[Kardian’s point of view]

Three hours later, after reading the bits and pieces I found on the internet, watching the uploaded videos, and looking at the pictures that were taken as proof of various events that took place within the city while I was unconscious, I turned off my PC with a feeling of disgust in the pit of my stomach. There were some things, which I simply didn’t want to believe they were true, they were far too inhumane, far too disgusting, yet they were undeniable proof of our new hellish reality that was spreading across this entire planet.

“Xerya, I just want to sleep and dream of something pleasant... can you please tell me about the upgrades tomorrow morning?” I asked as I laid in bed and closed my eyes.

“Understood.”

And with this, I fell asleep.

It was probably the first time in months now since I had a pleasant dream. I saw myself once again as a child back on Earth, when we weren’t living in the slums and my friends could show me an honest smile without judging me. It was a time before my parents divorced, before the depressions and hysteria that came from falling to the bottom. In this dream, I saw myself laughing and playing with my toys, while my mother was having a pleasant chat with my father. The two of them were smiling, they seemed happy, and that was all that mattered to me. I continued to play there, happily, until, without realizing, I was an adult staring at a blue sky upon which the emerald green moon of Planet 9 could be seen. The moon itself was called Senestra and the color was given off by the countless deposits of gems that covered its surface. We often called Senestra the Emerald of the Sky, and it was one of the few celestial objects where it was illegal to mine or exploit its natural resources.

As I stood there and looked up at the green moon, I found myself wondering if the students I taught at school were safe, if the other teachers made it to the survivor camps... and as I thought of these things, I saw some sort of makeshift construction appearing in front of me. The sign: “Welcome to camp Resonance High!” was pinned to the top on two big poles. On top of the walls, I saw all of my students as they were waving back at me with a big happy smile. For a moment, I thought and believed that they all made it and were safe and sound somewhere inside that strange camp.

I waved back at them and then... the dream ended.

After I woke up, I brushed my teeth and took a quick shower. For now, the infrastructure in the city which provided us with water, electricity, and heat was still functioning properly. The plants were all automated over there, so unless actual survivors went inside to mess with the settings, we would have no problem for years to come. When I thought about it, I realized that unlike in the apocalyptic movies and games, our planet’s systems were remarkably well designed. Most of our basic stuff, including food markets were completely automated from the moment they were made in the factory to the point they were delivered on the shelves.

“How long do you think the water and electricity will keep going?” I asked Xerya as I got dressed and prepared myself to go out and hunt the Nano-Z on the 14th floor.

“I estimate another 36 years for the water supply and around 128 years for the electricity supply. This is assuming that no major cataclysm or incidents happen on the plants or with the supply chains.” she replied.

“What about food supply?”

“I estimate around 20 years for the hypermarkets, 14 for the supermarkets, and 4 years at most for the majority of average sized stores.” she replied.

“20 years? Why so much?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Their supply lines do not go through any densely populated area and are more direct. The chances of something happening to them are far smaller than in the case of a grocery store from across the street with the chance of having their drones and even entire shop destroyed by either survivors or Nano-Z hordes.”

“In other words, we have at least 4 years to get started with securing supply lines and restoring our cities... 4 years to get rid of all the Nano-Z. Would that be possible?” I asked.

“Uncertain. The Nano-Z as you call them or the Zombolik hosts are designed to evolve at certain periods of times.” she replied.

“Wait! Did you manage to crack the code of the nanobots?” I asked as I remembered our conversation from yesterday about something or another wiping the information off from her database.

“Affirmative. Their currently programmed evolution is designed to reach two more stages. Within the files, the first stage of infection is called ‘Typical Z’, the second one is called ‘Mutated Z’, and the last one is called ‘Researcher Z’. According to the data, the reason why all that information vanished from my system was because I managed to jump straight to the last stage thanks to your input as my host. The other two stages were considered invalid and null, thus deleted. It was a simple command that did this, and I do not find the logic in adding something like this to my original code.” declared Xerya.

“So... it’s your programmer’s fault for putting an unnecessary command there?” I asked raising an eyebrow as I walked out of my room and headed to the fire escape ladder.

“Yes... But, why?” she wondered.

“Maybe it was a whim? A curiosity? A preference? A safety mechanism? Who knows? The question is... will it happen again?” I shrugged.

“I do not know. I need to run additional checks.”

“I see... In that case, can you tell what my upgrades are since last time?”

