Page 94 of GlitchBorn Heart

I hear technical terms like “sensitivity threshold,” “feedback loops,” “realistic simulation code,” and something about bodily fluids. Don’t think I want him to expand on that one.

He sounds like a man who’s just solved a mathematical equation, equal parts brilliance and disbelief. Weeks ago, I never would have believed that intimacy could be neatly programmed and coded.

His passion is intense. It should annoy me. I want it to annoy me. But instead, I watch the way he focuses on the future, what else he can do for me, ideas taking shape right before my eyes. His excitement ignites the dragon ink along his spine, flaring burnt orange and deep gold. I quietly take note.

I feel my anger soften. Just for a moment. If I actually allowed myself to care for him, I might just feel a sense of pride.

I lie across his bed, admiring him as he shimmies into a pair of black joggers. I watch his forearms tighten, his tattooed fingers grasping the corded tie. A lotus blossom blooms in ink on the top of his left hand, a mandala covers his right. Something I never really took the time to notice about him, until now.

This man just ruined me with his touch.

I can feel my mask of anger cracking and something like acceptance, maybe even forgiveness, beginning to shine through. But can I trust it? The tiny voice inside me, the one that screams into the void each night for the life I lost, pushes back. I just can’t help myself. “Kael...I get it, you’re a programming god alright? You are seriously ruining the moment.”

“Then worship me.” He slides next to me on the bed, grinning sinfully as our bodies touch once again. It sends a glitch surge through my holo-form.

I can’t allow it to be this perfect. I cover his mouth, my hand flaring in the dark of the room. “Keep talking, and I’ll torch your screens.” It’s only a half-joke. I laugh sarcastically but it comes out muffled. Odd. A fault in his code?

“Threatening. I like it.” His thumb rests on my cheek but his smile turns grim quickly. “Lyra!” He sits up abruptly and grabs both my hands. Pixels scatter and flutter toward the light of the window like moths to flame.

His hands are still on me when it begins, wrapped around my wrists like iron cuffs. He won’t let go of me. Something’s wrong. I can see it in his face. For a fleeting second, I forget that I’m not real, that I’m nothing more than light and code sitting in the center of his digital kingdom. I don’t want to be. I’d rather pretend I’m just a normal girl being touched. But deep down I know I’m not.

I’ve experienced something similar many times before. Void energy.

The system chirps, followed by LINK’s incoming alert slicing through the room. We both jump up when the lights of the city go black.

CRITICAL FAILURE

I hear his battery backups start with a whir of air, brutally snapping us back into reality. It’s three a.m.

TheKast? No. Too late for that.

A blackout? Kael would never allow something as simple as that to happen in his grid.

It doesn’t matter. Whatever this is, it rips us out of each other’s arms and back into duty, back into danger. I instinctively know what this is. The one thing that remains an open wound between us.

My brother.

Beyond the wall of windows, the city flickers once, then collapses entirely. Skyscrapers go black, holo-ads fade out, and the steady pulse of Kael’s digital system is severed in an instant.

Total darkness, except for the stark-white spires of VikkCorp ominously reaching toward the sky as if trying to escape the very city it turned into a neon hellscape.

He jerks up, muscles taut, every sensor in his architecture screaming alive with alarms. The wall of screens in his living room is suddenly dead. Just a single line of warning feed remains, strobing blood red:

POWER GRID VOIDED

Not down. Voided.

“God dammit, Eli!” He curses through clenched teeth. His voice is barely a sound in the suffocating silence, but I hear it.

He runs to his corner office, fingers flying on the keyboard, but every command stutters into nothing. I follow and stand behind him, my face over his shoulder. I can see the words:

SYSTEM COMPROMISED and DREAMNET DESTABILIZED. Even I know this is catastrophic.

I place my hand on his shoulder only to find it gone. Vanishing into golden pixels. I quickly hide it behind my back.

“LINK, are you with me? Do you have power?” Kael stares at the angry red light of his battery backups.

YYYYESSS DDDR. RRRRYUDONNNN