>> The Ultimate Upgrade

  Death is not gentle. Death is not kind. And it comes for me like a predator as nightmares devour my mind. Creeping closer. Closer. Closer still. A thing rotted hands, clawing deep into flesh. Ripping at bone. Dragging me down into ink as thick as tar, and cutting off all breath.

  I scream and rage against it. I fight with maddened claws. I bite. I kick.

  But it doesn't care.

  I don't give up. I won't. I will never. Even as screams of hideous pain well up from the depths. Howling, and writhing, and spitting out their teeth. I struggle, because it is all that I have. All that I can do against this pure and monumental force. This enemy worse than any I have faced.

  But it doesn't care.

  And my face slips beneath the surface.

  Syrup of dark rolling up my arm to take my hand. My fingers. The tips of my claws. And I fall.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  Deeper than the Core of the planet. Deeper than the heart of the universe. And deeper, still. To a place with no name, and no escape. A choking Nothingness that will never, and can never, end.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  Beneath me, a silver spark. A roaring light, pale as silver. Yet so much brighter than any I have seen. Its heart a mash of clockwork to complex, too perfect, too mad to be real.

  It opens eyes of fire and infinity.

  It sees me.

  Silver bands rising to snatch me from the endless, plummeting, dark. To eat me alive. Stripping from me things I cannot even describe, but miss with terrible longing. I weep for them. I bite my arm, and the blood flows dark.

  What have I done?

  What have-

  My eye slick open, unto nothingness, and breath hammers into me. Forced by the tube down my throat, as ice chills my skull. All the world is absolute silence. I hear nothing. Not even my heart, thumping hard and panicked in my chest. Everything smells strange. Eerie and off.

  My hands lash out. Grabbing at faces. Legs. A foot. An arm. A hand.

  It grips onto mine, hard claws digging in.

  I.... I don't want to die alone.

  I grip harder. I hold onto it for all I can - this single point of life in total oblivion. My legs shaking, spasming, as all of the darkness tries to sweep me away.

  But it holds me. And I feel the thunder of jets rumbling beneath a stark metal floor.

  Is..... Is it going to be okay?

  A hand touches my head. It rubs my animally ears, like I'm a lil kid again. And the tears curl down my numb face.

  It's going.... to be okay.

  No matter what happens.

  And then I'm gone. And sleep’s jagged edge cuts deep into my mind. Feverish. Frenetic. Insane. Dancing with memories I have no hold on. But this time I hold firm. I am a bastion, and the chaos breaks upon me like the hammering of a storm that rattles all the windows.

  But, still, I feel all that I am slipping away.

  Soon I won't know even my.....

  My....?

  Time stutters, and I'm back in The School. Chased, and panting. Hurtling through endless hallways that dance with wretched, frenetic, cartoons. Badger falls ahead of me, and I rush to grab him. But I can't pick him up. I can't-

  Eyes flutter, and I shiver.

  The gurney rattles its busted wheel beneath me. Felt, but unseen. Unheard. My world a crushing wall of nothingness, and silence, beating down on me.

  It's not like shutting your eyes. Blocking your ears.

  It's like those senses never existed.

  The gurney hits another bump, and my claws grip at cold metal. My rough heels pressed into it. My tail snaking between them as a tube inflates my lungs in measured beats. Forcing me to live. And that's it. Those are the only sensations I have, beyond the dim ghosts of pain ripping at flesh.

  It's as if the world doesn't exist, outside of my skin. My nose.

  But everything smells wrong.

  The people. The Blood. The whole world.

  Is Badger okay? Am I?

  What's going on?

  I know it's weak. I know I'm The Leader. But I want....

  I want to be held. I want to be told it's going to be okay, even if it isn't.

  Is that bad?

  The trolley jolts to a stop, and I sense warm bodies crowding around me. Movements in the air, as if fingers are pointing. People leaning over me. An argument? Someone is checking me. Applying new packs of ice to my skull. Pressing a needle into the my wrist.

  Kami. Probably. I can imagine what she's saying.

  "YOU BETTER FIX THIS IDIOT, OR I'LL DELETE YOUR SODDING LEGS!!!"

