"Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons."

Buckminster Fuller

5 years earlier...

"Ouch."

Jake winced as the syringe drained its contents slowly into his arm. It had been over four years since he had first found himself recruited by the Ministry, two since he had become a fully-fledged field agent, and he took pride in how much stronger and tolerant to pain he had become. Still, the sight of the syringe slowly pouring the strangely shimmering grey liquid into his bloodstream made him shudder. He imagined the millions upon millions of minuscule machines bursting into life the moment they entered the plasma.

The automated arm holding the syringe suddenly swung back and out, pulling at Jake's skin. Grinding his teeth and taking his arm out of the leather straps that had been holding it, he massaged the area the needle had penetrated. He looked around for something to cover the bleeding.

"You won't be needing anything," announced Marv as he emerged from behind the banks of computer screens he had been viewing the procedure from.

Jake looked down at where he was sure blood should be leaking, but instead could barely make out a mark in the skin.

"They're already hard at work. They closed the wound behind them - You've got some very useful new friends," said Marv.

Somewhere between one blink and the next, even the tiny mark Jake had been able to make out disappeared.

"I thought you said it would take months for them to adapt properly to my body..." said Jake, looking up.

"It has," replied Marv.

Reaching out with one arm and spinning the nearest computer screen around on its revolving hinge, he pointed to a graphic of red and green lines on the screen. The lines were individually thin, yet in such numbers that where they connected and intertwined they formed thick cords of bright colour. The overall shape was that of a man's body.

"The initial nanites were placed in your body shortly after you liberated them..."

Jake snorted at Marv's use of the term "liberated."

"...and have been mapping out every vein, every artery, every capillary and lymph node since then. The programming for the mapping alone... well, it's the most complex thing I've ever seen."

Marv's eyes had grown wide in excitement, his words coming faster.

"Or at least, it was the most complex thing. Look..."

On the screen, the red and green lines had begun turning blue, the change emanating from the upper arm where Jake had received the injection. Slowly and steadily the blue advanced and the red and green retreated.

"...the nanites are flooding your blood stream, taking up position at equal distances all around your circulatory system."

"And they definitely won't block an artery or something?"

Jake had heard the explanations again and again, but now that he had actually bitten the bullet and had the... injection? installation?... he felt the need to ask one more time.

"Impossible, they're far too small. Even were they all to clump together they would barely be visible. Look, you saw what was in the syringe - most of that was plasmotic fluid, little different from the liquid your blood cells move in. The machines themselves wouldn't show up at any but the most powerful magnifications."

"And they won't just start attacking my cells?"

"Impossible. The mapping wasn't just physical, but genetic. The nanites' most basic functions are now keyed to your genetic structure and that of the bacteria that coexists within you. They will attack only that which doesn't match. Trials, you are now essentially immune to sickness. Any viruses, any tumours, any foreign body that enters your blood stream will be destroyed almost instantly."

Marv took a deep breath.

"You are the new man..."

Marv was extremely disappointed that Jake didn't seem to grasp the full drama of the situation. Instead, he wandered around to the bank of computer screens and started peering at data he couldn't possibly understand.

"And all this? Am I some kind of remote-controlled robot now?"

Marv sighed exasperatedly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Trials... I know you've been over this. The nanites are autonomous. All this is output data - reports, analysis. The bots were designed to be totally adaptive and to blend with the recipient's immune system to such a degree that even now their programming must have changed too far for me to follow. I can communicate with them enough to receive images, scans, data on your health, but I cannot instruct them to do anything. That's the genius of these nanites, how they were made possible - they run together, completely independently of any outside stimulus, adapting and reacting instantly. Honestly, the designers of this... Well, they were years ahead of their time."

Marv coughed nervously, eyes falling to the floor for a moment as his train of thought derailed.

Jake knew what Marv was feeling. Though the Ministry encouraged the use of the word "liberated," Jake knew what they had really done.

Stolen. They had... he had... stolen this technology.

But it was all justified, wasn't it?

When the Ministry had first heard the whispers of what was being developed, in a small independent research lab no less, they had had to act. That kind of technology couldn't be allowed to be released into the public domain. It was madness to think otherwise.

Imagine, a world where anyone could control machines too small to see, machines that could be secretly hidden within a person's blood for any period of time. The potential of catastrophe, of disaster, the potential for terror, was simply too high.

The Ministry had an obligation to acquire the tech for itself, to study it and prepare effective countermeasures before it could possibly be considered for release.

At least, that's what they'd told Jake. He agreed.

"So, what's next? When can I expect my upgrades to come online?" Jake asked.

"You're really taking to this cyborg stuff, aren't you?" chuckled Marv, coming out of guilty contemplation.

"I thought I'd feel different..."

Jake stretched out his arms, turning and twisting them, searching for some sign of the technology within. He found none.

"Well," continued Marv, "You can expect accelerated blood clotting almost immediately, followed by accelerated healing in general. You won't be Deadpool, but any injuries less than life-threatening shouldn't cause you too many immediate problems. The nanites are efficient at cutting off or shunting blood flow around damaged areas."

Jake looked up, staring at a pair of scissors sitting incongruously in a small wire stationary basket atop the state-of-the-art computers.

Maybe I can try... he thought, then shook his head.

"You should find you no longer get tired as easily, and can perform energy-intensive activities for far longer. The nanites hyperoxygenate your blood, you see, especially at times of high stress. I think this should mean you can go without breathing for longer, but we'll need to run some tests..."

"I'll look forward to being suffocated, then," deadpanned Jake.

"... and as the nanites become further embedded and adapted we should see some other changes too, though I'm loathe to say what we can expect now because I'm not one hundred percent sure myself."

"So, we wait and see?" asked Jake.

"Yeah, I guess so," replied Marv, grinning. "We wait and see."