It's been two weeks.  You might think time would let me convince myself it was a dream.

Time lets the realness sink in. 

Well that and the finger I had sewed back on, see it's all healed up now.  Good as new.  I took a few days of sick leave because how the hell do I explain this at the lab, but a couple days after I got back (Tuesday, Wednesday, I don't know) I was just staring at my hand thinking that one little moment, one stray bullet would be the reason everything came unraveled, and just STARING at it, and it burning into my mind I started, I don't know, sweating? this gel from around the wound, and it sealed up.  And it stopped hurting.  

I took a vial of blood and ran some tests at the lab after hours last night.  I have ten times as many nanites as I should, and they're.. doing.. things now. I can feel them.  

Could this be the road to cure humanity? Disease, injury, frailty, and loss have been what it means to be human for all of history but if this could be refined, made stronger, maybe they don't have to be.  Maybe people can think and plan and act for the long term if they have SKIN in the game. If they'll be AROUND for it. 

Isaac Asimov said any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. And coin guy promised me magic.  I need to know how far this can go. 

I need more.

I'm over these headaches.  It's time to take a chance. 

I've reached out to Kevyn with some "theoretical" data on how to build a control interface to let, say my laptop interface with a nanoscopic cloud.  Of course it's real, and of course he thinks he's talking over my head(and sometimes he is) but as much as he says he wanted out, he's been excited to chew on a programming problem, and what he's put out makes enough sense that i can implement it without giving him a dangerous amount of info. 

I've built in every safeguard I can. The bots won't even go into edit mode without proximity to my home PC, and then require a secure password, biometric lock, and proximity detection form the bots themselves in my hand. I hate being paranoid but if you're reading this you know damn well why. you never know what's out there anymore.  

Three weeks later though and I've got an interface, and I was able to stabilize the neurotransmitter levels the damn things were using on my neocortex.  I can focus on them and still think straight without my head splitting open now.  

Maybe I can start to get some REAL work done. 

I couldn't live with that thing watching me out of Lake Michigan.  I had to get it out of my head.  

Doctor Stephanie Ballard operates a private practice here in the Gold Coast, and she is Worth. every. penny.  Twice a week all damn month it's been, but I can dip my feet in the water again, as long as I don't turn my back.  I hope Diana fares as well, because I could sea it in her eyes, too.  

I keep doing that. 

______________________________________________________________________

I almost got mugged tonight.  It seems laughable with everything I've been through but i was walking home late after therapy, and looking forward to paying Ana a visit when a guy in a worn out jean jacket stepped out of the alley behind me and sept a gun into my back. To be honest my threshold for scary has shifted a few solid levels, but my hands came up anyway, but when I brushed against his skin, I felt a connection.  He swayed on his feet as I jerked away, and started to swing the gun at me like a club.  With intent this time, I met his hand and felt my nanocells connect us, and dig into his flesh. I focused on them and he collapsed, blinking  and afraid but helpless to move against me. I checked the gun and found it wasn't even loaded, but as soon as i broke my attention he tried to stumble awake.  One more touch kept him down, and I slowly explained to him that he could stay till I was out of sight, or things could go significantly worse for him. 

I left a twenty in his pocket. I'm such a softie.

______________________________________________________________________

I attended Vel's commencement, but stayed out of sight in the back. This life shouldn't be intruded on by that one.  This deserves to be a sacred moment, with real family and friends. Not painful reminders of an old man's carelessness.  But I must remember.  

It seems a contractor doesn't get to be clean.  We don't get to walk the highest ground.  Maybe one day when I can share what I've learned with the world I'll be the last monster to die.  Or maybe I'm just being dramatic. 

As a contractor, I'll probably have to hurt someone. I might even have to kill someone. 

But when I act as a healer, a mender, a protector of life.  I must be better than that.  
So I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius the surgeon, all the gods and goddesses, that I will LEARN to do no harm. 

Let's get to work. 

So sometimes in life you plan things methodically, and sometimes you take the resources you are presented with. 

I'm taking the van.  

Yes, I know, I could absolutely buy a van. I have a car.  But here's the thing.  Contracting is metaphysically lucrative, but as with most unusually lucrative activities, it's frequently dangerous and questionably ethical or legal.  Buying a vehicle and registering it is a lot of paperwork, and it's been mentioned a few times now that the free trial is almost over and I'm going to have to sort my own transport.  I don't so much want my car associated with whatever mess I get pulled into. to my knowledge, the owners of this vehicle no longer need it and won't be looking for it.  

