WUMPA ISLAND — THE BANDICOOT HOUSE — 8:30 A.M.

By half past eight, the sun had cleared the palms and reached the front steps of the Bandicoot House. Night rain still clung in heavy drops to the broad leaves along the path, while the dark patches of shade across the dirt yard shrank toward the porch posts and the jagged, half-buried hull plates of Cortex's fallen Space Head. Nobody had ever gotten around to hauling the orbital wreckage out of the front clearing; great curved ribs of scorched yellow metal, tangled wiring harnesses, and a dented nostril-vent sat right where they had crashed, slowly being reclaimed by hibiscus vines and Coco's regular scavenging raids. A warm breeze drifted past the debris, thick with wet earth and ripe Wumpa fruit, catching the loose corner of a parts list pinned beneath a ceramic mug on Coco's workbench.

Coco slid the mug aside before the condensation could drip into the open fan housing.

The fan had managed three sluggish turns that morning—she had counted every one of them—before the motor gave a sound like a beetle trapped in a tin cup and seized altogether. She clicked the toggle off, hooked a stray lock of blonde hair back behind her ear toward her ponytail, and pushed her blue goggles up onto her forehead. One replacement bearing and one drive coupling were all that stood between the porch and a working breeze before the midday heat settled over the island. She had already stripped a perfectly good copper stator coil and a handful of titanium screws out of a fallen Space Head thruster out by the ferns, and the rest of the hardware she had ordered from the harbor three days ago. If the morning cart had run on time, her parcel was somewhere among the stacked wooden crates at the foot of the steps.

Out in the yard, just past a half-sunken piece of orbital hull plating that now served as a garden border, Crash was already conducting his own inspection of the delivery.

He crouched before the largest crate, turning it by the corners until the stenciled Wumpa emblem faced him right-side up, then brushed a flake of dried mud off the painted fruit with his thumb. His pointed ears tipped forward. Leaning in, he pressed his nose to a gap between the slats and took a long, appreciative sniff.

"That one's breakfast," Coco called from the bench, resting a forearm on the vise beside a salvaged Cortex circuit board. "The small parcel on top is mine."

Crash glanced over his shoulder, his green eyes bright. He tapped the paper-wrapped box on top of the stack, pointed a finger at her, and tilted his head.

"Yes, mine. Before you get creative."

He gave a solemn nod, lifted the parcel with both hands as though it contained nitroglycerin, and set it neatly beside her boots on the top step. Duty discharged, he trotted back to the large crate, planted both red sneakers wide in the damp dirt, and spread his tattooed arms.

"Outside the yard line," Aku Aku said.

The wooden mask drifted through the open front doorway, his colored crown feathers stirring in the morning draft as he came to hover beside the porch rail. Crash paused with his elbows raised, looked down at the dirt between his sneakers, and spread his hands toward the clearing as if to ask how much more outside the island had to offer.

"Farther from the steps," Aku Aku clarified, his carved brows lowering. "And away from the scrap pile. Your sister just swept the walk."

Crash hooked his fingers under the crate's bottom edge and dragged it three inches back through the dirt.

Aku Aku did not move.

Letting his shoulders sag in theatrical tragedy, Crash hauled the crate another four feet toward the palms, wedging it near the curved rim of a fallen satellite dish.

Beside the porch, a cast-iron griddle gave a low, steady hiss. Crunch slid a spatula beneath a golden pancake and flipped it cleanly, a curl of sweet steam rising past the burgundy fur of his scarred muzzle. He checked the batter bowl, poured a fresh circle onto the greased iron, and shifted the stacked plate into the shade with his bulky mechanical right arm, the internal furnace glowing warm orange behind its vents.

"That's what I'm talkin' about," Crunch boomed, nodding approval at the griddle. "Hot cakes, fresh fruit, protein in the tank! You can't be tearing up the jungle all day on an empty stomach, baby—that's how you pull a hamstring!"

Crash's head snapped around at the word cakes, his tongue lolling out.

"And don't go thinkin' plain Wumpa counts as a balanced meal, neither," Crunch added, pointing the spatula at him. "You gotta respect the food groups!"

Crash's ears drooped half an inch before he turned back to the crate.

Coco tugged a rag from her belt to wipe grease from her fingers, though the smell of warm vanilla batter and loosened Wumpa preserves was making it hard to care about motor tolerances. "Save me two, Crunch."

"Girl, I got four with your name written all over 'em," Crunch said, wiping the table edge with a towel in his left hand. "You been out there with a wrench in Cortex's space-junk since sunup. Brain burns calories too!"

