《Nano-Vehicle》 Book 1 Ch 1: Recovery This was going to be both my financial success and legacy to the world. A new form of technology that would improve the response times of emergency services and save lives. ¡®This is going to be a game changer. I did it. All I need is to make sure is that the presenta-¡¯ At least that was the last thought running through my brain before the moment I saw an empty and stripped warehouse before it exploded. The blast caught me off guard and my last piece of technology saved me from dying. Not recovering. That took far longer. ¡®Sir? You need to stay down. Just, just stay down right now. A mess, his body is a total mess. I need to check his condition, give me a hand here.¡¯ ¡®How is he still moving? He looks lucky to be alive. Pulse rate is standard which is impossible. This guy must have ice for blood.¡¯ ¡®His flesh, what happened to him?¡¯ ¡®Ma¡¯am just keep away. I said you need to keep away. Back away from the site. We¡¯ve found one survivor, no other bodies. No, no comment right now.¡¯ ¡®Help him, you need to-¡¯ ¡®I have all the authority to be here, just check out my credentials. I¡¯m not a reported. My name is Ma-¡¯ ¡®Sir? Can you respond to me? You¡¯re going to be ok, we just need you to stay awake. Can you do that for me? There, he moved. Let¡¯s get him loaded up in three¡­two¡­¡¯ ¡®Idiot. Nikolai, you should have listene-¡¯ Voices. Fragments. Someone spoke my name before there was a loud slam and my mind shut down and then I woke up inside a pristine white hospital room with a nurse hitting a button next to my bed and leaving the room. After a month in the hospital of thinking and slowly recovering. The doctors called a miracle a waste of time the police told me regarding their investigation. An explosion in a warehouse destroyed all clues in a place that was due for demolition anyway, they asked me if I had insurance on the property as though I caused it myself to make a claim and make a get-rich-quick scene. My savings were mostly wiped after the hospital payments were covered, my medical healthcare insurance had partially covered the costs and the rest was directly charged and then paid from my bank account. The rest of my money went on securing a new place to live which was hard to find given that I paid cash directly. I didn¡¯t feel like going out and applying for new jobs or freelance work was a good idea given that all my efforts and proof of identity had gone up in flames. Currently, I was sitting in a half-finished room surrounded by several desks with a few different monitors and radios tuned in to various news networks trying to pick up any new information. Filled-up notebooks were scattered in a rough pile by my feet, next to a wastepaper bin filled with scrunched-up old paper. I had been fortunate to set up a few recording devices that could filter the most relevant information, but this entire process was taking a long time. I saw it on the news, which was my first clue. A notification flashed up with a video that gave me a direct clue. An impossible road robbery heist had been committed and the authorities were at a loss to track down the perpetrator. It was a breadcrumb that I had been searching for, it was the specifics that I was interested in. On a major motorway, an unmarked security truck with several police escorts had been broken into before a person had jumped out of the back and a motorcycle had just appeared in the air before leaving them all in the dust. The odd thing was that the hole in the vehicle had come from the inside, the driver of the motorcycle was a fully covered figure who had jumped from the roof of a bus right into mid-air on a moving highway right after the security vehicle began swerving in busy traffic. A local news report made it clear that it was being investigated at the federal level but wasn¡¯t warranted enough to make major news. Plenty of people discussing it though, someone had coined the theory that it was a military experiment or a new type of technology that had been stolen by a criminal gang. The answer was spot on. The reason is that it didn¡¯t go any further in the media. Nothing was stolen from the transporting truck. No money, no valuables, not even an injury to the two security personnel who both swore that the hole in the vehicle had grown from the inside before a dark cloud had flown right out. It sounded like something straight out of a movie and not many people were willing to believe the whole thing had happened. There was a great deal of chatter about the whole situation but on the whole, those witnesses who saw it, in first-person, quickly became silent when they had a visit from either a corporate type offering a substantial payment in return for signing a non-disclosure agreement or men in suits who represented a government branch of the armed forces. I was able to track down that much by being given access to the police records. The whole thing had been called a movie stunt with all involved being unwitting participants. I knew that it had been a test run of an amazing new technology that had yet to be replicated and developed in society. The reason that I knew all of this was that it had originally been developed by me. It wasn¡¯t a secret of the military nor a development from a major corporation. No, it had been stolen and untracked until that little incident on a minor news network, where it had been