Their safehouse was a dump. It was a one-room apartment above a noodle shop that smelled like burnt garlic.
Zeph kicked the door open and threw himself onto the ratty sofa. "Home sweet garbage," he sighed happily.
Kaelen walked in behind him, locking the door with three different deadbolts. He placed the metal box on the small, wobbling wooden table in the center of the room. He didn't sit down. He stared at the box.
"We should open it," Zeph said, popping open a bag of chips. "See what we bought with our lives."
"No," Kaelen said sharply. "We don't know what it is. The buyer just said 'package.' He didn't say 'prototype military tech.'"
"You worry too much, Mom," Zeph teased. He crunched on a chip. "It's probably just some rich guy's diamond watch. Or a golden toothbrush."
Kaelen pulled out a small scanner tool. He ran a blue light over the box. The scanner beeped angrily and then died. Smoke curled out of the tool.
Kaelen frowned. "It fried my scanner. That's high-level encryption. This isn't a toothbrush, Zeph."
Zeph got up, bored. He walked over to the table and leaned over Kaelen's shoulder. "Let me see."
"Don't touch it," Kaelen warned.
"I'm not gonna touch it, I'm just looking at—"
Zeph touched it.
As soon as his fingertip brushed the cold metal surface, the box didn't just open. It reacted.
The metal sides of the box dissolved into a black liquid. It looked like oil, but it moved like a snake. It shot up, wrapping around Zeph's wrist.
"Whoa!" Zeph yelled, trying to shake it off. "Get it off! Get it off!"
"Zeph!" Kaelen lunged forward. He grabbed Zeph's arm and pulled a knife from his belt. He tried to scrape the black liquid off, but the knife passed right through it.
The liquid moved fast. It wasn't staying on the skin. It was sinking in.
It burrowed into Zeph's pores. Veins in his arm turned black, then bright blue.
"It burns!" Zeph screamed, falling to his knees. He clutched his head. "Make it stop, Kae! It's in my head!"
"Hold on!" Kaelen shouted, panic cracking his voice for the first time. He grabbed a bucket of ice water and threw it on Zeph.
Nothing happened.
Zeph's eyes rolled back in his head. His body went rigid. He started to seize, shaking violently on the dirty floor.
"Zeph! Look at me!" Kaelen pinned him down, holding his shoulders. "Stay with me! Don't you dare die on me, you idiot!"
Zeph's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Instead, a mechanical hum filled the room. The blue light under his skin traveled up his neck, across his jaw, and into his temple.
Hummmmm.
Then, silence.
Zeph went limp.
Kaelen froze. He put two fingers to Zeph's neck. There was a pulse. It was fast—too fast. Like a hummingbird.
"Zeph?" Kaelen whispered.
Zeph's eyes snapped open.
Usually, Zeph's eyes were brown and full of mischief.
Now, his left eye was glowing a faint, electric blue. Circles of code spun in the iris.
Zeph blinked. The blue faded back to brown. He coughed, sitting up and rubbing his head.
"Ow," Zeph groaned. "Did I get hit by a truck?"
Kaelen let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He slumped back against the table. "You touched it. I told you not to touch it."
"It touched me first," Zeph argued weakly. He looked at his hand. It looked normal. "Where did the goo go?"
"Inside you," Kaelen said, his face pale. "We need to get you to a doctor. A back-alley doc. Now."
"I feel fine," Zeph stood up. He felt… weirdly clear. "Actually, I feel great. Like I just drank ten coffees."
Suddenly, Zeph stopped. He tilted his head to the side.
"Who said that?" Zeph asked.
Kaelen looked around the empty room. "Said what?"
"That voice," Zeph said, looking confused. "Someone just said: 'System calibration complete. Hello, Host.'"
Kaelen stared at him. The room was silent.
"Zeph," Kaelen said slowly. "There's nobody else here."
Zeph's eyes went wide. He pointed at empty air. "There! Text! Floating text! It says 'Threat Level: Low. Ally Detected.'"
He pointed at Kaelen.
"It's labeling you, Kae. It says you're… 'Emotional Support: High. Intelligence: Above Average.'"
Kaelen stood up, grabbing Zeph's face to look into his eyes. "You're hallucinating. The toxin is messing with your brain."
"I'm not!" Zeph pushed him away. "I can see the math! I can see the trajectory of the dust motes in the air! I can hear your heart rate… it's 110 beats per minute. You're scared."
Kaelen stepped back. He was scared. Not of the police, or the gangs. He was scared of whatever was inside his best friend.
"We are leaving," Kaelen said, grabbing his gear. "Now. We need a fixer."
Zeph didn't move. He was staring at a fly buzzing near the ceiling. To Kaelen, it was just a fly.
To Zeph, time seemed to slow down. A blue grid appeared over the fly.
Target Acquired.
Probability of catch: 99.9%.
Zeph's hand snapped out faster than a cobra. He caught the fly between his thumb and finger without even looking.
He looked at his hand, terrified.
"Kae," Zeph whispered. "I don't think I'm just Zeph anymore."