Page 145 of Light Leech

“How did I know?” There was a brief pause. “Because I know who I’m working with. I might know who you are, but that doesn’t mean I understand how your plots are working towards the end.”

“How am I feeding it?”

“Yes.”

It sounded like a door opened, then the clamor of a roaring crowd drained away the voices of Naoma and Zhou. The shouts were for no simple gathering. This was a hungry audience gnashing their teeth for amusement

My Bite was emptying more by the minute, but I still had a fair amount of my reserve when complete consciousness returned.

I reviewed the hazy memories of the conversation I had just heard as two people dragged me by the arms and threw me onto a rocking platform. A sour and fruity aroma filled the air with an alcoholic stain.

Something else slammed on the ground next to me, shaking it just as my fall had. That something revealed itself as a someone, who then used me as a support to stand. Something shot the ground forward as if kicked out from beneath me. I fell on my back as something splashed into me.

“Get the zeg up!”

I pulled from my reserve again and stood, overcoming the light-headed daze, with the help of a cybernetic hand. I was cold. Everyone around me wore the same black spandex briefs, with small spandex tops for the women. All of the clothing was laced with light. The colors varied from person to person, though each had a translucent orb at their hip. Mine was blue, leaving me to wonder if it had anything to do with ascension or if any of this had a point at all.

I was on a long and skinny boat floating on an indoor lake with an island in the center.

The crowd, all Violet elites who had filled the palace for the party, roared for entertainment. I didn’t care what it would be. Nothing mattered if everything I had done for her was a part of some plot. Someone tapped me, then smacked my bare back when I didn’t respond. I couldn’t register what they were saying. My agonizing thoughts were too loud. Finding her in the crowd was no salve, but salt on an already throbbing wound.

I couldn’t find her, but I imagined her frowning at me as if she had a sick stomach. Was it out of guilt? Was she lingering in the illusion of what we had? Was it ever real for her? Was I a fool to hold on for so long?

I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t.

It had to be a part of some plan. A few moments of doubt had constrained me, but I was still coming out of that limbo between consciousness and delirium. Maybe I had heard it wrong. It had to be.

It had to be.

You would never hurt me, would you. Naoma?

Please.

Oh, how it hurt.

I wanted to smile in case she was watching me, doing anything I could to show her that I understood the part I was meant to play.

I couldn’t. If there was any truth to her betrayal, I don’t know if I could ever smile again. Sure, that was the mindset of an angsty teenager, but that was what I was in the body of a man in his late twenties. Those pivotal years of my life were wasted trying to fight a government that would never budge to satisfy its people.

I was being childish. None of this was ever about me. If I lost her, so be it.

I couldn’t lie to myself. My selfish ego wanted her more than the fall of Gongtide at that moment.

I tried my neurospace, hoping I could ask her anything.

Connecting.

It was stuck in one of those perpetual booting modes that usually entailed device death. I had seen it many times when I was first learning to be an Imp and our enemies would hit our neurospaces with a light-based EMP. It would kill the device for most hosts, requiring a replacement with the associated surgery, but Deleon knew the dangers we would face. With the help of his underlings, whose prowess was later trumped by Ralia’s expertise, he developed a firewall to prevent such disasters. Unfortunately, the EMPs still penetrated the initial layer, but the firewall protected the core itself. If the attack was anything like those I had faced in the past, I had anywhere from five minutes to an hour until it rebooted and rebuilt the walls torn down by the otherwise crippling attack.

Five minutes to an hour of agony, in addition to whatever this form of sick entertainment was.

“Hihow!”

Someone slapped my face, pulling me out of my stupor with one foot still in it.

“What is going on?” I asked.

He was a skinnier, dark-skinned man with large cybernetic arms to compensate for his otherwise gangly build. He shoved me onto one of the boat’s benches, next to a woman with an optic band who forced an oar into my hands.