The naked fury in my voice was impossible to fake, and exceedingly difficult to control. I had no desire to get a grip on it right now, but it seemed my nanocloud had other ideas.

ALERT: Adrenaline and cortisol at dangerous levels. Deploying countermeasures.

I was not pleased.

Override.

I cannot comply.

First, my nanocloud becomes self-aware and self-actualising, then Eveline stabs me through the fucking heart with this bullshit of hers to try and get me to fuck some random stranger so she can treat me like a monster, and now my nanocloud refuses to follow my instructions?

The net effect though, was that I began to feel a calming effect, and while that left me feeling the pain of betrayal, it was only partially effective at containing my fury, because this-

"What's going on?!" Eveline demanded, though her eyes were wide with fear, and her lips had turned almost white as the colour appeared to drain from her face.

"Get your fucking arse in here!" I hissed at her, as I stepped back. "See for yourself!"

Eveline stepped into the room, though she did so slowly, as though she really didn't want to be here.

"Who is this?" I barked.

"I don't know-"

"That's the last time you insult me," I cut her off, my voice low and harsh. I then looked to the woman in the seat. "You recognise her voice?"

She nodded.

That was all the confirmation... And condemnation... I needed.

"Thank you. If you'll please leave us alone now, we need to have a discussion about this betrayal of my trust." I didn't wait for her to leave; instead, I whirled on Eveline.

"Rick, please!" Eveline hissed in my direction, but her expression was one of terror. The door closed gently behind me.

"Did you hire her? To try and seduce me?"

"Rick-" Eveline tried to reach toward me.

"DID YOU?!" I roared, stepping out of her reach, beside myself with fury in spite of my nanocloud's attempt to calm me down. I was too enraged to care about the fact, though.

Eveline looked as though she might collapse, her lips trembling, her eyes watering, as she stared at me. I just wanted to walk out of there and not have to face such naked pain, wallowing in my own anger instead. "Yes," she finally said.

"This is the last fucking straw," I snapped at her. "No more mind games, no more fucking lies from you!"

She flinched as if I'd hit her hard in the face. "Rick, please!"

"Why would you do such a thing?" I demanded, feeling heart-sick. "Why would you not only push me away like this, but hire a third party, then make her try to seduce me? So you could try to place blame on me for this? So you could give yourself an excuse to hate me and put distance between us?" I took a breath but I refused to give her a chance to respond. My eyes burning, my heart pumping rapidly, my voice beginning to distort, I nonetheless pushed through the reaction in my anger. "You could have simply said that you needed some space. You could have said that you wanted to be alone. That this just wouldn't work out between us, whatever the fuck this was. In fact, you could have done anything to put the brakes on whatever might have once formed between us, but this?!" I couldn't take this kind of deceit and treachery. Refused to even consider it in my life. Angrily, I wiped my own face of the angry tears that still flowed out of me. "Well don't fucking worry. You don't need a reason to put distance between us anymore. By tomorrow, I intend to be at least a hundred klicks away from you."

Eveline was crestfallen now, sagging. "I'm sorry-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I screamed, having never screamed so loud before, and it caused her to flinch. "Don't you ever fucking speak to me ever again! You... This is a betrayal. You betrayed my TRUST! You don't get to speak to me!"

I stomped to my backpack and picked it up, threw it on my shoulders, and stalked to the door, so angry I wanted to punch something; so hurt by this betrayal I desperately wanted to give vent to my pain. Eveline tried to stop me from leaving. "Stop," she said in a choked voice, her head shaking slowly, her eyes overflowing, her lips trembling in reaction.

I couldn't stand it. If I stayed, I didn't know how I'd react, and that frightened me.

"If you even think about getting in my way, I won't..." I took a deep breath, as my nanocloud continued to flood my system to calm me down. "Get out of my way, or I'll move you myself."

She didn't stand aside. Instead, she collapsed to the floor, on her knees, her head hanging down.

I refused to be witness to this scene, and stalked out of the room before I had a chance to hear her anguished cries.

I had no idea how long I walked for.

I didn't know what the time was.

I had no idea where I currently walked.

All I knew was that my nanocloud was managing the route to Quebec, and I was now walking as rapidly as I could in my fury, to try to burn off the energy I was putting out. I didn't know how to take what had happened, didn't know how to deal with the betrayal. It cut through my fucking heart like a knife through the chest, and yes, I knew exactly what that felt like.

