Page 35 of GlitchBorn Heart

I arrive at VikkCorp tower just in time to catch the elevator up to my floor. I dash straight for my desk, clinging for the cover of my tiny cubicle walls. I go through the motions of logging into the system, making sure my productivity clock starts running. With each type of the keys, my nerves flare, fingers buzzing with electricity, waiting for the black-armored CIC officers to step in and drag me down the hallway.

None do.

Instead, Ember Vosse steps through the doors. I rarely cross paths with her, but now twice in one day? Just my luck.

She doesn’t notice me, or maybe she’s pretending not to. She hands some sort of drive to one of my coworkers and moves on. I release a long exhale after she’s gone, my stomach twisting.

Why was she here? Is she checking on me? Maybe Kael told her what he saw in the café. She would know if I was the one lighting up the grid right?

Whoever she reports to would know as well and that would be the end...of everything. Panic floods my veins again just as my terminal begins to bleed amber-and-gold code down the sides.

Stop it. Breathe.

Breathe in, breathe out. I begin counting the seconds as if I’m sitting on my beach again. I reach for my DataLINK and text Eli to let him know we need to meet for lunch. We need to talk, need to have a plan. I need to take a breath. He needs to help stop this emotional rollercoaster.

He responds almost too quickly, as if his mind is racing with the fear of us being caught too.

ELI (BRO): Yes definitely

ELI (BRO): The Diner? Noon?

ELI (BRO): I’m light on classes today. See you then.

By lunchtime, my body is still vibrating with exhaustion and unease. It takes a lot for me to control my power, to keep it from unleashing and bleeding into every screen around me. On days like this, it grows stronger, feeds off my anxiety, and erupts in chaotic pulses.

The corporate presence in the city is definitely heavier today. VikkCorp drones fly lower, their spotlights lingering. Checkpoints suddenly appear in random places where I normally walk freely. I pass a group of “non-citizens,” our mayor’s name for the homeless people who live and die on the streets, who don’t own a home, who don’t work for the Corporation. It looks as if they’re once again being rounded up by the CIC and stuffed into sleek black vans. No one really knows where they’re taken. I hope it’s to a different city and not to their death, but something inside me knows better. Bile rises in my throat to think about it; perhaps it is an omen of what’s coming.

Outside, the rain begins to soak through my hoodie, my hair clumping in neon strands, slapping against my face as I hurry my stride.

I cut through TheSquare, literally an open space of concrete full of holographic ads, giant towering screens, and benches arranged in groups for “sanctioned” gatherings. Today a crowd has gathered, shoulder-to-shoulder beneath glowing TechBrellas, all eyes focused on a corporate newsfeed looping across every available surface.

From the side of glass towers to the slick walls of alleys, everything is alive with moving images and targeted propaganda, even the pavement beneath my boots flickers with animated branding—the usual suffocating noise brought to you by VikkCorp.

Above us, the elevated bullet train screams past, hauling commuters toward other districts, some of them luxury ones I’ll never see.

I glance up at today’s feed, a face filling it as the VikkCorp logo slams across the bottom in a wash of sterile white and bright red. The reporters shove each other, their compact digital microphones waving in the air, hungry for a sound bite from the person being interviewed.

It can’t be. My heart stutters, like it forgot its rhythm.

The cameras zoom in to frame him, and it’s both devastatingly and infuriatingly unmistakable. He stands beneath the harsh lights of a VikkCorp press conference, dressed in the same black jacket cut to perfection. His white dress shirt is slightly rumpled at the collar, as if he dressed in a hurry or stopped caring sometime this morning. It frames the dark ink curling up his throat like a red flag warning label. His hair falls into his eyes in that same careless way I saw the other evening at STATIK.

Kael.

The voiceover labels him Dr. Kael Ryudon, Head of VikkCorp Neural Systems Division. He’s not a medical doctor. A scientist. Doctor...cold, clinical words meant to describe corporate supremacy.

The camera catches what the questions can’t, the way his jaw locks between answers, his fingers running through his hair anxiously. He barely looks at the reporters, his gaze fixed somewhere past them, like he’s enduring rather than participating. The patience in his eyes isn’t calm, but lethal. He’s clearly uncomfortable being on the feeds, tolerating the attention when he would rather be elsewhere.

He has the look of a man who has learned how to survive by saying very little and controlling everything. The same dark entity I felt watching me from the shadows at STATIK.

Everything locks into place with a sickening clarity.

The danger, the power, the lie I didn’t know I was engaging.

The man who approached me in STATIK. The man in my dream, the dark dragon, his hand brushing mine, eyes glowing molten. The pull I can’t explain, the ache in my chest when I think of him.

It’s him. The guy Eli was learning about; the child prodigy.

Kael Ryudon is everything I despise. He’s one of them—polished, obedient, and untouchable. He belongs to the machine. VikkCorp’s golden weapon, ruthlessly efficient and aimed straight at people like me.