Page 191 of GlitchBorn Heart

The feeling builds, and for a second I think it’s Jett, that he’s already found me, but then I realize it’s her. LINK.

A zing runs though my body, fight or flight mode kicking in. My reflection ruptures across the DreamNet water, lines of code shimmering around my skin. I shouldn’t be able to feel what’s happening in the real world, but in here? It’s like threads of data burning through me, melting my skin. What is she doing to me?

I reassure myself, he’s close. Jett’s going to find me, and he’s going to pull me out. The real reward will be Kael, right there to fight this with me.

I can hear and feel a heartbeat—not my heartbeat. It’s beginning to echo far in the distance. “Shit, shit!” I stay on the beach, but every fiber of my being wants to run. They won’t find me for extraction if I don’t stay.

A strange current spreads through me, like my body has been plugged in. It’s like someone is digitally sketching me into being, pixel by pixel. The sensation is both intimate and strange. I embrace the feeling, this must be it.

It’s not painful...at first.

It’s suddenly so cold my teeth chatter. I’d know this feeling anywhere. Eli. His void is stirring. His magic, faint but familiar, brushes against the edges of my consciousness. His fear still hums through every circuit.

“Lyra, you need to go. LINK is coming, and I can only hold her for so long.” He sounds calm for someone who’s trying to hold back the power to destroy everything in this city. “I’m safe, you will be too. Go with the SoulReaver and Kael. Now! She’s here!”

For some strange reason, I don’t panic. I can feel Kael’s thoughts pressing through the network: his focus, his control, his ache. The connection between us vibrates, and I swear every time he breathes, I feel it. Every time he doubts, I hear it.

INITIATING DATA EXCHANGE

LINK’s voice fills DreamNet and pierces my ears. I cover them just as I notice the sky turning crimson. LINK’s presence is dark, but this is darker.

“Jett?” I try to call to him, but my voice is so small, and I’m having trouble forming the words. My lips are just so cold and numb.

The SoulReaver’s energy crackles through the air, pulling the literal life right out of me. It touches the edges of my code, just as LINK begins flooding me with data. For a brief instant, I see him. He looks as if he’s fighting a battle, green-and-violet light striking him through the static sky.

“Lyra,” he orders, “don’t talk. Just focus on me and on Kael.”

He’s found me. Thank the stars.

A flood of light hits my chest, molten hot after being so cold. It fills my veins from my toes to my head as it warms me from within.

Kael.

I feel him take my hand, but it’s not soft. Instead, I feel a hard pulling sensation, as if my body is being split in two. He’s bridging our magic, but it’s painfully wrecking me from the inside.

I can hear Jett humming some sort of vibration, and before I know it, my heart feels as if it’s being crushed in my chest. The pain is blinding. I see flashes of Eli’s face, and I can sense LINK in my mind, as if she’s invading it, like the virus that put me here. I can’t survive this. The pain in my head increases to a level that brings me to my knees. I begin to fade out of consciousness.

“Focus, Kael. She’s close.” I think I hear Jett, but it sounds muffled, like I’m being pulled underwater.

“Come back to me, Little Taiyō.” I hear him, barely. But I can’t feel him anymore.

“I’m pulling the soul-thread now!” Is that Jett again? My body begins to convulse, and blinding pulses of gold-and-red light shoot upward, arching my back as they escape.

It relieves some of the pressure in my chest but hurts like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

Static fills my ears, my eardrums buzzing. It’s all I can hear now. My vision fades to black. My eyelids fall shut like weights are pulling them down. The last thing I hear is LINK breaking through the static.

SYSTEM PRIORITY ALERT LINK SYSTEM ONLINE

PROTOCOL: RESTORE FILES

Blackness. No sound. No light. Not the blackness of Eli’s void, much different. Pitch-black and green code are flooding down the sides of my vision. I blink once, twice, and I see the sky, purple and lilac stretching above me from the eclipse.

I know this...

I stand up shakily. I can see the whole city shimmering, but devoid of light, through a glass wall. It’s everywhere, like a never-ending cage. The glass is littered with green-gray static now, and I pull at my magic to clear it, threads of gold forming and coiling.

Wait. This isn’t right. Threads of orange, green, violet, and maroon begin to weave into my gold and pink. My body shivers, and just like that, I feel strong, maybe even invincible. Like a rush of adrenaline pumped into my main artery. The glass shatters into a million tiny pixels, and I throw myself through it, only to find I’m jumping, falling from the top of VikkCorp’s spire.