Just as I remembered, rural zones like the one bordering this town had plenty of wildlife, which I had noticed, had adapted readily to the influx of nanomachines that had permeated much of the ecosystem.

I spent much of the night out in the wild, alert to anything I could catch, so by the time the sun came back up, I had managed to catch four foxes, two hares and a badger. For someone who had never been hunting before, I was rather pleased with the result. I'd had to fight and kill the badger, and killing the foxes and hares had been a mad scramble because they were fast! Still, my nanocloud had increased my strength and speed just by winding back the clock on my body and maintaining it in peak physical health while I was under, so the exercise had been merely difficult, instead of fucking impossible.

The foxes and hares had given me enough to work with, once skinned and preserved, that I had enough to trade again with the marketplace. It was a big help as well, that I had absorbed the nanocloud of every animal I'd captured or killed. This had benefits for me in two ways, the first being the sheer number of nanomachines available to my nanocloud, with the second being a direct result of the first. My function space had increased because my resource capacity had increased with the new machines in my bloodstream.

I pulled up the Program Enhancement Level 1 upgrade for my nanocloud, now that I knew the upgrade could be supported, and I activated it without thinking about it any further. I also didn't think any further on it, because I had finished with the interface, and so paid no attention to it.

The hunting trader was still open for business by the time I got back to the marketplace. After selling off my animal carcasses to food vendors, I was given two hundred data credits for the lot. The hare, fox and badger skins had managed to get me enough in the way of credit for the outdoor equipment I had seen earlier. He also threw in a very simple blade for two hundred credits.

Now my credit was wiped out again. At least now, I was better equipped.

I also didn't feel particularly tired, either physically or mentally. Sleep therefore wasn't needed, so I went back out to the wilds again to lay in wait for more animals to hunt.

By evening, I’d caught another three hares, as well as fought off and killed two stray huskies who had attacked me. The transfer of nanocloud data had proved useful, triggering an alert that I ignored for the time being.

While stowing away my catches and preparing to skin them, I was attacked for the first time by other humans.

DANGER: Threat detected. Combat mode engaged.

It might have been instinct. It might have been driven by some signal in my nanocloud, but whatever it was, I felt an intense need to act. Kicking backwards in the hopes that one of my targets was behind me, I managed to catch someone's shins. I then leapt into the air and backwards.

That leap had saved my life.

The landing was clumsy, though, and as I felt my feet connect with the ground, I felt another "instinct" to relax my legs and go limp. This allowed the force of the impact to spread throughout my body, avoiding any injury as I crumpled to the ground. However, it left me vulnerable, so I tried to kick my legs out, using the momentum to leap to my feet.

The fact that I had never attempted such a move before was clear, because all I managed to achieve was to bruise my fucking back, as I fell back onto the floor, forcing the air out of my lungs and slightly winding myself. I didn't have time to berate myself or otherwise regret the ridiculousness of such a move, so I rolled on to my side and propelled myself off of the ground forcefully with both hands, nearly overbalancing myself and coming close to falling over the opposite direction.

I staggered slightly as my sense of balance tried to compensate. This was when I got a good look at my attackers.

The first was a gruff-looking skinny fellow with dark blonde hair and eyes that were too close together, wearing some tattered rags plus some worn leather in the form of pants and a jacket. He also had knuckle-dusters, as well as scars across his body from fights he had obviously gotten into in the past. I could tell from my overlay that he had a nanocloud, but it seemed weaker than expected. My overlay highlighted red zones on his body as well.

Were those weaknesses I could strike at? I'd have to see if I could capitalise on those.

The second was a short, stocky man with a shaved head and days old stubble. He had no nanocloud, which surprised the shit out of me. How this could be when practically everything in this environment was saturated with nanomachines? It did explain why he was the oldest looking fellow here, appearing to have lived a hard life well into his thirties.

The third was a youthful-looking woman. She was tall, amazonian, and was probably lethal. Her nanocloud was apparently very dense. I had no idea what she'd be able to do, but suspected she would be the most dangerous of them all.

All of this information sunk into my consciousness and subconscious mind in a fraction of a second, even as the attackers were moving to intercept me.

Before I could think about my next move, my nanocloud apparently was getting to work. Yellow outlines appeared on my overlay, apparently indicating what I should do. It was almost like having a ghost player in your field of vision in some challenge level of an RPG or a racing sim.

Focus, I told myself sternly.

The first attacker was now within striking distance. I saw a fist come closing with my face, so I grabbed the man's wrist, thumped down on his forearm and broke the guy's wrist. The next attacker, the skinny little shit, was on me by then. My nanocloud pushed me to kick out, hard. My foot connected in between the guy's legs, causing him to wail and double-over in pain.

Fuck, that was a dirty move, but what choice did I have?

I had to capitalise on this or die in my first fist fight, so I elbowed the guy in the back of the head as hard as I could, only to find that it barely had any effect.

Shit.

The woman was almost upon me now, though. If I didn't do something about her, she'd be in striking distance quickly. There was no more time for fucking about.