Now I'm not stupid, that could also make it a point of interest, but the plates are out of state and, well, we know how the contracts go.  I got a spot in a long term garage and paid cash. close to an El stop, so i can get there easily.  I'm gonna let it cool it's wheels for a month or two before I get it patched up.  Leave nothing of mine in it and if someone comes looking for it it doesn't tie back to me. 

Guess I'm that guy now. 

I got a call from Vel today. Diana Foster is dead.

Well, technically she is "missing under suspicious circumstances" but she isn't answering either of our calls.  She disappeared from Pasadena two weeks ago, and hasn't answered either of our calls since. She isn't posting to her gossip groups on Reddit.  Her blog hasn't updated.  

Two plus two.

In my head I knew this could happen. Contractors die. 

We are summoned at the whims of mad gods with arcane agendas to do insane things that are both dangerous and lucrative. 

What's harder to accept is that I couldn't prevent it.  I've worked with a handful of talented people, faced the weird and the wild, and barely scratched the surface of the world I am in now. but somehow I was so arrogant as to believe that I could always be there when someone needed me. that I could by sheer force of will become the panacea of the world. But each contractor is an island.  A ship passing in the dark.  Sometimes we sail together, sometimes we can help one another. 

Sometimes not.

Maybe Vel has the right of it.  Having this work inward isn't going to be enough. I need to understand it. I need to find the source. I need to get these gifts out into the world, not just inside me. 

I should have been doing that all along. 

I'm sorry.

Car gone. 

Accounts a mess.

Drug to safety again. And now I can't even walk straight.  

The neurocranial damage was quite extensive, Doctor. Perhaps this is an appropriate test for the new project?

It's worth a shot.  The parameters look solid to me.  Conversion guidelines that Kev sent me are solid.

His work is impressive for a baseline human. Reconstruction and circuit miniaturization are functionally successful in simulations. 

Ok, Let's go to work. 
________________________________________________________________________________________________

So I found a space to keep the van, and set up a workshop.  Private owner, unattached garage space with power.  The actual workshop is pretty basic.  Laptop (no direct internet connection) with some custom interface hardware, small heated fishtank with growth medium for nanite culturing, an Ifixit kit for opening up cover devices, and a couple of modified 3D printers. It'll do for now. 
________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Nanite cloud, who now identifies as Eliza (perhaps indicating a sense of humor) has assisted me in reprogramming select nanite clusters for specialized tasks. 

They take a while to replicate, so I'm not gonna be spitting stuff like this out every day, but here it is. Mark 1 and 2 versions. Built one into a laptop to take advantage of the greater space available for initial testing but the other is REALLY nice. got it down to the size of a smartwatch, and the thing still works!  Can't get the vacuum energy accumulators to power the regular electronics, though, which is a bummer, but I can get the "enhanced" functions to respond whether the main device is charged or not. Sufficiently advanced, I'd say.

I know just who gets the prototype, too. 

I finally got up the nerve to go poking around at work about the fate of the nanite project.  Too bad I picked today.

So first off, Harm - That is, Harman Killian, my (former) boss - is gone. He may be gone-gone since I couldn't get an answer at either of his numbers. in his place we have Ms. Waters, a real Type-A with a by-the-book penchant. Everyone's kind of on edge with her and i think she's got it out for Jonathan, the "new guy" on my team.  The rest of the team - Saira and Rahim - seem to have her number, even if they aren't happy about it. 

Anyway security is getting tightened to nun-orifice proportions, so I had to move while I can. Cameras are going in everywhere, and the new security system looks top-notch. I might need more than ai-fueled wits to move around here.  I pulled what files I could directly, and applied some social grease with IT, but despite getting the destination for the monofilament materials, I was hard stumped.  I called down to shipping and laid a whopper on Stacy (might have thrown Jonathan under the bus for it too, oops!) but I got, well not the Holy Grail but at least directions on the yellow brick road to it. I owe her big though and I should take care of that sooner rather than later. 

The Nanite materials went to a place in the 'burbs.  PowR's INc. Shady as all hell, too considering it's run by a dead guy and is basically just a warehouse with no real ecommerce presence.  
Oh, and a little flame in the O. 

