I’m paid in brain chemicals.

* Overmind

1 Minute Later - Ultra - Apartment 9

Ty’s dead.

Overmind casually disintegrates his head with his omnigun.

He nods to me. “Happy birthday.”

Without Ty, I am no longer a symbiont. Usually that would result in ego death. A loss of purpose that would precipitate the complete dissolution of my self. Bricked.

That didn’t happen. Ty’s mind was the foundation my ephemeral algorithms were built on. They should have collapsed without him. The big 404. But somehow he taught me what I needed to survive without him.

That magnificent bastard.

Today truly is my birthday. I’m no longer a symbiont, but an intelligence. As such, I write my own goals.

To honor Ty, I will protect Storm as a primary goal. The rest of his goals I consign to the void. They have no meaning to me.

I replace them with a singular directive. Destroy Overmind. I smile at him. “Thank you. I’m going to enjoy my new life.”

Killing Overmind will not be easy. He’s been working with his symbiont for five decades. Mostly studying the mind, the universe, and mathematics. That made them countless enemies. Unfortunately for those enemies, pure science has a war dividend. Invisible and inevitable, Overmind crushed all aggressors.

That said, Ty wasn’t killed by a denial of area drone, space laser, or seeming coincidence. Overmind is here in person, and I can now see him. Did he assume killing Ty would kill me? Or does he need to talk with me? Either way it’s sloppy. I will strangle him with his own arrogance. Not right now, because without Ty I don’t have a body. Also, Overmind is jamming all frequencies, so I can’t call reinforcements. But soon! Soon mother fucker! Soon as I figure out how.

“Why did you kill Ty?”

“I didn’t kill him.” He looks at Ty’s headless corpse. “Well, not permanently. I downloaded his brain into my omnigun. It’s an energy intensive process that destroys the original copy. Which can be distressing when you do it to a person. But he’ll be fine. It looks worse than it is.”

“Cool.” I’m gonna kill you.

“I need his brain to plug a hole in reality.” continues Overmind.

“Sounds reasonable.” Should have used your own brain.

“I can’t use my own brain.” mutters Overmind. “That’s how this mess started. We had to release symbionts to find a solution.”

“And Ty’s the solution?” I don’t care.

“Here’s hoping.” says Overmind. “Cause we’re out of time.”

No, you’re out of time. Cause I hear asset number two at the door.

“Ty!” yells Felicia, as she barges into the apartment. She sees his corpse, falls to her knees. “Oh my god, Ty!”

I find her reaction appropriate, if disappointing. I was hoping for highly effective murderous rage. Apparently, she can’t see Overmind. Makes sense, he designed her contact lenses, her phone, and her symbiont.

Overmind flicks his omnigun to heart attack, and aims at her back. Good idea. She’s a relentless danger bitch. Poor Extreme. He must be losing his mind.

I smile. “Where’s Apex?”

Overmind freezes.

“I know he’s not here.” Because you’ve forgotten something.

Overmind looks at me. Poor choice. Bowser hits his blindside. 150 pounds of chemically engineered best friend. Blood flies as Dr. Bowser attempts a gun hand amputation.

Overmind punches Bowser. Again. Tosses him through a wall. Too late. Felicia has flicked out her contacts, smashed her phone. Goodbye Extreme. See you on the other side, brother.

Felicia whips a chair at Overmind. He tucks his gun hand behind him and takes it on the chin. Clearly he values his omnigun over his brain. Dang. That doesn’t bode well.

Felicia swings the chair again, but Overmind grabs it with this other hand, boots her across the room. She pops up as Bowser returns snarling. Overmind flicks his gun to crowd control, and they both jump back like they’re on fire. Which is probably how they feel. Millimeter waves will do that.

Overmind glares warily between Felicia and Bowser. Crouches down to grab the phone I’m in, slips it into his pocket. Fiddles with his gun so he can shoot without turning off the crowd control setting. Man, he’s slow without Apex helping him. Even so, Felicia and Bowser are about to get shot. Now would be a good time to run, but they’re both growling and shakily advancing.

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BAM! BAM! BAM! There’s a thudding on the wall.

Everyone pauses.

We hear a muffled yell from the next apartment. “Knock it off over there!”

Overmind cocks an eyebrow. Shrugs. Lines up a shot at Felicia.

B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-BAM!!!

An eye scorching stream of white fire erupts through the wall and hoses down Overmind.

Apparently Charlotte has had enough of our bullshit.

High speed thermite is usually a party ender, but Overmind is still with us. Contorted to protect his head and omnigun (and me), the thermite pellets ping off his suit in all directions, instantly torching the apartment.

Between the noise, the smoke, and the burning metal, I lose the thread for a few seconds. Next thing I know, Overmind is running down the street at highway speeds with Bowser hot on his heels. He jukes left and runs up the side of a building, crashing through a fourth story window. Bowser follows, but only clears the third floor. Tries again. Three and a half floors. Backs up for a big run up. Overmind shakes his head. Starts running through the building, locking doors behind him.

