Page 56 of GlitchBorn Heart

I feel empowered for the first time since this happened. Sexy. Untouchable. Designed to distract before I pull the trigger of my dual .45 laser pistols strapped to each thigh.

Café awnings line the street in splashes of red and black-and-white stripes. Posters of jazz singers and revolutionaries plaster the cracked walls, edges peeling. Vintage cars with present-day features idle along the curb. Their headlights pulse like glowing eyes, and cables snake from their hoods like veins. Above, the Eiffel Tower rises elegantly into the sky, its ironwork fused with flickering holograms, half art, half machine.

Somewhere inside this madness, answers are waiting. I just have to survive long enough to find them.

A neon object whirs past my head and ricochets off the brick of a nearby building. Gunfire.

Digital bullets cut streaks through the smoke-filled air. A café window explodes into shards of glass and code, scattering like pixelated bugs. Figures sprint past me, U21s, my age, maybe a bit younger, all with glowing DreamNet bands on their arms, weapons shimmering in their hands. They’re laughing, shouting, fighting like gladiators in a world where history and circuitry collide.

“Hey!” a voice yells behind me.

I spin, heart hammering, and see a group of U21s, some of the same ones who haunt STATIK. The ones I’ve seen sketching graffiti messages of rebellion on concrete walls. They’re all gathered here, avatars dripping in bohemian-cyberpunk style, berets tilted, leather jackets laced with tubes of light, wielding revolvers that hum like energy cannons.

“Shit! She’s new!” one of them yells. “Come with us before you get ghosted!”

Ghosted. I’ve heard the term before. When you’re killed in GameNet, your avatar glitches out in smoke and static like a ghost disappearing. Being “ghosted” means you’re gone, unreachable, locked out until the next monthly reset. Little do they know, that’s exactly what my plan is.

A girl with short, glittery pink hair and aviator goggles grins at me. “Welcome to Paris, Chérie. Hope you like gangs and guns.” She skips off laughing maniacally.

We sprint as a group. Bullets flying, jazz echoing from somewhere. Soft saxophone overlaid with a pounding electronic beat. Smoke curls in the alleys, mixing with the smell of burnt metal and rich black coffee.

Once again, I feel alive and free. There’s no way I’m dead.

Conversation and the clatter of glasses echo from a nearby jazz club. We duck in to escape the gunfire that rattles down the boulevard. A bohemian war zone. Players scream, laugh, chaos dressed in nostalgia.

I peer around the door, assessing the threats across the street. Through the glitching shimmer of an old theater sign, I see a shadow of a man, eyes glowing, looking as cool as the city around him.

Ash.

My heart skips. His fedora is tilted low, coat collar up, protecting him from the phantom fog the system conjured. He looks carved into this world, like he belongs here, cigarette glowing between his fingers. Détective privé just like in the French comics of years ago. His eyes sweep the crowd, cutting through avatars like they’re paper. Searching.

Stars, this could be my chance to get out of here. My pulse races. I want to run to him, but the group blocks my trajectory. I freeze.

He spots me. The fedora tips back, as his mouth slides to half-smirk, half-relief. “Shit, Lyra! I knew I’d find you here,” he says, over the noise all around us. “I picked up your vibrations a few minutes ago. You have a unique magic signature.” He laughs.

I run and grab him by both arms, my stomach twisting with anxiety. “You have to help me, Ash! I’m trapped, stuck. I can’t get out of DreamNet, somehow I landed in GameNet. I have to get to Eli.” A sense of urgency fills each word.

Ash pulls me closer. “Lyra, it’s okay. Kael told me what happened. We’ve been looking for you since the virus.”

“Virus?” I feel tears swelling, “What happened? Am I dead? I don’t think I am because you’re here. Did the CIC come for us?” I plead with all I have. “Ash, I need you to tell me what’s going on.” My nerves balance on the edge of breaking.

“Lyra...” His look is serious, like he’s carrying the weight of two realities, one outside, and one crumbling inside of him.

I interrupt him anxiously. “What? Why are you here?”

“I’m here because you don’t listen.” His tone hardens.

“Listen to what?” My magic flares defensively, on the verge of escaping. The Eiffel Tower flickers, ads stuttering, as I look at him for answers.

“To us.” He sighs.

I blink. “Us who?”

He leans in, low enough that I can feel the warmth of his breath. “Kael and I.”

His name breaks something inside me. My lips part, but nothing comes out. Kael. The man from my dreams. The one I kissed. The one who I didn’t see coming. Also the one I hate for standing on the wrong side of the world.

He should have known better than to cross the corporate line.