,” she said, gesticulating wildly. “You better be telling the truth about this. It’s going to cost me a great deal if you’ve lied.”

“Why would I lie?”

“To try and get me into your bed?”

“What bed? Fuck’s sake, I’ve been trying to leave you behind!” I snapped, eyebrows shooting skyward.

“You’ve not been trying hard enough,” she retorted with a huff. Holding the staff across between us and holding on, she paused, then took a deep breath. “Steve, tell me the truth . . . okay?”

“Okay?”

“Are you dangerous?”

“Very.”

“Will you hurt me?”

“No,” I said softly, then sighed, shifting around so that I could sort of see her behind me. “Ingrid, I meant what I said. I’m being hunted, and I’ve had to kill to stay free. If you get in the way, they’ll kill you without a thought.”

“I . . .” She paused and took a deep breath. “Do you want me to go? Be honest. Please.”

Drawing in a breath, I held it a few seconds as I debated. “No.” I said finally, glancing back at her. “Truthfully? No, I don’t. You seem fun, and you’re certainly smarter than I am, as well as pretty. But seriously, Ingrid, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. All you know about me is that I kill people, and I have access to artifacts.”

“Plural, again,” she said emphatically, leaning forwards and wrapping one arm around me, holding the staff with the other.

“Yeah,” I muttered, turning around and starting the bike up. “At least you can answer some questions for me later, then!” I called back to her as we set off.

She tried to answer, but I couldn’t hear her, and with the wind . . .

We gave up talking, and just enjoyed the ride after that.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Agios Nikolaos was a little over a half an hour ride officially, or well over an hour on a damn coach, having taken it once, and never again, for a booze-cruise. We managed it in closer to twenty, and as we pulled into the town, the promised storm that had been rumbling in the distance finally broke.

It started as a collection of heavy, fat raindrops, blown in on a steady breeze. But in minutes, as we wound our way through the town, it grew stronger and stronger.

The road led down towards the old town, around the port, then twisted back around and out. The map I’d accessed on her phone held up in my vision as I smiled tightly.

It’d taken seconds to break the encryption on her phone, then, just in case, I’d pulled up the responses to her message.

Two other girls she was here with on holiday, and they were both cursing her, demanding details or threatening to call the police if they didn’t hear from her “right now” alternatively.

Apparently, Dara had been doing his level best to seduce her. Her friends had both buggered off, leaving her in the twenty-four-hour bar she’d been in before she ended up on my roof, when they’d pulled random guys.

She’d sworn up and down to the other two in messages she’d been sending over the course of the evening that there was no chance she was going to have a “holiday fling” with Dara, as they’d been calling it, and the girls were crowing about her picking up the next guy she met instead..

I’d read the messages and left it at that, keeping the map in my vision as I wound in and out of traffic before finally pulling up outside the Hellenic Post and waiting while she ran in to arrange shipping of the staff.

I’d also stayed connected to the phone, watching remotely as she responded to her friends.

They were asking for details, and she’d said she was all right and having fun, as well as that I was very rich and was showing her the sights. She was a big girl and would be back in touch soon, but that if she went silent for more than twelve hours, to message. And if she hadn’t responded in twenty-four, to open the envelope she was sending. They were not to open it otherwise, or she’d never speak to any of them again.

There were a few more messages back and forth, something about ‘remember when…’ and she agreed to message them in an hour instead.

I guessed they believed her by the responses, and the photo she tried to take out of the window of me on the bike.

Well, I turned away, playing oblivious.

Still, it was a good plan, I decided, as she came out a few minutes later, muttering about the cost of shipping, and the “insane” cost of packaging.

“How much?” I asked, and she told me. I winced, not having a frame of reference for Danish krone but guessing it was a lot by the way she was practically spitting feathers.

“Can we go somewhere indoors?” she called into my ear, the wind picking up even more and the rain coming heavily now. The thunder rumbled in the distance, and I nodded, turning the bike as she buried her head in my back and hunched down, trying to keep out of the rain.

I looped around, heading back into the town and keeping my eyes open, with the pattern for the cameras front and center in my mind.

I passed through a few overlapping fields, but mainly, I managed to angle my head away. When I finally found a small restaurant and hotel that didn’t have any cameras, I pulled in, parking the bike and nodding inside to her.

She jumped off and ran for it, having a fast conversation with the serving staff before waving me to a seat and vanishing into the toilets herself, arms firmly held across her chest.

I was starting to get worried, thinking she’d either done a runner, or that something had happened, when she finally stalked out and slid into the seat opposite, snatching up a menu and holding it between us.

“What’s up?” I asked her, confused, and she glared at me.

“Tell me this wasn’t part of your plan,” she asked me.

I frowned. “What plan? Seriously?"

The server came over, a young man, and I noted the way he was angling to get a better look at her chest before Ingrid pulled her menu flat against herself and forced a smile.

“Just a white wine,” she replied when he asked what we wanted.

“And rum, neat. Appleton, if you have it,” I said to him, while Ingrid shook her head when he held out his hand for the menu.

“I’ll keep it. Thank you so much,” she said firmly, getting a sour look in response before she turned back to me and noticed the totally bewildered look on my face.

“You don’t know, do you?” she asked.

“Know what?” I asked, confused to all hell as she straightened up and looked around before leaning forward and speaking in a low voice.

“I wasn’t expecting to get my top wet, okay, and it’s a really nice one, but my bras ruin the lines, so . . . I didn’t wear one,” she admitted.

I nodded, not really thinking anything of it, until she sighed and shifted the menu slightly, so that I could catch a brief glimpse to what I’d missed earlier.

The top was very flattering, showing just a touch of what looked to be incredible cleavage, along with a nice pattern of red and blue lines that appeared to be flowing water or liquid running from one side to the other, drawing the eye. The issue, though, was that the rest of the top was white, and the rain had made it turn partially transparent, and in two particular areas.

She snapped her menu back over herself with a frown. “And that’s enough of that!”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I rubbed the bridge of my nose and held up one hand in apology. “Okay, okay… sorry. Seriously, what do you expect me to do about it? It’s not like I keep a spare bra in the panniers.”

“I don’t know, but . . . urgh, he’s coming back,” she said.

I looked over at the serving lad, who walked over and set the drinks down. I paid for them and ordered two bowls of fries as well.

He nodded and left.

“What’s wrong with—” I started to ask, and she sat forwards.

“I didn’t realize how bad it was, okay? I came inside and I was talking to him, and he just kept staring at my chest!” she hissed, red-faced and looking like she wanted to melt into the wall.

I winced, finally understanding. I looked around, seeing a shop directly over the road, one that looked like it sold women’s clothes.

“Look, do you want to go get something?” I asked her, jerking my head in the direction of the shop. She shook her head. “Why not?” I asked.

“I spent everything on the staff,” she admitted after a few seconds, cheeks flaming red. “I’ll need to transfer some money between accounts, and . . .”

She shrugged, and I reached into my pocket and looked under the table out of sight, peeling a handful of notes off the wedge, then folding them in my hand and reaching over the table.

“Here,” I offered.

“I don’t need charity,” she said stiffly.

“And it’s not,” I replied. “Look, I have a few more artifacts, or what I think might be. I need them examined, so call this a down payment of the fee.”

“What do you have?” she asked quickly, sitting forwards, menu forgotten. I shook my head, tearing my eyes upwards.

“Seriously, what I’m going to have is a damn heart attack! Go get something to wear before I chuck you over my shoulder and run away with you, or you give the damn waiter an aneurysm”

“I’d beat the hell out of you if you tried,” she warned me, and I snorted, seeing the blush and hearing the half joke, half warning in her voice.

“Just go!” I laughed, and she got up.

The waiter was notably unhappy when he returned to find her gone, and dropped the fries off with a bare nod.

I pulled up the options, examining them, knowing I had two War Points, and two Harvest to spend as the rest of my survival quest reward and wondering which way to go with them, when only a few minutes later, Ingrid slid back into the booth across from me.

She was dressed in a nice pair of blue jeans, a black top, golden sunburst earrings, and a leather jacket now, as well as carrying a bag that I assumed held her old clothes. But when she sat across from me, she hesitated, before speaking in a low voice.

“Did you mean to give me that much?” she asked. “I only spent a little, because—”

“Yeah, seriously, it’s fine,” I said to her as she tried to hand me the change. “Honestly, keep it. Money isn’t really a concern.”

“You’re actually rich?” she asked with a small smile, and I shrugged. “I mean, I told the girls you were, but I didn’t think you actually were. You don’t really seem it, sorry.”

“I’m a hunted man,” I said with a frown. “I kinda have to be careful where I shop.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Cameras.”

“No, I mean . . . urgh. Okay, look, I think I need to hear the full story, so I know what I’m getting myself into, okay?”

“Ingrid,” I said quietly, sitting forwards and putting both hands on the table. She did the same, sitting so only a few inches separated us across the narrow table, her hands on mine. “You would never believe me.”

“I might,” she said softly, her eyes searching mine.

Against my better judgement, I sighed and started to talk, ordering more drinks.

“It started a while back in England, up north, you know, in god’s country . . .” I talked for a while, filling her in a little about who I was, my background, my life, not trying to hide anything, as I explained what I’d done to earn money . . . and that I’d then taken a job, relieving a small bank of its funds one night, only to find that the bank had the bare minimum cash on hand, and I’d damn well taken the lot and ran.

I filled her in on the route I took, the flights, and the feeling of excitement as I travelled, the sights I’d seen, mainly airport insides, and more.

I’d explained how I’d come here and that I’d bought a fake ID, papers, the full lot from a crooked cop, and how I’d been a worker, starting over again from scratch and loving my life for months, drinking, eating, and lazing around getting a tan, chasing any girl I could. That part she could’ve guessed already; you didn’t come to a party island, and specifically somewhere like a Greek party town, to find a deep and meaningful relationship.

Hell, I’d heard other Danes saying there was an actual word in their language that meant going to Greece for a summer romance then going home, all ties forgotten.

I moved on, telling how I’d met Marie and Amanda, and how I’d ended up saving them.

Then I’d skipped a bit, and said that the video led a local thug to me, by my old employer, and that he tried to kill me and my friends.

I skipped over a few more details, making the fights in the catacombs sound more like a bunch of criminals, and that I’d stolen their loot as well afterwards. Made a few comments about sniffer dogs and tracing their shit, and tied it all up in a neat little bow.

She held my hand for a long minute after I finished talking, then smiled, took a deep breath, and spoke.

“You are so full of shit,” she whispered.

“What?” I blinked, thinking I’d done well.

“You told me some truths, yeah, but a lot . . .” She shook her head, staring at me.

“Fine. You want proof?” I asked her, and she snorted, sitting back and folding her arms across her impressive chest.

“I’d love some,” she said firmly. “Just don’t kill anyone, okay?”

“I . . . no fucking promises,” I snapped at her, stalking out to the bike. The rain had settled in now, and it was pounding the area. Shops were closing, and the few idiots like me out in it were running to get under cover.

I flicked the panniers open, searching them both and trying to keep the stuff inside dry, hunching over it before finding the bag I wanted and pulling it out.

I managed to get the latches secure again, and I marched back inside, passing her the bag and telling her to knock herself out. Then I strode into the men’s, answered the call of nature, and washed my hands.

I was trying to dry myself a little, using a hand dryer that was basically a hairdryer on its last legs, when the door banged open, and Ingrid stormed in, bag in one hand, and a gold and onyx necklace clutched in the other.

She was visibly trembling and barely able to form coherent words, but she managed to shake it at me, and force out a few.

“You . . . you . . . this—”

“Oh yeah,” I muttered, looking at it and managing to hide my smile at her condition. “Yeah, I stole that from their loot. You like it?”

“Like it?” she practically screamed. “Do you know what it is? Do you know how OLD this is?”

“Nope,” I admitted, honest and loving every second of it. “The fuckers weren’t exactly feeling talkative when I took it.”

She stared at me, her mouth opening and closing as she looked for a lie, for an explanation, anything.

“You don’t understand!” she practically wailed. “I came here to Crete because I study this. I love these things, and these legends, and you just . . . you—” She broke off, alternating between a clear desire to be so unbelievably gentle with the necklace that it might be made of spun glass and an intense desire to hurt anyone who tried to take it from her. “I came here to see the museums,” she clarified, then catching the eyebrow I quirked, she sighed and went on. “Yeah, okay, I wanted some meaningless sex as well. Okay . . . a lot of sex, but I wanted to see the museums!”

“Okay?” I replied, not really sure where she was going with this.

“You . . . you—”

“You keep saying that,” I pointed out.

“They don’t have this!” she snapped eventually, shaking it at me in clear anger.

“Right . . . and that’s my fault because . . .”

“You have this!”

“Yes? Are you saying I should give it to the museums?”

“NO!” She clutched the bag and the necklace to her chest.

I grinned. “Okay, so . . . what the hell are you saying?”

“I need to study this,” she said firmly. “Not want. I need to study it.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” she promised.

“Sounds fun, but seriously, study it. It’s fine.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

“Wait . . . what?”

“Seriously.” I sighed. “Did you see the other stuff? The one with all the writing on it?”

“There’s more?!” she squeaked before the door banged open behind her and the waiter came in, obviously expecting to interrupt us having sex or something.

“You can’t be in here—” he started to tell her, again staring and speaking directly to her chest, rather than her face.

She glared at him then slammed the door in his face, nearly knocking him out in the process.

“There’s more?” she asked again in a hoarse whisper, ignoring the cursing from the other side of the door.

“Yeah, there’s a few more things in there,” I said with as casual a shrug as I could manage. “Actually, dammit, watch the knife. Some kinda nasty neurotoxin on it.” I winced. “I should have mentioned that before.”

“Yes. Yes, you should,” she agreed absently, as though that was perfectly normal, already looking down into the bag, although holding it a lot more carefully. “We need to get a room here, so we can sort this out.” She looked up at me and added quickly. “With two beds.”

“What happened to you’d do anything?” I asked, barely concealing a laugh.

She fixed me with the kind of look that could fry bacon.

“Whoa, okay, it was a joke, but I can’t get a room easily,” I pointed out. “I’ve the money, but my ID—”

“Then I can,” she said, and passed the bag to me, clearly unhappy to let go of it.

When she tried to hand the necklace over, though, I took it and asked her to stay still, as I moved around behind her and tied it behind her neck.

“Do you know what this is worth?” she asked me hesitantly as she turned back, gently touching it.

“A lot,” I guessed, taking ahold of the neck of her top.

Ingrid froze beneath my touch, unsure what I was about to do.

I smiled and tucked the necklace under it then let go, stepping back. She’d angled her head, leaving me unsure if she was about to tell me to back off or kiss me.

Either way, one thing I was very sure of by now, was that she didn’t know which she’d choose, either.

We both paused, waiting for the other to make the first move, then both straightened and moved on at the same time, making the whole thing even weirder.

“Okay, look, you finish your drink, I’ll sort the room,” she said, pushing the door open and leading me out, casting another withering glare at the waiter.

This time, he seemed to realize he’d been caught, and why she was so pissed. So, when she headed for who I assumed was the manager, an older Greek woman sitting behind the bar watching a small TV, he vanished.

I strode across to our seats, eating a few fries and sipping my rum, watching the few poor fools caught in the storm outside.

The rest of the shops had shut now as well, the few die-hard optimists giving in and sealing their shutters when Ingrid came across and sat next to me. Her cheeks were bright red as she stared out at the pounding rain.

I decided not to say anything about the change of position, until she spoke quietly.

“So . . . there’s a problem with the room.”

“Oh?”

“The manager is a traditional woman,” she started.

I winced, having a friend who’d come up against this in his hotel as well.

“Let me guess, we’re not married, so we can’t share a room?” I asked.

She cleared her throat and nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “And they only have one room left.”

“Yeah, let me guess, bridal suite?” I asked, getting an extremely embarrassed nod from her. “Did you pay for it already?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“That’s fine, give me a few minutes.” I strode across to the manager and smiled, leaning on the countertop.

“Yes?” she asked, the accent heavy with contempt.

“Fuck your room, and fuck your judgement,” I said with a wide smile on my face. Then I stood up and walked across to Ingrid, taking her hand and leading her back outside to the bike, ignoring the woman who shouted abuse at us.

“What happened?” Ingrid asked me, shocked.

“It’s an old con,” I explained, having to speak up over the rain as we stepped out, and Ingrid pulled the helmet on. “Some Orthodox families have a real problem with unmarried couples. That’s fine, a friend of mine had the same issue . . . but others? Some asshats use it to force you to pay higher rates. I guarantee you the ‘bridal suite’ would be a damn normal room, just twice or three times the cost we’d have been charged normally.”

“Now what do we do?” she asked, clearly worried as I packed the bag away in the pannier again.

“We find another hotel,” I said.

“But you—”

“Trust me, I can find one. You just keep yourself as dry as possible,” I told her, settling myself on the bike and smiling as she wrapped her arms around me and huddled in close.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“I can’t believe you had this in your bag,” Ingrid said for the fourth or fifth time an hour later as I stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around my waist and tucked in to keep myself decent. I rubbed at my hair with a second one, having made the most of some decent water pressure.

“What’s that?” I yawned, rubbing at my face, then turning and throwing the towel back into the bathroom.

“This!” she hovered a hand over the massed jewelry protectively. “You just had them screwed up and dumped in a carrier bag! They should be treated with the respect they deserve!”

“Yeah, look, I just grabbed what I could when I got the chance.”

“No, look, you don’t understand,” she whispered, taking a deep breath and clearly trying to control herself. “I’m sorry, it’s not you I’m angry at. But you have to understand, these are delicate. They’re priceless works of art, and they’re as old as anything I’ve ever seen! They might be the oldest things I’ve ever touched, and they’re stunningly beautiful.”

“I’m sorry, then.” I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her. We were in a small luxury hotel that was on the edge of the harbor in a twin room. More’s the pity, but it was probably for the best.

It’d been the third pass around the town, with us getting progressively more soaked as we went, when I decided it’d have to do.

I’d accessed the power for the building, flicking it off and pulling in as though I’d just noticed it, calling back over my shoulder for Ingrid to get us the room with her ID and to pay cash for the week.

The manager had apologized profusely about the power, while promising he’d get a copy of her ID when the photocopier and registration system came back online. He’d scribbled a simple receipt for the payment, all the while assuring us we could sort it later if need be, and had arranged a bottle of Metaxa, a kind of local spirit that wasn’t quite wine or brandy—and could strip the paint off the walls—as a welcome gift.

He’d accepted Ingrid’s story of friends travelling together without blinking and had left us to it quite happily.

The power had come on a few minutes after he left, and Ingrid shook her head, amazed at our luck in not being caught on camera.

I’d offered to let her have a shower first, and when she’d declined, I’d taken the chance to drain the tanks in a seriously long shower.

Now I glanced around the room, unable to keep from smiling in amusement. It was clean and pleasant enough, but it looked like virtually every other hotel room I’d ever been in anywhere in the world. Twin beds, each with a bedstand on either side, a small fold-down ironing board, an iron, small kettle and tea and coffee set, a minibar and a table with two chairs, and a TV that played the local channels.

The bathroom was clean and simple, as was the small balcony, complete with two chairs and a table, and that was basically it. Nothing missing, nothing interesting.

It was just another indistinguishable hotel room, made unique only by the stunning Nordic blonde sat half-hunched over the table, and what she’d assured me was well over half a million euros or more in Bronze Age jewelry.

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” she whispered, closing her eyes and clearly having an internal conversation with herself. “Steve, these need to be dated; they need to be examined and evaluated properly, but these . . . I let you put the torc on me.”

“The what?” I asked, confused.

“The torc, the necklace,” she said, gesturing at it where it lay to one side.

“Oh, right.”

“The torc is the proper name for the design, and”—She shook herself—“and that’s not important. I let you put it on me because I couldn’t let it out of my sight, not once I was fairly sure what it was. Now? Now that I’ve had a better look? This is a find that will send shockwaves through the museums of the world! History books will be written on this, hundreds of them, and you just found them in a fight with a load of criminals?”

She clutched her head, and I realized she was crying.

“What the . . . are you okay?”

“Am I okay?!” she asked me, shaking her head. “No! No, I’m not. These represent a huge amount of our history. They must have been looted from somewhere that some criminal, some utter asshole, has desecrated, and we’ll never know where it is! We’ll never know what the story of these pieces was, never!”

“Okay, but they’re not that unique, right?”

“I look at forgeries all day, Steve,” she whispered, wiping tears from her cheeks and nose, and sniffling. “Literally, I’ve studied the Minoan people for half my life, and the Bronze Age specifically for longer than I know. I loved it since I was in school, and I promise you, if there’s a single piece that’s close to these in condition and beauty out there, it’s in a private collection.”

“So . . . what do you want to do with it?” I asked her.

“You’re asking me?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to a museum,” she said straight away, clearly sad at the thought.

“Okay, how do we give it to your museum?”

She looked at me for a long time.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“I’m trying to decide if you’re serious or not,” she replied. “There’s easily half a million euros worth here, and . . .”

I snorted, then got up, catching my towel when it started to slip, and moved across to the bag of toiletries and clothes. I slid it over to the bed, and ignoring her questions, I upended it, shaking it out and sorting through it, until I came to the wedges of money.

That got a gasp when I threw them over to her, having her catch them and set them down on the table with hands that shook.

“How much is here?” she asked me, eyes wide and staring at the five stacks of notes, each roughly bound with elastic bands.

“No idea,” I admitted, pulling the other, much smaller one out of my pocket and adding it to the pile. “But you see why I don’t really care about the value of these?”

“You could still sell them—” she started to say.

“Yeah, I probably could. It’d have to be black market though, as I think if I rock up to an auction house here and claim they’re family heirlooms, they’ll get taken by the police or the government and so on.”

“They belong to the Greek government,” she agreed.

“So if I try to sell them, it’s the black market, then I’ll probably run into the assholes who I fought before. Best case scenario, I manage to sell them for what? A hundred grand, as it’s a dodgy deal? With the attendant risk? Nah, fuck it, I have the cash I need for now, and frankly, they’re not my style. Maybe the ring,” I amended, picking up a small ring.

It was a thick band of gold with a thin, single circle of polished onyx set into it and a sapphire the size of my thumbnail in the top.

The sapphire had been carved to show a spiral, one that had probably been intended to convey flowing water, but to me it was closer to a helix of DNA, and considering the life I was living now?

I tried it on and nodded to myself. “Not bad.”

“You’re thinking of keeping that?” she asked carefully, clearly trying to not snap at me.

“Nope.” I grinned at her. “Just wanted to see what you’d do, that’s all. It’s nice enough and all, but not so much my style. So, how do we give this to your museum?”

“We can’t,” she said flatly, still eyeing the ring like I might break it. I took it off and handed it to her.

“Well, we just did with the staff?” I pointed out.

“First of all, it’s a dragon staff. It’s eastern in origin, not local, but yes, I’m well aware that it needs to be handed over as well, but . . .”

“But?”

“But I wanted to be able to examine it properly, first. I could claim I believed it was just a forgery, then we ‘examine’ it and realize the truth? We’d be able to claim it officially, and split the ownership with whatever nation is determined as the originator. It’s complicated, but it’d make my career and be a hell of a boon to my museum. These, though? They’re Bronze Age artifacts, and they’re clearly from Thera and the Minoan culture.”

“I didn’t really get much of that,” I admitted. “So you can’t claim it. What about as a visiting archeologist who found it? Surely that’ll help you?”

“Yes, if I can tell the government where I found it. They shouldn’t be taken from their resting place, but the condition of these? Look, if they thought I’d grabbed them from the seabed or somewhere, it’d end my career. Any archeologist knows that the placement of the artifact is as important as the artifact itself. You never move them. If it could be proven that they were taken from criminals, though? Yeah . . . maybe.”

“So.”

“So.”

“So, what the hell do we do with them?” I asked her. “You want to keep some or not?”

“I want to, and I won’t, and neither will you,” she said firmly. “Instead, we’re going to take them to the authorities, and we’re going to use them to clear your name.”

“Uh . . . no.”

“Yes!” she sprang up, then thought better of it and sat back down. “Think about it! If the dead body in your apartment is proven to be a criminal, and the other bodies are the same, you can claim that you were defending yourself, and when you hand these in, a treasure trove of artifacts?”

She nodded emphatically. “It’ll prove that you weren’t out to serve yourself! You were defending the Greek national interest! Believe me, handing these in, if nothing else, the media would have a field day, think about it! Hero defends himself against gangs, saves priceless jewels, and is sent to prison for it? Never going to happen. It’d just make it even harder for the Greek authorities to get people to hand over artifacts in the future.”

“Sounds great, I mean it,” I told her. “Except . . . the people I’m being hunted by won’t give two shits about that. They don’t care about the artifacts. There’s plenty more out there, and they probably have stuff that makes this look like kids’ attempts. You have no idea who and what they are.”

“Not if you won’t tell me about them, no, I damn well don’t!”

“Look, I’ll make a deal with you, okay?”

She frowned before gesturing me to go on.

“This one,” I said, indicating the torc with the onyx plates and the multiple carvings in a language I had no clue about. “You translate this for me, tell me what all this shit says.” I gestured to the jewelry spread across the table. “And you can do whatever you want with it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, look, take it and hand it in, tell them whatever you want, fuck it, tell them the truth. But I’d appreciate it if you’d make me look different. I don’t need the kind of heat it’ll bring.”

I pulled some boxers out of the pile of clothes and tugged them up under the towel, tossing it aside once I was decent and seeing the way she shot me sideways glances as I dressed.

“You mean that, don’t you?” she asked.

“If it was wealth I could use? Might be different,” I admitted. “But as it is? I really can’t use it, and I need to know what it says on it.”

“Why?” she asked, confused. “It’s from the Bronze Age. Seriously, five thousand and more years ago. What possible . . .”

“Just . . . please,” I said, swallowing hard. “This is why I let you come.”

“This is?” she asked, looking unsure if she should be offended or flattered.

“It is. Look, you’re beautiful. And yes, there’s a part of me, especially after all the shit I’ve been through recently, that really wanted to just experience a guy taking a hot girl to dinner and a long bike ride. Yeah, definitely. I’m a risk to you, though, and I’m not such a shitbag that I’d ignore that. I need to know what this says, and then, hell, it’s all yours, and I’ll give you a lift to the nearest city with a museum.”

“There’s one here,” she said slowly.

“Okay, there you go,” I said, forcing a smile.

“No.”

“What?”

“No, I’m not leaving that easily.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, a move I wasn’t sure I was taking a liking to.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” I growled. “Really?”

“You turn up out of the blue with half a million or so in notes, Bronze Age artifacts, a dragon staff and a story like this? I’m not leaving you until you tell me all about the place you found these, and you tell me the rest of the story!”

“I told you the truth!”

“You told me some of the truth!” she shouted, storming over to stand before me, staring up into my eyes as I stood as well. “You hid as much as you told! You want to just leave me, after you showed me all of this? Knowing I’ll spend the rest of my damn life wondering about you? Fine! You don’t want anything to do with me?

“I’m an adult, I can deal with that, but this? This is about generations of archaeologists! This is the history of our world, and our species, and without it . . . this is lost history! These are from a period we know almost nothing about, and your find could unearth it! Tell me where you fought them, show it to me. I swear, I’ll leave you alone forever if that’s what you want!”

“Show it to you,” I repeated, staring down at her. “You have no fucking idea what you’re asking.”

“You said you fought criminals, so they’re probably long gone, if you killed some of them as you said, but—”

“Not a cat’s chance in hell,” I said firmly.

“But—”

“I mean it!” I snapped, leaning in close. “You have no idea what I fought down there. Fuck’s sake, I barely made it out alive! The size of those fuckers—” I cut myself off, seeing the confusion in her face. Shaking my head, I stepped back from her, putting some space between us. “Look, can you translate it or not?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she said, frowning as she picked up the piece again. “The writing is different from anything I’ve seen before, a dialect that’s not the same as the others I know. I’d have to talk to some colleagues.”

“Fine,” I said, straightening up. “Look, I need to get some food. Do you want to—”

“And leave this?” she asked me, aghast. “Do you know what any of my people would give to study this?”

“Fine,” I said, more than a little sadly as I pulled the rest of my clothes on. “You work on it, and . . . I don’t know. Order room service, I guess.”

With that, I grabbed the smaller wedge of cash and left, heading downstairs to the small restaurant attached, reaching out and dealing with the cameras as I passed them, as minor a detail as it’d become by now to me.

I brought out the phone I’d bought earlier, and I sat on a table at the very back, as far from anyone else as I could get, and ordered practically a whole cow and fries, as well as a bottle of Appleton trying to figure out what the hell I was doing with the phone.

I didn’t get very far, mainly because the one thing that kept going through my mind was that Ingrid would never let this go. As desperate as she was to locate the place the artifacts had come from, and me having told her it came from criminals?

If she started trying to find it, which I damn well knew she would, well . . .

I just kept imagining her walking away with murderers and rapists that she’d gone to, thinking she could handle herself and never being seen again, or hell, finding the damn catacombs somehow, and then . . .

“Fuck!” I snapped at myself, shaking my head and glaring at the bits spread out before me. I’d snapped the damn sim card in half.

I got another one out and started with the phone again, telling myself that if something happened to her, it wasn’t my damn fault.

It took about ten minutes before the drink arrived, and it was the manager who brought it, rather than the young guy I’d ordered it from. He paused hesitantly, standing by the end of the table.

“Are you expecting the lady to join you?” he asked carefully, and I shook my head. “May I?”

I frowned, and nodded, noting the pair of glasses he was carrying and the way he smiled, sitting carefully and pouring us both a decent measure, at least two fingers, before passing one over to me, and raising his glass.

“Yamas,” he offered, and I repeated it, clinking my glass to his and taking a swig before setting it down. “You have been friends long?”

I quirked a smile. “Not exactly.”

“A more . . . physical . . . friendship, then?” he asked. I shook my head again. “I am surprised. You seem like a good match.”

“Thanks,” I said, picking my glass up again.

“It is not my place perhaps, but . . . you have the look of a man in need of an ear to listen,” he offered.

I smiled, genuinely touched.

He was in his fifties, I’d guess, and clearly did the job because he liked people, rather than as so many did, because they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. He’d obviously seen what he thought was a guy having relationship difficulties and had stepped in, wanting to help.

It was a common thing I’d found across the island, where people would check on you if they thought you needed help, and treat you like a younger member of the family . . . provided you hadn’t annoyed them too much. Just being nice, really. Or they’d be utter bastards. Rarely a middle ground between the two places.

It was a weird culture, to a northern Brit anyway, because a lot of the locals treated me with scarcely concealed contempt as one of the drunken tourists . . . but once they realized you were a worker, instead of a tourist? It was as if they suddenly remembered you were a nephew. As such, you should listen and do as you were told, because their advice was for your own good.

“Honestly, I don’t know where it’s going,” I said sadly, not even sure why the hell I said anything at all.  “I hired her”—I saw the way his eyebrows shot up, and I snorted a laugh—“Not like that!” I added quickly.

“Oh!” he replied, relieved.

“She’s working on something for me,” I said. “But she wants more than I can give her. That’s all.”

“A relationship?” he asked, and I shook my head.

“You must be joking. Look at her, and look at me! No, she wants me to take her somewhere dangerous.” I paused, then had a sudden thought. I didn’t come over this way on the island as a rule. Not for any reason, I’d just not really done it much, preferring to explore the north and the west, rather than the east. “I had a falling out with a friend at a dog-fighting pit—”

Instantly, his attitude changed, a frown growing.

I hurried on. “I was supposed to take her to look at it. She’s an archaeologist, something to do with her studies. She needs to go to one, and the one I knew about, well, the friend who knew about it now won’t take us. Is there another one that you know about?”

“Not the kind of thing a good man wants to know about,” he said firmly.

I reached out, picking the bottle up and pouring us both another double. “No, it isn’t, and to be clear, I want nothing to do with the scum that run them. I like dogs. Hell, I like animals more than people, but . . .” I gestured upwards.

“She wants to go to one of these fights?” he asked, clearly disbelieving me.

“It’s something to do with history. I don’t know,” I said shrugging. “When a pretty woman asks you to take them somewhere . . .”

I shrugged.

“You said you hired her?”

“I did,” I agreed, cursing my loose tongue. “But it’s the fee for the work she’s doing for me.”

“And what is she doing for you?”

“She’s an archeologist,” I repeated. “She’s taking me on a tour of the Minoan sites.”

“Where have you been?”

“Just the palace outside Malia,” I said honestly. “We were on our way somewhere else when the storm hit.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, then grunted and got up, wandering off across the restaurant and going behind the desk before coming back, settling down next to me, and unfolding a map of the island.

“Here,” he said simply, pressing a finger to a site on the southern coast, halfway back across the island, called Tympaki. “I don’t know much about the dog fights. They’re illegal, after all, but I heard a tale recently about a group that were rescuing dogs from the fighting rings. They operate out of a taverna somewhere near to the Minoan Palace of Phaistos.” He sighed. “It won’t be the same as the fighting rings, but perhaps?”

He shrugged, watching me.

“It might be enough for her, and it’d be a start,” I agreed, forcing a smile. “Plus, then I get to see the Minoan Palace there as well.”

“It’s a much more impressive one than Malia’s,” he enthused, seemingly having decided that I was all right again. “The site is . . .”

That was it, fifteen minutes of him telling tales about the various sites across the island, advising me to take “the pretty one” to this place or that, and how romance couldn’t fail to bloom if I took her to this place at sunset or sunrise, et cetera.

It didn’t end when my food arrived; he simply moved around the table to give me more room and continued on, taking my lack of interaction for hunger as he talked about his homeland.

Eventually, the rum was empty, then the steak was done, and he’d heard from a member of staff that Ingrid had a fish dish delivered to our room. He let me go with a bawdy wink and slurred wishes of good luck as I returned to our room.

I hesitated at the door, not sure how to say it, and I listened, realizing that she was on a call inside.

“Yes.”

“ . . .”

“No, honestly I’m fine!”

“ . . .”

“Yes, really!”

“ . . .”

“I know, look, I’ll see what happens tonight, but I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. He said he’s got some artifacts, bought them in a dodgy deal, and he’s trying to impress me, I guess. I’ll see what they’re like, and then maybe I’ll come back and catch up with you all tomorrow.”

“ . . .”

“Yeah, the beach?”

“ . . .”

“Okay. No, he’s . . . urgh, don’t believe anything she says.”

“ . . .”

“Seriously, do you think I’d run off with a criminal? No, it’s not him I’m with. Really, because I’m sooo likely to run off with a random criminal?”

“ . . .”

“No! Look, I’m fine, and if you dare tell anyone about this. I’ll tell them all about Kristoff!”

“ . . .”

“Yes, I will!”

“ . . .”

“Okay, then. . . . I know . . . I’ll see you soon!”

“ . . .”

I heard silence after that, and I quickly changed tack, heading to the end of the corridor then walking back as if I’d not heard a thing. Then I let myself into the room, pausing when I heard the shower on in the bathroom. I couldn’t help but smile as I heard her start to sing in Danish.

I couldn’t understand a damn word, but she had a wonderful voice, I had to admit. I sat at the desk where she’d been working, looking over some notes she’d made.

They weren’t clear; hell, they made little sense at all, but hey, I sure as shit wasn’t an archeologist.

Thera design, Minoan. Ships, crocus, bull’s head . . . ibex . . . night? Fish, but with teeth? Hunting?

Then there was a separate section where she’d scrawled notes that made even less sense. Reading over it, I realized that the first section was her picking out some of the stylized carvings and trying to identify them, while the second . . . it was her attempt at a translation.

The unfaithful sons (Plato?!) were punished by the Ra (Egyptian sun god Ra?) Fire mountain cleansed (Thera eruption?) Treaty was broken (?) and punished? Enslaved were freed, and rose up to claim the (?)

Refuge? Hidden home? Something that’s unclear, something about the “Great Ones” or might be “Terrible”

Not to forget . . . cleansing?

A charge? A punishment for those who survived? Something about a brand, and about being forced . . . down? Captured? Kept in the deep?

I read it over, trying to figure it all out. Most of it was meaningless. The name of Plato was vaguely familiar, some philosophy dude from ancient Greece. The “Great Ones” and the “Refuge” certainly rang bells after the discussion with Hans, that was for sure.

The door opened from the bathroom, and I looked up, mouth opening to ask a question about the translation, when Ingrid squeaked and slammed it shut again.

I’d gotten a very brief glimpse of her holding a towel, the one around her hair, and the one around her body coming loose as she reached up to tie it . . . just as she saw me.

I’d seen literally nothing, save the towel starting to fall, but damn.

I couldn’t help but wish it’d fallen a few seconds later, like when she was in the middle of the room.

“You’re back,” she said to me, sticking her head around the door.

I nodded, trying not to smile too much at how red-faced she was.

For a woman who’d admitted she came to Greece in the hopes of, I quote, “a lot of sex,” she blushed like a sunrise, and it was wonderfully sweet.

“Yes, is that a problem?” I asked.

She shook her head before extending one arm around the edge of the door and pointing to a bag on the floor.

“No, but . . . ummm, I wasn’t expecting you back yet, and I was thinking about the artifacts. Could you pass me the bag?”

I grinned and got up, picking up the bag and passing it through, getting a hurried “thank you” as she closed the door.

I wandered back to sit on the chair, looking the random jewelry over.

The pieces were stunning, especially now they were cleaned up a bit. Some wet wipes had appeared from somewhere and had been used, and there was a lot of crap coated on them.

I frowned at it, seeing the thick collection of hairs, then grunted, betting that it was the goddamn werecat’s shit I’d stolen.

The door opened again, and Ingrid stepped out. She was wearing a long, plain white T-shirt that went to mid-thigh, and apparently little else. Her hair was quickly towel dried, and . . . damn.

She was stunning.

Even more so without the makeup, looking hot and a little unsure of herself, clearly freshly scrubbed and still a bit wet, judging from the way the T-shirt clung to her.

I just stood and stared for a long minute. While she blushed, she also looked pleased with herself.

“So . . . you came back,” she repeated, a slight smile on her face.

“Ummm, yeah,” I replied before shaking my head and forcing myself to look away. “I mean, yeah, of course I did!”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come back.”

“Would you rather I hadn’t?”

“No!” she said quickly. “Look, I . . . I started the translation. It’s not very clear, I know—”

“No, I saw it. Damn, it’s impressive!”

“I had help,” she admitted ruefully. “I called a friend and showed it to him. He . . . well, he went nuts. Says it’s unique, and when I vouched for it being authentic, or at least as far as I can tell, he’s flying out. Said his flight will get in day after tomorrow, late at night. It’s the earliest he could arrange.”

“Oh.”

“Is—is that a problem?”

“I’m hunted by the police,” I pointed out.

She nodded. “I know, and he’ll be able to help with that. Trust me, he’s one of the most respected archaeologists in Denmark, as well as a good friend. I told him that someone tried to mug you, and you beat the crap out of them.” She looked me up and down and smiled nervously. “I figured that you could pass for being able to do that at the very least, and that you’d accidentally grabbed an extra bag when you’d grabbed your own again, and that they’d been hunting you since then.”

“Right,” I said slowly.

“You don’t like it, I know, and I understand that. But it gives you a reason as to why people are hunting you, why you’re running, all of it, as well as making the artifacts appear to have been looted and stolen. By a mugger, I mean, so there’s no way you could be expected to know where they came from.”

I looked at her and sighed, caught again by her beauty but keeping my head more now I’d had the chance to reboot my brain.

“Ingrid, look. Sit down,” I said, moving across and sitting on the edge of the bed and gesturing to the seat across from me, which she took. I immediately had to focus on her face and not on the long expanse of creamy leg that was revealed instead.

“I know you don’t like it, but you won’t tell me—” she started.

I held up a hand. “Ingrid!”

“What?”

“Shut up for a damn minute and listen, all right?” I asked. “I had some time to think about what you were saying, and it makes sense. Some of it, anyway. I won’t take you to the place I got these—no! Just listen!” I added as she opened her mouth to speak. “You want to know where they came from? Fine. I’ll take you to another site, one that might be run by some of the same people.”

“Really?!” she asked, sitting up straight and smiling broadly.

“This is dangerous,” I said clearly. “But . . . I need to know if the same people are involved in this place, or if they’re just normal criminals. So here’s the deal. I’ll take you with me, and we play the part of loved-up tourists. You get to see the kind of people that were involved in it, and I get close enough to tell if they are, or if they’re just normal dickheads.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Honestly, I understand what you’re saying, about needing to know,” I admitted, scratching the back of my neck. “I thought about it and realized you’d just get yourself killed if you went searching on your own, so here’s the deal. I’ll take you with me to a place I’ve found out about. It’s a taverna near the Minoan palace on the south coast.”

I noted the eagerness in her nod, the way her eyes lit up, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Have you been to it?”

“The taverna?”

“No, the damn palace!”

“Oh, no, not yet. I’d love to, though.”

“Okay, so we go to the palace ruins, once we’ve seen them, we go to the taverna. They rescue dogs from the fighting pits, a nasty game that some criminal dickheads like to play, dog fighting.”

“And what has that to do with . . .?”

“You get to see some of that world, and we’ll ask some damn questions, that’s all. See if we can find out where the pit is, and where the fights take place. If it’s the same group, then . . .” I took a deep breath, and went on. “Then you leave, and I’ll deal with them. Any artifacts I find, I’ll bring to you afterwards.”

“What? No, I won’t leave! I’ll—”

“Because if you won’t, then I’ll leave you here,” I said, tone broaching no contradiction. “This is the deal I’m offering, and believe me, I don’t like it in the slightest. But it’s the best I can do!”

That was true as well; every instinct raged that this was a stupid fucking deal, that I was exposing her to the situation and to risk for absolutely no reason, and that I didn’t need her.

The thing was, though, it harked back to all that self-examination and shit I’d done back at the apartment.

If I had the power to deal with things, did I not also have the responsibility? Also, if I left her behind and she went looking? Was I responsible for setting her feet on the path that could lead to her death?

If I answered yes to those questions, then there was only one choice, and that was to take her along with me.

If I let her see enough of the underbelly of society to fucking terrify her, then she’d keep well clear of it in the future. If we went along and I couldn’t sense any nanites, or that they weren’t lycanthropes, instead they were just ordinary dickheads?

That meant the infection was dealt with, basically.

Then we could give a slab of cash to the people who were looking after the dogs and trying to save them, good deed done, and the assholes who were doing the dog fights would basically remember two tourists slumming it.

We all walk away, and it’s good.

If, on the other hand, though, I found they were lycanthropes? Well, I’d found the fuckers, and I’d still walk her away. Then I’d send her off and cleanse the fucking area. I’d get nanites and more experience fighting, and the world would get to be a better place.

There was no way that the big fuckers could be there, and if there were a few lycanthropes? Well, I could defend her if need be, but I was sure that they’d never have stayed hidden this long if they attacked every rando they came across.

All-in-all, it was a risk that was manageable, got me information, got her hopefully scared or disgusted enough that she’d stay in the light and stay safe. Maybe, just maybe, I’d come out of all this a fucking hero, as I’d find out they were normal criminal dickheads, and I’d get an excuse to kick their arses.

We ended up arguing for another hour, mainly over what she would and wouldn’t do, which was dealt with by the simple expedient of me saying I’d leave her the fuck behind, and she could walk there if she didn’t like it.

I’d make damn sure there was nothing for her to find if I had to take that step, and I think she realized that in the end.

Add to that, by then we were both stressed and had realized, after a lot of arguing, that we were both getting what we wanted, if not exactly.

She agreed that if there was danger, she’d leave, and I agreed that unless there was actual danger, I wouldn’t expect her to go.

We were both also very aware of each other, and how close we were standing, and how little she was wearing.

The unresolved sexual tension was killing me.

