The package on my doorstep had my name, but I definitely didn’t order it.

Could I have won that contest for the cybernetic upgrade? It was a huge contest raffle of over 10,000 people but the prize was an AI Neuron Crawler that could attach to any prosthetic and search up information on the DigiNet using Smoogle.

I typically wouldn't get skeptical and just open it, but this package was different, it looked way too technical for something that would even make it to our side of this rural town with barely any technology. It was very out of the norm.

Pure Obsidian, Silver Ducktape, Cardboard Note with only my first name, Jhinn.

An unemployed mess that can barely open up his own packages! As I twisted and turned the black obsidian box, I couldn't get any grip to open it up. It was made of some kind of plastic mixed with cardboard or metal maybe? It was very unique.

I hold it with my prosthetic arm while observing it. Feelings of grief, and anger at my past self for trying to stick my arm in between two printing cylinders. Fixing a stupid problem that wasn't even my responsibility, and look where it got me!

The more I toyed with it, the more mad I became with myself and how my stupid mistake turned my life into a complete mess. I could barely feed myself without making a mess, and now I can't even open up my own package!

At least, the package with my name on it.

I'd try using scissors or a knife but since I had just got the prosthetic, suicide watch removed anything labeled too dangerous for me to have. I mean, it's not like I could really use those things anyways.

I quickly realized it wouldn't be very easy to open this package at all... which set my paranoid and fears aside and made room for my burning curiosity and wonder.

As I recalled my run in with the Cyber-Psychos, I got worried, were the events I brushed off as empty-threats becoming a reality?

This thought sparked a paranoid feeling of crawling pandemonium.

Muddied with a frightened feeling I chose NOT to tear up the package, my curiosity was insatiable... It was a heavy cardboard that wasn't very easy to bend. What was this material? Did it have plastics in it as well? Don't care.

I grabbed the black box and threw it across the field as far as I could. Didn't matter what was inside of it anymore, I had to get prepared, I needed to be ready.

I go down through the outside cellar door into the bunker, I equip the plasma vest and the HRR Scanning kit I got from Betty. I wasn't going down without a fight.

3 Torpedos Inside of a small nuclear backpack, glowed a slight orange-yellow and had enough power to cripple a small city. I had to be prepared.

It's weight was a bit heavy but I knew it had the power to generate enough energy for an entire city to be fueled for a week, also to destroy one if needed.

Nuclear weapons weren't GGX Approved yet, but we still had ways to get them after the old war left many buildings unfacilitated, living on a farm didn't have many perks, but being located next to a military building ended up being a useful one.

CCT Sunglasses with Digi-Threat Scanners were next, pop on the elastic band and shove the 3 pills down with a glass of water, we didn't have any so I just swallowed them dry. The pills were anti-static and allowed the tech jump through the neurons in the frontal-cortex without damaging the brain.

Boots, Check, Gear Check. I stomped back up the cellar door looking in the direction I just threw the package. [Digi-Threat, Activate!] Voice command sent a jolt of electricity and powered on the device, it made a slight buzzing noise. Followed by some beeps letting me know it was ready to scan.

There it was, 3,400km away, a black box lit up in red by the threat-detector.

I marched slowly over through the marshy swamp.

Am I an idiot?

Struggling to move and no way to prop myself up, I feel like the gear must be too heavy and the marsh a little more deep than previous. I lean to the left to guide my body back to the edge where it was safe, firm ground.

I get a hold of myself and readjust, but the target had moved.

[1,352km away]

Was it also moving towards me? No way.

I check again.

[934km]

[534km]

[123km]

Impossible.

The black box was no more, it was a neuron crawler and it had attached itself to a large swamp toad. Glowing red eyes and a throat full of acidic mucus.

RIBBIT! [The frog croaks and sprays a vomiting type of acidic waste]

Ahhhhhhhh, it starts burning through the plasma vest, I take it off as quick as possible wrapping it around my good arm, now covered in burns.

ASTALAVISTA BABAY!!!!!

Knowing what this toad was capable of I had no choice but to launch the nuclear torpedos out of the backpack. The orange-yellow glow blazed brightly like a supernova before obliterating the entire tri-state area, the farm now barren with a red molten-glow across it. The nearby deserted facility completely wiped with no trace of any human existence. Birds, cooked. The toad, no more.

All that was left was and this crawling feeling inside of my brain. a plasticy-metal type of movement that felt similar to a centipede. It carried a painless itch as it moved around in my head, triggering memories, and eating them, or processing them as if they were never solely mine.

The neuron crawler.