promptly ignored and filed away as a minor incident. Aside from a few people it had completely slipped under the radar. My efforts in arguing that my life¡¯s work had been stolen had been returned I had been sitting in a partially built building at this time because it was still awaiting completion the electrics were yet to be installed but the essential structure was there. According to the sign outside, the building was under construction and should only be accessed by the owners or workers. I had been posted a key with specific directions to find the house along with a letter of authority from the owning company that permitted my occupancy. This building had no address and wasn¡¯t listed as a recognisable location. I had been told that the safest place for me to stay for short periods would be in homes that didn¡¯t exist yet. This was one of the hidden places of the world, if you drove past a construction site then you¡¯d be more likely to forget it, especially if the construction crew were on a break for a week. The only issues that I had were the dust and the flooring. The rough half-built area that was meant to be my temporary home. A single military-style cot bed, a few crates full of water and nutritional if bland food packs and a few of my belongings. A few worn-out books I had read through dozens of times, a couple of comics and a metallic-style necklace that I had taken off and put on the side. I was sitting on the bed at this time reading through old newspaper cuttings that had been dropped off in front of the building in a cardboard box, some of them were even crumpled as though whoever had dropped off the box had thrown it from a moving card. A cell phone rang at this point. It rested on top of one of the food crates, buzzing before it rang in a soft tone. I had turned down the volume to almost mute to avoid any unnecessary sounds in this place. I did have a daily exercise routine of press-ups, sit-ups, and squats but that had been forced on me as I had been told that to maintain a healthy and able mind then I needed to religiously stick to an exercise routine. Apparently, for a person with little social contact exercise became a necessity. Possibly my only contact these days and I felt that it had been out of a sense of boredom more than anything else. She was the one who offered me decent advice that I did have to take on board. A good exercise routine and a balanced diet for one. I picked up my brick-sized white phone and glanced the restricted caller ID number that was on the light green screen before pressing the answer button. I sighed deeply, gazing around my surroundings before talking. ¡®Hello, Nikolai speaking.¡¯ ¡®Hey, idiot. How¡¯s your waste of time search going?¡¯ The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡®¡­How did you find out so quickly?¡¯ ¡®We¡¯ve been over this, I¡¯m better than you at so, so many things. Information gathering for one.¡¯ I sighed at this. She was rude when talking directly to me but not in a demeaning way. More like she just said what she thought about me at the time. Her military training I supposed. ¡®What are you calling me about this time?¡¯ The voice on the other end of the line paused for a moment. ¡®Hello?¡¯ I called out before a strangled noise came out from the other side of the conversation. The choking noise was making me become concerned for a moment before I picked on the fact that it was an attempt to stop laughing out loud. Great, another joke at my expense. ¡®Nikolai.¡¯ The tone sounded serious this time. ¡®¡­Yes?¡¯ ¡®You...you are¡­¡¯ Mariko struggled to get the words out. ¡®I don¡¯t want to be called idiot over and over. Enough with the insults already, you have more information and better connections than me. I got it. Why can¡¯t you just leave me alone?¡¯ ¡®Hah. Sorry, hard to keep a straight face even over the phone after you admit the blatant truth. Got to do my job and help out the needy, weak and poor. Oh, and don¡¯t forget losers. Well, you¡¯re only a semi-loser.¡¯ ¡®Riko¡­don¡¯t test my patience. ¡®Oho. Are you challenging me now?¡¯ ¡®I¡¯ll do it. Just come and see me in person. Let¡¯s get it out, I¡¯ll tell people about you.¡¯ ¡®No Nikolai you won¡¯t. You¡¯re a passive-aggressive person who¡¯s too scared to take the time to track me down and challenge me to a real fight. Weak. To make it short, I¡¯ll kick your ass in so many ways that you¡¯ll be sitting down for years. Don¡¯t worry though, it¡¯ll be a valuable learning experience just for you.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯ll still do it. You still think I¡¯m scared you? Military or otherwise I still kept records of our full conversations and meetings.¡¯ The voice on the other end of the phone took on a more serious tone now. It sounded angry and dangerous. When her tone changed, I knew that she had stopped joking at my expense and would mean every single word she said. ¡®¡¯You do that, and I¡¯ll release your information directly to the local authorities. A few trumped-up charges and you¡¯ll be arrested for theft.¡¯ ¡®Hah, I have nothing right now. Just an idea of revenge, that¡¯s not a threat to me.¡¯ ¡®What about the necklace?¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s not a piece of costume jewellery.¡¯ ¡®Right. You wouldn¡¯t mind me taking a closer look at it then?¡¯ ¡®I would mind. In fact, how about you just never touch it in your lifetime. No offense.