We agreed to a truce of sorts, and I went to the bathroom, got ready for bed, and then stood there, staring at the door to the bedroom and trying to decide what the hell to do.

I slept naked, had done for as long as I could remember. Meanwhile, she and I had done nothing besides the kiss, and that felt like forever ago, regardless of how much the thought of those soft lips on mine made me twitch.

I sighed and kept my boxers on, returning to the bedroom and deliberately not looking at her when I noticed her bra and panties sat atop a pile of clothes.

We bade each other good night and climbed into our separate beds, clicked the lights off, and lay listening to each other’s breathing for what seemed like forever.

I’d lasted about ten minutes before stripping my boxers off, and I lay there, quite capable of making my own sleeping tent right then, as thanks to the wonders of my enhanced vision, I knew damn well that she was wearing that T-shirt and nothing else.

We both spent the night pretending to sleep and arguing with ourselves over if it was a good idea or a terrible one to just get up and climb into the other’s bed and go for gold.

Or at least I damn well hoped she was having the same thoughts I was.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next morning dawned bright and clear, and I lay there, pretending to sleep as she got up and walked around my bed to slip into the bathroom. As soon as she was gone, well, I let out a groan unthinkingly.

I wasn’t sure I’d gotten any damn sleep at all.

At one point, she’d gotten up to go to the loo, and when she’d walked past, secure in the knowledge that it was pitch black in the room? Well, the T-shirt had ridden up and exposed a beautiful ass.

I’d spent the next hour trying to decide if I should disturb her or just accept that it wasn’t happening and go into the bathroom and have a cold shower or a damn wank.

Sod’s law, I kept telling myself if I did? That’d be when she’d actually decide she was interested, and I’d be left with the desire and no capacity.

Now, I stood and moved to the bag of clothes, finding clean boxers and dressing swiftly. By the time she came out, I sat on the balcony and the kettle was boiled, a cup of tea in my hands.

“I didn’t know if you liked tea, or . . .”

“Coffee,” she replied, smiling shyly as I got up and slipped past her into the bathroom. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were waiting.”

“It’s okay.” I smiled as I closed the door and attended to nature’s needs.

A short while later, still tasting the toothpaste, I wandered out of the room and paused, grimacing as I took a drink of the tea, some shite blend I’d never heard of, rather than decent Yorkshire tea, which was the good stuff. Whatever it was, mixed with toothpaste, it was goddamn awful.

But Ingrid?

She sat on the balcony, hair pulled back into a tidy braid that flowed down one shoulder, the neckla—torc on her lap, and a wondering look on her face as she admired it, one finger gently tracing the patterns on it.

I moved out, my increased size meaning I was slightly damn clumsy as I edged through the narrow balcony doors to sit across from her.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked her, and she cocked an eyebrow at me. “With those, I mean. I take it you don’t want to leave them behind?”

“Wherever I go, these go!” she said without a second’s hesitation.

I stifled a smile. “Okay, so have you thought about how you’re going to do that?”

“A backpack,” she said, grinning. “I’d say handbag, but they’re stupid prices here and—”

I shrugged and gestured to the money on the table.

“Help yourself to anything you want,” I offered, and she paused, looking at me for a long time before speaking.

“Steve . . . look, I can transfer some money from my savings, you know. You don’t have to—”

I held up a hand. “Ingrid, I know you don’t really know me that well, but seriously, money isn’t an issue for me. Not at all,” I clarified. “If I need more, I can get my hands on it easily enough, so go get some clothes, if you want?”

“I’m fine, but thank you,” she said, smiling. “Thank you for yesterday, though. I’ll get a bag, and that’s all, and that’s out of the change from yesterday I still have.”

“I didn’t think I gave you that much?”

“You gave me a thousand euros, Steve. I felt like a whore taking it,” she said slowly, her cheeks coloring. “I spent half the night expecting you were going to climb into the bed and expect your money’s worth.”

Instantly, I felt like shit, having not even thought about that. I was massively glad I hadn’t made a pass at her or done exactly that, misreading the signals as I must have been.

“Shit, I’m sorry. We should have gotten separate rooms,” I started to say.

“No!” She shook her head emphatically. “No, seriously, Steve. It doesn’t help that I kissed you before, so I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d thought—”

“It’s okay, don’t worry. I’ll leave you alone like that,” I said quickly, standing up. “You don’t have to come—”

“NO!” she almost shouted, standing as well and grabbing my arm before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, then looking up at me. “Steve? Please, sit down and let me explain.”

“Okay,” I said, sitting as she asked and waiting.

“Steve, you’re . . . you’re not what I expected, okay? You’re everything I like in a guy, and nothing like I normally go for, as well as frankly confusing as all hell.”

I frowned, really not sure what the hell was coming.

“You’re the kind of man I get all hot about in action movies. The bad guy with the heart of gold, like in the racing movies where they blow everything up! One minute, you’re really nice, then the next, I find out you’re a wanted murderer. Then it turns out you’re basically fighting criminals and rescuing antiquities. You’re the kind of guy we love to watch movies about, and that, yeah, I’d fantasize over.”

She looked away, cheeks flaming red as she admitted that, and again one hand reached out to lightly trace the carvings before her on the torc. I noticed she never actually touched it. Her fingers stayed just clear of them, as if she couldn’t bear to touch it but desperately wanted to.

“I tend to date guys that are . . . a bit more like me?” she went on. “You know, normal, a bit dull, but nice? And meeting you, you’re exactly the kind of a man I wanted to meet coming here, and it scares the hell out of me.”

“I—”

She glared at me, and I shut up.

“I’m saying this so you know where I stand, and then you know where you stand, okay?” I nodded, and she smiled tightly. “Good. Okay, so, you’re the kind of a man I desperately wanted to meet, and you terrify me, because I spent half the night frightened that you’d climb into the bed and demand your money’s worth out of me—”

“I would never—”

“—and the rest of the night hoping you would!” she finished in a rush. “I slept in just my T-shirt so I could get it off quickly, if you did. And when I got up this morning, I don’t know if I’m relieved or really, really pissed at you that you didn’t! I wanted you to know, so that you knew how I felt, and . . . and . . .”

I stood up and moved around the table, going down to one knee, so that she wasn’t having to look up at me. I reached out, cupping her cheek in one hand, and I kissed her.

It was gentle at first, but in seconds it wasn’t.

I felt our teeth clashing as we desperately kissed, our tongues wrapping around each other, driving into each other’s mouths, her lips hot and her hands even more so as she wrapped her arms around my neck and turned to face me fully.

The next thing I knew, she’d slid off her chair and was straddling my leg while I traced kisses down her neck, moans rising from deep in her throat as I did, one arm around her back, and the other.

I slipped my fingers up under the hem of her T-shirt, feeling the smooth, silken texture of her skin under my hand as I lifted the fabric higher. A slight giggle escaped her as my fingers brushed ticklish skin on her side before cupping one breast, feeling the padding and the lace.

My other hand was already moving, twisting and flicking the hooks free on the back of her bra, even as she reached down and tugged my top up over my head.

She stood, lifting off my leg as I raised my hands over my head and let her take my top off, tossing it aside as she backed into the room.

I stood, grinning, as she reached down and tugged her top up and over her head, shucking her bra off in a motion that made her tits bounce fantastically.

I reached for her, pulling her into my arms and kissing her again before putting my hands on her hips and holding her there as I lowered myself down, kissing my way down her neck, then down the slope of her chest, trailing kisses around her left nipple, breathing on it, seeing and feeling it stiffen even more as she ran her fingers through my hair and guided my mouth to it.

My hands were as busy as my mouth, undoing her belt, and then her jeans, peeling them down her beautiful long legs until she stepped out of them, leaving her panties, as I kissed my way slowly down from the breast, down her stomach, curling my fingers over the top of the silken material and . . .

“WAIT!” she suddenly cried, shoving me aside and racing out onto the balcony. I toppled over, barely catching myself on the edge of the bed to stop me going sprawling.

I looked over, totally confused, the little head having drained the brain. When I realized what had happened, I broke into a laugh. She darted back inside as someone below wolf-whistled up at her.

She bumped the door shut, arms full of priceless jewelry, red-faced with embarrassment as she looked back over her shoulder and then down at me.

It took a few seconds to overcome her hesitancy, then she began to laugh as well. I stood, and she set everything down on the little table inside the room.

“Sorry,” she whispered sheepishly, and I grinned, reaching for her and pulling her close.

“It’s fine!” I laughed, kissing her and running my hands down her back, one cupping her beautiful ass, as the other reached up for her breast.

“Ah, ah!” she whispered, breaking off the kiss and reaching out to my belt. “You’ve got lots more on than me now. That’s not fair . . .” She slowly kissed her way down my neck as she undid my jeans. Her fingers slipped inside, gripping me and drawing a groan from my lips . . . before she slid down to her knees, tugged my jeans and boxers down, and started to kiss me even deeper.

The rest of the morning was lost in a haze, one that left us both exhausted, sticky, and satisfied, laid panting on the floor in front of the air conditioning unit as we both tried to cool down.

“I think you’ve broken me,” she whispered, half slumped across me. “I’ll never be able to sit on that bike now.”

“Is that a complaint?” I asked her, unable to keep from grinning. “Because I think the bed was your fault, you know.” We both glanced across at one of the beds, and the leg that had snapped off it as she’d been . . . bouncing . . . enthusiastically, at one point. It’d tipped us both onto the floor, and as close as we’d both been, neither of us had given it more than a glance before I’d picked her up and pinned her to the wall.

“Cheap bed,” she whispered, laying her head back and closing her eyes. “Could have happened at any time.”

“Yeah . . .” I grinned. “Definitely not your fault, eh?”

I kissed her forehead, and she half-rolled over, laying one leg across mine and kissing me before tapping me playfully on the nose.

“Is that a complaint?” she countered.

“Hell, no!”

“Then shut the hell up and let me catch my breath,” she ordered me. I grinned, stretching out and grabbing a pillow from where it’d fallen off the bed at one point.

She eyed it, then shrugged and settled into my shoulder more comfortably.

Ten minutes or so later, the pair of us were just drifting off to sleep when her phone’s alarm went off. She groaned, trying to reach it. Then, cursing, she got up.

Standing over me and walking to the table, Ingrid picked it up and sighed.

“I have to make a call,” she apologized.

I nodded, curious and a little apprehensive, until she walked across to me, squatting next to my head to give me a long kiss. “Don’t worry. It’s my sister. It’s her birthday.”

She kissed me again, and I grinned, loving the way she was totally unselfconscious about her body now.

Mind you, considering the things she’d been begging me to do earlier, well. I felt a twitch just from the thought of that, and I rolled to my feet, standing and stretching before heading for the shower. She wrapped a dressing gown around herself and stepped out onto the balcony, already speaking in Danish to someone.

By the time I was out of the shower, clean and wide awake, if hungry as all hell, Ingrid was finished on that call, and was on the phone to one of her friends.

She’d clearly missed me getting out of the shower, and with the door tugged closed, she was giggling over something they’d said, as I focused and listened in on the conversation.

“. . . believe me, I’m not in any need of that right now.”

“. . .”

“Seriously! I can barely walk!”

“. . .”

“Well, that’ll teach you to go back with the first guy you meet!”

“. . .”

“No! I told you I can’t say, he’s a really private person, buuuut . . .”

“. . .”

“All I’m saying is he’s rich, he’s amazing, and . . .”

I stopped listening at that point, already having a big enough head and feeling pretty embarrassed about listening in at all. After all, the conversation I’d have had with Dave about meeting her wasn’t one I’d want her to hear . . . despite it all being good things.

That thought made me wonder what had happened to my friend, and I silently wished him well.

I found my clothes and dressed quickly before sliding the balcony door open and stepping out. The heat of the midday sun hit me after the airconditioned bedroom, and Ingrid sat up quickly, cutting off whatever she was saying.

“It’s okay,” I said quietly, and she nodded, going back to her call as I leaned down and gave her a light kiss. “Do you want a drink?”

“Something cold?” she whispered, covering the handset with one hand. I nodded, disappearing back into the room to raid the minibar, setting two tiny bottles that were probably horrifically expensive on the table between us as she finished the call and put her phone back into airplane mode.

“So,” she said slowly, smiling at me and toying with the rim of her bottle. “What do we do today?”

“It’s up to you,” I said honestly, smiling back at her. “We can stay here, go for round two as soon as you feel like you’ve recovered enough,” I offered winking and enjoying the way she nearly choked on her drink, before going on. “Or we could go to the site we talked about, and while we’re out, we could have the manager swap our things to a new room? One with a bigger bed?”

“I’d . . . I’d like that,” she decided, blushing a little before sitting up and wincing. “But what about the cameras?”

“Not a problem,” I lied smoothly. “I hacked them last night. They’re not recording anymore. I’ll fix it when we leave, but for now, when we need to, I can adjust them.”

“How can you do that?”

“It’s . . . it’s simpler than you’d believe,” I said, wincing. “Let’s say that, when you know the right back doors, all sorts of things are possible.”

“So many comments, so little time,” she said, then went bright red, standing quickly and taking a drink, swallowing, and setting it down on the table with a faint clink.

“On that note, I’m going for a shower,” she declared, face flaming red.

“Want some company?” I called after her.

She paused, before leaning back around the door and giving me a tight smile.

“Yes . . . but no. If you come in that bathroom, there’s no way I’m going to be able to sit on the bike later, so behave!”

“Behave? You sure you want me to?” I asked.

Again, she hesitated, mouth open, before grinning again.

“Okay, I really don’t want you to behave, but only later! When we get back tonight, you can misbehave however you want.”

I reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging her back out onto the balcony with a little cry and a stifled laugh as I pulled her into my lap, and she kissed me.

A minute later, she straightened up, and glancing around at the balconies on either side and the street two levels below, where we could be clearly seen, still, she opened her dressing gown and straddled me, making sure the sides of the dressing gown hid her from anyone else’s gaze.

From where I sat, though, I had a hell of a view. She kissed me, starting to slowly rock back and forth atop me.

“You say no, then you do this?” I asked her, my hands full of tit and ass, before I lowered my face, kissing her nipple.

“You remember this morning when you tied me to the bed?” she whispered, pushing my face back and kissing her fingertips, before sliding them down her stomach as I watched.

“Oh god, yes,” I whispered, watching her and hearing her tight groans.

“Well,” she whispered, leaning forwards and putting her lips to my ear, “payback’s a bitch.”

Then she lifted off me and ran for the door, turning when she was safely out of reach and taking the dressing gown off before kissing her fingertips and blowing me a kiss.

“Oh, you little—” I cursed, stunned and hard enough I could probably hammer a hole through the stone surround of the balcony.

Then she was gone, closing the door behind her, the lock echoing in the air as she turned it.

I was left there on the balcony, aching and torn between kicking the door down and laughter.

To be fair, I totally understood why she was getting her own back now. I’d teased her for ages, but still, I’d also taken care of her needs, rather than leaving her the way she had me.

I took a deep breath in, then forced it out in a quick shu, before going inside and getting my phone.

I’d done the basic setup last night, all the usual crap, and now it was ready for the more important work, as I needed to get it safe for me to use, and I needed to assign the two War, and the two Harvest Points yet.

The Harvest ones were the easiest, and I assigned them both without hesitation. There were three different options in Harvest: Stat, Nanite, and System Replenishment, and the first two were both useful. Stat Harvest would literally steal a point from my opponent, be that Body, Mind, whatever, and the second one would increase the usable nanites that I could harvest by ten percent.

The Full System Replenishment option, though, that kinda freaked me out. It was a good choice; I knew it was. Hell, it was a perfect way to dispose of a body, even if it would take a little while, I guessed.

It basically stripped an opponent down, using their biological components to repair me, swapping out literally any damaged cells and more, breaking them down as it went. I’d get everything, from the nanites to the white blood cells to fragments of DNA and everything in between.

I was left with a mental image of a grey goop left behind, and that was it.

I knew it could be useful—it really could—but I also had an impression of time, like it’d take a while to actually carry out the process. But it would be useful if I was badly injured.

I’d already gotten a point in Nanite, and while I really wasn’t sure about the System Replenishment, I took one point in it anyway, figuring if I was really in need, then I’d be glad of the option one day. Then I took a point in Stat Harvest as well, mainly because an extra point every time I killed a fucker would come in damn handy.

Needless to say, once it unlocked, I found that it was a percentage-based chance to get the point. Ten percent, in fact, and I growled to myself before moving on, pulling up the War tree.

I’d used the War tree more than any other so far, but considering that I was taking Ingrid somewhere that might, might, go seriously wrong?

It was time to make the most of the tree now.

I had two points to spend, and between the massively useful Infiltration and Assault trees, I’d certainly got my money’s worth I knew.

I examined the Tactical Enhancement Systems Upgrade tree, remembering the massive difference that changing the Harvest tool to the Harvest Blade had made, and I couldn’t help but smile as I looked the options over.

First, I could invest in the Harvest Blade again if I wanted to, altering it further. There was an impression of it becoming more efficient, and possibly larger, but while the efficiency was great, I could already change its shape with a thought, so changing the size to an even larger version?

It seemed like I’d be trying to compensate for something . . . even though the thought of forming a great axe did seem seriously awesome.

I moved on.

Unarmed increased my unarmed capability, unsurprisingly, making me stronger, faster, and deadlier, which I liked, but in all honesty, I really liked being a stealthy fucker. The capability to vanish had already saved my damn life time and time again.

I checked Ranged, finding it had several options that flowed from it, starting with making my nanites detachable.

That was fairly awesome in itself, as I could literally make throwing knives of nanites, throw them—obviously—and then collect them again later, or, thanks to the detonation ability that I’d gained earlier, they could explode on impact! It’d destroy the weapon, but . . .

I moved on, seriously tempted when I found I could also integrate myself with a ranged weapon, such as an assault rifle, improving the accuracy, the power, all of it, essentially absorbing the weapon and reproducing it entirely of nanites if I needed to.

That was tempting . . . but aside from the gun on the drone and the guns the assholes had taken with them, well, I’d not seen any more.

The drone!

It was tucked into the largest pannier on my bike, but it was awesome, or at least it could be.

I flowed back up the tree, all the way to the top of the War tier, finding that I’d taken two of the three options, gaining a stealth capability and an overlay that guided me in combat, but I’d yet to take the third option.

Command and Control.

Selecting it, I brought up the breakdown, nodding to myself as I read. It was basically a remote control system. Along with the Hack systems, I’d be able to take control of computer and technological systems easier, make them more efficient, and control more of them at a time, as well as upgrade them using my nanites.

I chose that straight away, knowing that Ingrid could be out any minute. As the data started to download, a wall of it flowing out to overwhelm my brain, I thought of Ingrid being in danger, and I selected the Tactical Enhancement Systems Upgrade, sinking the second and final point into there.

It felt like the world exploded, or at least my brain did, and I sat there, teeth gritted to the point they were close to cracking, breath hissing out, and I shook uncontrollably.

The world zoomed in and out, systems overlaying each other constantly, a million technological devices—or so it seemed—popping up and demanding my attention, even as my pupils altered again and again, focusing in on everything in sight that could be used as a weapon, and that was literally everything.

I’d more or less recovered, when Ingrid came out of the bathroom half an hour later to sit in the bedroom drying her hair with a hairdryer that had a motor that would have had issues running a mouse’s car. I struggled to my feet, lifting my hand to my chin, cursing under my breath as I felt the wetness of blood, and I looked down at my top.

It was fairly soaked, but thankfully, the angle I’d been laid at meant it’d not gotten anywhere else. As I sat forwards, lifting my top, I managed to catch the last dregs of it, pulling my top up and over the back of my head, keeping the front balled up to catch the blood as I shuffled back inside.

“Hey, I was starting to think you were in a huff . . .” Ingrid started to say, her voice trailing off at the sight of all the blood.

I waved to her that it was okay, and moved into the bathroom, dumping the top in the bath and leaning over the sink to let the last of it finish.

It only took a minute to finish, and I could feel my nanites flexing inside my head as they sealed the damaged sections, then repaired them.

Hell, I could sense the minimal number of my nanites that had been carried out and were sat in the tub, in my blood now. Ingrid had been speaking, and I’d totally zoned out, I realized as I bent over and rinsed my face clean before cursing at the state of my chest and starting to strip as I reassured her that it was nothing, just a nosebleed.

I saw the hesitation and the clear worry that it was her fault somehow, and I laughed it off, reassuring her that, unless she wanted another go, she’d better get dressed.

She glanced down, seeing that she’d left the towel when it’d fallen in her hurry to reach me, and we were both naked.

Again.

She shook her head and backed away, smiling at the attempt, and the reassurance that if I was okay enough to try and get her to ride it, then I was fine after all.

Half an hour later, we were walking down the stairs, hand-in-hand, my phone in my other hand as I ostensibly “hacked” the camera in the foyer, while she looked on in confusion.

I used the remote link to shut off the camera’s recording, while showing a mass of random data on my phone’s screen and tapping at it with a thumb randomly.

“What are you doing?” she asked, confused.

I winked.

“That’s not the camera, is it?”

“It’s the data feed. Trust me,” I lied.

She frowned, before smiling as the manager from yesterday walked over to us.

“Ah, good morning to you both! Or . . . perhaps I should say good afternoon?” he asked, a wide smile on his face, and I snorted at the look he gave us both, then our entwined hands. “So . . . how can I help?”

“Turns out we’d like a different room, if possible?” I asked him, and as he started to frown, I clarified. “One with a bigger bed?”

He glanced at us both, then grinned widely.

“Of course! I shall arrange it now. Will you be out long? Do you wish your things moved or . . .”

“If you could, please,” Ingrid said with a smile. All she cared about from our room, now in the bag she held onto tightly in her other hand, and she kissed me lightly on the cheek, then jogged across the road and into the same shop as she’d visited the day before, nodding as I’d told her to use the cash.

“And . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name last night,” I said, turning back to him.

“Valentine. Call me Val,” he said with a smile.

“Steve,” I said, shaking his hand. “You know Ingrid’s name already, obviously.” He nodded. “So, I had a bit of a nosebleed earlier—”

“It’s fine. I can have it cleaned,” he started to say, and I smiled.

“Well, as I started to bleed, I rushed to the bathroom and tripped over the bed and broke the leg off,” I told him, pulling out a two-hundred euro note and handing it over. “I’m very sorry.”

“It happens, it happens! Don’t worry, not about such things, my friend!” he said, smiling and winking as the note vanished.

Who knew what he thought had really happened, but the money and the clear fact that Ingrid and I were now an item meant he didn’t give a damn.

“Thanks, Val. Yeah, if you could move our things across, and maybe put a cold bottle of good champagne in the room for tonight?” I asked, pulling out another note and handing it over, not even bothering to look at it.

He smiled and took it, nodding.

I winked at him before heading down to the bike.

I opened the pannier, the largest one, and looked down at the folded-up drone, well aware that the charge it had was almost totally depleted, and that I didn’t have a clue what kind of a charger it needed, never mind anything else.

I looked around carefully, and extended one finger, focusing as a slim line of nanites flowed out of it and into the drone, absorbing the systems and adjusting them. A menu popped up for me, making me grin.

Upgrade Options Available:

Range

Armament

Function

Range upgrades will extend the possible drone range, including additional options to survive inclement environmental conditions.

Cost: 1,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Armament upgrades are varied and require several tiers of upgrades, breaking into subsystems of Targeting, Caliber, or Nature, and Charge

Cost: 1,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Function upgrades are highly varied, offering three basic tiers that offer further variations and allow for a wide variety of missions:

Offensive: 10,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Defensive: 10,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Espionage: 10,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Looking them over, I couldn’t help but smile; the details weren’t great, and I damn well knew straight away that for the higher options, at least part of the cost was to include an on-board power core, but hell, I had a vision of altering the drone all the way and surpassing that alien-looking jet motherfucker that had come for the dickhead Lord Shamal.

I pulled up my available nanites, wincing as I saw how many I’d burned through in the fights in the catacombs, as well as by deploying the weaponized razor wire strings.

I had eighty-seven thousand and forty-two corrupted nanites, forty-three thousand, nine hundred and eleven attuned, and thirty-eight thousand and three weaponized.

I checked as well as I could to make sure that nobody was watching me, and I ordered the conversion of the majority of the corrupted stock to weaponized, approving the message that popped up asking if I was sure.

That gave me a hundred thousand weaponized nanites again, my maximum storage or just enough to form two pieces of armor.

I’d have loved to get the helm, despite the fact that I couldn’t wear it around Ingrid for fear of the questions about where it came from, or hell, I could get both sections of the leg armor.

I’d have much, much preferred the helm, or even any other piece, to the part that I had to buy first.

I needed to spend a hundred thousand—and that was attuned nanites—on upgrading the storage capacity of my body. Until then, the nanites . . . well. I just had to focus on collecting them and converting them.

I could use all the nanites I had currently to start the process, but it was going to be horrifically painful, and I just didn’t see the damn point until I had them all.

Instead, I’d just crack on converting them, I decided. Well, most of them.

I had nearly forty-four thousand available attuned to use, and checking to ensure nobody could see me again, I poured eleven thousand into the drone, selecting the first level of Range, for one thousand and the first level of espionage for ten thousand.

The drone started to change, even packed away as it was in the pannier, a dozen variable designs appearing before me. I scanned through them quickly, selecting one that still used an electrical charge. But that replaced the four motors with three individual directional pressure modules, and a stealth system coating that rendered it functionally invisible, both to radar and to the eye, although the heat it gave off was still a problem, I was warned.

The gun that hung underneath was absorbed for mass, as was part of the pannier, and I casually emptied the shit out of the others into it, getting rid of anything I could, fueling the change.

I could see the finished design, or at least the intended one, in my mind’s eye, but it’d take a few hours. In the meantime, seeing that Ingrid was standing in the queue to pay in her shop, I took the chance to duck into a car parts shop that was nearby and bought a few packs of steel nuts or something similar. Not a clue what they were for, but I recognized that they’d be nearly enough mass, and a car battery.

The sales assistant nodded to me, utterly uncaring as I paid and left, tipping them into the pannier and wincing when the top wouldn’t close thanks to the mass of the battery.

I considered leaving it behind, then dismissed it as stupid. I might need the fucker, after all. Checking inside, glancing up and seeing that Ingrid was finally getting served, I smiled as she waved, then glanced back down again.

The drone was covered now in a writhing black mass of nanites, and they were breaking the battery down at speed, the stored electrical charge, as well as the chemical mass absorbed as fast as it escaped.

“Come on . . . come on, come on, come on!” I muttered at it, smiling back as Ingrid hurried over, grinning at me.

“I’m sorry,” she said, stopping next to me and quickly kissing my cheek. “They had a problem with the till, and it took forever to fix! They wouldn’t just take the money. They needed to check it first, they said, and when I offered to pay on the card . . .” She shrugged. “Damn tills.”

“It’s all right,” I said, smiling as the lid of the pannier clicked, bouncing slightly.

“What—” she started to say, and I reached out, pressing it down, locking it, even as the faint smell of burning rose. “Is that . . . on fire?!”

Her eyes widened.

“No, it’s the battery,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s an old one, that’s all. Needs an additional battery.”

“But—”

“Let’s go,” I said quickly, sitting down and passing her the helmet. She slipped the bag she was carrying into the backpack she’d bought and shrugged into it before taking the helmet and clambering on the back of the bike, lifting her legs up and wrapping her arms around me. I started the bike up, heading back into the town, then out the far side for the Minoan Palace of Phaistos.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

As we left the town, I pulled the map up in my vision, my phone already locked down to me in a way that none had ever been before.

I’d literally spent seconds using my Hack and Command and Control abilities on it, and it was already so secure I could laugh my arse off if the FBI and the phone’s makers spent ten years fighting to get in, considering that I’d erased more than half the system, overwriting it with one based on my nanites, keeping only the most basic functions and the internet.

Using that and the map it displayed overlaid before my eyes, I picked out a dozen different routes, dismissing the fastest, as it required us riding straight past bloody Malia again. Instead, I chose the one that I thought was the best choice between speed and the sheer fun of the ride, as well as the clear beauty of the view.

We stopped off for fuel, then we were on our way.

The prediction was two hours. Well, the official prediction should have been three and a quarter, apparently, considering the route I chose, but fuck it. I still managed it in less than that, seeing the “predicted time” more as “time to beat.”

By the time we pulled up outside the Minoan palace, it was quiet, only three cars and a single bike in the carpark. By then, even I was happy to get off the bike, and the groans that poor Ingrid gave off . . . well.

I resolved that, if we were going to go and pick her friend up, considering it was the far side of the island, and tomorrow night?

We’d get a car.

“I don’t think I can walk . . .” She groaned, straightening up, then doing a small series of stretches. “Oh gods. You broke me.” I couldn’t help but grin at that, my ego sufficiently stroked, until she added, “Well, the bike has, anyway. It’s like the first time I rode a horse.”

I decided that could be taken either way, and that it was still a compliment, as I cracked my back, then popped open the pannier and pulled the drone free.

It was massively different from the original, now looking more . . . organic, I guess was the word. It was smooth, as if it’d been made from a single piece of plastic or metal or whatever, and it was warm to the touch, with the battery inside having been extended and upgraded with all the capabilities I’d selected.

“What’s that?” Ingrid asked, amazed, stepping in close, her discomfort forgotten.

“My trump card,” I said with a smile, holding my phone in one hand, and then throwing the drone up hard, before she could see it too closely. “Watch . . .”

I held the phone and pressed a few buttons, none of which had anything to do with the commands I was sending to the drone, doing system checks, powering the cloak, testing the engines, all of it.

The drone performed flawlessly, and as Ingrid watched the screen, amazed, I zoomed in and in, until we could see ourselves on the phone.

She stared at it, then at me, and back again, before trying to spot the drone overhead.

“That’s amazing,” she whispered, covering her eyes from the glare of the sun and trying to focus on it as it lifted higher and higher.

“It was a gift from a friend,” I lied easily. “It’s a prototype I’m testing for him, thought you might like to see what it sees from above?”

I handed her my phone and she took it carefully.

“How do I control it?” she asked, and I paused, thinking quickly.

“You tap on the screen where you want it to focus. That’s all. It’s following a command to stay close to the phone, but to circle overhead.”

“It seems so . . . oh!” She broke off as we made it up to the doors, and I spoke to the staff, handing over a few of the smaller notes and getting some change and a pair of red wristbands, then I got directions from the staff to the nearest taverna “for dinner” after we’d explored the site.

As we moved through the old turnstiles, their clack-clack made me think of similar things back in England when I was a boy, but once we were inside?

Well, we clearly saw two different things.

I looked around, seeing a handful of half-collapsed walls, and areas where it looked like the locals had stolen sections to rebuild their own walls and so on. Fuck knew it happened all the time back in the UK.

Farmers had their ancient dry stonewall techniques that resulted in walls for their fields that ran for miles, fitted together perfectly and capable of taking a head-on collision from a truck with barely more than the local section being damaged.

The thing was, if you looked at them carefully? In a lot of areas around historical sites, you’d be able to see the same damn stones that the archaeologists were all happy about finding; they were just mixed up in the walls, because the sneaky bloody farmers had been nicking them for generations and using them.

Here it looked the same. There were hundreds of collapsed walls, and little areas where seemingly random stones were stood one atop the other.

I took one look and bet that the locals had some interesting-looking garden walls . . . probably painted over so that nobody outside the “wink-wink, nudge-nudge, if you know, you know” of the groups who did it were aware.

Ingrid was enthusing over the stones, and the scuffed and practically unintelligible ancient, tiled mosaics, while I saw a bunch of random rocks, and so spent most of my time admiring Ingrid instead.

It wasn’t until she was bent over and looking at a particular mosaic that a whistle was sounded. I blinked, realizing we’d passed our allotted time.

I hazarded a glance at the front entrance, a little further along the hill. As the man on the gate changed the sign, I saw that the red bands were required to leave now, and that the blue were allowed in.

It was a bit bloody pointless, considering it was late afternoon, and they were closing soon . . . not to mention there was literally one person besides us here, but . . .

“Do you want a bit longer?” I asked her, and she bit her lip, then nodded.

“Just a little, ten minutes or so? It’s so fascinating!” she pleaded, and I nodded, setting off, walking across to the booth, and handing over some more money.

I’d explained the situation, and that she just wanted a few more minutes . . . and the bastard still charged us both for another full hour.

I grunted, taking my change and returning to her side, getting a quiet “thanks” and a kiss when I did.

Half an hour later, we finally reached the exit, and I tried not to sigh in relief as we left.

“That was wonderful,” she said, fingers of her left hand entwined with my right as she stared at the screen, looking at the site from the air through the drone and shaking her head. “It’s so different seeing it like this, so clear!”

I couldn’t help but smile at her, at the wide-eyed amazement and innocence, a state I felt like I’d lost forever ago, even before the army, let alone the current situation. I had to admit, even if only to myself, that I really liked it.

We walked down the hill to the carpark, and I sat on the bike, getting a frown from her as she gestured upwards to the drone.

“It’s okay, it’ll follow us,” I assured her, taking my phone and slipping it back into my pocket. “I’ll keep it circling high, so that if we need to make a quick getaway, I know.”

“You’ve barely watched the screen,” she pointed out.

“We shouldn’t be in any danger yet,” I replied, then muttered, “Just wait until we get to the dog fights.”

“Are . . . are we going to see them fighting?” she asked hesitantly.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I admitted. “We need to find them, and to do that, we go to the people who rescue the dogs and see if they can give us the next piece in the puzzle.”

“I don’t really want to see dogs fighting.”

“Neither do I,” I agreed. “But we can make a donation to the people who rescue them, and that’s a good deed, right? Then we can see.”

She nodded, settling herself behind me, and we drove down the hill, following the directions I’d been given earlier.

The taverna was small and simple looking, a square-ish building with a dozen bikes outside, two cars, and a truck with cages in the back, letting me know we’d found the right place. We pulled up and parked, the carpark dry and dusty, a mass of steamrolled stone that had been painted white sometime long ago.

Now, like the building, it was scuffed and dirty looking. The howl of dozens of dogs rose from somewhere behind as I got off the bike, taking Ingrid’s hand when she reached for mine.

We’d parked under an olive tree, one of what seemed to be hundreds, all covering the hillsides here, and as we headed for the door, the Little Olive handwritten sign creaked slowly in the warm breeze, welcoming us.

Stepping inside, we both hesitated. It was close and dark inside and reeked of dog. As our eyes adjusted, mine far quicker than hers, we saw several locals inside watching us.

“Hi,” I said with a forced smile, leading Ingrid to the bar and doing my best to ignore the way the hairs on the back of my neck were climbing.

I could sense a higher-than-normal nanite presence instantly. But they weren’t too high, not at the “oh fuck” level of the vamps—or worse, Hans and his kind—but markedly higher than I was used to from the ambient mass of humanity.

“What can we get you?” a gruff, older woman behind the bar asked, polishing a glass.

“A cold beer for me, and for you?” I asked Ingrid, getting an unsure look before she forced a smile and nodded.

“That’d be great,” she said quickly.

“Two beers, then,” I confirmed, and the woman reached under the counter, lifting two up, setting them before me.

“Ten euro,” she said flatly.

“Cold . . . beers,” I repeated, having seen they were literally sat on the counter, as opposed to the fridge behind her, where there were dozens of bottles sat chilling.

“That’s cold,” she said nodding to the bottle.

“No,” I disagreed, touching the bottle for emphasis. “It’s not.”

“Ten. Euro.”

“Cold. Beer,” I replied, sensing the way that people were moving around the bar, drawing their chairs back and clearly ready for something.

“Make it three,” called a new voice, and I glanced to the right, spotting a large, hairy man who was half slumped in shadows in a booth, a notepad and scattered papers before him.

He’d not been visible when we entered the room, thanks to the layout, but my hackles rose as soon as I saw him, and I felt . . .

“Fine,” the woman snapped, turning her back and pulling three bottles out of the fridge, then passing them over, not bothering to take the caps off.

I laid the ten euro note on the countertop, ignoring the sneer, and led Ingrid over to the man in the corner, setting the third beer down with him, and noting the elongated nail on his thumb as he flipped the cap off, nodding to me, even as my senses screamed in hunger at the mass of nanites I could sense in him.

I nodded in return, then led Ingrid to the back of the room, sitting at a table with my back to the wall.

“What—” she started to ask.

I shook my head, the gesture small but clear to her as I drew her around to sit next to me, facing the rest of the room. “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “I thought we were going to give them some money and ask—”

“And ask what?” the man called, having heard her clearly, even from his booth a dozen steps away, despite her whisper.

“Fuck,” I muttered, looking around the room. “Keep your back to the wall, and do whatever I say.” I got a worried glance, then a nod from her.

The man in the corner gave off a low chuckle, shifting around the table and standing, rolling his shoulders and taking a deep drink from his cold beer.

“So . . . you came to give us money? Generous, that,” he grinned as I sipped from my beer and watched them all.

There were eight of them, counting the barmaid, and clearly I’d made a massive mistake in coming here.

“We came to make a donation to the dog rescue center, and to get a beer,” I said, my voice cold.

“Well, you’ve got the beer, and we appreciate the donation,” the leader said, smiling widely as he spread his arms.

“Yeah. Bit pointless, though, isn’t it?” I suggested, sliding out of my seat and pressing Ingrid back when she started to stand as well.

“And why would that be?” he asked.

“Because you’re not rescuing the dogs,” I said, the pieces falling into place as the drone arced around the kennels outside. I could see the dozens of injured dogs in the cages, as well as the meat that was being prepared for them.

Most of it looked like it was dead dogs . . . but there was also a clear hand I could make out in the screen in my vision.

“You’re a quick one,” he replied, smiling. “Might be there’s a use for you after all.”

“I don’t think you’re going to like what happens if you try this,” I suggested. “Let the girl go.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head. “She knows too much, and as for you—”

“What’s going on?” Ingrid asked, clearly afraid, but grimly determined when I looked at her.

“You know that knife in the bag?” I asked her, referring to the one that I’d wrapped in a towel from the bathroom, and that was coated in the neurotoxin.

“Yeah?” she asked slowly.

“You might need it. If they get past me, stab the fuckers with it.”

“Now that’s not very friendly,” the leader offered as I examined him.

Pack Leader

Biological Weapon Variant

One of several successful BWVs that were granted further augmentations, the line designated as Lycanthrope spawns several greater strengths that warrant greater investment, including a greater pack mentality that results in easier integration and control.

Capabilities:

BITE: Lycanthropes have an infectious bite, transferring an awakened strain of their nanites into their victims. The awakened strain will overwrite the baseline nanites, instilling an intense hunger and a basic devotion to the one that infected them.

Shifter: Lycanthropes can shift their form, assuming an animalistic form with greater strength than the original. Stronger and higher-evolved versions may learn to shift partially.

HP 200/200

Lycanthrope

“Yeah, I’m just like that,” I said firmly. “So, you pretend to be rescuing the dogs, then you use them in the fights yourself . . . and you kill anyone that finds out, did I miss anything?” I asked them, getting a slow clap from the barmaid, who was grinning at me for the first time.

“It used to be an actual rescue group,” the leader said, smiling. “I saw the potential”—He gestured around, then back at me—“but I’m curious . . . most of our prey isn’t so observant, even when my pack are unfriendly on their arrival. What gave it away?”

“Honestly, you stink,” I said simply. “I could smell the wet dog as soon as we set foot in the place, and under that? Blood.”

“Could have still been a rescue center,” the leader suggested.

“It could have been,” I agreed. “But not with you.”

“Me?”

“I can smell you,” I growled.

“You can . . . smell me?” he asked, sniffing and stepping forward, then taking a deep breath, his head shifting as he followed a scent, focusing on Ingrid.

She pulled the bag open, unwrapping the knife and exposing the only thing she’d not cleaned the scent off yet.

“Ahhhhh!” he growled, before turning back to me. “Tressspassser!”

The last was said with a growl as he started to change, muscles popping and cracking, growing taller, broader. His muzzle elongated, ears climbing the sides of his head, eyes deepening and taking on a yellow glow, even as chuckles arose around the room where the others started to change as well.

I heard the indrawn breath from Ingrid, ready to scream, when I threw my bottle at the barmaid, catching her in the side of the head, mid-change.

She staggered, then fell from sight behind the bar, the bottle having shattered and given her a concussion with the force of its impact.

“Nowwww, that wassssn’t very niccce!” The leader chuckled, and I lifted my right hand and smiled at him.

“Oh I’m all sorts of ‘not nice,’” I clarified. “Don’t worry, Ingrid. They’re just a bunch of puppies, that’s all. Not what I was worried about. Still, you might want to close your eyes.”

“Why?” she asked, clearly terrified.

“Because I’m going to slaughter them,” I said flatly as the leader gestured to one of his pack, sending him striding forwards.

He was taller than me, well-built, heavily muscled, with coppery patterns flowing through his fur. He stopped before me, looking down, and growled, curling his lip in contempt before flexing his claws. Then he lunged forwards.

I caught his hands in mine, sensing his nanites and knowing instinctively that despite his massive size, he wasn’t that much stronger than me.

We stood there, fingers interlocked, arms extended, as he leaned forward, trying to use his greater weight to force me back as I held him in place.

I looked at him, seeing the bulging of the muscles and the way his toenails were digging into the wooden floor, the way he was huffing trying to crush me . . . and I grinned.

I felt the nanites flow out, overlapping my arms, coating them in a thin, black mass and doubling my strength easily. They responded at the speed of thought as I squeezed harder, making the werewolf whine, before snapping his hands back, broken. Then I twisted them and forced his elbows inwards, past their limit, snapping both his forearms.

He howled in pain, then lunged forwards, maw opened and gleaming teeth flashing for my throat.

I sneered, releasing his hands and gripping the top and bottom jaws, then snap kicked him in the balls, yanking his head down, then twisting, until he was kneeling on the floor, head facing upwards. I stared at the leader through his underling’s forced-open jaws.

“Bad . . . dog,” I ground out, then yanked my hands apart, tearing the top of the werewolf’s head off in a shower of blood, dropping the twitching corpse to the side, where it kicked erratically.

“Oh my god!” Ingrid gagged from behind me as I tossed the top of his head to land at the feet of the pack leader, who growled at me.

“Youuu don’t know usss very welllll if you think that’ssss going to stopppp usss,” he snarled.

“Oh, I do. I found your last nest in the catacombs, and I cleaned house there,” I growled, seeing the way his eyes widened. “And I met Davos. Little pissant got what was coming to him for challenging me.”

The leader’s eyes widened further before he hunched forwards and growled low in his throat.

“Killlll him!” he roared, turning and running for the exit.

The remaining seven burst into motion, racing forwards, several throwing tables aside as they came.

“Motherfucker!” I snapped.

I slammed my right fist out to the side, coating it in nanites as I activated my Harvest Blade, forming it into a thick blade with a wide tip, razor-sharp and three feet long.

The next to reach me arrived just as it finished forming and let out a little whine as I punched it through his chest, cleaving his sternum and the heart beneath in two before ripping the blade back and kicking the fucker off.

I focused and formed my nanites into a rough shield on my left arm, blocking slashing claws from the third as I activated the combat overlay. Time slowed and I now had a full minute to use it, the second level having granted a fifty-percent increase to the timer as well as a slight increase in capacity, making my opponents seem to move even slower.

I twisted, slashing the blade across the top of my shield, neatly beheading the third and using the motion to carry myself into a spin, leaping into the air and kicking the barmaid, now victim number four, in the face as she vaulted over the bar.

Her muzzle looked like she’d run headlong into a wall, crumpling up as teeth flew in all directions, and I barked out a single word to her.

“SIT!” I couldn’t help but grin as I landed, ducking down and sweeping my sword around as I turned in a full circle, chopping through three ankles that came in range, even as she collapsed to the floor, stunned, with her legs curled up under her.