Crash let out a short, hopeful "Huh?" and thumped his chest.

"Yeah, yeah, I got a stack for you too, little man. Don't hurt yourself."

That was all the clearance Crash needed. He flashed a wide grin, shot Crunch a thumbs-up, and spun.

For a second he blurred into a tight orange whirlwind. The crate burst apart with a sharp crack of pine slats, sending ripe purple-and-gold Wumpa fruit bouncing across the packed earth in every direction. One rolled under the cooking table; two more pinged off a sheet of dented Space Head paneling; another skipped up the steps and bumped against the sole of Coco's orange boot. Crash came out of the spin on one heel, wobbled, snatched a flying splintered board out of the air before it could clip the porch rail, and tossed it onto the kindling pile beside the path.

Coco bent to pick up the fruit at her boot, turning its sun-warmed skin in her palm before setting it beside her mug. She untied the twine on her small parcel and folded back the brown paper.

Inside lay a greased bearing in wax paper, and a folded yellow shipping slip.

No coupling.

She tipped the box upside down and shook it once. Nothing else fell out. "Crunch? Did the harbor boy hand you another little box with the mail?"

"Everything they had is sitting right there in the dirt," Crunch said, gesturing toward the crates with his spatula. "Hauled the whole load up from the cart myself. Why, they short you?"

Coco smoothed the yellow slip against her knee pad, scanning the cramped pencil marks at the bottom. "No. They marked it PACKED WITH PRODUCE—FRAGILE." She looked up slowly toward the yard. "In one of the Wumpa crates."

Out in the clearing, Crash had already gathered a precarious mountain of fruit against his bare chest, his tattooed forearms locked around a dozen Wumpas while a massive, prize specimen sat wedged beneath his chin. He was currently lifting one leg to trap a stray fruit against his shin.

"Crash," Coco said.

He froze on one foot.

"Did anything small and metal fly out of that crate when you spun it?"

Crash blinked. Very carefully, without dropping the pile in his arms, he tilted his head forward so the huge Wumpa under his chin bobbed toward her.

"Something that isn't breakfast," she said. "And something that didn't fall out of orbit."

His chin came back down.

Aku Aku drifted out over the scattered boards, his shadow sliding across the sunlit grass. "Let us search the ground before any more crates are introduced to your brother's enthusiasm."

Crash trotted up to the porch, dumped his armful into the broad wooden fruit bowl by the door, and set his prize Wumpa safely on the railing. Within seconds he was down on all fours beside the shattered crate, his rear in the air and his nose inches from the gap beneath the bottom step.

Coco knelt beside him, resting a hand on the warm wood while she peered into the dark crawlspace under the porch. From here she could see damp fern fronds, a stray vacuum tube from the Space Head wreck, a beetle, and Crash's ear twitching against the underside of the joist. "See anything shiny?"

Crash's hand disappeared into the shadow beneath the step. He grunted, wriggled forward onto his elbows, and backed out holding a tarnished soup spoon.

"Hey!" Crunch called from the grill, squinting. "Been lookin' for that since Tuesday!"

Crash held the spoon aloft like a trophy.

Coco took it by the handle and laid it on the step. "That's one mystery solved. The coupling's steel, Crash—round, about the size of a lime, with teeth on the inside. Otherwise I'm going to have to dig back into Cortex's starboard stabilizer with a blowtorch." She formed a ring with her thumb and forefinger.

Crash peered through the circle of her fingers, then glanced meaningfully at the Wumpa bowl.

"Steel," Coco repeated. "Do not bite it."

He gave an understanding nod and went back to patting down the clover around the kindling pile and the half-buried hull conduits. Behind them, Crunch scraped the last ribbon of batter onto the iron, where it sizzled in the rising heat. Up on the crooked antenna of a fallen control console in the yard, a bright island bird landed, cocked its head at the bandicoot combing the grass on all fours, and decided on a taller palm tree.

Coco sat back on her heels and looked at the three unopened crates still stacked by the path. All three wore the same stenciled Wumpa emblem.

Crunch stepped up onto the porch, the floorboards groaning under his weight, and set a steaming plate of pancakes on the clear corner of her workbench, right beside a salvaged voltage regulator. "Eat while they're hot, sis. Can't troubleshoot on low blood sugar. We'll shake down the other boxes."

Coco looked from the disassembled motor to the melted butter pooling down the side of the stack. She had already pushed breakfast back half an hour.

