NANITE

"Gimme your secure ID!" he blurted out, his voice cracking with an almost desperate excitement.

Ray instinctively tensed, his body preparing to react, to defend—but there was no threat here. Just sweaty palms and a raw, almost childlike enthusiasm radiating from the young tech-shaman.

"What—?"

"Please, man! Please! Let me be your mentor! Your guru! Your… your tech-sensei! I've got terabytes of learning materials! Courses, restricted-access academic papers, links to secret net-forums, old-school PDFs from before the last corporate war, even bootleg corpo training documentaries! Stuff they don't even teach in the accredited, soul-crushing, corporate-run learning programs anymore! The good stuff! The dangerous stuff!"

Ray looked down at their clasped hands, then up at Arty's pleading, almost manic expression. There was no guile in it. Just a desperate, almost painful sincerity.

This guy is lonely, Ray thought, a pang of unexpected sympathy cutting through his usual reserve. And maybe a little crazy.

With a resigned sigh, a silent acknowledgment of the sheer weirdness of his current existence, he sent his secure ID over to Arty's interface.

Arty lit up like a freshly overclocked server tower. "Yes! Awesome! Thanks, Ray! You won't regret this, man! I swear! From now on, you should call me Master Arty! Or no—wait! Arty-sensei! Yeah, that's got a way better ring to it!"

Ray stared at him, his expression utterly deadpan. "Yeah, I'm not calling you that."

Arty grinned sheepishly, deflating slightly. "Okay, okay. No honorifics. Got it. Cool, cool."

"And don't spam my interface in the middle of the night with random memes or cat videos."

"I wasn't gonna spam you…" Arty began, then caught Ray's raised eyebrow. "Okay, maybe only the really funny stuff," he murmured, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Ray tried not to smirk—and failed. Maybe this was a mistake. A huge, time-wasting, potentially dangerous mistake. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the first, tentative step toward something that didn't inevitably end in gunfire and blood.

For the next two hours, Ray and Arty talked about tech. Well—Arty talked, a mile a minute, his thoughts jumping from advanced robotics to obscure coding languages to the philosophical implications of sentient AI with dizzying, bewildering speed. Ray listened, absorbing, processing and silently cataloging the torrent of information. He asked questions when it made sense, when he could get a word in edgewise, just enough to steer Arty's enthusiastic, hyper-caffeinated tangents back towards something resembling a coherent topic. Ray had expected noise, scattered ideas, maybe even certifiable nonsense. What he got instead was brilliance—raw, unrefined, chaotic, yes, but undeniable, breathtaking brilliance all the same. Arty was a goddamn genius. Eccentric, erratic, jittery as a street-stim addict on his tenth hit of the day—but undeniably, terrifyingly gifted.

At one point, Arty yanked open a drawer that seemed to be packed entirely with what most people in Virelia would call absolute trash: rusted, useless coils, shattered servo-motors, broken toy fragments, scraps of iridescent plastic, cracked and corrupted data cards, bits and pieces of ancient, pre-Collapse game consoles, even a couple of oddly sentimental, mismatched dice. He dug through it with the focused intensity of an archaeologist unearthing a priceless relic and finally, triumphantly, emerged with a single, battered data shard. He held it out to Ray with both hands, as if it were a sacred offering.

"This, my friend," he said, his voice hushed with reverence, "is all you need to begin your journey. Here. Ninety-three terabytes of pure, unadulterated, mind-expanding good stuff."

Ray blinked. "How much did you say?"

"Ninety-three terabytes," Arty repeated, frowning slightly. "I think I said it pretty clearly, dude."

"No, I meant… how much for the shard?"

"Oh! That." Arty waved his hand dismissively. "Free, man. Totally free. Consider it a welcome gift to the wonderful, wacky world of actually understanding the tech that runs our lives. And occasionally tries to kill us."

Ray stared at him, suspicion warring with a reluctant gratitude. Nothing in this city was ever truly free.

"I swear, there's nothing shady on it," Arty added quickly, misinterpreting Ray's hesitation, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. "Well, mostly nothing shady. But hey, if you happen to find any old, embarrassing pics of my ex, Brunhilde—she was a combat bot with serious attachment issues—just, uh, do me a solid and delete them, okay? Please. For the love of all that is holy and well-coded."

Ray turned the shard over in his hand.

This could be loaded with all sorts of nasty surprises, he thought, his gaze flicking to Arty, who was still beaming at him like he'd just handed over the keys to the universe. How do my nanites even handle weaponized malware? Do they absorb it? Neutralize it? Or does it just… become part of me too? Another delightful uncertainty to add to the growing list.

A soft, insistent ping broke through his thoughts.

A reminder on his HUD: Julia – Z-Dragger Payment Due.

