As Dustin went through the pile of PED’s he found a troubling problem. Most of them had the same upgrades, down to the same wires and components. After counting them, he found there were nineteen. Swallowing, he turned to glance at Olivia. She had found a duffle bag, and was throwing pieces of what looked like armor and various weapons from a different shelf, one that he hadn’t seen.

The memory of him having to make twenty trips made his stomach do flips. Squaring his shoulders, he decided that meant he had to get it right this time. He flipped through the PED’s that hadn’t been upgraded that far, and threw them in a pile off to the side. Picking out the PED’s he wasn’t sure about, he put them in a second pile, leaving the last ones that had obviously better stuff for last.

“I’m going to set up base by the door, so that if any aliens try to come in while you’re busy, I can melt their butts.” She patted the butt of a long rifle with several alien tweaks he didn’t recognize. It wasn’t one of those he had scanned, making him wonder what all she had in the bag. Olivia stepped up behind him, and handed him a wrapped bundle with a small smirk. Taking it with a confused look, he opened it, and gasped in delight.

Waving her on, he turned to the wrapped bundle with glee. It was a complete set of tools. His memories on how to use them, returned as if they had never left. Lifting out each piece, he placed it next to its neighbor, and they bonded, reforming themselves into a single unit, but still capable of doing both tasks. He had always wanted one of these, but even the military couldn’t afford them. It was a morphing tool. This one had obviously never been used before, because it was still in all of the original pieces.

It took him a good twenty minutes before he figured out how to get his PED to scan each of the PED’s, and to assimilate everything that was new, including stealing all of the genetic data they had stored. Without the tools, it would have taken hours, if not longer.

When he finished, his PED reached from his wrist, all the way up to his elbow. It had acquired a stealth function, that hit it from all surveillance. He wasn’t sure how the previous owner had gotten that, but he fully intended to put it to use.

“PED, keep yourself hidden at all times.”

(INITIATING STEALTH MODE)

It’s color and shape changed to look like his skin. With the plate over the top of it, it almost looked like he was just buff. Not a bad look, if he said so himself.

As he sat there, a strange feeling of exhaustion came over him, and he felt his arms and legs droop. If he had been standing, he was sure that he would have fallen.

“PED, what’s going on?” he asked, knowing with all of the upgrades, it could now scan him for health and possible contaminants.

(SLEEP FUNCTION FOR RETRIEVAL HAS BEEN INITIATED. HOST IS EXPERIENCING INTENSE DROWSINESS FROM EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF MELATONIN AND OTHER SLEEP-INDUCING HORMONES.)

“Fuck! Disable all remote functions! I don’t want anyone to be able to hack you or make you do anything!”

(HOST DOES NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY FOR THAT OVERRIDE FUNCTION.)

“What? Damn! PED remove the plate over the PED.”

The plate receded and he popped the access panel off. Studying the alien components intently, he started tinkering, completely oblivious to everything around him. Suddenly, there was a spark, and he jerked back.

(CAUTION. UNREPAIRABLE DAMAGE HAS BEEN INCURRED. TRANSMISSION AND RECEIVER ANTENNAE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. IT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT ASSIMILATION OF NON-DAMAGED DEVICE OCCUR TO RESTORE RADIO FUNCTIONS.)

“Denied,” he crowed, slamming the access panel back into place.

(REFUSAL TO REPAIR ANTENNAE MAY CAUSE SYSTEM TO BECOME UNSTABLE. PED WILL BE UNABLE TO INITIATE NEW EVOLUTIONS UNTIL SYSTEM IS RESTORED TO FULL CAPABILITIES.)

“How does you not talking to someone affect your system?” asked Dustin. He honestly didn’t expect a response.

(HOST GENETIC MATERIAL DATABASE IS NOT STORED WITHIN THIS DEVICE. WITHOUT ACCESS TO THE CLOUD STORAGE, NEW EVOLUTIONS WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE.)

“Wait, you told me that you could store all of the data within you until you were full. Where did this cloud shit come from?” Dustin was just about to rip the whole thing off and fling it across the room. Maybe this was why all of the people in the underground city were forced to remove their PED’s. The Josagn could track them with them, and if they disabled the tracking function, they were useless afterwards.

(STORAGE CAPABILITIES ARE INSUFFICIENT TO CONTAIN ALL OF THE DATA WITHIN THE DEVICE.)

“Do you still have any info stored in you?”

(ONLY THE MOST RECENT MATERIAL IS STORED.)

“So, my bug beast?”

(AFFIRMATIVE.)

“So, you could initiate an evolution into that form and then back to this one if I asked?”

There was a long pause as it computed his request.

(AFFIRMATIVE.)

“Good enough for now.”

He would worry about everything else later. A giggle from behind him, caused him to turn. Olivia was laid out on the floor, pointing her gun at the small hall outside the doorway. As he watched, a Josagn came through the hologram, hiding the door, and she shot him with her gun. The gun shot a strange looking mist at the alien, coating him with a type of green slime that basically caused him to dissolve. There wasn’t even a puddle on the floor when it was done.

“He didn’t even get a chance to make a sound,” Dustin said softly, so as not to alert any Josagn listening out for them.

“I’ve lost count of how many I’ve killed. I think I’ve fallen in love with this thing.”

“What is it?”

“A molecular destabilizer.”

“A what? That’s a thing?”

“Think of it, kind of like an acid gun, just faster, without leaving any gunk behind.”

“Where the hell did you find something like that?”

“On the shelf over there in the back. It was marked ‘navwi’ which basically means, don’t use unless the world is ending.”

“Well,” he started, then fell silent as he realized he didn’t have any come back from that. “I guess, we’ll use that to clear the way?”

“Yep. I was just waiting for you to finish playing with yourself.” The smug look on her face said it all and he couldn’t help but groan.

“You didn’t have to put it that way.”

“Oh, yes I did.” She then shot another Josagn that had stepped through the door.

“I need to fix your PED, if you’re willing?” He didn’t feel like telling her, that this would be the second time he had upgraded her PED.

“What kind of upgrades?” she asked, suspiciously.

“To make it be able to do more than simple upgrades and to remember everything you acquire?” There was so much more, but he didn’t want to have to explain everything.

“If you can do it without me moving,” she said.

Dustin returned to the shelf with the PED’s and started gathering parts and pieces. He didn’t have a PMS from a Josagn to upgrade it the way he had upgraded his, but these upgraded PED’s already had the parts he needed. With his arms full, he returned to her side, and got busy.

He couldn’t wait to see what else this place had to offer. He wanted to get off this planet, but he was starting to wonder what else was going on. So much of what he had thought was truth had turned into lies.