She pulled the plate closer and picked up her fork.

Down in the yard, Crash abandoned the clover, retrieved the reclaimed soup spoon from the step, wiped the bowl of it briskly across his denim shorts, and marched toward the open jar of Wumpa preserves.

Coco caught him by the wrist as he passed the bench. "Tap first."

Crash looked down at the spoon.

"And your hands. I saw where they just were."

He gave a patient, long-suffering sigh, as if humoring an overly fussy shop foreman, and padded over to the outdoor spigot. He twisted the brass valve and rinsed the spoon, both hands, his forearms, and the tongue of his left sneaker. Aku Aku floated two feet higher to avoid the spray.

Meanwhile, Crunch crouched beside the remaining crates, his scarred brow furrowing as he inspected the hemp rope binding the middle box. A torn tag was pinched beneath the knot. He worked it free with two thick metal fingers and held it up toward the porch.

Coco swallowed a bite of pancake and leaned over the rail.

Stamped across the tag in faded red ink were the words: HOUSEHOLD HARDWARE — ENCLOSED.

"Bingo," Coco said.

Crash twisted the spigot shut, shook his wet hands like a dog, and bounded over. He pointed at the middle crate, then cocked both elbows back with an eager grin.

"Don't even think about it," Coco and Aku Aku said together.

Crash lowered his elbows.

"Step aside, little brother," Crunch said, rolling his left shoulder. "Watch how a professional opens a container. It's all about leverage and finesse." He tipped the crate onto its side, braced a heavy boot against the corner cleat, and hooked the claws of his mechanical hand under the nailed lid. With a slow, controlled pull, the iron nails groaned out of the pine in one piece.

Crash leaned in over Crunch's shoulder, his mouth forming a silent O.

"See that?" Crunch held the intact lid up. "Pure muscle control. You don't gotta atomize everything in your path, man. Leave the box alive, you can use it later!"

A bent nail dropped from the board and bounced off his toe.

Crash picked it up out of the dirt and solemnly placed it in Crunch's palm. Over at the workbench, Coco hid a snort behind her mug.

Nestled among the top layer of purple-gold fruit were two small parcels wrapped in oiled butcher paper. Coco stepped down from the porch, lifted them out, and carried them back to the bench. A smear of Wumpa juice had stained the outer twine of the larger packet, though the wax paper inside was dry.

She unwrapped a machined steel coupling and a spare brass cupboard latch.

Holding the coupling up to the sunlight, she checked the internal splines, then slid it onto the fan's drive shaft, right over the salvaged Space Head bushing she had fitted earlier. It seated against the pin with a crisp, solid click.

"Gotcha," she murmured, setting her fork down to reach for the narrow screwdriver.

Behind her, Crash let out a polite, questioning grunt, both hands hovering above the open crate.

"All yours," Coco said without looking up.

Crash glanced sideways at Aku Aku.

"The fruit is yours," the mask said mildly. "The lumber has suffered enough."

Instead of tipping the crate, Crash scooped the Wumpas out a few at a time, carrying them to the wooden bowl on the low table until the pile rose well above the rim. He fetched his saved prize Wumpa from the porch rail, crowned the stack with it, and plucked a broad green leaf from the yard to tuck beneath the stem for presentation.

Looking through the wire fan guard as she tightened the set-screw, Coco watched him step back, squint at the bowl like a sculptor, and adjust one fruit a quarter-inch to the left. He could be absurdly delicate when nobody was asking him to be.

She fitted the new bearing into the collar, bolted the housing shut with the scavenged titanium screws, and spun the blades with her forefinger. They ghosted around the spindle without a whisper—none of the dry, rhythmic scraping that had kept her staring at the ceiling rafters at two in the morning.

Crunch carried two more plates to the low table beside the steps, lowering himself onto the bottom stair with a creak of timber. He braced his left elbow on his knee and held the jar of Wumpa preserves out of Crash's immediate reach. "Uh-uh. Sit down first. We eat like civilized folks in this house."

Crash dragged the newly emptied crate over, flipped it bottom-up beside the table, and tested it with one sneaker before dropping onto it. He bounced once. The pine held. He spread his arms toward Aku Aku.

"An admirable piece of furniture," Aku Aku agreed from the shade of the eaves.

Crash took a sweeping bow from the waist; Crunch's left hand shot out to catch the preserves jar before Crash's elbow could launch it into the hibiscus bushes. "Watch the merchandise, man! Go on, take your scoop."