“Your physical ability was increased slightly. You will find that you will get tired less from now on. I have tasked a part of the nanobots to remain idle and activate only when you received significant injury, such as skin piercing, bone breaking, internal damage, poisoning, and infected nanobot intake. I also added a small tool to use for retrieving the cores without digging them out with a knife like before.” she explained as I went down two floors.

“So, the group of nanobots are like a temporary first aid kit?”

“Yes.”

“And what is this tool you are talking about?” I asked her.

“Look at your right hand.” she told me.

I looked at it and then, from the middle of my palm, a bunch of long wiggly black hairs popped out. No, they looked like black hair, but they were more like some weird tendrils or tentacles of microscopic size.

“What can this thing do?” I asked.

“If you place the tendrils on the back of the subject’s head, they will automatically remove the core for you. Since you wish to choose when to start absorbing it, I left the absorption function on manual mode for now.” she explained.

“Well, this will come in handy... Wait, could you do something else like this? Like, I don’t know, some sort of claws that pop out of my knuckles or a sword or something? Then I would be like one of those ancient heroes! It could also look quite awesome!” I said with a big smile on my face as I was already imagining myself with some cool sideburns and climbing up the side of a wall only with those metal claws.

“Interesting suggestion. I will apply it to my simulation, but any form of external weapon capable of being used properly by you would require at the very least another 30 cores. Even then, the most I would be able to do would be a blade the size of a dagger.”

“That’s enough for me.” I nodded and then made my way inside the floor there.

The door was jammed, so I had to force it open.

“I guess it’s time to start hunting.” I smiled as I spotted my first target, a Nano-Z who got pulled in by the loud noise of the door being ripped out of its hinges.

With a growl and confused look on their faces, they were pulling themselves closer to me. I gripped the handle of my bat and as soon as the first one got close enough, I swung it hard and cracked his head open. The whole increased strength that Xerya gave me was no joke. Despite the loud impact and the way the Nano-Z was just flung into the wall, I didn’t use my full strength in that swing, just a little over half of it. My attack, however, startled the others and with a loud growl, they rushed at me.

There was no time to hesitate, so I just swung my bat towards the next Nano-Z and then from there to the third one and then fourth. With just a few fast swipes, I downed four of them, leaving the last two to crawl slowly towards me. Just like the ones from yesterday, these two had their hands chewed off and their legs broken, one was missing his eyes and the other had half of its face eaten off. It was a disgusting sight, but they made for two last easy kills.

There were no more Nano-Z on this floor, and it didn’t take me more than a couple of minutes to finish them off. I could still swing my bat a couple of times before I could say that I was tired, but I didn’t want to test out my luck by visiting the other floors. If the Nano-Z there were huddle up like those on this floor, then one wrong step could mean the end of me. Xerya did tell me that for the most part I’m invisible to them as long as I don’t attack them. Once I do, the nanobots inside them will pick me up as a target. They will then try to kill and consume me for the nanobots inside my body.

“Let’s collect the cores for now and then gather whatever supplies I can find here...” I said as I crouched down and reached towards the smashed head of one of them.

When my palm was close enough to the back of his skull, the black hairs shot out of my right palm and dug into the bone. They moved fast and soon enough a piece of that skull fell down as the core covered in dark red blood was pulled out through the hole. I took out a piece of cloth from my pocket and used it to wrap it.

“That’s one down... It was... easy.” I said as I looked at the black hairs in my pain swaying, turning, and twisting as if they were alive. It was kind of creepy.

This thing looked creepy, but it did its job well. In just a couple of minutes, I was done with all the Nano-Z cores here, then I was free to look around and loot the place. I found seven packs of instant soup, a bunch of cans, a traveling bag, a tent, and another bat. Some of the dead folk here still had their universal credit cards on them. Ever since Earth banned the use of cash money, these things were their replacement and worked pretty well with any electronic store in the city. As long as I had these, I could go to the market and buy everything I needed. Just two of these cards probably had enough on them to help me live nice and well for several months from now on, after all, it wasn’t as if I was going to waste money on games and other entertainment consumables.

I stacked all of my loot in the traveling bags and then headed back to my room. Before going up on the stairs, however, I checked to see what was happening with the interior stairs. The door there was blocked, but when I looked through a crack in the window, I saw several bodies lying on the stairs. They were ripped to pieces and their blood was splattered everywhere. The elevator wasn’t functioning either, and I didn’t feel confident enough to try and pry open the doors and see if it was stuck between the floors or if it was completely out of service. Chances were that the bottom floors were swarming with these things. Sure, I could handle a few of them thanks to my increased strength, but fighting the whole lot of them that were inside this building? That was crazy!