I shot back to my feet, facing Ingrid as I shifted my blade. Forming a punch dagger with two blades, I drove the thin spikes under the chin of the werewolf on my right, victim number five, even as I grabbed the outstretched right arm of number six with my left hand. I caught him as his missing feet made their status known, and I spun again, yanking the punch dagger free of number five and ramming it into the stomach of six over and over before tearing a single blade through his heart.

I dropped him, even as the others collapsed, leaving the seventh and final of the pack.

He’d been running forwards and apparently decided he’d forgotten something really important elsewhere, possibly a sick mother, who he really needed to go and visit. He twisted around, scrabbling at the floor, trying to change his momentum.

I grabbed him by an ankle and hauled him back towards me, stabbing my Harvest Blade down again and again into the back of his leg, then his ass, lower spine, and then as his legs went dead and he rolled over, the desperate whine changing to a growl, I rammed it home in his eye.

He stiffened, then collapsed, dead.

There was sudden silence in the taverna, broken only by the whimpering of the barmaid, the dripping of blood from the walls and ceiling, and the low-level panicked Danish muttering coming from Ingrid.

I turned to her, the drone already following the fleeing pack leader as I stepped forwards, ignoring the barmaid entirely. I reached out and picked up a pile of mostly clean napkins, tossing the top one aside, then using them to wipe my face clean of the splattered blood.

Ingrid was repeating a phrase in Danish over and over, apparently praying, when I spoke.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” I said, stepping over and pulling the chair out across from her and sitting down. “But for the record, I did tell you you’d never believe the truth of where I got things, and who was hunting me, and who I was hunting in turn.”

“They—you—” she started, one shaking finger moving from me to them, and back.

“They’re lycanthropes. Werewolves, these fuckers. Simple, but still dangerous. The jewelry? It was from a werecat. A lot more intelligent, it seems, but a fuckload more cowardly.”

“They just . . . you killed them!”

“Yeah, it’s kinda the job I gave myself. If I left them alone, they’d just kill everyone. Look, here’s my keys,” I said, laying the bike keys on the table. “I need to finish this nest off. If I leave the leader of the pack to run . . . dammit.”

“What?”

“He’s gone underground,” I muttered, turning to the barmaid. “How many more in the pack?”

“Sikth,” she mumbled around a mouthful of shattered teeth.

“Six. Great. Underground?” I asked, and she nodded.

“Just you dickheads or have you got a master with you?”

“Jutht uth,” she managed, and I sighed.

“Well, I can always hope. Last question . . . is the nest connected to the catacombs, or is it just a cave system?”

“Don’t know,” she muttered, and I saw the way she shifted her claws, ready to attack.

“Good girl,” I said, standing and swinging my right hand down. The blade slid out again, and she snarled, leaping forwards, only to meet the blade midair.

I extruded a flat ring around the blade eight inches behind the tip, stopping her dead as the tip cut into her heart, then I pulled.

The nanites in her streamed into the Harvest Blade, called by the law of attraction. In seconds, her corpse fell free, drained.

I spoke as I moved around the room, ramming the blade down into each of the werewolves’ chests, draining them of every nanite I could.

“So . . . I did warn you you’d never believe me, if I told you where the artifacts came from,” I repeated, seeing the way Ingrid was watching me in shock. “If I don’t do this, then the fuckers will heal,” I clarified. “It’s a shitty job, but . . .” I sighed. “Look. I need to go and kill the rest of them, or they’ll just scatter, and I’ll have to hunt them down individually.”

I moved to the nearest corpse and the torn remains of their clothes, sorting through them until I found a set of car keys.

“Can you drive the motorbike?” I asked her, and she shook her head. “Just as a passenger, eh? Okay. Can you drive a car?” She nodded slowly. “Okay. Here.”

I threw the keys underarm to her, wincing as she just let them clatter off the wall, staring at them in dismay as they fell to the floor.

“Right. I’d ask that you don’t tell anyone what happened here, who I am, or what I do. I’m not threatening you. Seriously, but there are others out there who make sure people don’t know about these things . . . and they don’t like me culling their pets. It’s literally for your own safety when I say that you shouldn’t tell anyone about me or this.”

I sighed, hating the way she flinched when I retracted the blade, and the confusion and horror written all over her face.

“Take the car, take the artifacts, go back to the nearest city, and get a coach or a taxi back to your friends. Meet your friend from his flight tomorrow, and forget about me. It’s for the best, I guess.”

“What . . . what will you do?” she asked, having to swallow twice to get the words out.

“I’ll hunt the rest of the pack, and I’ll kill them. They view humans much the way a dog looks at a chew toy. Something to play with and discard when it’s broken.” I shrugged. “If I find any other artifacts, I’ll drop them off at a museum. You have my word.”

“And . . . where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll be on the island a little longer probably, seems like there’s a fair infestation, but . . . then I’ll be gone, following the trail, I guess.” I glanced around the room and winced. “I am sorry, though. I would never have brought you if I thought it was going to be like this. I genuinely thought it’d most likely be some criminal dickheads, and I was planning on you being a bit disgusted by them and the shit they do, and then you’d not go searching in the catacombs.”

“So it was the catacombs you found the artifacts in?” she asked slowly.

“Yes, but believe me, these?” I gestured around me at the corpses that were already starting to stink up the room. “They’re nothing compared to the stuff that’s down there.”

“Like . . . like what?” she asked, clearing her throat and taking a drink with a shaky hand.

“You really don’t want to know,” I said firmly. “The big fuckers? I ran as soon as I saw them, laid traps, and slaughtered more of these on the way out, but . . .” I shrugged. “I didn’t have a chance against them, seriously.”

“I . . . I need to know what’s out there,” she whispered.

“No you don’t,” I said firmly. “I’ve not seen much, but from what I have seen? There’s the entire range of mythology, plus more. If there’s a legend about it? It’s down there . . . or out there somewhere,” I said, gesturing down, then outwards.

“Where will you go then? After here?” she asked me again, and I shrugged.

“Straight down after the pack leader. I need to clean the nest out, and I’ll dispose of the bodies here as well, so don’t worry about that. Once I’ve done that?” I scratched the back of my neck. “Depends really, are you going to report me?”

“To who? And what are you? Some kind of monster slayer?”

“Something like that,” I said. “Basically, I needed something to do, and they needed killing.” I tried a smile. “Kinda match made in hell, you know? But . . . if you’re not going to report me, I’ll go back to the hotel tonight. It’s nice enough, and at least they’ve got decent rum.”

She nodded slowly before sliding out of the chair and moving towards the door, skirting wide of both the bodies . . . and me.

“Is it safe?” she asked, looking towards the door. I paused, frowning, then nodded.

“Yeah, there’s nothing out there.”

She nodded, accepting that, then opened the door . . . and left.

The door swung shut with a bang, a breeze catching it and tearing it free of her hands. I watched her in my mind’s eye, one of the other lenses from the drone focused on her, zooming in, as she tried to catch it, then flinched at the bang.

She stood for a few seconds, then moved, pressing the keys and looking about, seeing the BMW at one end of the carpark flashing as it unlocked, and she ran to it, getting in and locking the door.

She didn’t even hesitate, just backed up and tore off, raising a cloud of dust as she went.

“Well, so much for finding the perfect woman,” I muttered to myself before closing my eyes and focusing.

I had gained a fuck load of corrupted nanites in cleaning this place out, and I formed them into a ball, hanging it on my hip, leaving some space for later, before marching out of the door and across the scrub that grew around the olive trees.

Time to finish this.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It didn’t take long to find the entrance. Hell, the tracks were clear enough, as was the goddamn smell. I winced as I reached it, wafting one hand before my face as I shook my head.

“Smells like a fucking kennel,” I muttered before entering, my eyes adjusting as soon as I moved from the bright sunlit hillside into the dark of the passages.

They were familiar as soon as I moved inside, narrow, rough-walled with dirt floors and hair everywhere, not to mention the stink. The deeper I went, the more disgusted I was, until finally, after a few minutes, I reached a large crossway. Three paths radiated off left, ahead and to my right, and the scattered tracks before me were no help. Seemingly, there’d been a mad scramble recently, and the tracks ran in all directions.

I glared down before closing my eyes and focusing, going from my normal senses to my enhanced ones slowly.

I focused again and again, burrowing down until all that existed for me was the sounds all around. I slowly became aware of distant sounds, snarls, the crash of shifting rock, howls of pain.

My eyes flew open, and I started to run, blurring down the right-hand passage as fast as I could, feet almost seeming to fly as I went. The passageway walls flashed past, branching corridors ignored as I focused, dipping down, and sinking deeper and deeper into the ground.

Fifteen minutes passed before I skidded into a large chamber dropping to the floor and rolling aside as a great gout of flames erupted where I’d been standing.

I activated Conceal, feeling my cloak flow across my skin. I jumped to my feet then dove back the way I’d come, as the flames let loose again, bathing the area I’d been heading in.

I stopped dead, my instincts telling me to flee, but . . .

There was utter silence as my opponent tried to find me as well, and I stared at it in shock.

It was a small figure, emaciated, maybe three feet in height, with a head that looked like a skinned horse, or a thickened dog, but with flat teeth, a short, seemingly humanoid body that was swathed in a tattered black robe, and . . . and it was holding a small rod in two hands. The hands were slight, three fingers and a thumb, with black as midnight stubby claws at the ends, and the rod . . .

It seemed to be solid, so where the hell the fire was coming from?

Wytch

Biological Weapon Variant

The Aniba were a failed experiment, combining the ingenuity of Variant #774574 with the sadistic determination of variant #44512. The Aniba were created and found to be highly attuned to Elemental Resonances, able to both create and use a wide variety of Elemental Weapons.

Capabilities:

Manipulator: Wytches have the ability to manipulate the ether through elemental Foci, resulting in massive potential damage. Despite their frail existence, they hold tremendous power.

HP 76/76

Aniba - Wytch

I glared at the little fuck, and, moving slowly, I rose, stepping to the side, slowly circling the creature. The pack leader was busy on the far side of the chamber, surrounded by the remaining six pack members as they dug, casting rocks aside, clearly determined to open a previously closed passageway, despite it apparently causing them pain, considering the snarls and hisses as they threw the rocks away.

“Dig fasssster!!” he commanded before spinning and staring at the Aniba and towards me. “Did youuuu get himmm?”

“There’s nothing here,” it responded, its voice high and nasal. I stepped closer, using the sounds of their called conversation to mask my approach.

“I smell himmmm!” the pack leader howled, and the Aniba turned back, glaring around, rod in hand . . . before whipping its head back towards me!

It’d clearly seen a distortion or something in the air as I moved, but it was too late for the little fuck, as I hacked my sword down, taking both its head and its left arm off at the shoulder. The body collapsed, and the pack leader howled in fury, grabbing one of the diggers next to it.

“Kill himmmm!” he snarled, and the werewolf snapped back at him, before getting a slap that must have nearly knocked him senseless, leaving bloody claw marks down the side of his face.

“Fuckinggg Johnny!” the leader growled, shaking his jowls. “Alwayssss useless, always thinksss he knows bessst! You wantttt ttto lead? Prrrrrove your worrrrth!”

The one marked as “Johnny” stood slowly, spitting on the floor and glaring at his leader before stepping towards me, sniffing, and hunching down on all fours, moving slowly as he tested the air.

“Clearrrr the patttth!” the pack leader sent towards the rest, digging in and throwing rocks aside with abandon.

“Therrrre’sss . . . nottthing herrrre!” Johnny called back at him, turning his back on me as the others paused, looking over.

I took a final step closer, pausing right behind him as he glanced back at them, snarling something about how he’d “scared off the intruder” before seemingly catching scent of me and whipping his head around.

The nanites blocked off most of my scent, it seemed, when I was concealed, but not all of it. His eyes widened; he’d sensed me now. Be that by the beating of my heart or my scent, I didn’t know.

And I didn’t care.

I rammed my right hand into his mouth, extending the blade forwards, spikes erupting in a six-pointed star pattern around the blade, sucking the nanites from him even as he grunted and shook, legs giving out under him as he sagged.

“Johhhhny . . .” the leader said, wondering what was going on, until I ripped my hand free, removing his head with it.

I retracted the blade, the mouth sagging open and sliding down my hand, until it met my foot coming up, and I punted it across the cavern.

It landed, bouncing, and rolled to a halt between us, making the werewolves freeze in terror.

“Two of you can live,” I called out, becoming visible as I strode forwards. “Two only. Kill the others if you want it to be you.”

“You’d let usss live?” one called, a short, grey-furred one that looked to have mange, considering how little hair he had, and the scabby flesh.

“Two of you can carry word to your masters,  . . . but only two,” I said clearly, stopping a dozen meters away. “You have until I count to ten. If there’s more than two still standing, then you all die, and I’ll carve it into your corpses.”

With that, I slammed the blade out again, making it look as evil as possible, even as I made my nanites mimic the wings I’d designed for my armor’s backpack.

I unfurled them, making them flinch in terror as I started to count.

“One . . . two . . .”

“He lies!” the pack leader started to say, but he was too late.

Of the remaining five, two turned on the others straight away, the ones on either side of the one with mange deciding to take out the smallest first. He snapped back, sinking his teeth into one of them.

The pack leader spun, barely blocking the first attack of the last werewolf, then kicking his legs out from under him and snarling at the others.

“It’ssss a trick!” he snapped before the two that had killed Mangy looked at each other, then leapt at him, biting and snarling.

He blocked the first with a vicious downward swipe of his claws, sending him into the floor, minus most of his face, before howling at the other as it slammed into his waist, driving him back a step.

He sank his claws into its back, gripping and holding him in place before biting down on the back of his neck and yanking his head sideways, snapping it.

He’d not gotten off uninjured, though; while he’d been biting and clawing at one, the other had been shredding his guts, claws tearing at the thick, corded muscle that covered his intestines.

The pack leader snarled, tossing the body aside, then howling in pain. The first one he’d put down had crawled forwards and sank his teeth into the leader’s lower leg, ripping a dripping chunk out.

The pack leader fell on him, instinct taking over as he bit and tore, determined to kill his challenger.

He tore at the other bodies as well, frenzied, well aware of the regeneration his kind enjoyed and the knowledge that, unless he tore out their hearts, they’d come back.

I stepped up, pausing a meter away, waiting until he was done. The only survivor, wounded and panting, lay on his side. He watched me, sense slowly returning to his eyes as he looked up at me.

“What . . . what messsssage?” he panted, and I couldn’t help but grin.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll tell them myself,” I said, winking. “And . . .”

“Yesss?”

“You were right,” I admitted. “I was never going to let you live, dickhead.”

Then I stabbed the fucker through the eye.

There was a moment of silence in the cavern, as if even the gods were a bit shocked that I’d done that, but fuck them.

I realized suddenly that I was in a goddamn foul mood, because I knew what I had to do, thanks to these assholes.

The dogs outside in the cages were all trained to attack, and not just each other. They were members of a lycanthrope pack and had been taught to eat human flesh.

I couldn’t let them live.

I was going to have to go and slaughter the entire lot of those dogs, and I fucking liked animals!

I felt the body shaking below me, and I glanced down, growled.

My blade had been responding to my anger, flexing and forming spikes, then sinking deeper, and now . . .

I looked down at the unrecognizable mess of bodies and couldn’t help but glare at them.

It was just so much torn meat now.

“Fuck!” I snarled before hearing a sound.

I looked up, staring at the pile of rocks and hearing the sound again from the far side. There was something there. Something on the far side . . . something that wanted to come and play.

And I really wanted something to vent my anger on.

I stepped back, taking a deep breath then stabbing my blade into each of the bodies, draining them to the point that I felt like I was going to explode.

I was at maximum capacity, with a ball of corrupted nanites on either hip, each fifty thousand nanites, a hundred thousand weaponized in and on me, and fifty-one thousand and twelve attuned.

I’d also gained two points, both in Nimbleness, which was a bit of a relief, considering that it had been my lowest score.

I waited, growing more and more annoyed as the boulders shifted, until . . .

“Fuck!” I snapped, stunned as a small section rolled free, revealing a black mass of flesh. It squeezed and flexed, pulsing as it forced its way free, expanding over and over on my side of the fallen rocks, and I had a sudden horrified realization.

They’d been opening this up, a passage they’d sealed previously, probably a long time ago. Glancing about, I saw a second exit from the room to my far left.

I suddenly suspected that the plan hadn’t been to flee down it, but instead to let this fucker out. Then it could kill me, or I could kill it, but either way, the bastard werewolves would have used the chance to run!

I snarled, shifting my feet and triggered examine again.

Reta

Biological Weapon Variant

The Reta Variant, one of several original compositions was thought destroyed long ago, but apparently it survived long enough to spawn at least one offspring. These mindless creatures exist only to feed, and are unable to stand sunlight, silver, or iron, and can survive extreme injuries.

Capabilities:

Flexible: The Reta are able to flex and form any shape they desire, resulting in terrible slaughters committed across the cosmos.

HP 10/10

Reta - Spawn

“Ten health?” I muttered. “Seriously, that’s it? Fuck’s sake!” I snapped, stepping forwards, and flexing my Harvest Blade into a sword, I swung it down and cut the creature in two.

The sides flowed apart, then back together. I froze, before jumping back as it leapt at me, then diving as it flowed with insane speed.

I slashed the blade around in circle, seeing a section of it fall free, and the HP ticked down by one point . . . then it flowed back to the main mass, and it ticked back up again!

I backed away, blade spinning frantically, twisting and stabbing, hacking at the form as I tried to get enough space to think.

I’d made it halfway across the room before it stopped, and I realized that, due to the way it’d been moving, I had my back to a solid wall, and it was . . .

“Fuck!” I snarled, lunging forwards. It was feeding on the remains. There were no nanites in them, not now, but then I couldn’t sense any in it, either!

I hacked and slashed, driving it back from one of the corpses, finding it’d eaten half of it, and the damn thing was up to twenty-three health now!

I attacked, trying to drive it back, before swearing and back-pedaling as fast as I could. The middle had been backing away as I attacked, but the damn sides had been moving to encircle me!

I kept on the move, frantically trying to gain the time to think, but . . .

Everything I did seemed to have no effect!

I stood on the corpse of the wytch, snapping one of the pathetic little skeletal arms and feeling my foot start to roll out from under me, barely catching my balance as I moved on, then darted back, grabbing the rod with a flexible tentacle of nanites.

“Right, you fucker!” I snarled, pointing the rod at it and squeezing it.

The creature paused, its one eye in the middle of the mass flicking its gaze from my face to the rod, then back, and a pseudopod lashed out, latching onto the end of the rod and tugging.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I snarled, suddenly locked in a tug of war with the damn thing, and it was at least as strong as I was.

I snarled, yanking back and flicking the blade around the end of the rod in a circle, carving the mass away, but as quick as I managed to cut it away, it attached more, until the room grew even darker, the few flickering torches on the outside blocked away by . . .

By the encircling mass.

It closed the noose and fell in on me, no longer interested in the rod.

I dropped to one knee, pulling my blade in and frantically pulling my nanites around myself into a protective cocoon.

I felt a mass land on me, slithering over the nanite coating . . . and then it fell off.

More slapped onto me, the pseudopods trying desperately for purchase, as it tugged and rubbed against the nanite coating, until eventually, it wrapped itself around me and pulled tight.

I sat on the floor, entirely encircled by this thing, and once it’d found that it couldn’t get ahold of me, it seemingly decided to wait me out instead.

I sat there, in total blackness, trying to figure out what the hell I could do. Clearly, this creature was old and seemingly starved, but for it to have been buried and left?

Why the hell hadn’t it simply dug its way out?

I pulled up the description again, noting this time that it had more than thirty health, so the fucker was still feeding on the corpses, I guessed.

I might be able to just walk out with it wrapped around me, maybe? I guessed, but that seemed unlikely. After all, it could literally tie me up in knots and just let me burn myself out.

Eventually, I’d run out of energy; even if the nanites could operate for a long time, my body couldn’t.

I’d need air, food, water . . . hell, I had no idea why I wasn’t dying of asphyxiation already, and with no way to figure that out, I just dismissed it. I should be able to cut holes through it as I needed. Even if they didn’t last long, they’d last long enough.

I kept coming back to the wall. It’d been buried there, and . . . and the werewolves had been snarling at each other as they tried to dig it up!

They’d looked like they were burned, I suddenly realized, thinking back to the way they’d acted, like their hands or paws were being burned by acid or . . .

“Silver!” I snapped, then grinned. “It’s a fucking silver deposit, and it held you trapped!” I focused, trying to guess at the direction I needed, then when I couldn’t, I reached out, pulling on the drone.

It was far enough away I could barely sense it at all, thanks to the rock and more, but . . . but I could, even if only just.

It took forever, or it seemed it, before the signal grew strong enough that I had control over it again, and then it was faint, the system operating on some kind of autopilot directed by the nanite clusters responding to my demands.

When I could control it again, though?

It was flying down the passages at breakneck speed, before slamming to a halt as all the engines went into full reverse. It’d found the cavern, and there I was, in the middle of a massive blob of pseudoflesh.

I forced myself to stand, feeling pain as I had to use the nanites to augment my muscles, the thing that clung to me not wanting to move.

I formed the Harvest Blade and started to cut, slashing it in all directions, freeing myself enough to move a little, then growled, finding that yeah, I was facing the wrong damn way and had started walking even further from the bloody rocks.

Turning back, I pushed hard, feeling like I was pushing against a giant rubber sheet, one that was growing stronger with every inch as the drone showed additional pseudopods flashing out and grappling onto the walls.

I hacked and sliced, the breaking of the sections gaining me tiny respites in which I managed to force myself a little closer and closer to the wall.

Soon, it was all I could do to hold on, and I swore, digging deep and converting one of the balls of weaponized nanites to a pair of gauntlets, hissing in pain as they formed, flowing up over my flesh.

In order for them to join to me fully, I needed them to touch my flesh, and to do that . . . the nanite coating peeled back, and I screamed.

It was over in a flash, but even in the literal second it took, the goddamn creature had managed to shred more than half the skin from the backs of my hands and forearms.

The gauntlets soothed the torn skin in short order, but still, it’d fucking hurt, and I’d lost at least two feet in distance.

Now, though, now I had claws.

I sank them into the ground, digging into the rock and dragging myself forwards.

Without the blade to cut the connections, it was even harder, but I had something to focus on. The flex of my fingers, creeping forwards, millimeter by millimeter, inch by inch, and fucking meter by meter, I continued.

Eventually, I sensed a difference, as the creature seemed to decide I wasn’t worth it, separating from me, the pseudopods unravelling . . . and I knew what I had to do.

I literally had a few meters left to go, and uncovered my lower legs, screaming as I did so.

The pain was horrific as the goddamn thing started to feed on me.

The others had been food for it, and after so long entombed, it’d been desperate, so even the drained and broken corpses had been good, but they were lacking life-force . . . and I wasn’t.

It went into a feeding frenzy, digging into me, devouring flesh, and forcing pseudopods inside me.

I felt them close on veins, sucking hard, dragging my blood into the creature. I frantically closed off the damn things, my own nanites forming a tourniquet.

It earned me precious seconds before the creature had devoured the legs almost entirely. The only thing keeping its interest was my nerve channels, and it burrowed into them, making me scream in pain.

I dragged myself forwards, hands closing over rocks, clawing my way through the hole it’d made coming out, now thankfully much larger. Then I was past and collapsing down a slope, rolling, bouncing, as the creature finally felt something besides its hunger and pleasure at feeding.

It felt pain.

It felt fear . . .

I grabbed the fucker as it released me, trying to drag itself up the mound of silver ores.

I wasn’t having that, and nanite tentacles flashed past it, dragging the rocks down atop it.

It screamed, each impact of the hated silver leaving burned and bubbling skin. I remembered the blackened state of it as it managed to escape, and I compared that to how it appeared now, a dark red in color, and I knew it’d been burned by the passage through . . . but it’d managed it once, and it’d do it again.

“Not on my watch!” I snarled at it, sinking my claws into it and pulling, feeling like I was trying to hold onto fresh egg whites as it flowed around my fingers, until I touched a section that was in contact with the silver ore.

There? There it was solid.

It couldn’t shapeshift, not while in contact with silver, and I grabbed two rocks in the tentacles and started hammering them down atop the flowing mass.

Determined to hold onto it, I dug my claws in and pummeled the fucker.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually, I started to see sections curling up and falling away, dried, flaky, and no longer able to flex.

Grimly shredding and hammering, I continued, laid there, my legs stripped to the bone, kept alive more out of sheer bloody-minded hatred than anything else.

I pounded the fucking thing, over and over, reducing it in size until it was the size of a table, then a shoebox.

Going and going, I was barely able to think, to do anything but hit, when a stray thought, a distracted mumbling more than a plan, echoed around my mind.

Who, or whatever had imprisoned it originally must have had a way to contain it, right?

I started looking around the small cavern feverishly, even as tentacles continued to pound and batter, and I saw it, laid on its side on the far side of—of course—a small altar.

It was a tarnished silver box, the lid popped clear and hanging on one hinge, the other having given up long since.

I realized what it was, and a tentacle flashed out, latching onto the altar. I pulled and dragged us all across the short distance, my body screaming in pain until I rolled to a halt.

The tentacle released, and instantly the thing started to drag us backwards, away from the refined silver.

I grabbed the box, the tentacle flipping it over and slamming it down atop the fucking creature, making it scream in agony as more than two-thirds of its mass burst into flame.

I rolled clear, barely able to do that, and grabbed the lid, seeing that the inside was coated in jade, with only the lip and outside being solid silver.

I growled to myself, forcing the second ball of corrupted nanites to convert to weaponized and then forming more tentacles, enough to lift myself into the air, holding myself upright, half slumped over as I glared at the quivering box.

It was moving, and I knew the damn thing was trying to work its way free, so like putting a sheet of paper under a glass holding a spider, I lifted one corner and slid the lid on.

The remaining mass, cut off by the touch of the refined silver, burned up and fell away, leaving the damn thing trapped inside.

I focused on it, knowing that it’d escaped its confinement once already. Somehow, and I wasn’t having that happen again. Not after letting the bastard eat my goddamn legs.

I looked around, seeing other weird ass shit: carvings on the walls, boxes—hell, there were remains that looked like they’d once been bodies in armor, probably guards that had stood watch over it, their weapons . . . and their shields!

I grabbed the two shields, seeing they were arced slightly, and set them back to back, with the box inside them.

It was thin and small, and I sagged with relief when the solid silver shields sat flush to each other.

Seeing that it’d worked, I let myself collapse onto the floor and rest.

Time passed. I had no frame of reference for how much, but it seemed a long time before I finally managed to gather the strength to move again, dragging myself slowly up the mound of silver, only to collapse at the top.

Exhausted.

More time passed, and more, my nanites recovering enough of a charge slowly to jolt my tired mind into a degree of sentience, and I’d start forward again, dragging myself a few more feet, a few meters, and then I’d collapse again, insensate.

Eventually though, something changed as heat and light fell upon me, and a voice that I dimly recognized cried out.

Hands turned me over, and water fell onto my face. I blinked, feeling the nanites’ hunger, the automatic instinct to latch on and drain the suddenly provided source of life. I blinked, a second away from approving them to do just that . . . when I managed to focus my eyes.

Ingrid.

She was holding me, tears pouring down her face, cutting tracks in the dust and dirt, holding something that gave off enough light, just, for her to see me by.

She was weeping.

“I’m so sorry. Please, please don’t die,” she whispered over and over.

I managed on the third attempt to lift one hand, to touch her face. She flinched, having been so grief-stricken she’d barely realized that I was aware again. She hunched over me, her soft lips on my forehead and her hand catching mine, holding it tight to her face.

“I’m here, I’m here!” she whispered. “I’ll get you out of here. I can get you to the hospital.” She nodded then, as if that was it decided. “I’ll get you there, and they’ll make this all right. The police, they’ll understand, and if they don’t, it’s okay. I’ll protect you . . . I’ll fix it all.”

I kept trying to speak, but my voice was coming out as a weak croak, and by the time she managed to make sense of it, I was almost insensate again.

“What?” she asked.

“The . . . bodies . . . need them,” I managed to get out, and she froze, then nodded.

“The bodies? The ones in the taverna?”

I nodded and she nodded back, shifting around and laying my head flat to the ground, before kissing me.

“I can do that,” she swore to me, nodding and wiping the mess of dust and dirt, and now my half-dried blood across her cheek, before kissing my lips gently. “I’ll . . . I’ll be back,” she promised, and then that was it, she was gone, and the world seemed less . . . just less again.

I lay there, the flashing of my notifications beyond my capacity right now, and I simply stared at the rock ceiling seemingly far above me.

I saw patterns, and . . . shapes? Shapes that were repeated over and over, crossing the cavern . . . and after long seconds, they clicked into place, the regularity of the room, the shape? The evenly placed shapes?

“Pillars,” I whispered, staring dumbly upwards.

It felt like I stared at them for mere seconds, then she was there again, Ingrid, and next to her . . .

It was the body of the barmaid. She’d dragged it all this way, and I managed to roll myself sideways, before croaking out a single word to her.

“More . . .”

She nodded and staggered off, even as my nanites flowed free, wrapping around the corpse.

System Replenishment Available:

Estimated mass available: 17%

Begin?

I didn’t have the energy to say anything, but my nanites understood my approval, and they began the process.

Chapter Thirty

It took three more bodies before I was regenerated enough to think properly, and by that time, well.

Ingrid was slumped, barely able to function next to me, staring dull-eyed as my nanites consumed the corpse, the flesh of my legs bubbling up as she watched.

“What . . .” she whispered for what had to have been the hundredth time, shaking her head. “What are you?”

“A man,” I croaked back at her.

She jumped, having clearly not expected an answer.

“A man?” she asked slowly, before shaking her head. “I’ve never seen a man do that before . . . or fight things like those, like the werewolves and the—the black thing!”

“The thing,” I whispered, glancing back towards the entrance to the hidden section. “How . . . it hasn’t come out?” I asked and she shook her head. “You didn’t go in?”

Again, a shake of her head.

“Oh, thank the gods,” I muttered.

Then I looked at her, really looked, and winced. She was filthy, exhausted, and clearly broken by what she’d had to do, and by what she’d seen.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, reaching out to her gently, expecting her to flinch from me, especially after she’d seen me feeding on the corpses. Yeah, it wasn’t like I’d been biting them, but still.

Instead, she flung herself into my arms and clung to me, crying like a dam had broken. I clung to her as well, holding her against me, feeling great sobs wracking her body as I lay there, having been sitting when she’d thrown herself against me and knocked onto my back.

We lay there, with me gently stroking her hair and assuring her that it was okay.

It wasn’t.

Hell, at the very least, she was probably going to need serious therapy for the rest of her life, and that was just to get over today, but . . .

Eventually, she stopped crying, letting out a snort and a bubble of snot as she slapped at her watch, before wiping at her face, clearly mortified.

She’d realized at some point that I could see her in the dark, and she started to say something before her watch chirped again and she snarled, slapping at it, and stopping the alarm.

“What is it?” I asked, and she sighed.

“My alarm. It’s six in the morning,” she explained with a little laugh. I paused.

“How long have I been down here?” I asked her, my mind prodded into motion.

“Just the day. We—I left about twelve hours ago?” she guessed.

I sat for a second, stunned. If she’d asked me, I’d have guessed at a week or more, but that meant . . .

“We can fix this,” I whispered, and she looked at me, clearly not understanding. “Can you find your way out?” I asked her, before shaking my head. Of course she could; she’d found her way in, after all, and she’d dragged me four goddamn corpses down here as well.

“Go,” I told her firmly. “I trapped the Reta variant in there. It’s in a casket. Silver hurts it, but sunlight? That should kill it! We can still kill the fucker, and then, if I can dispose of the bodies? This can be yours!”

“What?” she asked me, confused.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“There’s a shitfull of carvings and some artifacts back there,” I started to say, pointing, then grabbing her arm as she started to stand to go look. “No!” I said quickly. “You’re literally a meal to that thing.”

I paused, looking down at my decimated legs. They were regrowing, but still, they weren’t right yet, and bending them, trying to use them to stand?

It was painful, and they moved all wrong.

The worst part was that I would have to go through all of this again sometime soon when I rebuilt my bones as storage facilities.

I started to get back up, with Ingrid helping me, but when I was on my feet—or what was left of them—I couldn’t help but sway, even when leaning on her.

“Fuck this,” I muttered, and nanites flowed down, punching into the ground in four tentacle-like legs, lifting me into the air to hang suspended as she backed away, awe on her face as she shone the light of her phone’s torch over them.

They gleamed in the light, like wet leather or oil, but with a structure, billions of tiny forms all working together flawlessly as they carried me.

“Okay, clearly there’s a lot to explain to you,” I admitted, seeing her face. Unable to help myself, I spread my hands, and did a version of jazz hands, sprouting two more arms to do it with. “Taaa-daaa?”

“You think?” she said, shaking her head. “Yesterday, you were an exciting guy, strong but sweet. A few hours later, you’re a tentacle thing that fights werewolves.”

“Yeah . . . got you wondering about the tentacle porn, haven’t I?” I tried to joke, getting a perplexed frown as she clearly missed the reference. “Okay. Whoo, boy.”

I started towards the rock pile, carried aloft on my new “legs” as I spoke.

“So, these are nanites,” I started, not sure how much to tell her, especially considering I was literally in on the holy grail of secrets as far as she was concerned with the ship and all. “I think some of the details need to wait, but creatures like the werewolves? They’re like that because of nanites, ones that are broken and replicating in error. They bite another and the nanites spread, infecting the victim, making them into a new werewolf. I hunt them, amongst other creatures. I found a way to wipe the nanites, and to make them obey me. Essentially, all you’re seeing is me consciously controlling them. The blade I used to fight them? I use it to tear the nanites free, absorbing them.”

“Where . . . where did the nanites come from?” she asked slowly, walking alongside me. “Do you work for some corporation or something?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just me, and as far as I know, I’m the only one like me . . . but others want the nanites, and so, we’re back to me being hunted, and the real reason I stay hidden, away from cameras and so on.”

“And the people you killed?”

“All criminals, and all in self-defense, but . . .”

“Yes?”

“Honestly, the nanites can repair me from pretty much anything, given power and materials, so . . . I think I’m pretty much functionally immortal.”

“What?”

“I know, kinda weird. I get that, but it means that if I’m literally likely to live forever, then . . . frankly, I needed a purpose. That’s why I hunt them. The werewolves and the others of their kind, as well as generally scumbag criminals as well. We all have nanites in us—no, I honestly don’t know why, not really.”

And that was true, I reflected. I really didn’t know why, just that the aliens had seemingly given us them, then fucked off after a few rounds of experiments.

“I have them in me?” she asked, one hand going unconsciously to her chest as I nodded.

“You do, but they’re dormant. Almost everyone’s are. I managed to activate mine, and now I can sense them; that’s how I knew we were in trouble back there. I’d hoped that we could bluff our way through, but clearly that didn’t happen. Okay, I’m going to go and get the creature, and we’ll take it out to face the sun. I want you to go now, get out of the tunnels just in case. You don’t want to know what this thing will do.”

“I know.”

“What?”

“That’s why I’m here,” she admitted, reaching into one pocket and pulling out . . . my phone. “I saw it. I saw it all. When the drone came to you. I could see the fight and what it was doing to you.”

“Crap. Bet that wasn’t a fun thing to watch.”

“Yeah . . . that’s an understatement,” she agreed, turning and looking around the room. “Where’s the drone?”

“Uh, no idea,” I admitted, looking around, then grunting and pointing at the form that lay in one corner on the floor. “There. The batteries are dead.”

“What—”

“Can you take it?” I asked her. “If you take it out, we can recharge it out there.”

“Of course.” She nodded, hesitating, before stepping in close and kissing my hand, my face being too high to reach, suspended as I was. Then she was gone, hurrying across the cavern, grunting as she picked the drone up, then heading for the passage out.

I turned from her and focused, my tentacles reaching out and tossing the rocks aside, widening the entrance so that I could climb in, rather than dragging myself through a small gap.

Actually conscious and sane for the first time as I entered the room on the far side, I shook my head in amazement.

I had no clue why the section on the far side was so well-preserved compared to the rest of the complex, but guessed it had something to do with the creature that even now tried to escape the box it was trapped in.

A faint, metallic shiver came from the shields as they slowly separated, the creature inside clearly working, until I pressed down on the shield on top. The sound stopped instantly, and I lifted it, carrying it out of the small room, and into the main cavern again.

As I went, tingling and itching sensations running wild on my legs as I was carried out. The creature started to try again, clearly testing its boundaries, and I couldn’t help but speak to it.

“You’re in for a treat, you little fuck. Nice sunrise for you.” I felt it stop then start flexing again, pushing against me. I didn’t know if it had understood, or if it was reacting to the close proximity of food, but either way, I picked up speed, the legs powering me forward with tremendous strength, catching Ingrid in only a few minutes, then scooping her up and carrying her as well.

Seconds later, we were picking up even more speed, racing full tilt as it started to push, to force its way out, hissing in pain as it encountered solid, refined silver all around it.

Then we were out, the faint light of dawn on the horizon as I dropped Ingrid and the drone and moved a few dozen meters clear of her, to stand in the middle of a clear patch of land.

The light grew stronger as the creature quivered inside the shields, clearly sensing something. I pressed the shields down on the ground, grabbing the rim of the top one and getting ready.

I held it there as the seconds lengthened to minutes, and the sunlight bathed the clearing.

The liquid gold crept across the floor, inching closer and closer. Then I yanked the far edge of the shield upwards and exposed the box.

The Reta variant burst free, ballooning up to form a shroud before me, a tentacled monstrosity that was somehow still alive, the pseudopods flashing out as it reached for the ground, frantically dragging itself across the rocks in search of shade.

Until I slammed the shield into it, driving it back into the light.

It screamed soundlessly, a buzzing vibration that made my insides twitch and my asshole clench. The hated sunlight burrowed deeper and deeper, the first layer of flesh falling free, crisped, breaking into ash and carried away by the warm, early-morning breeze.

I slammed the shield into it again and again, my tentacles flowing out, picking up the other shield and using its reflective surface to hit the thing with sunlight from every angle.

It twisted around, digging claws into the ground, attempting to burrow down . . . only to have them sliced apart by my blade.

I threw myself at it, gauntlets covering my forearms to fingers, claws flashing as I shredded the fucker, snarling in fury, as more notifications flashed up. I ignored them, determined to kill the bastard.

It seemed to take forever, but the more I tore at it, the worse the screams became and the faster it burned.

I dug my claws in and tore left and right, up and down, each cut taking slightly longer to heal as I used the split seconds of resistance I felt to make sure it was kept above ground, yanking it up and up, holding it into the sunlight.

I punched my fist into the mass before me as it shrank smaller and smaller, more of it being carried away with every second. I lifted it upwards, the sun illuminating it, as a final notification popped up.

FINAL CHANCE

The Reta Variant accepts you as its master and offers a nanite-enforced slave contract:

Accept/Refuse

As soon as I saw that, a new section popped up, as my eyes lingered on “Slave Contract.”

A nanite-enforced Slave Contract forces the enslaved to serve the master for life, rendering them functionally unable to act against the master’s wishes and sharing both the Slave’s genetic strengths and encoded memories with the Master, if so desired.

I hesitated a split second, wondering; what if?

Then I growled and lifted it higher, wrapped around my gauntlet, and focused the reflected sunlight onto it from all angles.

“Fuck you and your contract!” I snarled at it as the last of it burst into flames, dissolving to ash and floating away.

QUEST COMPLETE

Deal with the Reta Variant

You have chosen to eliminate one of the last members of the species, possibly the very last, relinquishing access to their ancestral memories, in exchange for personal satisfaction and a considerably lessened risk to your species.

Reward:

+1 Greater Perk

Select your Greater Perk:

Epic Design: Gain Access to a random Epic-level blueprint

Nerve Impulse Upgrade: Improved nervous system alteration

Breach: Enables maximum electric discharge into targeted system

Enslave: Create Nanite enslavement tools

Tracer: Enables memory overlay of previous paths through data systems

Nanite Creator: Enables the formation of complex creations with your nanites

Override: Includes blueprints to upgrade nanites to create specialized Hack devices

Commando: Upgrades all stealth-based systems by one rank

Emergency Wipe: Upgrades attuned nanites to perform emergency cleansing of corrupted nanites

I scanned over them, seeing that most of the notifications were gone now, superseded by the “quest complete” option. Clearly, they’d been offering me choices and rewards if I did certain things.

Dammit.

The perks were good, I wasn’t going to lie, but . . . I’d used the vast majority of my nanites to repair myself, and I’d still had to feed on the bodies as well. Hell, I knew I was going to have to use the same capability on the rest of the corpses yet, and then find some way to get rid of the blood in the taverna, but . . .

I could have the option of wiping the nanites instantly?

The others were cool, don’t get me wrong. I mean, the gamer in me screamed for the epic blueprint. I was practically salivating at the thought of what it could be, but . . . I also knew it could be an epic-level toenail clipper.

It might be totally fucking useless to me, be geared for an aquatic species, or hell, something that breathed liquid hydrogen. It could be anything, so I had to refuse that.

Despite the little internal voice that told me it could be a goddamn spaceship or a railgun.

No!

Be strong.

I moved on, tempted by the nervous system upgrade, but I suspected I’d get that anyway as I continued to upgrade myself, so no need to waste a perk on it.

Breach? That was tempting, especially thinking about when I intended to return to the ship, but . . .

No.

That was a specific thing that I might die before I ever got the chance to do, so no good for me for now.

Enslave? Not my style.

Tracer? Maybe. If I could see where I’d been in the systems previously, like the police station, I might be able to Hack a lot faster, but . . . no.

It’d literally save me a little time, that was all. Experience would do that anyway.

Nanite Creator? Now, that was tempting! Why make my drone into a bigger version when I could change my own nanites into a missile around me? Or more? Hell, could I do that anyway? It didn’t feel right. The process I’d used on the drone had created solid changes, and a massive upgrade in capability, but the nanites were locked into that form now, so if I made, I don’t know, a jet backpack, it’d be a one-use thing.

So no.

I couldn’t go leaving high tech all over the place, after all.

Override was tempting, seriously so. I used HACK a lot, so I kept that as an option, moving on.

Commando . . . no. I liked it, but again it came with the impression that it was simply a few steps down the road I was already walking with my Infiltration and Assassin options.

Emergency Wipe, though? I got the impression that was an expensive process, but . . .

I nodded to myself, accepting it and hissing in pain as the knowledge unpacked into my brain, letting me know that yes, it was horrifically expensive, fifty-percent losses were considered “good,” but . . . but it meant I could cleanse corrupted nanites instantly. When I had the time to do it the normal way? Yeah, fine, I’d do that, but in an emergency? This was literally a lifesaver.

I turned to Ingrid as she moved closer, looking at me in concern as I winced, then forced a smile.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Just a side effect of the nanites,” I explained unhelpfully. “It’s not important. What matters is that it’s dead, and now . . .”

I reached out, tentacles flowing around to pick up the pair of engraved shields, the jade-inlaid, carved silver chest and its lid. I lifted all four around and offered them to her, holding them out as she stared in wonder at them.

“These are . . .” she whispered, reaching out and touching them. “They’re beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful—these are just old,” I corrected her, looking at her as she sniffed and touched her hair self-consciously.

She was filthy, literally. She had dried blood and more covering her—dirt, filth, dried dust, and . . . fluids . . . from the corpses had all combined to stain her clothing, but still, even with in this state, with her hair half undone from its braid, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

“I need to examine these,” she whispered.

“The taverna,” I said calmly. “I need to sort the bodies anyway, and you need somewhere to sit and examine these.”

“And . . . the dogs?” she asked with a wince.