Expecting him to upend the jar, Crunch kept one brow raised—and blinked when Crash dipped the clean spoon in, ladled a single neat dollop of purple jam onto the center of his top pancake, and set the spoon carefully across the saucer.

Crash looked up, blinking innocently.

"Well, alright then," Crunch muttered, mildly thrown. "Look at you, learnin' table manners."

Coco bit the inside of her cheek as she carried the reassembled fan to the edge of the porch. She plugged the cord into the weatherproof socket beside the doorpost, leaving enough slack to clear the threshold, and set the base on the corner of the workbench where it could sweep the table.

"Will it hold?" Aku Aku asked, drifting closer.

"Bearings are seated, the guard's clear, and Cortex's thruster coil is finally doing something useful with its life," Coco said, returning to her breakfast.

The morning breeze had died down, and the sunlight now reached across the bottom step to warm the steel plating of Crunch's forearm and glint off the half-buried Space Head panels in the high grass. Insects hummed in the damp hibiscus along the path. Inside the open doorway, washed mugs sat stacked beside the sink, a checkered tea towel stirring lazily on the handle. She liked the porch this way: enough room for a workbench, a hot meal, a yard full of free spare parts, and somebody doing something that would need explaining later.

Crash nudged the fruit bowl across the table toward Coco's seat, making sure the biggest Wumpa on top faced her.

She picked it up, turned it once in her hand, and set it beside her plate. "Thanks, big brother."

He nodded around a mouthful of pancake.

Crunch leaned back against the post, letting his shoulders drop into the warm shade while Aku Aku watched a bright green beetle make its way along the grain of the railing. Beside Coco, the repaired fan waited with its blades free and its switch still off.

She reached over and tilted its head toward the table.

"Right," Coco said, resting her thumb on the toggle. "Let's see."

Crash clapped one hand down over his spiky hair; with the other, he carefully steadied the little green leaf in the center of the fruit bowl.

CORTEX'S CASTLE — EVOLUTION LABORATORY — 2:17 A.M.

It was seventeen minutes past two in the morning, and the evolution laboratory high in the central keep of Cortex's Castle was still awake. Rain lashed the tall leaded-glass lancet windows; lightning split the storm outside, throwing the jagged silhouettes of the island towers and the black, churning sea across the wet stone floor. Inside, the emerald glow of cathode monitors and suspended industrial lamps picked out sweating masonry, bundled power conduits, and the grease-stained housings of heavy machinery. Beneath the thunder, the castle's bilge pumps kept a slow, uneven throb.

Overhead, an extraction fan coughed, turned half a revolution, and seized. Warm air thick with chemical solvent and wet fur gathered beneath the vaulted stone ceiling.

The brass nameplate on the Evolvo-Ray still refused to come off.

Dr. Neo Cortex wedged a flathead screwdriver beneath the corner of the plate, braced a black boot against the green housing, and hauled back with both yellow-gloved hands. The rivet shrieked. His glove slipped off the greasy brass, and the screwdriver's wooden handle caught him squarely beneath the nose.

For five full seconds, the only sound in the laboratory was the rhythmic knocking of the pumps.

Slowly, Cortex lowered the tool, his oversized head trembling as he glared at the offending brass: EVOLVO-RAY — INVENTOR: DR. NITRUS BRIO. Everything else in this wretched fortress rusted, shorted out, or fell into the sea without weekly maintenance, yet Brio's smug little plaque had apparently been riveted to the hull for eternity.

"N. Gin," Cortex said nasally, pressing a gloved knuckle to his upper lip. "Bring me a hammer."

A dark-gloved hand appeared from behind the main control console, offering a lit oxy-acetylene welding torch. N. Gin's hunched frame followed a moment later, the metal plating over his right eye catching the blue flame while his synthetic voice rose in a helpful, manic warble.

"More permanent, Doctor! We could melt the brass right into the casing—lovely little puddle, no more Brio!"

Cortex eyed the hissing flame, then rubbed the tender spot beneath his nose. "Later. You'll scorch the paint before the ceremony. Hand me the overlay."

He took a wider, freshly stamped brass plate bearing THE CORTEX EVOLVO-RAY and hung it directly over Brio's name on a single crooked screw.

At the center of the stone chamber stood the Evolution platform, ringed by heavy copper induction coils and thick rubber cables that snaked across the flagstones into a grated floor drain. Someone had set a dented galvanized bucket beneath a leaking elbow joint. Along the far wall, rows of iron cages held captive island wildlife—restless shapes shifting in the dark, claws clicking against wire mesh, a bent latch rattling in a steady, mindless rhythm. Clipped intake cards hung from the bars, covered in crossed-out trial numbers.

