“You are all worthless.”

  “Hey, we tried our best.”

  “Do you believe that statement has anything to do with mine, Mr. McClair?”

  “I-”

  “Because it doesn't. However hard you tried, it didn't change the outcome. You were sloppy, uncoordinated, and amateurish."

  “It was our first team simulation. How can you expect us to perform better than that when we have no experience?”

  “I didn't say I expected you to be worthwhile. I said you are worthless. Am I wrong, Mr. McClair?

  “... “

  “Am I wrong?”

  “No sir.”

  “Good. Now, what was your biggest mistake? Yes, Miss Sasaki?”

  “We treated it like a game instead of real combat.”

  “Very good, what else? Yes, Mr. Avery?”

  “I got distracted by the graphics.”

  “A mistake I hope you will not repeat. Yes, Miss Quick?”

  “Yeah, I'll tell you what the problem was, we had no direction in there. Goody McTwo-shoes over there froze up and Little Miss Dumpsterfire went charging in without a word, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. It was a fucking shitshow.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “Good. You're dismissed.”

  “That's it? You're not going to instruct us?”

  “I am instructing you, Mr. McClair. Miss Smirnova is familiar with my teaching style, perhaps she can enlighten you.”

  “He's fond of tired metaphors involving hammers.”

  “And when all you have is hammers, every student is a nail. You will master this exercise before classes begin on Monday. I would get what rest I could, if I were you. Your next simulation drill starts in nineteen minutes. This exercise will continue in this fashion until I am satisfied with the result.”

  “But it's five o'clock, that took us hours, we're all exhausted.”

  “That's your problem, not mine. You are dismissed.

  ***

  I said my farewells to Site Gamma. I hadn't spent as long at the abandoned reactor as I'd thought I would, but nonetheless, I was glad to see the back of it. The four massive towers and eerie silence were a constant, looming reminder of what I'd done here.

  As I stepped onto my tub car, movement caught the corner of my eye. Another tube train was coming into Gama Station. It pulled near soundlessly into a platform further down the retaining wall. There was only one reason for it to be here, and it seemed I had overstayed my welcome.

  I punched in the zone code for Jinja Station and watched the tube car docking seal decouple from the platform. My destination was about 700 kilometers away, so it would take a little over an hour to get there. Instead of retreating to the armory like I had before, I made myself comfortable in one of the glass walled passenger cars. I was a little more confident in my disguise now that I'd worn it for a few hours. Although the curled up crow nuzzling in my lap would certainly cause some strange looks.

  The train launched. Baba Yaga and I watched through the glass as the four gargantuan monoliths slowly receded until the tube car cut through the curtain wall. For a moment we were plunged into darkness before emerging outside of the nuclear facility. New Babylon was sprawled out around us, a megatropolis that spanned several thousand kilometers, not counting the scapeways, which connected it through tube cars to the surface of Celeste above. The extreme size necessitated the tubeway, which had been outrageously expensive to construct. Unlike a subway of old, the tubeway was vacuum sealed and its cars levitated using superconductors and electromagnets. The result was a transit system with almost no loss of energy through drag or friction. Once fully accelerated, they could travel for thousands of kilometers without losing speed. The only exception to this was elevation. Some energy could be retained through alternators recharging the trains batteries while traveling down a gradient or descending from a scapeway, but that was only so efficient.

  My tube car hit the main bus, a highway of a dozen different lines contained in a single vacuum tube, and automatically merged into the center line, which was the fastest. It accelerated past other passenger cars on slower rails until it hit its top speed of 600kph.

  The city was a blur of multi-colored lights. This would be the easy part, as much as I hated the waiting. Once we arrived, I would have to deal with the thing I'd been dreading the most. People. I hadn't been particularly good with people even before I was turned into a six armed, acid spitting warp monster. Now though, I didn't have a choice. The world would see me as guilty until proven innocent, assuming I even was innocent. I had kinda killed Duncan, even if it was an accident. My blood also did carry a potentially world-ending, mind-controlling nanite zombie plague. Maybe the best thing for everyone was if they locked me up and studied me. I'd been fleeing for my life, but now that I could talk, maybe it was best for me to turn myself in. Clearlight could contain Nim and me, stop us from doing anymore serious damage. They might even be able to use us to develop a cure for the warp.

