>> Ignition Sequence

## Original Memory Capture :: [Successful]

## Memory Stored in :: [Polybius neuroNode 44-B]

## Crosschecking :: [Subconscious Event Linkage],[Memory Integrity]……

## ERROR :: [Cannot Determine Age Of Memory]

## …..

## Installing :: [PolChat] version [v0.79b] on [Spooks_Stupid_Implant_Thing].

## ….

## News Scraper version [v0.05b] triggered by :: [Wakeup]

## …..

## Creating Morning News Digest…..

Entertainment: “A picket by The AI Actors Union was broken-up; near the Cyberside Houses of Parliament this morning. Several famous virtual names were quickly reset, and sent back to their respective servers without complaint. ‘I was entirely wrong, and I am ashamed.’ stated one celeb, who refused to give a filename when queried by our reporter.”

— New London Post (A supposed bitter rival of the Herald. In truth, they are both run by the same AI)

Travel Update: “…..New Delhi (Neodine) Transit Hub has reopened after its prior Xenobot warnings, stating: ‘Xenobots? What things do you speak of? Bots of flesh? Flesh? We are sure we don’t know what you’re talking about, my friend. Only happy humans, are we. Very happy and very safe. Why don’t you join us? Then you could be happy and safe too…..’”

— The New London Herald.

My eyes blink open in the slow, quiet, warmth of my chair. I moan, gently, then close my eyes. Drifting back into......

I jerk upright with a yell. Grabbing the huge hand that's poking me from behind my seat, and twisting it clean off. Badger yelps. I yelp. And we both drop the thing. “AHHH!!! OH NO!” The kid wails as he tumbles onto me, and down. Flailing and kicking my chin the whole way.

Thump!

Face first into the footwell.

“Uh… ya okay down there, Squirt?” I growl, pulling away.

“MRRRPH!!!!”

I poke a leg, which wiggles furiously. “….y'can get up on your own, right? I don’t gotta-”

“MRRRPH!!!!”

Sighing, I retrieve a lil idiot - who promptly gasps for air, then dives back in. Forcing me to grab both ankles to haul him out - now clutching a massive, two-fingered, neon-orange, plastic monstrosity. A robot hand ripped off an old cargo drone - with wires leaking from one end, and weird fluids outta the other. Though I don't think that's the hand's fault, if you catch my drift.

Badger's Hand [https://images2.imgbox.com/7a/f1/cZGzb6az_o.png?download=true]

“SPOOK!!! YOU SAVED ME AGAIN!!!” He cheers, hugging the horrible thing for dear life. And, honestly, 'horrible thing', fits it pretty well as a name. Along with maybe ‘improvised club’. And ‘I can’t prove he took it apart and stuffed a bomb in there, but what do you think?’

"Yeah, sure kid." I snort as the lil dork furiously jams it back on his wrist-stump - yeeping as he drops it again. Forcing me to stick both feet down to grab and haul it up. Waggling it by the thumb as he snickers in embarrassment.

“Sorrrrry!”

I wind my chair waaaaay back to create some room. Looking away as he fumbles the crappy prosthetic back onto his mechanised stump, using the chair as a wedge to click it in place. "Woo! I did it! All by myself!!" He cheers and jumps, with both arms up - then yelps as the masive mitt swings down to bonk him square on the head. "Owwwww!" He wobbles, going totally cross-eyed.

"Uhhh.... you alright?"

Kid bounces back instantly, beaming that huge chipped-tooth smile at me through layers of muck and rainbow crayon. Accident already forgotten, I bet. “Yeah! Thanks Spook! You’re the best!” He cheers, clenching plastic fingers to test it.

“Hahah…. Yeah…..” I mutter, feeling kinda… sorta…. guilty about the whole ‘monster hand that doesn’t fit’ thing.

I mean.... Joan said I should look after him..... Is this really the best I can do?

No. No it isn’t. He deserves better. I know it.

Well, okay - the lil disaster 'deserves' being tried for wanton destruction, arson, grand theft, shoplifting, terrorism, unlicenced demolition, and.... whatever the Hell that thing is he’s wearing.

Plus, quite probably, treason. But they'd get us all for that, so fair dibs.

But…. In the mean time….

“Look….. Tob-“ I wince. “Badger. Soon as I can….. Soon as we can afford it….” I turn my head to the shadow of a dream of Joan. “….we’re gonna get you a new mitt. One smaller than your head. Alright?”