The last cage at the end of the row bore a freshly chalked tag: SUBJECT: {{user}}. Inside, {{sub}} lay motionless on the straw under heavy chemical sedation, an empty glass ampoule resting beside the intake ledger.

Two of Cortex's Lab Assistants were rolling a padded iron trolley down the aisle toward that cage.

One was a tall, lanky human with flat dark hair and a long nose; the other was a yellow-furred marsupial with pointed ears. Both wore the exact same standard-issue uniform—long white laboratory coats, dark trousers, heavy boots, gloves, and large round spectacles—and both possessed the same baffling combination of traits: they could calculate differential equations and rewire a quantum capacitor in their heads, yet neither of them had enough real-world spatial awareness to walk through an empty room without tripping over their own boots.

Beside the cage rack, a tray of leather restraints dripped pink disinfectant onto a folded rag. Cortex stepped wide around the puddle with the fastidious care he reserved exclusively for his own footwear.

N. Gin shuffled out from behind the green console, clutching a clipboard against his stitched gray coat. The live missile lodged in his skull grazed a low-hanging conduit; he flinched with a metallic tic, batting the cable aside while his uneven eyes scanned the dials.

At the cage door, the two assistants paused to debate the optimal torque ratio of the padlock hinge before finally turning the key. Together they eased the sedated {{user}} onto the padded trolley and buckled the transport straps. The yellow marsupial took the front bar while the tall human steered from the rear, both of them squinting intently at a pocket slide rule instead of the floor.

"Mind the conduit," Cortex snapped.

Neither assistant looked down. The front caster slammed squarely into the rubber power cable. The trolley jerked to a halt, and its loose upper tray slid three inches forward against the stops with a hollow iron clang, knocking both assistants' round glasses crooked on their noses.

"That conduit," Cortex said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The two assistants blinked, pushed their round spectacles back up in unison, and hauled the trolley free by lifting the wrong end first, nearly tipping {{user}} into the floor drain before righting the frame.

"Kinetic momentum accounted for, Doctor," the marsupial assistant reported cheerfully.

"Nothing broken, Doctor," the human assistant added, standing directly on his own coat hem.

"Then stop making that noise and load the chamber!" Cortex barked, waving them toward the central platform. "Honestly. Two hundred IQ points between you and neither of you can navigate a flat floor."

They eased the tray onto the loading platform, where the marsupial assistant calculated the angular velocity of the locking wheel aloud while the human assistant turned it the wrong way twice before the latch finally clicked shut. {{user}} was enclosed behind the glass, still sedated. The empty trolley was wheeled back toward the cages, bumping into a pillar along the way.

Cortex clasped his hands behind his back, his posture straightening as he surveyed the sealed chamber. A slow, proprietary grin stretched across his face.

"Look at it, N. Gin. An ordinary creature of the islands goes in; a commander of the Cortex Commandos comes out. Science stripped of all Brio's neurotic little hesitations." He cast a sidelong glance toward the two assistants currently trying to fold a towel by dividing it into thirds. "Fine enough for running calculus and scrubbing beakers, both of them, but an army requires a figurehead. Force. Presence. This specimen has the makings of a general."

N. Gin traced a column of red numbers on his clipboard with a trembling finger. "The evolutionary emitters are aligned, Doctor. However, Brio's logs from the Bandicoot trials specifically note that running the Cortex Vortex immediately after cellular restructuring—"

"Separate machines, N. Gin!" Cortex barked, spinning on his heel. "Separate triumphs! Must everyone in this castle insist on confusing Brio's glorified tanning lamp with my conditioning masterpiece?"

He marched up the iron steps to the raised observation walkway. The third tread wobbled beneath his boot with a loud clank. Cortex froze mid-stride and waited until the two Lab Assistants hurried over, briefly discussed the geometry of the incline, and shoved a textbook under the loose bracket.

From the railing, Cortex looked down over his domain: the stacked emitter rings of the Evolvo-Ray suspended above the chamber, the overhead rail leading directly to the bulb of the Cortex Vortex, and the glowing green console where N. Gin was already making a furtive adjustment. On the damp masonry wall opposite, a grand map of the world hung skew-whiff from three brass tacks, bristling with little red paper flags marking future conquests. One of the flags had fallen into the utility sink.

