Page 96 of GlitchBorn Heart

Gone.

Not fading or faintly glitching.

Just gone.

The holo-rig shorts out with a dying whine, sparks spitting across the penthouse. I slam both hands onto the glass of my desktop, muscles trembling from the force of holding myself together. My veins pulse hot, instinct telling me to tear the city open until I find her again. Her saying my name in the throes of pleasure, still echoes in my ears. A phantom squeeze lingers on my shoulder, where the shape of her hand rested against my skin. Now, there’s nothing, just the cold emptiness of systems gone black.

I force myself to breathe, put my thoughts in order. But the fury hits me hard. Vikktor’s threats. LINK’s defiance. Eli’s void. A promise made to Lyra. Everything conspires to drag her away from me.

Pressure. I know it well. It’s no stranger, more like an old friend that never announces itself. Every time it returns, it brings something new to lose. This could cost me everything.

But here’s my truth: I don’t break when I lose something. I become the sword that cuts through whatever stands in my way. I will rebuild. I’ll tear this city down brick by brick, system by system, until she’s back in my arms.

The blackout stretches on, but my mind runs faster, already in triage mode. This is the cost of letting my control slip. This is what happens when the chaos I’ve spent my life containing decides it’s coming for me.

My hands clench at my sides. “Fucking Eli.” I spit his name into the stillness. His void surge dropped half the city into darkness, crashed the grid, collapsed DreamNet, demolished GameNet. Who knows what other systems have been destroyed? Mostly though, he dragged Lyra out of my reach.

And for what?

The monitors around me cycle through error scripts, trying to recover feeds. LINK will rebuild it. I can reroute, hardwire, bypass, do all the things to get into the back doors of my system. But not to her. Not tonight. She’s locked out. Who knows where.

My hands close into fists above my keyboard as I run through my training. Visualization of successful outcome, Kael-san. Master Kenji’s words repeat in my thoughts like an error message.

Eli is no longer a brother-in-arms. He’s an open fracture in my design. My enemy.

His power is erratic, untethered, more weapon than man. I should kill him, erase him like every other anomaly that threatens to topple my empire. Every calculation points to that.

But I promised her, an internal vow, when I rarely promise anyone anything.

The betrayal gnaws at me. Her voice flickers like a glitch. “Save Eli. Save me.” The hopeful look on her face still owns me.

I didn’t even think twice when I agreed. So unlike me. Now that vow is a knife lodged in my back.

I drag a hand down my face, breathe...hold. My pulse slows. I don’t have the luxury of empathy. Promises are chains. Promises get people killed. And yet I did it anyway. Anything for her.

If I break my word, I lose her. But not in body; she’s coded too deep for that. In trust. And if I lose her trust, she’ll never let me close again. Not really. Not the way I need.

Another breath...hold. The world narrows to a single, cold point in my vision. Regret tastes like metal in my mouth. I sit with it for a moment.

The dim light of my screen reflects on the glass desk, casting tiny iridescent spots across my face. The promise doesn’t stop my mind from cataloging options, brutal, clean options that end the threat of Eli.

Clarity. I get up and move before any more violent thoughts catch me. Rage fuels my swiftness as my hand finds the rack where my blades hang, fingers closing around the hilt of Kenji’s katana. The handle feels cool in my grip, the weight of it reminding me of the wisdom I know to be true: cut and something dies.

I twist in one fluid motion and tear it through the monitor. One strike.

I walk over to the desk patiently. What remains of the monitor is a loop of Eli’s void signature pulsing, laughing at me, as systems come back online. LINK’s preservation flag flashes beside it. She’s busy fighting fires for me.

The lights stutter and return, the feeds on the wall coming slowly back online, like a drowning man choking for air. LINK runs orders from the CIC feeds; they scroll as the agents type:

CIC COMMAND...NEUTRALIZING ANOMALY...CONTAINMENT INCREASED...NO KILL ORDER...COUNTERBALANCE INITIATED

I don’t have to do a damn thing. Vikktor is already issuing orders for a neat end to a messy problem.

I close my eyes and raise my sword again. Time pauses. The blade catches the light in a thin, sharp line. My arms tense, veins emerging from my forearms as I bring the katana down on the glass desk. For a heartbeat, I hold my breath. I hear the sound of my own blood pumping. The monitor falls as sparks scatter across my bare chest. A thin smell of ozone wafts into the air.

I let the sword hang in my hands and close my fingers around the hilt until they sting, the blade trembling in my hand.

The front door beeps four times then clicks. Someone entered the keycode. My training kicks in as I slide into the corner, becoming one with the shadows. The door opens slowly to the emergency lights of the darkened hallway. I turn, raising the blade in my hands, red in the whites of my eyes, and wait.