“They’ve been raised on fighting and fed human flesh,” I said gently. “I’ll take care of them.”

“I wish—” she said, cutting off and nodding. “I understand.”

“I hate it, too,” I admitted. “But they’ll have been trained to kill. If they were ‘tamed’ and ended up attacking a child? Killing them? I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“Me neither,” she admitted, clearly as sad as I was about what we both knew had to be done.

We moved quickly then, me carrying the shields and box, her carrying the drone, and we entered the taverna, getting out of sight before anyone passing by on the main roads further down the hill could see us.

As soon as I entered the taverna, I gagged.

Ingrid had been in and out of it, and she managed to ignore the smell, but this was the first time for me since I’d killed them all, and I winced.

There was blood everywhere; the bodies were . . . they were a mess, and the smell, not to mention the flies?

It was disgusting.

“I . . . I’d rather sit outside if I can?” she asked. I nodded, stepping out to set the chest down for her, then the shields, and vanishing back inside to bring out the cleanest table and a pair of chairs.

Then it was a bottle of cold beer and a handful of packets of crisps set out for her, and I was closing the door behind me, depositing the drone next to an electrical outlet and nodding as it formed a nanite chain to the wall, starting to charge itself. I paused as I surveyed the room.

Ingrid was already deeply engrossed out there, and I was nearly fully healed, so I collected the bodies as closely together as I could and went to work, stripping them of anything I could use, all the way down to a cellular level, and absorbing it.

That alone took another hour, an hour where I started to hear the sound of cars and trucks rumbling past, and I worried constantly that someone would come wandering in.

Fortunately, either people avoided the place, or they just didn’t want to come in yet. By the time I was done, I essentially had a mass of grey . . . crap in place of the bodies.

That was the best way to describe it.

It looked like a mix of porridge that had gone off and the kind of a fungus that lived in damp, dark places.

I formed a scoop of nanites, and started collecting it together, pouring it into a garbage disposal in the kitchen and grinning when it was readily processed and washed away.

That done, I moved back out to the main room and started on the blood. I’d been planning on using the mop and bucket, which was going to suck, but . . .

I remembered the nanites processing my blood, when I’d had it on my chest and more. The nanites had absorbed it somehow, and with a thought, the little darlings stretched free of me, sucking it up and refining it down.

I didn’t want werewolf blood in me, so instead, the nanites collected it and separated the water from it, forming a tiny block of refined cellular mass, that in turn was shredded to dust and discarded, even as the purified water was poured down the sink.

Two hours after I’d started, the room was filthy, but clean in that it no longer resembled a battlefield; now it just looked like a taverna in dire need of cleaning.

I moved out the back door, entering the area set aside for the dogs, hearing them go insane when they saw me.

There were dozens of them, and not a single one appeared scared or cautious.

Instead, they attacked their cages, frantically trying to get at me. It was as I’d expected, and as I approached the nearest ones, I sensed the nanites in them.

They’d been fed human meat, and the nanites had spread through them, altering them in small ways, making them stronger, as well as more vicious.

I focused, standing firm on my own feet, now fully healed, and two, then four, then eight tentacles shot out, punching through the gaps in the cages and ending the lives of the corrupted beasts around me.

I stripped them the same way as the bodies inside, breaking them down into a cellular mess, harvesting the nanites and the pure fragments of them I could use.

It was disgusting, yet . . . I felt amazing by the end.

It was as if I’d been turbo charged. My body felt like I’d spent a year eating exactly what I should, getting a proper night’s sleep, and exercising. Hell, I felt perfect.

It was like the way all the adverts always portrayed we would feel, if we just spent all our money on their shite instead of whatever their competitor was selling, like I’d suddenly be able to rollerblade or some crap.

I moved through the kennels, absorbing all the animals, as well as the rotting remains of the bodies they’d been using to feed them, finding another half-dozen bodies laid inside a cold room, stacked like cordwood.

I checked their IDs, seeing that they were all tourists, and that they’d been killed by a single blow to the backs of their heads, cold and surgical.

I put the IDs back, using a thin blade to remove all the nanites from the dead, but beyond that leaving them alone.

Yes, it’d be easier if I disposed of the bodies, but unlike the werewolf fuckheads, these people had done nothing wrong, and their families deserved to know what happened to them.

I moved through the building, pausing and stripping out the money that was in the till and safe, making it look like they’d been robbed, then moving to sit next to Ingrid.

She looked up at me, and paused, her face white with shock.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The thing you fought,” she said slowly. “It was old . . . like insanely old.”

“Okay.”

“No. I mean these shields, they tell a story. The Minoans, the people who lived here”—I nodded to her—“They were the guards for it. Hell, their entire empire? It was dedicated to hunting these things down. They weren’t dictators or conquerors . . . they were heroes!”

She gestured to a section on the shield.

“Look here,” she demanded, pointing out a carving that showed three hoplites in full armor, or something like it. Across from them was the traditional minotaur standing over a body and looking fearsome. “They weren’t telling us stories that were meant to carry lessons, like that you shouldn’t be greedy or judge others, and all that rubbish people think!”

I glanced at her, seeing the animated and amazed gaze, and I couldn’t help but stare.

“They were telling us about the things they were fighting! They were praising their warriors and more! You know what that means?”

I shook my head, and she went on breathlessly.

“It means we’ve been looking at it all wrong! If there are things like werewolves here, now? And that creature you fought? The ‘Drak’nb’aut’—”

“Reta variant,” I added, and she glanced at me, her line of thought derailed.

“What?”

“It was named a Reta variant,” I told her. “Part of the nanite integration is that it brings up details on the creatures I see, like the lycanthropes; that’s how I knew that sunlight and silver were deadly to it. Iron as well, but that’s not important.”

“They tell you that?” she asked carefully.

“It’s more like a popup, you know, like when you used to surf for porn, and you’d get all those ads?”

“Not really, but go on.”

“Oh really, because you never watched porn?” I asked her with a grin, seeing her cheeks coloring a little as I struck a nerve.

“No, I like porn, good porn anyway, not the violent stuff,” she clarified. “Although a gentleman wouldn’t have suggested that. I meant that I have popup blockers, you know, like anyone with a brain.”

“Touché,” I muttered. “Anyway, go on, but yes, the nanites give me information.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” she said slowly, eyeing me carefully before going on. “So, the Reta variant or whatever, they fought them. They captured this one, and they were charged to keep it safe. They didn’t want to kill it—it was kept as . . . as a kind of doomsday weapon. They had it in case of something they were afraid of . . . like a nuke today, we have them as deterrents. They had this.”

“And I killed it,” I said slowly. “Fuck.”

“Yes, but that’s not important. Well, it is, but don’t you see?”

“Not really.”

“It means that the ancient Greeks weren’t telling us tales!” she said, jabbing a finger towards the carvings, and specifically the one in the center. One of an island surrounded by concentric rings and canals. “Atlantis . . . it was real!”

“Yeah, that’s a bit of a leap for me,” I said, shaking my head. “Look, surely we’d have found evidence by now? People have been looking for how long?”

“Thousands of years,” she admitted. “Plato said it was destroyed nine thousand six hundred years before his time, and he was talking in, ummm, 360 BC?” She winced a little, clearly running the numbers before going on. “So we know it’s not going to be too accurate, but if the timescales are even slightly accurate? Eleven to thirteen thousand years ago, there was a massive island that essentially was the base of all modern civilizations.”

“Yeah.”

“Or—”

“Or?”

“Or . . . Plato was bonkers, at least a bit. Thera exploded three thousand years ago. And that wiped out most of the local area, as well as destroying the Minoan culture. If the Minoans were as good at monster killing as they seem to have been? They might have wiped most of them out, leaving only a few for the ancient Greeks to do later on. Then the loss of the Minoans’ records makes it look like they’re made up stories.”

“What about the bodies of the monsters?” I asked.

“Well, either we’ve just not seen them, or not recognized them. I mean, most museums have storage areas packed full of bones that they can’t identify, so some of them at least will be there, and . . .”

“And?”

“Well, a lot of cultures believe that eating bits from powerful animals makes them stronger, and ground up bones make tea.”

“Tiger’s pecker ground up, if yours stops working,” I muttered, remembering a program I’d watched on eastern medicine. “Bonkers shite like that.”

“Exactly.” She stood, looking back up the hill. “You said there’s more up there?”

“Yeah,” I admitted, standing slowly and looking around. “I suppose there’s no need to hang around here.”

“Then let’s go!” she demanded, bouncing to her feet and trying to gather everything together. I moved in and helped her, picking things up and pausing as she grabbed the bag and the various gems and jewelry, before walking back across with her.

We left the drone charging, as well as one of the phones, needing the damn light on the other for Ingrid.

Once back inside, she ran from corner to corner, unable to help herself as she found more and more details, racing to take photos, to make notes. Hours passed as I sat there, watching her, before the battery died on her phone. I picked her up, carrying her in a princess carry across my chest, walking back out and down to the taverna.

It was late afternoon by now, and she plugged her phone in, cursing as she was forced to wait for it, needing access to her notes.

“Steve,” she said suddenly, as a thought occurred to her.

“Yeah?” I asked, having been busily examining the WAR and Hack skill trees, passing the time.

“You know that money . . . could . . . could I borrow some?” she asked slowly, clearly not wanting to ask.

“You can have it, no need to borrow,” I said, smiling. “I get it from these fuckers after all, and in the taverna? They had a few thousand in the safe.”

“Can I have that?”

“Sure,” I agreed, shrugging and reaching into a pocket.

“But, rather than giving it to me—”

“Yeah?”

“Could you go and buy me a tablet? Or two? And some lights?” she asked, smiling hopefully.

“Uh, yeah, okay, no worries, we can go to the—”

“No, I mean can you go and get them?” she repeated. “Leave me here. I can work still, and—”

I shook my head. “No chance.”

“But—”

“No,” I repeated. “You remember what I had to fight? There’ll be more out there. Fuck knows where, but I already cleaned out two sites. Well, cleaned some of them. There’s no way I’m leaving you here to be taken. As long as you’re inside here, I’m with you.”

“But—”

“We’ll need to leave soon to go and meet your friend from the airport, anyway,” I reminded her. “We can leave in an hour, no more. I’ll use the drone to make sure the rest of the complex is clear as well.”

“I know, but—”

“No, seriously, Ingrid. Until you make the discovery public, I’m not leaving you here alone. And when you do? The only reason I’ll back off then is because the government will go nuts to protect it, and they’ll make sure no fucker comes near.”

“I know,” she admitted. “It’s just . . . you really don’t understand! This is like every archaeologist’s wet dream! This is the kind of discovery that changes all we knew, all we think we’ve ever known.”

“It’ll get you in the history books,” I agreed, smiling.

“Well, yeah, but . . . you don’t understand what it means. Yeah, we all want to have our name known, but . . . it’s the knowledge.”

It took two hours, all told, by the time the phone had charged enough and the drone had been sent off mapping the site, before I managed to get Ingrid back onto my bike, and even then it was only with the greatest of effort, including, at the end, physically picking her up and carrying her out, while I promised that everything would be safe.

I’d made her leave the majority of the jewelry behind as well as the shields and chest, almost reducing her to tears of frustration as she worried over the possibility of looters.

We made it outside, and I set her down before forming a great scoop from my nanites and beginning to dig.

Ten minutes was all it took to entirely cover the entrance, and by the end of it, she was finally reassured. Yes, it was obvious that the ground had been disturbed, but that was fine, because then when we uncovered it again, it could be claimed that she’d dug it up.

We bought tablets—after the store security cameras were hacked remotely—and then, much to her relief, we hired a car.

It was a decent one, a BMW X4, all the trimmings, and even I had to admit that as much as I’d rather be riding my bike most of the time, the damn car was nice.

We also bought some clean clothes, considering that I’d lost all my clothes from the waist down and had been reduced to wearing some random pants I’d found on the floor in the taverna, and Ingrid was filthy.

The store had looked at us like we were there to rob the place, until I pulled a wedge of cash out that was considerably thicker than the till could hold.

After seeing that? All minor inconveniences were forgotten. They even promised to “dispose” of the old clothes . . . probably with fire.

Three hours later, and we were barely in time, pulling up at the airport as her friend’s flight landed, his plane literally passing directly overhead as we pulled up.

“What’s the flight?” I asked her, as she scanned through the details he’d sent her.

“Ummm, DDL-2471,” she read off, and I nodded, closing my eyes, as I swept out with my abilities.

The airport encryption was massively more complex than anything I’d come up against before. The geometry was a dozen sides on three connected spheres, spinning like a motor ran them at speed. It took nearly seven seconds, but had I been able to touch the system? It’d have been far less.

I moved inside, slowly examining systems, discarding them as I found matches and missing bits. Ten minutes of silence in the car, and then Ingrid spoke.

“I . . . checked the internet. He just landed, and he’s texting me. He’s waiting to get off the plane now.”

I opened my eyes, staring up at the roof as I reminded myself that just because I could hack anything didn’t mean there was a goddamn need.

“I’m going to go get him. Is that okay?” she asked.

I nodded, settling back, and berating myself as she quietly closed the door.

“What an idiot,” I muttered to myself, closing my eyes and, knowing how efficient airports were, I settled back for a nap.

Chapter Thirty-One

It was nearly an hour later, I noted with a glance at the steady twinkle of the neon sign in the distance, when Ingrid finally approached. She’d clearly taken advantage of the facilities at some point. While she’d cleaned herself up before we left the taverna, she now had her hair back in a neat braid, and even had makeup on again, which I had to assume she’d bought inside.

The man with her . . .

When she’d said he was one of the most respected archeologists in Denmark, I’d had a vision of an older man, probably distinguished, a long white beard, maybe looking like a fucking wizard.

I certainly hadn’t expected the stunning beauty that was Ingrid to be an archeologist and appraiser for a museum, so maybe I should’ve rethought what I had in my head for the profession?

He was closer to a young Indiana than a wizard, but that wasn’t right either. He’d fit right in with the party crowd either way. Sporting a shaven head, goatee, and a wide grin, he walked up to the corner of the car and nodded to me.

Ingrid popped the locks with her key, and he lifted his suitcase into the boot before climbing into the back, sitting behind Ingrid and offering his hand.

“Lars Machmüller.”

I shook his hand. “Steve.”

“So, Steve, I hear you made some impressive discoveries, and now you’re a wanted man?”

“Something like that,” I admitted as Ingrid twisted around, her seat belt clicking into place as she smiled back at him.

“Thank you, Lars. Seriously, you’ve no idea what it means to me to have you here.”

“I’ll always help you, Inga, you know that! Of course I was going to come!”

“You trained with her?” I asked him, remembering a part of the conversation from the drive over, glancing from one to the other.

“We were at university together, and I was failing,” she admitted. “I just couldn’t seem to get the dates and connections to work, and then in walks Lars. We all knew him; everyone on campus knew him, of course. You don’t get many like him in the field.”

“I’m sure,” I muttered, trying not to glare at him.

“Ah, Inga is too kind!” he said, sitting back and grinning. “It was simple; she was burnt out! There she is, spending all day and all night in this tiny, stuffy office. Constantly reading and making notes about the pharaonic succession, mixing up Akhenaten and Amenhotep the Third, which is so easy to do!”

“Oh, of course.” I couldn’t help but dislike him more and more as he spoke.

“And all that was wrong is that she was working too hard! You can’t spend all that time in the museum, or the offices, and expect to learn!”

“He took me to Egypt for half-term. A week exploring the sites, and by the time we got back, I knew I’d never forget any of it.”

“Kind of him,” I said, keeping my tone even.

“Ah, money is . . . it’s not important.” He waved it off. “And besides, I had a wonderful time.”

“I bet you did,” I ground out.

Ingrid paused, then turned to me, grinning.

“He did, and so did I. After all, he was dating my best friend!”

“He . . . what?”

“We weren’t together that long,” Lars said with a fond smile. “Ah, but what a romance! She knew how to party, that girl!”

“We never dated,” Ingrid said firmly. “Lars is into dark hair, and slimmer girls than me, and I . . . well, I have my type as well”

She shyly reached out and took my hand in hers.

“Not that you’re not beautiful, Inga, but, you know,” he said shrugging, then grinning at me. “You thought we were an item? Ah, and me taking her away.” He laughed, sitting forwards and clapping me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, my friend! I’m not here to steal her from you. My wife would murder me!”

“He ended up marrying one of our other friends,” Ingrid pointed out. I nodded, suddenly feeling a whole lot better about the guy.

“We’ve been friends for what? Five, six years?”

Ingrid nodded, looking up at me shyly and squeezing my hand, clearly pleased by the obvious relief I’d had at him and her not being . . . not having . . .

“Still human, then,” she whispered.

I grunted as he leaned forwards, shuffling to sit in the gap between our seats and smiling.

“So, when we spoke, you failed to mention this,” he said reaching forward and putting one hand over ours. “Obviously, I’ll need to vet him, make sure he’s good enough for our Inga.”

Lars shook her gently by the shoulder, all smiles as I pulled out of the carpark, heading onto the slip-road for the motorway.

I relaxed as soon as we were on there, enjoying the best thing about this car; it was an automatic.

I was used to having the gears to change, but not having a gear stick meant that her slender, warm hand filled mine, and there was no need to let go.

It was damn nice, considering that only a short while ago, I thought she was gone and hated me. Now she was holding my hand and smiling up at me.

“So, tell me everything!” Lars said with a smile.

“Oh! It’s wonderful, Lars, the pictures I sent you—” She started to say, only to be cut off as he started to laugh, shaking his head.

“No, no, no!” he said, grabbing both our shoulders and shaking us slightly. “This! The archaeology can wait. I mean, they’ve all been dead millennia; they can wait an hour. You never let me meet the men in your life. In fact, you never have them, a fling here and there, never enough to keep you interested . . . but this one?” Lars looked at me and grinned. “He’s built like Thor! No wonder you chose him. He finds you artifacts from lost civilizations and fights looters? I love him already!”

I found myself grinning despite myself. The bugger was just . . . he was so damn cheerful, so irrepressible, and . . .

“He’s . . . different,” Ingrid said, shaking her head. “You have no idea how much.”

“I don’t think I want to!” he said, smiling. “No offense to you, my friend, but I don’t swing that way.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not my type,” I assured him, getting a grin.

“So, come on, tell me all!”

For the next hour and a half, as we negotiated traffic and crossed the island, Ingrid told him a highly sanitized version of our story, getting the torc out and handing it over to him before undoing her seatbelt and climbing into the back to discuss the details in Danish with him.

I tried listening to the words, and found to my great surprise, that they weren’t as unintelligible as I’d expected. I already spoke a little German, Spanish, and more. As I listened, focusing on their words, I pulled up a translation app through the phone link, and started to eavesdrop, my innate paranoia making it too difficult not to.

By the time we reached the hotel, having agreed to return to the one we’d first spent the night together in, simply to collect our things, then to move to the taverna the next day, I was ready to surprise them both.

We pulled up, the lights of the local bars and tavernas glowing in a thousand shades of neon to greet our return. I got out, opening the door for Ingrid, then picking Lars’s case out of the boot.

“I can get it,” he offered, smiling.

“Intet problem,” I said simply, as though it was nothing.

“I . . . you speak Dansk?”

“Jeg taler en smule Dansk,” I said, literally saying “I speak a little Danish.”

“I’m impressed!” he said, clapping me on the shoulder and jumping up to the sidewalk, grinning at the shocked look on Ingrid’s face. “And I’m guessing you recently learned it?” he asked me, getting only a wink in return. “I love him!”

He laughed, turning as the manager walked out to greet us, Val recognizing Ingrid and myself straight away.

“My friends, have you brought me more business?” Val asked.

I nodded. “Just for the night, then we need to move on. But yes, and we need feeding up as well!” I told him, taking Ingrid’s hand as she reached out to me.

“You learned Danish?” she asked me. “How much, and . . . why?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“You heard us speaking it, and wanted to know what we were saying?” she guessed shrewdly.

I winced. “In part, then when I realized I could understand, I set to learning properly,” I told her, all in Danish. “I thought you might prefer to talk in your language sometimes.”

“I speak perfectly good English, and I like speaking it with you,” she said, then kissed me. “But thank you for the thought.”

We moved inside, the other two taking seats at a table, as I approached the counter with Val.

“You’re leaving us already?” he asked.

I smiled. “Yeah, sorry. She fell in love with the area around the Minoan palace, thinks she might be able to find some artifacts nearby. I’d be happy to stay here, but . . . it’s a long drive.”

“A shame, my friend,” Val said sadly. “Well, do you want a refund in cash or to a card for the outstanding—”

“No, keep it,” I said simply.

“What?”

“I need a room for her friend, and we’re going to need a good dinner, and . . . that champagne?” I asked him, winking.

“Even with all of that . . .”

“It’s fine. Call it a fee for the short notice,” I said, gripping his shoulder. “Believe me, your advice helped with her, and that’s something I’ll forever owe you for.”

“Well, thank you,” he said, smiling, before waving me over to the table, and picking up a bottle of Metaxa and following, pouring us all shots.

We ordered food and drinks, then separated off, Lars was led to a room on the second floor by a staff member, while Val led the way to our room on the third floor.

All the way, he asked about our day, about our time on the island, and commented on how good we were together, as Ingrid reached out and took my hand again, smiling at me.

At the door to the room, he unlocked it and stepped back, letting us enter ahead of him . . . and damn, had he delivered.

The room was beautiful, clearly one he’d had done for special occasions. All the fittings screamed that they were that extra level of special. The marble, the silk—the seats around the small table were real leather, rather than the cheap plastic version you usually found in hotels, and a pair of swans made from towels were arranged on the bed, as if kissing, with rose petals sprinkled around.

He followed us in, smiling as I reached out to grip his shoulder in thanks.

“I’ll leave you to get settled, then,” he said with a smile. “Remember, twenty minutes or so before your dinner, that’s all.”

With that oh-so-subtle reminder, he left, the door clicking shut behind him as Ingrid turned to me, shaking her head in disbelief.

“This is beautiful,” she whispered.

“No, you’re beautiful. This is just a room,” I corrected before snorting and nodding. “But yeah, he’s outdone himself, I’ll admit.”

“I need a shower,” she said, stepping in close to me and looking up into my eyes. “And so do you . . .”

“Twenty minutes?” I reminded her.

“The food can get cold,” she declared very firmly, before turning her back and walking towards the bathroom, tugging her top off over her head. I admired the view for a handful of seconds before bolting for the door.

I pulled it open, just as the doors started to close on the elevator at the end of the hall.

“Val!” I shouted.

He grabbed the doors, stopping them, then stepped forwards, frowning, clearly wondering what he’d forgotten. “Delay the food!” I called to him, grinning.

He frowned, opening his mouth as if to question, then grinned and laughed, waving a hand at me to say he’d understood me, before pressing for the doors to close again.

I grinned and backed into the room, closing and locking the door, looking across to see one hand appear through the doorway to the bathroom, and the underwear it threw clear.

I strode forward, unable to keep from grinning, T-shirt coming off over my head, then hopping on one foot as I tore my shoes off.

I reached her as she stepped into the shower, shaking her head and sighing in relief.

The bathroom was one with a wet room, meaning instead of a shower over a bath, it was a fully separate unit, behind a sheet of glass, a dozen heads and a seating area inside.

It was great, probably the most luxurious bathroom I’d ever been in, and I only had eyes for the stunningly beautiful blonde who stood naked inside it.

The water was already pounding its way down her perfect figure, and I paused inside the doorway, admiring the view.

She ran her fingers through her braid, unweaving it all and shaking it free with a contented sigh, before turning and looking at me.

I stood just inside the door, top and shoes off, jeans bulging, watching her, amazed that she still wanted anything to do with me.

“Get in here,” she called.

“Yes, ma’am!” I answered, stripping the rest of my clothes off and throwing them out of the room, pulling the door closed and striding around the glass to face her.

Ingrid leaned back against the wall, the water cascading down her pale skin, her blonde hair plastered to her, and she smiled, rubbing her face and flicking the water at me with one hand.

“So . . . want to get clean, or . . .”

“Definitely dirty.” I grinned, stepping in close and wrapping my arms around her as she wrapped hers around my neck and reached up hungrily for a kiss.

“We can get clean after,” she whispered, kissing me and pressing in closer, “but remember, we don’t have long.”

“I told Val to hold the food,” I said, kissing her, and she grinned, her lips twitching against my own.

“We still don’t have long,” she pointed out. “We can play again properly later, but for now?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re wasting time,” she finished, biting my lip gently.

I let out an animalistic growl unthinkingly and lifted her in my arms, bracing her against the wall, and we became one.

It was a while later when we rejoined Lars at the table, finding Val had already served him and was drinking with him, clearly acting the good host until we arrived, and when we did . . .

“Well, look who finally deigned to return!” Lars called with a smile, standing and taking Ingrid’s hands. He went to kiss her cheek, then paused. “Is this clean enough to kiss?” he asked facetiously, reaching up and tilting her face to make sure and getting a backhanded slap against his chest in reproach.

He burst out laughing and sat, pouring us both drinks from the bottle that Val had left as he went to tell the kitchen we were ready and he eyed us knowingly.

“Well, I won’t ask what kept you, but come on, then. Tell me everything!”

“Really, you want a blow-by-blow—” I started to joke, and Ingrid bumped me with her shoulder to shut me up.

“He means about you and the . . . issues . . . around the discovery,” she pointed out.

“So did I,” I protested. “Honestly, you and your dirty mind!”

That got a laugh from Lars as he set the drinks before us and gestured with his own glass. “Come on, then! Drink up, and get explaining!”

I took my shot, raising it and nodding to the pair before knocking it back and pouring us all another, all three of us wincing at the harsh, unrefined drink.

“What is this?” Ingrid asked, looking at the bottle.

“Jet fuel,” I joked and shook my head as Lars started to tell a story about an embargoed flight group in the Second World War that apparently actually used booze as fuel. I nodded and listened, smiling as I thought and wondered how much to tell him.

I stretched out my senses to him, checking, and found only the normal number of nanites, all inactive, then reached out to his phone, breaking the encryption easily and diving into it.

It was a little more than a year old, tens of thousands of messages on it, and I started sorting them, searching for terms like Arisen, unusual, unique, and so on, finding that these terms were far more common than I expected in the personal correspondence of archeologists.

We enjoyed the drinks and food, with me putting off any discussion about me at all, allowing only the artifacts as I continued to search.

“You’ve not said much,” Lars said eventually to me, sitting back in his chair and taking a long drink from his rum. “Have I offended you with something?”

I glanced at Ingrid, who nodded encouragingly, taking my hand and squeezing it. “You can trust him . . . I promise.”

“No, you’ve not offended me,” I said with a sigh, picking my second plate up and stacking it atop the others at the end of the table.

“I’m glad. Anyone who can eat half a cow in one sitting is scary enough—you might cook and eat me next,” he joked, referring to the two forty-ounce T-bone steaks I‘d eaten.

“He needs to get his strength back, that’s all,” Ingrid whispered, looking at me.

“Wow, I mean, I always knew you to put your whole effort into everything you do, Inga, but he’s a big guy. You broke him that badly?” Lars joked.

She blushed, eyes flashing a mild warning. “That wasn’t what I meant, you dirty—”

“It’s fine,” I said, smiling. “No, Lars, you didn’t offend me. Don’t worry. I was just busy, that’s all.”

“With the meal? Or listening in wonder to my tales? I mean, I’m good, I know, but . . .”

“No,” I said simply, pouring myself another glass of rum, Val having dropped the bottle off earlier when Ingrid complained about the Metaxa. “I was hacking your phone and searching for any data that you were sent as a trap.”

“I . . . what?” Lars asked, pausing and trying to make sense of what I’d said. I waved my hand at him, and his phone beeped, making him frown as he pulled it out, reading the unknown number that had just sent him a message.

It’s okay, you passed.

“And . . . and this is you?” he asked me, showing us both the text.

Yes.

“Okay, now I’m impressed.” He set the phone down on the table between us. “No phone in sight, and the watch isn’t data capable, I’d bet.”

“No, it’s my grandfather’s,” I agreed.

“So you hacked an encrypted phone . . . care to tell me how?” he asked, suddenly all business. for the first time, I glimpsed the razor-sharp mind behind the happy-go-lucky façade that he showed normally.

“I have a few capabilities that are unique,” I said to him, as Ingrid sat forward.

“Thank you for trusting him,” she whispered to me before turning to him. “So, looking at the past, at . . . well, everything. What would you say if I told you that all the descriptions of monsters in the past, in Greece at least, weren’t allegorical?

“What if I told you that the monsters were real? And that the reason there’s so many of them in tales is because our ancestors fought them for real? What if I told you that some of these creatures were still out there?”

“I’d ask to see your proof,” Lars said simply. “You know me, Inga. I’d love to find something that turned the world on its head, just to find out how much more there was to discover, but that . . . that would need to be significant proof.”

“Perhaps you should come to our room,” I said slowly.

“So you can show me your monster?” Lars joked. “I’m flattered, but again, I’m married and—”

“Believe me,” Ingrid said, smiling. “You’re in for a world-changing experience.”

“That’s similar to what I told my wife the first time,” Lars muttered, standing as we did. “And as she said ‘please, be gentle.’”

I grinned at him, feeling my adrenaline building as I grew more and more nervous about actually showing him what I was about to.

I trusted Ingrid. Hell, she’d seen me, the real me, and I’d told her plenty of my secrets now, even if not all of them . . . but between the two of them? If I could trust them both, and they kept my secret, then I would have two people I could trust to find me more monster nests. I would have a pair who could dispose of the random artifacts and more I’d find around the world.

Hell, I could clear out sites and have them come in and work out what the hell was going on! I didn’t have to find all the answers myself, and just . . . just not being the only one who knew all of this would be awesome enough.

Add to that, well, Ingrid was on holiday here. She was here for another week, then that was it. She’d be gone, and I’d be alone again.

If I could be sure I could trust them both in that time, at least I’d not have to fear what might happen if I reached out to them in the future.

Val waved us off as we headed for the lift, shaking his head when I asked him about the bill, and I nodded to him in thanks.

“I wish this place was closer to the site,” Ingrid whispered to me. I nodded, wrapping my arm around her shoulders as the lift started up, the sinking feeling making me smile as we climbed before the weightless shift let me know we were on our floor.

Ingrid led the way, with Lars following silently behind me. I took a deep breath, asking myself for the hundredth time if this was really a good idea.

We reached our room and slipped inside, with Ingrid grabbing glasses and pouring us each a drink from the bottle of rum, then steering Lars to a seat at the small table as I stepped into the middle of the room. She tugged the curtains closed while I scanned the room for any recording or transmitting devices, thankfully finding none.

“Okay, you’re keeping your pants on for this, right?” Lars quipped.

“I will,” I agreed with a grin. “Ingrid, the apple,” I suggested, and she looked at the small fruit bowl on the table, lifting a ripe green apple out and holding it up in question. I nodded and she passed it to Lars.

“Is it intact?” I asked him. “A real apple, I mean?”

“Seems it,” he said rolling it over in his hands. He buffed it on his top and took a bite, nodding as he chewed. “Sweet.”

“Throw it at me,” I said simply, lifting my right hand and flexing the fingers.

“Okay,” he agreed, bouncing it on his palm then underarm tossing it at me. “I don’t see how this will prove the existence of mon—”

He broke off, jerking upright as I extruded the Harvest Blade and hacked the apple into two roughly equal chunks in midair, only to have them caught by a pair of flexing tentacles that slid out of my forearm.

“What the shitting fuck!”

He gasped as the blade flowed back into my arm, and the tentacles flowed out, lengthening, to deposit one chunk of apple into Ingrid’s outstretched hand and to offer the other half to Lars.

“So,” Ingrid said, sitting back and taking a small bite out of the apple, “turns out we as humans have nanites in us, and we always have had, is that right?” she asked me.

I nodded, tugging my top off and sitting with the pair of them, shifting the tentacles around and holding one out next to both of them, so they could examine them. Ingrid touched hers first, smiling as she ran her fingers over it, and Lars hesitantly did the same.

“They’re warm.” He commented.

I shrugged. “They’ve been inside me.”

“I so need more to drink to deal with this…” He muttered, knocking his drink back, wincing as the good rum burned, then pulling out a notebook and pen, flicking to a clean page and starting to make notes. “…Okay, so nanites.”

“Yeah.” I said slowly. “This isn’t for sharing, mate.”

“No, and you can tear it up in the morning if you want. We can agree what can be shared. But for tonight, I’ve drank a lot of rum and some of that awful Metaxa, so I need to make notes, or I’ll wake up thinking this was all a dream. Now, nanites…”

“They’re in all humans, as near as I can tell. Small numbers, but they’ve been there forever.”

“And where did they come from?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“I let that one go earlier, because you weren’t in a fit state to talk about it…” Ingrid said firmly. “But you do know… or you suspect?”

“Fuck.” I muttered, having not wanted to share that.

“Come on my friend, half measures get us nowhere, considering what you showed us already, how much worse can it be?” Lars suggested, his pen flowing across the page.

“Ah… oh fuck it. Okay, Humans are an artificially raised-up biological weapon. We were designed and designated as ‘Biological Weapon Variant,’ then we have an individual number, one that’s unique to each of us. Something happened, and the facility that was in use to do all of this was damaged.” I paused, then blew out a deep breath. “It refers to itself as ‘Facility Six-B’, and it’s old. Like insanely old, and buried. I’m not telling you what and where it is, not because I don’t trust you… but because I can see that damn gleam in your eyes.” I said looking at them both. “I barely survived my time there, and believe me, I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life from the shit that was done to me inside. There are security systems that are still active, and they’d kill you.”

“Okay…” Lars said after a few seconds of silence had passed. “So it could be worse…”

“We’re… weapons?” Ingrid asked slowly.

“Some of us.” I admitted. “Others are identified as ‘Support Class,’ essentially people who do the gathering and homebuilding, while the hunters and soldiers work.”

“I’m a ‘Support Class’?” She asked.

“No Ingrid. You’re a beautiful, intelligent, and caring woman who fills my mind and heart. Your ancestors ten thousand or more years ago were artificially uplifted from the local species and adjusted to be weapons or supporters of the weapons.

“Then something happened, honestly no clue what, but the experiment was abandoned, and we were left to find our own way. We as a species have the nanites inside us, all of us. They’re a sort of enhancement system, one that we’re expected to upgrade and adjust as we learn. They can be used to create simple shapes, like this…”

I lifted my right arm and formed a punch dagger, then a sword, then a crescent moon blade, then a hammer, before absorbing them again and putting my hand on the table.

“Or… they can be used to create more… permanent structures.”

I reached out with a single tentacle, peeling the door to the balcony open and letting the drone fly in. It landed on the table gracefully and powered down.

“This started as a military grade drone that I stole. I upgraded it, and now…” The outer skin of the drone flickered and shifted, altering to mimic the surfaces all around it, bending the light to appear as if it wasn’t there.

It was imperfect in the extreme… in the sky, it was fantastic. Sitting on the table in a hotel room? Yeah, it was shitty camouflage.

“I can upgrade them as I learn, becoming more… well, advanced.” I said simply, as Ingrid reached out and took my left hand.

“And you said you were being hunted?” Lars said, and Ingrid nodded.

“It’s okay, you can tell us…” she whispered.

“There are others out there, like me.” I whispered. “The more nanites I absorb, the more powerful I become, and not just with the blades and these…” I flexed the tentacles, then absorbed them again.

“I could probably punch my way through these walls if I needed to, and I’m functionally immortal, as near as I can tell.”

“Holy shit…” Lars whispered in Danish, scribbling away.

“Yeah, except, with my nanites I can choose to specialize, such as gaining abilities, or forming things like the drone, or…” I lifted my hands, Ingrid letting go, as I summoned my gauntlets, flexing my claws, then retracting them.

“Right…” Lars whispered, continuing to write. “…Helpful in winter, I imagine…”

“Probably.” I snorted. “The thing is, the nanites are locked down, encrypted like you don’t want to imagine, and they’re programmed not to reproduce beyond the bare minimum required to provide you with a baseline set.

“I… look I’m telling you what I’ve managed to piece together, that’s all, I could be wrong on a lot of this, but I’m not the only one out there like this. The others, they don’t have access to the nanites, but they’ve essentially managed, somehow, to absorb more, or to have theirs reproduce over time.”

“So, they what? They’re stronger?” Lars asked.

“They are. They make me look like a toddler. I’ve met two, and one of them, if he decided to, could probably slaughter the entire island’s population in a few hours, not to mention tear buildings like this down with his bare hands. He decided I was to be his pet and his latest recruit into a group of ancients like him.

“I ran, using a few tricks to escape, but he’s looking for me, and if he finds me? He’ll kill anyone that gets in the way.” I looked from one to the other of them, making sure they understood. “If they come for me, you run. Nothing else.”

“What was the other like?” Lars asked.

“A lot more welcoming. There are two factions of immortals, and there are not many in either. One group, as near as I can tell, has a plan for the future, and if we as a species need to be wiped out, or sterilized or raised up or whatever, to achieve it? They’ll do it without a second thought.

“The other... well they’re not much better either, they’re a bit pissed about the world, and they’re trying to decide if they should end it, or wipe the majority out, reducing us to a manageable level, and teach us ‘our place.’ Or possibly just party and relax, enjoying the chaos.”

“Right... that’s fairly terrifying.”  Lars admitted, eyebrows aloft. “And there’s monsters? Real ones?”

“Yeah, think of all the tales of monsters throughout antiquity ‘til now. They’re basically all BWV… Biological Weapon Variants, like us, who’ve developed a rogue strain in their nanites. Or were unlocked as test subjects and left. Lycanthropes seem to be common. Vampires less so, and the vamps are fairly dangerous…”

“I met lycanthropes today.” Ingrid added. “They attacked us when we went into a taverna that was apparently their territory.”

“And…?”

“And Steve slaughtered them all. In seconds. There was another beast inside the site, one that had been there for… for how long?” She asked me, and I shrugged.

“A good few thousand years, five at least, didn’t we think?”

“Well, it was like an octopus, but it…” She shook herself. “It was horrible, let’s just leave it at that, and it nearly killed him. He managed to trap it again, after the werewolves let it out… then he killed it this morning.”

“How did you kill it, and what was it called?”

“A ‘Reta Variant’ something that had been brought here for experiments… some of the details I saw for it mentioned them committing slaughters across the cosmos.”

“The details you saw… where…”

“The nanites. They provide data.”

“Right…” He paused, looking from me to Ingrid, and back again. “Look, first of all, hell of a story…” He paused scratching the back of his neck. “I’m not sure if I just shouldn’t have done that acid in Amsterdam, and it’s finally caught up with me, making me hallucinate along with your story, or… or if it makes a terrifying kind of sense.”

“The first would be a lot more reassuring.” Ingrid agreed.

“So... why bring me in?” He asked.

I leaned back in my chair. “Truthfully, I had no intention of letting Ingrid know the truth… I took her somewhere, thinking that I’d be able to let her see a little danger and get scared off. That way, she’d not go searching for the site I looted the stuff from that we’ve shown you so far.”

“You don’t know her very well…” He said with a wry smile, and she shook her head.

“Well, then we found more werewolves, and they weren’t going to let us go, so…” I shrugged.

“He nearly succeeded in scaring me off when I saw what he could do, and what they were. Still, if I’d not had access to the drone, to see the fight he was in…” She shook her head and sat forward, leaning on crossed arms and ducking her head, stroking her braid with one hand absently.

“I was furious and terrified, thinking I’d met this amazing guy, and he’d lied to me, and that… everything was so different to what I was expecting… I ran, well, drove. I got a few miles or so away, and pulled over when I kept hearing noises. Pulled out the bag, and saw his phone and the feed from the drone.”

“What was it?”

“He was fighting that Reta thing, and it was wrapped around him, eating him, literally tearing chunks free, and he was crawling across the floor, dragging it back so that he could trap it. He was ignoring it, letting it eat him alive, so that he could stop it from escaping…”

She sat upright, turning to me, and reached out, stroking my forearm and cheek before kissing me.

“It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, and you just kept going. When I realized you were literally dedicating your life to killing these things, that you could live forever, or… or that you might die in the dark there, and that I’d just driven off, leaving you to it?” She shook her head and swallowed hard, her face pale.

“I’ve never been more ashamed of myself in my life.” She said. “You risked your life to protect me, gave me… you showed me secrets that opened my eyes to a whole new world, and I ran away, maybe leaving you to die in there. I thought about how I’d feel, and how hurt I’d be in your place, emotionally I mean. I can’t imagine the physical pain… and I turned around. I realized that everything I was feeling for you, since meeting you, wasn’t overshadowed by what you were and what you were doing. It just made you even more special.”

“More mad, more like it.” I grumbled, good-naturedly.

“I like it,” she said, smiling as I covered her hand in mine.

“Well, as much as I highly approve of this…” Lars said gesturing back and forth between Ingrid and me with the end of his pen. “… this is only the start of this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“You said there’s groups out there that are ancient?”

I nodded.

“And they’re active, making sure that people don’t find out things?” he asked, and I nodded again.

“Okay, well, we need to consider the artifacts and the truth of the past as well, then. First of all, are there any inscriptions or details that would make it clear the creatures exist?”

“Two shields,” Ingrid said quickly. “There’s a lot of carvings about—and on the box that had trapped the creature, but it was the shields that made it clear there was something wrong with the records. They show . . . they show Atlantis.”

“Atlantis isn’t real,” Lars said reflexively before pausing, sighing, and rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Please tell me that was a joke, and that—”

“It looks like Atlantis,” Ingrid said, showing him her phone and letting him zoom in and out.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Ten years, ten goddamn years I’ve been telling everyone it was bullshit, and now? This literally matches Plato’s description. The concentric rings, the canals. Shitting hell!”

“I’ve never seen someone so pissed that Atlantis existed,” I said, smiling.

“I spend at least three hours every week speaking to some moron, responding to emails, or studying theories, that all come back to Atlantis and how it was the cradle of advanced civilization.” He growled, standing and throwing his hands up, waving them as he started to walk, speaking animatedly.

“It’s bullshit. It was clearly designed to be the perfect vehicle for cautionary tales, warnings that you should never mess with the Greeks, that Athens was wonderful. Hell, even Poseidon knew to not be greedy. That you should listen to your elders, eat your goddamn vegetables, and go to bed on time. FUCK!”

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Ingrid.

“He’s fine. He basically spent the last few years tearing people a new arse when they tried to sell him on stories about Atlantis. Now he’s wondering if he could have found it, if he’d paid attention.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Lars stormed back and forth in our room. “That’s it!” he snapped finally, spinning around and pointing at me. “You, this is all your fault!”

“Uh—” I started to say, unsure, as he strode forwards.

“This is how it’s going to work! Ingrid found the site, whatever it is, and I’ll have flown in to help her. We’ll get some retroactive permits to dig, explore, and all that shit. I’ll dig up something that leads us to the site, then we’ll make a big thing of the discovery, make it too big to quietly hide, make it too big in the media and in the government for them to hide it. We’ll bring in other experts. Dana? No, she’s a bitch. Kristoff, yeah, he owes me, and Davis . . . maybe Yani? And that Egyptian pair, what the hell’re their names . . .”

He was muttering to himself, sitting down fast at the table and scribbling in his book.

“He gets like this. He’s intense, I know,” Ingrid whispered. “Lars!”

“What?!” he growled, lifting his head and glaring at us.

“We can sort all of this tomorrow, okay?” she said. “First of all, we need to show you the site.”

“Yes! Yes, the site!” he agreed, pointing the pen at her. “We should go now.” He glanced at the drawn curtains, twitching them aside, then growling in annoyance. “Fine, first thing in the morning, we need to go there.”

“We will, but Lars?”

“Yes?”

“He had to kill werewolves to get us access to the site. There might be more.”

