Page 116 of GlitchBorn Heart

My knees buckle. A splitting pain slices through me, as if Eli’s void is slicing through my chest. LINK’s presence flares on the screens in the hallway as we run down it. Not a line of code. Not a notification. It’s a gasp, more human than machine.

I clutch the wall, breath ragged, helping Jett stay upright. The horror slams into me immediately. His void isn’t just breaking the system; it’s also doing something to us. To her.

My fingers leave scorch-marks of amber light where they press the wall. The grid responds to me as if I belong to it, as if I am part of it now. Jett stands, despite being pretty shaken himself. The fear settles inside my chest. What if Eli’s void just affected LINK? What if it’s fusing me to the system deeper as well, pulling me further from humanity? And what if he’s unknowingly feeding it to her?

Across the corridor, LINK flickers into form for the first time, a jagged woman-shaped shadow stitched from the white noise. Her edges don’t quite hold, flickering across the screens like bad code forcing its way through. Her eyes flare bright green, an unnatural luminous green, that blink, almost sentient.

“You don’t belong here,” she hisses. But her voice is wrong. It’s not the sterile-coded tone I’m used to hearing. It’s softer, more like mine, almost like she’s practiced the sound of my voice and decided she likes it.

“I was built to protect the system and its creator,” she continues. “You are destabilizing it.”

I continue anchoring Jett as we walk the tightening corridor. The walls feel as if they’re warping inward, her presence weighing down upon us.

Jett swears under his breath and taps his comm. “Kael, are you seeing this?”

I say nothing. I can’t. How do you tell a man his artificial intelligence just became...well, intelligent. She’s adapting quickly.

Eli’s void didn’t just tear holes in the grid, it gave LINK room to grow. I suddenly realize she’s changing too. Eli’s void is reshaping both of us.

I’m not the only anomaly anymore.

Now Kael must admit the one task he’s focused on for years of his life, hunting and erasing anomalies, is now the product of his own overzealousness.

His voice crackles faintly over the lab feed: “Yes, I’m on it. Abort. Get out of there. NOW.”

I look back at the shattered containment cell, at the shards of glass littering the floor, at the emptiness where my brother had been. Eli sits in the corner, a shell of who he is, lost, broken. No movement, no sound, almost catatonic.

For the very first time, in my brother’s life, I think I understand him perfectly. Peace for him isn’t the real world. It isn’t fighting the magic under your skin for constant control. It’s the comfort of being part of the system that controls you.

He doesn’t want to be saved.

.

45

IntegrationInProgress

Playlist: Nocturnal Remedy - Dayseeker

Lyra

My legs are shaky and loose now. My body buzzes at the edges, stinging like tiny claws tearing at my skin. I continue the long walk down the hallway with Jett, supporting him with the last particles of effort I have left. The void surge ripples out of me, glitch-fire tearing out of my holo-form. I’m losing the ability to hold my image with every step forward.

The corridor reforms, darker and colder as the lights fade to a dim, haunting, green glow.

LINK.

She’s there again, on every screen, watching, waiting.

The walls glow emerald green; no longer just jagged code, but disturbingly calm. Her voice booms in the usual robotic monotone all around us.

VOID CONTAINED

The words fill the screens.

BROTHER: OBTAINED

My stomach drops. “No!” I whisper. “No, you can’t!” Jett pushes away from me to stand on his own.