I try to get up, but my muscles aren’t cooperating. One side of me doesn’t seem to care what I want to do at all. It doesn’t matter. I want to be armored for this anyway. Who knows what other traps Jeff might have left behind as he fled.

To All: Jeff is alive. He’s down underneath the swarm somewhere. I’m going to need you all to hold the line while I go after him. Containment should be easier on my side now. Check out how I did the ice shield on my side. See if you can duplicate that under the whole thing.

From Evan: Let me come over and get a better look. I’ll transmit the plans out to everyone.

As my giant brother runs toward me, I pull back a big chunk of bots, lifting and encasing my flesh in a thick layer of them. Something about Evan charging me as I suit up in the bulky protection I’ll need to get through that bot swarm triggers a faint memory from forever ago. A comic book. Of all the things to linger in my last vestiges of real memory, why would I hold onto that. There was a superhero suited up like I am, but red and gold instead of black. He was going to fight some big green muscly hero for some reason. I don’t remember any details beyond those two images. It doesn’t matter. I flex my new bigger limbs and the motion feels natural, better than the human muscles that were failing me. I’m warm for the first time that I can remember. I form a few canisters and start compressing air. I’m guessing that there’s not going to be a lot of that handy as I dive through the swarm, and I don’t know what the underground tunnel situation is. I may have to swim through some of that water that I piped over.

“Wait, Noah!” Lin pleads, “You can’t be thinking of going down there!”

My phone beeps again. Another text from Jeff.

In case you are hesitant to engage with me, or if you believe that you can simply strike me from a distance, you should be aware that I have sixteen contingency devices hidden around the nation that will trigger in the event of my death. Be sure to come alone.

Of course he does. Sixteen doomsday devices like this one. Probably all set with a deadman switch that he needs to check in with to prevent them from going off. I finish off the first canisters and attach it to my back inside the armor, routing it to the air filtration system the armor provides. I start on a second one.

“I have to go,” I tell Lin, the slurring in my voice persisting. “I need to keep you shafe.”

“Wait, why are you talking like that?” she demands. “Did you have a stroke?”

I don’t want to undermine my case by talking any more.

To Lin: It was just a little one. It’s fine. My implant is handling it.

I send it as I shrug off her grip on my armored arm. I get the second air canister filled and placed.

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“Noah, don’t you dare go down there!” she shouts at me. “Evan, stop him! You can’t let him do this!”

My brother puffs out clouds of breath as he arrives. “Lin, he’s got to. If Jeff is alive and gets away, all of this could only be the beginning of our problems.”

I show Evan my phone.

“And he is.” He shakes his head. “And this is much worse than we thought.”

I fill my third canister and mount it. That should be plenty for as long as I could possibly be down there.

To Evan: You’ve got this. The Brazilians should be here soon on the Esperança. A couple more hours tops. If you give them the firmware from our latest contact interface update, their headset crews can help clear this out. You just need to hold out that long.

“Got it, brother. We’ll take care of things here. You do what you need to do.”

“No!” Lin shouts again. “I’m not letting you go. Access Omega denied!”

Omega? What’s access Omega?

Something triggers in my electronic brain and all of the sudden I’m a tiny piece of meat encased in a metal shell I can no longer control. My whole larger self is gone.

“What did you do?” I stare at Lin, who is fortunately standing in front of me. I don’t think I could move this armor at all with the meager strength left in the side of my body that will still obey orders. The swarm surges forward toward us as the micromanagement I’d been providing stops and my bots revert to the preprogrammed defensive routines. Even those will stop in a minute if my cloud still thinks I’m gone.

Even with this fundamental betrayal, I can’t muster up even the tiniest bit of anger toward her. She took my bots! She might as well have chopped off my arm. How am I not burning with rage?

“Say you won’t go. Say it and I’ll reconnect you.”

“I have to. He’sh got shixteen more just like thish.”

“You can’t!” She runs to my armored body and grabs me around the middle as if that could change the realities of the situation.

Evan gently peels her off of me. “I was hoping never to have to use this, but we don’t have time right now for you to work out your issues. You two will need to fix your weird sex code stuff later. Activate protocol brotherly love.”

And suddenly I’m me again. The whole enormous cloud of me with my human body just a tiny fragment of the greater self. Whatever sneaky tricks Lin had implanted in my code and used to make her access levels disconnect me from my cloud, they’re gone now, wiped out by my brother’s planning and foresight. He must have set up that trigger to revert every change she’s ever made to my code.

Lin starts screaming and cursing in at least two languages as she sees me moving again. Evan ignores her and pulls my face close to his. Even in the armor I’m barely as tall as he is.

“Get in there, Noah. Find out where Jeff’s failsafes are. Get the message back to us. Then kill him. I trust you, brother. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

I nod and turn to go.

“At least let me get him a doctor before he goes!” Lin’s angry shouts transform into panicked pleas. “Louise or someone from the Doctor class should check him. Or even one of the paramedics Louise has over there.”

It wouldn’t matter anyway. There’s nothing they could do here that the implant isn’t already doing. But that’s too many words for my broken mouth to string together, so I don’t even try.

“Go!” Evan booms, pulling her back from me again. “You need to go now!”

He’s right. There’s no more time for this. I turn away from the girl that for some reason I still love and the brother that just saved me from her.