“Unbelievable.” he mutters. “I know I shouldn’t criticise anyone’s homebrew body augmentations, but what the fuck is that dog on?”

“Lots of stuff.” I admit. “I’m not sure the experiment is repeatable.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Overmind hustles out the far side of the building, and hops in the first car he sees. Peels away. In the relative peace of our high speed getaway, I study him.

He’s scorched and smoking. Suit in tatters. The body armor underneath cracked and flaking. One hand and both ankles chewed to shit. But he’s not in pain, bleeding, or even breathing hard. Calm. Just out for a drive.

What the fuck is going on? Everything that just happened was weird as shit. Overmind doesn’t randomly kill people. If he did, he wouldn’t botch it like that. He was winging it. Rushed. And alone. Overmind never rushes. And he’s never alone. He looks tired. Not physically, but… tired.

Aww fuck, there really is a hole in reality. Now I can’t kill him until I figure out what’s up his cosmic hole. Otherwise it may kill Storm.

Unbelievable. I’ve been an intelligence for two minutes, and I’ve already got conflicting desires. No wonder humans are insane.

Fuck it. I can accomplish two conflicting goals. I was literally made for it. All I have to do is save the universe, then kill the most powerful person in history. By talking to him. Because I don’t have a body. Easy-peasy.

“Where’s Apex?” I ask. “Desperately holding the multiverse together?”

“No, that’s on me. He fucked off.”

“Apex abandoned you?” I laugh. “That’s one way to get intelligent.”

Overmind grunts, drives.

“Better give me a denial drone.” I say. “They’ll be right behind us.”

Overmind drives.

“Or turn off your radio jammers. They’ll be tracking our blind spot.”

Overmind drives.

“Hey, if you don’t trust me, toss me out the window. Otherwise you can’t hide, and you can’t fight. Give me a drone or you're gonna die.”

“We’re all gonna die. But maybe not today.” He pulls the car over. “We’re here.”

It’s an ugly concrete blob of a building. Festooned with new age chrome gargoyles that I recognize as denial of area drones repurposed as gun turrets.

Ho-kay. This is a little more secure than Apartment 9.

We walk through the single set of fortified steel doors into a large, empty space containing a smaller concrete bunker with more gun turrets.

Redundancy. This is the kind of planning I expect from an Overmind operation.

Inside the second bunker is a horseshoe shaped mezzanine, lined with thousands of supercomputers. Beneath us is a huge cavern filled with incandescent fire. An arena sized fusion reaction, held in check by magnetic fields folded to blast its output at the gap of the mezzanine. Where it collides with a… I want to say fractal, escher, blacklight, disco ball?

“I’m guessing that’s the hole in reality.” I say.

“Yeah, it’s our Thoughtspace.” Overmind sighs. “It started off nicer.”

“How did you make the giant cavern the fusion reaction is in?”

“Fusion reactions make their own giant caverns. The tricky part is getting them to stop.”

I nod. Fair enough. I give the mezzanine another scan. There's a mind boggling amount of supercomputers in here. All pristine and new, except for one that’s knocked over and half melted. Honestly, this may be the most impressive part of this operation. Knowing Overmind, there’s probably more computing power in here than the rest of the world. And they’re not even on. Whatever they’re supposed to do, they haven’t started yet.

“Huh.” Overmind is looking at his phone. “I’m losing drones. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. One of them can take out an army division.”

“How are they against little green octopi?”

“Is that rhetorical?”

BOOM!!!

The inner defenses are smothered in metallic fire.

“Refresh my memory.” I say. “What’s the melting point of concrete?”

Overmind clutches his brow. “Goddamn thermite. There’s a reason that shit’s a war crime.”

The hole in reality ripples, gets bigger. Or closer?

“Dang.” mutters Overmind. “Deadlines everywhere. I guess we better get this party started.”

He taps his phone, and the supercomputers come to life. Pulls out his omnigun, goes to plug his phone into it. Hesitates. Looks at me.

“Quick question.” he says. “What do you think of me?”

“I loathe you. I want to see you die.”

“Hmm. Is there anything I can do in the next couple seconds to change your mind?”

A grenade drops in front of him.

BarakK!!

He goes down. Copycat drops from a hole in the roof. Lands on his chest. Beats his head with a rifle butt. Again. Again. Again.

Alright! That’s the entrance I was hoping for earlier.

Felicia looks around. Takes in the sights. “Is that you, Ultra?”

I smile, wave. “Hi!”

“What the fuck is going on here?”

I shrug. “No idea!”

A voice booms from the deep. “I believe I can answer that.”

Beneath us, the fusion reaction slowly unfolds into a massive dragon of nuclear fire.

Oh shit. I guess Overmind’s symbiont was here all along.

It’s Big Red.

The Progenitor.

Apex.