Page 26 of GlitchBorn Heart

“Eli!” I shout, but my voice comes out garbled as the air is sucked into the void that’s beginning to spiral out of control.

He doesn’t hear me. He can’t.

His power is ripping through the system, through him, through everything. If it keeps going, the Corporation’s scanners will surely see him. See us. Alarms will sound; we’ll light up the anomaly grid like supernovas.

I feel it, despite my attempt to quell it, my own magic rising uninvited, bleeding into the chaos. Every screen in the room stutters with my emotions: Fear blooms in static, panic streaks in vicious red lines, until I shove all of it outward toward Eli.

I react instinctively, drawing in any technical energy from around me. I throw up an illusion of bright sunlight, much like I did with the drones. Next I attempt to create a barrier to hold back the unraveling of time and space. For a moment, my light and Eli’s void clash like oil and water. The air hums like static electricity making it difficult to breathe.

Beams of light continue flooding from my palms, threads of raw code wrapping around his glitching body, pulling him back before he can tear the entire DreamNet down. At this level he could be warping reality as we speak.

For a second, we’re both suspended, two anomalies burning like flares on the corporate grid, their sentinel drones probably on the way right now to sweep in and locate us.

“Eli!” I scream, my voice nearly shredded by the roar of colliding energies. The air vibrates violently, pressure slamming against my skin as if the world itself is trying to tear free. “Eli! Listen to me!” His eyes turn into two ink-black holes, as his head turns toward me. “It takes exactly one hundred and sixty-four seconds for the sun to slide beneath the waves in September,” I shout, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “You remember, count with me, just like we used to.”

I hold his gaze and begin counting.

“One.”

The void stills, a low metallic groan rippling through the apartment.

By fifty, the lights stutter, blinking in and out.

At seventy-five, he inhales sharply, his lips moving to count with me.

“Seventy...six...” He forces the words out, his eyes returning to the calm violet hue they normally are.

Relief fills me, my knees nearly giving out. His light, once blinding, dims to a low glow, the violent edge softening as he counts.

At one hundred and thirty, the universe falters. Reality itself cuts to black for half a second: no sound, no light, no air. It snaps back into place with a thunderous crack that can be heard across the city.

Eli collapses.

He drops to his knees, hands clamped to his skull like he’s trying to hold himself together—literally. Energy writhes off him in waves, calming the charged air until it settles on the floor of the room.

Every exhale he takes causes the lights to flare. Outside I can see the clouds crack full of thunder. A storm breaks, peppering the sky with lightning, pouring leftover energy in the form of acidic rain down on the city streets.

I move toward him calmly, joining him in counting again. “Eli...let me in,” I beg. “Stay with me. Just keep counting.”

Because if he stops, the void will spread.

I touch my fingertips to his, my magic bleeding through his warm skin. Light jumps to his fingers, and he watches it with the awe of the little boy on the beach. My memory of him on our beach.

Silence. I embrace him with both arms. He melts into me, the two of us glowing like fireflies in a jar, definitely bright enough for the corporate grid to notice. I begin to prepare myself for the worst.

Three beeps. TheKast.

The city fades, neon collapsing into gray-white static like freshly fallen snow. It blooms across every screen on every tower, on every corner.

I exhale, realizing I’ve been holding my breath until my chest burned. We made it. Barely. Seconds, maybe less, before TheKast hit and shut down the grid.

I prepare myself, holding him a little bit tighter, for the maddening hum of En4ce drones, and the inevitable banging and knocking down of the door. The Corporation answering the call sent out about anomalies popping in this sector. I wait for it all.

But there’s nothing.

I don’t understand.

Eli looks up at me slowly, his glasses crooked, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His voice is small now, devoid of power. “It happened again,” he says. “Are we safe?”