I couldn't stop. I had to keep going, to get to what was next on my list, complete my mission, and then... Then what?

Well... I would have plenty of time to think about what I needed to do on the road once I reached Quebec, and I knew I had a long journey to the IBM Watson facility afterwards. Between those two points, I knew I had at least a couple of thousand kilometres of walking to do, and if I pushed myself constantly for all of my waking hours, I could probably make it to Quebec within 10 days.

That was a good plan.

First things first. Get certain people out of my fucking head.

Discontinue imprint control project and...

I couldn't bring myself to delete the thing entirely.

Archive current progress.

Request acknowledged.

Discontinuing notifications and removing project from host workspace.

The response might have struck me as odd at any other time, but I wasn't thinking straight. All I wanted to do was get it out of my mind and keep going. My nanocloud continued to try and even out my brain chemistry, but it could not achieve complete success.

The betrayal was too much.

I couldn't bring myself to feel calm about it, or to look at it from a distance.

Not yet.

Eventually, my nanocloud had given up on the attempt, and simply let me feel the fury coursing through me. I knew eventually, I'd exhaust it, but right now, it was the only thing keeping me going.

Examine Trauma Assist Module at current level.

Acknowledged.

Trauma Assist Module Dedicated trauma assist module for dealing with severe injuries in the field. Level 2

Twenty-five-fold increased healing rate. In-combat, trauma medicine protocols come into effect to repair damage and seal any bleed-out sites. Once immediate threat is resolved, prioritisation given to repairing any life-changing or life-threatening injuries until they are repaired. Out-of-combat repair rate determined by additional external factors, including the concentration and upgrade levels of the nanocloud.

This was already an impressive upgrade, I realised. I also realised that the injuries I'd sustained in Iceland had now healed completely, leaving me with nothing worse than tender skin tissue. It was impressive, but if I was ever in an ambush situation again, I needed to be able to heal rapidly. There was no-one to watch my back any longer, and no-one to keep vigil if I was seriously injured, so I needed to be more self-sufficient, especially as my pursuers were no doubt still after me.

What requirements do I need to fulfil to upgrade this to the next level?

Nanocloud resource availability.

Nanocloud unit upgrade to CRiSPR module.

Matter-Energy fabricator.

That was straightforward enough.

What requirements for Matter-Energy fabricator and CRiSPR module upgrades?

CRiSPR module can be upgraded in-place during any nanocloud unit upgrade. This will be automatically applied during the next opportunity for nanite refresh.

Matter-Energy fabricator requires Power Generator Core and Level 1 Nanocloud Chassis upgrade.

What requirements for Active Scan Detection?

Nanocloud resource availability.

Nanocloud Cybernetics Module.

Nanocloud Dermal Reinforcement.

So, in order to be able to detect active scans, I needed to have an epidermis that could pick up such signals, which was part of a new module called Dermal Reinforcement. To get such an upgrade, I needed to have my nanocloud replace layers of my epidermis with something suited to detecting signals on the EM spectrum.

I was sure my nanocloud could handle it, so I left it to make the necessary efforts that these other modules were available to access at the time I needed them.

When will I be able to obtain the cybernetics manager?

Approx. 23% nanocloud computational resources are reserved for this task.

Current resource utilisation is 87%.

Resources that can be reserved are 12%.

Insufficient resources.

Great.

What can be closed to unlock these resources?

Currently, there are no nanocloud functions that can be closed or disabled.

All functions are currently in use.

That was that, I guess. I would have to find a way of increasing the resources available to my nanocloud, so that I could enable dermal reinforcement, especially given I was now alone in the wild.

I decided to revisit some previous upgrade notifications.

Can any of the previously discussed nanocloud hardware upgrades be applied at the same time?

Affirmative. The following hardware upgrades can be applied on a unit-by-unit basis:

Nanocloud Chassis Upgrade to Carbon Nanotube superstructure.

Level 1 Manipulator Arm Tools.

Level 2 Power Generator Core.

Do I meet the requirements to apply the upgrades now?

Affirmative.

Time to completion?

Estimated completion time is 78 hours to factor combined upgrade tasks.

Alright. Do it.

Acknowledged.

Applying multi-path upgrade in-place.

Estimated completion time is now 78 hours.

