A grim admiration settled over Park and Raymond as they stared at the withered form of The General.
He knew they were losing. He restrained us, took the beating… all to let his team escape. A good leader.
The admiration curdled into confusion as he stared a rasping countdown.
"Five… Four… Three… Two… One."
The final number was a breath. A weird, triumphant smile stretched across his ancient face.
For a second, nothing.
The world changed.
A vibration, deeper than sound, resonated in the marrow of their bones. Raymond's B-Wax screamed a constant, clipped warning: NEURAL CASCADE. NEURAL CASCADE. NEURAL CASCADE!!!!
It felt like ice cracking behind his eyes. A sudden, hollow starvation begin as his nanites, desperate and wild, began to cannibalize his reserves of fat, then muscle, to sustain their failing matrix. His skin tightened over his knuckles, very thin. Beside him, Park let out a wet gasp as his spine gave a terrible, loud creak.
On Raymond's B-Wax, a constellation of red dots erupted. The choppers had landed, disgorging dozens of figures.
Then a sensation followed—a visceral, non-visual wave. An excruciating stench of ozone and decay filled the air, a smell that felt like it was scraping the inside of his skull. His stomach convulsed. He vomited. To his left, Park was doing the same.
"Arrgggghhhh!"
Their synchronized scream was torn from them. A series of sickening cracks and pops accompanied it as their veins bulged, threatening to burst through skin, and bones shifted unnaturally beneath the surface.
Raymond's 360-degree view shattered, overwhelmed by a flood of system alerts.
WARNING: Foreign Resonance Cascade Detected
-5% HDC
-5% HDC
ESTIMATED TIME TO TOTAL NANITE COLLAPSE: 14 SECONDS
INITIATING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN
Their bodies were betraying them, their veins swelled into stark, blue relief against their rapidly paling, tightening skin as subcutaneous fat dissolved. Bones became stark outlines beneath a thinning layer of tissue."
Park's transformation was the most severe. Patches of his hair fell out. His spine curved, his waist failing, leaving him bent and broken. They lay there in stunned silence, powerless.
A sound ended the silence. Not footsteps, but a precise, mechanical clank—clank—clank.
Two figures entered the passageway.
Their bodies were a horrifying paradox: emaciated yet powerful, with dense muscle clinging tightly to bone like starved predators. Their skin was tight, and semi-translucent, like wax paper stretched over a frame.
Their eyes were vacant pools of pitch black, save for a faint, flickering phosphorescent glow deep in the retinas. They walked forward without hesitation, crushing debris underfoot.
The General's dry, rattling laugh cut the air. "Meet my final precaution."
Park turned to one of the monsters and sighed, a sound of utter defeat. "Ha. Dan. I should have killed you when I had the chance."
The Monsters—the Noids—moved with efficient brutality. They grabbed Park and Raymond by their crippled limbs and dragged them out into the open.
The scene outside was a nightmare. Six more Noids were continuously pounding Bryce into the ground. His eyes were closed, his body jerking with each impact. The wet snap of breaking bones punctuated the grim rhythm of the assault.
I'm... the youngest here,' Raymond managed, the words a ragged whisper of pure, bewildered horror as he stared at his own withered hands."
Park could only manage a weird, disbelieving look.
Bryce was aged, half his hair gone, one eye swollen shut with viscous fluid. He cracked his other eye open at the sound of Raymond's voice.
"Wha…What… are they?" Bryce slurred, the words thick and clumsy in his mouth.
"Noids," Park explained, every word an effort. "This is what happens when a user burns through 100% HDC and forces a transformation. The nanites have nothing left to consume but the user's biological neural pathways. They devour memories. Personality. Everything that makes a person… a person."
"How… come I never… heard…of them" Bryce struggled to form the sentence.
"They're rare. It takes a terrifying will to forcefully activate the Homo Dues Mode after they have depleted their HDC. I've only ever seen one." Park's gaze shifted to the Noid that had dragged him. "My brother, Dan. He was a spy during World War Three. I placed him in your army. He rose fast, got the system. When you discovered him and ordered his execution, he fought. He burned every last drop of HDC, and then he forced the mode to stay active. He traded his mind for his life." Park wiped at a tear tracking through the grime on his cheek. "We recovered him. Tried to find a cure. He escaped. This is the first time I've seen him in thirty years."
"Touching," The General mocked, his voice regaining a sliver of strength. He was being helped to his feet by some heavily armed Soldiers. "One of the system's ugly secrets. Bryce knew his invention had flaws, but he unleashed it anyway. Hungry for the wealth and power."
He gestured to the officers. "Captains, secure them. Let the Noids handle these two. They have severely injured many of our innocent comrades."
"Stop," one of the officers commanded. "Injure them. But do not kill."
The Noids pounding Bryce immediately ceased. They turned in unison and descended upon Raymond and Park. With their bare hands, they began to pull and twist at limbs. The screams didn't last long; both men passed out from the agony.
"Your dagger," The General ordered.
An officer stepped forward and handed him a slender, silver blade.
The General shuffled over and lowered himself onto Bryce's chest, the weight of his aged body a final insult. He raised the dagger.
"Under Article Six and Twenty-Five of the Rome Statute," he declared, his voice cold and formal, "I sentence you to death for high crimes of genocide."
The silver blade descended.