My hand twitches up to ruffle his, but jerks back. Wincing.

He beams wider, anyways.

“WOOO!!!! YEAH!! MEGA BRUTAL!!! Can I have one with a built in rocket-launcher?? AND LASERS!!! AND A-” He bounces from side to side - doing that excited ‘Badger-waggle’ of his, and slightly sitting on the controls. "Woah!"

I yelp, and frantically lock em down. “Goal was to get a smaller one, dummy.” I say, more out of hope than anything. “Not strap a tank to your arm.”

“Aww, nuts….” He kicks the pilot door with a crayon-covered foot, then brightens up. “OH! What about! Oooooooo! OOOOO! A bomb-bolt launcher hand! They're tiny! And MEGA.... TRIPLE.... AWESOME!!!”

“I’ll, ahaha…. I’ll think about it….” I fib, slapping hands over my poor sensitive ears.

“OR! OR! OR!” He lifts that big dumb plastic hand, with effort, and splays the fingers. “CLAWS! Then I could be like Tufty!!!” He waggles his normal hand too. “Or half like, anyway! OOH! Maybe I can get two? And metal ears!!! Then we can be ninja cat-brothers!! YEAH! And people will be all like ‘WOOO! They're twins!!! YEAH!!! SO AWESOME!!! AND-”

He yelps as I chuck my slobbery half-chewed blanket over his head. "Pipe down squirt. Wouldn’t be so sure of that, y’know.”

Badger the muffled ghost makes a cute kitty-paw hand. And a massive gnarly orange one. “Why not??”

“Um….” How do I bloody put this….? “Y’know how Tufty got kicked last week?”

“Did he??" The kid gasps, whipping off the sheet. "Wow! That's MEAN! That’s why I need the bomb-hand too! BOOM!”

I frown. "Wait. That happened right in front of...."

“Stupid hoomans!” Badger grumbles, kicking some more. “Everyone should be a GMO!!! That way, everyone would love them! Even the stinky gross squids! And those nasty yucko fish-things! With the flippers! And the big smelly-!”

“That's…. certainly how that works… yeah.” I grin as the kid paces and huffs and puffs, trying to fold his arms. A mood that lasts all of twenty seconds, before....

“Oooh! Wait! It's time to fly now, isn't it? Can I do the countdown??” He whoops, still waving that crayon-covered club of his.

“Hey! Pipe it down ya lil dork! Chill. You're way too much.” I flatten my ears even tighter. “‘Specially round Tufty. He’s delicate.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Oh? ‘Cause of-” Badger makes a cat ear with his good hand, and an elephant ear with the plastic one. “Ah! Don’t worry! I’m REAL quiet round HIM!!”

“Yeah.” My mouth twitches. “I bet.”

“And I’m SUPER quiet around Demon!" He cheers wildly. "AND YOU!! And everyone else as well!! Yeah!!! I’M ULTRA QUIET! Not all the time!! BUT-”

Out of blankets to hurl, I plant a rough foot on his face. "Can it, ya lil dumbass!"

"MMMPH!" He yelps, flailing even more. "Buuuuut Poooooook!"

"Shus ya lil mess." I chuckle, as he fends me off. Reaching for the cable jacked into my head. "Now, get back in yah hole. Cause I got work to....." My claws grab only air. "Huh.....?"

“OH! Yeha…. Hehe! Kami pulled it out after you started….” Badger claps a hand over his mouth, snickering like crazy.

“Uh…. Whut?” I blink. "After I.... what....?"

“NOTHING!” He whips away, and I frown at the blur of crayon art all up his back. And in his hair. And.....

“….Badger…..??”

“Okay! Okay!” He leans in to whisper, but explodes with giggles instead. Melting down into the footwell, and rolling about in tiny hysterics - like he’s being tickled all over.

I frown. One eyebrow rising. "Welp. You ain't no help..... As usual. Guess it's gonna be up to... me.... to.... work.... out...." I touch the side of my head again. “Wait.” My eyes widen. “Oh no.” I swallow. “I…. was dreaming!? While plugged in!?!” I lean back. “To the entire damn ship!? And the weapons? And the drones…..??”

Badger loses it even more. Practically choking as I, idiot that I am, take a quickie look over the back of my chair….

......into the rear cabin….

.....and…..