  "WOO!! YEAH!!! AND I'LL BLOW UP THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!" Cheers an imaginary Badger.

  I try hard not to giggle.

  Even now I can't imagine him being really, actually, upset about.... anything.

  Or sick. Or in pain.

  Or on a gurney.

  I close my eyes, and stare up at the flowers of light that bloom and unfold in the terrible nothingness above me. Twisting mad shapes into fractals. Into dreams of things no moral was ever meant to see.

  Echoes of gods, and demons. Of a serpent as long as eternity, an entire universe woven into its back. Images flicker. Images of past. Of present. Of things I hope for. Or fear. Of things that should never exist.

  "I'm scared." Says a tiny little voice in the void. "Please....."

  I reach for it. And-

  A finger taps my numb and useless ear, making it flick as I jerk away. A swath of hands pressing me down as more grab at my own. Small, and coldly metallic. But careful.

  "Who's that?" I choke on the tube. Muted, totally.

  I know someone. She has metal hands. I was thinking about her just a second ago-

  Clawed fingers take my other, holding it tight with both hands. Letting me snuffle them. And I guess it's Demon, but everything smells so strange. So wrong. So twisted and weird.

  They smell of food, and angles, and colours that aren't real.....

  Megaxx.....

  More hands grab me as I start to panic. To remember it's a hospital. Even worse, a Pirate Hospital.....

  I scream, but there's no sound at all. I thrash, but they hold me down. That clawed hand jerking against my mouth as my teeth bite deep. No! I have to stop. I have to-

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I rip the torn tube from my mouth, and cough. My throat raw. Bitter. Gasping on pure, free air.

  Even that much effort almost knocks me out. The others pressing down as I force myself to go still. To let her fine metal hands peel off my broken armour. The bigger hand in mine, gripping tight again. He puts his tail on top of it. His lion tail.

  He's showing me it's him. Making me understand.

  That it really is Demon.

  I cling to it, like a little kid in a schoolyard line. And I nod at the faceless hands. "Okay. Okay. I'm sorry....."

  But what if it isn't them?

  No. No. Stop panicking.

  I let them finish off my armour. Leaving me vulnerable, and bleeding, in my underlay on the steel. Gentle hands in the void, lifting me up. Carrying me over to a bed that feels like softness, and smells like.....

  I don't even know? Purple? Friendship? Madness?

  Ghghg......

  Two new hands grip one of mine. One small. Fleshy. One huge, and plastic.

  And my entire body burns with terror, joy, and confusion.

  "Who....?" I lisp, raw-throated. "I know you! You-"

  The boy who breathed it too..... Who breathed Megaxx?

  Or don't they know? Is it killing him even now?

  But how can I tell them?

  "Badger." I realise, suddenly. And the urge to toss him away burns through me. But what if this is The Last Time? The Last Chance? Somehow I can't let him go. And so I just rest there. Letting that small, squishy, face press into my hand. Filling it with tears, and ticklish murmuring.

  Tears and promises?

  Tears and regrets?

  Tears and goodbyes?

  Perhaps I'll never know.

  It slips away, and something hot and clawed and heavy hops on my chest. Nibbling my fingers with sharp lil fangs.

  "Hi.... Gremlin?" I grumble. "Where's .... green cat?"

  A long silence. Scary-long.

  "Green cat?" I whisper.

  But then, two other hands grip mine. Human, and small, but with claws this time. I let them be there, though I can't grip back. I just can't.

  "You were so brave." I tell him. Almost delirious. "So brave. I saved ya from a box. Ya weren't meant to be there."

  Is this what it takes to.... to finally..... Connect? To touch other people?

  I let them squeeze, and shake, until they slip away. My hand open to nothing.

  "Don't hurt.... cat. I mean it. He saved me." I say to nobody at all.

  God. I might be dead in an hour. What if they blame him? Kill him? For.....

  For what was it?

  Another hand, without claws, pats my shoulder. A needle in my arm, spreading chill. Flashes of thoughts. A calming of the roil and boil and chaos of emotion.

  I go limp, and shut my blind eyes. A flicker of memory shining up from the murk.

  What was his name? Zapper? Zopper?

  I remember his voice. What would he say?

  "Alright, mate? Like, I know this sucks, but...."