"I'll check it out later," Ray said, carefully pocketing the data shard. He stood up, the worn couch groaning in protest. "I've got to go handle something."

Arty popped up from his own seat, a bundle of restless energy, and offered a hand, his grin still firmly in place. "Cool. See ya around, Ray-man."

Ray shook it. Maybe, just maybe, against all odds, against all reason, he had one more person in his corner. Or at least, one more brilliantly unhinged contact in this city.

Back on the street, the oppressive pulse of Virelia returned like a throbbing migraine. His interface blinked, a soft blue intrusion in his vision.

New Message – Johnny R. Text: Back at HQ. Need to talk.

Short and direct. Just like Johnny.

Ray made his way to the nearest maglev station, the Kamigami Strike-Z temporarily stashed, its existence a dangerous secret he wasn't yet ready to share. First, he needed to retrieve the NEX from Red's apartment to pay Julia for the Z-Dragger. With any luck, once his new bike was officially registered—or at least convincingly ghost-registered—he'd never have to subject himself to the city's suffocating public transport again.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The maglev train pulled in with a whisper-quiet hiss, a sleek, aerodynamic capsule that belied the grime and flickering, unreliable light panels within. The doors sighed open, revealing a scene of compressed humanity. Inside, it was suffocating. People clung to overhead rails like desperate survivors on a sinking ship, their faces pale and drawn under the harsh, buzzing lights. The high-pitched wail of a crying child, somewhere in the packed car, cut through the glitching, distorted bass leaking from someone's overclocked, cheap earware. A woman with garish, LED-lined lashes blinked in perfect, unnerving sync with the flickering, mind-numbing advertisement looping on the grimy screen above the exit.

The maglev glided with an almost eerie silence—no wheels, no friction, just the invisible power of magnetic propulsion and raw inertia. But inside, the manufactured hush was broken by the soft, unsettling metallic shifts of the train's stressed frame.

It wasn't the silence of peace. It was the silence of being crushed in slow motion, a hundred lives pressed together, yet utterly alone.

Ray barely moved, one hand gripping a vertical support bar, the other pressed protectively over the data shard Arty had given him, tucked deep in his coat pocket.

Almost there, he thought, the mundane trip feeling like a gauntlet. He scanned the crowd, his senses picking up a thousand tiny details—the scent of stale sweat and cheap synth-coffee, the nervous tremor in a nearby passenger's hand, the almost inaudible whisper of a clandestine conversation. Dozens of lives, all heading somewhere, none truly connected, each mind isolated by invisible barriers of fear, apathy, or ambition.

Suddenly, streams of corrupted data, like digital rain, streaked across Ray's vision—lines of fractured, alien code, blinking red alerts, and a pulsing, aggressive grid overlaying his sight. Someone was trying to breach his newly restored interface system.

Ray tensed, his body instantly coiling, every nanite thrumming to alert. For one disorienting breath, the world glitched. Audio lagged, distorting into a metallic shriek. Colors blurred into meaningless streaks. His interface stuttered, fighting the intrusion. Then, just as quickly, everything snapped back into sharp, unnerving focus. His internal systems, the nanites themselves, flagged the intrusion attempt. Calm and efficient. It even displayed the nature of the payload: a crude, brute-force micro-program designed to forcibly eject data shards from standard interface ports. A pickshard attack. Low-level, opportunistic, but still a violation.

He felt a subtle movement behind him, a shift in the oppressive press of bodies. Ray activated his newly integrated Z-Dragger. Time, for him, dilated, stretching into slow, syrupy seconds. Motion slowed to a crawl. He turned, his movements preternaturally smooth, and his hand shot out, grabbing a wrist mid-reach. The man behind him, caught completely off guard, stumbled forward—mid-thirties, wiry, his face a roadmap of desperation, wrapped in a patchwork, stained synth-leather coat. One eye was a cheap, flickering cybernetic replacement. A mesh of faded, prison-style tattoos traced the grimy skin of his throat like diseased circuit vines.

"Let go of me, you fucking high-res shit!" the man hissed, his voice a venomous whisper, trying to jerk his arm free.

Ray's grip didn't move, didn't yield. He squeezed. Just enough. A silent, crushing pressure.

How many of my credits had slipped away to vultures like this over the years?

The man whimpered, a small, pathetic sound, and his knees buckled. Ray released him with a contemptuous shove. The would-be thief scrambled away, disappearing into the indifferent, anonymous crush of the crowd.

Ray exhaled, his jaw tight, a cold anger simmering beneath his calm exterior. His nanites had handled the intrusion—not by simply blocking it, but by absorbing the malicious program, dissecting it, cataloging it. The pickshard hack was now part of him, another tool in his growing arsenal.