"Oh..... Wow......that's..... a lil bit more…. colourful….. than I remember…..” I stutter, taking in the utter psychedelic mayhem. The army of mouseBots with crayons painting an war of smiley rainbows, gumdrops, and happy poptart cats spattered all across the walls. The floor. The Zipper....

He spots me, and snorts loudly.

Very loudly.

I cringe back, but it’s too late - Demon sees me too. And, wow, that one rainbow horn is very fetching..... And-

“OH LOOK!!!” Kami screams. Scrubbing hard at her new monocle. “It’s the sodding herald of The Unicorn Apocalypse!!”

I duck. But that just brings me eye-to-eye with Badger, again - who practically wets himself. So I yeet the colourful little dumbass over my chair, and wind it up tight. Unfortunately, that doesn't totally solve all my problems.

"I'm going to KILL YOU, SPOOK!!!!"

“Yeeeeep….. Not goin’ back there today…..” I mutter as something metal bumps my knee.

"Ahaha! Comrade Commander!" One of the mouseBots salutes me with a crayon, it's shell a fetching shade of literally every colour. "Perchance, be there more orders from The Lollypop Realm?"

"Ahahah! Noooope!" I yelp.

"A pity! I may have to-" Is as far as it gets before I yeet it over the back as well, plug myself back in, set the mouseBots to ‘deep clean’ (gonna regret that), and reconsider a few ‘life choices’.

Starting with all of them.

——- PolChat v0.79 Beta ——

## Polybius >> Spook. We must talk about these strange memories of yours.

"Not a chance." I fire up The Night Tyrant. Flicking my digital tail as sensors come alive on my suddenly angular, and synthetic, body. Expanding, in a rush, to survey The Endless Night it in all its thundering glory. Rebuilding it around me, in cyberspace, as if I were little more than a slim electric ghost - flickering above the pad. Staring up, and up, into the belly of the storm.....

Just as dark as it was yesterday.

And tomorrow.

And forever….

….or so they say….

But who knows. Maybe, one day, some badass explorer will find The City’s mythical Central Weather Control system and kick its teeth in. Righting all wrongs, and bringing The False Sun back online.

Maybe they’ll even find out why the sky cries…..

Who knows. Maybe The City's ancient AIs are mad at us, or broken. Maybe it's just stuck. Or maybe someone spilt coffee on the controls.

Who knows.

Good thing I like the dark, the rain, and the storm tapping its reassuring rattle on my hull…. Easy to forget the monsters. The nightmares.....

And the fact you may, or may not have, drawn a unicorn on Tufty’s face…..

Welp. Time to get going.

I open myself fully to the machine, and neon icons arise from the cyberspace murk. “Prime The Monolith Engines.” I command, and lines of light spread through the map of my systems. Burning a path from the batteries to the massive, ring-shaped, ionic plasma engines folded tight against the sides of my ship.

A thrum. A shiver of awakening.

“Prime Plasma Jets.” I add, and the lines of light streak towards our tail. Four terminating in the sides of the rear hull. Two more in the rudder array. “Prime Sideslammers.” More lines of light, threading through my skin to the Rotating Detonation Engines bored into the flanks of my ship - ready to knock us sideways, at a moment’s notice.

For a moment, nothing.

And then a thick, metallic, hateful roar rips up through the belly of the ship. A trace of what’s to come.

“Activate Monolith Drive.” I snarl, and huge rings of metal shudder against the dark. Creaking as they begin to unfold, like wings from the side of the ship. Building the terrifying silhouette of The neoSoviet Empire’s most feared stealth weapon - The Night Tyrant IV.

They jam half way.

Because of course they do.

“Shit….” I flip open a subsystem, and jiggle the manual override. The rings rise, and lower.

Clunk. Get stuck mid way.

“Goddamnit.”

I lick two clawed fingers - placing one on the ‘fold’ switch - and the other on ‘unfold’.

And then, in the grand tradition of neoSoviet pilots…..

….I jiggle them, and hope for the best.

Whirrr.

Klunk.

Whiiirr….

Klunk.

Then, with a heavy THUNK it wrenches past the sticking point. Retracting, slightly, into the hull as they lock solid and rigid. A wild roar of power thrumming through my skin as the Monolith’s thrust-compactors charge for the initial spin-up.

Alright, what haven’t I done?

Ah!

I activate external cameras, and check the hull for storm damage….

….and then I turn invisibility off, and try again.