With nothing else to consider, I pushed my pacing, speeding up my walk to over fourteen kilometres an hour despite the terrain, keeping so much effort on where I was going, that I didn't have time to think on anything else.

I continued walking.

And walking.

And walking...

ALERT: Energy deficit detected. Sleep is mandated. Stop immediately and set up camp.

Fuck. It was pitch black.

I needed to keep walking, but my nanocloud was calling a halt, and I knew it had enough control over my body to force me to slow to a crawl if I didn't comply. I literally had no choice left. It was as well I had night-time vision enhanced by my nanocloud, otherwise I wouldn't be able to see fuck all.

I stopped where I was, a point out in the middle of nowhere, and unpacked my tent. Quickly, I deployed it and threw my self-inflating sleeping mat inside the tent, along with my blanket.

Dedicate whatever resources to passive detection as possible while I sleep.

Acknowledged.

I tucked myself into my bed, and lay there for a bit. Being exhausted and wired, with nothing to do but dwell on what went wrong, was not a good combination to get any sleep. I once again found myself thinking over the events that led to Eveline betraying me with that stunt with the woman, and I started to feel anger building up in me again.

ALERT: Medical directive override.

Flooding serotonin and dopamine into bloodstream.

Slowing synaptic functioning down.

Preparing to disengage consciousness.

What the fuck are you doing? I asked my nanocloud, irritated that it was stopping me from thinking over what-

I had no idea what happened next, but all I saw in that instance, was blackness.

My nanocloud's internal clock informed me that it was somewhere between five and six AM local time, when I woke up, meaning the sun should be rising into the sky by now. I got myself out of the bed and started rolling the blanket up, tapping a release strip on the self-inflating sleeping mat. It started to deflate through its' micro-vents as I began to re-pack my bag. Wishing to get an idea of how long I would need to get to Quebec, I queried my nanocloud.

How much distance did I cover yesterday?

Approximately one hundred and three kilometres from Mary's Harbour.

That was irritating, I thought to myself. I wanted to do better. I needed to do better. I also needed to put distance between myself and Mary's Harbour.

I continued to pack my gear and take down my tent, packing it away before hoisting my backpack to my shoulders and securing it in place. Time to burn off some energy. Today was another long day of intense walking, and I had to get to Quebec as quickly as I could.

Sixteen hours later, I'd exhausted myself again. Despite my nanocloud's insistence I take several breaks to eat and drink, I refused to stop. I instead drank water on my way, ate dried rations at the same time, so I could wash them down with the water, and I pushed myself as hard as I could.

This time, I barely managed to get my tent assembled before sleep claimed me.

The next morning, I packed up again and headed west, conscious of my need to press on, and I needed to try and work out the terrain heading west.

As I walked toward Rivière-Saint-Paul, I found a marching band of beast-folk nearby, all heading east. I waved a greeting toward them as I passed, which seemed to astonish them, but we ended up stopping to talk.

"Morning all," I greeted. "I'm Rick."

"Morning Rick," the tallest, a hybrid between human and squirrel, replied in a baritone. He wore cargo pants like most people these days, but stood completely topless. I expected that clothing for his body form might be difficult to come across though, given he had characteristics like a bushy tail, flesh under his armpits that aided in gliding if it was ever called for, and an incredibly deep, yet narrow chest cavity. He also had a slightly elongated facial structure designed to support the continually growing teeth that squirrels possessed. This squirrel also seemed to be rather energetic, but I ignored that out of politeness. "Name's Sam. Is there something I can help you with?"

"I was hoping you might know if Riviére-Saint-Paul has a map of the terrain leading to Quebec City?" I asked politely. "I have a long way to go, and I want to make good time."

One of the others, a wolf hybrid, spoke up. "I'd say they do," she said in a strong Quebecois accent.

She was an unusual specimen, just like I remembered Philippe was, in that she had a very human facial structure much like any typical European, and very human upper body, human waist, hips and thighs. She wore cargo pants and a crop top, with an overcoat to protect against cold weather, much like...

No, I wasn't going to go there in my mind. "Thanks," I told her. "You take care, folks," I said by way of goodbye, and they each nodded to me in turn, before heading off on their journey.

I soon found myself in Riviére-Saint-Paul, browsing a marketplace. I then resupplied my backpack, choosing some additional items now that I was travelling solo, and including an extra combat knife. I never knew when I might need to dual-wield weapons out in the wild, now that I had to fend entirely for myself out here.

