The clock marked the start of dusk, millions of light sources shined like stars in the sky, they spread throughout the streets and adorned the buildings of the city, most of the buildings were missing windows, the glass that once protected their inside from the cold air was no more, the city had been conquered by the Religious State just a few years back, and they hadn't much time to fix everything.

Although the moon was already shining in the night, that wreck of a city was still bustling with activity, military hummers patrolled everywhere and sometimes armed men would come down from the cars and inspect civilians on the street, checking if they were carrying illegal weapons or if the women were wearing all their clothes right.

The sound of bells rung from the speakers right before the voice of a man announced the time to pray, the city came to a still for several minutes while every single civilian - after washing their hands and feet, if possible - kowtowed and chanted their prayers to God, after a couple of minutes in silence, everything went back to normal.

Except for a single, dark cloud that freely traveled through the shadows of the city, passing unnoticed under everyone's eyes.

Nicolas formed his body and sank his back into the wall of a random building, all the while showing no emotion on the surface; those were hidden, buried in his memory for the machine to study and learn with time. Right now, Nicolas' mission was to find out what was happening around the world outside, find about the movements of the three great nations of the world and their plans about the current Airis, especially the Nations' movements, they're the bad guys.

Sorting his ever-growing anger and desperation, Nicolas became somewhat absentminded while following, with his vision, the small swarm slowly soaring away from him and reaching towards the street, after the wisp of microscopic machines suddenly picked up speed and detached itself to spread everywhere, he looked down at his arm to see that now, there was no hand. After sighing, his body shrunk a little bit before another hand grew on the missing spot, Nicolas then left through an alleyway to look around the city by himself, and perhaps find a gun for himself.

A single Queen Cell that separated from the main body hovered - while its subordinates followed right behind - a meter above the ground and searched aimlessly around the city during the night-fall, it didn't have to wander too far before it could to find a vehicle that matched the one inside its limited database; thankfully, the impractical machine wasn't fast, making it easy to catch up to the Hummer.

The car's doors were tightly shut, so the Queen Cell couldn't find a way to enter it; following the protocol of stalking the target and wait for a signal that matched its database, it fused back with its subordinates and stuck to the roof of the moving car, patiently waiting for something.

It happened right after the car entered the living district, where the buildings turned into houses.

*Screech* "Halt!"

The Hummer stopped on the side of the street, two people opened the doors and jumped outside; rifles in hand, they blocked the way of a group of four men, who obediently stopped and waited.

*Thump* The car's doors closed and the two soldiers faced the group of people with solemn faces, although none of them were pointing their rifles at the civilians, they seemed ready to shoot at any time should something happen.

"Curfew is starting in an hour. Everyone left already, what's the reason you four are still walking around?" Questioned one of the soldiers, his imposing tone scaring the civilians.

"We were just about to go home, sir. We were staying at the residence of a friend, leaving not long ago." One of the four respectfully answered, his head slightly bowed.

"On the wall, there." Came the order, the soldier waved his gun and pointed to the side, the four soon stood in front of the wall of a two-story house.

*Pat* *Pat* *Pat*

While one of the soldiers was checking out the group for suspect objects - using his hands to search every single place one could hide a weapon -, the other was standing guard by the side, watching every move the civilians were making.

In a minute, the soldier moved to the third person in the row; the guy sported a dark leather jacket, which led the soldier to suspect him even more. The soldier decided to be even more through to check that person out, his hands moved from shoulders to wrists, from the armpits to the chest, and finally to the pockets on the belly. From inside, the soldier took out a small hidden camera and passed to his colleague by the side; both their guards and rifles now pointed to the group, who unknowingly started to tremble and sweat in fear, one of the soldiers called for support on the radio while the other surrendered the suspects right after.

After half a dozen minutes, another car came, the small van could accommodate more people than the Hummer, but it was also driven only by two soldiers. The new pair spoke with their colleagues to confirm the situation; the suspects were then moved into the van and sent to jail, the soldiers with the Hummer were then left alone.