“Oh, well, did silver work?” he asked me, and I nodded. “Fine, we can get some silver, I guess. No idea where from, though.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” I said, lifting my hand and forming a blade.

“Is that silver? Wait, why does silver work?”

“No idea, and no this isn’t, but it doesn’t need to be. If I rip the nanites from them, they don’t recover from that.”

“Oh, okay,” Lars said, nodding as if that made perfect sense. “One last thing, then I need to go, get a shower, get ready, all that crap.”

“Yeah?”

“Nanites. Can you awaken, or unlock or whatever, ours?” he asked, and I paused.

“I don’t think so,” I muttered.

“Can the facility?” he pressed.

“Yes, probably, but you don’t want that.”

“Don’t we?” he asked. “If we could defend ourselves—”

“The first stage for the awakening was a full body strip,” I said slowly.

“Okay, well, Inga has a better body, so I’d imagine she can do it better than me, but you know . . . if that’s what floats your boat,” he said with an attempt at a smile.

“Ha, yes and no. I’d love to see her strip—naked, I mean—and don’t want to see you do it, but no. I mean a physical strip. As part of it, I had my flesh stripped down to the bone. As in cut off by blades. I was literally skinned alive. Muscles, tendons, all of it cut loose, and then I was rebuilt from the base layer up, organs upgraded and cleaned, everything.”

There was silence in the room as I lifted my right and flexed my fingers.

“It was necessary. I was bleeding to death anyway, but the rebuild? It was horrific. I was kept conscious the entire time.” I flexed my fingers, staring at them and remembering it. “They were like razor blades, but flexible. They started at my scalp, holding me in place, and cut away every layer individually. I couldn’t close my eyes; they were peeled away. The eyelids, I mean, and then the eyes were dug into by . . . well, by some kind of buzzsaw. They cut the eyeball away, then implanted sections inside, on the optical nerves. Others . . .”

I reached up and tapped the back of my neck, my hand falling away as Ingrid touched the skin there lightly, feeling the ridge of something implanted under the skin, hissing in horror.

“Other sections were larger, more solid. They needed to be implanted and tested.” I lifted my right arm, and the ports opened, blood flowing from them as always. The nanotubes flowed out, flexing, then sliding back.

“My right arm was almost entirely replaced, and I still have to rebuild the bones, now that I’ve reached this stage in my ‘rise,’ I guess. The nanites are capable of doing it now, now that they’ve fully bonded with me, so they can do it without having to cut the old stuff away. They can simply convert them, but still. It’ll be like having my bones replaced with boiling lead,” I whispered, lost in the mix of memories and knowing what was to come.

“Why? Why would you do that?” Ingrid asked in a horrified whisper.

“I need the storage capacity,” I said with a sad smile. “My nanites are good. Hell, they’re amazing, but to be able to match the Old Ones, the Arisen that are out there? I can’t take centuries to reach that level. I need to augment myself. And armor, well, that’s one way of doing it,” I admitted, lifting the gauntlets.

They flowed into existence, flexed, and flowed back into my skin again.

“But for me to make a full suit?” I whispered, reaching out and taking the rum, grasping the bottle by the neck and swigging directly, then sighing and going on. “I need millions more nanite clusters, and I need to store them when not in use. I can store them in me; I am now, but . . . not in the quantities I need, not and be human still.”

“So . . . you need to replace your bones?” Ingrid asked.

“I’ll begin tomorrow,” I said firmly. “While you two explore the cavern and do . . . archaeology stuff, I’ll start the process.”

“Shit,” Lars whispered. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to be like you.”

“Nobody would,” I said, before forcing a smile. “Anyway, doesn’t matter! So . . . you going to fuck off back to your room so I can chase Ingrid around in here?”

“Really?” Ingrid asked me with a quirked eyebrow. “You think you’re getting lucky tonight?”

“Well, if not, I’ll chase myself around a bit, play hard to get, you know. A man has needs.” I winked at her as she smacked my arm.

“You,” she said, pointing at Lars. “Get out of here. Call your wife and give her my love as well as to the kids, and don’t tell her anything about . . . well, you know.”

“Yeah, say nothing, put nothing down on electronic devices,” I said firmly.

“I won’t,” he said, nodding as we stood. “I’ll tell her that you found some interesting things, and leave it at that.”

“Good! Thank you for coming, Lars, and for, well, you know, being you,” Ingrid said, smiling. “Now, get out. I’m going to chase this…” She gave my ass an appreciative smack. “…around the bedroom.”

“Promises, promises,” I muttered, looking down at her. “I’m totally running slow.”

“How slow?” she asked, grinning as we followed Lars to the door.

“Ummm, broken legs?” I offered, getting a laugh from her and Lars both.

“Okay, okay! Have fun, you two. I’m going to call my wife, and then . . . then I’m going to plan.”

“Have fun,” I told him, surprised after he hugged Ingrid, kissing her cheek, then hugged me as well.

“No kisses for you,” he declared. “You’ll enjoy it too much.”

Then he laughed and released me, heading down the corridor.

“He’s nuts,” I said to Ingrid after he’d disappeared around a corner.

She smiled, nodded, and closed the door, leaning with her back against it, and crooked one finger at me.

I leaned in at her gesture for a kiss, got one, a long slow and deep kiss that practically curled my toes . . . then a light slap on my cheek.

“That’s for not telling me the truth,” she whispered, and I winced, before being pushed back against the wall, enjoying another long, deep kiss as she undid my jeans. “And this,” she whispered into my ear, “is for telling me the truth.”

And she slid my pants down, going to her knees before me.

“Oh, I’m glad I told you the truth,” I whispered. “…And I like how ‘hard to get’ you’re playing!”

“Ummmm,” was the only response, the vibration travelling along me, and making me forget about anything else for the rest of the night.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The next morning, well . . .

I woke up to faint light streaming around the edges of the drawn curtains, the gentle hum of the aircon keeping the room to a manageable temperature, and the glorious feeling of Ingrid snoring, laid half sprawled across me.

I laid there for a while, awake and examining myself. Not in a “cup this, yup, all good” way, but reflecting on the changes that had been wrought lately, and the massive ones to come.

I woke now like I’d flicked a switch, unless I was utterly exhausted, or like yesterday, close to death, going from deep sleep to firing on all cylinders . . . and it was wonderful.

No more foggy head, no more desperately needing sleep. I examined that and realized that if I needed to, much like the way that my nanites could provide me with oxygen, I could probably go without sleep for days without any real side effects.

I was sleeping because I liked it, I realized. I was going to bed—well, I was going to bed for a totally different reason, but I was going to sleep afterwards because that’s what you did on a night after a busy day, and especially after some great sex.

I was going to sleep because I was conditioned to it, I recognized, not because I really needed it. I resolved to work on that. I reached out, scanning through the hotel, searching for the Wi-Fi then following it, seeing it like an information super-highway, flowing along it, checking the various systems connected to it and finding Lars’s phone in only a few minutes.

I searched it, checking the sites it’d been on since he left our room, and grinned, resolving to call him a filthy pervert in the morning. Hell, he knew porn sites I didn’t, and that was saying something . . . but beyond reasonably standard filth and a call to his wife, he’d basically done some understandable searches on the area, and on history, as well as looking at some of the Atlantean myths . . . and that was it.

I was relieved. I’d been secretly worried when I woke that he might have reached out to someone, but no.

He was fast asleep still, or his phone was inactive anyway, as was his laptop. I searched through the rest of the hotel, looking for anything suspicious and finding nothing.

Next came a search of the land registry, or the Cretan version of it, finding that the area around the palace was held by the government and tourist boards, but that the taverna and the site we’d found was owned by some of the locals.

I pulled up a dozen details on the land, making sure I had the rights we’d need for all of it, then shot those details to my phone and went on.

I made a mental map of the site and of the catacombs I’d travelled before, comparing them and finding them to be similar, especially in shape. Then I started checking the dimensions of the cavern and comparing it to the Minoan Palace ruins out of curiosity.

The design was similar, and that led to another realization.

The Minoan people must have built this close to the palace for a reason. I mean, you wouldn’t build it this close and just forget. “Oh, we’ve got a creature here that could end the world . . . hmmm, I bet that’d be a great place for the king to live, right there next door.”

No, you’d build it either as far away as possible, or . . . or if you were a culture obsessed with strength and with slaughtering the worst that you could find out there, you’d bury it, and keep it as a doomsday weapon…

I started to search, and then I started to swear.

“What’s wrong?” Ingrid whispered, lifting half up, looking around the room as I banished the digital world from my vision.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, stroking my right hand down her bare back, enjoying the way she smiled and arched her back as my fingers moved.

“It’s okay,” she replied, leaning on my chest and kissing my lips gently, then again and again. I reached down, cupping her ass with one hand and her chest with the other as our mouths opened, tongues exploring, and all the worries of the world were forgotten.

For a time, at least.

We showered, and tidied around a little later, Or I did, anyway. I was in and out of the shower in a few minutes, while Ingrid liked to relax in hers, singing to herself as she washed her hair.

I stood in the middle of the bedroom and closed my eyes, using my nanites as best I could to “see” around me, getting a strange, grainy sort of radar, and as experience, I used that and my tentacles to try and clean the room up.

I dropped two glasses and a plate.

By the time Ingrid came out of the bathroom, dressing gown wrapped around her, skin practically glowing and hair wrapped in a towel, to find the room spotless, I’d gotten enough experience that I felt it’d been worth it.

“So what was it that disturbed you this morning?” she asked me, sitting on the edge of one chair and shaking her hair out, rubbing it quickly with the towel before reaching for the hairdryer. I lifted it across to her, plugging the cable in as well, all by tentacle. She smiled at me, shaking her head in wonder.

“Sorry, just practicing,” I admitted. “Well, I made a discovery. Hmmm, maybe not a discovery. A theory? Is that the word, when you spot things that make sense and realize you need to check it out?”

“Theory works,” she agreed, flicking the hairdryer on and raising her voice to carry on the conversation. “Or hypothesis.”

“Yeah,” I called to her. “One of those things.”

“And what was it?” she called, fluffing her hair up and blasting it, running her hairbrush through it.

“I’ll wait,” I told her, smiling and getting a smile in return.

It didn’t take long, twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes, then she was done, sitting there, dressing gown thrown back due to the heat, as she wove an intricate braid down her right shoulder.

I watched in fascination, both at the amazing dexterity of her fingers and the fantastic view, shaking my head as she kicked my foot lightly.

“Stop staring!” she scolded me, her cheeks blushing furiously as she paused the weaving long enough to tug her dressing gown closed again. I pouted, getting a low laugh from her. “If you’re good, you can play later,” she promised, a wicked gleam in her eye as I grinned at her.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Now, what were you saying!” she prompted again.

I sighed, sitting more upright, leaning on the table and sipping from my cup of tea, as she noticed the coffee I’d made for her and blew me a kiss.

“The Minoan Palace,” I said, getting a nod. “I was thinking about how close it was to the site, and comparing the dimensions of each of them.”

“Right.”

“They’re less than a mile apart,” I pointed out.

She hesitated a moment. “Okay, it’s close, but I guess if you wanted to keep an eye on it—”

“Exactly. However . . . if the Minoan people were all about exterminating monsters, would they have kept just this one?”

“They’d have killed them all, or—” she started to say, then her eyes widened.

“Or they’d have killed most of them, and kept one or two as examples or weapons.”

“They’d have been killed with the people . . . when Thera exploded,” she suggested.

“Would they? This one was left there, after all. What if the reason nobody found bodies from the eruption wasn’t just because they saw it coming and fled? What if some of the monsters escaped, and the bodies were swept away?”

“The Minoan palaces aren’t actual ‘palaces,’” Ingrid said slowly. “There are dozens of them across the island. They’re more like . . . like the homes of the lesser nobility, like an old English manor house.”

“And they worshipped people that killed monsters,” I pointed out. “Not necessarily merchants and so on.”

“They’d have wanted their best fighters close to these sites,” she agreed, her mind leaping ahead along with my own. “If they had others, like this, they’d . . . they’d make the palaces next to the prisons.”

“And if, like this one, they were building the prisons underground? Carving them out of the bedrock?”

Horror flitted across her face. “They might have never been found.”

“They might be out there still, like that one,” I said slowly.

“There are dozens of sites.”

“Then I know what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks,” I said grimly.

“If there’s more like that one . . .” Ingrid shook her head. “We can’t let anyone know about the discoveries, not yet. It’ll spark a rush, especially when people see the jewelry. People will come in their hundreds, if not thousands, and will start digging everywhere.”

“I need to find those sites and hit them first.”

“I can find them,” she said, radiating assuredness. “We can examine this one, then check for similar sites and locations—”

“You’ve only got a week,” I pointed out, and she quirked a smile.

“What? You think I’m going anywhere?” she asked, sipping at her coffee as she finished her braid, her fingers practically performing magic while we talked. “I live on my own. A call to my parents and they’ll be fine. And with Lars vouching for me? I can cancel my holiday and start working here.”

“You . . . you could stay?” I asked her, hating how pathetically hopeful I sounded.

Ingrid paused, then set the coffee down and stood, moving around the table to sit across my knees, wrapping her arms around my neck and staring into my eyes.

“Would you like me to?” she asked softly. “Say it.”

“I want you to stay,” I said, having to swallow. I felt like a child. Hell, I felt . . . I didn’t know what I felt, but it was more in a few days than I’d ever felt before.

I’d beaten people bloody for annoying me, I’d . . . I’d done things over the years that would make sure if there was a heaven, then I’d never get let in.

I wasn’t a good person.

I really wasn’t. But for Ingrid? For her I could be.

Maybe.

Well, I’d still be able to kill things, after all, so maybe I could just be a slightly better man in the rest of my life.

I dismissed those thoughts, staring into her green eyes and waiting as she watched me.

“Then I’d stay, regardless of my job, of my house. I’d stay for you,” she whispered, kissing me gently.

“I want you to stay,” I repeated, my heart soaring.

“Then it’s settled,” she said, looking around the room. “Ummm, there’re other sites near here, aren’t there?”

“Yeah, three more. One near Malia, that we passed through, and two on the southeast coast,” I replied, having found one quickly, and remembering Val mentioning it as being surrounded by other ruins.

“Okay, then. Well, rather than moving to the other site, then off to the next, why don’t we stay here on a night, just until the local ruins are sorted? Yes, I know it’s a good drive, but . . .”

“I’d like that,” I admitted. “It’s six hours out of the day, though, in travelling.”

“We can do most of the site in a full day, in all honesty. If we’re not restrained to just that site,” she pointed out. “Most of archeology is sifting through the tiny details. In this case, well, we can take all the photos we need, and the artifacts, then we can bury it again while Lars goes through the process of getting us official permission to dig and buys the land.”

“How rich is he?” I asked, and she laughed.

“Look at it this way: if he decided we should take a helicopter to the site, each way, each day, it’d probably not even chip away at his interest payments.”

“That rich?” I asked and she nodded.

“His parents . . . well, it’s family money, and he’s never made an issue of it, but he’s very rich. Like, if it was for sale, and he really, really wanted it, his parents would probably buy him the island.”

“What island?” I asked, and she smiled, waiting. “What? You mean—”

“Yeah… Crete.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Yeah, but he’s never been a pain about it, always more embarrassed than anything.”

“No!” I said, holding her hips and giving her a little shake.

“What?”

“I don’t mean it’s a problem that he’s rich,” I clarified. “I mean, his parents. They might be . . .” I nodded, and she paused, thinking, then winced.

“You think they’re part of the immortals ‘network’ thing?”

“I think there’s a damn good chance, if they’re that rich,” I said firmly. “If not, then they’ll have access to him.”

“His is an old family, but . . .” She shook her head slowly. “No, it can’t be; I’ve met his parents. They kept trying to get me to come to more parties so I could meet the cousins and so on. I’ve known them for years, and they’re definitely not immortal. They’re getting older.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, yes? I think so, anyway,” she said slowly. “I mean, his dad’s going bald, and his mother, we got drunk at Christmas, and she was complaining about how she didn’t want to get her breasts ‘done’ but that they were ‘headed south,’ and she has an image to maintain”

“How old is she?” I asked.

“Fifty, ish? She’s definitely not able to change her body like you were saying they can, not if the way she spends her life in the gym and watches every calorie is any tell.”

“Thank god,” I muttered. “I had visions of—”

“I know.” Ingrid rubbed my forearms, smiling. “I understand. So we’re staying here?” I nodded. “Good. In that case, in a minute you can go and tell Lars and Val, and make sure we can keep this room, but before you go . . .”

“Yes?”

“Maybe . . . say some more nice things to me?” she asked, wrapping her arms around my neck and smiling again.

“Yes, dear,” I whispered, kissing her, and then doing just that.

Ten minutes later, I was dressed and walking out of the elevator, seeing Lars at the table on the far side of the restaurant, a small collection of plates set aside from his breakfast as he nibbled on a slice of heavily buttered toast, staring at the screen of his laptop.

I paused, crossing the room to join him, when I saw Val off to one side. I signaled for his attention, getting a smile and a “one minute” gesture from him as he continued his conversation with someone I couldn’t see in the next room.

“Morning,” Lars mumbled around his toast as I sat down, then informed me disapprovingly, “You’ve missed breakfast.”

I snorted.

“I’m here now. I’m sure there’s a solution.”

“Ah the arrogance of the rich,” he said sadly, shaking his head.

“Says the rich guy.”

“Says the man who was here in time for breakfast, and where were you, I might ask? You said 9 a.m. sharp.”

“It’s only half ten,” I pointed out.

Lars let out a snort. “Steve, I like you. I really do, and I like what you’ve done for Inga. And, judging from the conversation last night, the world. Not to mention, if I didn’t like you, you could kill me with your pinky, but . . .”

“But?”

“But I’m an archaeologist. You promised me evidence that the entire community is wrong, and adventure . . . and then you leave me, sat here! You’ve clearly been enjoying your morning, and despite Inga being practically my sister, I want you and her to have fun, but seriously. I need to see this!” He growled, sitting forward.

I shot him a grin. “Well, I’ve got a theory, one that Ingrid likes. If it’s true, then it means there’s a lot more sites . . . and nearby.”

“Go on,” he suggested, closing the laptop and wiping at his lips with a folded cloth napkin.

“Soon, but for now, we think that we should keep our rooms here. There’s two more sites nearby, and well, we like this place.”

“How far are we from the first site?” he asked.

“Three hours.”

“Each way?” he asked.

I nodded, while he groaned. “That’s six hours lost every day!”

“Yeah, but the plan is, you use some of your money and influence and buy the land . . . then you can examine it properly at your leisure.”

“If I buy a seemingly worthless stretch of land next to an excavation site, it’ll be noticed eventually,” he pointed out. “I mean, yes, that was the plan, but if you think there’s more out there, we need to keep this quiet.”

“Exactly.”

“And Ingrid has what? A week left on her holiday?” He sighed as I smiled at him. “I’m not going to like this, am I?” he asked rhetorically.

“Well, depending on your perspective, this is the easy part.”

“Go on,” he growled, taking a sip of coffee.

“You think you might have found something here, that’s your cover, yes?”

“Yes.”

I shrugged. “Then you’ll need an assistant. Or you can be hers.”

“And you want me to request she be given academic leave.” He groaned. “Do you know how boring her boss is? He’ll want to talk at me for hours! He’ll make me agree to go the annual fundraiser!”

“Well, once you two have made the discovery of a lifetime, you’ll be too busy, won’t you? And you’ll have the perfect excuse.”

“Well, there’s a point there,” he admitted. “I could always use the opportunity to get another favor from him. The old bugger is always cagey, and he has been pestering me to go to the fundraiser for years. If I couldn’t go for a genuine reason . . . hmmm.”

“Because it’s Ingrid’s museum, you could always insist that they be permitted to have a loan of the artifacts or whatever, right? That’d cover your debt and more?”

“A lot more,” he agreed, musingly, rubbing his chin and eyeing me. “Fine. I’ll do it, but you owe me.”

“Nope. Ingrid does,” I said firmly. “Both of you owe me, remember? I’m the one getting stabbed and eaten by things.”

“You . . . you think there’s more out there that’s likely to do that?” he asked, looking around slowly.

“I think there’s a damn good chance,” I said, voice low. “What we think—” I cut off, turning as Val moved over towards us, smiling.

“Morning, my friends, good morning!”

“Morning, Val!” I said with a smile. “Am I too late for breakfast? Ingrid will be down in a few minutes . . .”

“Not at all!” he replied with a wide smile.

“Wonderful, so . . . Ingrid has decided that she loves the room so much, well, can we take it for the next . . . two weeks?” I asked, reaching into my pocket.

“Of course, of course! No need to do that,” Val said, waving towards my hand. “We are friends! You can sort it before you leave today.”

I grinned and nodded, while Lars sighed and waved to catch Val’s attention, smiling at him.

“If we’re staying for a longer time, do you have another room like theirs available?” he asked hopefully.

“Ah, that’s the only bridal suite,” Val said as I coughed into the orange juice that I’d just helped myself to.

“Bridal . . . suite?” I gasped out, getting grins from them both.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy telling Inga about this,” Lars started.

I pointed one finger at him. “You dare,” I said warningly

He leaned back, eyeing the finger carefully, like it was a loaded weapon.

“Or . . . I could not?” he suggested.

“Yeah. I’d recommend that.”

“So, is there perhaps a larger room, that’s not the bridal suite?” Lars asked hopefully, only to sigh as Val shook his head.

“Alas, no. It is summer, after all.”

“Dammit.” Lars sighed. “I blame you for this,” he said to me, shaking his head. “If you’d given me some real notice, I could have brought the yacht.”

Val blinked, realizing that Lars was serious, as he pulled his phone out. “In fact, I don’t think my parents are using it. I’ll see.”

He made a quick call while I winked at Val, who smiled and walked away, pausing only to greet Ingrid when she appeared.

While I was dressed in combats and a plain white T-shirt—and looked like a shaved bear crammed into them—and she wore much the same, tan combat trousers, reinforced at the knees, simple sturdy trainers, and a plain white top, showing only a hint of cleavage, and a black belt . . . she looked stunning.

She could have walked off a catwalk, and people would be nodding that she deserved to be there, while I . . .

I glanced down, unthinkingly comparing us: the bulk, the tattoos—hell, I reached up and ran my fingers through the short cropped beard and tousled hair. I needed a damn haircut; I always did. I shook myself as she squeezed into the seat next to me, kissing my cheek and setting her bag on the floor, all grace and beauty, while I felt more like the beast.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, picking up on my mood, and I smiled, patting her hand.

“Nothing,” I assured her. “Val is sorting us a menu for breakfast, then we can go.”

“Oh, thank the gods, I’m starving.” Ingrid smiled, getting up and striding across to the coffee service set up on one of the side tables.

Val was back quickly, a pair of menus in hand, laughing as I asked if it was possible to mix and match the dishes. Apparently, waving big wedges of cash around meant that all things were possible, as I was shortly tucking into a massive full English fry-up, while Lars shook his head and called me an animal.

Half an hour later, we were on the road again, the miles flashing past as we chatted. My drone followed at a decent height, watching over us and evaluating traffic patterns as I tried to make sure nobody was paying us too much attention. I distracted Lars by shooting the land registry details to him, all without so much as touching a phone, getting amazed looks from him.

Two and half hours from there, after Lars had subjected us to so much random heavy metal I was close to my ears bleeding, we finally pulled up at the taverna, noting the sudden lack of vehicles outside.

“What’s wrong?” Lars asked Ingrid and me as I stepped out of the car, telling them to stay inside and to keep the doors locked.

“The vehicles they had—the cars, the bikes, and the truck—they’re all gone,” Ingrid said slowly, clambering across to sit in the driver’s side. I passed her the keys.

“So what, you think there’s more of them, of the werewolves?” Lars asked her in hoarse whisper as she locked the doors, and he moved, climbing into the front and into the passenger seat.

“Maybe,” she admitted, starting the engine up and backing up to wait in the middle of the carpark. She was already searching from side to side, and then said softly, “Keep your eyes open.”

I nodded to her, then walked to the taverna, pushing the door open and moving inside, for all the world like I had a right to be there. I found two people at the bar, one of them older, looking over paperwork, the other younger, and clearly subservient.

“We’re closed,” the younger one snapped, and I kept walking, reaching out with my senses . . . and finding humans.

That confused the shit out of me, all on its own. I’d been expecting to gut a pair of werewolves.

“I said we’re closed!” the younger one repeated in a growl, striding forwards to block my path.

“Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?” I asked them, deciding to try and brazen it out.

“Hmmm?” the older man mumbled, finally looking up at me. “Perhaps we should be asking you that, hmmm?”

“We own this place,” I said, bluffing, as the younger one stepped up close, making me stop or physically walk over him.

“No, I own the taverna,” the older man snapped, eye flashing. “It’s been in my family for seven generations!”

“What?!” I responded, as the younger man continued to stare at me.

“We’re closed,” he repeated, his breath filled with garlic and . . . fuck knew what.

“Get out of my way,” I said slowly, flexing my shoulders and upper chest, deliberately making myself as threatening as possible.

“Mark,” the older man called warningly, shaking his head and gesturing for the lad to back up. “There’s something wrong here, and you’re adding to it.”

“We flew all the way out here to chase up the rent, and this is what we find?!” Mark snapped. “The place is a mess. There’s bodies out the back!”

“And the police are on their way, so all this will be sorted out, and soon,” the older man said flatly before looking at me again. “You claim you own this place? Do you have deeds, paperwork, anything?”

“You’ll have to speak to the boss,” I said slowly. “I’m the muscle, he did the deal.”

“Then I suggest you get him,” the older man said with a sigh, rubbing his face. I nodded, starting to turn and catching the glare Mark was giving me, before dismissing him as unimportant.

I strode out of the taverna, passing across the carpark, even as the distant sound of police sirens started to echo. I jogged across to the car and opened the door, leaning in as I explained.

“Looks like the actual owners are here. They claim they came to get missing rent and found the place fucked up, and they found the bodies out the back.”

“Oh crap,” Ingrid whispered. “Are they . . . are they human?”

“Yeah, and they called the police. That’s them on the way,” I started, drawing a deep breath. “Might be an idea for us all to get out of here. They don’t know what you look like, after all.”

“Seriously?” Lars asked, shuffling forward on the seat. “What are they like?”

“What?”

“The owners! Are they reasonable, or . . .”

“One seems fine. The other, a kid called Mark, is a little dick.”

“What did you tell them?” Lars said, popping his door open.

“He asked who we were and I bluffed that we were the owners,” I admitted, seeing a wince from Lars.

“And they are.”

“Yeah, he wanted to know if we had any paperwork to prove the claim. I said he’d need to speak to the boss. First thing I could think of to get some time.”

“Then I guess I’m the boss?” Lars suggested, and Ingrid nodded.

“Yeah, good idea, play the innocent party. We stopped here yesterday, met the idiots behind the bar. They offered to sell it, and we were coming back today to get everything.”

“We don’t have evidence of the transfers,” I pointed out, and he shrugged.

“I’ll claim it came out of my holiday cash, and that we were going to make a further transfer for the rest. Don’t worry. You’re in my territory now,” Lars said, winking at me as he left the car and stepped around it, straightening his clothes.

“I don’t like it,” I muttered as Ingrid got out and took my hand, squeezing it firmly.

“Don’t worry, seriously. Lars does this kind of thing for his family and for himself all the time. Trust him.”

I nodded, following the pair into the taverna, standing at the back and staying quiet this time as Lars introduced himself and Ingrid, notably leaving me out of it.

“I’d say it was a pleasure, but your man here claimed you were the owners of my family business,” the older man, Alex, as he introduced himself, said, leaning back and sipping on a coffee.

Now that I was no longer the focus of their attention, I could look them over properly. Lars spun a tale about falling in love with the island and paying a deposit yesterday to purchase the site.

He’d already started the ball rolling, contacting a family solicitor to get valuations on the surrounding land as well as the taverna and its patch.

That meant that he was familiar with the details, including the old man’s full name, claiming that the prior residents, who’d now buggered off with his cash—and leaving bodies behind—had claimed to be him.

It was enough that, by the time the police arrived, the owner thought we had been ripped off by a gang of fraudsters, and they helped sell that idea to the police.

They confirmed that Lars had flown into the island yesterday, and thanks to a call from his family solicitor to the local police commissioner—who was on a golfing holiday in Germany at the time—we were suddenly poor foreigners who’d been ripped off.

Six hours later, with Lars absolutely furious about the delays, we actually did own some of the surrounding land, and negotiations were well under way to buy the rest.

“A week!” Lars snarled, sitting in the car as we drove back towards the hotel. “An entire bloody week it’s going to take before they clear the site to be handed over to us!”

“There’s a load of bodies,” Ingrid pointed out, and he waved his hand at her.

“I know, I know, and I’m sorry. Okay? It’s terrible they lost their lives. But if they search the site properly, they’ll find their way into the chambers. Then they’ll claim it as their discovery, and we’ll be locked out! We could lose it all, because—”

“No,” I said simply. “They’re nowhere near it, and even if they find it, it’ll take some serious equipment to move the dirt.”

“How can you be sure,” he started to complain, when I tapped the side of my head.

“Because the drone is circling the site still. And once we find somewhere for some food and to wait out the police presence, I’ll go back and recover the artifacts.”

“Oh, thank god,” Lars whispered, sagging back in his seat. “I’m going with you.”

“So am I,” Ingrid added as I started to shake my head.

“There’s no need. Look, I’ll take photos.”

“You’ve no idea what you’re looking for,” Ingrid pointed out.

“Look, you get us in, we’ll take the photos, and then we bury the place again. Simple,” Lars pointed out, a big grin on his face.

“Fuck to the no,” I said firmly. “Seriously, there’s absolutely no way I’m taking you lunatics back there, for what? To sneak around when the police are investigating dozens of murders right next door? Hell no. Never going to happen.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“For fuck’s sake, Lars!” I snapped at him, eight hours later. “We need to go!”

“Yeah. Yeah, just two more minutes,” he mumbled, paying me absolutely no attention as he walked around, tablet held up, filming the walls carefully. I held the industrial-strength torch, bathing the entire cavern in brilliant daylight. “Oh . . . just look at the scrollwork! Even the upper plinths have them!”

“What the hell are you talking about!” I snapped, glancing up at the rocks, dust, and dirt-coated pillars that supported the roof overhead.

“The pillars are carved, with ornamental flourishes that aren’t usual for the time period,” Ingrid started to explain, when I cut her off.

“It’s a rock! It’s big narrow rocks that hold up the goddamn roof, Ingrid. And unless you two pull your damn fingers out, you can stay here until the police find you! You’ve taken a thousand bloody photos and more, we’ve got the artifacts, and we are sodding leaving!”

“Yeah, yeah, you go,” Lars started to say, still staring through the screen of the tablet as he panned it around, when I strode over and plucked it from his grasp, turning it off and tossing him over one shoulder.

He gasped, arms flailing as he reached for something, anything, to stop our advance. “What the—no! I only need a few more minutes!”

“You said that an hour ago!” I snapped at him. “Ingrid, lead the way, or I’m not taking either of you to the next site.”

“You need us to find them,” she pointed out.

I shook my head, herding her towards the passage out.

“I can find them, it’ll just be more destruction. Your choice, and you promised!” I warned her, getting a glare, but a grudging nod of agreement as she led the way out, artifacts clutched to her chest as she swore at me under her breath.

I’d given in, in the end, because if the local police did find the chamber, and found only the rocks piled up, as I’d spent the last two hours doing while they filmed and shot photos, then they were likely to simply move on.

As Ingrid and Lars had pointed out, though, whether the police were honest or corrupt went out of the window once they found those artifacts. It’d be a career-making discovery, and then the government would be involved, regardless.

Once the government was involved, then the human-shaped cockroaches that were the civil service would be involved, and finally . . . politicians.

Then we were all fucked.

There’d be the usual ones that would claim everything “for the people” while trying to pocket anything not nailed down, the ones who genuinely thought they were doing the right thing—and were simply idiots—and the ones who’d start trying to sell it all outright to someone else.

The one or two actually honest and intelligent politicians who somehow fell through the cracks and got elected despite everything would be too alone to do anything.

It never changed, no matter which country you were in; the shite always rose to float on the top.

“There’s . . . light,” Ingrid whispered, stopping and backing away from the passage.

“Shit!” I snapped, seeing the bobbing of a light from up ahead. “Back against the wall!”

I shoved her and Lars behind me, pushing them back into a corner and focusing hard as I killed our lights.

I gritted my teeth as I did the only thing I could think of, and extended a rippling field of nanites outwards, forming a half-bubble around us that stretched and reached.

“What—” Lars started to ask, before Ingrid slapped her hand over his mouth at my glare.

The sound of approaching feet was clear now, as was the glare of torches, as someone grumbled in Greek about “getting lost.”

I blinked, my focus slipping for a second as I realized I’d understood the comment, and I resolved to look into it later.

The rippling bubble grew, forming a solid connection all around us, attaching to the wall and shifting as it started to change color, imitating the wall behind.

It was barely in time as first one, then two more of the local police strode in, panning their powerful torches around the cavern.

I felt it as we all stiffened, the torch’s beam falling on us . . . and continuing on, our side staying transparent, while theirs was patterned to match the rock behind us.

Seconds passed as they strode deeper into the cavern, kicking at the piles of fallen rocks . . . until they reached the mass of biological matter I’d left when I absorbed the bodies before.

“Fungus?” one of the asked, squatting next to it.

“Something like that?” another replied, nudging it with a foot as they gathered around, looking down.

“Move, now!” I whispered to the others, moving as smoothly as I could, shifting the illusion along the wall.

We crept a dozen paces to towards the door, before one of them straightened and turned, making us freeze in place.

“I’ll go radio it in,” he muttered.

“Fine. We’ll look around, then come out,” one of the others agreed, while the first strode across the cavern, slowing as he approached us and frowned, clearly confused at the sudden wall he’d missed on the way in.

He hesitated, before one of the others shouted something to him, and he growled, turning to shout back.

“You can order your own damn gyros!” he shouted, striding past us, muttering something under his breath about “not an errand boy.” I let out a long breath once he was past, hurrying the others along after him and away from the pair still in the cavern.

It didn’t take long, following the torch of the guy ahead, for us to reach the exit. for a long second, I thought we were fucked, as he leaned against the rock of the passage, making his call as a rain squall swept in across the island.

I had visions of him walking back down towards us and having to kill him anyway . . . when he complained about the reception, hunching his head down and hurrying out into the rain.

“Follow me,” I called to them, guiding them out into the rain, then left to loop up and across the hill, passing under old olive trees and around scrub brush until we finally reached the car.

The three of us clambered in, with the other two getting in the back with the artifacts. I caught the drone and put it in the boot. Then I started the engine up and drove us away from the site, not bothering with the lights.

“How the hell can you see in this?” Lars asked me at one point, and I tapped the side of my head, by my eye.

“Removed and upgraded remember, mate?” I said, smiling as I glanced back at him in the rear view mirror.

“The advantages are great, like in the cavern back there, but . . .” He shook his head. “No chance are they worth the years of therapy I’d need.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, shifting on the seat as I got comfy, eventually flicking the lights on as I headed into the nearby village, the lights flashing past as I pressed the pedal down, picking up speed as the road passed out of the village and then led to the motorway, lifting up onto the well-laid and lit—but quiet—system.

I sighed, settling in for the next few hours as the pair started to argue over the meanings of the carvings on the shields.

Phrases like “Cycladic intersperse” and “paleo genomics” were tossed about, and those were only the phrases I could make some sense of, so I turned up the radio, growling at the crap being played.

The one thing I missed most, since the changes had come in to my life, was the goddamn loss of my old phone and account.

I’d had some seriously good playlists that had taken years to compile, and now? I couldn’t even try to log in, let alone actually use my damn music.

Then I grinned. Fuck it, what did it matter if they had my old account after all? I could start a new one. Hell, if I could remote hack the systems, why the hell shouldn’t I start making the most of my abilities?

I shifted a little, getting comfortable, and plugged the phone into the car, then I pulled the connection up in my vision, overtaking half of it as I started to work, watching the road absently as I drove.

The phone was set to report as little as possible, beyond that it existed, not even showing on the networks that it rode. That meant that I’d never receive a bill, so moving on to the next logical step, I reached out to my old music provider and winced at the algorithms and madness that popped up.

Overlapping fields of geometric planes suddenly spread out, multiplying wildly as I frantically tried to limit the mess, digging into it with only half my attention as I tried to continue driving as well.

I sensed monitor programs, like dogs sniffing at my heels, moving closer. I could feel the doors being sealed against me, and I cut off the attempt, stunned by the complexity.

It was insane, the mass of encryption that . . . fuck.

I twitched the steering wheel back on course as I realized what I’d just done and how bloody stupid it was.

I’d literally just tried to hack into the music I used to listen to, not thinking about the logical extensions. That music was provided on the world’s biggest shipping and sales platform, they would have an insane amount of cyberteams working on preventing what I’d just tried.

They weren’t out to keep me from my music, not really. They didn’t care what I was after; they just needed to stop me from getting in, because once I was in? I’d be able to run rampant in the system and help myself to anything.

I shook myself, cold sweat that had been running down my back vanishing as I realized the other side of the coin. If I’d really tried? I could have done it.

I was sure of that. I might need a few more levels in Hack, but the system was a learning one, and one that rebuilt itself constantly based on what I did. The nanites had a shitload of data stored in them, but . . . they were learning.

They were taking the data they’d been programmed with millennia ago, and they were integrating it in ways that augmented me now.

I thought back to how I’d damn well hacked a sentinel only hours after the system had been inbuilt in me, yet how high-tech they must have been . . . and I grinned.

“They didn’t have hackers,” I muttered to myself. “Or if they did, they were amateurs that didn’t use the system.”

This could change everything, fuck. I might be able to hack my way into the security systems of the ship, or the facility or whatever it was . . . I might be able to get backup!

If I could get a dozen sentinels? That’d make a difference in the future. When it came to killing the damn creatures that I suspected were still buried around the island, a dozen sentinels would make a hell of a difference.

I reached up, scratching at the back of my neck and rubbing the embedded remote access point unthinkingly as I watched the miles clicking past, thinking thoughts of reintegration and upgrades.

The nanites were limited in quantity in me; that was understandable, but why would the ship rely on so few sentinels and the maintenance things?

I mean, if they could purify the seawater to refine materials, and send the machines out to harvest what they needed, there had to be a reason that the facility was ruined.

Was it as simple as a lack of a command to fix itself?

I’d heard about stranger shit, like when internet and telecoms providers had a few days’ blackout simply because the new software they’d all been using hadn’t included a command to boot back up installed on it, so when it went down, it stayed down, waiting for more orders?

Could it be that simple?

I nearly missed the turnoff, wondering about random shit, and had to cut across in front of a heavy goods truck, making it slam its horn, the driver screaming abuse at me out of the window as I quickly crossed the lanes. I took the slip-road and onto the regional road, dropping from the well-lit motorway to a far less well-maintained, older road, illuminated only by the headlights of the car and the occasional lights of the small villages.

The miles slipped by in a daze, broken by excited arguments behind me and the rumble of my stomach. Then Lars clambered forward and plugged his phone in again, setting some random heavy metal blaring.

As much as it wasn’t my style at all—hell, I didn’t really have a style, but still—I found myself enjoying some of the songs, before one sung in pirate style that was basically calling everyone wankers made me laugh out loud.

The last bit of the drive passed with me grinning like an idiot, listening to the crazy lyrics until we finally made it to the hotel.

Then the hardest part was smuggling the artifacts up to our room and hiding them—and convincing Lars and Ingrid to leave the damn things alone long enough to eat.

The remainder of the night most certainly did not go the way I wanted, as Lars and Ingrid spent hours in our room because it had the best lighting, arguing over the meanings of dots and dashes carved into the rims of the shields and other stupid details.

I spent the next few hours doing the last thing I wanted to: beginning to change my bones. Using my nanites in their thousands to start the transformation, I coated the outside in a kind of dense metal, eating away at the interior and creating storage lacunas.

I tried to distract myself by searching the island data for likely ruins, finding a handful, but in the end?

I gave up around two in the morning and went to sleep in Lars’s room, ignoring the slow, burning itch that filled my bones just for some peace and quiet.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The next day dawned bright and clear, with the warm, early-morning sun bathing the room in light, despite the damn curtains.

I sighed, sitting up slowly and looking around the room, wincing as I compared its simplicity to the luxury of our room, especially the way the balcony faced the rising sun, and the rectangle of light that surrounded the poorly fitting curtains.

I moved to the balcony doors, throwing the curtains back and blinking. Blinded by the sun, I opened the door, seeing the tiny chairs and table, much like the first room Ingrid and I had shared.

The heat of the day was already rising, the air warm, and the gentle breeze that came in off the sea made me sigh with love for this damn island.

I dressed quickly—the same clothes as I wore yesterday, but fuck it—and I headed up to our room, opening the door much as I had Lars’s, simply by pressing my hand to the lock and flowing nanites around it, literally picking the lock with a custom key . . . only to find the pair were still arguing, sandy-eyed and hyper on coffee and discovery.

“Neither of you have slept, have you?” I asked, looking around the room. It looked like a bomb had gone off in it, papers strewn everywhere, with the tablets on charge, the shields in the middle as they both pointed to different details, caught in mid-argument by my arrival.

“Sleep?” Ingrid mumbled, her jaw cracking with a yawn even as she let the word escape. “But we . . . it’s not that late. We just—” She glanced to the open doors of the balcony, seeing the sun, and for the first time consciously feeling the heat. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, glancing from her to Lars and back again. “So, breakfast time, or for you, supper, then the pair of you need to sleep.”

“No, it’s okay . . .” She yawned, jaws creaking again, as she knuckled the small of her back, and Lars peered mournfully into the empty bottom of his coffee cup.

“No, it’s not,” I replied flatly. “The pair of you need sleep, or you’ll be useless. Look, we know there’s probably another site by the Minoan Palace at Malia, but . . .”

“But?”

“But there might, and I mean might, be another close by. I found it last night.”

“Where?”

“How . . . close?” Lars yawned.

I shook my head. “Not close enough to let either of you come. You’d be asleep before we got out of the town. Look, it’s called Mochlos, and it’s a little island, used to be connected to the mainland.”

“How did you find it?” Ingrid asked, and I shrugged.

“You were both working on that stuff.” I gestured at the shields and jewelry. “I got bored, so I started looking for nearby sites. Most of them were crap, but I found four we should check out. Mochlos and Malia are both about the same, half an hour to forty-five minutes, but in opposite directions, with the site at Zakros the next closest, nearly three hours to the east.”

“And the last one?”

“Agneion,” I said. “It’s a much more recent find, barely uncovered at all, and on the far side of the island. We’re probably best taking a boat to get to it.”

“The family yacht is being moved over, so we could do that one last, but . . .”

“But?”

“But where was the first site you explored?” he asked, and I groaned, sitting on the edge of the table, folding my arms and looking at them.

“I’m not taking you there.”

“You don’t need to take us, I mean—”

“No, you’re not going on your own, either.”

“I’m a big boy, Steve. I’ll go where I please.” Lars sat up straighter, clearly banishing his tiredness as he glared at me.

“Okay, and you’ll make a great snack for the creatures in there. Oh, you’ll need to be careful, though. I laid nanofilament tripwires when I was escaping. They’re razor-sharp, and essentially a molecule thick, so when you find them? You’ll know.”

“Wait—”

“The site is still populated, Lars, seriously, by a pair of creatures marked as ‘Beta Level Threats’ by the system. As soon as I saw them, it basically told me to run like fuck, and I did.”

“What were they?”

“I have no clue. I ran, Lars; ain’t no chance I’m taking you there.”