But it was either that, or remain in the company of someone who had betrayed my trust, who had shown me that my trust had been misplaced, and who now showed me that I could no longer rely upon their support or loyalty if push came to shove.

Better I go it alone, lest I depend on the assistance of someone unreliable and then pay the ultimate price for that mistake.

One of the things I picked up while I was there, was a nanocloud map of the region, the data stored on a curious nanocloud-infused data wafer that barely fit on the tip of your finger. Still, it contained the mapping data I needed, and my nanocloud absorbed the details, plotting a new route across the terrain.

Unfortunately, I had to wend my way across a lot of rocky terrain, and I'd be exposed all the while. I also found I was now adding an extra two hundred kilometres to my journey by having to travel a north-west tangent to avoid numerous sheer drops and stretches of water.

Fuck it, I thought to myself. I had to make the trip, anyway.

Walking west over rocky and mountainous terrain was tricky, and tested even my nanocloud-enhanced physique for my endurance and speed. It also meant that with greatly-reduced speed, I would be lucky if I reached Sept-Iles, the end of the rocky terrain and the beginning of regular road walkways, inside of a week.

Unfortunately, I was not so lucky.

In the end, it took me ten days to get across the terrain until I finally closed in to the town limits sufficiently that I could make a stop there to plan the next leg of my journey.

Ten fucking days.

During that ten days, I was forced to hunt for my own food at least six of those days. My dried provisions had started to run low sometime three days prior, and my water supplies were also running low. Combined with the reduced speed I had over the terrain, it also meant I had to set up camp earlier in the day, just so I could have some place to keep my supplies while I went out in search of food.

My diet during those days consisted mainly of rabbit meat. Since I wasn't in need of any funds at the moment, and since I already had top quality hiking and hunting equipment, I didn't need the pelts they wore, so I tossed those out.

The upside to this was that my nanocloud continued to process various forms of data from the local environment, and for some reason, the rabbits I had killed for meat were all super-concentrated nanocloud carriers, meaning that I was able to harvest them.

I was able to apply several additional upgrades during that time, including the CRiSPR module and the Matter-Energy Fabricator. The upgrades took a few days to apply, but I had that time, and by the time I stepped into reach of the town, I received an alert from my nanocloud.

Trauma Assist Module Dedicated trauma assist module for dealing with severe injuries in the field. Level 3 Fifty-fold increase out-of-combat. Two-thousand-fold-increase in emergency combat-level trauma medicine. Nanocloud directed trauma medicine now has the ability to directly seal the sites of all wounds encountered on the body if sufficient nanocloud density is available, regardless of tissue repair state. Accelerated repair of organic tissues within the body now assisted with blueprint information provided by nanocloud AI to ensure complete repair of any body region. Eliminates all forms of tissue scarring incurred after enabling the upgrade.

Excellent, I thought to myself, and instructed my nanocloud to process the upgrade.

Upgrade applied. Trauma Assist Module now at Level 3.

That was something. Now all I needed was to find some way to activate the Cybernetics Manager, and I'd be able to activate the Dermal Reinforcement and Active Scan Detection functions.

Cybernetics Manager requires available resource capacity of 10.3%.

Current capacity is 3.8%.

Additional nanocloud units provisioned internally will take approximately two hundred and forty hours.

External acquisition will decrease time required.

Yeah, I thought. That was fair enough, and time was something I had a little too much of, right now.

I arrived at Sept iles, finding a place to stay at the ironically-named Comfort Inn, which is something I needed both emotionally and physically, but which in this post-outbreak world, this place did not provide. It might have been a fine establishment in the old world, but now, it was a run-down building with rooms barely fit for human habitation.

Still, I needed a place to sleep, and it would be nice not to have to erect a tent. I was relieved that most of the world today still had functional plumbing and electrical systems for lights, if nothing else.

As I checked in, I noticed a commotion in one of the nearby outdoor spaces, a place where tables and chairs had been erected but which still had the old paint markings of several parking bays. I went to check it out, and came across a scene that instantly ignited my fury.

Three humans, all appearing to be wearing casual shirts and jogging pants, were all accosting a hybrid, who was on the ground, cowering in fear. The dog-human hybrid looked like a frightened puppy, cowering, begging them to leave her alone.

