In a back-alley doctor’s office, Darius awakened. CURL sat nearby, tapping on her phone.

“Mr. Proxy,” the doctor spoke to Darius. “I’m glad to see that you’re awake. Everything has been installed as requested.”

CURL stood up and handed a credit chip to the doctor. “Thanks Doc. We’ll get out of your hair now.”

“Okay, just remember to give him these twice a day until they’re done. Don’t half-ass this. Infection is likely to set in if he doesn’t do this right.” The doctor handed a bottle of pills to CURL.

Darius sat up straight, still a little groggy. He looked over his new incisions as they healed before his eyes. “So this is how it’s supposed to work,” he said, thinking about the initial surgery he’d endured a relative lifetime ago.

“Yep. Mostly painless.” CURL smiled. “Ready to go?”

Darius stood up, pulling the surgery curtain to cover himself and putting his street clothes on. They had retrieved all of the necessary parts from Geracht, and now all of those parts were installed into Darius. His body equilibrium had dropped with the installation, but he still retained all of his new abilities.

Something about these new cybernetics made Darius feel more complete. Maybe it was the knowledge that he’d begun to complete his father’s work. Darius stood in front of the mirror with his shirt off. He looked over the cybernetic scars that had formed, the chrome spine, the metal arms that used to belong to his mother before being rebuilt for him. He now stood looking at the vision his father had had for him.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

But despite how he felt, something had changed. Like his father before him, vengeance had taken its dark toll, and Darius was shifting deep within. The memory of watching Del die remained in Darius. A part of him had never left that moment. That moment, had left a part of itself in him as well. It echoed, playing out again and again; a perpetual vision of the endless death of Del Peck.

He remembered the color of Del’s face as it turned blue. He remembered Del’s eyes bugging out of his head, looking helplessly at Darius. The spreading fluids from Geracht that collected like a dark halo around Del’s hair. It all lived rent free in Darius’s brain.

“You earned it, you son of a bitch.” Darius whispered.

He pulled on his black tank top and walked out to CURL. “Let’s go.”

CURL had noticed the change in Darius. His innocence had died with Del. He now carried a serious air with him that hadn’t been there before. He walked with purpose, but also as one who has seen too much.

“Sure,” she responded, thinking about the boy Darius had been when they first met; wishing she’d done a better job of convincing him to walk away from all of this. “Let’s go.”

They stepped out of the doctor’s office into the alley, lit only by a flickering neon sign depicting a pair of scissors and a cybernetic arm. It was the symbol used by most back-alley doctors. Darius looked at the alley for a moment, remembering the night he’d spend hiding from the acid rains. That had been the night before he’d met CURL, Preature, Leary, and Tinker. “Never again,” he thought. “I’ll never be weak again.”

“Have you given more thought to what you’re going to do once we decrypt the files?” CURL asked.

“I have,” Darius answered. “Tinker was wrong. This has to happen. Humanity can’t govern itself. It never could.”

“You’re at peace with changing everything?”

“I am. Once we’re through, humanity will have entered a new era.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” CURL said, walking past Darius. Then she stopped to look back at him. “Because if we’re wrong, everyone will pay.”