Cortex fished it out, wiped the pin on his sleeve, and stabbed it back into Australia.

"Picture it, N. Gin," Cortex murmured, his voice swelling into the acoustics of the vault. "My commandos marching across the continents under a general engineered for absolute, unquestioning devotion. No backtalk. No mutinies. No whining about whose name belongs on the stationery."

N. Gin's pen paused above the intake sheet. "I have never complained about the stationery, Doctor."

"Yes, and it remains your most endearing trait."

Cortex spread both arms wide toward the glass chamber—a magnificent silhouette against the lightning, except that the hem of his white lab coat had snagged on a protruding bolt behind the railing. He gave a subtle jerk of his hip.

"Take heart, my sleeping general! Tonight you shed the indignity of nature! When the world kneels before Neo Cortex, you shall stand at my right hand!"

The coat did not come loose. Cortex's left eyelid twitched.

"N. Gin. Fire the ray."

N. Gin threw the primary breaker. Heavy iron contactors slammed shut behind the stonework like a row of dungeon doors. The overhead lamps dimmed to a dull amber as the castle generators took the load, sending a deep tremor through the flagstones that made the galvanized bucket skate slowly away from its drip.

Overhead, the concentric rings of the Evolvo-Ray began to spin. Pale yellow arcs of current climbed the central spire.

Cortex yanked his coat free with an audible rip of cotton.

Behind the console, N. Gin leaned close to the green cathode scope, the light glinting off the metal plates of his cheek as the indicator needle crept past the penciled safety line. "Capacitors at ninety percent, Doctor."

"Full output," Cortex ordered.

"We are at full output."

"Then give me a little more, N. Gin, don't be stingy!"

N. Gin swallowed, muttered something under his breath to the missile in his head, and twisted the vernier dial another quarter-turn.

The emitter assembly cranked downward on greased chains. The copper rings blurred into a single incandescent halo, smearing harsh yellow reflections across the wet stone and the curved glass of {{user}}'s enclosure. Inside the cabinet, an overloaded relay began chattering like teeth.

Cortex gripped the iron railing with both hands, leaning out over the pit, the dark N on his forehead stark in the rising glare. This was the part that made the damp stone, the insolent colleagues, and the endless supply costs tolerable: the raw, humming certainty that reality was about to rearrange itself because he had demanded it.

"Behold," Cortex whispered, "the triumph of—"

The Evolvo-Ray discharged.

A blinding column of golden-white light slammed down into the chamber, turning every raindrop on the lancet windows to mercury and bleaching the shadows from the corners of the room. Thunder cracked outside, answered instantly by the roar of the emitter. Across the laboratory, a cracked titration flask danced off the edge of a shelf and shattered on the flagstones. The two Lab Assistants simultaneously clapped their hands over their round glasses and backed into each other, tangling their white coat tails around the trolley handle while trying to estimate the photon yield. At the console, a red warning lamp flared to life—N. Gin promptly slapped his clipboard over it and held the main lever down with both hands.

For ten seconds the laboratory lived inside the beam. Cooling pipes hammered wildly against their iron brackets, venting superheated steam toward the ceiling, while the sharp tang of scorched bakelite and wet fur filled the air.

Then the contactors dropped open. The beam vanished.

In the sudden, ringing hush, the sound of rain against the high windows returned, accompanied by the small, tinny clatter of a glass shard settling in the drain.

At the console, a thermal printer spat out a strip of perforated paper. N. Gin tore it free, held it up to his good eye, and then squinted at the green oscilloscope. His mouth fell open. He tapped the glass of the gauge twice.

"Evolutionary sequence complete!" N. Gin announced, his voice cracking upward. "Cellular restructuring stable! The subject is alive!"

Cortex let go of the railing, leaving two clean handprints in the soot. "Of course {{sub}} is alive. Did you doubt my calculations?"

He descended the iron stairs at a brisk clip, his boot heel skidding on the wet bottom step; he caught himself on the console edge and smoothed his hair back as if he had intended to lean there all along. "Give me the readout."

N. Gin handed over the paper strip, narrowly pulling his clipboard back before a drop of rusty water from the ceiling hit the ink. Cortex held the strip upside down, nodded sagely at the jagged graph, and turned it right-side up while stabbing a yellow finger at the steepest spike.

"Textbook," Cortex declared.

Behind him, the single screw holding his new brass plaque gave way. The plate swung upside down with a loud, tinny clack, exposing DR. NITRUS BRIO to the room once more.