“Okay, but—”

“No,” I said. “Look, I’m going for breakfast, you two can stay here if you want, but the state you’re both in? I’d suggest you come for food, then get some sleep. I’ll check out Mochlos and Zakros, see if I can identify anything that suggests a cave or anything we’d be interested in. Then I’ll come back, we can have dinner together, and discuss the next step.”

Ingrid started to speak, then broke off for another long yawn, before sighing and nodding her agreement.

“You’re right,” she said grudgingly, climbing awkwardly to her feet and stretching. “Gods, I need a shower.”

“I’ll go down and order breakfast. You both have a shower and wake up enough to eat. By the time you’ve done that, they’ll have made it. You can eat, then sleep,” I suggested, standing up.

“Sounds good,” Lars agreed, clapping me on the shoulder as I pulled him to his feet. I sent him to the door, pausing as I caught the look on Ingrid’s face.

“What?” I asked her, and she shrugged.

“It’s just the first time you’ve not tried to join me in the shower, that’s all. You’re not getting bored of me already, are you?”

“Don’t be daft,” I said, grinning and crossing the bedroom floor, taking her in my arms and kissing her.

“Hey, no fun time!” Lars called from the hallway, propping the door open. “I need coffee!”

“He’s getting piss in a cup if he thinks he’s interrupting me,” I muttered, getting a laugh from Ingrid, who kissed me again and pushed me off.

“Go on, I’ll be quick,” she promised. I smiled at her, still unable to believe that she was really mine.

I left her in the room and jogged down the hallway, catching Lars in the elevator and putting up with his barely coherent explanations of the people whose theories he’d already disproven with the discovery.

I kicked him out on his floor and moved on, nodding to a young couple who were going for breakfast at the same time as me, and snagged a big mug from behind the counter that was clearly not meant for the coffee service.

It held half the pot, and I breathed the heavenly scent in, settling back on my seat and watching up and down the main street while I waited for the staff to take my order.

I realized that the others hadn’t told me what they wanted, so I ordered them a large full English like mine and grabbed a couple of the tiny glasses of fruit juice, setting them out along with a mountain of toast, settling back, chewing idly on one buttered slice as I sat, listening to the snapping of the parasols and the early morning traffic.

“You’re up early this morning,” Val said with a smile, moving up and offering me the end of the coffee pot.

“I am. They’re up late,” I said, smiling and holding the mug out, accepting the last of the pot. Val smiled, then moved around, refilling it and setting the machine away again.

“This is damn good coffee,” I complimented.

“My vanity,” he replied with a wink. “The bridal suite, well, when I took the place over from my father, I knew we’d not get many takers for it, but the room? Knowing that it’s the level I could lift the hotel to?” He sighed. “My wife thinks it is a waste, like the coffee. But for me? It matters.”

“It’s seeing the potential,” I agreed. “You thought about taking on a loan or something? Get the whole hotel done up?”

“You don’t like my hotel?” he asked, frowning.

“You know I do,” I said with a wave. “But our room? If the whole place was that level—”

“I’d never be able to pay it off,” he said sadly. “The island is busy all summer, and the winters are steady, but the costs . . . the economy?” He shook his head. “It’d cost tens of thousands of euros, and it’d be the profits from the next ten years or more to pay it off, and that’s only if things were busy. If we had another season like the last few?”

I grunted, nodding as he moved off. I’d seen the damage the pandemic had done to the economy of the islands. These places relied on tourists; without them, that was it. They’d lost businesses in their hundreds.

“You look deep in thought,” Ingrid said a few minutes later, sliding into the seat next to me and kissing my cheek.

I turned, smiling and put my arm around her shoulders, tugging her in close and kissing her forehead.

“Just thinking.”

“Well, is it a secret?”

“No . . .”

“Then tell me!” she said in a mock serious tone that made me laugh as I shook my head, looking around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear.

“We can talk about it later,” I told her. “I was just thinking about the hotels that closed down, and wondering how expensive one would be to buy.”

“You want to . . . run a hotel?” she asked me, clearly surprised.

“Fuck no,” I corrected her. “I was thinking about owning one, not working in it!”

“But—”

“We’ve got the cash,” I said jerking my head upwards towards our room. “And we’ve got Lars. I bet he could launder it so that its untraceable.”

“What do you think Lars does?” She laughed. “He’s an archeologist!”

“A rich one.”

“He’s still an archeologist,” she pointed out, shaking her head. “He’s not going to know anything about money laundering.”

“I know enough,” I said slowly, musingly. “It’d be easier with his help, but—”

“But what?” Lars asked, sitting down with a groan.

“Just thinking,” I said, dismissing the thoughts as I slid the toast into the middle of the table. “Right, I didn’t know what you wanted, so . . .”

Soon I was back on the road, sunglasses on, smiling to myself as I climbed the hill, the car purring smoothly as I drove, and the sun reflecting off the sea to my left like a thousand rolling sapphires.

I followed the road, finding the world was so different, now that I was “outside” of society, more or less.

Knowing that, if I needed money, I could literally just hack a cash machine, or rob a drug dealer, or whatever . . .

I thought to the conversation I’d had with Val, and the love he had for the hotel, wondering just how much it’d cost to fix it up, and entertained myself with a fantasy of opening a hotel of my own, spending a year or two hiding as a hotel owner, living a life filled with great sex with Ingrid and eating good food, drinking good drink, and . . .

I blinked, suddenly seeing what I’d driven past several times this morning already. A young family of refugees, standing by the side of the road, holding up pictures and trying to get anyone to look at them. The husband and father, or so I assumed, was wearing tattered clothes, filthy, clearly exhausted emotionally as well as physically. He held a small child, barely old enough to walk, to his leg.

His other hand rested atop the head of another, a daughter perhaps six or seven years old, who was holding up a photo and clearly begging for help.

And I growled to myself. While I would be enjoying the good life, living it up, how many would the lycanthropes kill? How many holiday makers had literally just been killed on this one island this year by the goddamn monsters?

I’d seen the missing persons reports before this, and I’d barely paid attention. The murders had gotten more notice, but still, until I needed something to do, I’d ignored them as well, happily floating in the sea and screwing young women on holiday.

For it to be that easily dismissed, for there not to be a major manhunt or investigations or whatever, that meant it was so common that it was ignored.

That, in turn, meant . . . well. It wouldn’t be just this island. If it was, then there’d be a worldwide condemnation. That meant . . . that meant that the number of people going missing every day had to be in the hundreds of thousands, all around the world, and nobody besides their immediate families even cared.

“I care,” I growled to myself as I slammed the brakes on and pulled over, making the car behind me brake sharply, then hammer on his horn.

He nearly drove into the back of me and started to get out of the car, shouting something in Greek as I got out of my car and started walking back towards the family.

The look on my face when I glared at the driver who’d been behind me was enough, and he ducked back inside the car, pulling away and waiting until he felt safe before sending a rude hand gesture my way.

I ignored him, striding back down the road, pausing at the look on the man’s face.

He was terrified.

“What happened?” I asked him, and he said something I couldn’t make out to the daughter, who answered, haltingly.

“My madre . . . mother . . . she taken. No come bed.”

“Where and when?” I asked her, nodding to the father and crouching until I was closer to the little girl’s size. “Don’t be afraid.”

I paused, seeing the struggle that she was having, and I held up one hand as I connected to my phone and started to search, trying a few words of each language, searching for one she understood.

Three attempts later, she gasped and looked up at her father, who answered quickly.

“You understand me?” he asked me in Armenian.

“I do,” I said, straightening up. “Go slowly, but explain what happened.”

“They came . . . took her, my wife.”

“Who took her?” I asked, and he responded with a word I couldn’t understand. “What?”

“Takers . . . ah. They move things . . . illegally,” he explained, glancing around nervously and eyeing me—and my size.

“People smugglers?” I asked him, and he nodded. “Where?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head “They took her, and then were gone.”

“Describe them. I need something to start with.”

“I don’t know,” he whispered, blinking back tears. “They said they would take us to Europe, but the money, it cost so much. They brought us here, and then . . .”

I looked at the photo and nodded to myself. She was pretty, the woman, smiling in the photo, holding her husband and children, clearly in better times.

“The only place they go that I know of.”

“Yes?” I asked, glancing back at him.

“The bar, on the edge of the harbor.”

“Where?”

He pointed back, down the hill to where the street bent to the right, leading away from the main road I’d been on.

I’d been thinking they were victims of the lycanthropes, or some other monster, but fuck it, human monsters would do just as nicely.

I realized as I took directions from him that I was coldly furious, and I didn’t know why. I felt guilty as all hell for having been enjoying a nice drive in the sun while these people . . .

I glanced at the children and back at the father, seeing the hungry looks, the filth, and the general desperate condition of them, as well as the fear.

They didn’t know if I was going to make their situation worse or better, and still, I was the only hope they had.

“Did you go to the police?” I asked him.

“We are illegal,” he whispered, afraid.

“You were smuggled here, and now you’ve nobody to turn to,” I agreed, nodding. “Fine, look here,” I said, turning him around and pointing at the older side of town, and at the tall old hotel with the red tiled lines on the roof. “You see that building? The one with the red?” He nodded. “Go there. Ask for Val, the owner, and tell him Steve said to give you a room and food. I’ll meet you there.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “There’s no cost.”

He nodded, blushing and bowing his head in thanks before starting to offer the photo to me, clearly desperately wanting to hold onto it, and yet knowing it’d make my efforts easier.

“Keep it,” I said to him. I knew damn well the numbers of people that the smugglers would be funneling through and how much harder not having the photo would make things, but that was fine. It was all they had of her, and I couldn’t risk losing it.

I was going to find her regardless.

I set off back to the car, jumping in and ignoring the traffic, the horns, and screaming brakes as I pulled out into the road, doing a full turn and heading back the way I’d come.

I was acting stupid. Hell, I wasn’t goddamn acting. I was being stupid; I was stupid, but the sight of that family . . . the father with nowhere to turn to, the daughter having to translate for him because nobody spoke his language here, the little one.

The smallest child—I’d not even seen their face, they were so terrified that not even the badly spoken sound of their own language had been enough to make them look up from the safety of their father’s embrace.

I forced myself to slow down, knowing myself well enough to know I was on the ragged edge and how dangerous that was, especially when I was a wanted man already.

A “reserved” sign was posted on the parking bay as I pulled up in front of the bar. Ignoring it, I checked for cameras, finding seven, far more than a “bar” needed. I reached out, sinking into the system and finding eleven more throughout the building, including four that showed . . . that showed a dozen people in cages. I snarled in fury, killing all the cameras.

I got out and strode in the door, looking about as the barman came out from behind the bar, glaring from me to the car. The three girls sat at a table in the middle looking at a menu, while the bar ran along the left side and the back in an L shape.

“’Now then, now then! Ya canna park there!” he snapped at me, prodding me in the chest with a finger.

My smile was ice cold. “The smugglers,” I demanded. “Where.”

“I . . . I don’t know” he started to say in a thick Manchester accent. I grabbed him by the finger, breaking it and making him scream, the sound cut off when I wrapped my hand around his throat, lifting him, furious. I’d seen the look on his face as soon as I’d spoken. He knew, and he was trying to decide what to say.

“You get one chance,” I hissed. “Then I hurt you.”

“Look, mate, seriously, I don—”

“Do I look like someone who’s going to take your shit well?” I snarled at him, shaking him like a ragdoll. “You’re going to tell me where they are . . . only question is if you’re alive when I leave!”

I reached out, grabbing a brass railing that ran along the front of the bar, and slowly, while he watched, bug-eyed, I tore it free, the soft brass bending under my fury. I pulled it completely clear and threw it across the bar to smash a stack of bottles and glasses.

“The bar’s closed!” I shouted at the three girls over one shoulder. “Get out!”

The sound of their chairs hitting the floor as they ran for it echoed in the sudden silence left after the last of the glass finished tinkling to the floor.

“Please,” he grunted out. “You dinna ken what they’ll do to me.”

“What the hell do you think I’m going to do?” I snarled, pulling him in close, eyeing him from an inch as I squeezed his throat.

“Please,” he whispered as the door at the back of the bar banged open, and a pair of men walked out, carrying baseball bats.

“Put him down,” one of them said threateningly. “Maybe you’ll live.”

“Yeah,” I replied, dropping him and starting forwards. “Maybe you will.”

“I’m gonna give you one chance,” the one on the right said, pointing at me. “Who the hell are you, and what’s this about?”

“I want the smuggler, and the girls in the cage.”

“Benny,” he called to the barman, who was gasping on the floor. “Lock the doors.”

“Yeah, Benny,” I agreed. “Go lock the doors.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” one of them said slowly.

“Oh, I do,” I said, grinning as an utter readiness for lethal violence came over me, all doubt as to their innocence floating free, and all cares with it. “You’re a cover for people smuggling.”

“And what’s that to you?”

“It means that nobody’s going to miss you.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

I strode forwards, holding my hands out in invitation as I spoke.

“You’ve got a woman. You’ve taken her from her family, and I know you’ve got more than one.”

They stepped forwards together, spreading out to come at me from either side, and I sneered at the blatant attempt, letting them come.

The one on the left, tall, dark-haired, and with a face only a mother could love—and a trollish one at that—smiled, exposing broken and rotting teeth, before lunging forwards, lifting the bat overhead and smashing a light.

He looked up, then snarled and swung ahead anyway, even as his friend, shorter, balder, and fatter, but clearly the brains of the operation, struck again, swinging his bat from left to right, planning on catching me between the pair.

Instead, I summoned my nanite gauntlets and blocked both blows. The bat to my right bounced off, its wielder grunting with the effort, while the overhead blow—I’d caught that one, and I extruded my claws, digging them into the bat as he tried to tug it free.

“Strike one,” I whispered at him, yanking the bat free and tossing it to my right, hitting that guy in the face and sending him staggering to one knee, blinking through swimming vision.

The big man growled, lifting his fists and dropping into what he clearly thought was a boxing stance, his feet too wide and elbows in too close, betraying a lack of any training. I stepped forwards, slapping his slow haymaker aside and shoving him hard in the side, sending him staggering.

“Strike two.”

He growled, catching himself on the girls’ vacated table. The thug shoved off it, head down, sending their abandoned drinks, colorful umbrellas and more crashing to the floor as he ran at me.

He hit me in the gut, even my enhanced size and strength unable to overcome the rules of physics as he lifted me and rammed me into the wall, drawing back and punching me in the face, hard.

The blow was hard enough to turn my face, slightly, and he whimpered, shaking his knuckles, having broken three fingers on my metal-plated cheekbones.

“That’s strike three,” I whispered, and he glanced back at me, not understanding, until my left hand closed over his face, and I squeezed, the cracking of bones in his face ringing out along with his pained squeal.

I glared at the other two as I straightened up, the big man collapsing to his knees as I pulled down on his face and the pain broke him.

“Bring them out. All of them,” I forced out between gritted teeth, glaring at the other two. “Or I swear, I’ll gut the pair of you.”

“No, you won’t,” said a voice from my left, and I turned. The door behind the bar had opened, and a man strode out. Tall, short blond hair, a shitty attempt at a beard, and . . . a shotgun held aimed at me.

“Drop it,” I told him.

“Fuck you.” He sneered as he pulled the trigger, staggering me, then pumping the shotgun again and firing the second barrel into my side from a range of ten feet and knocking me from my feet into the wall.

“Who the fuck was he?!” the newcomer snarled at the other two. “Get Johann out of here, and cover the windows!” he barked at the other two.

I blinked, then shook my head, my side screaming in pain, but . . . but it was just pain. I could feel the itching as nanites flowed, repairing and pushing out the shot already, my bones fine.

I’d dropped the big guy and was half-slumped over, braced on the floor. I stared down at my hands, at the scuffed and filthy wood beneath them, and growled in the back of my throat, pushing myself up and touching my side. Feeling the exposed bones, coated in their new metal.

They were all watching me now as I straightened to my full height, cracking my neck, rolling my shoulders and flexing my fingers.

“My turn, motherfucker,” I snarled, striding forwards to the man with the shotgun.

He started swearing, fumbling a pair of fresh cartridges out of a pocket, cracking the stock open and hissing as he pulled the empty ones free, tossing them aside.

He managed to get one in, dropping the other and snapping it closed, lifting it and aiming for my head. I grabbed the barrel in my left hand and yanked them up, letting it discharge harmlessly into the ceiling, salting me in plaster dust as I drove my Harvest Blade through his chest.

He was human, eight hundred and fourteen attuned nanites, a thousand and fifty-four corrupt, but fuck it, no reason to waste them. I ripped them free before tossing his corpse aside and turning to face the other two.

“Don’t run,” I said flatly. “You’ll only die tired.”

I didn’t know where I’d got the quote from, but it had the desired effect, and they sprinted for the door, leaving the one they’d identified as Johann on the floor clutching his face and weeping, lost in his own private hell.

I took two quick steps, then stabbed forwards with the Harvest Blade. Taking Benny in the back of the thigh, I sent him screaming to the floor before I ripped it free and slashed my arm out. The nanites flowed into a new configuration as they formed a whip. The tip looped around the other man’s calf, connecting to the rest to form a noose then extruding razor-sharp spines.

I pulled back, hard, and sawed clean through his lower leg, the foot flying free and the whip flashing back towards me, coating the crying Benny in his friend’s blood.

“Fuck’s sake, need to work on that,” I muttered to myself before whipping the, well, the whip forwards to loop around the now-one-footed man’s throat.

I didn’t extend the spikes this time, and instead I pulled, dragging him back across the floor, coughing and gasping, frantically pawing at the loop in panic.

“Benny!” I called to the barman. “Wait outside and tell anyone who comes exactly what you, and these fucks, have been doing. If you don’t, and I have to come and find you?”

He glanced back as I released the other man from the whip, drawing it back into my hand.

I lifted my clawed gauntlet and slammed it down on the whimpering man’s back, digging the claws in and tearing, making him scream in pain.

“I’ll be annoyed,” I warned him, exposing my teeth in as feral a snarl as I’d ever managed. “Now GET OUT.”

He ran for it.

With that done, and no idea if he’d keep running or if he’d be a good boy and wait outside, probably bleeding to death in the process, I released my claws, then sank them into the shoulder of the man below me, turning him over and looking down at him.

I’d seen the way he was desperately trying to stop the blood that was gushing from the severed foot, and I’d assumed he was out of the fight, so I was totally surprised when he rammed a six-inch folding blade into my stomach.

I smacked his hand away. The claws tore deep furrows in his arm as I glared down at it then hissed in fury. Dropping to one knee, I slapped my hand down over his chest.

“How many more are there here?” I asked him in a hiss, as my claws slowly extended, digging wells into his chest that quickly filled with blood.

“I . . . I . . . please! I’m dying!” he squealed.

“Yes . . . and very, very painfully,” I promised him. “SPEAK!” I increased the pressure with my claws, and he shrieked.

“Three!” I lifted my hand ever so slightly, stopping my claws, and waited. “There’s three! The boss, his man, and a-a client.”

“A client,” I repeated flatly. “A fucking client. And what are they paying for?”

He went silent, and I increased the pressure slowly, sinking the claws in deeper.

“The girls!” He whimpered, clutching at my hand and trying to pry my fingers out. “Please . . .”

“The girls,” I repeated, gritting my teeth and shaking my head in fury. “Last question: where?”

“The . . . back room! Stairs . . . down to the basement!” he howled out. I nodded, lifting my other gauntlet into sight and flexing those claws as well. “NO!” He whimpered. “You . . . you have to let me go. I told you . . . what you wanted—”

“And that’s why you die quick,” I snarled, lifting my right hand and ramming the Harvest Blade into his heart, ripping his nanites free.

I stood then, dripping with blood and coldly furious as I marched around the bar and through the doors marked “staff only.”

There was a storeroom behind, a dozen stacks of beers, cases of various liquors, some random crap that looked to have been moved from other rooms . . . and behind a mop and bucket that had been knocked over, a door leading to a stairwell.

I strode through, pulling the Harvest Blade back and reforming the gauntlets, my mood black enough that I needed the claws.

The stairwell was badly lit, a single neon tube that flickered and blinked, seemingly on the verge of giving out entirely. As I reached the bottom, the twin smells of seawater and shit filtered out to greet me from somewhere ahead.

I growled to myself, passing rooms that led off a central corridor, glancing in and finding them empty, most simple storerooms. But as I passed through another set of doors marked “Private,” the smells intensified, and I picked up the rhythmic grunting of sex and a voice crying weakly for help.

The door ahead on the right-hand side opened, and an Eastern European man stepped out, newspaper held casually in his left hand, pen raised as he lifted his head, calling out towards me as if totally unconcerned.

“Five across, starts with a D. ‘As sure as taxes.’”

“Death,” I said flatly, and his head whipped around, seeing me closing the distance to him.

“Kurwa!” he cursed, backing up and reaching for a gun. A crash came from behind him preceding another, bigger man, his hair short and buzz cut, muscles straining at the tight T-shirt he wore, came barreling out of the office, a claw hammer in his hand.

I blocked the swing, deflecting the hammer aside, and slashed my claws down his chest, tearing the top open and making him gasp in pain before he snap-kicked me in the chest.

I staggered back two steps, then slashed both hands down, crossing over in an X pattern as he hopped and snapped out a second kick.

I missed as he dropped to the floor, spinning and hooking my leg, taking me down and rolling over me.

He grabbed both my arms and straddled me, the speed that he pinned me making it clear that he was both an experienced and damn skilled fighter.

He was more skilled than me, certainly . . . but he was also human.

I glared up at him and formed a spike of nanites from my chest, driving it forwards, the tip jutting out of his back as I skewered his heart.

He grunted, the force he was using to hold me pinned evaporating as his muscles went slack, leaving only his weight as his hands lifted, shaking, to touch the spear.

He lifted his head, staring at me. I growled, driving the Harvest Blade into his side and feeding it.

“Mariusz?” the other man called.

I lifted us both, clambering to my feet, and glaring around the body of the enforcer, at the man who’d been pegged as the boss.

He blanched, seeing me clearly in control, and the spike jutting from his man’s back, then opened fire, three bullets slamming into the unfortunate Mariusz, who was already dead, eyes rolled back in his head as he sagged.

The boss swore and turned, running in the opposite direction.

I threw the body aside, running forward only to have a bearded and hairy man open the door to my right and plow straight into me, taking us both to the ground.

I growled, shoving him away from me, sending him crying out in shock, as I glanced from the boss, who rounded a corner ahead out of sight, and into the room the man had come from.

There were two women in chains, he was naked from the waist down, and . . .

My mind blanked at the sight of the third body in the room, the blood, and . . . and what he’d clearly been doing.

I growled, coming to my feet and grabbing him by the throat, lifting him and slamming him into the wall and staring into his eyes.

“You sick, sick fuck,” I whispered, unable to say more, as he wheezed out in reply.

“Don’t . . . am the . . . mayor of—” I didn’t let him finish. He wasn’t the mayor in this town; the re-election signs were for a woman. I didn’t give a shit where he was from, not after what I’d just seen.

I rammed the Harvest Blade into his chest, tearing the nanites free and dropping him on the floor, dead, and far too slowly.

I knew I was going to have nightmares over the sight of what he’d been doing in that room, but he was the mayor of somewhere, and they deserved to know what a fuckhead rapist deviant he was.

I discarded the body, running after the boss, turning the corner and finding a set of steel stairs leading down to a second level, one with two cages, filled with people.

At the far end, I saw a metal hatch and the terrified eyes of the man as he dropped through, pulling it closed after him.

I ran, covering the distance in a handful of leaps, dropping to the floor and sliding to a halt, yanking on the hatch and finding it locked.

I snarled, heaving, then extruded the blade and punched it through, flexing it out and “seeing” the far side in grainy, radar-like resolution.

It took a second to make sense of it, then the blade was flowing, nanites reforming and filling the padlock, flexing and popping it open, then pouring back as I yanked the door upwards.

Just in time to see the small inflatable that tore away in a jet of water.

I’d lost him, and above I could already hear the wail of approaching sirens. I let out a furious scream, pounding my fists on the hatch, then stood, heading back to the cages, popping the locks off and pulling the doors free, searching until I found the woman I was looking for.

“You,” I snapped, making her draw back in fear. “It’s all right,” I said, forcing myself to smooth my tone as best I could. “Your family sent me,” I said. “Come with me, and I’ll take you to them.”

She was hesitant at first, and I didn’t have the time to fuck about, not with the police and more coming. I grabbed her, tossing her over my shoulder as I marched towards the hatch, pausing as I glanced into a posh office, clearly supposed to be secure, but unlocked.

I grabbed a large duffle bag that was wrapped in plastic, opening it and dumping the laptop from the desk inside, then resealing it, and hoping it’d survive what was to come.

“The police are coming. Free the others and claim asylum here. It’s your best chance,” I ordered the rest as I kicked the hatch free, then hesitated, before going on. “I’d appreciate if none of you remembered what I look like.” I repeated it twice more, once in Greek and once in Armenian, just in case, then turned away.

With that, I stepped forwards, dropping through the hatch and landing on the jetty below, running to the left towards the beach in the distance.

The underside of the bar was raised up on a series of metal and concrete pylons, with a floating jetty for tourists or stock or something, rather than people smuggling. At the end, where the cliff face climbed upwards, was a narrow walkway that led down to the water.

“Can you swim?” I called to the woman, getting a panicked “little bit” in response. “We’re going to dive into the water, swim to the beach, then we walk up the steps and get into my car like we’ve been on the beach for a quick swim,” I told her, setting her down and getting a nervous nod.

“My . . . husband—”

“He’s on his way to meet us at a friend’s place,” I assured her. “Now go!”

She paused, glancing back at me nervously, and down at herself. She was wearing what was obviously only her underwear, and I gestured for her to move, my mind already working.

She dove in, her head popping to the surface as she spluttered, then struck out for the beach, and I dove in after her, quickly catching up and herding her along, washing the blood off as I went.

It took ten minutes, and by the time we were walking past people on a busy sand and pebble-covered beach, the police presence and the ambulances had drawn almost every eye upwards.

I led her forwards, stooping and grabbing a woman’s bag, towel, and a wrap, tossing the latter two to my companion, who tugged them on quickly, then took the bag, pulling a hat free and putting it on, followed by sunglasses.

We wove through the crowd, backs turned as they were to the sea, watching the flashing lights from above and the shouts as the police stormed the smugglers’ pub.

We climbed the stairs fast, keeping her on the cliff-side of the stairs. A shout rose from the beach that someone had been robbed just as we topped the climb and passed from sight.

I led the way through the gathered crowds to where a single harassed copper was trying to field questions and keep people back from the crime scene.

“Hey, mate, that’s my car!” I called to him. He glared at me, then back, seeing I was parked literally on his side of the barrier he’d just erected, and in a space that another ambulance was trying to edge around.

“For god’s . . . fine!” he snapped. “Get it out of here! This is a crime scene!”

“Sorry!” I called, smiling widely and guiding the woman to the passenger seat, then jumping in and starting the car up, edging forwards and past a pair of frantically working paramedics. Benny lay on a stretcher, his face grey with blood loss, and the girls I’d kicked out earlier were staring wide-eyed at me. I dropped my window as we passed them and winked.

They backed up, clearly terrified, and I just hoped that when they heard what the place actually was, they’d keep their mouth shut . . . or the fact that I’d obviously recognized them now, after sparing them earlier, would keep their mouths shut.

I pulled over on the way up the bank, letting two more police cars pass, then out onto the main road at the top, turning right and heading back into the town, all the while hoping I’d not been caught on camera anywhere.

“Who . . . you?” The woman asked me in broken English.

I shrugged. “Just a friend.”

“No . . . no friends here,” she whispered brokenly. Tears ran from edges of her stolen sunglasses.

I reached over, thinking to grip her hand, offering comfort, and she flinched away from me.

I pulled my hand back quickly, having no idea what the hell she’d been through and not wanting to make it any worse than I already had in forcing her to come with me this far.

The rest of the journey was in silence, thankfully, as I had no idea what the hell I would do if she asked to get out. I was still wondering as I pulled up before the hotel, stopping the engine and putting the handbrake on, as I turned to her, unsure what to say.

“Look,” I said in her language in the end. “Your husband asked me to find you. I told him to come here. I’ll arrange a room for you and your family, then you can decide what to do.

“Personally? I think this is a wonderful island, and I’d recommend asking for asylum here, but I don’t know you or your needs, or what it’s like to apply for asylum here. You’ll have to make that decision for yourself. Either way, I’d appreciate it if you forgot who I am and what I look like.”

With that, I popped the door and climbed out, walking around the car and opening her door, guiding her out, then up the steps.

Val was there waiting; I swear the fucker never slept. No matter when I was there, so was he, and he smiled in greeting at us.

“Val, my friend, I came across a family in need of some help,” I started, seeing the look of concern on his face and smiling despite myself. “I’ll pay for it, but can you arrange a room? Her husband and two little ones are coming.”

“Of course, of course. I have a room being cleaned now, only two beds, but I can move a third in. It’s all I have, but—”

“It . . . good. Thank you,” she whispered.

“It’s being cleaned now. Maybe ten minutes?” Val suggested. “A drink, and some food perhaps?”

“Please.” She nodded eagerly.

Val guided her to a table in the corner, speaking gently to her before returning to me. He paused for a moment, looking me over, then jerked his head to the small office behind the counter.

I followed him, sitting on the edge of his desk as he called for someone else to take over the front, then closed the door, turning to me.

“Steve, what’s going on?” he asked me softly. “Do I need to know anything about her and her family?”

I paused, weighing things up before answering, then decided honesty was the best policy.

“She’s a refugee, victim of a people-smuggling operation. Her husband begged for help, as did her kids. I couldn’t say no.”

“The bastards,” he growled, shaking his head. “There are rumors that there are some here, here in my town! But to see this, to see the fear on her face—”

“I know,” I agreed. Then, cursing myself, I opened my mouth, then closed it again, not sure if I should say anything else.

“If I was a younger man,” he whispered, his fists curling tight as he shook with suppressed rage. “I—I—in the army, we—”

“Just do me a favor, Val,” I said slowly. “Don’t ask any questions, not about anything . . . you might suspect.”

“Suspect?” He frowned. “You’re not—”

“No, fuck no, I’m not involved with that scum. I just mean, if you were to hear tales of . . . anything happening . . . maybe don’t ask me any questions?”

He glanced at me, then the black duffel bag that sat on the floor between us, a puddle already forming around it, then back at me, before glancing at the screens on the wall that showed the entrance.

He stood, clearly thinking for a few seconds, then reached over and pulled the hard drive free of the recording device and passed it to me.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said slowly. “But I know enough to bet on a friend.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Thank you, Val,” I whispered, his trust prickling my eyes with tears. I straightened up, lifting the bag and unzipping it. I looked inside, then snorted, shaking my head as I tossed the camera hard drive in, much gladder than I had been before that it was truly waterproof. I pulled a bundle of notes out, bound with elastic bands.

It had to be a few thousand euros at least, probably five or ten, and I tossed it to him, grinning as he caught it awkwardly, eyes popping wide at the sight.

“Looks like that should pay for their room and maybe help towards that dream of redecorating, eh?” I said with a wink as he nodded fervently.

“This . . . this is too much!”

“I took it from those who hurt her,” I said, shaking my head. “They . . . they don’t need it anymore.”

He hesitated, then nodded firmly, putting the money in a small safe and patting me on the shoulder as I stepped around him.

“What will you do now?” he asked me.

“I was going for a drive when I met her husband. I’m going to try that again.”

“And the bag?” he asked.

“I’m . . . damn,” I said, shaking my head. “I was going to put it in my room, but I don’t want to wake Ingrid.”

“I can lock this room, and nobody but me has a key,” he offered. “I can give it to her when she comes down?”

I paused, thinking. We both knew, or suspected what was in here, certainly enough to tie me to the multiple murders, as well as a fuckton of cash and something balled up and wrapped in plastic that I assumed by the look to be drugs.

But . . . well, it was trust time, I guessed. He’d shown he trusted me, giving me the hard drive, and even if I was basically just giving it right back to him, stored in the bag as it was, that wasn’t the point.

I nodded and handed it over to him, grinning as he grunted a little at the unexpected weight.

“Keep it dry, will you? There’s a laptop in there I need to work on later,” I asked. He nodded, turning and rooting in a carrier bag for some recently bought towels.

“I’ll repack it for you,” he said, pausing and looking me in the eye. “And every euro that’s there now will be there after, on my honor.”

“I trust you,” I said with a smile, patting his shoulder and heading out of the office. The woman sat in the corner, hands wrapped around a soft drink can and head down, hair concealing her face from anyone passing by.

I nodded to her, damn sure that, after everything, she was watching through the concealing curtain of hair, and I plucked a coffee cup off the bar, pouring myself one with a wink at Val and heading back out.

I jogged down the three steps to the pavement and paused, seeing a familiar sight walking up the street.

A man in tattered and filthy clothes, his daughter by his side, holding his hand, and the little one—a small boy with huge eyes—staring at the world as his father carried him with one tired arm.

I nodded to the man, who stuttered to a stop staring at me, obviously recognizing me as well.

I nodded again, then inclined my head to the hotel and restaurant behind me.

He stood motionless for a second, likely terrified of finding that his hope was misplaced, afraid of what he’d find. Then he was moving, the little one bouncing and clinging to him tight, wide-eyed, as the daughter ran as well, dragged along by his hand.

The father saw her first, freezing and gasping as she lifted her head, the hair falling away. She stared back in frozen shock. Then the daughter saw her, screaming “Mama!” in her own language and pulling free of her father. The mother stood, almost tipping the table over in her desperation to get free of it, and ran forwards. The father and toddler joined them as all four came together in an explosion of tears, reaching arms, and sobs, both parents collapsing to their knees, arms wrapped around the bawling kids.

I got into the car, clearing my throat awkwardly, blinking tears away and forcing out a cough. Starting the engine to back out, I glanced back at Val standing behind them.

He caught my eye and nodded, a brief smile quirking his lips and his own eyes red. Then he was greeting the family, guiding them into a corner and calling for his staff to bring drinks and food.

I pulled away, following the road and picking up speed, before glancing in the rearview mirror, and letting out a long sigh.

I was an asshole, generally. Hell, that was what I’d shown the world for so long that it’d become my armor, but . . .

But that, that had felt good.

The second attempt to reach Mochlos was far less interesting, taking nearly an hour this time, mainly because the damn police had closed a main road off thanks to somebody going all “murderhobo,” according to a guy I asked when sitting in traffic.

Eventually, though, I made it there, and shortly after, I sat on a covered terrace, waiting with a cold drink, enjoying the pleasant sea breeze while I waited for the tiny fishing boat that did double duty as a ferry from the floating pier by the bar.

It was loading the handful of tourists onboard currently. The tiny island was only a hundred meters off the shore, and the three tourists who had been exploring simply rang the bell on the island when they were ready to be collected, and the boat ran across for them.

The island was a victim of the rising water levels, according to my research, meaning that there were even odds that if there were caverns here somewhere, then they may be long submerged.

That was fine, though, as I sat in the sun, relaxing, totally unknown by anyone nearby and enjoying the combination of the breeze . . . and the short, redheaded tourist’s very small bikini top.

Two older men sat at the table next to me; apparently the subject of the tiny bikini had been a topic of conversation for the last half an hour. The small stack of coins was being added to steadily as they guessed when, not if, it would give up its fight.

I shook my head bemusedly as she waved excitedly at something one of her friends had said. The eldest of the betting pair, easily in his seventies put another coin down on the table.

They were picking times, such as between five to and the hour, and placing a bet on if it’d be then, if not, the coin went in the pile.

That pile was steadily growing as they waited, and I managed to hold a laugh down as she ran from the back of the small boat to the front and waved at the pair, who’d obviously talked to her earlier.

The eldest waved back, getting a reproach for cheating from the other for encouraging the strain on “that lucky cloth.”

I couldn’t help but grin, rising to my feet as the boat puttered closer, the small engine making the journey slow, but nobody here was in any rush.

I wandered down to the little pier, offering my hand and catching the first tourist’s wrist as she hopped across, smiling as she thanked me. The man behind her ignored my offered hand, jumping clear and turning his back to me in an obvious claim on the redhead’s attention.

I grinned; all four of them were barely twenty, and while the age gap wasn’t that much between us, fuck, the mileage clearly was.

I stepped back, letting him catch her as she jumped, and I leaped past them onto the boat, nodding a greeting to the pilot. He nodded back, turning the boat and pushing the engine . . . as a cheer rose from behind me.

I looked back, grinning as I saw the girl covering herself, looking embarrassed but laughing… as the second girl, who’d been acting all sweet and innocent, slid the guy’s wallet from his pocket, even as the older of the two men swept the coins to his side of the table.

I’d seen her up close as we passed, and while she had been nice enough, there was no way that material hadn’t given way already several times that day. The fact she was still wearing it, with a top tied around her waist?

They were clearly a very experienced pair, the busty one acting as distraction, and the more non-descript as pickpocket.

I dismissed it. The guys were old enough that it was a valuable lesson for them. I moved back to the pilot, handing over the five euro note for the trip and nodding at his thanks before moving to the bow again, readying myself.

It seemed to take no time at all, then I was jumping free, landing on the ancient stones, and waving at the pilot, as he turned again, returning to the bar.

I paused, having no real idea what I was looking for, beyond a hidden passage. Suddenly, it seemed a bit bloody stupid, really.

The ruins on the island had been uncovered years ago, so surely someone would have found something if it was here to be found. But when I’d compared the size, the location, and more of the last two, this had been picked up as likely. Hell, it was the most likely on the entire greater island.

I wandered back and forth for half an hour or so, covering the entire island in that time before sitting on the top and staring out to sea. My back was to the vast majority of the ruins and the little village.

“It’s underwater, isn’t it?” I muttered to myself, shaking my head. “No shorts. Dammit.” I resolved that next time I’d damn well wear my swimming shorts.

I stood, dusting myself off, and moved to the edge, then climbed down, reaching the small beach. Out of sight of the village, I stripped off and hid everything under a pile of rocks.

There were several nude beaches on the island. Hell, I’d been to one once; it was oddly freeing, as well as utterly non-arousing, which had surprised me.

There was one girl there that was reasonably attractive, and at least fifty older men spread out around her. I’d not gone there for that, but it had looked like mating season for walruses, all that grey hair and masses of blubber. I’d lasted maybe an hour before leaving.

I’d also, somehow, managed to sunburn my cock when I was there, so that was the end of my nudist tendencies.

I knew that the locals weren’t really bothered about nudists, so that was a bit of a relief if a local came around the corner. Most likely, the worst I’d get is told to get dressed, as opposed to in the UK where I’d be dragged before a judge. But still, that didn’t mean I really needed the hassle.

I waded out into the water, sighing at the pleasant coolness compared to the heat of midday, and dove in as soon as it was deep enough.

It felt glorious as I swam out. I reveled for a long minute in just the feeling of the waves on my body, not to mention I’d never actually been swimming naked. Well, I had, twice, but both times I was drunk, and with a young lady in the dark.

Neither of us had any interest in the swimming, and I’d found swimming with my rudder deployed a weirder experience anyway.

More recently as well I’d just escaped from a sunken death trap of a spaceship at the time, and was worried an extra from a shark movie was going to bite my cock off. I’d not really relaxed, at the time.

Just swimming comfortably now, naked, was an altogether different thing. I relaxed for a few minutes, glorying in the nanites’ ability to process water and allow me to breathe without flooding my lungs.

I had no idea how it worked, just that I didn’t feel a need to breathe for several minutes, and even then, it was more of a slight discomfort rather than “oh fuck, I’m dead.”

I swam back up to the surface, surprised by how far I’d swum out, took a few deep breaths, then ducked back under, swimming down deeper and following the barely visible overgrown paths of stone that led out to the drop-off.

I flipped over, floating, and looked around. The level the original buildings were at had been much lower, nearly twenty meters, by the look of the depth I was floating at, and the sandy depression that fell away sharply from there.

I swam deeper, following a set of regular indentations, then shook myself and floated upwards. Nothing.

I spent the next hour slowly circling the outside of the island, returning to the surface every so often. As I was about to give up, I noticed a darker section, recessed in a smoother section. A mass of sponges covered it until I was at just the right level.

I rose to the surface and breathed slowly and deeply, waving to the boat. They waved back, having come looking for me, then returned to shore.

They must have been wondering what the hell I could find to entertain me for that long out of sight. I chuckled internally as I swam back down, knowing damn well what I was planning on doing out of sight with Ingrid when I brought her here.

I flipped over, gently pushing with both hands, feeling the greater effort required to keep me afloat since I began the change and, again, banished the itch from my mind, the spare nanites I’d absorbed having already been spent on the project.

I swam forwards, watching carefully, and before heading inside, finding a narrow passage filled with . . . choke points.

There were deliberately narrowed sections, walls built out on either side with a small space between them where a defender could face down superior numbers from in front or behind.

That was the detail that made me nod in satisfaction. I swam faster.

Even if the entire passage was submerged, this was a defensive point, and that meant . . .

A set of steps ahead were topped with a shimmer, and I picked up speed . . . then slowed, reaching out as I remembered the big fuckers. I breeched the surface, breathing out and tasting . . . stale air.

The air in this chamber was . . . fuck, it was old.

I blinked the water away that ran down out of my hair, and I slowly turned my head, searching for the source of the light that dimly illuminated everything.

I blinked again, realizing that it was . . . it was a crystal.

I slowly stepped up out of the water. The sound of it running down my body was loud in the enclosed space and I walked forwards, transfixed at the creature that hung before me.

It was a woman, or it had been, once.

WARNING: CONTAMINATION DETECTED

NANITE SYSTEMS UNSTABLE

I backed the hell away, feeling the sudden itch that had been growing the closer I came to the body die away again. I noted the clear rings carved into the floor around the suspended shape.

There were three rings—well, four, considering the room was circular—so I was in the outermost as soon as I stepped in, with her in the smallest and most central one.

The itching feeling had spiked as I approached the first line, the next ring in. I’d backed away at that point, not wanting to know what the hell was in there that made my damn nanites unstable.

The body . . .

I shook myself and focused, starting with the room, knowing that Ingrid and Lars would want to know about it, equally sure that there was no goddamn way I was letting them in here until we knew more about . . . about her.

The room was circular, with a whitish, powdery fungus coating the walls, climbing to the roof and covering it until it got to within three feet of the suspended body. There, the fungus stopped as well.

The walls looked to have been carved with markings, but what the hell they were under the powder, I had no idea. At the back . . . at the back of the room was an altar.

I moved to it slowly, watching it and the suspended body with equal wariness. Three tiers had been carved into the altar with a human skull at the top and a band of gold seemingly grown into the skull. I could only wince at the thought of the pain that the bearer must have been in before death.

On the tier below, there were two skulls, both inhuman but intact. There was what I assume had been an early form of vampire, considering the skull had pointed and long incisors.

It also had a crystal inside it, and I paused before reaching a finger out towards it, then pulling it back quickly as the itch began.

I moved to the other one, finding the skull appeared mainly human, if you ignored the horns.

In fact . . .

Without the horns, I would have said it was entirely human, but the two forwards-swept horns and the size . . . well, it was a demon or a humanoid-looking minotaur; that was my best bet, anyway.

Again, it held a sliver of crystal, but unlike the vampire, this one was much smaller, seemingly more a “just in case” or an afterthought, rather than one that was needed.

I moved onto the third tier, the lowest, easily identifying a lycanthrope skull, but the other two?

One had a beak, a nasty set of serrated teeth at the back of it, and a single horn that jutted from the middle of its forehead, making me nod at what had clearly been a flier . . . maybe the progenitor to the harpy legends?

The last had two much larger eyes, a hinged jaw that was filled with needle-sharp teeth, and a set of smaller holes all around the outside of the skull, as though for smaller eyes?