I drew my blade, plunging it into the man's leg, then his arm, then his eye. The motions felt unnatural, jerky, and I suspected I only managed to pull them off because my nanocloud had taken direct control of my bodily movements to make the attacks.

I was seriously out of my depth here.

The attacker was now dead, having been shocked at my lightning-fast reactions that I couldn't take any credit for.

Now the Amazonian was the only one left. She wasn't going to be easy.

I leapt backward, and she leapt right along with me.

Fuck!

Desperately, concentrating with everything I had, I ducked, rolled, kicked, jumped and side-stepped my way out of her fluid, carefully-controlled strikes. Her blade was far deadlier than my hitch-hiker's tool, and she was very fast, with a physical strength I didn't know and had no intention of finding out.

She reached out to grab me, and almost my accident, I dropped to the ground, rolling immediately to one side by a prompt from my nanocloud. She reached out to strike me with her combat blade, and without even realising I had done so, I flattened to the ground, turned to face her, and plunged my knife into her breast, piercing her heart.

She could only stare, shocked, at what was clearly some undisciplined, unskilled wanderer who should have been easy prey, no doubt, who had ended up killing her. I could only stare as her eyes went dull and lifeless, and her weight fell fully onto me, her blood pouring out over my body. Something triggered within me in a few seconds, and with all the strength I could muster, I propelled her forcefully off of me, sending her body flying several metres away, her neck cracking and breaking on the dirt as she collided lifelessly from the fall.

I wasn't sure why I did that, only that I felt an intense need to stop her from bleeding all over me all of a sudden. I also had a sudden desire to strip off my shirt to get the blood away from my skin.

ALERT: Invasive nanocloud detected exceeding threshold. Combat mode will remain active. Detecting 4,961,017 foreign units.

I wanted to ignore the prompt, but the way my interface was wired into my mind now, I couldn't avoid seeing the messages coming in as they did. I also noticed that the 4.96 million invading nanocloud units were dropping down at quite a substantial rate, passing 4.9 million and falling within a few seconds. I also didn't feel any different other than I was still feeling wired to fight, my thought continuing to remain clear.

I looked at my hands, both covered in blood, and frowned. Pushing the Amazonian off of me would have been an immense struggle back when I was... What I was before. Now, I had propelled her several metres into the air and away from where I'd been before, almost as if it had been nothing. Still, she might have had something useful on her person, and that knife definitely had utility. I stepped over to her lifeless corpse, so I could look over what she carried.

I grabbed the combat knife straight away. Her clothing was pointless, so I ignored it. A few other items, some food, some pelts, all went into my carry bag. Once I was sure there was nothing else useful, I left her body out for the animals to feast upon. The other two shared the same fate.

I jogged to the nearest stream I knew of in this area, and rinsed the blood off of my hands, took off my shift and tried to wash it the same way. Sure, it didn't get rid of the bloodstains completely, but it was a damn sight better than leaving it caked as it would be after a few hours otherwise, and now, I might pass muster in a casual glance from a distance. Finally, I grabbed my flask and filled it with water from the stream, took a long pull of water from it, and then refilled it after. I then attached it to my pack before hoisting the pack onto my shoulders. It was over half an hour later, when my nanocloud prompted me again.

Foreign nanocloud rendered inert. Combat mode disengaged. Flooding system with endorphines and Serotonin.

Nanocloud unit upgrade available. Recommend engaging replication as soon as it is safe to do so.

Finally, I felt myself start to relax. My thoughts calmed down and returned to normal, and my curiosity piqued. I opened my notifications.

Nanocloud primary upgrade Level 1. Increased utility and enhanced interface with host.

I saw no reason why I shouldn't implement the upgrade, so I instructed the nanocloud to proceed.

Upgrade in progress. All other projects suspended pending completion. This process cannot be interrupted.

I shrugged at that notification, continuing on my way.

Not long after, I found an abandoned residential unit nearby, so I stepped inside, made sure no-one else was around, unpacked my travel gear, laid out my sleeping mat, and reclined onto it. Soon after, my thoughts drifted, and I was asleep.

The dawn light streaming through the broken window panes of the flat I'd chosen to sleep in woke me up, and I was still surprised by how easily I awoke and how easy it now was for me to get up and become alert without needing many minutes and a coffee first.

I quickly re-packed my gear, hoisted my backpack to my shoulders and set off to look around.

Outside, I saw the usual. Trees, grasslands, old building remnants, skeletal beams, a deteriorating railway bridge-

No nanocloud outlines or notifications, and my eyesight, while still far superior to what I had when I first went to sleep in the cryocapsule back in 2026, it was not being augmented or enhanced.

I sent a ping to my nanocloud.

Nothing.

I tried it again. Still nothing.

Oddly enough, I felt a twinge of anxiety, and unlike more recent incidents when this had happened, it was not immediately stamped out by my nanocloud. That caused me to freak the fuck out, and I could feel myself spiralling out of control.

I leapt back inside the building and into a central room where I knew no-one would be able to find me, and I stopped, taking deep breaths to get some semblance of control over myself.

Come on, Rick. Fucking get a grip!

Something had gone wrong with my nanocloud. That much was clear.

