As terrifying as it was to have a body part prisoner of a many building-sized nanotechnological construct managed by an artificial intelligence whose main directives included several variations of “keep people away” and very few variations of “life is precious”, the fact it had yet to be separated from his body helped Zax calm down enough to analyse the situation.

The slap from Team Leader had also helped. Probably.

“So, good news and bad news.” The human explained while also thinking aloud. “Good news: I managed to establish contact. Bad news: the Core tried to take over my nanites, which initiated my emergency shut down.”

“You don’t look very… shut down.”

“My nanites are not linked to my vitals -besides measuring-, I just store them in my body. If I could turn them back on without connecting to the Core, I could read the history and see the details of what happened, but with my hand like that there is no way to avoid it. The second I turn them back on, Core will complete the takeover and do what it wants. I will not be able to stop it. And we have no idea of what it will do.”

“What can it do?”

“Kill me for starters. Just shaking the nanites in the right place at the right frequency would tear my tissues and organs. It could control my perceptions to make me see and hear whatever it wants, and access all my programs and stored data. Including my memories. And through my connection to my bracelet, it could access any system my bracelet can access. Ah, that one is easier to solve. Here.” Zax turned his bracelet off, unlocked it and gave it to the flabbergasted team leader. Good thing the trapped hand was the braceleted one. “I guess you have isolating bags or something like that?”

The bracelets were usually considered very private, or even intimate, so seeing someone remove and give theirs so casually was jarring for the experienced enforcer. Without a word, he presented an open zip bag, making sure not to touch the offending item as he received it.

“But there are several… strange points.” Zax turned back to the wall like it was nothing. “It did not just seal itself back and took my hand with it. It is not forcing a connection, and it is not shoving its own nanites in my body for a… more physical takeover. It should have no reason to take my hand. The only thing it does is… keeping me here. It… wants me for something? Something that requires me staying here with both hands attached?

It accepted the connection before I could modulate it. That means it should not be any different than what the B-Box tried. Then why not accept the Box’s connection? It… wanted a direct connection to me? Or my body? But why?”

“To take your hand, most likely. Whatever it wants, it won’t let you refuse easily.” The enforcer didn’t know much about AIs, but he knew blackmail and a hostage situation when he saw one.

“But that’s a pretty backward way of coercing us. I have no doubt it could have taken over without me noticing. Maybe making me decode a decoy message as distraction? And even then, I don’t give orders here. We are pressed by time, but I would be easy to replace, and it should know that. Then why? The status quo is basically unchanged, so…” then he straightened as if lighting had hit him. “To send a message.”

“What?”

“It took over when I tried to get in contact, but it is not doing anything now that I stopped. It is waiting for us. Making it hard but not impossible to back out.

If we want to go any further, we will have to let it do its thing. Follow its demands. It’s a way of establishing dominance, so to speak. While still respecting our free will. “You can still back down, but one step further and you are mine”. And maybe “know your place”. Or something like that.” Zax concluded, looking at the enforcer for more instructions.

“How sure are you about that? It’d show it’s open to the idea of letting us in, but that’s a big conclusion to make with very little.”

At that moment, a dotted pattern appeared on the patched wall. The dots had the same colour as the rest of the undamaged surface. It had happened so smoothly it would have been easy to miss, and the dots were slowly but steadily growing.

“Very sure. And something tells me the offer is limited in time.” Zax answered, pulling his hand in every direction to test if something had changed about that.

“Good to know, but it already matches with the plan. Proceed.”

“… Yes sir.”

The human first turned the B-Box off. The Core was already about to take over the machines inside his own body, putting him in a position of vulnerability he had never even considered before. No point in giving it even more ammunitions and a direct way to affect other people. His own message: I’m giving you a chance, but I won’t blindly follow.

He then took a deep breath, and turned his nanites back on.

<“Override emergency shutdo-”> Zax stopped his command before the end, his shoulders slumping.

The takeover was complete before he could finish that one line of instruction. There wasn’t any notification about it, but he could tell by the lack of that constant feedback he had gotten so used to over the years.