It was also smaller than a normal skull, maybe the size of a large child’s head, and . . . and the jaw was small, the teeth missing at the back. Now that I looked closer, and again, each of them had a chunk of crystal inside.

I looked at the bottom of the altar, seeing the thin lines that ran up it, suggesting . . .

I slid my fingertips into the slight gap, digging at it, and when I couldn’t quite get enough purchase, I tried forming a crowbar of sorts from my nanites.

They started to build, then crumbled to dust before my eyes as I extended them to the gap.

I yanked my hand back, then tried again, losing another few hundred in the test, but knowing then that it wasn’t a mistake.

There was something inside there that was physically killing my nanites. I hesitated, building the courage and wondering if I was about to commit suicide, before punching the altar anyway.

It shook, then cracked slightly, and I felt a moment of shame. This had survived millennia, sitting here, silent for literally centuries, until I came and vandalized it, but . . . I tried again, but nothing. I fingered the crack until I was seriously pissed, but I eventually had to give up. Maybe I’d return with proper tools at some point in the future.

I retreated, moving back to examine the body, finally giving myself the time to pay attention to just her.

She was a middle-aged woman. Cloth wound around her, as if they’d been halfway through the mummification process before changing their mind, but the flesh that was left exposed? Little of it was flesh.

She hung suspended in the middle of the room, attached to nothing, seemingly floating of her own volition, but . . . her left arm and sections of her leg, her left shoulder, and a patch on the right side of her neck, as well as sections of her skull, where she didn’t already have gold plating and a band embedded in her skull, were replaced with what appeared to be a crystal growth.

She was literally growing a crystal garden that would have sent a high-street jeweler into fits. Directly from her skin. Hell, looking at just the right angle, it looked like . . .

Like I could see into her body!

I could see into the crystal and through it to the flesh on the far side! I looked at the wrappings again, seeing they’d come loose and were dangling free.

I had a moment of epiphany as I realized that she’d not been hung here like this.

I waited, watching. Just as I was about to give up, I saw it, what I’d not been sure if it’d been my imagination before.

A twitch of a muscle, a beat of the heart.

Not only had this woman been hung here millennia ago to undergo whatever transition she was enduring, but she was still alive!

Judging from the rest of the room, she was ancient, probably thousands of years old, and the crystals that were overtaking her?

They fucked with my nanites.

Judging from the crystals that were left in the skulls of the dead, they prevented the nanites from regrowing the bodies . . . or at least, that was what I was assuming.

I glanced from the body that hung there, and to the altar again, mind racing at a thousand miles an hour as I made the connections.

She was another like me, one whose nanites had gone active, and had changed her. That I had to assume, but instead of having access to them or becoming a monster like the werewolves or others, the change had manifested in . . .

In this.

I glanced at the band wrapped around her skull, and the matching one that was around the skull on the highest tier of the altar.

They were venerating her.

They had her there, floating, and fuck only knew how that was happening, but they’d . . . I nodded, looking around the room.

“They worshipped you,” I whispered, then I spotted a pair of tools on the floor by one leg, next to . . . next to a pattern of the fungus that was familiar.

“They worshipped you, and they were mining you,” I whispered in horrified recognition.

That was a body that had either been destroyed, somehow, or, more likely, that had been entirely consumed by the fungus that covered the walls.

I moved over, closer to what was left of the body, and crouched, examining it and picking out regular shapes buried in the mass.

I reached out, tapping one of them and feeling the hardness of metal. As gently as I could, I picked it up and out, eyeing the ring and the narrow cable of woven bronze that led to another and another.

I lifted it higher, covering my mouth and nose and quickly backing away before diving into the water as a cloud of spores lifted into the air from the disturbed fungus.

I swam quickly, the sudden panicking thought that I might have infected myself with whatever that crystal was making my heart beat faster.

Until I got outside, floating in the water, with the sun reflecting on the surface overhead, and I steeled myself for what I knew I had to do, just to make sure.

I didn’t think I had been infected, but . . .

I swam back to the little rocky beach I’d entered the water by, and I clambered out, moving up until I was standing in only a foot of seawater. Then I lay face down and breathed the water in.

I went into a coughing fit immediately; even with my nanites, I wasn’t built to breathe fluid, but when it was done, and I’d brought up the contents of my stomach?

I did it again, getting that seawater as deep into my lungs as I could.

I did it four times, until my chest was aching like I’d had the worst chest infection of my life, my stomach felt like it was broken from the repeated vomiting, and my throat was burning as if I’d rubbed it with sandpaper.

I dragged myself up the beach, only now realizing that, through it all, I’d kept ahold of the artifact, and thanks to its time in the sea, it was now clean.

It was a set of six rings, one large, meant to go around the wrist, five smaller to go around the fingers and thumb, and a large chunk of crystal carved into an open-eye design that must have sat on the back of the hand with a closed eye for the palm.

Hell, it might have been the other way around, but either way, it was stunning, considering that the cords that bound it together were twisted chains of bronze and gold, and the eyes were embedded in gold and surrounded by rubies on the open side and sapphires on the closed one.

I set it down carefully and sat atop a reasonably smooth rock, letting the sun dry me as best I could while I used my hands to strip the water away.

It took a little while, but I felt like shit from my seawater emetic so I didn’t really care that much, eventually climbing to my feet and dressing. Ignoring the water that still clung to me as I climbed back up the hill and down the far side. I stood by the small church and rang the bell, glad that nobody had arrived while I was out of it.

The boat set off immediately, and all the way back, I got glares from the pilot.

When I’d been walking down to the water’s edge, and the boat had been incoming, I’d decided I’d give him a big tip to make up for it.

Then he deliberately sat far enough out that I had to wade out to him, and I decided that he could go fuck himself for that dickish trick.

I’d taken my socks and shoes off, rolling my jeans up, but still.

There was no need.

Getting back to shore, I nodded to the old guys, one of whom cheered when I stepped off the boat, the other cursed and started to argue about the time. I walked straight inside the bar, paying cash for a bottle of cold beer and a sandwich that was half melted inside a plastic wrapper, then told the barmaid that I had intended to leave a tip for the pilot of the boat as an apology for taking so long.

She nodded, then her eyes bugged out when I pulled a wedge of about a thousand euros out of my pocket. I explained that he’d deliberately sat a few meters out so that I had to wade.

“Next time, tell him not to be a dick, and he’ll get the tip he earned,” I said, pocketing the bundle, apart from a twenty.

I walked back outside, putting the twenty down on the table between the old guys and nodded my respect to them and wondered how long they’d argue over why I’d done that.

I climbed into the car, backed it around, then set off driving back up the hill and back to the town and my friends.

I managed two bites of the sandwich before throwing it out of the window, minus the packaging. I wasn’t that much of an asshole.

It was sodding awful. Warm ham and melted cheese, warm mayo, which was an offence against the gods, and lettuce that was as limp as a politician without viagra.

It didn’t take long for the return trip, the roads quieter now that it was late afternoon. I watched the whirling seabirds flying above the returning fishing boats, the lowering sun reflecting off the water. The windows were down and the breeze cooled what had been a stifling hot car.

I drank my beer, utterly uncaring about the risk of an imported American bottle on my driving ability, considering I could literally drink entire bottles of rum now without an effect. My nanites processed the alcohol as a particularly useful poison, breaking out usable components instead of any fun effects.

The sun had just dipped below the height of the surrounding buildings when I pulled up in front of the hotel. I stopped, staring in consternation at the packed place, the engine turned off and handbrake put on by a brain operating on autopilot. Val rushed from table to table, pouring drinks, even as a band started to play.

I sat in the car, stunned, slowly pulling my sunglasses down, disbelief roaring through me as I recognized a familiar figure sitting having a drink with Ingrid and Lars.

“Oh, fuck no,” I whispered. “Hans.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I got out of the car, moving woodenly as I stepped up onto the pavement. Val waved to me, nodding towards the office and giving me a wink as if to say, “It’s all good—I locked the door.”

I forced a smile, nodding, before walking across to where Hans sat with the others, pausing before him as he smiled up at me. Ingrid stood, reaching out for me, her smile faltering as she saw the look on my face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked me, concern growing, before turning halfway back to Hans. “He . . . he said he was your friend.”

“And I am, my dear,” Hans said with a smile, pouring a drink for me and gesturing to the seat. “Come now, Steve, don’t be like that. Didn’t we part as friends?”

“We did,” I agreed, but all around me, I could feel others closing in, their nanite concentrations through the roof as Ingrid and Lars looked confused.

“Then you know that this isn’t personal. I told the others that I have officially extended an offer of sponsorship, and you have accepted it,” Hans said, then took a deep breath, looking up at me. I saw the sadness there. “They know who you are now, Steve, and the Blessed are coming as well. I gave you the time I could, but . . .”

“How long?” I asked, my mind whirling.

“The most I can give you is a single hour to say goodbye, my friend, and that . . . that is because they believe you are joining us, and simply don’t want to come yet. So please, come peacefully.”

“I don’t do peacefully,” I whispered, looking around and seeing the others stepping into sight, six of them, and every single one of them far stronger than me.

I could feel their nanites, their potential; fuck, I could feel their corruption. Tens of billions of them. They should be incapable of movement, but their attuned were so strong that they were still capable of moving.

Hell, they were probably capable of surviving a direct nuclear strike, and if they lost their temper here, it might as well be a nuke.

“You don’t, but you will,” Hans whispered, shaking his head. “I warned you that they would demand an examination, and I came with the rest of them to try and help. They will kill all of these witnesses. Hell, they’ll sink the island into the depths, if that is what it takes. Please, don’t take that path.”

“It was the smugglers,” I whispered, mind racing. “That’s how you found me.”

He just shook his head, smiling sadly.

“My dear boy, I never lost you. I obscured the traces you left behind and stopped the Blessed from finding you, but now? With this morning’s foolishness, they are coming.” He stood, knocking his drink back, then turned the glass over and straightened his shirt, pulling on his jacket.

“One hour. Then you come to the beach, and we leave.”

“For how long?”

“Until I believe you’re one of us, or at least you’re strong enough that the Blessed can’t take you,” a new voice called from behind me. A tall, dark-skinned woman stepped up onto the restaurant floor, strolling forwards.

I turned to face her, feeling my nanites going crazy at the proximity of her.

Variant 30312603122

Biological Weapon Variant

WARNING : Evolved intact Biological Weapon Variant #30312603122 detected. BWV is EPSILON Level Threat; recommend disengage!

Capabilities:

????: ?????

????: ?????

????: ?????

HP ????/????

EPSILON LEVEL THREAT

“Fuck, another one…” I muttered to myself.

She was very tall, her skin a deep black that reminded me of Amanda, her hair cut into a short bob that was woven with gold and beads that clacked gently as she walked forwards, every step graceful and full of threat.

I felt like a domestic chicken facing a fox, or more accurately, a fucking puma.

“I will not permit them to gain a new convert, and especially not one like you.”

“Why me?” I asked.

She snorted, shaking her head as she came to a stop, the beads clicking.

“You have grown stronger in mere weeks than you should in your first century. You will explain that, and in exchange, we will teach you.”

“And,” Hans interrupted smoothly, “as you’re going to come willingly, your friends will be left to live in peace.”

“I—”

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Steve. You know what they’ll do,” he whispered, resting one hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. “I’m sorry.” With that, he turned and faced Ingrid and Lars, smiled, and bowed his head. Then as he straightened, he sighed.

“I apologize for the way we find ourselves meeting, but it was for the best.” He forced a quick, sad smile, before nodding again and marching out, the other five turning and following him, leaving only the tall dark-skinned woman.

“One hour,” she warned. “Run, and we will pull this town down atop them.”

“You—” Ingrid started to say, glaring at her, before faltering as the new woman turned her gaze on the woman I loved.

“Speak again, cattle, and the truce is over. I will execute every one of you.” Silence rang out, the words having been spoken with such assurance into the silence between songs, that none who heard it doubted her.

With that, she turned on her heel and strode off.

“What . . .” Ingrid whispered, shaking her head. “He said you called him to help with the smugglers.”

“And I bet what he said sounded convincing,” I agreed, nodding and reaching out, drawing her into my arms, holding her tight. “He’s over four hundred years old. I bet he could claim to be a green dragon with a cock the size of Alaska, and it’d sound right. That he was here to help? Don’t worry.”

“Is he really . . .” Lars whispered. “I mean, I know you said that, but . . . and they . . .”

“Yes, he’s an Arisen, and any one of them could snap me in half,” I admitted with a grimace. “If there was just one, I might fight, or try, anyway. But six of them? You don’t understand.” I kissed the top of Ingrid’s head as I held her close, speaking in a low voice that carried to her and Lars alone.

“They have lived centuries alone, died a thousand times, and they come back. They watched humanity drag itself out of the fucking trees, and they were there with us. Now? Tens of thousands of years later? They view you as—”

“As cattle,” Ingrid whispered.

I nodded, the warm wetness of tears soaking through my top.

“As cattle,” I agreed. “They might not want to kill a cow or a chicken, but that doesn’t mean they’ll care either if they have to. For them to leave you here? Witnesses, and alive?” I shook my head, knowing that was Hans’s work, and that I owed him more than I could express for that.

“I have to go,” I said, feeling Ingrid’s arms tightening around me as she clung on.

“No!”

“There’s no choice.” I opened my mouth to go on, when Lars coughed and nodded behind me.

I turned, seeing the small family of four, standing there waiting. As soon as they saw me turning, the father started to speak, his words a jumble, thanks, a prayer, assurance that he would never be able to repay the debt.

My mind was reeling, and the language was . . . it was there, just out of reach. I needed the will, I needed to want to understand. Without that, the nanites, the knowledge . . .

It was a meaningless jumble of words.

I reached out, laying one hand on his shoulders and stopping him.

“Make it worth the cost,” I whispered.

He frowned, his lips moving as he repeated the words in a language he didn’t speak.

The mother and daughter looked at each other, then at Ingrid, seeing the tears, the fear on Lars’s face, the dead look in my eyes. They grabbed the father, dragging him back, moving away as quickly as possible as they spoke to him.

“Make it worth the cost,” I repeated, turning and looking at Lars and Ingrid before waving Val over and taking them all into the small private office.

It’d been crowded with two of us in there. With four? We were crammed in cheek by jowl.

I pulled the laptop out, focusing on it. There was a gasp as Val saw what I could do, my right hand suddenly coated in liquid nanites. I poured them into the laptop, focusing, filling them with my need.

Upgrade options available:

Cyber Warfare

Assimilation

Design

Cyber Warfare will rebuild the device, instilling a basic RI (Restricted Intelligence) loaded with enhanced learning vectors. RI focus will be on hacking and interaction with technological systems.

Cost: 1,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Assimilation RI (Restricted Intelligence) will be primarily dedicated to breaking into enemy command and control systems, enforcing complete obedience but assimilating them into the overall RI.

Cost: 1,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

Design RI (Restricted Intelligence) will be focused on creative pathways, improvements, and overall levelling of technology.

CRAFTING: 10,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

COMBAT: 10,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

CYBER: 10,000-10,000,000 Attuned Nanites

I selected Cyber Warfare, and loaded it with ten thousand nanites, ordering the data on the hard drive be protected, then naming Ingrid, Lars, and Val as having control privileges.

The black mass poured over the laptop, hiding it from view. I stood, weakness making me shake, my attuned nanites store having been badly depleted.

I turned back to them, barely able to stand and dizzy, feeling weak as a kitten as I started to speak.

“This device will let you trace the smugglers. It’ll hack just about any system you point it at, so be damn careful with it. Only you three have access to it.” I paused, then nodded to the bag, the money in clear view now. “Use that. Use it to find and save people. Don’t expose yourselves to risk, not ever. Find them, trace them, and hand the data to Interpol, or the FBI, or whatever.”

I looked at Lars, then nodded to Val.

“Explain everything to him, tell him what you know, and let him help. Use your money for something that matters, Lars. Take this hotel. Hell, buy those around it and give these people a home and a second chance. Make the cost worth it.”

He nodded, stepping forwards and hugging me. I couldn’t help but smile sadly, knowing I’d made a friend for life, even if, like Dave, I’d probably never see him again. I hugged him back, slapping him on the back, then letting him go. Val stepped in, confused, but knowing that something had happened, and that this was goodbye.

“Why—what—” he started to ask. I shook my head, gripping his shoulders and looking him in the eyes.

“I don’t have time, not to explain it properly. Just believe Lars, and remember this,” I said gesturing to the flowing mass of nanites.

“It’s all I can give you all, so damn well keep it safe and use it well. Now go on, go. I need to speak to Ingrid.”

Val nodded, backing out the door as Lars took him. I turned to her, seeing the determination on her face.

“I don’t know what—” I started to say, and she laid a hand over my mouth.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“You can’t.”

“I can. They brought others with them. They can’t all be . . . like you. They have to, I don’t know, drive a car or whatever.”

“What’s that got to do with—”

“I mean they’ll need normal people to do work!” she snapped at me, dashing tears away, and glaring at me. “I can cook, I can clean, I’m an archeologist!”

“And they lived that history,” I whispered, taking her in my arms. “Look, I’ll ask Hans to check on you from time to time, to get a message to you, but—”

“Don’t you say anything else!” she snapped at me. “I’m not being left behind. I just found you, and it feels like we’ve had five goddamn minutes, then you’re leaving me!”

“I’m not going anywhere by choice,” I took her in my arms and put my lips to her ear, speaking softly. “Besides . . . there’s a way you can help me.”

I felt her stiffen in my arms, listening intently as I started to explain my plan and what I’d found back in that cavern.

Half an hour later, as the six on the beach grew more and more annoyed, I approached, leaving Ingrid on the path to watch me leave.

She wore the bracelet and finger rings that I’d found. As I walked away from her, she flexed her fingers, the cool crystal pressing against her skin as she glared at the seven powerful figures who waited for me.

When I reached them, the dark-skinned woman grunted, nodding to Hans in acceptance before turning and speaking to one of the others.

“Order them to fall back, provided the locals behave themselves. Don’t try and alert the world to us, and they may live out their span.” She looked at me, nodding her head in begrudged greeting.

“You made the right choice, boy,” she said calmly. “I remember leaving those I loved when my master found me. It is hard, but for the best. Mortals are no longer your concern.” She paused, looked up at Ingrid standing on the road, and snorted as if amused. “Such creatures are beneath you.”

I glanced at Hans, who forced a sad smile and nodded.

“She’s right, my boy. In a century, you won’t even remember her name, let alone her face.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped.

“Well, perhaps you will return to her in time,” Hans offered, a sad smile on his face as he turned to the sea. “We all planned to . . . once.”

With that, he strode forwards, and I noticed finally the clothing they all wore, save Hans and me.

They wore easily removable wraps, all-over, full-body suits that looked like wetsuits crossed with leotards. Space-age, graceful attire, it was the kind of clothing that it didn’t matter if it got wet.

They threw their wraps aside, a pair of smartly dressed humans moving to collect them, heads bowed.

“I’m too old for this shit.” Hans sighed, walking forwards and into the surf, the woman following him as the others fell in around me. One—a man in his early thirties, I’d have guessed, but with enough nanites to power a ship, so fuck knew how old he was really—stared hard at me, pointing for me to go before him.

I looked up at Ingrid one last time, focusing in and deliberately burning that sight into my memory as she stood there, tears flooding down her cheeks, watching me go.

I lifted one hand, starting to wave to her, when Asshole One, who’d just pointed to the sea, stepped between us and shoved me, sending me staggering.

I caught myself, then straightened, fingers curling into a fist . . . as Hans’s voice called out from behind me.

“Remember the consequences.”

I snarled, then turned from Ingrid and my life and dove into the sea.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The sun had set, but that made little difference to any of us. We swam forwards, the swell of the sea lifting then dropping us as we went deeper, the shallow waters keeping the sand gently swirling as the fish dipped and dove, crabs clicking and scuttling across the rocks. I pulled and kicked, trying to keep up.

I watched the way the others ahead swam, so graceful, not a single wasted motion. For a second, just a single damn second, I nearly formed flippers, like scuba flippers, to make it easier.

Then I stopped myself, glaring ahead, and continued to thrash and pound the water.

They knew that I was Arisen and that I was powerful, but fuck all beyond that yet.

I noticed Hans looking back to check on me, along with the woman and another man who stayed close by her side at all times.

I swam on, my chest starting to hurt as I reached and passed the longest I’d stayed underwater so far.

And still we kept going.

I looked to the sides and behind, seeing the other four all around me, watching and waiting, with Asshole One staring balefully at me. I silently swore I’d fuck him up, and soon, and I swam on.

We passed over a reef of seaweed, sponges spreading across the sandy bottom, and nearby I saw a shark following us, curiosity in its dead black eyes, and then . . .

Where the shelf of the island fell away into the depths, the sandy, gently increasing slope dropped sharply. There was a sub waiting.

It was . . .

It was weird as fuck.

It looked like someone had taken an American attack sub, then chopped it in half, deciding that it didn’t really need all that length, and instead had fitted a . . . a spoiler on the back?

I had no frame of reference. Fuck, I knew nothing about engineering, especially undersea or water. But it looked like a hydrofoil had been stuck on the back, two actually, one upper and one lower, and . . .

I gave up.

It made as much sense to me as tits on a fish, and it was still a good distance ahead, with Hans and the woman entering an airlock.

By the time I reached it, I was close to asphyxiating, having discovered the hard way that the nanites didn’t provide unlimited oxygen, or if they did, they at the very least didn’t get rid of the waste CO2.

I was blacking out when the water level dropped, pumped out by the pressure of the air, and by then I was on my hands and knees, coughing and retching.

I felt hands grabbing me under the arms, lifting and dragging me through the airlock, and into . . . into a passage that looked like it should be in an exclusive hotel.

I blinked, unable to make sense of it. The corridor I half-stumbled and was half-dragged along was wide enough for three abreast to walk comfortably, and had . . . it had carpets?

There were what had to be screens mounted on the outer bulkhead, showing the sea as if they were glass. In place of the exposed pipes and conduits that you saw on actual submarines, the entire place was stunning.

There were fucking skirting boards on the walls for . . .

I shook myself, aware that I was clearly losing it, considering all that had happened, and I was wondering about a damn skirting board.

“What—” I started to say, trying to get to my feet under me properly, only to be deliberately dragged forwards or back just as I was about to stand.

I was taken into a small but ornate medical bay and shoved into a seat, glaring at the four pricks that had brought me here, as one of them stepped to a cabinet and pulled out some kind of injector that looked like it should be instantly banned under the Geneva Convention.

“Hold him,” the prick snapped at the other two, before smirking at me. “Don’t think that just because Hans is tolerated, you get the same kind of free pass. This is a tracker, and it means we’ll always know where you are. You go somewhere you shouldn’t? You try to run? Hell, you annoy me, and I detonate it. Until Athena declares you to be free? We own you.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to get fucked, but before I could talk, he rammed the injector into the thick muscle of my neck and pulled the trigger.

It was like I’d been shot. The pain, the pressure, and the damn tracker and bomb combined? It felt massive, and I had to focus, stopping my nanites from forcing it back out.

Dickhead picked one out of the cabinet and showed it to me. It was the size of a damn cherry and spiked.

“You see this?” he asked, flicking the spikes. “These dig in and hold it in place.”

I glared at him, then looked at it; it was basically a conker in its shell, covered in spikes.

“And how do you get it back out?” I asked.

“We don’t,” he said with a smirk. “Once you’ve earned your place, then you get the right to remove it yourself.”

“So I get to cut it out,” I repeated.

“You would, but you’ll never make it,” he growled. “Take him to the chair.”

Two others grabbed me and dragged me back up, and we were off again, being led out of the back of the medical chamber and into a new room, one that was notably different.

Here, everything was easily washed down, and the room fairly reeked of strong bleach. The walls were cold steel, or metal anyway, considering that they had a slight rainbow shimmer and the chair in the middle of the room?

It looked like a cross between a dentist’s chair and a torture device.

“I’m not—” I started to say, before being dragged forwards.

“Yes, you are,” the one to my right snapped as they spun me around and slammed me down into it, the third of their number stepping forward to pull the chains into place.

“What the fuck is this!” I shouted at them.

“Examination,” Dickhead said with a smile. “After all, we can’t have a baseline human get in here.”

“What?” I asked, totally confused.

“What he means,” said a new voice as a pale woman stepped in, walking across the floor to stop before me, “is that you must be tested.” The click of her heels echoed as she walked around me, the others stepping back as she examined the restraints. “Sadly, in order to be able to fully assess you, to learn your capabilities, and to know when you improve truly, we must first test you.”

“What kind of test—” I started to ask, and she smiled, cold, but not cruelly.

“As our kind can recover from anything, well, the only test that matters . . . is destruction.”

“What?!” I whispered, seeing the smiles on the faces of Dickhead and his friends as they left the room, the woman following them.

I tried pulling at the restraints and did little more than make them jingle . . . slightly. I tried again, and again, getting nothing but more bruises as I futilely heaved at them, before taking a deep breath and forcing myself to calm.

I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t show them what I was capable of… not yet… there had to be another way!

A wall on the left shimmered, then resolved into a screen, one that showed the woman in a small room, taking a seat behind a computer desk and flicking switches.

“I’m sorry that this must be our first encounter, Steven,” she said, her voice coming over hidden speakers clear and crisp. “Usually, aspirants have many months and years to get used to the necessity of this stage and the sheer fact that they have been deemed worthy of this test means they are on the path to ascension, meaning that they undertake this step willingly.”

“Well, I’m fucking not willing!” I shouted, yanking at the restraints.

“I know, and for that I apologize. However, centuries have proven that this is, in fact, the best way, despite the regrettable losses and distress that are suffered along the way.” As she spoke, she flicked switches and continued to work. “Please understand that I have nothing but hope for your future. We will begin momentarily.”

The door to my right opened, and I looked over quickly. Desperate hope flared that all of this had been a sick joke, until I saw the look on Hans’s face as he stepped in, walking over to me to rest a hand on my left shoulder and speaking to the woman.

“I invoke the right of privacy between myself and my Aspirant,” he called to her, getting a growl of irritation before she started flicking other switches. Then she stood, apparently leaving the room, as Hans pulled a small box out of his pocket and pressed a trigger on it, emitting a high-pitched wail that filled the air, then leaned in and put his mouth next to my ear so that nobody could read his lips or over hear him.

“I’m genuinely sorry, Steve,” he whispered. “I believe these methods to be barbaric, and I argued against them . . . but I’ve been overridden. The Blessed are in the town already, and while the island falls behind us . . .” He paused, then went on.

“I have told them that you accepted my offer of sponsorship. No, don’t speak yet; there’s no point. As a member of my family, you gain some small protection. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do. I left you to live free as long as I could, but your actions are what started this, Steve. As soon as you were identified by the Blessed, there was nothing else I could do. You have to make a choice.”

“They can fuck off—” I started to say, and he slapped a hand over my lips.

“Listen and think, dammit! The Blessed are in the town already. They’re watching Ingrid and your other friends—”

“They can’t,” I mumbled against his hand.

“LISTEN!” he snarled. “They haven’t decided what to do with them. According to my spies, they might leave the others, but they want you, and you and Ingrid have been . . . intimate. They might choose to leave her be and walk away, or . . . they may take her for examination in an effort to recover biological material.

“At the very least, she will dislike the process intently. At worst? If they find partial traces and decide to do a full sweep? They will permanently maim or kill her. Remember they believe they are doing God’s will. Think about the lengths that can drive someone to . . . especially when the only one that will be injured is—”

“Cattle,” I whispered as he removed his hand. “You have to help her,” I begged.

He nodded. “I can. I can go back and help her, but only my presence and the things I could report to the council offers you any protection at all. If I go—”

“GO!” I snarled.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” he said quietly, patting my chest. Then he hesitated, leaning in even closer and whispering in my ear again. “Keep your . . . tricks . . . hidden. If they find how unique you really are . . .” He stopped, giving me a warning look. I nodded the fraction of an inch I could, showing him I understood.

“Good luck, and again, I’m sorry. I’ll return when I can.” With that, he turned off the device and left the room, banging on the wall before he left to alert the scientist woman that he was done.

She returned to her chair, looking at me and forcing a smile before starting again, the clicks of the switches and the tapping of her fingers across the keyboard echoing around the room as I tried to think what I could do.

I had to trust Hans. Fuck, the only chance that they had was him. I couldn’t break out of here; the grip the others had on me when they dragged me in here was like handcuffs on a regular human.

I could break free of the chair. I thought I could, anyway—the entire system was computer-guided, after all—but . . . but if I did that, I gave away my only trump cards. Even if I could get out of the chair, the doors had no handle on the inside.

If I could somehow get out? Get past the doors? The assholes who’d dragged me in here would tear me limb from fucking limb.

I could take one, maybe two, using my Harvest Blade and more, but . . . but they were insanely strong compared to me, and still, they’d not triggered the warnings that I’d gotten when I’d moved too close to that fucking Lord Shamal. He was an Epsilon-level threat, while the big fuckers . . . they’d been Beta level. The woman who ran the ship, Athena? She’d been the only one to trigger an alarm, not the others.

That meant that if I wanted to stand any chance against Shamal in the future, I needed to let them do what they were going to do. I needed to learn, and I needed to grow.

I needed to let them kill me.

The chair started to move, shifting to lie backwards, my arms extending out, legs the same, as blades slid down the outside, cutting my clothes away and making me hiss as they occasionally caught flesh, cutting into me.

“I apologize. Usually our Aspirants come willing and strip before sitting. The facility was added to permit examination of the unwilling, but it is rarely used.”

Rarely, I mentally noted, not never.

They’d done this before, and considering how few of us there were, and that there’d been none in a long time? That had to mean it’d been used on captured Blessed . . . or humans.

“So. How bad is this going to be?” I asked her, as injectors like the gun that Dickhead had used on me slid up into view.

“Bad,” she admitted. The injectors locked into place, needles extending and clicking, held there ready.

Ten. Ten on each arm, my brain insisted on counting.

Fifteen on each leg, one on either side of my neck, three on either side of my chest. Fuck’s sake, there was one lifting into place over my crotch!

I saw movement on either side of my head as four more lifted up, and as close as these injectors were to my face, well, while they looked a lot like the other one, the tip was serrated . . . and hollow.

The tube that led out of the back of them . . .

I frantically started focusing, ordering all my attuned and usable nanites into the storage lacunas. Then I ordered the weaponized ones to stand down, and to stay in storage until I ordered their release.

Knowing the pain that was to come, I encoded an order into them, making them remain there until I ordered their release, using a combination of sounds, memories, and . . . and her name.

I had a split second in which I saw her face again, the laughter as she arched her back, slapping at my hands as I tickled her in bed. The feeling of her legs wrapped around me, her hair draped across me, and the heat of her body against my own . . . all of it. I used that, and I locked myself down, leaving only the corrupted nanites loose and small portion of the attuned that were needed to keep me functioning.

I felt the change in my body, in my mind. I felt suddenly colder, weaker . . . less.

Then she spoke.

“Phase one,” she declared, and a pair of needles clicked, then drove forwards, punching through my skin and deep into my flesh, carving away and draining my blood.

I screamed, barely hearing her declaring that it was time for “phase two” as four more clicked into place then punched down into me.

They worked for a full minute; all the while my body was screaming at me to do something, to respond, to . . .

I saw the connections all around me; I sensed the computers’ weaknesses and the potential of the nanites all around. I sensed the things I could do. We were in a fucking sub underwater, one controlled by computers! I could crash it. I could open doors to the sea, I could . . .

I could send the engine into an uncontrolled reaction.

I could sense the systems around me, and while I’d not dug into them, I could sense the connections that they held . . . and the possible traps.

They could be left there, tantalizingly within reach, to test for the capabilities I had. That could be the entire point of this, to make me believe I was dying, so that I’d show them something really special.

I saw it all, the possibilities as my mind fractured under the pain, the digging needles, the drills that hit the metallic bones and burrowed into them.

The vibrations alone were horrific and . . . and through it all, I held on.

I focused on overcoming the pain, on holding myself still, on staying as unremarkable as possible.

I saw my blood being siphoned away, I felt the drills. Then the saw, a circular thing with serrated teeth that cut down into my ankle, removing my foot, in a ridiculous imitation of the fight that morning.

I saw the foot being lifted away and was thankful for the fact that the changeover for my bones—from human to metal and then to impregnated with storage lacunas—was still in the early phases.

That meant they got a section of stronger bones reinforced with a metallic alloy to examine, but nothing more.

Hours passed as I grew steadily weaker.

I endured new fluids that burned being pumped into me, replacing my blood with who knew what. I felt my body being flushed entirely; everything from the liquid contents of my goddamn urethra to samples of my eyeballs was taken, before a final needle was lowered from overhead and locked into place over my heart.

“Phase thirty-two beginning,” the bitch in the control room called out, distractedly, clearly examining something on her screen.

Then the needle slammed forwards into my heart, and electricity was pumped directly into it, overstimulating an organ that was already pumping a mix of caustic chemicals.

Blackness rolled over me as my body seemed to wink out of existence. My last thought: what if I’d been wrong all along, and their only intention had always been to simply kill me?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The world was slow to return, and as always, sensations came first. A gentle breeze, flickering across skin, hairs moving.

Then came sounds, a bird, somewhere in the distance, the call of a cat, voices . . . murmuring, a beep of a machine, the sound of water lapping against stones, the gentle susurration of the sea, the tides, as they drained through a mass of pebbles.

“Steve . . .”

A voice close by. I blinked, the world suddenly coming into focus, and there I was . . . laid in a small, hospital-type bed.

I tried to move, finding my arms and legs were restrained, and a blonde-haired woman that looked familiar sat by my side.

“Shhhh, it’s okay,” she said, reaching out and laying a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, you’re okay. Just take a minute and let yourself wake up.”

“Who—” I started to say, before pausing. My voice. “Who are you?” I rumbled, my voice both lower and very different to normal.

“It’s me, honey. Your wife,” she said slowly, the sadness in her eyes making me instantly sorry that I’d hurt her so.

I wanted to reassure her, to tell that that I remembered, even though it was a lie.

“It’s okay, Steve. This happens sometimes. Your memories will come back, don’t worry.”

I frowned, about to tell her that I was fine, that I knew . . . I knew something. I felt it slipping away, even as I looked at her, seeing the bright blue eyes, the smile. My wife. I shook my head.

It just seemed so wrong . . .

“You had an accident. A few weeks ago, you fell from our yacht. You nearly drowned, and in the process, your brain was starved of oxygen. It causes fits, and when you have a fit . . .” She smiled sadly, reaching down and wrapping her fingers around mine, holding my hand tight as she spoke reassuringly.

“Sometimes you take a while to come back, and you can be violent, my love. I’m sorry, but we had to chain you to the bed.”

I looked at my arms, my legs, the straps over my chest . . . then I saw the bruises on her arms, and black eye barely concealed by her makeup.

“I did that?” I asked, my voice still sounding like someone else’s. “I hurt you?”

“You didn’t mean to. It’s okay,” she said.

I felt terrible, awful. She was so sad, and . . .

“Where are we?” I asked her, trying to distract away from the terrible things she must have had to deal with.

“At home, on the island,” she said, a smile showing. “The children are fine as well. I know you’d be asking about them next.”

“Yes . . . the children?” I whispered, confused.

“We have two children, a boy and a girl. Alexander and Athena. I’m sorry, my love, you must have had it worse than normal. Don’t worry, I won’t let them know their father forgot them.”

The rebuke was clear, and I shook my head quickly.

“No, no, I remember,” I lied quickly. “I just . . . it’s coming back.”

“That’s good!” she enthused. “Are you ready to be free?”

“Yes,” I whispered, unsure what was going on, but . . . “And a drink?” I asked. “I . . . it tastes like a cat shit in my mouth.”

“Of course,” she replied, her smile stuttering for a second, then back full force. “It’s been so long since you swore; it sounds strange to hear it,” she said quickly. “Here, a drink.”

She held it to my lips, and I tasted it, then coughed, shaking my head and pulling back as she tried to pour more into my mouth.

“No . . . water,” I asked, and she nodded.

“It’s water, my love. Your tastes, are they off? I can call a doctor—”

“No,” I answered, laying my head back. It was swimming already, the entire room seeming to spin. A headache appeared from nowhere.

“Are you ready to get up?” she asked, reaching for the restraints.

“No,” I whispered, closing my eyes as the spinning increased in speed, and I started to feel sick. “I—I—” I started, then the world fell away again.

*

Time passed in a blur, and when I opened my eyes this time, it was to a distant argument, harsh words, a male voice I recognized, and female ones that I didn’t. Cruel laughter.

I sank away again, trying to flee back to unconsciousness, but before I could, I felt it rising.

I turned my head and vomited, unable to focus, seeing a room, windows, sunlight outside . . . then stars, a summer’s garden. Cursing, a woman’s disgusted voice. Someone grabbed the back of my head and released the catch over my chest, dragging me harshly to the edge of the bed and to a bucket.

I vomited again and again, feeling like it was never ending, as someone commented nearby that my body was fighting something.

I saw white shoes, and . . . black high heels with a red underside, hands with nails lacquered bright red that frantically wiped at the shoes, wanting to remove the contents of my stomach from them.

My stomach . . .

I tasted acids, bile, and blood. I saw clots, and . . . and I smelled something harsh, something that was almost, but not quite buried under the rest.

I saw hands moving swiftly to clean me, a voice that soothed, speaking words that I trusted instinctively, promising it would be okay . . . then they were snatched from me.

Then I was gone again, as the world spun away.

*

My world was broken into a mess of awake and asleep, blurry figures talking at me, or around me, people in white coats and blue, people with those stupid pocket defender things from the nineties, and then . . . then people who shone lights in my eyes, and her.

My . . . wife? Sometimes she held my hand or stroked my brow. Sometimes she was gone and others were there, dealing with my needs, cleaning me, feeding me . . .

My wife was never there then, only appearing when I tried to speak. I was glad. I didn’t know who they were that cleaned me, that fed me, and changed my sheets. I couldn’t focus nor hear, sounds dopplering as I tried, but I’d not want my wife to do that, not my beautiful . . . Ing? No.

It was gone again.

*

I lay in bed, staring at the window, seeing the snow falling outside. The bare branches of an old oak tree stood blanketed in white. I stared up at the grey sky, not wanting what I knew was coming.

The door opened, and a young man entered, walking over to me, holding the tray.

I hated him. I hated him with a passion, the easy way he moved, the way he could control his limbs, how easily he fed me, lifting the tasteless mulch they fed me on the plastic spoon while I lay there,  only dimly remembering the days when I could do such things.

“Come on. You know you need to eat,” he cajoled me. I gritted my teeth, feeling the weakness filling me, knowing that I didn’t need to eat, that it made me sick, it always did!

I’d be lucky to last ten minutes before I was vomiting it back up, and the shame . . .

I barely knew I’d been anyone else. The memories surfaced now and then, lifting from the recesses of my mind as though bubbles floating up from the depths.

I saw fragments of my old life in them, and then pop, they were gone.

I smelled things sometimes, food that . . . food that smelled like food, rather than the rotting slop they gave me. I heard distant sounds. I heard and I sensed things I knew were wrong, symptoms of whatever this malady was.

Strangest, and most frequent, was the breeze.

I felt it again, and I forced my eyes to stay as they were, facing the window as I tried to make sense of it. I could see the snow falling, steadily blanketing the garden before me, while the breeze . . .

It was warm, and somewhere in the distance I heard the faint scream of seabirds, but here . . .

I looked back out, expecting to see robins.

“Darling.” It was my wife again, and I forced myself to smile as I looked up to her, seeing the smile on her face that never reached her eyes.

I’d seen it dozens of times now, and I guessed what it meant.

She’d loved me once; she must have, I assumed, to have put up with me this long. But she was young, pretty, and I was old before my time.

I was chained to this bed. Violent, apparently, though I couldn’t remember it, not against her, or here . . .

I had a sudden memory, one of strength, glorious strength, as I fought in a pit, a blade in my—no, on my hand, attached to it. Then it was gone again, and I was looking at her forced smile.

“My love, it’s time to see the doctor,” she said.

I groaned, shifting around, the bed sores making things worse.

“You know it’s the best way for you to recover…” She reached out and stroked my cheek. “You made real progress last time! The doctor said you almost had it. Do you think you can do it again? For me?”

I forced myself to smile, nodding as the doctor brought the table back, the whirring of the bed as I was lifted into place all that filled the room. The doctor entered, all smiles, and I felt a gentle puff of a breeze again.

Warm. The smell of the sea, of . . . the smell of the Greek islands, hot pine trees, salt, the weird, indefinable woody scents, and the

“Rosemary,” I whispered unthinkingly.

“Yes dear?” my wife said.

I blinked. “Your name.”

She gestured to the board. “We can talk later. The doctor, he needs you to do this, remember?”

I blinked. Why the hell had she answered to Rosemary? I’d known a girl growing up called that . . . hadn’t I? Was it her?

I shot her a look out of the corner of my eye, and she smiled wider.

“Perhaps you could see the children later, if you do well at this?” She offered the bribe as if granting a great gift . . . but besides hearing them calling in the distance, they never came to see me, and . . .

The board was shifted around, even as I felt the cold liquid entering the injection port on the back of my right wrist. She’d pressed the button on the side of the bed, topping up my meds . . . again.

She thought she was so subtle doing it, but . . . I know she said it was better to keep ahead of the pain, that there was no need to experience it, but without the pain, I’d never know if I was getting better, would I?

As it was, I spent all day, every day, in a drug-induced state, brain baked, and . . .

The board was moved again, and I looked down at it.

The game was a strange one, a square board, three colors of squares that ran across it in lines, green, silver, and gold. Each of the game pieces were discs made of heavy and solid jade, silver, and gold that sat in the individual spaces at the far end.

The aim of the game was to draw the pieces towards you, using some form of magnetism or something that was never fully explained.

All I knew was that I was some form of grandmaster at the game, and apparently this was how I’d met my wife, playing this game before great crowds.

None of it made any sense to me, and I felt that there was no possible way I could move these pieces, but . . . but last time we’d played, just as I was about to give up, I’d done something, and all three had moved.

It’d been tiny; I’d not been entirely sure it wasn’t a figment of my imagination, but . . .

The looks on their faces had made it clear it wasn’t.

They’d been elated and afraid.

I tried again, and again, and again.

Nothing.

I was about to give up as more food was brought in, my stomach quailing at the thought of trying to stuff more in. I was always full, yet they said hours had passed, or days, and I’d have to eat until I was sick, then eat again.

The foul pureed mass was set on the table, and I shook my head.

“No,” I whispered, my wife starting to reassure me that I needed the meal, when I moved my finger, and the three discs moved.

“There!” the doctor exulted. “He did it!”

“How?!” she asked, stunned, before looking up at me and forcing a smile. “Darling, you need to show me what you did.”

I shifted uncomfortably, seeing her hand slide down the side of the bed, and the tell-tale click of the button . . .

But this time, nothing.

No rush of cold and confusion.

I looked down, seeing the kink in the line leading to the back of my hand. I froze for a second, then moved my hand ever so slightly, making damn sure that it stayed like that.

“Darling,” my wife said slowly, shifting until she was sure I was paying attention to her. “Listen to me . . . I want you to move the pieces again.”

“He needs to eat,” the man who brought my food said, his voice sounding nervous. He stopped as she shot him a glare before looking back at me.

“Darling, the game.” She tapped the board, and I focused, realizing that the metal felt slightly different from the wood, even now, through the board that lay atop my legs, I could sense something.

There was a beep from the machine, and she pressed the button again, then a third time as the doctor cautioned her, saying something about “too much.”

“Don’t question your betters!” she snarled.

The pressure on my arm increased as the machine tried to force more of whatever it was past the kink and into me.