Assimilate and integrate, he thought, the phrase echoing with a chilling, alien logic. He didn't know how to use the stolen code. Yet. Another reason to visit that netstrider haunt Julia had mentioned. Knowledge was power, and in Virelia, power was survival.

Half an hour later, Ray stepped into the stale, silent air of Red's apartment. It hadn't changed. It was a mausoleum of a life cut short, a testament to broken dreams and bad choices. A cheap metal table was still stacked with greasy food wrappers and unopened, tasteless protein bars. A cracked coffee mug, stained with long-dried synth-coffee, was filled with spent shell casings, a bizarre, makeshift ashtray. The digital calendar in the corner still blinked its frantic, ignored red alert, forgotten and expired. Clothes, stiff with sweat and time, were draped carelessly over a rickety chair. The narrow cot in the corner—its thin sheets rumpled, the single, threadbare blanket half-hanging onto the dusty floor—was stained with weeks of restless, unfulfilling sleep.

I need to clean this place, Ray thought, a strange, almost proprietary feeling stirring within him.

He moved to the small side table and crouched, his fingers feeling along its underside. He pressed the recessed button. With a quiet click-thunk, a portion of the wall slid aside, revealing the hidden weapons compartment. Inside, polished gunmetal glinted coldly under the soft, white LED lights.

Ray opened a smaller, reinforced inner case, retrieving a neat stack of neatly bound NEX bills—2,000. Just enough for Julia. He lingered for a moment, his eyes scanning the impressive, deadly arsenal. The encounter with Arty, his infectious, chaotic passion for creation, had lit something unexpected in Ray. A flicker of a different kind of ambition. Maybe he didn't have to work as a merc, a killer for hire. Maybe he could build things. Custom bikes. Advanced drones. Helper bots. Something better. Something that didn't require him to take lives to save one.

Who am I lying to? he muttered, the hopeful thought dissolving like smoke. Red's memories, Red's life as a mid-tier merc, were now part of his own mental landscape, vivid and undeniable—top mercs earned big. Fast. Bloody work, sure, but brutally effective. A few good gigs, high-risk, high-reward, and he could afford everything his mother needed. The thought was a cold, seductive whisper in the quiet of the dead man's apartment. He left, the NEX in his pocket, his mood dimming like the flickering, unreliable hallway lights.

The maglev ride back to Julia's clinic was uneventful. No pickshards. No trouble. Just the oppressive silence, the uncomfortable press of strangers, the low, almost subliminal hum of the magnetic propulsion system.

Ray found Julia in her office, hunched over her terminal, her fingers a blur as they danced across the keyboard. This time, she turned to face him as he stepped in, a questioning look in her sharp eyes.

"Here's the money for the Z-Dragger," Ray said, handing her the crisp stack of NEX.

She took it without looking at it and slid it into a locked drawer in her desk.

"Works perfectly, by the way."

"Any side effects?" Julia asked, her professional curiosity piqued. "Nausea? Headaches? Synaptic strain?"

"None so far. Actually, a pickshard tried to clep me on the maglev. I triggered the Z-Dragger to react—grabbed him before he could even blink. No strain, no lag."

Julia raised an eyebrow. "Could be the nanites dampening the usual aftershocks. Or maybe your system is just… more robust now."

"Seems likely," Ray agreed. "And I think I figured out how they handle malware."

"That's what I was about to ask you."

"They treat it like everything else," Ray interrupted, a grim understanding in his voice. "Assimilate and integrate. I've got a pretty simple shard-ejector hack as part of my core programming now and no clue how to actually run it."

"You should definitely visit that netstrider shop I told you about. Get a feel for some real-world hacking tools and techniques. Then come back here, and we'll test your nanites on something a little… heavier. See what their offensive cyberwarfare capabilities really are."

Ray nodded. That was already part of his rapidly evolving plan.

Julia reached into the drawer, pulled out the stack of NEX Ray had just given her, and handed it back.

"I can't take that, Julia," Ray said, shaking his head. "It's for the mod. A deal's a deal."

"You'll need it more than I do," she said, her voice firm. "Good hacking tools don't come cheap."

"I've still got enough from… other sources."

Their eyes locked for a long moment, a silent battle of wills. Then, wordlessly, Julia tucked the money back into the drawer.

Ray reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the data shard Arty had given him. He looked at it for a moment, turning it over and over in his hand, the weight of its potential, its ninety-three terabytes of unknown knowledge, feeling immense. And then, on an impulse he didn't fully understand, he handed it to Julia instead of the money.

"Can you scan this for malware? And… anything else unusual?"

Julia took it without hesitation, her curiosity clearly piqued, and slotted it into her main diagnostic rig. Her eyes moved to the monitor, lines of code scrolling rapidly as the system analyzed the shard's contents. Then she stopped. Her expression froze, her eyes widening almost imperceptibly.