¡¯ ¡®Touchy guy. Rude as well. It¡¯s not as though you¡¯re making any money off it right now. Just a few days for an off-site R&D department to take a quick analysis¡­.¡¯ ¡®No. The answer is no. This prototype belongs with me.¡¯ ¡®Either way, it¡¯s a useful technology to the right bidder. The military has a lot of different branches, even the private sector would be keen to dissect it. In the right hands, it¡¯s worth serious money. You could always sell it.¡¯ ¡®Nope, won¡¯t happen. It¡¯s already bonded to my genetic makeup. I¡¯m unable to remove it.¡¯ ¡®Fine, take the hard way. Use your made-up theories instead.¡¯ ¡®Check it out, Dee En A. Go and use your connections to check it out and stop wasting my time. You¡¯re only calling me out of boredom.¡¯ ¡®Is that right? Tell me, Nikolai, how many friends do you have?¡¯ I didn¡¯t like the tone of her voice when she spoke like that. She spoke the words with pure purpose. Sometimes her words cut deep. ¡®I¡¯m not going to answer that question, Riko.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯ll tell you then Nikolai. You have zero friends, same for any acquaintances. All due to your desire for vengeance. It¡¯s made you a paranoid freak who has this incredible talent for ignoring basic human instinct and making friends. Just a tech fiend.¡¯ ¡®Right. You don¡¯t count as a fellow tech fiend?¡¯ The voice struggled again like she was trying to stop herself from bursting out with laughter. ¡®Sad, that¡¯s sad that you¡¯re saying that in the first place. I¡¯m not your friend Nikolai, more like an interested private citizen. An information broker and support worker. Out of a sense of boredom, honest.¡¯ ¡®Shut up and give me the information or I¡¯m going to smash this phone.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯ll send a box of replacements then. Oh, wait your current address is meant to be hidden isn¡¯t it? You really shouldn¡¯t accept help from strangers too often.¡¯ ¡®Mariko.¡¯ I clenched my jaw shut. ¡®Where did you track the motorcycle?¡¯ ¡®Oh, you wanted information. Why didn¡¯t you ask for specific information, to begin with instead of defending your lonely and paranoid lifestyle? Idiot.¡¯ ¡®¡­I give up. You win.¡¯ ¡®I want you to say it. The main thing is that you¡¯re willing to listen to my advice and act on it. I don¡¯t want you getting hurt or worse. I¡¯ve invested time and energy on your behalf.¡¯ ¡®This is bullying.¡¯ ¡®Definitely. Now shut up and I¡¯ll get the information sent over to your present address by courier. Do you need any further money for expenses?¡¯ ¡®No. I just need a place to sleep, food to eat, water to drink and sufficient knowledge to track down my missing tech. I¡¯m not clear how much longer I should be staying in this location.¡¯ ¡®The paranoia part of your life flares up again. You need to find some new hobbies Nikolai; your present location is secure. For now at least.¡¯ ¡®The information will be on its way. By the way, don¡¯t you dare to break your phone? I will send a boxful your way if needed.¡¯ ¡®¡­.Got it. Thanks for the help, Mariko.¡¯ ¡®Hey, I¡¯m just a bored rich girl remember? Catch you later. Idiot.¡¯ I pressed the red button on the phone at this point cancelling the call. I believed that if I did smash the phone then she would send me an entire crate of the things just to prove a point. She was spiteful that way. I¡¯d call her my guardian angel, but she was more like a bored tiger pretending to be a cute cat. The funny thing was that I¡¯d only met her in person once but the impression that she made on me was unforgettable. Given that she was so far ahead of the information curve than me in terms of technology and accessibility it was no surprise that she was able to track down one of the culprits who had got hold of my technology in the first place. When I received a call on a public telephone telling me that she had had been told of my situation through local authorities and the hospital and was willing to provide me funding free of charge I thought that it was a prank call. I figured that certain highly placed people in the armed forces, including a few weapons designers, would have picked up on rumours of what I was developing. Even private sector equipment suppliers had an idea that a new prototype weapons system was being created. Exact details of my location and specific understanding of what I had been building It was a near impossibility. This woman Mariko simply knew details about me that shouldn¡¯t have been possible without intensive research. The only reason that I had agreed to meet her in the first place was an unnamed box appearing at my address at the time filled with my favourite chocolate bars. Despite setting up a basic security system for my own protection it failed to track anyone drop it off and I¡¯d never told anyone that it happened to be my preferred type. A white brick of a phone had been included in the box and I had received a message after opening the box and eating a few of them. It simply read: ¡®I¡¯m not a friend but I¡¯m keen to support your search. Enjoy your junk food.