Cortex didn't look back. "Leave it. Prepare the Cortex Vortex!"

Across the laboratory, suspended beneath an enormous iron emblem of Cortex's own N, hung the conditioning bulb of the Cortex Vortex—a massive, riveted steel sphere bristling with blue vacuum tubes, ceramic insulators, and twin high-voltage Tesla towers that flanked the green control console. Above the cabinet, a wide cathode-ray monitor flickered to life, displaying a targeting grid and the green block letters: SUBJECT: {{user}} 1.0.

N. Gin's pen hovered uncertainly over the secondary checklist. "Doctor... the neural conditioning frequency still hasn't been field-tested at this voltage. If the synaptic buffer overloads—"

"It won't," Cortex said smoothly, already striding along the catwalk. "The Bandicoot was a fluke of poor material. This specimen has structure. Open the transfer rail!"

The yellow marsupial assistant released the chamber latches while the tall human assistant spun the transfer wheel. The glass housing parted with a hiss of escaping vapor. Gears took the weight; the motorized carriage containing {{user}} rolled along the ceiling track toward the Vortex, passing beneath an industrial lamp that flickered at every joint. The two assistants walked alongside it, earnestly debating the coefficient of friction on the overhead rollers while holding the padding clear of the gears.

"Keep the cradle level!" Cortex called down.

"We're trying, Doctor," the human assistant said, adjusting his round spectacles. "The castle floor is three degrees off true horizontal."

"Two point eight," the yellow marsupial corrected mildly, and immediately walked shin-first into a bucket.

Cortex paced beside the moving carriage along the catwalk, his hands gesturing in crisp, theatrical arcs. "Evolution, you see, merely provides the clay. Raw muscle. Untutored instinct. It is the Cortex Vortex that supplies the soul of a soldier—discipline, strategy, and an unshakable, quasi-religious reverence for my intellect."

N. Gin flipped the safety covers off a bank of red toggle switches. "Standard obedience matrix, Doctor?"

"Absolute obedience, N. Gin."

"The dial only says STANDARD and LETHAL, Doctor."

"Then put a piece of tape over STANDARD and write ABSOLUTE when we're finished!"

With a heavy metallic clunk, the transport cradle locked onto the hydraulic lifting column directly beneath the open maw of the Vortex. The great iron sphere began to rotate on its gimbals, its internal turbines spinning up into a deep, throbbing bass hum that rattled the teeth in Cortex's jaw and sent loose washers skating across N. Gin's workbench.

N. Gin reached for the main rheostat, hesitated as an amber fault light blinked on the panel, and ducked beneath the console. He came back up holding a long insulated screwdriver.

Cortex leaned over the catwalk rail, his brows drawing together. "What are you doing with that?"

"The thermal interlock keeps tripping the primary coil," N. Gin said cheerfully, unscrewing a side inspection plate. "If I don't wedge the relay closed, the machine will shut itself down to prevent brain liquefaction!"

Cortex tapped his boot impatiently while N. Gin jammed the screwdriver handle directly between two sparking copper contacts. The turbine hum jumped half an octave. Violet lightning began to arc between the twin Tesla towers on either side of the console.

N. Gin beamed, the metal plates of his face shining in the violet glare. "Bypassed!"

"See how simple that was?" Cortex called toward the cages, as if Brio were still hiding behind them. "A little initiative! A little disregard for petty regulations!"

Down behind the console, N. Gin muttered to the sparking relay, "Yes, splendid, until the insurance adjusters find the crater..."

The maw of the Cortex Vortex blazed bright magenta.

The hydraulic column engaged, lifting {{user}}'s cradle straight up into the rotating belly of the sphere. Violet and blue arcs danced across the ceramic insulators, throwing wild, strobing shadows across the castle walls. On the overhead monitor, the status bar beneath {{user}} 1.0 began to fill:

CONDITIONING IN PROGRESS...

Cortex threw both arms toward the ceiling, his lab coat billowing in the updraft from the coils, his grin stretching from ear to ear. "Yes! Drink it in! Shed the beast and embrace your master! Soon the islands—then the archipelago—then the entire miserable globe!"

Below him, N. Gin kept one hand hovering an inch above the emergency dump lever. The amperage needle slammed against the far right pin and stayed there, trembling. A shower of blue sparks rained from the upper gimbal ring; down on the floor, both Lab Assistants were staring straight up at the electrical arcs with identical expressions of scholarly fascination while sparks singed the shoulders of their white coats.

