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Titans of the World - Humpty-Dumpty sat on the wall...(edited)

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This is Chapter 2 of "Titans of the World," I've re-edited the series so I could re-post it without flaws and open the door for Chapter 4. Enjoy.

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(Chapter 2)

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At our soldiers home, a loud knocking noise woke the parents of our current interest. Sleeping as they were, they were somewhat peeved at having been roused at such an early hour. Drinking, even socialized, threw them into quite the mood once they turned to the land of the sleeping.

"Go away! It's too damn early!" was called from inside.

There was a knock again followed by someone thundering down the stairs to the door. Opening the door, the man discovered a young man dresses in a corporate suit waiting attentively at the door. He had thin rimmed glasses and just emanated intelligence. He was flanked by two soldiers dressed in camouflage fatigues and there was a waiting heli plane just behind them.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU WANT?" was shouted before the head of the house could stop himself.

"Are you Mr. Fox?" asked the suited one.

"Yes," he replied, the gravity of the situation just setting in.

"Pleased to meet you, people call me Ambrose. Please dress yourself in due haste and bring Mrs. Fox too. We all need you have a chat, it's a matter of life and death, though it could quickly become permanently the latter," he said in a somber tone.

At this point, his wife had chosen to join them a moment later. "What's wrong George?"

"Honey go get your cloths, we have to go... now," he said, barely a whisper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the loud roaring of engines screaming in his ears that brought him back to conscience. The engines of what he didn't remember. He didn't care, just couldn't. Thinking back he tried to remember why he was here, the last he remembered was that he was dying. Punctured lungs, pulverized ribs, massive internal organ damage. How he was alive was one thing, the absence of any and all pain was another. In fact, he couldn't move. No limbs, not his fingers, he couldn't even twitch. He could open his eyes but that was it.

Looking out, unable to move he tried to call for help, amazing himself as his voice echoed through the walls. That's when he saw that "thing" poked it's head over in his field of view. He couldn't help himself, finally thinking clearly, he screamed. That creature covered it's ears and then his voice, still emanating from the wall, just shut off. Inside his head he was still screaming, and the creature could see that. He brought his finger to his lips, the universal sign to be quite. He calmed himself and he heard his voice echo out of the wall again.

"What... who... how? Am I in hell?" our soldier asked.

"Decidedly no, my friend, though you're not far off."

"Why can't I move then? What are you, you're impossible?" the soldier asked again, panic creeping into his voice.

"My name's Sam and simply put, I'm not alive. At the back of you're neck is a nerve shunt, it's blocking all the nerve endings below the neck and thus all pain. It just so happens that is paralyzes you too." waiving the soldiers hand in front of his own face..

"WHAT?" the soldier shouted through the walls.

The wolfs ears flattened against its skull, waiving its hands to get the soldier to calm down.

"I didn't say it was permanent. I'm taking us back to Central to get you patched up," said the wolf.

"Central?"

"The Company's Central facility. We're the ones who built your armor, when it called for help, we got the call.," said Sam.

"Fat lot of good that did me, look at me now."

"Well, you would technically just be a cloud of flesh right now without it, so consider yourself lucky you work for us," replied the wolf.

"Okay, what are they going to do?"

"Well, I don't know. I'm just the one who saved your ass and all."

"Thanks... so how bad off am I?" asked the soldier. He knew he wouldn't like the answer.

"Well, you are alive, I assure you. Though for how long is questionable. I had the foresight to scan you before the rescue plane landed, you had two collapsed lungs, each one resulting from the ribs I removed. I had to depressurize your chest cavity to get your lungs to re-inflate, but there's not much else I can do for you."