¡¯ Book 1 Ch 2: Military Grade Coffee She never told me exactly how she had found my old address at that point when I made a serious issue of being secretive and reclusive. Corporate espionage was a real thing. You worked hard in your job, developed a new product and then bam someone else would steal the credit for the project and you were dropped. It was more likely the fact that I wasn¡¯t a professional in erasing my traces and activities and simply that she was. I recalled the explosion in the warehouse and the months of recovery time. Touching my chest I could feel the cool metal necklace that never left my body, at first the paramedics had been concerned that the heat from the blast had fused the metal to my skin and had attempted to remove it. Apparently, despite my injuries, I had woken out of consciousness and told them to leave it alone as it was a precious family heirloom. I had begged for it to be left alone but they could sterilise the surface of it to avoid any contamination of my body at the time. The strange thing was that the first that I had heard of this was a month later when I was recovering, and a doctor joked about it with me when he had checked my medical status. He told me that it must have been my lucky charm that helped boost my immune system and recovery time, to be fair they hadn¡¯t expected much after I had been blasted out of the door of an exploding warehouse. My clothes had been entirely burnt but my body wasn¡¯t as hurt as it ought to be considering the circumstances. The main reason that I had to stay in hospital for a month was due to some unknown effect from the explosion and fire my body refused to respond to normal stimuli, I fell into a deep coma despite my initial outburst when paramedics attempted to remove my necklace. After four weeks, my body and mind felt refreshed, and I was able to be discharged. This was around the time that I finally met Mariko in person. The first time that we met up was in a roadside diner. She had insisted that we meet in a public place for her safety and how I was a noted individual for having a bad temper and anger management issues. Never mind that all of that was after I was robbed of my life¡¯s work. I had been standing outside of the city hospital, cars driving past and people chatting as they went in and out of the entrance. All I had with me was the necklace, a backpack filled with a few belongings that had survived the warehouse explosion and donated clothes from the hospital charity section. The clothes looked older but strong enough to last me for a while. I knew that I had some cash leftover in my bank account despite the cost of my medical fees and insurance coverage, but it wouldn¡¯t be enough to last me for more than a few months at most. Given that I had chosen to leave the place where I worked more than two years ago it wasn¡¯t surprising that any of my old colleagues came to visit me in hospital. Friends were something else that I had in short supply as well. If you wanted to keep friendships then you needed to maintain that connection, otherwise, things would drift apart. My work had been my driving force for two years of my life and my plan to make my technology known to the public sector was gone for now. The necklace around my neck changed shape somewhat when I was recuperating, it now looked more organic and less mechanical than previously. Even the colour was far closer to that of my skin. If someone looked at me even at a close distance it would be quite difficult to tell that I was even wearing it. I thought that it might be a side-effect of the heat from the flames, but the doctor had told me that I was fully recovered and in good health. It was then that I felt a person bump into me, and a hand reached into my pocket. The necklace around my neck felt slightly warm against my skin and unconsciously my hand grabbed out immediately holding on to the arm of a young girl in her late teens. My grip was firm, and I had reacted directly on instinct. I felt my face crease into a deep frown. Seeing my strong physical reaction to her attempt at thievery the older teen began shouting out right there at the hospital entrance. ¡®Heeey! This guy is grabbing me!¡¯ Her thin voice made several passers-by and security staff turn and look at me. A few pedestrians stopped to watch the street-level drama as though to see what would happen next. My face flushed red with embarrassment. ¡®Uh, no. This really isn¡¯t what it looks like.¡¯ I tried to speak my part but too much time alone without enough social conversation caused me to tend to mumble. ¡®Heeelllp!¡¯ The teen girl kept screaming at me as I held onto her arm. This situation wasn¡¯t looking so good. In the first place, it had been me who had been attempted to be pickpocketed. I wasn¡¯t in the habit of grabbing onto strangers¡¯ arms for fun. ¡®Excuse me. Sir? You need to let go of that young lady. Right now. Can you do that for me?¡¯ The girl continued to shout and hit my chest with her other arm. One or two people had stopped to stare. A security guard although not armed with a weapon approached me with open hands from the hospital entrance. Turning my head I saw a female guard talking into her radio while she was making gestures in my direction. A few more people in the streets had stopped to watch the action now. My face flushed even redder and hot with sheer embarrassment and awkwardness now. If this incident grew and my face was stuck on a tv channel as a news segment, then my location and identity would be easily found out. As far as I knew although no one had come asking me, blowing up a warehouse and stealing the entire contents of technology wasn¡¯t commonplace. Letting go of the late teen¡¯s arm I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet to show exactly what had happened with the confusing situation and how I wasn¡¯t some freak who liked grabbing people in public outside of busy hospitals. I raised my voice intending to be clear and precise to settle this whole mess. ¡®Hello!