18. FuryFound
FuryFound
Playlist: Fire For You (Midnight Version) – Cannons
Kael
The anomalies are numerous now around the city.
They light up the entire grid like godsdamn short-circuiting stars.
The one violet spike, still at full power, stands out registering off the charts and it’s moving toward VikkCorp rapidly.
One inside the building, one approaching.
Interesting. The only two powerful enough to hold my interest.
Ember stands beside me, clearly distraught, feeling partially responsible. “I have updates for you, Dr. Ryudon.”
“Continue.” I’m too exhausted, too overcome with worry to deal with her right now. I lean back in the chair scrubbing my hands over my face to relieve the tension.
“LINK notified the CIC. They’ve been dispatched to VikkCorp living towers. They are bringing in the large anomaly now to my father. There’s also been”—she swallows hard, her voice trembling—“a casualty.”
My eyes flicker up to her slowly, “And...?”
“Well, it appears that the large anomaly is a man by the name of Eli Vaille. A college student at the university, very powerful U21. His magic spiked so hard when we picked him up that he melted the CIC’s grid, taking down most of their systems.” She can’t even look me in the eyes, just continues scrolling through the facts on her LINKpad.
Eli Vaille. The realization hits hard, like a kick to the head. Lyra’s brother is the massive anomaly. This night just keeps getting better and better.
Ember continues. “His magic sends out echoing distortion waves, like reality bending inward, sucking the DreamNet or anything technical, into a spiraling, digital black hole. He’s a VoidChanneler.”
I’m taken back for a moment. This is huge. He’s enemy number one. A problem for both U21 rebels and the Corporation. “You mean to tell me he can draw energy out of people or machines, leaving them empty husks?”
“Yes.” Ember clarifies, “Entropy manipulation, decay, collapse; he doesn’t just break things, he accelerates their unraveling. Technology shorts out, structures rot, even other people’s magic destabilizes when he’s near. He is a walking system failure, Doctor.”
I bury myself in deep thought:
A wall of code? Corrupted.
A living body? Cells age or wither.
A network of AI? Toppled like dominos.
A virus? Stopped in its tracks. That thought excites me.
He’s able to fracture reality. His magic bends probability and causes machines to misfire, bullets to miss, outcomes to twist. It’s not “luck,” it’s entropy forcing order into the chaos around him.
Oh, what Vikktor could do with this. Hell, what I could do with this!
Around him, history itself frays, data corrupts, records vanish, even people forget.
Wow. This could destroy the rebellion, make their planning fail, their movement disjointed.
He could unravel their knowledge as much as their weapons.
That’s why Vikktor wants him, that’s why he’s being brought here.
A bolt of panic runs up my spine, just being in the building could destroy my system if he’s not contained properly.
“Where is he now?” I turn to Ember, plans already locking into place in my mind.
“CIC has him, and they’re bringing him here to my father.” She blinks once.
“And the casualty?” Fear floods my system, I really don’t want to ask, but force the words out of my throat, almost choking on them. It only makes sense if Eli is one anomaly then the other must be...
“A young woman. His sister we think. Lyra Vaille?” Her words hit like a bullet.
“She’s a DataScribe here, at VikkCorp. They found her body in the bedroom, it seems like some sort of accident while in DreamNet when the surge happened.
The virus maybe? We aren’t sure how.” Ember pales, her usual sharpness dulled, like the words she just said are chewing on her from the inside.
Non-citizens and now one of our own from VikkCorp; she feels the impact.
I feel a gut-punch.
I’ve spent most of my life being the calculated, cold architect of systems, but hearing her say Lyra is dead hits differently. I don’t let myself understand why just yet, but the grief and fury leak through.
My facade cracks for a tick. I replay hearing Ember say her name.
Dead.
The word skims the surface of me and slides off the armor I’ve spent a lifetime building. I’ve watched hundreds of anomalies like this disappear into system logs, erased. Human lives reduced to data.
This one shouldn’t be any different.
My hands freeze on the console. The screens are still spitting data, but all I can see is blackness. It cuts like a blade sliding between my ribs. I refuse to let the ache rise into something worse. I only just got to know her, to maybe actually feel something besides darkness.
For a long, unnatural moment, I can’t move. I just sit perfectly still, while something foreign arises inside me. Did I just breathe? I have no idea. I haven’t felt this feeling since the death of my parents, well, my mother for sure.
Grief. I shove it down immediately. Grief is a luxury. Grief makes you careless. Grief makes you human, Kael.
Grief for someone I barely knew but wanted to get closer to. Correction—had to get closer to. I still have no idea why. It goes against the grain of the polished image I’ve constructed. Dr. Kael Ryudon: Composed, untouchable, exactly as I should be.
I straighten, returning to neutral, reminding myself of my mantra. I cling to the one consistent thing I’ve created to keep my life from spinning out of control:
This is why you don’t feel. This is why you don’t want. This is why you stay alone.
An embittered laugh escapes before I can stop it.
If the virus or surge hadn’t taken her, I would have.
Not with malice, never that, but with proximity.
I know very well what I am; I pull things into my orbit and never let them go.
I possess, consume...obsess. I’m not much better than the VoidChanneler, just a stripped down, magicless version.
She was already too close.
She was an anomaly, an unfortunate variable in the data grid, a casualty of necessary corporate progress.
I repeat it so I believe it. For once in my life, I fail.
My fingers hesitate over the console, hovering, wanting to check once more to see if the amber blip reappears.
I actually wanted to feel something, and now I never will.
I let the darkness creep back in and close around me, familiar and controlled. I let it shut down my feelings once more.
I slam my fist on the console finalizing the chapter.
Ember flinches at the sound but she sees it for what it is.
Anger. It’s also an obsession spiraling.
She interjects to lighten the air. “Well she’s not gone...
gone. Technically her body is dead but we’re still seeing brain activity and anomaly disruption from her magic. ”
The words fill me with a sense of hope. That’s my girl, Ember—always loyal.
I stand and drag both hands through my hair, pacing like a caged predator.
Indignation hardens across my face. “Vikktor’s virus did this, but the void surge amplified it.
” I pause to look her square in the eyes, daring her to lie to me, “Did you know? That it was a virus? That it could have destroyed our entire lab? Everything we’ve built? ”
Ember swallows, unsettled by the conviction in my tone.
“No.” Her eyes look down at the cold floor “He told me it was an update. A necessary update. It was supposed to immobilize the non-citizen sector, instead, Eli’s power surge made it fuse with DreamNet, binding thousands of minds into our neural AI system, eventually crashing it. ”
She continues with a pleading look. “I haven’t heard of anyone being destroyed by it except for Lyra.
Maybe just proximity? Being so close to a void.
” She pontificates as she walks toward the sliding doors.
“He threatened me if I didn’t upload it.
I’m sorry, Dr. Ryudon...Kael.” Tears swell in her eyes as she looks over her shoulder.
I return to my office, the chair cold and hard as I sit behind my desk.
Eli’s anomaly is staring at me, flickering faintly but there.
An amber magic aura, floats above the towers, almost appearing like a satellite over VikkCorp.
My insides twist, a small spark of hope, of obsession, of denial, all tangled together.
I easily forget every tool I’ve just used to bring myself back to level.
You’re not gone. Your signature’s still here, Little Taiyō. I stare into the faintly blinking light. And I’ll find you. And when I do?
I’m going to keep you.