“I’m sorry, Drake,” I hear myself say, “but I just can’t trust you. The implants they gave you, they allow you to be completely dominated by those CyberCorp assholes, and where I’m going I can’t have a liability like that, whether it’s supposedly disabled or not. I’ll be making my own way.”

“Suit yourself,” he says with a little snarl in his voice. “You’ll never make it there without me. I don’t need you anyway, I know everything I have to to get straight to the heart of it all.” He crouches, and the augmented muscles in his legs ripple with power, launching himself upwards in a mighty jump on to the top of a three-story building. Goddamn cyborgs.

The night is quiet around me, but it’s an uneasy quiet, like right before a big thunderstorm or the outbreak of a huge battle, back when countries fought actual wars. I realize that’s basically what I’m doing now. I have declared a one-man war on CyberCorp, the largest and most powerful entity on the planet. I must be completely crazy, but if I don’t stop them, nothing will. No one else even knows what the awakening actually is, and just how fucked up these whackos are.

I cough, for far too long a time. I start coughing up blood. Like something is stuck in my throat, burying its claws in my flesh and refusing to dislodge. I knew it’d happen sooner or later, but I thought it’d take more than a few minutes. Goddamn. I’ve got the plague. The nanovirus. Guess that makes my choice a good bit easier. Gonna die one way or the other, I might as well go down fighting. CyberCorp, here I come.

The only question left is how I’ll make my grand entrance.

I know an arms dealer, I could stock up and then go in blasting.

I could go in stealthily. There’s gotta be a sewer entrance around there somewhere.

I could just go to the front door and talk my way in.