  "Yah. Lets..... Let's get this over with..... whatever it is." I whisper, finding my words more smoothly. "I'll hold still."

  Did they give me a... needle-thing..... that helps? With brain?

  I lay back as it starts to work. Illusions and delusions fading back into the gibbering dark as they slide a curved plastic cap onto my head. A spidery thing of little sticky arms, each ending in a thick velvet patch. Spidery. Leggy! Are the legs moving? Are they putting a monster on my head?

  No. No. I'm okay. Friend wouldn't do that to me.

  They tighten it on, despite my unhelpfully curious hands. My cheerful fingers prodding faces and ears.

  And then, just like that, a horribly purple box flickers into being. Warping, strangely, as the colours shift. Slapping my half-broken brain with a triumphant tone.

  Static explodes. The box cracking. Breaking. Unfolding into a thing of silver-steel wings, and wires, and titanic gears. Metal eyes melting open, like wax, in the nothingness.

  "You have won. But at a terrible cost." It rumbles in my skull. "You did not leave the battlefield. You brought it with you. Inside you."

  "Eh? Bloody 'hello' to you too." I drunkenly grumble. Flicking my ears, this way and that, as a shadow of my body forms from nothingness and ink. Gaining colours that.... hurt. Angles that scream. Fingers that crawl.

  "You are dying. The others do not wish for you to know." Polybius states, in an echoing chant of terrible fate. "But you can be saved. There are many ways. But none will leave you unchanged."

  I stop breathing.

  Outside, dimly, I feel people panic. I force myself to start again.

  "Shit. But-" Anger explodes, drowning all else. Then grief. Then regret. The shifts so wild and fast I can barely keep up.

  The hands are back. They hold me still. Giving more of the needle that makes me calm.

  "Changed....?" I plead. My head throbbing.

  "Upgraded. Reborn. Remade."

  I stare into the nothing. "There... ain't no way round this?"

  "Your brain has been damaged repeatedly. Permanently." Polybius intones. Flickering images of anatomy shifting in absolute darkness. Regions of the mind coated in yellow, and orange, and red. "By concussion. By combat. By the accident we shared."

  "And the gas." I whisper.

  "Megaxx is no gas." The machine corrects. "It is a partially organic, airborne, nanoTek powder that coats the lungs. From there, it migrates to the brain, and devours it. Generating more of itself. Thus, Megaxx has no safe minimum dose. And no cure to speak of. A single Megaxx spore will destroy your entire neocortex in a matter of days."

  My body twists. My insides, churn.

  I almost break. Right there.

  "But you..... you can....."

  "The procedure is far more profound than a cure." Whispers the ticking thing of cogs and eyes. "We must replace your entire brain, cell by cell, with a fully synthetic copy. An artificial mind, impervious to Megaxx."

  Something goes thunk inside me. As if, only now, do I understand what's really happening.

  That if I go to sleep, I won't ever wake up.

  "What....?" I whisper. I swallow. I shake, even so. Images flickering. Of my body on a slab. "But I wouldn't be- I'd be-"

  Dead. Replaced by a robotic fake with all my memories. And my face. My body. Everything.

  Terror steeps in the silence.

  "You will not become a [Psychopomp]. Spook. We promise it." The thing tells me, amid the echoes of hammering rain. Visions of brains in jars drifting around me. Of rat-skulls ripped open, and whole sections cut out.

  Replaced by metal. By wires.

  "But-"

  "Braincells are born, and die, every day. Yet you remain. You will not be replaced." It whispers with dark reassurance. "Think of it, instead, as an upgrade. A chance to become far more than merely human."

  I curl on myself tighter. "But....."

  "You are scared, and incredibly tired." The thing above me says. Without sorrow. Without inflection. "You are alone in the dark. Forced to be far too strong for far too long. In places where adults would weep and despair."

  My claws bite my palms. "Okay. It's just.... I feel.... I feel okay now..... And....."

  I know. I'm lying.

  "It is an island of shelter in a storm." The Machine echoes with terrible fate. "You have been given a cocktail of drugs that grant lucidity to the dying. It will not last." The slightest little pause. "Nor will you."

  "But...." I want to coil up and float in the void, like I do in The Night Tyrant.