¡¯ I held my wallet over my head with one hand. ¡®This whole thing has just been one massive understandi-¡® ¡®Bye!¡¯ The girl in her late teens, or she might have been older seeing as how her voice had just changed to become harder and more mature had just grabbed the wallet out of my hand and sprinted off down the street. Her reaction speed had been far faster than I originally imagine, watching her push off walls as she managed to navigate past obstacles only made me think one thing. I had just been robbed by a professional thief. For a single wallet from a guy wearing worn-out clothes donated from a hospital charity foundation. I was an idiot. Once the crowd saw the girl dash off and the drama had come to an end people lost interest and began to carry on again with their way. The security guard who had been walking toward me switched their hands from being open to more casual and shook their head as he approached. He scuffed his feet on the ground, looked down the street at the now disappeared teenager and scuffing his feet again turned to talk to me with hands held behind his back. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡®Another life in the big city, am I right?¡¯ I nodded my head in agreement. In a small state of shock that this had all happened so quickly I felt inclined to agree. I quickly put my hands into my pockets and checked my backpack to make sure I had anything else that had been missing. I had a passport to verify my identity but aside from a few other minor belongings not much else of value. ¡®She...she tried to pickpocket me.¡¯ I said to the hospital security guard. The man looked at me with a mild sympathetic sort of look on his face. Patting a hand on my shoulder to reassure me he then waved a hand at his female colleague who was standing next to the entrance and was now looking in a state of shock. I thought to myself that the expression on her face was how I ought to be looking right now. ¡®It happens.¡¯ He shrugged his shoulders like he had seen an older teenager perform street acrobatics and run at an incredible speed a thousand times before and it was nothing new. I half-expected him to start laughing but he turned around and walked back to talk to his female colleague trying to explain the situation. I watched both of them gesturing before they walked back into the entrance of the hospital and left me standing by myself on the street outside. Foot traffic resumed and the busy noises of the city, with cars and motorbikes pumping out pollution and dust driving past. I looked again in the direction that the young teenager had sprinted off to but there was no sign of her as she had skilfully avoided knocking down either people or food signs. Great, just great. At least I didn¡¯t have to worry about this being a media coverage situation. Having my passport would give me access to my bank to withdraw stone, hard cash but I¡¯d need to walk to my nearest branch first. I turned around to head to the help desk in the hospital and ask for both directions and a city map that would help me locate my bank, but a hand tapped on my shoulder. I felt my necklace warm up again as my reaction speed was near-instantaneous again. My body reacting without my conscious thought. Given that I wasn¡¯t actually training or physically strong enough to withstand my body snapping around it put a strain on my body. Similar to how if a normal person would try to drive a racing car or fly an aeroplane as massively high speeds. The body simply couldn¡¯t cope with it. I was sure that I had pulled several muscles in my chest at this rate. I felt my hand grab hold of a roughish material long before my eyes were able to focus on the target who had tapped my shoulder. No teenager this time but an older guy wearing a worn out army jacket. For the location, I told her a place that I knew wasn¡¯t too far away from my location but close enough to several other towns that it might confuse anyone following me depending on which road I took to drive back. She just told me that she¡¯d meet me at midday, and I¡¯d recognise her straight away, I asked her if she was going to be wearing anything that I¡¯d recognise, and she just laughed down the phone at me. I remember the first words that came out of her mouth after I was sitting down drinking a strawberry milkshake. The server in the diner had come around to ask if I had wanted to order any coffee and pie but I responded that I¡¯d prefer something sweet to drink. Choosing to grab a seat near the door but facing the wall I became weary of the whole situation. I doubt that I would be tailed by anyone, but you never knew what would happen when you owned a technology that was wanted and desired by a large number of groups. The door in the diner squeaked open and I saw this huge guy walk in. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The guy looked like he could easily pick me up and squash me if he wanted to, but to my surprise, he just took a seat and made an order totally ignoring me. If my paranoia was playing up again then it¡¯d be a good idea if I went out a little bit more. ¡®You look like the silent but dangerous type. I¡¯m warning you that any violent action will be met by immediate retaliation. Are we clear?