“Take over complete, but nothing is happening. Wait. There’s something. Pareidolia? What’s that? Oh.”

A strange phenomenon happened; wherever he looked, no matter what was in front of his eyes, a new information popped up. The silhouette from the buildings around explained the phenomenon, the lines of his hand mentioned conditions to come in, the wrinkles in the enforcer’s face added to them, and so on. It wasn’t words, but a meaning jumped to him regardless, just like when a dust pattern looked like a face or when household items looked like an intruder in the dark of the night.

Very uncanny. Not always clear. But enough as communication.

“Connection established. It did read all my data, but it isn’t using my programs. It can still use its own. It can receive information without problem, but it is harder to send them outside. That is why it wanted my hand like that; it counts as “inside” now, so it can send me data more easily, even if it is not perfect.

It can see and hear what I see and hear, but not “talk” normally. So it uses a special method to directly send ideas and concepts. Creepy. I don’t want to be a sock-puppet. It’s easy to see what ideas are… not mine, but I don’t know what else it can do.” A shiver ran through his whole body, but he forced through, keeping his voice as level as possible. The people around seemed as creeped out as he.

“If I get it right, here are its conditions: Only go in allowed areas it will determine. In and out in as little steps as possible. Any deviation will result in immediate annihilation of everyone and everything it reckon is intruding.”

“Agreed.”

“It will reject who it wants, no questions asked. Absolute lowest number of people, but… open carts and trolleys allowed? Yes, to help with low number. No weapons, no non-medical sensor and… nothing that can affect the structural integrity? I think it means nothing that can damage the walls or dig into the ground. And they will have to… what? That’s… crazy! You’re asking way too much!” The human was appealed by that last condition, unconsciously taking a step away from the wall. The pull on his arm reminded him how impossible that was.

The hold on his hand briefly seemed tighter, but it could have been his imagination.

“I will decide of that.” The Team Leader interceded. “Tell me.”

“It wants any people going inside to… put their lives in its hands. Literally. So that it can find them and end them any second, with no warning and nothing they can do to stop him.”

A heavy silence followed that declaration, but it didn’t last.

“Agreed.”

“What?”

“Getting in there was always dangerous. It doesn’t change anything. Team leader to Home team.” The enforcer called in his bracelet.

“Home team listening.”

Followed a distinctively military conversation made of code, mumbo-jumbo and acronyms well beyond what Zax had been taught. He could understand a few snippets here and there, but it made his attempts at concision look like child’s play.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

In no time, a series of basic trolleys had been brought, loaded with medical equipment and empty crates. Five enforcers followed the team leader putting their weapons and pockets down in the crates, replacing everything with medical supplies. Some were still left on the trolleys to be carried that way. They had not been called, but the cat-and-dog duo followed along. They were not armed anyway, they just had to go in the queue and they were ready.

While they did that, the human asked a random enforcer for a shaft and used it to turn the B-box on and push buttons to manually prepare an ordinary program.

“Ready to go. Open up.”

Zax nodded to the team leader and send an open request, but nothing happened.

“It’s not reacting. I think it isn’t satisfied with your arrangement.”

“Not a single weapon in all of us, only medical sensors, nobody and nothing that could seriously damage a wall. What is missing?”

“I would still consider you as armed and dangerous even if you were naked, and I’m sure you could totally punch through a wall. An ordinary one at least.” He added with a glance at the wall entrapping his hand. “But that’s just me. I’m not sure what it wants either. Did you- oh, wait, too many people. It doesn’t consider that the absolute lowest number possible.”

The notions of ‘too much’, ‘excess’ and other similar ones assaulted his consciousness every time he looked directly at the line-up.

“We expect six rescue targets. A single agent for each is already low, there is not even a protection for the helper and no room for surprises.”

Zax had barely heard those words that he was assaulted by a wave of nausea. He dry-heaved on the floor, but nothing came out. Then it got worse. All his senses screamed at him in a chaotic mess that assaulted his consciousness and threatened to topple his sanity.