"Our shift will also end soon," Said one of them. "Joram, let's go back to the garage."

"Understood." Came the simple reply.

No one noticed the Queen Cell that quietly entered the car and hid under the driver's seat.

Nicolas finally found - after hours had passed and the moon already stood way high in the sky - a patrol that moved away from public eyes, no one to see the murder about to happen. He scouted the small streets around the maze of debris to be double sure to leave no witnesses before he went back to stalk the unfortunate pair of soldiers that had left their car to take care of their bladder.

Barely had the poor man pulled back his pants to return to the car when all of a sudden, one hand appeared to block his mouth and another to break his neck.

*Crack* *Thud*

Silently fell the body, knees struck the rubble on the ground while the head awkwardly bobbed around the neck before hitting hard on the cold ground of concrete. Although the sound was as low as a whisper, in the quiet night where even the crickets were missing, it reached the ears of the deceased man's friend without any obstruction; the startled soldier turned just to watch as a knife found its way to his throat at the speed of an arrow.

The soldier could only choke on the blood that drowned him from inside his throat after having nowhere else to go, drops of blood fell to the ground as his hands were unable to take out the survival knife that once belonged to his friend. The unlucky man couldn't even take the scenery around or find the face of his killer before his vision started to blur and he lost all strength in his hands, he died with eyes wide open in both shock and horror, without the comfort and sense of security that came from holding his rifle.

And the killer, who ended everything in a second, took his reward from the bodies, letting the cells in his body 'feast' on the two rifles that he calmly held onto, Nicolas watched as the guns turned into dust and fused with his body, the subordinate cells bloated when they stored the pieces of the rifles.

The strange spectacle of matter turning into fine dust and then entering his body was disconcerting. Feelings or sensations were not present during the act, although according to his system this was a natural advantage, Nicolas' experience as a human thought it was disgusting.

Nicolas sighed after he realized that his body bloated along with the cells, they looked akin to that of Popeye, an abomination. He turned his head towards the soldier's car, make do with what you have, he thought.

The same thing the rifles suffered now happened to the car's bodywork, this time, though, the material was kept in the form of a suitcase. Nicolas took some extra time to build a new Queen Cell and make it hold the case together; the rifle material was then spat out from his insides and then stored in the suitcase, the case not the cells.

Although a bit awkward, moving his body parts like this was proving to be amazingly efficient, manipulating foreign matter as if it were your fingers - such precise movement - was paying off for the strangeness Nicolas felt. The thrill of freely feeding on car parts and turning them into a suitcase to deal with his storage problems was not something new to Nicolas, that was one of the first things he did after learning how to form a body.

It was also not the only trick that this computer-like shell had in store, Nicolas was already planning for the next weapon he would store, it had to be small and dangerous, dangerously explosive. The plastic explosive c-4 met these conditions, being so easy to make that it could be produced at home. The step-by-step process of how to make it, though, Nicolas wouldn't know without access to the internet.

A report was sent to Nicolas via Bluetooth, one of his Queen Cells tasked with the mission to find the city's military base, foud leads to the place and sent him its data and location. The way which the Queen Cell orderly followed a straight line and suddenly made sharp turns here and there implied that it was inside a car.

Nicolas felt like cringing after realizing that the lazy little thing was already raising the mission accomplished flag after finding just a picture and a voice line in its database, damn little cricket.

Still, with the Queen Cell pinpointing, the only thing missing was some more stalking after random cars and soldiers, then finding the base, connecting to the internet - the main mission -, searching for physical data - secondary mission -, and wreaking havoc - the bonus mission.

Nicolas' tired breath could be heard traveling around the broken buildings, the feeling of trouble knocking on his door was not a welcoming one, for the machine and the human alike.

Now that he thought about it, no one ever liked it, no one normal, at least.