The Society (A Broken World Book 1) by Dean Murray Read Free Book Online

requisite raw materials for nanite construction.
    My nanites—my factory—were capable of safely storing extensive amounts of heavy metals so that I would be able to go for long periods of time without worrying about my nanite load dropping below peak operating levels. Given that I was going to a grubber city, it was less of a concern than it otherwise would have been—the water in the cities tended to have more heavy metals in it than the purified water consumed inside the barrier—but it was still nice to know that I had plenty of reserves and wouldn't find myself deprived of a key edge at a critical time.
    The Citizen-President monitored my vitals for half an hour, and then pronounced me to be in perfect health. Twenty minutes later I was being escorted back to the juvenile dorms to gather up my few possessions and carry them over to my new home in a special, classified section of the administration building.
    I was on cloud nine for the first week. There was some residual soreness and exhaustion for the first twenty-four hours as the nanites finished constructing the factory and the computer systems inside of my body, but after that I felt like an entirely different person.
    I needed slightly less sleep than before becoming franchised, was stronger, faster, and my bones were the next best thing to unbreakable—a fact I learned fairly quickly once my revised training program started up.
    My new instructors all thought that I was running the standard military nanite pack, but they still managed to stress my body nearly to its limit simply because nobody had bothered to tell them that I was doing PT sessions twice a day rather than just once as was standard for military candidates. Obstacle courses, weapons training, hand-to-hand, it all added up to a ruinous toll that would have killed me if not for the superior regenerative properties of my new body.
    I woke up wearing my old face—the one that I'd worn my entire life—and then once my morning training was over I switched to the new face—the one that looked older with higher cheekbones and a different eye color. I had my doubts at first, but the Citizen-President was right—none of my instructors realized that Skye from the morning training sessions was the same person as the Stacy their colleagues were so busy trying to kill in the afternoon sessions.
    I thought the gig was up the first time I missed a block while learning how to use a baton and had my ribs broken by my six-six, two-hundred-and-eighty-pound instructor. I just knew that I was going to favor that side in the afternoon session and not be able to explain how Stacy ended up with broken ribs, but they healed up over lunch to the point where I didn't have to favor them, and by the time the next morning arrived they were completely healed. I spent the next couple of days acting as though they were still a little sore in my role as Skye, and that was that.
    The injury did provide a secondary benefit though. After watching Skye favor her ribs like that, anyone who might have been suspicious of the similarities in weight and height between Skye and Stacy knew that Skye couldn't possibly have survived the beating Stacy received in hand-to-hand—not with a set of broken ribs.
    I'd always been dedicated to my classes, but my fervor had reached new heights by the time that I made it to the end of my first week. The nanites—even the experimental version inside of me—didn't replace a person's normal strength, they just acted as a multiplier.
    The stronger I was underneath the new advantages I'd received, the more of a benefit they could provide. I suddenly had an incredible incentive to strain for every possible ounce of muscle I could pack on my body.
    The fact that I was sleeping less and training harder than anyone else meant that it took less time than I'd been expecting to get the hang of the speed assist that the nanites sometimes provided to my nervous system, and once that happened, my skill level