  The only thing that made me hesitate was that old cassette tape. I'd not had time to think about the video much with all that had happened, but when I closed my eyes, I could still see the woman's pained face as the nanites in her veins ate her alive. The company knew that the warp was caused by their nanites. They must have believed they'd solved the issue before pushing them out to the general public, only for it to come back in rare cases. In today's population, there were over one hundred billion people using Clearlight's base model of medical N.N.I.M, which have been injected in every infant born in a hospital since their release like a vaccine. The immune system adapts to the carbon micro-structures quickly because of its infancy, and the nanites slowly replicate as the child ages, never exceeding a very small percentage of their host's weight. Since the nanite cultures can self-replicate, they can be offered basically for free, and these days second or even third generation nanites are common in parents that pass their own nanites to their children during the fetal stage of development. With the sheer number of nanite users and the relatively low frequency of warp breaches - one to two times a week in large urban areas - it was reasonable to assume that the nanites’ developers wouldn't have encountered any warp breaches during the final testing phase before general release. Even if their sample size was in the thousands, the chances of a breach forming at those early stages would be one in a billion.

  On the other side, there was the videotape. The creator of this technology knew the risks and pushed forward anyways, resulting in the deaths of at least fourteen human test subjects and possibly countless more. It was undeniable that medical nanites had saved billions of lives, but they had come at a terrible cost, which humanity was still paying to this day. I had to believe that it would be worth it in the end. After all, it was still a new technology, only a little over five decades old. Nuclear power had also caused countless casualties before the technology was perfected and made safe. Now it cheaply and cleanly supplied over sixty percent of the world's electricity. However, unlike nuclear power, people didn't know that nanites were responsible for the warp. Nuclear power had almost been banned outright after the first few disasters. The warp had been killing people for decades and yet no one was questioning the ethics of the machines in their blood.

  The Clearlight Foundation had lied, sold the whole world a narrative of an interdimensional alien infection. A story which might even prove to be true, considering warp's inexplicable ability to bend the laws governing the four fundamental forces, primarily gravity and electro-magnetism. That couldn't so easily be explained away as rogue nanite Ai. Some malevolent intelligence was behind the warp's propagation and form. But that didn't change the fact that the Clearlight Foundation had covered up their nanites’ involvement.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Damnit. I'd trusted the organization my whole life, and now, when it mattered most, I suddenly had doubts? If only I hadn't watched that damned videotape, I might have turned myself in already. That's what my dad would have done. He would have given his life in a heartbeat for the potential scientific breakthrough that I now represented. But what if… what if they wouldn't listen? What if they squandered the opportunity? What if I died, and no one learned anything?

  I didn't want to die.

  …

  It would be a long ride.

  ***

  We arrived in Jinja Station, the tube car pulling to a silent stop in the bustling public transit hub. The station had a rustic aesthetic, built out of brick in a long, low hall like a train station of old. The platform I got off at was a private one for emergency services and was cordoned off with a holographic barrier, so I wasn't quite into the crowd yet. But a few people did shoot concerned looks my way as I stepped off the tube train, Baba Yaga on my shoulder. Typically tube cars on this platform would be for medical personnel or law enforcement, but in my anime hoodie and army pants, I didn't look like either of those. Hopefully people would just assume I was some corporate nepobaby abusing my unrestricted access to the company's emergency response lines, which now that I thought about it, was just accurate and true, even if my circumstances were a little more complex.

  “Baba Yaga, no pecking anyone,” I said in a low hiss. I considered stuffing him down my hood, but dismissed the idea. He was a bit too big for it. “Just stay close and outa trouble, okay?”

  “Cah,” he chirped in assent.