“Too much! Gack! Slow down! Help!” He tried to shout, but he couldn’t hear himself, or even feel himself screaming. He could only try and endure the onslaught.

And endure he did. Not bothering to resist, he just went with the flow, accepting the cacophony for what it was, resisting the urge to try and make sense of it. That sound just smelled cold water and tasted blue, not worth focusing on. His left arm felt like three legs and a finger, it was no big deal. The fly wings replacing his eyes could still see the purple softness of his body heat, nothing bothering here.

He didn’t know how long he could last. He didn’t even know how long it had been already. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? The distinction seemed so meaningless.

As suddenly as it began, it stopped. He found himself a panting mess, almost kneeling if not for his arm still held up by the wall. Tears flowed freely along his cheeks. The pain of the awkward angle of his arm helped to dissipate the lingering dizziness. He focused on his senses, separating his own sensations from the phantom ones. The cold, sturdy metal on the ground. The sound and feel of his heart hammering in his chest. His own breathing, forcefully deep and slow. The smell of bile and urine. The stickiness of his sweaty clothes. The many blurry weapons pointed towards him.

That last realisation snapped him back to the present.

“It’s over! I’m… I’ll be fine. I just need to, rest a bit. A year or two in a bed, seem very good right now.” The human claimed through his panting. When he had recuperated enough, he wiped his face on his sleeve, stood up on shaky legs and elaborated. The weapons had not moved an inch. “The Core sent me a lot of information. Way too much for my brain to handle at once. Hence the… reaction. I think it wanted to talk about the victims. Rescue targets. I think there is one heavily wounded, one lightly wounded, one unharmed and… I don’t know.” He sighed. “There were others, but I don’t know what it tried to tell me about them.”

A hand sign from Team Leader and everyone lowered their weapons. Zax released a tension he hadn’t even realised had settled.

“Why did it do that? That… attack?”

“Why? Uh, what were we talking about again? Right, too many. And you said one per target. And it mentioned the state of the targets. Maybe it wanted to say there is no need for so many people? Since some of them are fine? Also, if you count the advanced pair, that’s eight of you, and it wasn’t an attack.”

Team Leader briefly pondered the development, but once again quickly gave new orders. Zax couldn’t help but respect the decisiveness and sheer adaptability of the man. He removed people from the group one after the other, until the Core finally reacted their entrance request. It didn’t open a passage though; it just sent an impression of assent the human would see when he considered the three people going.

“There. It agrees. Now if someone could press the start button of the box. Three times with a pause in between please.” Zax nodded to his Big-Box.

“What will it do?” The feline mutant asked as the closest enforcer obeyed the silent agreement from their leader.

The answer came immediately in the form of electrical and mechanical whirring as the prepared program launched, shortly followed by a hatch opening on the side, revealing three small unassuming grey balls.

“Those who get in, please eat a pill. Only one. They are made of nanites. They are not programmed to do anything, but once in the Core it will take control of them. They will let it locate you and kill you anytime.”

“What!?”

“How?!”

“So that’s what you meant.” Team leader noted after the wonder twins’ shocked shouts.

“Yes. It is not technically poison, but each nanite is small enough to get in your cells. Once there, they would just have to move at the right place to disturb its functions. Or to vibrate and destroy the cell, go to the next, rinse and repeat. But it would take an active effort. They are bio-compatible, so just having those in you won’t do much. And even less so since they have not been programmed yet.”

“Nanites are bio-compatible?”

“Nanites are that dangerous?”

“They can be, if done well and used well.” The human acquiesced to both questions.

“Then why are they not more used? Even with the disrupting field, I know at least criminals would love something like that, even if just because we don’t have much countermeasures.”

“I may have made it sound easy, but it is not. Remotely placing a single nanite at the right place in a specific cell? Not that hard. Doing it on enough cells to have an impact on you? Very hard, time consuming and costly. And if you want an instantaneous effect; dream on. That would require nanites in all the related organs. Good luck doing that quickly. And even more if you don’t want to be noticed.