All he achieved though was a hysterical laugh in response as the soldier promptly fainted.

~~~~~~~~~~~

There wasn't much Central could do but sit and, metaphorically speaking, twiddle its thumbs. It had already prepared the operating room and V.I. for everything it could dream up, but now it was up to the soldier or his parents consent to go through with the procedure. The reconstruction protocol worked, that was a definite fact. The only thing was it was still programmed for the military's black list projects and there was no way, even with it's resources, that it couldn't change that program in anyway safe, let alone test to see if it worked.

Taking apart ones body and replacing it so utterly was hard enough to program, changing it within an hour to rebuild him as anything remotely resembling a human would be unlikely and thus deadly, an option that was not on the table. He'd just have to deal with the ramifications. Until then, he still needed to find a certain friend so they could discus his... problem. That was just another game of cat and mouse, even if Cen knew that he could always be found, the kid tried not to.

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"Your son is going to die--" said Ambrose flatly.

"WHAT! What is that suppose to..." The Fox's screamed in unison.

Ambrose held up a hand and they quieted. "--Unless, we do something very, very drastic and quick."

"Like what?" asked Mr. Fox.

"Well, this program is related to the military, a black list operation. It was never put into action, but it works. Basically, we send a giant cluster of nanites into your sons body, and they take him apart and rebuild him. He will never be the same to you though. Titanium bones, posotronic brain, looks that... looks that are less than human."

"Is there any oth..." Mr. Fox started, he was quickly stopped.

"No. He'll die any other way. Look, you're not hearing me... he's in deep. He was hit with a mortar, he was lucky he's not a cloud of mist. Our suits are good but they aren't invincible, there's not much you ca do about momentum. "

The Fox's remained silent and Ambrose regarded them.

"Your son is in a state of coma right now, we can't get his permission for it so we have to settle for yours. Think and think hard, his heart stopped an hour ago, his whole body is dead bellow the neck. The way I see it, we both have one option. Inside he will be the same son you love and adore, outside he'll look like a walking talking canine."

"I.. I... " Mr. Fox was stuttering.

"DO IT!" Mrs. Fox screamed.

Both men stared in shock at Mrs. Fox, tears stained her face and her body was wracked with sobs.

"Just do it George... he's our only son," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cen was monitoring the conversation the entire time and when Ambrose turned to regard his hidden sensors, he knew it was time. In that instant the rescue pod instantly regained speed, breaking more than a handful of federal aerospace laws. He was going to save this kid, it would take some time, but good people shouldn't just be tossed aside like a lifeless doll.

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Before Sam knew what was going on, he was thrown comically to the back of the rescue place, pinned to the wall by the force of the acceleration. The rescue pod creaked, rattled, and groaned in testament to how hard it was being pushed and it drowned out Sam's sensors with the white noise of the powerful jet motor roared past capacity. Something was bound to break, but luckily the pod held and a short while later, finally landed at Company Central, that massive sprawling structure sparked out of the window in the rising sun. For a corporate building complex, it was very majestic, yet it retained a utilitarian air about it. The Central Computer itself had designed the place, it only made sense that everything had a practical purpose and yet looked impossible.

Upon landing, the medical bed was there to quickly remove the soldier and transport him quickly to the operating room. The bed sped down multiple hallways at double the clip of a regular human at full tilt, simultaneously scanning the human and inserting docking tubes into his arms in preparation for his procedure. Sam followed the medical bed all the way to the operating room until Cen's data burst stopped him cold.

"Where are you going?" asked the Central Computer System.

"I was following him into the operating room, he's my patient." replied a confused wolf.

"I need you do something for me."

"What?"

"I need you to go talk with this soldiers family, they're waiting with Ambrose in the surgical wards."

"What for."

"They need someone that will help them get used to what their son will look like. Something they can sympathize with," stated Cen.

"Right away," Sam replied before walking away.

"Stop! You're covered in filth. Clean first."

"Roger that," Sam said before he tromped off to a decontamination room. Cen was right, he was covered in muck and his hands coated in dried blood from removing those ribs.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where am I? What's happening? Why can't I see? Why can't I move? Better yet, where's my body?"

All these thoughts rang from the soldiers mind, echoing into the darkness that surrounded him. Suddenly he heard a voice from over his shoulder, several in fact. One sounded like his father, the other his mother but their words were slow, warped and distorted. They were there talking to a man in a business suit, or at least his dad was. His mother was sobbing. Then there was another familiar face that walked in, that wolf. Standing around a medical bed, they looked down upon the mass that was there but he couldn't see what it was.

"Who is that?" he asked himself out loud.

The wolf, as if hearing the question looked at the camera, his voice issued from beside the onlooker, as if he was right next to the man.

"It's you," he heard the voice say.

'Wait, you heard me?' he said aloud to the wolf.

"Of course I did, do you want to see what I see?" asked the Wolf.

'Yes, I... I have to know."

In an instant he was surrounded by several windows, one was a regular camera style feed, one was a complete cat scan of his damage, and another was a diagram of the progression of a silvery liquid. As the liquid progressed, the cat scan of his body changed completely, his organs disappearing, bones changing shape and reforming with metal.

He wanted to faint, wanted the visions to end but they wouldn't. Only the wolf sensed that something was wrong and stopped the windows.

"What.... what's happened to my body?" His parents were being ushered out now, windows self dimming in preparation for the gruesome procedure.

"Just like that old nursery rhyme, we're putting you back together again. You're body was too far gone. You just made the criteria, a good brain and a living nervous system. It's too hard to get the connections right so we build on what's there."

"I... I don't understand, am I still alive?" the dead man whispered.

"Yes and no, to put it simply your body died. You're here in storage until those little nanite buggers finish fixing you and making themselves at home."

"I just want to go home, please just let me go. I can't take it!"

"Sleep now, Gabriel. Things will be better tomorrow, I promise. "

"How did you know my name?" he asked vision clouding as a sleep state was forced upon him.

"Just sleep, we'll talk later," the wolf promised.

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"Who are you, why are you here?" asked the Fox's as they cowered in the corner, too afraid to approach the wolf who sat on the chair across the room as if it were no big deal.

"My name is Sam, I saved your son. I was sent in here to help you get used to the idea of what Gabriel will look like," said the wolf as he smiled at the couple. Amazingly, Mrs. Fox was the first to approach Sam. Sam held out a hand for her to take, she reached out and touched it with a firmness unaccustomed to proper females. He smiled at her and she promptly threw herself upon Sam and burst into chocked sobs. Shocked himself, Sam just caught her and held her softly.

"Thank you so, so much Sam," she said softly.

He had never felt such warmth, so much love. In fact, he had never felt anything before now. No sorrow, no pain, no hurt, no happiness. Nothing, not yet. For the first time ever, the android didn't want to let go, he didn't know how.

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Ambrose had left long before hand to oversee the procedure, overall it was going well. Already there was a tan fur covering most of that soldiers body, which itself had lengthened and formed that not unlike a sleeping dog. It wouldn't be much longer until the soldier would be downloaded into his new body. It would take what felt like weeks to the soldier to learn how to walk on digitgrade paws rather then full fledged human feet, in reality he'd be back to a body and mobile again within a days time.

Until then, all waited, all for one single spectacular being... his name was Gabriel.