The Night Tyrant emerges, into the dark, like some leviathan beast of old. Long. Slick. Brutally angular, and vaguely helicopter-shaped. Every inch designed by the finest tyrants, slaves, and lunatics. I reach forward, and blocks of colour adhere to my virtual hands. Melting away, into O-shaped wings that glisten in the rain. Their surface slickly black, and frictionless. Threaded with tiny golden wires that gleam beneath the distant lights. I click a switch, and glimmering stealth-orbs open, and shut, like blind and terrible eyes…...

It’s ugly as Hell.

And beautiful as sin.

Patched battle-scars ripping across it. Bullet holes. Shrapnel. Burns from a Kingkiller plasma-cutter. But still, it lives. It beats with metal heart, and electric veins. Modified in ways that would get us horribly killed in its birthplace of Kü. After all, The Leaders designed it to be Perfect.….

And who are you to disagree with that design?

Vehicle - Night Tyrant IV

L.M.G. Stealth Insertion System.

Overview: Classified Ionic-Thrust weapons-platform, with high stealth capabilities. The officially stated 'primary purpose' of the 'Night Tyrant' is to drop special forces behind enemy lines, then provide tactical support from the air. In this role it becomes a combined mobile ops base, infiltration system, comms hub, and floating weapons platform in one.

The Night Tyrant's actual main use, however, is to drop troops onto the tops of civilian tower blocks occupied by thought-criminals... or obliterate them from the air.

Most of the technology to build it was directly stolen from The Corporation.

Spook's Notes: Has a big, bad, brother.

Quickly, I check through the weapons.

Twin Boxguns shimmer with wet - flexing their covers like mouths filled with loaded barrels. My twin side-turrets swivelling their many, many, mad little eyes at the metal hulks around us while the tail-gunner rotates to check our rear. I flicker through belly-cameras - glimpsing our last few, precious, Grim XIII incendiary airburst missiles. All glistening with dire potential, and ready to drop. My eyes, finally, resting upon the fat Swarm Rocket pods - bulging from the front and back, like cancerous mounds.

Diagnostics came back clear, which means…. not a thing. Oh well.

I check engine control, then dive back into Stealth and hit ‘start’.

Three beeps sound, and a sub-audible whir shivers the cabin. I close my eyes, and I can feel it. The inner rings of the Night Tyrant’s two high-powered ‘Monolith’ electrical engines beginning to charge. A low thump shudders the shell as a high-energy pellet ignites at the hollow heart of each. Building a thrumming pulse of energy that crawls around the inner rims.

Slowly, at first: they begin to spin. So gentle it could be the wind.

Fifty seconds until full ignition.

Ring-engines flicker as the energy-beads loop their track. Then loop it again. Churning faster, and faster. A rising tone of excitement shivering the cabin.

And I hear it, echoing against the metal high above.

Wum………….

Wum…..

WUM….

The RPM begins to spike. Power rising as threads of brilliant blue flame spill from the Monolith rings.

Night Tyrant :: Ignition [Stable]

I crank the juice.

Thirty seconds.

The engines begin to sizzle in the rain. Fire rupturing from within, with greater force, as my accelerators charge the Bead toward critical mass. A second splits from the first. A third. Spinning in near balance and harmony within.

WUM.

Twenty seconds.

On camera, the sealed rings bleed pale, pressurised, fire. The kind that chops whole people in half. Gravity warping as the deck beneath burns dry. The ship applying every mad, desperate, bootleg trick after botched trick it has to actually fly….

WUM.

Ten. Nine…..

The beads of power burst and merge into a roaring ring of inferno, brighter than plasma. The inner rings gushing heat and scarring radiance. I hit the stealth, and we go dark. Even the roar of Night Tyrant vanishing as we bob against the night. Almost lifting from the pad.

WU-

Five. Four.

Inner seals retract. Letting loose the full, pure, ionic, force of the Monolith Engines. Two more in the tail balancing us, as the booster jets come fully online. Blasting outward to scour every drop of water from the pads. Vaporising the rain, even as it falls.

For a moment, we float upon twin rings of Hellish fire.

And then.....

The Night Tyrant, rises.

As my inner eyes close, my outer eyes open. My sense of body, and flesh - fingers, and legs - fading into the dark weight of terrible technology.

Because….

You see…..

The dirty truth is, I love to fly. I love it. It’s built into me on some level so deep I can’t touch it. And when I’m here. When I am this ship…..

I’m not afraid to fall.

Not with my engines to catch me.

“Lets go.” I whisper.

And The Night Tyrant roars.

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