¡¯ I just stared at her. She walked into the diner dressed in some sort of uniform, it was dark grey and smart looking, but I had no clue if it was meant to be military or what. I didn¡¯t see her carrying any weapons with her but then again how was I meant to have a clue about what, it¡¯s not like I even owned a gun. The uniform didn¡¯t look like it was geared for combat, but it did have pockets, I was unable to see any company logo or country flags either. She noticed me straight away and possessed an aura of badass. The kind of woman, no person that you just didn¡¯t want to risk annoying. ¡®¡­Ok, I don¡¯t like you staring at me.¡¯ I shook my head not realising that time had passed and she had noticed. People skills were not my forte. Too much time by myself in the hospital recovering and then finding out that nothing had been done about my stolen technology had changed me as a person. ¡®I apologise, your uniform looks interesting.¡¯ ¡®¡­.Excuse me?¡¯ ¡®I mean it looks military, but I don¡¯t know if it is or not. Good, it looks really good on you!¡¯ ¡®Wow, you¡¯re something aren¡¯t you. Staring and all the comments going on, I¡¯d say that you don¡¯t have many friends do you.¡¯ ¡®No.¡¯ ¡®Perhaps, you¡¯re just the strong, silent type instead.¡¯ ¡®No.¡¯ ¡®What a conversationalist you are. Got a girlfriend?¡¯ ¡®No.¡¯ ¡®Boyfriend?¡¯ ¡®No.¡¯ ¡®No friends, no relationships, just work. The secret to your success. Work and dedication without fail. You should try and meet someone though; it¡¯ll change your life for the better.¡¯ ¡®¡­Did you send me a box of chocolates a phone and a threat to bring me to this diner to insult me?¡¯ ¡®It sure wasn¡¯t because I like you. I¡¯m not going to be answering your questions. You can call me Riko.¡¯ ¡®Reeko?¡¯ ¡®Riko, short for Mariko. Japanese. Can you tell by looking at me?¡¯ ¡®Do I get the last name with that?¡¯ ¡®Zero.¡¯ Yeah, the badass lady was full of it. This felt like a set up for making me the butt of a joke and then her fiance walks in and they have a good laugh about it. The best response that I could give was just stare. Nobody else in the diner cared much for our conversation, I saw that the massive muscular guy was now eating his third piece of apple pie. He might even start a fight but I doubted it, he just looked happy eating. Book 1 Ch 3: Cartoon Technology ¡®Riko Zero. That cannot be your real name. You¡¯re joking with me right? This is a joke and you¡¯re making fun of me?¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s the name that you¡¯re getting. Would you like me to run through your psychological profile or would you prefer to keep trading barbed words?¡¯ ¡®I would prefer. Miss Zero, if you would tell me exactly what you want from me.¡¯ ¡®Ms. Not miss. You can call me Riko or Mariko. Forget about the Zero. To make it simple, I¡¯m here to help you recover your intellectual property and get revenge.¡¯ ¡®Really.¡¯ ¡®Yes, and you should be thankful that anyone is willing to put in the effort to help you out given how you like to stare at people without a single smile. Are you an idiot all the time or just today?¡¯ I immediately put a smile on my face. Putting aside my mixed emotions for the moment and my confusion about why someone would be willing to put in the effort to help me I tried my best to keep calm and collected. ¡®Better. You should smile at people more; you look far too serious. Now back to business, I¡¯m here to help under strict instructions to do so. The uniform belongs to a group that I¡¯m part of, are you aware of the term PMCs?¡¯ ¡®Mercenary. Fighting for money.¡¯ ¡®Dear, we all fight for money. It¡¯s called work. Soldiers get paid and in turn, they have trained and have to enter combat on occasion. Please, don¡¯t call me a mercenary. It would not be appreciated on my side of the fence I assure you.¡¯ ¡®Ok, you¡¯re a PMC. A private army then.¡¯ ¡®Better. Don¡¯t forget that smile now.¡¯ I smiled at her across the table. ¡®So, I¡¯m here to offer you three things; support, revenge and field testing.¡¯ I felt my body freeze for a moment. Tan-staf-el. There isn¡¯t any such thing as a free lunch. ¡®You want field testing?¡¯ ¡®We are a military organisation. My role however will remain as support. Oh, wait, tolerating you. Try and find someone else who can do that.¡¯ ¡®Rude.¡¯ ¡®Honesty cuts more than harsh words. You are difficult to tolerate aren¡¯t you.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯m sorry for being a human being.¡¯ ¡®Good, you should have more humility.¡¯ She reached out her hand across the table towards me. ¡®Do we have a deal?¡¯ ¡®I¡¯m not a fan of touching others but I¡¯ll make an exception in your case.