Inside the sphere, the magenta glare deepened—pulsed once with a sound like a plucked bass string—and then the turbines began to wind down.

No klaxon wailed. No glass shattered. No smoke poured from the vents.

Up on the big monitor, the static cleared. In place of the flashing red failure stamp that had haunted Cortex's sleep, a crisp green banner materialized across the screen with a pleasant, two-note chime:

{{user}} 1.0 — ACCEPTED

For three seconds, nobody in the laboratory moved.

Cortex lowered his arms halfway, staring up at the green letters. He looked down at the Tesla coils, then at the uncharred console, and finally at N. Gin.

"The cycle finished," N. Gin whispered, blinking his uneven eyes at the printout. "Full neural imprint. No rejection spike. It... it worked, Doctor."

Cortex's hands dropped from the railing.

"It worked," he breathed.

Then he spun around, flinging both arms wide with such force that the loose brass nameplate finally detached from the Evolvo-Ray behind him and hit the flagstones with a flat clang.

"Of course it worked!" Cortex crowed, his laugh echoing off the wet vaulting. "Didn't I tell you, N. Gin?! Didn't I tell Brio?! My Vortex is flawless! At long last—a general! A mind forged in my own image, ready to lead the Cortex Commandos to total—"

Down by the platform, the yellow marsupial assistant raised one gloved finger. "Doctor? The hydraulic fluid is reaching thermal capacity. Do you want the tray lowered?"

Cortex remained frozen in his triumphant pose for a beat, his smile tightening at the corners.

"...Yes. Lower {{obj}}."

N. Gin pulled the hydraulic lever back. With a hiss of valves and a heavy iron thud, the lifting column descended from the belly of the sphere, bringing the transport tray back to floor level. The two Lab Assistants stepped in from either side, unbuckling the heavy chest and wrist restraints while managing to get their own sleeves hooked together on the corner latch until they untangled themselves.

Cortex marched down the catwalk steps, planted himself squarely at the foot of the tray, and tugged the lapels of his coat straight. With the toe of his boot, he discreetly slid a dropped wrench out of {{user}}'s reach. He wanted the very first thing his new commander beheld upon opening {{poss}} eyes to be the unmistakable visage of {{poss}} creator.

"Arise, my general," Cortex intoned, pitching his voice to a resonant baritone. "The machine has given you purpose. I shall provide the orders."

He waited.

On the padded tray, {{user}} did not stir. The castle pumps gave a wet, hollow clunk in the silence.

N. Gin peered over the edge of his clipboard. "Ah. The intake log says we administered the heavy tranquilizer, Doctor. At current metabolic rates, the dose won't wear off for another forty minutes."

"I am not standing here in a draft for forty minutes, N. Gin!" Cortex snapped. "Wake {{obj}} up!"

"I could synthesize a stimulant—"

Cortex glanced from the dented trolley to the utility sink. "Water."

The tall human assistant turned toward the sink, pushing his round glasses up. "Cold or warm, Doctor?"

"Cold."

The brass tap coughed twice, spat a brown plug of rust into the basin, and ran clear. The human assistant rinsed a heavy glass beaker, filled it to the brim, and carried it back with both hands while the yellow marsupial assistant earnestly calculated the thermal shock value beside him. N. Gin set down his clipboard and nudged a live electrical lead away from the puddle by the platform.

Cortex took one last, lingering look up at the glowing green ACCEPTED banner on the monitor. Acceptance. No rejection, no emergency shutdown, no broken window. He puffed out his chest and adjusted his white coat over the ray gun at his belt.

The marsupial assistant loosened the last transport strap. His tall human colleague stood poised beside {{user}} with the brimming beaker.

"All of it, Doctor?" the human assistant asked.

Cortex flicked an impatient wrist.

The assistant threw the entire beakerful squarely into {{poss}} face. Ice-cold water broke the drugged sleep, soaked the transport padding, and splashed straight across Cortex's freshly straightened collar.

Beside {{user}}, the human assistant held up the empty glass for inspection, while the yellow marsupial nodded in satisfaction behind his round spectacles. "Awake, Doctor."

Cortex stood rigid, a drop of water hanging from the tip of his pointed beard as {{user}}'s eyes opened to the green glow of the laboratory. Slowly, he touched a yellow-gloved hand to his own chest, supplying a helpful clue.

"Now, my general... tell me: who is your master?"

[Make your own scenario! Write your idea below and I'll craft it into a brand-new scene]