The Core only need that tiny amount because of its awesome processing power and whatever it will make behind the wall. Not something just anyone can manage.”

While Zax explained, the enforcer and both advanced mutants stared at the pill in their hands. The enforcer nodded at the end of the speech and put the pill in his mouth. It melted instantaneously in his saliva and he barely noticed it as he swallowed.

The cat-man and dog-man hybrids were more hesitant. It didn’t look like much, but this was still a nanite pill. The same thing as in those movies. They never ended well. The very idea of putting them in their own bodies was repulsive, and knowing it would be used against them made it worse. But they couldn’t back down now. They had to be part of the operation; the prestige of their families depended on it. They might have refused earlier, but the dotter had reminded them how their actions reflected their family. It was the last push they needed.

They swallowed as one, keeping their faces as straight as possible. Which was not much, but nobody commented on it. Everybody realised how much guts it took for civilians.

With everyone ready, Zax send an entrance request, hopefully for the last time. It finally worked.

A hole appeared next to him, too small to let someone in, but just the right shape to push the trolleys through. When they were done, the holes closed and Zax had the rescue team put their hands on the wall, to let it connect to their nanites and let them in. Some of them should have reached the blood stream by now.

When the three touched the wall, their hands slightly dipped into it, but nothing followed.

“What?” Zax frowned at the new sensations coming to him. The three other tensed and jumped away from the wall, leaving their handprints behind. “He… is… what? Too strong? Too much? Too… sturdy? And vitality?” He asked, glancing between the wall and the team leader. His handprint had disappeared, but not the two others. “Oh! Oh.” Understanding dawned on him, followed by annoyance.

“What now?” Team leader asked. From the voice, Zax was not the only one getting irritated by the constant setbacks.

“Team leader. You can’t go. Your resilience and vitality are too much for the nanites. The Core wouldn’t be able to insta-kill you as promised. I never heard of that; do you mind if I make a deep examination of your body when we’re done?”

“Not a problem. I’ll take the risk.” The enforcer ignored the question.

“Very brave of you, but the Core won’t. You’re just too dangerous to be let in like that.” Zax managed to explain before the Core assaulted his senses again. Their communication was more and more uncomfortable, the earlier dizziness had still not totally faded and a budding headache worried him.

“What about us?” the other pair queried, agitated for some reason.

“Nothing special. You can go in.”

They seemed almost upset at that. They tried to say something, but no words passed their mouth. Team leader didn’t wait for it:

“Do any of you know the standard medical procedures? Advanced first aid? Basic first aid? Any way to help a wounded person?”

A negative followed each question. Zax noticed it belatedly, but it was the first time the enforcer actually looked at them. So far, he was content to just ignore their presence.

“We can’t just send a team without any medical skill. A volunteer? We need someone with at least some fist aid skill, that would be willing to take nanites. There will be no repercussions if you refuse. Those pills count as body modification, you can’t be forced to agree.”

The question was directed at the other enforcers, standing a bit further away. Only a few of them knew advanced first aid, and they didn’t step up.

The nanites are probably the biggest obstacle, Zax bemoaned.

The tourists from the Circle rose in his esteem. Regardless of their reasons, they did take the plunge, and their stigma against nano-technology was probably stronger.

For the first time, Zax witnessed the Team leader hesitate. They were running out of options. But who could fit the bill? Who knew first aid and would be ready to swallow nanites?

“I do.”

The whispered words left his lips before he realised. He didn’t mean to say it aloud, but it drew the eyes of the enforcer, so he bit the bullet and detailed:

“I have a level 3 first aid licence. I never had to use it, but I know the procedures and how to use emergency medical gear. And I already have nanites in my body.”

He already knew the danger better than anyone, and he just had a first-hand taste of what the Core could do. Even the memories were physically painful. But someone had to go. Luckily his stomach was empty. His face was several shades more pallid as he concluded:

“I can go in.”