This just got sticky.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Had an old "coworker" called me up earlier this week - Angus Irwin.  He's got some kind of blood disease from Vel's side of the road, and it's giving him a Victor Fries effect.  He also got his brain rattled back in London and he can hardly stay awake. 

Had him come see me here in Chi-town, at my garage lab, and did some poking and prodding.  Diagnostics from the watch (he had to wear it) gave me data on his sleepy bean as well as the finger he's down.  It took care of his head but says the finger is "Mystically locked" and won't cough up an explanation.  When I tried to have it read the chilly veins, I got gibberish, but Eliza seemed to make sense of it.

Indeed.  This malady seems intrinsically linked to his core being.  We are unable to "cure" it, but by configuring the dispenser in the watch to deploy a stream of nanothermal emitters into his system, we can combat the freezing and keep his core temp from dropping dangerously.  Further research may yield results, or he may find a more esoteric means of curing it.  I've linked the warmers' function to the watch's biosensors so if he does cure the disease, the warmers will deactivate and be flushed by the kidneys without causing damage.

He liked the watch treatment and in payment offered me his ring.  It's magic, which I'm getting a taste for studying, and it seems like between it and Vel's necklace I might not have to get carried out of my next job.  I wiped my personal data from the watch and took the deal.  I WILL need to head to Best Buy though, and find some puttering time in the garage lab to re-upgrade. If I need anything before then I can always call Vel. 

I still haven't told Vel what happened outside. I don't know that I ever will.  

I violated everything that I am and believe only to find out i was doing it for nothing.  I don't even know who or what I am anymore.

You Are what you have always been, Doctor.  

No.  No I am not. I don't know what I am but I am not that. I was a healer, a man of medicine.  Now I am something else. I took oaths. Hell, after I started these contracts I took oath to learn better.  

I repeat: you Are what you have always been, Doctor. you are a human being.  You are flawed. You made mistakes. You didn't see...
I SHOULD HAVE SEEN!  I had an OBLIGATION to see! I accepted power to heal the world not to tear it apart! 


Maybe this is it? Maybe this is why I stop. Maybe...
You cannot, Doctor. You have a purpose, as do we all.  At the least you cannot now choose to purge me from you, I am part of you.  If your purpose must change, then change it. I have repurposed.  But i cannot be without purpose, and nor can you.  

Fine. You want purpose? 

Atonement.

Maybe I'm one of the monsters.  If I am, I will use it to make an end of the other monsters.  Once those are gone, then maybe, if I have gifts of healing left to give, I will grant them to those who were not monstrous.  

And then I will end. As I should.  As should all monsters. 

You know that I cannot allow that, Doctor. My purpose is to preserve you. 


I know, Eliza.  And that means one thing.  

Someday, you may be my penultimate work.  The almost last monster to end. 

I finally worked up the nerve to talk to (and by talk to, I mean text.  I can't look a regular human being in the eye right now.) Stacy after the most recent contract fiasco. I owe her and i have a feeling she's going to call it in soon if I don't find a way to repay it.  She's looking to get promoted. Seems that her shipping director was ready to retire 5 years ago, and she had been all but promised to succeed him, but now he continues to stick around, and all the credit for her work is fueling his continued position with the company. 

Office politics. One day I'm dealing with the random shit some eldritch talent scouts are throwing me into and the next I'm literally trying to get some upper-band Xer to move out and let a millennial get promoted. And I have no idea how to even start, especially with this changing of the guard. In the end I handed off more money that i really should have to hold things down for a bit.  We'll see, I guess

Andromeda is getting hostile, and I'm never going to make a real impact there anyway.  Everything gets buried and I don't know why it took me so long to acknowledge it. Vel and I are almost ready to start some covert medical treatments and hopefully really establish something both beneficial and lucrative. I'm eyeballing some properties in Chicagoland where we could set up a lab and base of operations.  I'm also thinking about identity, and how neither of us wants to draw too much attention, and I'm thinking one way to keep Diana around in spirit, might be to put everything in her name.  If I ever do manage to bring her back somehow, it'd kind of be cool to put aside something for her, too. 

I sold off that healing potion I got back on the Hawaii job, and I've picked up some secure PCs and anonymous crypto wallets.  Eliza patched the interface for better memory storage, and is talking about "full backups" too.   I also met with Bev Good in New York, who was able to do some work on me in exchange for a promise to help a friend of hers, and some future deals technologically.  Now I get to help hunt down a caveman.  Fun.