>> All That Glitters

  Panic hits the room with all the savage force of a bunker-buster. Blasting the girl back on her heels as the boy leaps forward, clutching at my arm. My eyes flicking between her and the garbled flood of text.

  I can't read any of it?

  "Mate! Mate, like you know me right?" The boy pleads. "Like. Like, I'm Zipper? Right? We grew up together, and-"

  "Zipper? Family....?"

  "Mate! Come on! You-"

  I jerk my arm from his. "Stop it! Stop it! I.... I remember bits! It's just- It's hard t'think. It's-"

  "Mate. God. Like, you know my face? Right?"

  I stare at him. Then look away. "No....."

  "No.....?" He grips harder.

  "No. It's.... all gettin' dim." My family now more of an idea than a reality. Every second growing fainter and fainter. As if they're all burning away to static and dust.

  But the girl called Kami is just..... gone. Just gone. As if she never existed.

  I can't tell who they are. I can't tell they're even people. Not by looking. Their features are jumbled. A crazed mess, stuck together at random. As if all the parts of my brain that tell people from rocks are gone.

  Just gone.

  "Zipper. Be calm. Do not overstimulate Spook."

  "Right. R-Right....."

  "Spook. We don't have long." The girl cuts in. "Others are outside. Badger thinks you're fine. Demon is...."

  "Demon?" A vague image. "Horns?"

  The boy claiming to be Zipper nods. "Yeah. Big horns. Four of them."

  "I remember.... He has secret-" I shut my mouth hard.

  "Mate, he's barely holding together. Like." He shivers. "I mean-"

  "He's doing you-know-what again. He thinks we can't see." The girl says. Softly. Her real voice at odds with her drawn-together face.

  I laugh. "Right. That." No idea what she's talking about.

  The girl jerks, like I hit her. The boy hisses.

  They stare at me.

  "Shiiit. Mate. Bad." He perches on the edge of the bed, rubbing his neck. I heave a tight - terrified - breath. "Look. It's alright. We'll get you fixed up. Yeah?"

  "Zopper. Look. It's.... gettin' real vague. It's like-" I swallow as the chalky lines spread - etching out a clinic somewhere in Karrak. Long tables, a huge sink, a few sketchy medical devices on wheels.

  And a door, which opens.

  "So this is Spook." A woman says, stepping without hurry. Behind her, two thuggish men. Two more, stopping either side of the door. Boots squeaking on the hard floor.

  Are they human? I can't tell.

  My head tilts. A dazed fog nibbling at the edges of my artificially sharpened mind. It feels-

  A fine, silken, glove appears under my nose. So suddenly I know I zoned out.

  "Amalia Frost. Head of Risky Acquisitions for The Velvet Room. We're a recent offshoot of The Sinners Cartel."

  I stare at it. Confused.

  The boy claiming to be Zipper grabs it, hastily.

  "You're ex Corporate." The girl accuses. But the woman makes....

  A face? I can't even work out her emotions.

  "Your trade is approved." Amalia states. All business. "One replacement brain, of your choice. Ten crates of material supplies. Medical expenses. Medical supplies. And 10,000? in Blood Money."

  The girl with the many arms nods. Passing her a shimmering shard of data that flickers with unsettling eyes and gears.

  "Good. This is everything you have?"

  "Everything. Ms Frost."

  The glove closes. Tight. "Tsk. I will confirm it."

  Our girl bristles, but her voice remains quiet. "Spook doesn't have long."

  "This won't take a moment. Use it to choose." She turns away, touching it to her wrist. "Maestro. Dispatch team K to the attached coordinates....."

  Amalia fades through the doorway, and her thugs fold in after.

  The teens whirl to me.

  "Spook! Mate!" The boy scuttles in beside me. The girl leaping after, almost yanking him back.

  "Quick-"

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  "We gotta-"

  "You-"

  I coil tight in on myself, and shudder until they back right off. Sharing a look I can't read.

  "You gotta make a choice. Right? A real big one." The boy chimes. "Like you know what it is?"

  I nod. Uncertain.

  The girl sighs. "Okay. So long as you know there's-"

  "You ain't her. Are ya? You ain't Princess?" I whisper, derailing everything. "Say somethin' The School wouldn't know. Just so I know it's you."

  They hesitate. "Mate. Shit. We don't got time-"

  "Say somethin'." I repeat. Clinging on to that one idea.

  "I'm out." The girl says. Raising hands. "I met you idiots at The School."

  "Well, yeah. Like. Okay. So, uh-" Zapper (Or was it Zopper?) babbles, nervously. "Okay. So, like, one time you were at that hospital-"

  "Something. Else." I grit, ripping part of the bed.

  "Right! Right!"

  The girl jerks her head. "Upgrade Pods just arrived. We have to move, soon as Pol and Demon clear them."

  "Okay." Zepper breathes. "Okay. Like. Remember Red-Red?"

