Avatara

Knightmare-Grimm looked out of the window of his plane. He and his gang changed jets at Paris, and then refuelled at Kuwait. They'd flown on for three and a half hours to New Delhi and they were now landing at Paro Airport in Bhutan. Their plane, flown by a well trained Bhutanese pilot, curved sharply around a mountain before descending soon after for the runway. Knightmare-Grimm felt sick but refused assistance from his men. Brian Burnside's body was crumbling fast. Knightmare-Grimm calculated he had five to six days maximum in his body.

'Let me out,' a voice said inside his head. 'I want to see my parents,' it continued.

"Shut up!" said Knightmare-Grimm. Except that he said it out loud. Again he covered up his mouth. He did not dare to turn around to the others to see if they had reacted to his behaviour. 'Never show weakness. Be strong.'

'My family won't know where I am,' another voice. 'I can't believe what I have done.'

Different the first voice of the teenager, it sounded like an a.d.u.l.t male. It was the voice of Brian Burnside.

His men had noticed him saying strange things out loud and to himself since his transition to the new body. Conquering the mind of Knightmare seemed to be easy for Grimm but following the acquisition of a new body with its consciousness on board, introduced instability into the system.

He breathed to ease the anguish within.

'I must survive this long enough to get those codes. I don't think my mind can survive another body jump.'

This defeatist attitude scared him as someone with a usually dominant, limitless mindset.

He could see the thoughts and images of Brian Burnside's in his mind. His beliefs and values regarding his family. Warm feelings regarding his son and his wife. His feelings of guilt for betraying Jazz and thinking that was the right thing to do. He saw the despondency of a man that worked hard for public services but never thought he got compensated well in return. Brian Burnside was not happy that he could not provide the kind of middle class life that he wanted for his kindred. What scared Grimm the most was that there was something about Brian Burnside's son that reminded him of himself.

Shaking off what felt like an intense vivid daydream, Grimm forced back the drives, emotions, thoughts and beliefs of Brian Burnside. He took deep breaths and within his mind actively shared the connections between the above factors of Burnside's personality, shattering the personality into pieces like glass.

The effort made him sweat.

'I cannot contain more than two personalities at this time. It is too risky. It makes me mad and uncontrolled. Goodbye Brian Burnside, your talents would have been useful but indeed until I get that kernel under my control, I will not be able to control more than one mind at once.'

He heard the cries of Knightmare within the psyche.

'You however and your talents with code, have been a great boon to me. It is indeed a great thing to have your intelligence at my mercy. Yet your resistance is a great nuisance and I cannot afford your interruptions in my goals. At some point in these next few days I will fully merge you with my own personality. We will become one mind. We will come Knightmare-Grimm in totality.'

Knightmare-Grimm felt too tired to try this during the flight. He attempted to rest and remained rather subdued for the rest of the trip.

However, his arrogant triumphant nature was restored when he saw their final plane.

A fine tiltrotor military aircraft with vertical take off and landing. It was a V800, his favourite model and it contained their weapons ready for 'Operation Monk Head'- the capture of the monk called Yi.

***

Upstairs, the team of Grace, Pixel, Qwerty, Byte and Jazz were getting ready.

"That was quite a lot of work," said Jazz. "Didn't think it would take so long to hack into the security cameras." He stretched out his arms in the air and yawned. Then he winced in pain a little bit; he forgot that he was still bruised.

"You're pretty good with computers," said Qwerty. "Didn't know you have such a high level of coding skill."

"Thanks," said Jazz. "Couldn't have done it without your help."

"I thought you were just a dumb cop," continued Qwerty. Jazz responded with a muted smile.

"No, you didn't," said Pixel. "You had my intel on him, you knew he was good."

Qwerty frowned. "And I was just trying to have a joke but you ruined it."

"Don't know why you're joking with him. He's the type of guy that kidnaps his ex-girlfriend to try and get information," said Byte.

"Byte stop being a prick," said Pixel.

Don't sweat it at all Pixel," said Jazz. "He's right and after this is all over me and Grace won't see each other again anyway. But until then let's work together so we can stop that monster taking over the minds of people in this country and the world."

Grace did not like the bickering but she felt the response was a 'good save' by Jazz. And at least by clearing air and being open about these frustrations it was possible that they could all work together better. Maybe they could save the day.