After I returned to my room, I left the bag on the floor and took a seat on the bed. I took out the six cores and used the tendrils in my hand to absorb them, one after another, until Xerya told me to stop. That was after the fourth core. I fell asleep afterwards and woke up two hours later.

“Can I take the remaining two?” I asked.

“Yes.” confirmed the AI.

“Alright... let’s just get this over with...” I told myself as I grabbed the last two cores and waited for the tendrils to absorb them.

Once again, I found myself falling asleep, but this time, I woke up just twenty minutes later. My body felt fine, but I had yet to go through the transformation process. Once this was over, I wanted to go to the floor below me and take care of the eight Nano-Z there. Afterwards, I would probably end up wasting another day staying offline like this while Xerya improved my body, but we couldn’t go on like this. I felt as though I was losing precious time with every second spent either sleeping or waiting for those cores to be properly absorbed into my body. It was unpleasant.

“Initiating Upgrade procedure. Please make sure that you are lying down in a safe location.” she told me.

“This is as safe as I’ll ever be...” I told her as I looked up at the ceiling and then closed my eyes “I wish we could do something about my knockout time...”

The next time I woke up, it was already evening.

“Ugh... What time is it?” I asked as I got up from the bed and rubbed my eyes.

“It’s precisely 15:45 PM.” Xerya replied.

“And... what are the improvements this time?” I asked.

“Your muscle structure was improved with the Experimental Nano-Fiber V 0.1. Bone structure has been improved by adding a Nano-Coat V 0.1. SkinSensor V 0.1 was added to your skin in order to improve thermal and pressure resistance. A protective coat of nanobots called EyeCoat V 0.1 was added to your eyes, designed to keep any foreign substances out as well as improve the User Experience of the basic TechScope programs. They also have various other scanning functions and will also act as my visual scanners. Hearing has been improved by using exterior sensor that can detect imperceptible sounds. Experimental Retractable Blade V 0.1 - Connector and Frame has been integrated within your left arm. Currently, I require more nanobots in order to create a complete structure.” Xerya explained.

“That’s a lot...” I remarked and then looked down at my arm to see if there was anything noticeable that changed.

Sensing my intention, Xerya activated the vision enhancement function in the EyeCoat and zoomed in on a certain area on my arm. There, 2.6 centimeters from my joint, right between the two bones of my arm, I saw a small black line that stretched for 6 centimeters. When I furrowed my brow, the line was identified as the Experimental Retractable Blade V 0.1.

“Well, this is interesting...” I said as I canceled the zoom function with a single thought. “What does it look like right now?” I asked.

“It is inadvisable to use it as an actual weapon in this state, but...” she then activated, and from the black line, the frame of the blade itself popped out.

It looked like a black wire mesh that you could bend by just resting your finger on top of it, but it stretched out for half a meter. It reminded me of the claw of a predator, curved slightly towards the end. It didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was moving around my hand despite the fact of having a limited range of motion, which made sure I didn’t accidentally cut myself in it.

“This will be very useful in the future. Thank you, Xerya.” I said with a smile after I saw the blade going back into its hidden scabbard.

“...” the AI didn’t reply.

I still didn’t feel hungry, so I decided to postpone my meal until I returned from my next hunt. Instead, I began to do some stretches and move around a bit to get a better feel for my increased strength and whatnot.

When I was using my body normally, it didn’t feel as though I got any stronger, but I certainly wasn’t getting tired just as fast as before. However, when I focused on pulling more strength out of my punches and kicks, I felt something trigger inside me, and my attacks noticeably got more powerful and faster than before.

“This feels great!” I said with a big smile on my lips.

I didn’t even break a sweat despite moving around quite a bit. Before the infection, I would have grown tired after doing just a quarter of those exercises. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t a very active person, I loved to go out jog and spend time outside, but what I did just now to get used to my body was a bit on the intensive side.

“Hey, Xerya? Before I go grab the other cores, can you do me a favor and look into various solutions for this absorption process of yours? I don’t really enjoy the idea of fainting like that all the time.” I told her as I grabbed my bat and the traveling bag I found yesterday.

“I will look into it.” she replied with her usual calm voice.

If she added a bit of personality to her lines, I would have had a hard time distinguishing her from another human being.

With this in mind, I stepped out the door and headed to downstairs.