28. HerSide
HerSide
Playlist: Depeche Mode - Dream On
Kael
Several days pass, blending together with monotony.
Corporate hours swallowed by glass walls, endless code, political compliance.
We’re still no closer to figuring out how to get to Eli, let alone rescue him from Vikktor’s clutches.
I move through the lab on instinct, repeating daily tasks, detached, exactly as Vikktor wants me to be.
I need a challenge.
The rubbery synthetic lunch Ember ordered from that shitty diner down the street sits in my gut like a brick.
I stand and pace as I think, move, do something to break the staleness.
As the clouds darken and the neon of the city permeates every corner of polished glass in VikkCorp, I finally make the conscious decision to take this ridiculousness to the next level.
Another idea for a program emerged in the darkest part of last night, and I just can’t let it escape my grasp.
Employees leave for the day like lemmings walking over a cliff to their death.
VikkCorp begins to feel more and more like a stark-white mausoleum.
The building quiets and so does the lab.
I sent Ember home early to prepare for tomorrow’s update to the suits on the cybernetics program we’ve been working on for the past year.
Vikktor’s passion project, an elite force of city patrol whose sole purpose is to make citizens’ lives a living hell.
Well, that and to make Vikktor cream his pants with godlike power.
I save the nights for Lyra.
After hours, when the city streets empty and the elites go home to their mega mansion high rises, it’s just me, the glow of the screens reflecting off the floors of the lab, and Lyra, waiting.
Her chin rests in her hands as she watches me work.
I talk to her. Or try to. She wants very little to do with me.
Sometimes we circle each other through various monitors around the lab, trading words like weapons, probing for weakness, for truths.
I now know the way her face furrows before she becomes angry, how she deflects with sarcasm when something I say hits too close. She’s learning how tightly I hold control of my entire life, private and secluded. It makes her crazy that I never answer any of her questions that matter.
She keeps her distance. So do I.
Most nights it feels less like conversation and more like survival.
Two untamed animals locked in the same cage, pacing opposite walls, aware of each other’s heat.
We want to trust but don’t. We can’t really hide from each other.
The space between us just stays...charged.
For some strange reason that defies all logic.
That charged tension doesn’t push us apart.
It pulls us tighter.
Some nights the stressors of my day spill into the conversation. It happens over something stupid. A minor system reroute. A harmless override. Lyra is bored, unsettled, and pushes too far, just to see if she can.
“You rewired my security lattice?” I snap at her, already knowing the answer. Alarms scroll and flicker beside her image, data stuttering like an erratic heartbeat. “Do you have any idea what that would’ve triggered if I hadn’t caught it?”
Her chin lifts. Still defiant. “I didn’t touch your stupid lattice, I tested it. There’s a difference.”
“That difference gets people erased.”
“But you’ll keep me from being erased,” she fires back. “Right, Dr. Ryudon? You’ll keep me safe in your little digital cage.”
Silence. Her sarcasm is thick and electric and ignites the very thing in me I can no longer restrain.
I lean forward without realizing it, palms braced on the console. “You don’t get to play games in my system. You agreed to that.”
Her laugh is humorless. “How else am I supposed to figure out how to use my magic in ‘your system?’ ” Her eyes flicker, signaling she’s readying to fight. “Besides I agreed to not sabotage your system. Again, there’s a difference.”
I can no longer argue. It’s futile.
“If you could stop your psycho AI girlfriend from chasing me, I could go back to DreamNet.” Harsh words.
I open my mouth to defend myself, to justify it, to say something cold and precise, but nothing comes out.
Because whatever she’s done to me, whatever I’ve become, I’m now able to see it from her side. The fear. The loss. The terror of waking up nowhere, owned by some captor you never agreed to.
Her image wavers slightly as an emotion slips through. She notices. I notice. But it’s too late. She exhales through puffy cheeks like she hates herself for it. “Don’t look at me like that,” she softens. “I didn’t wound you. Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.”
“You wound me,” I say, quieter than intended, half-joking, half-hurting. So unlike me.
She stares deeply, doesn’t blink. And there it is again, that fragile space neither of us wants to step into.
“What is it really, Dr. Kael Ryudon? Tell me,” she asks honestly. “You’re untouchable, forged of cold steel. Surely you have something to share with me?”
I don’t answer fast enough.
Her vulnerability slams back behind glass walls. “Forget it,” she snaps. “This was a mistake.”
She turns away. But I see it. The trust she almost offered me.
“Taiyō, I won’t let anything happen to you,” I say, the vow slipping out before I can stop it.
She pauses. “Careful, Kael.” My name. Gods the feelings that surge in me when she says it softly. “Promises like that are how people get hurt.”
Lyra’s face lingers in pixelation, beautiful but two-dimensional. Trapped in my machine like a butterfly pressed under glass. I want more. I want her to feel my touch.
The window flickers in the silence. I think she may be softening toward me. Well not really, not in the way I want her to, but something has definitely shifted between us. The way her gaze lingers. The way she doesn’t disconnect and go back to DreamNet when she should.
I know I’m staring but can’t seem to rip myself away.
“Don’t,” she says quietly, when she catches me watching her. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” I ask, even though I know.
“Like you’re replaying it,” she snaps. “That night on the beach in my dream.” She softens her tone, almost betraying herself. “Like you want to touch me again.”
The servers continue their low thrum like they’re listening for my confession.
“I do.” No point lying, not now. “And that’s the problem. That night plays on repeat in my head every damn day.”
Her smile turns cold quickly. “You can’t. It’s different now.”
“I know.” I step closer to the console, away from the monitor wall, as if proximity might halt the ache.
“Which is why I have an idea. You know the VikkCorp PleazureHolos? I built them.”
That gets her attention. Her head tilts with curiosity. “The PleazureHolos,” she repeats.
“Yes. The holo-pipelines run in just about every building and home in the city. Citizens, yes mostly men, can choose to have their own personal holos built for pleasure, or some just seek simple companionship. Businesses often use holos to assist with staffing. Higher grade holos are created by elite women as servants or best friends. The men for escorts and sex, the more attractive and obedient, the more status the man has in the city hierarchy.”
“You’re admitting that?” Her face fills with disgust.
“I said I built it. I didn’t come up with the idea.
I’m merely explaining it.” My fingers curl against the edge of the console.
“They were never about indulgence for me. Not really. They were about interfaces. Like could I do it? Could I trick the system into believing data is touch. Could I make the mind feel pleasure, or heat, or taste, artificially”—I look into her golden eyes—“and respond to it like a real human.”
Her voice shakes. “You’re saying you could...”
“Simulate,” I cut in. “Not actually you. Not yet. But if the holo-bridge holds, if you can use your magic to stabilize the signal...” I swallow. “I might be able to transfer you to holo-form. I could touch you, feel you...and you me.”
Silence lingers. Dangerous. Loaded.
“That’s a really bad idea.”
“I know.” I feel my devilish grin spread.
“You’d cross a line with me.”
“I already have.” My eyes lock on hers, dark and unflinching. “The difference is, this one would be real.”