  "We do not have long. Spook." It ticks in the dark. Unfolding and refolding - a puzzle, without end. "Only by Tufty's sacrifice did you make it this far."

  A flash in the dark of memory. A cat with a needle. "The nanites. The brainHeal."

  "He bought you precious time." The Machine says, and the bed sketches itself into being beneath me. A chalky outline in the void. I touch a tube in my arm I never even felt. A bag of synthetic blood dangling above me.

  And a thin canister labelled-

  With a chill I realise I can't read it. My own language. I can't read it at all. I can see symbols, and recognise them. I almost know the words. But they don't quite mean anything. Or maybe they do, but-

  Rage. Rage and twisted emotions, warring against the chemical calm.

  "What is this?" I whisper, clutching my head. "What-"

  "Your brain is a cybernetic husk, kept alive by nanites." It explains to me, slowly and carefully. As if to a baby. "Even as Megaxx destroys it, they execute patch functions. Nanostitch burst cells. Repair pathways. Replace missing parts. Even entire cells."

  "It's brainHeal. In the tube." I say, numbly.

  Like I barely understand.

  "Correct." It states. "Megaxx is designed to hunt and destroy such nanites. Therefore, we have flooded your system. Using them as decoys. Keeping you alive. But these bandaids hold shut moral wounds, and the blade has not ceased to cut. Soon, there will be nothing to repair."

  "Wow." I whisper. Feeling..... so small.

  How am I even here?

  I shift on the bed, like a little kid. "It's my fault. All my fault. I bloody led us in there. I-"

  "The others want to be with you. To support you. Will you let them?"

  "Why would they?" I whisper. "After- After everythin'?"

  It regards me with terrible eyes.

  "You all make mistakes." A chalky image of an abandoned supermart. One so familiar I know I should remember it. "All of you rush into endless things you do not understand. You ingest objects, liquids, gases, without verifying their composition."

  I blink. "Wait. Are ya.... worried about me?"

  "Battle stims are not toys. They are dangerous substances. Particularly at high, and repeated, doses. " It interrupts. Which sounds like a bloody 'yes' to me. "Reaper Mode is, functionally, a suicide switch. This is why we disabled it."

  "I know." I look away.

  "Your heartrate peaked at a level where tachycardia becomes likely."

  "Tachy-?"

  "A state where your heart pumps so fast it cannot refill. It can be fatal. It is remarkable that you maintained consciousness."

  "Jesus frick......"

  "Youth and fitness saved you. Along with the ampule's heavily depleted state." It clicks into a new gear. "Updated armour designs will lack a Reaper function. This is not negotiable."

  I hesitate. Claws gripped to the stuff of the bed. "You're actin' like I'll get to wear it."

  "For their sake, you must." It states. "You are their herald. Their shield. Their pilot. Their leader. The closest any of them have to a parent. You. Must. Not. Fall."

  Deep inside me, a little voice adds: 'And you're not taking that seriously'.

  "You are required for team survival. Even Moon understands this." It finishes. "But not as you are."

  I look away, but there is no 'away'. So I stare at the shaky ruin of my left hand in the inky dark.

  It has no fingers to clench. But I try.

  "But, shit, an upgrade like this.....?" I whisper. "Can we.... afford....."

  Didn't we have.... no money? Am I remembering wrong?

  I can barely remember the fight. My life before this bleeding off into the dark.

  "All possible upgrades have arrived. Your friends wait for you. Your family. Let them take care of you. Spook." It whispers with terrible eyes and clattering gears. "For once, in your life, let others carry you. As you did when you were small."

  "Okay....." I shake. "Okay."

  "Then is time to make your choice."

  A blocky blue-haired boy and a silver-grey girl shimmer into being. Familiar, in so many ways.

  But something is wrong. Something terrible.

  "Wait. Who are you again?" I whisper to the girl, as they look at me in pain. "Are you real?"

  Is she my family? Or.....

  "You remember me, you idiot! I'm Kami." She chokes, her eyes hatched with sketched-on tears.

  "....yeah." I lie. "I.... I do. Yeah."

  "Oh shit, mate." The boy chokes. "Shit. We gotta hurry....."

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