I had no barometer for her age, given I had no idea of the growth patterns of these folk, but I had to guess she was barely an adult, assuming she was one at all.

"I've done nothing to you," she wailed, her entire body shaking as they towered over her. "Why are you doing this?"

"Come on, you're a cute puppy," one of them said to her, sickening me to my stomach and making me want to smash his face in. "Don't dogs love to play with their masters?"

ALERT: Adrenaline and cortisol levels dangerously high.

Deploying countermeasures.

Override. Go to combat mode instead.

Affirmative.

Good, glad we're on the same page, I thought to myself.

"Please!" She begged, sniffling and letting out a canine whine. "Don't hurt me!"

I looked about, and noticed that while a few other people in the area were gawping at the scene, none of them were prepared to do anything about it, and then I saw it.

One of them pulled out his dick, starting to stimulate it, a voracious look on his face.

I immediately went incandescent with rage. "HEY!" I roared. "YOU! RAPEY MAC-RAPERSON!"

Everyone looked over, startled, as I dropped my backpack and started racing in their direction, drawing both combat blades from their sheathes and gripping them tightly, blades up and out, ready to strike.

One of them immediately made a run for it, and I launched the blade directly at his back, the knife connecting with his shoulder blade in an instant, as I launched myself in the air. My downward trajectory took me straight toward his lower back, and I adjusted position slightly to avoid landing on it. Taking my knife out of his shoulder, I hissed "If you don't want to die here today, then stay the fuck down."

I then turned around, as the canine girl jumped to her feet and ran for cover, letting out an alarmed series of yelps as she did. The other two assailants were running in my direction, one of them about to sucker-punch me in the fucking face.

So, I released my blade, grabbed his wrist, twisted it with all of my strength, snapping his bones completely, and then let him go straight away, all while my blade still fell to the ground. I then grabbed it immediately before it could land, and swiped it backhanded up at the man's chest, causing a deep welt across a lot of muscle tissue and causing an almighty scream, before I flipped the blade around and gripped it correctly again.

By now, the third guy was on me, and he was different. I attacked, he blocked, parried and side-stepped as he did. This guy had some combat experience, showing me that not everything could be that easy, as he thrust several quick attacks at me with his own knife, all to try to set me off balance so he could get a killing strike. "What's the matter, white-knight?" he jeered. "You like fucking dogs, do you?"

"Not as much as you lot do, apparently," I laughed at him.

The sound of angry growls started to pick up.

My attacker then made a fatal error, trying to strike with all his strength in an enraged overhead swipe. I was ready, as I parried it, he blocked, and I kicked him back in the chest, sending him flying across the tarmac.

By that time, the place flooded with the sounds of rage-fuelled growling, as canine hybrids all flocked to the scene, all out for blood. One saw me with a weapon, and immediately launched himself at me, paying no attention to the guy on the floor who was actually about to rape the girl who I had come to aid; probably a pack member or whoever she was to these people.

"NO!" she screamed, coming out from hiding now that everything was more or less under control. "NOT HIM!"

By this time, it was almost too late, as the canine in question collided with me, taking me off of my feet, and was about to start biting me so that he could tear me to shreds.

Lucky for me, that shrill denial caused him to stop, looking back toward her with a somewhat chastened look, like a dog being told off for shitting on the carpet. I almost laughed, but held it in, given this very same person was exceedingly close to tearing my throat out a moment ago.

"He came to help!" the girl insisted, running toward us. "He's the only one who did."

The male canine looked toward her, then down toward me, and then reached down and offered me a hand. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet with an amazing amount of strength.

"Thanks," I told him.

"Sorry about the tackle," he replied with a slight laugh.

I brushed myself down. "Nah," I sighed. "I get it."

At that moment, the young canine-girl approached us both, glancing nervously at me, before glancing at the larger male next to us. I tried a reassuring smile, and she gave me a canine grin, her eyes lighting up. She then stepped in and gave me a hug that would have broken some ribs if I wasn't tall enough that her arms wrapped around my waist. I ruffled her hair, and then realised that I might have inadvertently offended her, but she beamed up at me instead, then let go, stepping back to wrap her arms around the canine male who had watched us both with curiosity.

Suddenly, we were all surrounded by numerous humans, all in police uniform, and all with severe looks on their faces. "Nobody move," one of them called out, his voice sounding artificially loud, as if his voice was going through a megaphone that didn't exist. "You're all under arrest."