  "The fox stuffie?" An eyebrow rises. "MY fox stuffie? The one that went bloody missin'?"

  "Okay. Not Red-Red."

  "What happened to Red-Red?" I say, gathering my final strength into a voice full of terrible vengeance.

  "Let's.... Let's not."

  I blink. And then I try to grin. "No no. I'm dyin' here. You're gonna tell me. It's my final bloody wish. I need closure."

  "I kinda.... stole him. Mate." He sort of hunches. "I was lil-kid jealous. Y'know?"

  "I'm bloody hauntin' you. On the toilet. Y'know that right?"

  Neither of them laugh. But Zeep smiles, sadly. "Mate. You don't gotta be- be strong for us. Y'know that, right? Like, it's our job to be strong now. For you."

  I shut my eyes, but it doesn't change what I feel. Or what I see. Not in virtual reality.

  They're terrified. Utterly. And completely.

  I guess I am too.

  "What's.... my options?"

  The boy smiles. "Oh, yeah, mate! I think you're gonna, like, legit love this. You're gonna be packing serious tek." He flips me a blue box, and I stare at it.

  "I can't.... I can't read." I admit. Quietly.

  His blue nails grip at the vScreen. Shaking.

  "This is.... nuts. Like. It's like the stuff you remember is.... so random." He pulls it around.

  "Hurry." The girl warns. Eyes on the door.

  "Okay. I'll read em off for you. Quickie version."

  "No." The girl states, right as I do. Adding "Too far. Too creepy. Too weird."

  "And too bloody sunk. Mate." Zap flicks through. "Shit. Like. Two miles down?"

  "Take a wild guess why it's unlooted and available." The snarky girl sighs. "Next?"

  "...And I guess Pol added the Pros and Cons, right?" Zopp finishes as I swallow, quietly. Painfully.

  "Shit." I breathe. "Shit. I would be...."

  "No longer a human or GMO at all." Polybius finishes. "But capable of appearing and feeling so."

  The girl turns away, rubbing her face. She pulls Zop over. They start arguing.

  I turn back to Pol. Weakness eating away at me.

  "It ain't so bad. Right? I could be a bloody mek! That goes freakin' hard." I half-chuckle, half-freak out. "All the choices this damn crazy?"

  "You bet." The girl shivers. Looking over.

  "You should see the rejects, mate." Zapp adds. "Like Demon turned two away. He was bloody pissed."

  "We don't have a mek, by the way. Just a Night Tyrant." The girl adds. "Don't go wild here."

  Even so, I stare at the meaningless box for far too long.

  I chew my lip bloody. Fighting to think as my brain literally decays in my head. Forcing myself to really consider it. To see myself not as merely me, but as The Night Tyrant itself.

  It's all too easy.

  But a ghost of sense flickers, and awakens. Asking little questions that prickle my spine.

  Why is this even on the table? Stupid, broke, kids don't get tek built for CEOs. They don't make deals with people called The Sinners. They don't get 'heads of acquisitions' charming their pants off.

  What did they give? And what's stopping this cartel from simply stealing it?

  No. It's gone. My head is spinning.

  I have to choose.

  "I do..... I do like bein' The Tyrant." I whisper, to myself. "And I'd still get to walk about, and eat, and-" Flickers of me with faceless friends. Snacking. Laughing. Getting utterly wrecked by Zipper in that game of his. Yeah. Zipper! That's his name! "I could have it all. But I'd be the ship, too. I'd...."

  Forever be cocooned in my gooy little refuge from the world.

  Flying them about. Dropping my meat-husk into the fray, then reeling it back with no fear of harm. Hell, maybe I could have dozens. Like Zipper. I'd have the mental power to do it.

  Our drone army would be massive.

  "But, lets be bloody honest here." I slur. "There's a good bloody chance Badger's gonna try to swim in me."

  A final window pings, and Zipper reads it off at double panic-speed. And stops.

  Kami steps forward. Peering at the box. "Wait. That's it?"

  "The file has been modified." Polybius states. "Redacted."

  "Something weird's going on here." She lowers her voice. "You in their system yet?"

  "One moment."

  I itch at my face. My neck. The sense of wrongness growing as the world distorts. Foul things crowding the edges of reality, scraping mad limbs at the threads that hold them back.

  It's coming. I feel it.

  A new box opens, and Zipper snaps another eye towards the closed door.

  "What." I whisper.

  "Mate. There's a note." He shakes a little as he reads.

  "Oh.... hell." The girl whispers. "Oh, hell. What have we done?" The shadow of a demonic rifle forms between her fingers. The boy raising a snarling, bleeding, SMG.

  "Mate. We don't even got ammo. Like we're bloody cooked, here."

  "No. You are not." Polybius states. "It is time I gave my own offer."

  "Holy....." I whisper. "Shit...."

  > > > < < <

  way back in Chapter 28.

  Which one would you choose?