But what? The last message I remember seeing was about an upgrade in progress. Shortly after that, and without my realising it, the message, in fact, my entire nanocloud interface, had just vanished.

I'd ignored it like a fucking idiot last night because I was tired and wanted to get some sleep, and it was only now I was realising that my nanocloud had been entirely unresponsive and silent the whole time.

On the one hand, I no longer had access to the nanocloud. For how long, I had no idea, and without it, assessing danger around me was going to be tricky. It made me feel tense, nervous, needing to double-check everywhere and everything. Oddly, though it had been only a few days since I discovered I had this ability, losing the nanocloud's ability to measure proximal threats and threatening terrain or animals was like losing a limb. No longer having that passive sensory ability that the nanocloud had given me was unnerving.

On the other hand, at least now I knew why my nanocloud wasn't doing shit.

Trying to sleep was a bloody awful experience for me. I was hyper-alert, like I'd injected uncut caffeine into my bloodstream. I'd ended up staying awake all fucking night, and far into the next morning, like a crack head after too strong of a hit. I eventually gave up, said "fuck it" to myself, and tried to eat.

To my surprise, although thinking about how this always happens in the world nowadays I should have expected it, my nanocloud came back to life, I'd received a cluster of alerts, and my visual overlay came back to life, outlining everything again. The sudden awareness of my surroundings without having to look about me all the time was like a suit of armour with built-in LIDAR, and I could now feel the presence of the wildlife, the plants, trees, ground, even the building I was now standing in.

One of my alerts sprang right into my consciousness.

Nanocloud interface upgrade complete. Nanocloud online.

WARNING: Host cortisol level dangerously high. Administering sedative compounds into affected areas.

WARNING: Host adrenaline levels dangerously high. Administering Serotonin and Dopamine into affected areas.

WARNING: Blood sugar levels dangerously low. Advise consumption of glucose or carbohydrate substances immediately.

WARNING: Stress levels consistent with energy depletion and sleep deprivation.

Advise attempting sleep when it is safe to do so.

Yeah, no shit, I thought. It would have been nice to have some fucking warning.

I didn't expect my nanocloud to respond to my thoughts, so it was something of a shock when it did.

The nanocloud interface was offline for the upgrade. Host lack of awareness regarding nanocloud downtime during interface upgrade was not known at the time. The possibility of this existing as a variable could not be considered as the capability to do so was not available in the previous interface iteration.

What did this mean? I wondered in my mind. You were unable to volunteer this information to me at the time?

Correct.

I rolled my eyes. It would have been nice to have something that could anticipate my questions and take the context of the situation into account earlier. Having to ask questions of this thing to get information that I needed to know was dangerous and unpredictable, especially when I didn't have a scooby doo I had such-

Wait a minute.

I'd never bothered to explain to my nanocloud what I meant when I retorted to the nanocloud about being warned earlier.

How did you understand the context of the thought I expressed earlier?

Context-awareness is a new feature allowed by increased functional capacity within the primary nanocloud network. The upgrade details will provide the host with information about the upgrades themselves. One function of this feature is a short-term memory buffer allowing for context sensitivity and natural-language processing for ease of operation. In addition, the nanocloud can now predict future host needs and volunteer information where appropriate.

Great, I thought. Now I'd gone from not having a nanocloud whatsoever, to one that was going to behave like a mother hen.

What updates are pending?

Data storage provision is approximately thirty-seven hours away from completion and has been resumed. Additional functions can be provisioned now that your nanocloud resource capacity has increased. It is recommended that host reviews these functions at the earliest opportunity.

Yeah, I thought with a mental sigh. Just like a parent, telling me when to go to the fucking toilet, next. Terrific. Wonderful. Fuck my life.

I still need to sleep, I was irritable as fuck.

Current location provides some measure of relative safety sufficient for nanocloud to monitor ambient environment for common threats. Nanocloud will alert host should any danger to host be detected.

Well, that was something, at least, I thought to myself. I quickly finished off my dried meat, returned to my sleeping mat, and was very quickly unconscious.

Four hours later, I found myself waking up, and was surprised to find my mind alert, refreshed, and felt as though I had been able to have a lazy morning in bed, get up and languish around with a nice hot pot of coffee, before deciding to wake up properly, all within a few seconds of having actually woken up in this building on a rather thin sleeping mat that should have left me with aches and pains from sleeping on a hard surface.

Never thought I would be thankful for having a nanocloud mothering me, I thought in amusement.

It took me little time to pack up my shit and get back on the road. Today, I'd find some more items for trade while waiting out my information systems upgrade. After that, I wanted to get back to Milton Keynes so I could see if there was anything I could learn about what happened other than Phil's account, because while I felt I could trust the guy, his knowledge was obviously not going to be comprehensive.

To be able to really dig deep on this issue, I would want to go exploring, find a way to fit into this new world, find out how I compared to others with nanoclouds. None of this was really going to happen though, with the way I was disadvantaged right now, being so new to the world that had transformed in an almost unrecognisable way in the last forty-three years.

So it was, I found myself walking north-east to Milton Keynes.