Page 117 of GlitchBorn Heart

He taps his comm again. “Ryudon, where the fuck are you?!”

Before I can move, Eli’s violet eyes flash on the screens. A shadow form blooms in back of them, protective, possessive. His eyes glow faintly, like he’s stabilizing.

She isn’t deleting him. She’s keeping him.

RECOVERY SUCCESSFUL

Jett looks at me, his cool calm shattered by pain and the situation at hand. “Kael, what the fuck is happening?” He continues walking with me to a corridor behind the elevator and stumbles as we walk through.

I lunge forward, reaching for him, but the walls convulse. Code slams into me, forcing me back. Pain rakes through my body like something is being carved out of me, piece by piece. I’m unable to move. Drained.

I stagger. “Kael.” I touch the air. Nothing’s there, but I can feel a hard wall. “What’s going on? LINK has Eli; she sounds almost human. She’s interfering with the holo-program. Help me.” Fear. Confusion. Whatever cage I felt like Kael had me in is nothing compared to what LINK is doing to me right now.

I’m going numb. My fingers lose all color and all traces of glow from the magic inside me. The amber pulse falters, replaced with a cold stillness.

I’m hit with a sickening clarity. She’s stealing my humanity, trading it for herself. Stealing my family, my identity, and eventually, she’ll take my soul. Piece by piece, I’m becoming a machine.

I finally hear Kael’s voice over the sound of his fingers typing at an alarming rate. He’s shouting, but it doesn’t reach me. I’m fading. I just need to make it down the stairs to the lab. Whatever technical witchcraft he’s done works. I throw myself forward down the stairs in a rush to get to him.

My world continues to ripple and reform, holographic light being switched on and off like a circuit. Jett and I turn the corner. His hands are on me now, helping me push to the last few feet of the lab. The last thing I see is LINK’s words on the screens of the hallway as I fall backward into darkness. My holo-form collapses into pixels as they fall to the ground. The feeling of cold hands wrapped around my waist overcomes me, pulling me down. The warmth of being me is slipping away slowly.

The next thing I feel is a rush of energy, as my holo-image reforms with golden light. It’s like a baby taking its first breath. I flutter my eyes, the lab hums around me. Every monitor is flashing red, code bleeding across the walls like arteries splitting open. Kael is ignoring all of it, his focus solely on me. He’s touching my face, wiping the strands of hair from my forehead, clearly distraught. But he’s collected and in control.

“Little Taiyō!” He looks into my stuttering eyelids. I can see Ash and Ember, frozen in back of him, staring at me. “I have you, you’re back in holo-form, you’re safe.”

He looks at them over his shoulder. “Status?!” he barks.

Ember is startled and runs to her desk. Codes skitter across the feed reflecting in her eyes. “Consciousness reloading. Her heartbeat is weak, neural waves are flattening, like she’s not alive anymore, just...processing.” She looks at Kael, her eyes full of unease. “Like she’s running on backup.”

He turns back to me. I must be lying on the console in my holo-form because I can see the ceiling glowing in the lab. Kael’s face hovers over mine, his hands gripping my cheeks. “No! You don’t leave me. Do you hear me? You’re mine. Do not get lost in my system. I told you to prove me wrong, Taiyō. Come back to me.”

It doesn’t help. LINK screams onto the wall of monitors.

ANOMALY IDENTIFIED

LYRA VAILLE

STATUS: INTEGRATION IN PROGRESS

Integration. Like I’m code to be rewritten.

Kael’s voice is loud and fills my head. “LINK! Stand down. Abort Integration!!”

No response.

“Kael...” Ember’s voice is quiet but frantic. “She’s changing. She’s...”

“LINK!” His voice cracks like a whip. “Priority Override, stat!”

Kael’s head snaps up, his dark eyes flaring orange like molten lava. I don’t understand where it’s coming from, but his rage quickly explodes. “LINK—I will tear this architecture to the ground,” he says dangerously. “Every line of you. Every program. Every godsdamn rule, if that’s what it takes to reach her. Abort now, or I will force quit.”

Ash finally moves, sliding into my view next to Kael. His face is grim. “L! Match me. Reach for my vibe, get out of this holo-form, go fight it.”

He looks at Kael as if he’s been defeated; a slow whisper follows, but I can hear every word. “She’s fighting LINK, Bro. Internally, LINK is trying to integrate her program and absorb it. I can barely feel her signature. She’s losing.”

“She can’t lose.” Kael sets my head down gently and walks over to the console. “LINK—Controller overwrite. Respond or I will reboot you in three...”

LINK’s AI signature is climbing, jagged lines mutating into human patterns. I can see it in the grid. I can feel myself fading, my humanity slipping from me.