31. CorpConfrontation
CorpConfrontation
Playlist: The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
Kael
I need space from her.
I can’t believe I’m thinking that.
I encouraged her to return to DreamNet to rest and reset.
Ash bolted the minute I mentioned the word food.
He can eat his weight in ramen. I shut the door to my office, so I can clean up any code that Lyra corrupted with her outbursts.
After Eli broke through the feeds, he lived up to his VoidChanneler label and deleted half my protocols and systems that were supposed to release in TheKast this evening. I’ll need to fix them by two a.m.
I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Which may be soon if Lyra doesn’t stop.
“LINK—send all the feeds to my penthouse. I’ll be working from home for the evening.” I grab my jacket off the chair.
AS YOU WISH DR. RYUDON
“Oh, and LINK—the anomaly inside the grid is called Lyra. A special project I’m working on.” I slip my arms through the sleeves of the cold leather. “Don’t fuck with Lyra again, or I’ll rewrite your program.” And with that I slam the door to my office.
No response.
The lab door slides open with a whir, and standing in front of me is Vikktor. “Kael, just the man I came to see.” He pushes me back in the door, the tips of his spindly fingers touching my chest. “Have a seat.” It’s not an invitation.
He strolls toward the center console, the dim blue light of the night screens highlighting his square jaw and silver hair with an eerie glow.
The floor-to-ceiling windows on this side of the lab illuminate the entire room, bathing it in cold neon light from the city skyline outside. I sit at one of the chairs and stare at the floor blankly. Vikktor stands over me, his gray eyes piercing through the shadows.
“I hear you’ve taken a particular interest in one of our anomalies.”
My teeth clench. Here we fucking go. I warned her not to leave the lab. “I call it research, sir.” I meet his gaze with my own dark eyes. My mind races to reach for a logical lie.
“I have his situation under control, Dr. Ryudon. Consider this a formal warning to cease your research immediately.”
Relief cascades down my body. He’s talking about Eli. “You have an extremely rare specimen you’re keeping from me upstairs. I just feel that studying it would further along some of my data, sir.”
Vikktor’s lips curve into a thin smile. “Research. Interesting choice of words.” He begins to pace. “Actually”—he looks around as if he’s expecting someone to be with us in the lab—“my special ops team tells me they’ve been seeing flags in the lab. You have some type of anomaly jeopardizing it.”
Shit. He doesn’t know about Lyra yet. I’ll have to challenge him in his own game. “It’s been taken care of, sir. It was actually the result of your update, the one you had Ember initiate. Turns out it was a virus. But then again, I think you know that.”
Check, maybe check mate.
No surprise, no emotion, just stoicism. “And you do realize that other anomaly, the one who was found to be deceased, her body disappeared from the city CryoLab. Any thoughts on that? You know...just for ‘research purposes.’ ” He extends a large hand into the air for dramatic effect.
I meet his stare. “Not a problem. I disposed of the anomaly as I always do. We just had a misstep with that one and had to speed up the deletion. I have complete control of the situation. You might want to take note.”
Vikktor leans into my personal space, and I swear the air around me drops to freezing.
“Bold. I like that. But boldness can be...costly.” He pauses, letting his threat hang in the air.
“You have a choice, Kael. Continue ‘researching’ my anomaly upstairs and risk your career...or follow orders and ensure you serve the Corporation’s interests by forgetting about it and continuing to build my cybernetics program.
One wrong move, and you’ll regret more than just a lost promotion. ”
I smirk, leaning casually back in the chair. “Funny. You make it sound like I have a choice.”
Vikktor’s smile tightens into a glare, though his calm demeanor remains intact. “Do not insult my intelligence, Kael. You may have built this world, but I control it and you.”
The impeccable cut of his suit crackles with stiffness, much like his voice, smooth silk stretched taut over iron. His cufflinks glint in the glow of the lab as he adjusts his sleeve, a small, deliberate gesture of dominance.
He leans back, allowing me to breathe, steely eyes focusing in on mine.
“Every program you create runs because I allow it. Every anomaly breathes because I choose whether or not you snuff it out. Don’t mistake your ingenuity for freedom.
You are a tool, Kael. My tool, refined, dangerous, mine to wield. ”
My head dips in the slightest form of obedience, but my body floods with defiance. “Yes, sir.” I let the words barely slide out between my grinding teeth, but my blood boils in my veins with the force of what I didn’t say. Kenji would be proud.
Vikktor watches me for another long beat, daring me to crack, then turns back toward the lab door. His polished shoes click against the sterile tile floor. He gives one last look around the lab. “Carry on, Dr. Ryudon.”
I rise and stay frozen long after he’s gone, hands flexing at my sides, nails cutting half-moons into my palms. I hate bowing...hate bending.
I kneel to no one.
Vikktor is just noise, a deadly and dangerous obstacle to endure daily.
The real obstacle is her. Lyra. Pulling her from the system, making her mine.
That’s the obstacle churning in my center.
The one I need to resolve before it eats me alive.
And if I have to play this game of chess to get there, so be it.
Because rook takes king.
I head for the parking garage, trying to make sense of Vikktor’s newfound interest in anomalies.
That’s always been my burden. He’s always seen U21’s powers as a new frontier to weaponize and monetize.
That must be it. He plans on using Eli as a weapon against his own kind.
A knife sharpened from within the core of the rebellion.
The thought claws at me, but it doesn’t quite land.
Vikktor isn’t just after power, he’s after dominion, the god-seat he’s been reaching toward all his life.
“LINK!” I command, my voice echoing in the concrete tomb. “Bring my car around.”
AS YOU WISH DR. RYUDON
The engine whines, headlights flare, and soon my reflection ripples across the windshield as my car rolls to a stop in front of me.
I climb into the heated seat and duck behind the tinted glass. As I drive away, another reality strikes me with the force of gravity. This isn’t about profit. Not this time.
Vikktor doesn’t want control of the system.
He wants to become the system. He’s planning on the cybernetic force being the hand that slaps the U21 rebellion back into its place.
He wants to remake Eli’s power in his own image, to void U21s magic and weaponize the Corporation until nothing is left but obedience. He’ll use the robots to enforce it.
A void turned into a leash. A boy turned into a bomb.
The thought stings, because I know what it means: Vikktor doesn’t just want to end the rebellion. He wants to erase magic entirely from the U21s, and what better way than to use a VoidChanneler to suck the powers out of each and every one of them.
A world where no one has the ability to use their powers for good or bad. Without her magic, where would that leave Lyra? Stuck in a computer like some video game gone rogue? Or would she be spat out and cease to exist?
A world with no magic.
It seems impossible. And yet somewhere in the back of my mind, deeper than I’d ever care to admit, I almost admire it. The precision of his cruelty. The scale of his ambition. If I didn’t already loathe him, I might envy him.
But Vikktor won’t win this game. Not because his plan is flawed, but because I won’t let him. He thinks he’s shaping a weapon. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve already found one of my own.
Lyra.
A slow heat spreads through my chest, an ache I don’t dare acknowledge. Because if Vikktor is reaching for godhood, then so am I. The difference?
I don’t plan on sharing the throne.