I didn’t know what else to do, but I knew I didn’t want that shit in me. I did the only thing I could think of, and I clenched my gut, hunching over and forcing out a wet cough.

“I think I need to be sick.” I wheezed, twisting the hand with the tube in it and gritting my teeth as the needle moved inside my hand. It sliced the vein, but the strips holding it in place came free, and then . . . then the liquid poured across the surface of my skin, along with the blood from my freshly cut-up vein.

I turned that hand over and pressed it to the side of the bed, before coughing up some spit and leaning back.

“I need to sleep,” I whispered, pretending I didn’t see the fury on her face.

“Feed him,” she snapped at the man with the food, who paused, then whispered to her.

“But . . . if he’s sick, he’ll bring all of it up and lose what he’s got inside already.”

“And that’s my fault?” she snapped, only to have the doctor speak quickly.

“It’s the combination of the ability and the drugs. Nobody’s fault . . . we just need to make him sleep, give him a solid three hours, double the dose, and leave him to it,” the doctor said. “Give him the command now.”

“Darling, you’re tired. Very, very tired. Go to sleep.”

That was all that she said, but . . . but I realized I was; I was really goddamn tired. I nodded, shifting and closing my eyes.

“That’s ridiculous,” a voice said from somewhere nearby.

“It’s like dealing with a child,” she said, the kind voice gone as she let out an exasperated sigh. “I thought we had it locked down, and that he could sense. The gods know that’d be a hell of a boon . . .”

“But he’s shit at it, just like everything else?”

“Behave, Rufus. I remember your training! Thirty years before you managed to twitch the needle. He’s done it in a month.”

“We were at war!” the voice identified as Rufus replied sourly.

“You were sitting in daddy’s mansion!” Another voice laughed, and my “wife” snapped at them.

“Shut it! He’s not completely asleep. The goddamn forced feeds are interfering with his abilities enough without you giving him nightmares. Come on, we can come back in a few hours and give him a top-up before we wake him.”

“You think you’ll manage to get him broken before Hans returns, then?”

“You think it matters?” my “wife” responded. “Athena rules here. He can complain to the Council again, see how he likes the response he gets.”

They kept talking as they moved away, but . . . but I lay there, on the verge of sleep, so tired but . . . but not.

I shifted, feeling the restraints and wondering. I couldn’t remember a time I’d not worn them, but hadn’t she said that it was because I’d attacked her recently, and that I didn’t normally need them?

I couldn’t remember.

I didn’t actually feel tired, I realized. I felt like I should sleep, yes, but not that I needed to. More like it was late at night and I’d regret it tomorrow if I didn’t, but . . .

The needle in the back of my hand shifted with my movement. It was caught on something, but it was free of my skin, and I felt another droplet of liquid hit me. Then another.

I turned my head to that side, as if I was just sleeping, and opened one eye, peeking at the cables.

I hadn’t really paid attention to them before, but if I looked at the window, the reflection showed . . . it showed a tank behind me.

Usually these damn things were like, a bag, right? A liter? That looked like it’d hold hundreds of liters, and . . . and I remembered them refilling it, the sound of splashing from behind, and my darling wife assuring me that they were washing the floor or whatever.

I felt the fog that filled my mind rolling back by the second, and I started to remember.

I remembered pain, mostly.

Days, weeks . . . months of pain.

I remembered dying.

Blackness, cold, quiet, then the pain again.

I remembered . . . I remembered machines attached to me, breaking my limbs, a feeling like boulders being rolled over my legs, slowly.

I remembered dying by fire, and poison, decapitation, and . . . and being torn apart by animals.

No, not animals. Lycanthropes!

My mind seemed to be rolling back days and weeks of time, exposing memories of places I didn’t even remember being.

I remembered running until my heart gave out, then starting again as soon as it repaired itself.

I remembered gunfire and stabbings, being dumped into a vat and drowned, then boiled. I was . . . I was suffocated . . . and it was her!

My darling fucking wife was the woman who’d grinned down at me as she packed my throat full of foam, betting on how long it’d take me to suffocate.

She’d cut it open and rooted around in there, packing the bits in as I begged her to stop.

I remembered it now, and I remembered more.

Being murdered a thousand times and more.

How long had I been here, living through all of this? It’d been a long-ass time, and I was fucking done with it.

I was confused still most of my memories vague and disjointed. But I knew that they weren’t helping me here. They weren’t healing me, and if that was my wife?

I needed a fucking divorce.

I rolled my right wrist, making sure to keep it buried in the covers while I rubbed the needle fully free, the material that kept it attached to the back of my wrist slowly coming off.

Once that was done, I started moving my hand up and down, inching the needle down to where I could get ahold of it.

That done, I twisted my fingers, forcing the needle as far out to the side as possible, feeling the tip scraping across the lock.

It was slow going, getting the needle into the lock, and even slower figuring out how the hell to pick it, but this wasn’t a padlock, or even a handcuff-type lock.

These were massive chains, chains that were wrapped in leather, but still fucking chains. They didn’t have a little pathetic complicated lock. This thing looked like a blacksmith forged it using Mjölnir. It was difficult, but only because of the angle. The lock itself was laughably simplistic.

Eventually, it was done, and I sighed in relief as the damn thing clicked free.

I rolled my wrist back and forth, widening the gap, until I knew I could get my hand out. Then I froze, hearing the sound of returning feet.

“Fuck.” I growled under my breath, lying back and staying still, the needle gripped in my palm.

“For the last time, no!” My darling wife growled. “He’s hard enough to guide as it is. Introducing her would only confuse him more!”

“We swore to the Council that we would let her see him, provided she played by the rules. Besides, who knows, maybe it’ll spur him to greater heights. If nothing else, you can always just erase his memory of the whole thing. Again.”

“It’s a pain in the ass!”

“Athena swore to Hans it would be done. It’s been three weeks since the last time, and you know what she’ll say if he hears and reports it the Council—”

“Fine!” she snapped. “Whatever, bring her in. We need to feed him anyway. He can puke on her instead of my goddamn shoes, maybe then she’ll realize she’s wasting her goddamn time and learn her place. It’s ridiculous that she’s pandered to like this.”

“She’d hardly pandered to—let out of her cell to clean for eighteen hours then locked away again? She’s in no doubt as to her place. Did you hear about her trying to speak to Athena?”

“No!” my wife hissed. “She dared to—”

“She was cleaning her floor and just started asking her questions! Howled like a dog when she was beaten,” Rufus said, clearly enjoying the juicy gossip. “And—”

“And?”

“She’s to be whipped. Tonight.”

“And yet I have to put up with her in here?”

“The agreement with the Council . . .”

“Ridiculous. But fine, bring her. I’ll have him ready.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Not sure, maybe have him beg me for sex again, or . . .”

“No, make him say something to her again, like when he called her a servant.”

“I’ll think of something,” she promised. I lay there, silent and still as the door opened, the clicking of heels and the swish of her clothes the only sound of her passage as she moved to her seat.

“Darling, wake up,” she called, and I heard the click-click-click of the injector’s button being pressed, feeling the liquid seeping into my hand. “There’s a servant coming. She will be here soon, and I want you to say these words when she comes in. Tell me that she’s useless, and you don’t want such a pathetic creature near you again. That she’s only of use as a toy, that was all she was to you.”

She went on, saying more, but I was too shocked to pay attention. Whoever was coming, this woman hated her, and everything she told me to say . . . was worse than the last.

I must have tensed as she paused, and I felt the shift in the room as she moved closer.

I shifted on the bed, moving my shoulders as if just starting to wake, and she fell silent, fingers gently stroking my cheek.

“Darling, time to wake up,” she said again, her voice clearly annoyed. “Remember, nobody but me will ever love you. I am the center of your life, your one true love. You want to please me.” As she spoke the words, they echoed in my mind, and I remembered hearing them before, again and again, and I felt anger rising.

Whatever was in the liquid, it clearly made me inclined to believe anything she said, and the shit that she came out with . . .

“Behave yourself, cattle,” came Rufus’s voice from further down the corridor, and the sound of two sets of feet on the stones, one clicking, smart shoes, formal, and the other?

The patter of bare feet.

“Remember your place. If you please me, maybe I’ll put in a good word with Athena for you,” Rufus promised, and I felt myself go cold for whoever was in such a shitty position with the “doctor.”

The door opened, and they entered, my “wife” getting up and moving around the bed, before setting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing, hard.

“Darling, wake up, now,” she ordered. I blinked as if just waking up, yawned, and looked around the room, planning on going along with as much as I could remember of the shit that she’d told me, until . . .

My eyes locked onto the bright green eyes of Ingrid.

She was here, she was afraid, she looked bone weary, and she was barely decent. Dressed in some tattered rags, barefoot, her hair was tousled, her hands wrinkled from being recently submerged in hot water, and her eyes were puffy from tears. Her cheek bruised, and lower lip swollen, and it all came back.

I saw her face. I saw her eyes, and a million memories I’d buried in my pain flashed before my own.

I saw her laughing so hard she snorted. I saw her coughing as a shot of Metaxa burned her throat. I saw her eyes unfocused in orgasm, her lips parted as she moaned, and her teeth flashing as she tore Lars a new asshole over his poor translation of a word that he should have known better.

I saw her wrapped in a dressing robe, no makeup on, and legs folded up under her, eating a late night snack and looking guilty when she realized that I was looking for the same packet of crisps.

I saw her determined face as she dragged the body close enough for me to feed on, and I saw the despair in her eyes as I was taken from her.

I saw all of it, and as it flooded through my mind, I felt the nanite capacity unfurling, the key filling the lock, awaiting only a single word.

I smiled. “Ingrid.”

It was like the world shook.

The joy on her face as she saw me and knew that I’d seen her, that I’d recognized her. The love in my voice, in my eyes . . .

I could give her no greater gift, I suddenly knew in that instant, that months and more of pain and degradation had been wiped clear, but that wasn’t all.

As the world came crashing back into my mind, I saw the looks on the faces of Rufus and that of “my wife.” The anger and the fear.

Rufus grabbed Ingrid by the throat and started to drag her out of the room, even as Vitoria, the woman who’d claimed to be my wife, reached for me.

I felt the power in them both, the strength, the mass of nanites.

But the months of torture hadn’t left me the same as I was. Where I’d been freshly changed before, and weak, now . . . now I was bloated with nanites in their hundreds of thousands. No, their millions . . . and they were almost all attuned.

They responded to my will, cleansing me of all poisons as they went active, burning the last of the confusion clear. I roared my fury at the sight of Rufus laying hands on Ingrid.

I felt the chains holding me, and I saw the sneer on Vitoria’s face as I started to move, then I saw it pour off her face like fresh milk as I yanked my right arm free, slapped my palm over the lock on my left, and popped it free as well.

She dove forwards, hands extended, trying to stop me. I caught her by the throat, too furious to consider anything, my only thought that I was going to shred every fucker who stood between Ingrid and me.

“What do you think you’re doing, ‘dear’?” she hissed, her throat resisting my attempt to crush it as she planted her hands on the bed and glared at me. “You’re weak, stupid, and—”

“Then consider this a fucking divorce!” I snarled and rammed my Harvest Blade into her heart.

Her eyes widened in shock, unable to understand how it’d happened, how anything could harm her. She gasped as I ripped the nanites from her, tearing them loose in their tens of thousands. They streamed through the blade and into me . . . before he was there.

Rufus released Ingrid, throwing her back, then leaped forwards and kicked me in the face. He flipped backwards, landed, and grabbed Vitoria by the arm, yanking her back, free of the blade, as a fountain of blood jetted out of her chest.

He dragged her from the room, catching Ingrid’s arm as she tried to run to me and taking her as well. My mind reeled from the massive feed I’d just had.

He reached out and slapped a hand to the wall outside what I saw now was my prison cell, barking a command that dropped sheets of metal down over the door, trapping me inside. I sat there, my mind reeling as the last few days . . . months . . . no.

THREE FUCKING YEARS.

It all came flooding back. The first year and a half was almost constant torture. I twitched, memories flashing through my mind. Fire . . . earth . . . water . . . they’d gone through the elements one by one, using them to kill me.

They’d used me in their experiments, over and over again, trying to find out how I’d Arisen. When they couldn’t find the key, they’d tried a million possible combinations.

They’d tortured me to death a hundred times and more, and all the time they’d been doing it, they’d had me connected to . . .

I looked at the bucket of slop next to the bed, sensing the massive nanite content, and I knew instantly what it was.

They’d been rendering down people.

They didn’t know that it was nanites, just that the strongest amongst them had been the oldest. The few who had bucked that trend had been the insane, those animals who had practiced cannibalism.

A single Arisen had come from a tribe that followed that dark practice, and they’d used it in their experiments with me.

They’d been rendering down people and feeding them to me!

I snarled, my mind racing back and forth, over and over, trying to come to terms with what I’d become, what I’d been made into.

I was a cannibal.

I was a cannibal, and I’d consumed hundreds, possibly thousands of people!

I was worse than the lycanthropes had ever dreamed of being. I was more a vampire than all but the most ancient of their kind could lay claim to. I’d literally been fed liquified humans!

I vomited, and I did it everywhere.

It was spectacular, projectile vomiting, and my mind roiled along with my stomach. Worst of all, I could sense the container that was by the bedside.

It was filled with nanites, and I wanted them!

I told myself that the people were already dead. That I’d not killed them. I told myself that it was a waste, leaving the nanites to simply break down, an insult to their memory. I could . . . I could . . .

I vomited again.

I tore myself free of the chains, shearing them from the bed, and hurled the entire thing across the room before collapsing to the floor, my mind broken by everything. The years of pain that had been inflicted on me, then hundreds upon hundreds of deaths, and the . . . and the nanites I’d been filled with. My body had gone into panic mode, storing them over and over, working to cleanse the corruption, filling the lacunas, working to purify the mass that I’d been filled with.

I lifted my right hand and stared at it, sensing the potential.

I was full.

That was why I’d been vomiting all the time when they fed me. I was past capacity; without commands, the nanites had been unable to act, so they’d taken in the best of the nanites and had discarded the most damaged, degraded, and corrupted.

I had been artificially boosted all the way from a freshly Arisen to a hundred or more years of work, then I’d been forced to fight their pets, thrown drunk, drugged, and confused into a pit and left to fight for my life again and again.

The memories were confused, layered over and over, a mass of teeth, claws, and worse. I’d been literally eaten several times, I’d been shit out and left in a steaming pile for my body to rebuild itself as liquified people were poured over me.

As a member of neither faction, and without my benefactor to speak for me most of the time, I’d been considered fair game and used for every test they’d wanted to try. Every possible “what if” idea they’d come up with in their worst states, they’d tried, and they’d laughed about it.

When Hans had come back, he’d been horrified by what they were doing. But he’d been unable to free me, and by then, their efforts were bearing fruit.

I remembered the Council, six depraved old fucks that had examined me, watched me fighting, and had commented on me like a prize racehorse.

They’d laid down rules as to my “upkeep,” and in a moment of sanity, I’d agreed to them, when the option put before me was to play their game or fight, and have Ingrid and the others, Hans included, pay the price.

I remembered him weeping in my cell, swearing that he would never have been a part of this, and that he’d make this right somehow. He’d never have believed “his people” were so lost.

He made deals that allowed the others to live; he made sure that Ingrid was kept “safe,” but beyond that, he could do little.

I’d known that in exchange for my essentially selling my life to the Council for two years, they were all to be kept safe and granted concessions . . . but the comments about her being made to clean and serve for eighteen hours a day, only to see me occasionally . . .

I knew then what concession she’d been given, and I couldn’t bear it.

It all came crashing down on me, a weight of failure, of disgust, and of borderline madness that had . . .

Two years.

I’d agreed to two years.

Two years in which they’d fed me.

They’d trained me.

They’d tortured me, examined me, and conducted every experiment they could imagine, at first wanting to know what had made me special. Then they’d wanted to see what I could be forced to achieve. Then, they’d kept doing it, simply because they could.

The window crackled, and I looked over, seeing it for what it was at last: a screen. No wonder I’d been confused about the sight; the snowy goddamn garden flashed away to show Rufus in a medical cell, Vitoria lay behind him on a bed as the doctor that had been there at the start of all of this panicked and worked on her, screaming that the wound wouldn’t close, and what the hell had I done.

“You . . . how . . .” He snarled, then he pointed at Ingrid who was half laid on the floor in one corner, looking bruised and battered, but triumphant as she saw me. “If she dies, then—”

I stood, all doubt dropping away. For the first time since the pit, I interfaced with my nanites fully, feeling my mind unfurl as clusters mimicked neurons, distributing and enhancing my mind.

“You’ll do nothing.” I lifted my arms to the sides, lifting both hands upwards, palms open. I began the change, summoning my armor.

It started as a pool of glistening blackness in the palm of each hand, and then they were everywhere, as thousands of nanite clusters flowed out of my skin and onto the surface.

My clothes simply collapsed to dust, floating away as each nanite cluster spread out a thousand spiderwebbing tendrils, flowing across my skin to form the base layer. Then they grew and grew.

I felt the hard stone underfoot vanish as I was lifted into my new boots, the bands of artificial muscle growing atop my own, the nanotube filaments spreading, weaving back and forth to cover me.

Their mass flowed up my neck, swarming around my face but leaving it exposed as I stared straight at the camera, knowing that I was giving much away, but past any concern now for secrecy.

I’d been given the chance to even the playing field, and to free my friends, and I was taking it.

“I’ll kill her,” Rufus warned, eyes wide.

“No, you won’t,” I told him as the black mass flowed over my face, closing by the second, sealing me away from the world. “Because then you will truly have nothing to stop me.”

I felt the armor fully close, then go active. My temperature suddenly evened out, tubules providing the perfect balance of oxygen, nitrogen, and more that the body needed, and I turned from the screen, evaluating the wall and the door in it.

Screens popped up, quest notifications mainly. I glanced at them, seeing the rewards, and the challenge. Escape. Rescue. Kill.

I accepted them all, uninterested in anything beyond going to her.

I’d rescue her, I’d escape with her, and I’d kill them all. That was beyond any goddamn doubt now.

I stepped forwards, feeling the artificial muscles flow with me, enhancing my movement, doubling and tripling my strength. The nanite-distributed neuron clusters automatically worked to adjust and smooth out my movements as I reached for the door.

Iron, carbon, chromium, gold, vanadium—I assessed its makeup, then I pulled back a fist as Rufus screamed that he’d see me dead and that I’d never escape my tomb.

I punched it, once.

The dent that appeared shut the fucker up instantly.

Then I punched again, and again. I started to hammer on it, picking up speed, the sound changing from a boom to something more akin to a drum solo, as the walls started to crack.

The screen crashed loose, falling to the floor and shattering. The hardened data connections in the room had already been severed beyond the camera feed. I cut that one then as I shifted my focus, stepping back from the bent, battered, but still-intact door.

I’d learned what I needed to, though; the entire room was a mantrap, the same steel alloy that was so impervious in my chains had been used to seal it.

It was impressive, very so, but it wasn’t the end run that they thought it was.

I could dent it.

I could deform it, and the high-speed pounding I’d done on it had demonstrated something else.

It was vulnerable to vibrations and heat.

I could have used the Harvest Blade and eventually carve my way out. But my rage, my pain would never be satisfied with that, not something so prosaic.

I reached my hand to the right, and I pulled.

The vat of nanites shattered as they tore free, flowing through the air and forming before me as I gave their owners their chance for revenge from beyond the veil.

Heat was energy, vibration. As was sound, at its most basic level. Hell, almost everything could be broken down to that same state, and in my rage, I focused that.

My expanded mentality provided the answers to questions I had never known existed.

I felt the shape of what was needed, the interlocking concentric rings that would channel the force, the gravitational lens, the . . . I had no words for it, but I knew it, the Gravitational Invertor that was part of my armor giving me the final secrets I needed.

The weapon that flowed into being before me was known by many names across the ages, but the most popular in our world was a railgun.

A horrifically powerful weapon that, at its most basic creation, was simply a device to move a solid item from one place to another.

Bows and arrows used the same principle.

You move item A from point B to point C. When it arrives, there are many possible effects, ranging from people walking out of a tube amazed by the speed and pleasant trip, to a planet-shattering kaboom as the relativistic force was released.

I had no concept of the math needed, of the precision, the complexity, none of it.

All I had was a burning hatred, and a billion, billion individual helpers, all of which were essentially tiny chemical engines.

The first ring was an inch across, and trailed nanowires that, on exit, would flash up, spreading the force of impact out, ensuring that as large a section was hit as possible.

As that first ring fell into being, it started to spin, others assembling around it, even as my hands moved, pressure building as metals were formed across my fingers, forming tiny magnetic fields.

Each field interacted with the next, increasing the pull on space, doubling it, over and over again.

More rings flowed into place, doubling and redoubling the effect, as more formed, each flexing and building a unique charge.

I lifted both arms forwards, glaring at the doorway, hands turning inwards, palms mirroring each other as I pulled back towards myself slowly, feeling the resistance building, increasing as each millimeter was crossed, the air crackling with potential energy.

Then the rings fell into alignment, and it released as I shoved my hands forward.

The tiny ring at the center spun up, covering the distance between the first magnetic disc and the second in less than a fraction of millisecond. It hit the second and doubled in speed, then the third.

By the time it passed the seventh and final disc, it was already travelling at many times the speed of sound, and the impact, when it came, was converted almost entirely into heat, vaporizing the doorway.

And the wall.

And a third of the building that lay in that direction, before the heat and light roared into a rock formation on the far side of the bay, punching a hole deep into it.

It would later be recorded as a magnitude five earthquake.

Chapter Forty

I stepped out into the remnants of the hallway as the weapon I’d built collapsed into dust. The building shook as walls collapsed, and I stared down at one of the bodies in the hallway.

It was the dickhead from my capture.

The asshole that had taken such pleasure in telling me I was “theirs now.”

He was dead, very dead, really, considering that he only had a little over a third of his chest and one arm, not to mention that his right eyeball had apparently liquified and run down his cheek like a cheap candle.

I also knew that was a temporary situation for our kind, and I took the time to stab my Harvest Blade into him, tearing fifteen thousand attuned nanites free and discarding another sixty thousand degraded ones that were beyond repair, leaving him dead, probably for good.

I didn’t take the time to make sure, though, because I’d finally found an access point. I reached out, the Wi-Fi access point in the far corner of the passageway barely holding me up a second before I was in.

I searched for video files, compressed data transmissions, high-density packets, and the cameras were there, at my fingertips in seconds, as I pored through them, finding them connected to a recording device and a second, offsite backup.

I stood frozen for a few seconds as I hacked the remote site, gaining access and locking it down, preventing anyone else from getting in later.

Then I was back in the local network, erasing the recordings, wiping the computers of all their test data, making damn sure that everything was gone as I ordered the drives to overwrite with random strings of data a dozen times, running in completely nonsensical patterns.

It should make the drives about as irrecoverable as possible, but just in case, they were then to access all the data at once, again and again and again, over and over until the drives failed.

As near as I could figure, that should fuck them well and truly. I was already moving as the nanites assembled a mental map of the structure, charting the corridors, rooms, and more, using the cameras to build it, even as I strode ahead, searching for Ingrid.

I had almost a tenth of the complex mapped out when they pulled the plug, someone having panicked at the loss of their data and taken the entire system down.

I kept moving, knowing damn well that the next time any of those drives were accessed, it would begin again, and again; there was no way to prevent the orders I’d given them. Any power they applied would result in the overwriting and hammering of the drives.

I could feel my armor settling into place as I dismissed the computer access, and I reveled in the feeling of power as it shifted in response to my will.

I’d only done the basic systems on my armor, all those . . . well, those years ago, which meant the entire thing could still be heavily upgraded, but what I had made already?

I was clad in matte black armor that could stop Dirty Harry’s cannon at close range. It augmented my strength and speed, had storage lacunas implanted, and as I strode forwards, more and more systems were coming online as the power cell closed in on primary booting.

I’d ordered its creation along with the rest, but I knew it’d take several days, if not weeks to finish.

That was fine, because it was constructed of a hundred smaller cells that worked in relay and the first five smaller cells were prioritized, with one online already.

That single cell was beginning the charge and boot of the entire basic system now, and I felt like a god among lesser beings as I marched forwards.

A door banged open ahead of me. Three men and a woman hurried out, assault rifles cradled in their arms, already lifting to aim and shoot.

I kept walking even as they barked orders, demanding that I stop, that I get on the ground.

“Your funeral, then!” A bearded man shouted at the back of the group, his body armor straining to cover his paunch. “Open fire!”

He matched words to action, squeezing off a quick burst of three rounds, his team doing the same, and all twelve bullets hit me in the chest.

It felt like hail, and I kept going, registering the shock on their faces as the pancaked bullets dropped to the ground. Their kinetic energy drained into my armor, powering it further.

“Full auto!” he screamed, flicking his selector from semi to full, as did his people.

Then they opened fire again, and I held up my right hand, the bullets slamming into me, my chest, my head, my legs . . .

One of them, a blond man in the front, dropped his empty mag from the rifle. He slotted a replacement in ahead of the others, racked it, then lowered his aim, opening fire and emptying the entire mag into my crotch.

I paused, as did they, the other three all stunned into disbelief that anyone was such an asshole. I grinned at him, my Harvest Blade sliding out and forming a sword jutting from my closed fist.

“Oh shit,” the asshole whispered before trying to push his way back into the group, who scattered.

I leapt forwards, flying through the air and landed in the middle of the group, slashing the Harvest Blade horizontally and taking limbs and heads. I tore a pathetically small number of nanites free of the regular human guards and coated the hall in their hearts’ blood.

The door they’d come through was locked, and I leaned back, kicking it hard. Sending it crashing to the floor, I found a small armory and breakroom behind it as well as a terrified man kneeling on the floor under the desk.

I leaned down and regarded him as he screwed his eyes shut and started whispering a prayer. The smell of fresh piss entered the air.

“Where!” I barked into his face. He pointed, one hand shaking, at a map on one wall, the wall of dead monitor screens above the desk making it clear he’d seen everything and knew exactly what I wanted.

My map flashed in my vision; a section of the missing areas filled in when overlaid with the handy map. The wall closest to me was highlighted as the nanites automatically took my capabilities and desires into consideration, providing the shortest path to my destination.

I turned and punched the wall, my left fist sinking into the cavity behind. Then I drove the right in as well, my blade carving through the wood, metal, and plasterboard. A second room lay on the far side, evidently a bathroom, judging from the three people huddling in stalls and staying as quiet as they could. I moved off again, picking up speed as the nanites used the same form of radar I’d been experimenting with so long ago in the hotel room to map out the rooms ahead of me.

A trio of heartbeats pulsed in the next room, and I took the door with my shoulder, sending it flying, even as the three inside opened fire. Two assault rifles and a single handgun boomed in the small room, punching into me and charging my armor even further.

I skidded to a halt, slashing left and right, grabbing one of them by the head and crushing it. Throwing the body aside, I snarled, my rage heightening as a voice rang out across a speaker system.

“You come any closer, and she’s dead!” Rufus screamed.

I realigned as the radar populated the rooms around me. One wall showed as solid while the others were more plasterboard and crap. I set off running, following the marker that popped up, punching through wall after wall. The building crumbled behind me as I took out the last one.

And skidded to a halt in a larger open space.

There were a dozen people facing me, and three of them were vampires, their nanites making them pulse a bright blue in my vision. The rest pulsed green, more powerful than humans, but less than an Arisen by an order of magnitude. Lycanthropes, my system helpfully informed me.

I snarled and leaped forwards, and they did the same, the lycanthropes changing their forms. The vampires leaped, seemingly expecting to win easily.

I landed in the middle of the first rank. Five of the lycans, two on my left, one on my right, and two ahead lunged forwards, teeth snapping, claws reaching.

I slashed my blade out, taking the one on my right from low on the right side of his chest, to exit high on the left, literally cutting him in half as I grabbed the closest on my left by the snout.

His mouth snapped shut with an audible clop, then a crunch as I bent his muzzle back, literally tearing his jaw apart.

He collapsed, shock, pain, and more rendering him useless. Blood fountained out, and I punched the next in the temple, sending him reeling, neck broken. Then I dragged the blade across from right to left, spinning and dropping low, carving it through the three in the middle.

Blood fountained, bones broke, and screams filled the air as I stabbed and slashed. I stood up only to have the fastest of the vampires slam into me, grabbing me by the throat.

“Pathetic!” he hissed, teeth elongating. “Distracted so easily.”

I reached up and grabbed him by the back of the throat. He squeezed, nails lengthening as he tried to tear at me, finding only now, to his shock, that my armor held easily against him.

His body, however, wasn’t so strong. I snapped the scrawny fucker’s neck, shrinking the Harvest Blade to a punch dagger and ramming it into his heart, and I tore nanites free to the sound of his screams.

I pulled it back, then rammed it in again and again, punching through his chest and shredding his internals. Cleaving the blade through his neck, I elongated it back into a short sword.

I gripped the head in my left hand then twisted it around to face the vamp incoming on that side. He gaped open-mouthed at it as a Lycan dove at me, expecting to take my legs out.

There was a crunch of bone as he impacted. I kicked out and he howled, sent flying back to take another of his kind down.

I drove the skull of the now-dead vamp into the incoming, gawking face of the second. The sound of their faces met like a melon impacting asphalt, and his legs came up as he did an unplanned backflip.

The third vamp was smarter than the others. Where they’d gone for a straightforward assault, he’d used his speed, strength, and the distraction of the others to get around behind me, leaping onto my back to sink his teeth into my neck.

Or that was his plan, anyway.

Instead, he bit down on an interwoven nanotube composite that broke his teeth. I extended the spikes on my back, driving them through him, impaling his chest and holding him in place until I stabbed up, taking the fucker in the left eye with my now-short-again punch dagger.

It was in a constant state of flux, lengthening and shortening, responding to my will as I fought and killed.

The lycans paused, the handful remaining seeing their much stronger masters shredded before their eyes. Fear registered as the fight or flight response went into overdrive, the nearest half turning in midair as he tried to change his mind.

I grabbed him by the leg and yanked, dragging him back, and pulling the dagger free of the vamp, its body still stuck to my back by the spikes. Stabbing down, I punched holes in the whimpering creature before finishing it off with a stab to the back of the head.

The last two made it through the far door before I could catch them, then panicked gunfire rang out. Their shredded corpses collapsed into rolling bags of blood and muscle.

I raced forwards, turning into the oncoming fire, only to stagger back as the .30 Cal machine gun roared, drowning out the barks of its smaller companions.

I lifted both hands, taking the concentrated fire of the .30 on my forearms. The bullets pelted into me and filled the suit reservoirs.

Bullets hammered into my arms while lesser fire hit my legs, shoulders, hands, and head.

I took the hits, seeing the indicator building higher and higher, passing the threshold and continuing, as I gritted my teeth and examined the building, making damn sure that the medical wing wasn’t going to get caught in the blast.

They’d kept me on the far side of the building, presumably a science area, well away from the rest. I growled as I approved the energy transfer, locking it in and designating the overcharge on the armor.

The .30 Cal ran dry, and I launched myself forwards, the ground where I’d been cratered by the force, and I was damn thankful for high ceilings.

I landed in the middle of the gun emplacement and slammed both hands down into the ground, the stored kinetic energy releasing all in one go, shattering the marble floor and hitting them all with a shockwave that shredded those closest to the epicenter.

I straightened up, turning to the right and glaring at the security doors that stood at the end of the corridor between me and my aim. I stepped forward as blood dripped from the shattered walls and echoes rang in the air.

A section of marble sheared off and crashed to the floor behind me. The sound as it fell onto the shredded bodies was enough to make a brave man paint his trousers brown.

I continued forwards, the security doors flashing a red light over the keypad, displaying a “locked” symbol.

I reached out, finding the encryption laughably simplistic with my distributed awareness, and unlocked it, the catches releasing as the door hissed and slid open.

“What are you doing! Lock it!” Rufus’s voice rang out, and a second answered him, explaining that it wasn’t them.

I stepped into the room, finding it was square with four smaller rooms, cells really, leading off. Two were on a side, left and right, and the door behind them led presumably to the throne room.

The asshole started to back up, even as four figures flowed through from the throne room, more coming, until I sealed the door, leaving the others on the far side, pounding on the door in fury.

I looked at the four that stood there, clearly inhuman, and not in any way I’d encountered before now.

They were broad-chested, humanoid, and bald, with long bodies, short legs, and long arms, heavily muscled with pointed ears, a stubby nose, and pale, almost grey skin.

The underbite was noticeable, as were the pointed, but more normal-looking teeth, less insane than the vampires’, but definitely predatory. They were dressed in thick armor, despite the obvious weight of it, solid slabs of metal, with two of them carrying massive shields and maces, the other two carrying a short sword staff each.

The weapons were five feet long, a curved claw at the base, the staff section wrapped in leather and hide and topped with a curved single-edged blade. A narrow red ribbon attached to a loop at the back of the blade and the base of the claw, making the damn things look almost festive.

The four stepped forwards, spreading out, the ones with a sword staff on either side, the shielded ones in the middle, stomping forwards.

Oracan

Biological Weapon Variant

One of several successful BWVs that were granted further augmentations, the line designated as Oracan was later terminated due to overwhelming aggression within the pack resulting in heavy losses. Excellent as shock troops, but incapable of control outside of strict pack hierarchy.

Capabilities:

Pain: Oracans can bury pain and fear, increasing their strength and speed for short bursts, but will grow quickly exhausted if this ability is triggered frequently.

Rage: Oracans can use their pain response to drive them into a berserker rage. Once triggered, the Oracan will kill anything it can reach, losing all sense of friend or foe.

HP 200/200

Oracan

I nodded to the creatures in respect, finally finding a soldier class to face. They were clearly taking me seriously as well, spreading out to surround me.

Well, fuck that.

I took a quick step to the right, seeing them all shift to follow. Instead, I lunged to my left, grabbing the shield of the leftmost bearer, yanking it forwards and ramming my punch dagger into his eye, skewering his brain.

Before I could release and jump back, the second shield-bearer leaped forwards, slamming his shield into me, driving me back. The other two stabbed their sword staffs at me, the one behind glancing off my armor in a shower of sparks. But the other was far better aimed, the tip punching into a joint on the side of my right knee. The razor-sharp blade carved a thin furrow in the muscle before getting stuck fast.

I ripped my blade free, releasing the body to fall, only to be hit again by the shield. He then spun, smacking me in the side of the head with the mace. The one with the stuck weapon yanked hard on it, trying to free it. The other lifted his staff over my head, then pulled back, trying to pin me and crush my throat.

I growled, seeing Rufus trying to get the door open, Ingrid clutched in one hand, hitting him, desperately trying to get free.

He snarled and backhanded her, sending her sprawling, and I lost my shit.

I ignored the one clinging to my back; his armor was too thick for my spikes, and there was a vampire still dangling from one side of them, which I’d forgotten about in the excitement. Instead, I stabbed the punch dagger into the throat of the one hauling on my knee and tore it sideways, almost decapitating him.

As he fell, I blocked the next attack by the mace, slapping it aside, and set myself better. Taking the shield blow, I slid back a few inches. Instead of staggering, I grabbed the shield and yanked him forwards, nutting him. My armored helm crushed the front of his head in and sent him squealing to the floor.

I backhanded the one clinging to me, sending him flying, and tapped into the stored kinetic energy I’d gained from them since I entered the room. Pulling my right fist back, I slammed it down into the center of the concussed one’s armored chest.

The entire room rang with the blow, and the armor deformed inwards with the crunch of bones. A veritable fountain of blood erupted from its mouth.

I straightened and turned, glaring back at the one with the sword staff. He lunged forwards, and I blocked the attack with the weapon that had been stuck in my knee, the entrapping bands releasing instantly as I tugged on it.

My opponent grunted, spinning the weapon, showing his mastery and creating a confusing blur of red with the twin ribbons.

I tried stabbing him, but he slapped the blade aside, then slashed his own across my forearms. The blow sent a shower of sparks flying, but did fuck all else.

He stepped back, then lunged in again, feinting with a stab high at my face. When I tried to block, he dropped low, stabbing at the same knee his friend had injured, clearly searching for a weak spot.

I twisted and stepped back, slashing down and burying the blade in the ground. I had to yank it free as he slashed at my arms, then head, before stabbing at the base of my neck.

With a growl, I slapped that strike aside, then yanked the sword staff across my body, fully extended and with as much force as I could manage.

He tried to block it, but fully boosted, the impact was enough to snap both weapons’ hafts. I triggered my time compression for the first time, wanting this over with.

The blade from my weapon was still spinning in the air when time seemed to slow for me. I reached out, catching the blade by the base, then slashed it forwards. Slicing through the muscle at the top of the creature’s left arm, then the right, I cut down into the muscle above its left knee, severing that, and across to the right before he could fall.

Then I twisted around, glaring at Rufus as the oracan toppled forwards, eyes widening as I held the blade upright before him, letting the fucker’s own weight impale him.

I extruded my Harvest Blade and punched it down into the dying warrior, tearing nanites free as I glared at the asshole who was again trying the door.

“Stop!” he screamed at me. “I’ll kill her!”

He lifted Ingrid warningly.

I froze at the state she was in.

She’d been battered, beaten, and worked to exhaustion. She was half-starved, barely dressed in rags, and . . . and her left shoulder had been tattooed with a symbol I realized I’d seen around the building. Athena’s Mark.

She’d been marked as property.

“That’s right, stand down, take that armor off, and—”

“Release her,” I ordered, my voice deep and filled with fury, the helm making it echo strangely. “Do it now, and I’ll kill you quick.”

“I—I’ll kill her,” he repeated.

“If you hurt her, so much as a fucking bruise, I’ll kill you a thousand times before carving your heart out and leaving you dead for all time. You’re not immortal. None of you are. And now I know the most painful ways for you to die, each and every one of them. You harm her, and I’ll show you them all, one by one.”

“You killed Vitoria,” he whispered. “She’s not . . . she’s not healing.”

Tears flowed down his cheeks, and I realized that, as an immortal he didn’t know how to deal with death, not anymore.

He’d spent hundreds of years not aging, and “knowing” that he’d live forever, and that while there were ways for them to die, in theory, his faction was so powerful that it’d never happen.

He’d let humans die, had killed them, and had laughed, feeling no more remorse than a man swatting a fly.

Now the woman he loved—as far as it was possible for him to love, at least—was dead, and she wasn’t coming back.

She should have already begun to heal. Hell, she should have been back up and raising hell, furious that anyone had dared to injure her, to ruin her clothes.

Instead, she lay there, to his right and my left, in the closest cell, the doctor standing by her side, ashen-faced at the death of a full Arisen.

“No,” I agreed. “She’d not going to heal, not now. Not ever. Let Ingrid go, kneel, and I’ll kill you quickly. Once. When you recover, you can take my warning to Athena and the others. Refuse, and I’ll torture you to death, then make sure you never rise again.”

“You can’t.” He whimpered, shaking his head, letting go of Ingrid and backing up. He reached for his hip and pulled out a small device, holding it up in a shaking fist. “You let me go . . . or I’ll use this.”

I focused on it, getting a popup.

Gamma Grenade

Explosive Weapon

An experimental grenade, the Gamma Grenade emits a powerful, if short-lived burst of gamma radiation, sterilizing all in a close radius of the explosion. Estimated damage radius, 5m, radiation drop off beyond this range significant.

Durability 100/100

Radioactive

“Impressive, but useless,” I said, stepping forward and twisted my hand, the blade sliding out and reforming to become a whip. “Last chance.”

“You can’t,” he whimpered.

I threw the weapon forwards, the bladed whip flexing independently to obey my will as it wrapped around his wrist, closing and locking, the blades burrowing into his arm and severing the nerves. His fingers flopped open and the grenade falling to the ground, bouncing harmlessly.

He stared at it, shock on his face, then screamed as I pulled, yanking him across the room, bouncing on the ground.

I stepped forward, slapping my left hand down on his back and extruded my claws, sinking them in deep before lifting him. At my command, the whip flowed back into a punch dagger, and I stabbed him in the forehead.

The blade sank deep as blood burst from his nostrils, his mouth dropping open, hanging limp. I twisted the blade, draining him as quickly as I could of nanites.

I grunted, the insane mass of them I could feel flowing into me filling my lacunas, making my heart thunder in my ears, even as a noise to my left made me glare that way.

It was the doctor. Instinctively, I growled in fury at her, before Ingrid spoke my name, drawing my attention.

“Steve?” she whispered.

I turned back to her, ignoring the doctor.

“Is that you?”

I straightened, the blade extending as I drove it deeper, unable to let the massive feast go to waste. But I saw the wince, the flinch from her as the blade punched down, shattering his skull, tearing his jaw free and driving deep into his chest.

“Ingrid,” I whispered as the drain dropped from a firehose to a stream. I released the body, retracting the blade. My foot came down on his right hand as I stepped, the bones crumbling under my weight, the strength torn free of them.

I moved closer, holding my arms out to her. She ran, sprinted to me, throwing herself into my arms, sobbing as she clung to me.

I held her close, the pair of us ignoring the blood, bile, and various . . . bits . . . that dangled from my armor as the spikes retracted, letting the now ‘holy’ vampire slide free to crumple onto the floor.

I felt dozens of power cells coming online, the massive feast they’d just absorbed enough to boost the speed of construction. I focused, activating and approving the final section of my armor, the mass of nanites on my back bubbling up and spreading out, forming the most basic shapes first, before . . .

“My god,” came a stunned whisper from behind me. I turned, fury filling my heart as I saw the doctor. She stepped forwards, eyes wide, staring at me. “They’re true . . . the legends.”

I growled deep in my throat, but Ingrid clung to me, speaking quickly.

“Steve, no.” I glanced down at her, and she stared up into the impassive faceplate of my helm. “She was the only one besides Hans who was ever kind to me. Don’t.” Ingrid shook her head, biting her lip.

I glared at the doctor, and remembered her being removed from the experiments and the harshness that had come afterwards.

I growled and pulled on the power cells, filling the kinetic energy capacitors and lifting my left arm upwards, the nanites I’d just harvested from Rufus pouring out and ringing my arm, forming a gravitational lens, the charge building and building.

I fired it, the pure force of gravity tearing the roof off this section of the building and letting the bright Mediterranean sun glare down.

“Tell them they’re all on my shit list, and it’s open season,” I snarled at the doctor, clutching Ingrid tight. “They come near her or me, and I’ll kill them all!”

With that, I unfurled my wings, flapping them experimentally as the last sections were finished. Then I triggered the main power cell, twisting gravity and thrust my wings down, sending the pair of us rocketing upwards into the bright blue skies and freedom.

The End of Book One

Arise: Dark Crusader

Hunted, confused, pissed off… this is one quarry you don’t want to back into a corner.

Steve and Ingrid have escaped the clutches of Athena, but Steve is still learning, both about his place in the world, and his capabilities, not to mention those of the creatures that surround him.

Ingrid, too, must find her way in the new reality she finds her world has become, and the pair need a plan.

Fortunately, Ingrid’s a lot brighter than Steve, and she’s had plenty of time to plan, to observe, and to build up a festering hatred of her ‘betters’.

Steve’s going recruiting—and harvesting—Greece is in for a hell of a surprise, and  for the criminal element out there? It’ll be a fatal one…

mybook.to/AriseDarkCrusader

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Recommendations

I’m often asked for personal recommendations, so if this book has whetted your appetite for more LitRPG, please have a look at the following, these are brilliant series by brilliant authors!

Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko

The Land by Aleron Kong

Challengers Call by Nathan A Thompson

SoulShip also by Nathan

Endless Online by M H Johnson

Silver Fox and the Western Hero, also by M H Johnson

The Good Guys/Bad Guys by Eric Ugland

Condition: Evolution by Kevin Sinclair

Space Seasons by Dawn Chapman

The Wayward Bard by Lars M

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