Maun strolled into the central atrium where Stella and Floyd were waiting for him. The surgeon had told him the procedure would take days to recover from, but Maun knew the Core didn't have that kind of time. For Maun, recovery had been a matter of hours; agonizing hours, but he'd pushed through the agony with his heart set on the future.

Like a leaned out leopard, Maun was sinniew, bone, and hard muscle. He'd worked hard on that physique from a young age, knowing he was the Core's last chance. The attention of others laid at his feet never hurt his ambitions either. Though Maun only allowed himself distractions of the flesh to fuel his passions for revolution.

He turned sharp green eyes on the only other individuals in the room with him. Stella was old and given to arguments with the Core's Chaperones. Stella had been a Chaperone herself once, though Maun didn't recall when. Surely before he brought hope to everything. Floyd was a Helperbot, cast down from the Oppidum long ago as planned obscelence took it's toll. Like all of the bots the Core scrounged, he was modified for language and reasoning beyond his initial purpose. In this lifetime, he was Stella's advisor. Both had been some of the only proponents of Maun's plan, the only ones who saw the genius of his-

"We didn't expect you so soon," Stella spoke first, breaking into Maun's reflections.

Maun, annoyed, said, "isn't it better to be unexpected than to give ground where the enemy knows the fields?"

Floyd sighed, or at least made a noise that approximated a sigh. Clearly he recognized the verse Maun quoted. Outmanoeuvring ones allies was often as important as one's enemies.

Stella ignored the comment. "In any event, your speedy recovery is a boon as it turns out. Cornis Grelt made a change to his audit plans just yesterday and will be arriving on Arg-08 tomorrow. He has 200 further sites to audit afterwards and this will likely be our only chance at this in my lifetime."

Maun would have been frustrated by this outward show of selfishness if he didn't also yearn for his hand to be the first and mightiest to shake the foundations of the Castrum. Yes, he would decimate the keystone at the top, and the rest would-

"Do you remember how it works?" Floyd interrupted.

Maun glared at Floyd, "yes, I know what's at stake! The future of the Core. The very heart and soul of those downtrodden"

"That isn't what I-" Floyd started.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I do this for the meager and the weak. For the meak," god it sounded good when he found a rhyme like that. Like the delicate mouth feel of the bay leaf amongst the stew. "They would seek to hold us under - only allowed enough breath to seek more by their hands! We will be shackled to their greed no longer! I will be the first to hold the Castrum to task!"

Stella and Floyd only stared at Maun. He could feel the "rightness" of what he'd just said. The room, quelled to silence by indignation. He felt the tears, hot on his cheeks.

Floyd's mouth lights started to glimmer before Stella interrupted, "yes my boy. There is nothing nobler. Now, do you remember what the plan entails? What the surgery bought you?"

"The ignition ferrous fluid sack has been placed in line with my pulmonary artery. My mitochondria have been radiated with an alternating cliogenus charge," he quoted directly from the briefing two days prior. "The sack is currently sealed by an inert agent off the side of the artery and will remain sealed for decades, if not for the pin system.."

He paused, allowing the suspension to take hold. Maun knew that everything could be a story and that enrapturing his audience was just as important as dealing out the raw science. He didn't see why both couldn't go hand in hand. Maun needed all of his conversations to snare. How else would they be remembered and cast into the mold of history.

After two seconds of no response, Maun continued, "the pin system, as I was saying. An ingenious mechanism wherein an epicutaneous patch is applied somewhere on the body. When pressed and held for 5 seconds, it insets subdermal microscopic needles that deliver the activating agent into the blood stream. Once pumped into the heart and through the pulmonary artery, they unlock the sack and the ignition fluid is delivered to all parts of the body. In a single heart beat the fluid attaches to every mitochondria and activates a frenzy of cellular duplication and energy storage. Until that is, my body has been used of all energy and it has where else to go, but out - annihilating everything in a 5km radius."

"Yes..." Floyd responded, dumbly. They'd not been in the briefing, and the intricacies that Maun had repainted obviously went over heads. No matter. He knew how to reap destruction and that's all needed.

Stella reached into a sterile bag on the table near her and pulled out a small, simply wrapped square. She placed the patch into Maun's calloused right hand. "Maun, now listen. This has to be placed somewhere you won't depress it accidentally. You also need to only place it once as the adhesion after opening it might fail if applied multiple times. It is precisely tuned to your skin colour and will be practically invisible when placed, and, it's the only one we've got."

Maun nodded reverently - not to the old woman's instructions, but to the fuse of Armageddon he held in his capable hands. "I won't let us down," he stated simply and turned and walked out of the room.

............

As Maun's foodsteps faded behind the sound of the door closing, Floyd let out a noise of resignation. "My god. That boy is an absolute imbecile. I'm not sure he got any of the medical process correct in that pedantic vomit."

Stella shook her head. "It doesn't matter. He's tough and all he has to do is get caught and press a button. He knows how to reap destruction, and that's all that matters."

Floyd just gave a mechanical grunt. "Was he crying?"