¡¯ Fifteen years of my life had cost me to develop a lifetime''s ambition of imagining a fantastic dream I¡¯d started at the age of six. I recalled being a little kid watching a cartoon about these two men and a woman who wore powered exoskeletons, and a computer on board an orbiting space station would beam down weapons and rescue components to them so they could either fight off the baddies or rescue people from earthquakes. One of them worked on the land, one on the sea and the girl flew through the air. The orphanage had it on the communal tv and for those who behaved, followed the rules, did their homework, and ate our vegetables it was a nice treat to have. Saturday and Sunday morning cartoons were a way for other kids to escape their situation, for me it was a chance to plan how I¡¯d make my life and what I wanted out of it. What can I say? I was a precocious kid. As a six-year-old with no family, I loved the idea of it, having your space station that would beam down the equipment so you could take on these massive challenges and become this amazing person who would save everyone. I loved it; the idea was just fantastic. Childish yes and not quite realistic but I was a six-year-old who grew up surrounded by kids who mainly came and went except for a few who I became a bit closer with. Becoming a firefighter or working in earthquake rescue was my ambition. The cartoon men and women with the armoured exoskeletons were part of my self-education and early introduction to future possibilities. I was a pretty smart kid but tried my best to keep it low-key. Standing out doesn¡¯t always help you in a crowd of faces. The fact that the characters kept fighting these mutated animals that a crazy bald scientist who was half dinosaur didn¡¯t interest me so much. I loved the scenes where the main characters would use their skills to save people from accidental mudslides or these massive coastal tidal waves caused by a mutated whale shark/frog hybrid. Sadly those scenes passed quickly as the cartoon was all about physical action and fighting. Believe me, for those short moments my entire focus was on the screen when a group of helpless people were rescued and dumped to safety aboard a rescue vessel that appeared out of nowhere. Punching and blasting weren¡¯t my things back then despite some of the kids who cheered on either the heroes or the villains. I just saw it as a complete waste of resources and time, especially when the scientist would always escape at the end in his hot air balloon powered by these giant mutated jellyfish. It didn¡¯t have to make sense when it came to cartooning makeshift technology. The other girls and boys around me enjoyed it so I¡¯d try my best to join in the laughter when we could. Happiness wasn¡¯t in ample supply in a setting where you could be rejected by your foster parents r be rejected. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. My heroes didn¡¯t end up fighting villains but rather rescued people, that was who I wanted to become. Those who risked their lives to save people in need from natural or people-made disasters struck me as the bravest human beings who had ever lived. The exoskeleton suits were just the technology that enabled them to do better, to be better at saving people. Plus teleportation and a sentient space station with a sassy attitude just looked like a world of fun. In the real world, there were no larger-than-life baddies who wanted to take over the world or hold countries and regions to ransom. Yes, there was a crime but that was a matter for the police and global arrest authority to deal with. For me, it was a case of people who wanted to do some good in the world and those who wanted to make their way by harming others, either directly or indirectly. I was desperate to be one of the former. I¡¯d never grown up in a loving family having grown up in an orphanage and never adopted. Not that I¡¯d tried hard to make any parents want to take me in. Some of the kids that did get picked up were good at developing this amazing smile and ability to just connect with people from a young age. They had been the lucky ones from their perspective, to leave the orphanage and get a home to move into with caring parents and more stuff than we were given. I never got jealous of them and the issue was never raised by the adults who ran the orphanage. It was assumed that I was a pleasant child who was a little bit quiet and focused but otherwise polite and followed the rules without getting into serious trouble. We were taught ethical lessons about how it was wrong to steal and to belong to a caring family we¡¯d need to learn to fit in and be on the side of the good guys. The cartoons along with some of the old vehicle and aircraft magazines that had been left around by previous staff who had worked in other occupations but switched to working as teachers for our orphanage made for a strong boost to my imagination. I¡¯d spend hours reading through these magazines with illustrations and information about all types of cars, planes, and trucks. Some of the pictures didn¡¯t look so good though and when I handed them to one of the teachers telling that it made me feel uncomfortable, they said that I shouldn¡¯t have been reading that kind of junk and it was thrown into a large trash unit outside the back entrance. During occasional free playtimes outside when we made up different stories and games, some of the kids told me that the building used to be a secret research laboratory with a hidden workroom full of this sticky grey stuff kept in vats. They used to run experiments there and sometimes the kids were taken there to be tested. I hadn¡¯t believed a word of it as I might be gullible sometimes but not that bad. Lonely kids end up developing great imaginations to deal with the real world given that most of us kids were left alone outside of classes and became a little starved for more attention. Playtime resources weren¡¯t great, but we¡¯d try out