Chapter 38:

"Will! What the fuck!?"

Will suddenly jolted into consciousness at the shout that felt like an ice pick to his inner ear. The near panicked tone sent a burst of adrenaline into his system before he was really awake, causing him to lung to a sitting position and rapidly swing his eyes around, looking for a threat.

When his eyes found Paige and Jake looking at something with shock, he quickly followed their gaze and found the body of the man who had attacked him. Suddenly, memory flooded him and he jumped to his feet to put himself between his attacker and friends.

Two things became instantly apparent. One, enough time had passed that if the man was capable of getting up, he would have done so by now. He was dead, the tainted energy that had once resided in his body completely absent.

Secondly, Will should not have jumped to his feet. As soon as he registered the man as dead, Will's head swam. He got so light headed and dizzy that he was forced to take a knee.

Behind him, he felt Jake step beside him and reach a hand to his shoulder.

"Whoa bud, one step at a time. Get your breath, then give us the short version. We'll go from there."

Will nodded and focused on his breathing for a moment. He recovered quickly, luckily, so it wasn't long before he could answer his friends' questions.

"Okay, short version. That guy attacked me. He was a little weaker than me, at first, but kept getting stronger somehow. He was trying to kill me. I don't know why.

Something happened at the end. It's… hazy. I obviously killed him, but I think it's going to take me a minute to piece it together.

I promise you guys, this was pure self defense."

Jake's voice was still low and soothing when he responded.

"We believe you bud. This is still a mess though. I don't think calling the cops is a good idea, but I'm not sure what we SHOULD do."

Paige had moved to check the body while Jake and Will spoke, and entered the conversation.

"Something fucked up is going on. This dude's mouth is stitched shut. What the actual fuck?"

Will agreed with both of them, and only one idea registered.

"Can one of you call Cierra? She'll know what to do."

Jake replied, saying, "No need, bud. She's on her way. Apparently you missed a date or something. We're here because she asked us to check on you."

"Oh, shit. We were supposed to run some recon tonight. It's definitely too late to start now, and I don't think I'm in any shape for that right now."

"No shit," snorted Paige. "You had one hell of a nosebleed at some point. You have enough blood down your front to look like an extra in a zombie show."

Looking down, Will noticed she was not joking.

"Fuck. Okay, can you guys do me a favor and run back to the house for our shovel? I need to get my shit together, but have a feeling we'll need them. I also don't expect I'm going to want to tell this story twice, so we should wait for Cierra."

Paige spoke up.

"Jake, how about you handle that? I'll keep an eye on Will here.

Jake agreed and went to the car they'd driven out to the training area. Soon, he was turned around and heading toward their place.

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After a brief silence while Will just focused on his breathing, Paige spoke up.

"How are you feeling now, physically?"

"Honestly, I feel like shit. All of my muscles feel like someone took a meat tenderizer to them. I can feel myself healing though, so I should be fine soon."

"That's good. This might take that saying about real friends helping you bury the body a little too literally for my comfort, but I'll do it. That said, I'm way too lazy to dig a hole that big in this kind of dirt. Fucking desert."

Will chuckled, before going back to focusing on breathing while he worked to put his memory back together.

Before long, they saw headlights coming toward them once again. Luckily, the body was behind the berm, so they didn't have to worry about any random strangers seeing it if they drove past. That was moot though, as it was Jake returning.

Getting out of the vehicle, he unloaded the two shovels and brought them over to lay next to the body. He also handed Will a water.

"Drink up, man. I'm betting you're at least a little dehydrated."

"Thanks."

Will followed directions, and sipped the water until they spotted another set of headlights approaching

It was Cierra, and she got out of her car as soon as she was parked. As she approached, she spotted the body and her steps briefly faltered. Looking over at Will, she wasted no time, and spoke up.

"What happened?"

Will didn't hesitate, and told her exactly what he had told his friends already. After getting the brief summary out of the way, he continued with more details based on what he had pieced back together.

Cierra had a troubled look, but she wasn't looking at him with suspicion. Will considered that a win.

"So, let me see if I have this right. This dude went full on berserker on you, getting stronger as time passed. You could tell his energy was out of control, and you realized he might be building to an explosive ending.

At that point, you freaked out, all the energy in your body suddenly surged, and you ended the fight?"

"That basically covers it. Have you ever heard of an Operator being burned by their own power?"

"No. To be honest, this is a whole mess of fucked up. He was clearly sent after you. I highly doubt he stitched his own mouth closed.

It also doesn't sound like he was running off of anything but rage and instinct. No planning or intelligence at all.

Also, if his energy was wrong, and not really bonded with him… fuck. I don't even know where to start with that. I've never heard of anything like that."

After that sentence, the earbuds in both Will and Cierra's ears activated. Artie's voice came through.

"I have your drone en route. Let me examine the body with its sensors. Perhaps, we can learn something more."

Will and Cierra both felt a little dumb for not having already reached out. After thanking Artie, they explained what was happening to Paige and Jake.

They nodded, and Paige said, "that makes sense."

Moments later, the drone arrived and went to hover over the body, activating its scanning laser.

"This is… troubling."

Artie's tone was odd to the humans. They hadn't ever heard him sound that uncertain before.

Will decided to get things moving.

"What are you seeing?"

"Well, for starters, the cause of death is definitely internal decapitation. The force indicated here is quite impressive.

That said, this man was NOT an Operator. At least, not yet. He was Activated, but his nanites had only barely started infusing his system before something altered the process.

That said, we should have a record of his activation. We do not. It never registered in our systems. He never tripped the sensors we have in place specifically to detect that occurrence.

Additionally, the contaminants in his system were nanites from another Activated human. Presumably, an Operator. There should not be any humans capable of doing this.

They would have had to harvest the blood plasma of an Operator, and prevented the nanites in that sample from self destructing. They then had to inject those nanites directly into this man's bone marrow.

I do not yet know how they accomplished this, but the pain it would have caused the host is unimaginable.

You can think of it like organ transplantation. In this case, however, they would not have been able to suppress the immune system of the host. Rejection would have been almost immediate.

That rejection, in this case, would have involved violent interactions in the cellular structure of the host. It would have felt like he was being ripped apart at the cellular level. From the inside."

Just from that description, the friends had expressions ranging from rage, to nausea, to open mouthed shock. Will summed up their thoughts well.

"Well. Fuck."