  In the crowd, beyond the few curious looks, there was a disturbance near the other end of the long hall. Two of the station's security personnel were calmly but firmly pushing their way through the press, headed in my direction. One of them saw me as I saw him. It was time to go. The last thing I needed was to explain myself to a couple of grunts. I turned the other direction and passed through the holographic barrier, pushing into the crowd.

  I did my best to avoid bumping into people, worried that they might spontaneously melt or something, but it was hard in such a packed station. I had a few times where my shoulder or arm would brush someone and I'd flinch away only for nothing to happen. Despite this - and the crow on my shoulder - people largely ignored me, which I really should have expected. I glanced over my shoulder. The renta-cops were still pursuing, but only marginally quicker than before. With my confidence bolstered by the fact no one had started screaming yet, I picked up the pace, actually pushing through the crowd instead of letting it push me.

  Before long, I made it to the gate, where green turnstiles blocked re-entry. Once I was through, the security should hopefully give up, as I hadn't actually done anything wrong, other than looking mildly suspicious on a restricted platform. By the time I'd gotten through the queue, the renta-cops had almost caught up. One of them tried to wave me down.

  “Excuse me, miss with the bird?” he called in a tone that said ‘please stop’.

  Yeah, I wasn't falling for that. I pushed through the metal turnstile gate, the ratchet clicking as it kicked me out the other side. Later boys. I emerged onto the streets of the Jinja province and ducked into the stream of pedestrians heading south west. I knew where Sir lived in a general sense. I’d visited him once when he moved out here to live along the Victoria Nile and sent him cards on holidays, but knowing the address and general appearance wasn’t the same as knowing how to get there. Last time, I’d taken a cab, so I knew it was roughly a ten kilometer drive from the station and that we’d headed in this direction, but beyond that, I’d have to find my own way.

  There were dozens of ways to travel that distance in a city like this, electric buses and cabs packed the streets in a myriad of colors, trams rattled on rails overhead, and porters and rickshaws filled the smaller lanes, but all of these cost money, and for the first time in my life, I was flat broke. Well, technically I wasn't, I still had everything my parents left me and had been working in a lucrative job since graduation, I just couldn't access any of it. I paid for most things with my smartpager, which was destroyed along with my ID when the warp ate me. I hadn't kept any valuables in my locker, none of my squad had. Those were safely at home in the barracks, far beyond my reach. If I had access to a computer, I could’ve logged into my bank account, assuming corporate hadn't declared me dead yet. Once they did, all my assets would be frozen, and that option would be gone too. In other words, I had to walk.

  “Hey Nim, do you remember the way to Sir's apartment?” I asked myself absentmindedly.

  If by ‘Sir’ you mean the now retired Mr. Rumminabi, then yes, my historical records include a map of this area.

  That was good enough for me.

  ***

  “Give me your money and no one has to get hurt.” And this was why we didn't walk places in unfamiliar cities. I had been wandering for a few hours, minding my own business - maybe taking a few wrong turns, no thanks to Nim and his outdated maps - and next thing you know, I'm in some alley with a crackhead armed with a 9mm.

  I raised my hands slowly. “Come on dude, you have no idea how shitty my day has been. You really don't want to do this,” my voice warbled and rasped as I talked, but he didn't so much as twitch. Maybe he was high? Hallucinogens ought to desensitize you to all sorts of stuff, right? To be honest, I didn't know much about drugs. I'd been an orphaned rich kid stuck in corporate foster care with no friends. Drugs were for people who went to parts and stuff.

  “Just empty your pockets,” he said, shaking the gun at me.

  “I'd love to, but I am literally penniless right now. In fact, the only reason I'm here is because I couldn't afford a taxi. So why don't you just give me some directions and I'll be on my way?”

  “Bullshit, I said pockets, now bitch!”

  I sighed and slowly started to take things from my many pockets. This was gonna be a whole thing, wasn't it? I'd gathered all kinds of useful junk from my scavenging. I pulled out my stolen notebook, Melony's makeup kit, some paperclips, and the bricked smartpager.