best with what we had. I remember a huge box full of old notebooks, paper and pens had been dumped on us one time and we were told to make our toys. It took some time, but I got used to it. It made a lot more sense to me why the orphanage had left me alone with my books, pens and paper and improvised research notes. One of the staff had been a failed engineer which meant that he had gone to one of the top universities and ended up dropping out due to the pressure or stress of the work. He still had a lot of enthusiasm for my ideas though as a kid and always encouraged me to write them down and keep them in a folder. When I became a teenager and still focused my energies on the same concepts it was as odd and my teachers in local high school asked me to channel my efforts into more academic concepts. Then I¡¯d be asked to participate in group sports, I may not be the best player but joining a group dynamic stopped others from questions from causing me any grief throughout high school and eventual graduation. It had been at the age of eighteen that I¡¯d finally left the orphanage. It turned out that they offered a university grant to the very few children who stayed there long enough and got good enough grades to attend higher education. I was one of the lucky ones who stayed the course and did well enough compared to the others. The other kids I lost touch with the, but I always remembered their names and faces. I always hoped that they would find their passions and happiness in life as I had. I said goodbye to my home and thanked the teacher and staff for their patience with me then moved on to my university accommodation and accommodation. I worked out the real-life cost of actually building a space station and the concept of beam technology was so far out there that I didn¡¯t have a clue. Military funding that couldn¡¯t produce viable examples meant that applying for funds didn¡¯t give me any results. After a point, unless you could offer deliverables, it was highly recommended that I apply my skills and experience to a field that mattered. Research and development would take you in a different direction each time. Instead, I switched to the idea of the exoskeletons that they possessed, the concept of building a suit that enhanced your physical strength so you could carry the weapons systems on your body. The idea was interesting but frankly, it just wasn¡¯t offering the versatility that I wanted. The power supply was something that gave me a headache as well. If it was used for military use, then you would need to supply an external battery which would be a direct target or make sure that the charge lasted long enough to get the job done. In short, if you wanted to build a suit for the military that enabled a soldier to carry heavier weapon loads it wasn¡¯t feasible. I had my initial idea when I had three different things, one was an ink printer, steam from a kettle and a model set of toy plastic bricks which you could build into three different vehicles: a car, a helicopter, and a boat. The water cycle was a simple concept that made me think about how something could change into different states. Liquid into vapour in turn into solid. The printer made me understand how you could a machine could be used to produce a specific copied image All of my savings, time, sweat and tears in exchange for an empty warehouse that had been stripped bare. I had been left with my initial prototype that was out of date and only consisted of the bare minimum of nanobots which could barely achieve anything besides function as a clue towards the location of the rest of them. I called them nanobots anyway, the actual word for them might have been different but when you end up reading old science-fiction books then you want to stick with it. Oddly, it was Mariko who enabled me to understand how I could use my limited technology to change myself physically. Although the power came at a cost to my body and mind but the after-effects wereminimal after a few tests runs she told me that it would be the same if I was a formula one racing driver. The stresses that are placed on their bodies when they race around the track at incredible speeds means that they need to continually strengthen and take care of their physical and mental health. To put it simply, the average human wasn¡¯t designed to be put inside a metal box and subjected to wind and speed resistance, not to mention the vibrations caused by the engine. I had explained to her how during my time in the hospital I had been told that I had recovered far faster from burn damage than a normal person. She asked me if I thought that it made me special and rather than nod my head, I shook it immediately. ¡®Nikolai. You should take it seriously. Being able to heal a few months faster doesn¡¯t make you into a superhuman machine. Given the right training, any military or private security operative can move at incredible speeds. Ever fast-twitch musculature?¡¯ he then explained to me specific martial arts and combat techniques along with a quick run-down of human biology and the limits that could be broken with resources and correct training. Most of it went past my head and I think that she could recognise that as she simply sent me a delivery of textbooks with a note that read roughly and said I needed to read through everything or there would be consequences for my pain threshold. Lovely stuff.