Page 186 of GlitchBorn Heart

My magic responds instantly, my tattoos igniting, the dragon coiling down my back roaring to life in lines of fiery orange. My nerves sting with power, neon veins streaking up my neck and temples as I bridge our abilities.

Jett begins to hum a vibration that ripples through the air. His SoulReaver sigils on his palms are glowing like crimson fire as he presses them over Lyra’s heart.

The light beneath her skin blooms outward, and her body arches. His face contorts. He can feel her, her fear, her pain, her pulse syncing with his. His body begins shaking with the feedback, but he manages to speak. “Be ready, Kael. She’s close.”

I can feel the system itself straining under the power he’s feeding it. He looks up, eyes looking no longer human, but resembling two bright burgundy lights of solid energy. No pupils.

“Follow my voice. Come back to me, Little Taiyō.” I lean over her and beg her through the tether.

The system quickly hits the threshold, warning alarms blaring, lights flashing in riotous patterns. Jett’s voice cuts through the noise: “I’m pulling her soul-thread now!”

The air around him ruptures like a broken mirror. My magic responds, orange light pouring through me, wrapping the beach in fire and embers.

For just a split second, I see blinding pulses of gold and magenta light shoot up Jett’s arm and into his chest. He flinches with the impact.

Everything stops, as if frozen in time. Suddenly my stomach lurches, the sensation of being dropped out of the top floor of a skyscraper. I’m spiraling rapidly, not able to gauge up from down. The hum of the lab returns, and all I hear is mine and Jett’s rapid breathing through the silence. His palms hover above Lyra’s body, her skin flickering with threads of gold and pink.

Sound returns to the vacuum in my head; beeps and bells, the monitors bloom into chaos.

REINITIALIZING PROTOCOL BREACH: CORRUPTION DETECTED

The words slam across every screen. My head jerks up, and I scream with fury. “No! I shut you down! LINK abort and shut down, NOW!”

The static crackles to life, and LINK’s voice erupts, sounding more human than machine.

CORRUPTED BIOS

DR. RYUDON—I’M UNABLE TO SHUT DOWN

Every monitor explodes with corrupted code and different programming languages. Strange symbols and strings of infinite numbers run down the sides.

I throw myself over Lyra’s body, shaking her and dislodging Jett’s hands. His SoulReaver sigils dim in defense. Jett covers his ears as a sound, loud and booming like thunder, fills the small space of the lab. I look up from Lyra and see the room bathed in purple beams of light, walls vibrating, and floor panels buckling outward as Eli materializes on screen. His void power twists the air around us, and Jett and I find it hard to breathe, like being in a vacuum.

I’m not familiar with fear, but Eli’s eyes, they’re so hollow and filled with shadow, it makes my pulse quicken.

“Eli, stop!” My voice echoes off the airless void.

He responds calmly, too collected for the storm unraveling around us. “Kael, LINK’s moving again.” The edges of his form begin unraveling. “I can end this. You can save Lyra.”

On screen, LINK’s code ripples like black water. A distortion pulses through the room as the temperature drops, and the overhead lights flicker violet.

SYSTEM PRIORITY ALERT

LINK ONLINE

PROTOCOL: RESTORE FILES

“No! Stay out of it, Eli.” My voice comes out rough at the edges, like it’s fighting its way out. “You promised to anchor LINK, remember? I...I can’t save you both.”

The words tear a gaping hole inside me. I’ve never said it out loud, not to anyone. Not even to myself. I’ve spent my whole life building systems, codes, walls, and contingencies so I’d never have to choose.

Everything I’ve done, every script, every program, every piece of code, has been about mastery, about winning. No matter the game.

But this? There’s no winning here.

Jett’s voice breaks through the static and glitching of the systems. “Kael! Look at me!” he demands. “You have to choose Lyra. Everything you’ve accomplished, you’ve built by forcing it into existence. But this...” He gestures between Eli’s shadowed form and Lyra’s flickering body. “This isn’t something you can outthink or outfight. If you save one, you lose the other. You have to choose Lyra. She’s the path forward...for all of us.”

His face is worried. He knows something he’s not telling me, but he can’t finish the sentence. I never should have trusted him, yet I couldn’t do this without him.