  “Gimi that,” he said, seeing the pager that I'd yet to pawn. I wasn't the only one to come up with that genius strategy. He scuttled over and snatched it. I let him have it. I didn't want this guy's blood on my hands, even if he did seem like a scumbag. He fiddled with it with no luck.

  “Battery's dead, dude.”

  “What's the passcode?” he asked, resuming his gun pointing.

  “Dunno, it's not mine. I stole it.”

  “Bullshit, passcode, now!”

  “Would you stop shaking that thing at me, it's bad gun etiquette, and I'm telling the truth. If I could get that thing to work, it would have saved me a lot of effort.”

  He swiveled to point the firearm at my other hand, the one still holding all my other junk.

  “Give me the book.”

  Clever little shit, he thought my passcode would be in it. I didn't care, it was just full of someone else's doodles. I held it out. All it had in it that I even wanted was a few blank pages near the back and… and the picture of Richard and me. I'd stuck the photo in-between the pages so it wouldn't get ruined in my pocket. Now that he was gone, and I was like this, it was all I had left to remember him by.

  I pulled it back before he could take it, hugging the notebook to my chest. “No, fuck you, get your own stupid book.”

  “I said hand it over.”

  “And I said go fuck yourself,” I growled, my voice reverberating dangerously.

  He shot me. Perhaps I could have handled that more diplomatically. At least he wasn't a very good shot. Stinging pain coursed through my right breast, just below the armpit. The bullet had ricocheted off my carapace instead of penetrating the external bone, but it still hurt like hell. A centimeter further to the right and he would have missed entirely, even at this range.

  Gunshot wound detected, administering pain suppression. Removing embedded lead shrapnel. Mending splintered carapace and restoring bruised tissue. Estimated time to full recovery, six seconds.

  Huh, that was fast. I guess I was basically immune to poorly aimed small arms fire. And I hadn't bled warp ichor all over the place, which was a huge plus. A better aimed shot was still a threat though, based on my past experience with bird bites… Could birds bite or was it piercing pecks?

  My assailant was staring, dumbfounded, at me. I suppose I hadn't so much as flinched in response to getting shot. I took a quick step forward and snatched the gun from his outstretched hand. In three swift motions it was dismantled. Had I used normal human strength the slide would have jammed, but even years of built up gunk and neglect couldn't stop my overpowered eldritch warp muscles. I made sure to bend the metal a bit before I discarded the gun parts, confident that the mugger couldn't resemble them. I may be a warp beast now, but I still had almost a decade of experience handling firearms.

  “Now,” I said, grabbing him by the arm before he could run off. “This is mine… well, I did steal it, but it's mine now.” I reclaimed my smartpager from his struggling hands. This dude was laughably weak. My only frame of reference for human strength had been an exo-kit empowered Esten Coldwell who could bench press a tank. By comparison, this guy was a wet noodle.

  I lifted him, probably quite painfully, off the ground, dangling him from his bicep. He started wailing, crying and begging incomprehensibly.

  “Dude, think you could keep it together for like two minutes? I just want some directions.” I'd sent Baba Yaga to scout out the area a while back when I'd officially decided I was lost, so until apocalypse crow returned, this lowlife was my best source of information. “Do you know where seven-eight-three-six waterfront way is?”

  He didn't answer so I shook him a few times and repeated the question. It took a little while, but I managed to get something resembling directions out of the poor asshole. I couldn't muster up much sympathy for someone who'd put a hole in Aiden's favorite anime hoodie, so once I had what I needed, I tossed him in a dumpster.

  By the end of it, I was actually feeling pretty good. I'd been too nervous to talk to anybody other than Baga Yaga so far, which had crippled my progress. But after this, I didn't feel so self conscious anymore. The crackhead hadn't even commented on my creepy monster voice. Yep, that guy had really done me a solid. Maybe I shouldn't have broken his arm after all… nah, he'd still deserved it. Now, it was time to scram before someone came to investigate those gunshots.