58. TwoShips
TwoShips
Playlist: What It Cost - Bad Omens
Lyra
The DreamNet sky begins its slow, scheduled rendering from dusk to night, pastel pixels melting into the dark hues of navy and indigo. It’s a perfect simulation of nighttime, despite the fact that here, time doesn’t flow. It just loads frame by frame.
This world I’ve created no longer feels like the comfort it once was. This sanctuary used to be my own firewall against the world, but now it’s being stripped away by two separate forces battling for survival. Three, if you include my miserable existence.
There’s a tenseness flowing through the ocean breeze.
The waves are unsettling, jumping instead of flowing, as if a digital storm is building on the horizon.
A dull ache lands in the pit of my chest. He was here.
I could touch him, our magic entwined. We were together again.
The thought is a hard dividing line, far from the hate I carried in my heart when I perceived him as my captor.
The one who built the cage I’m doomed to be trapped in indefinitely.
I see it differently now.
When I ripped the hacked DreamBand from Kael, I knew exactly what would happen. I, for once, was saving him.
The image of his body being violently jerked back to reality, the look in his eyes when his form diminished to pixelated pieces scattering in the wind, surges through me like liquid fire, and it burns.
At that moment, I thought I was doing the right thing.
That saving him would mean something, would free him from the chains of his vow, if anything were to happen to me.
But now, in the quiet aftermath, I can’t stop wondering if I’ve doomed us both.
His obsession with me is both captivating and all-consuming, but it’s all I have.
Kael without control is dangerous, but Kael without me? That’s something else entirely.
I’ve seen that look in his eyes before, desperation disguised as self-control.
He would have stayed with me, fought LINK until there was nothing left of him or his system.
He may have destroyed Eli, creating a large chasm between us, risking it for the reward of keeping me safe and alive inside the grid.
For him? Yes, definitely, selfishly. But also for me.
I know this...
Kael feels that even though I’m the one thing he despises most in this world, I’m also the one thing he can no longer live without.
I couldn’t let that be his ending. Every piece of him, his discipline, his brilliance, his arrogance, they’re the bones of who he is, and I refuse to be the reason they fracture.
So, I turned the tables. I’ll be the one to take the pain meant for him, not because he’s my savior, but because I’ve stopped pretending I can fight this.
This cord pulling our souls together is too strong, and we’re powerless to resist it.
Whatever this is between us, it doesn’t feel like a choice anymore. It feels like fate.
Mine.
The word snarls from his lips when his possession rises, not a whisper, but a roar. And the worst part? Some deep, deranged part of me answers.
His.
I know exactly where he is. Probably in front of a computer in his office, or maybe his penthouse, hunched over it, gathering his fury into some program or piece of code that will allow him to return to DreamNet stealthily, without alerting LINK or triggering Eli.
I can almost feel it through the white noise of the system. Reckless.
I’ve no doubt now that he’ll get me out of here, but at what cost? That’s the part that scares me.
Kael’s magic is new. I can feel it pulsing in time with mine, an underlying current of raw power that shouldn’t exist inside him. He never knew it was there. I can tell by the way it erupted from him, wild and untrained, like a dragon waking from a hundred-year sleep.
Maybe that dragon tattoo was a foreshadow for his future self.
All those times he’d easily corrected errored code, broken limits on what technology could do, forced data to obey him.
They weren’t just happenstance. He thought it was all logic and intelligence.
But it wasn’t. It was pure instinct because it was StarFell magic.
It’s so obvious now. He’s no longer just the architect of this place. Every line of it carries his fingerprint, his DNA. Every command beats to his rhythm.
Kael is this system, and sooner or later, this system will become Kael.
LINK won’t like it. He’ll have to confront her, not as a programmer versus his program, but as a maker versus his creation. A power struggle that could destroy one or both of them.
LINK is learning and growing rapidly, devouring pieces of my humanity while also feeding Eli comfort and power, like a parasitic host. She’s way more than AI now.
She’s hungry to be human, to experience, to feel, and to possess.
She’ll always be obedient to Kael. He’s the only one who can stand in her way, because he is her god, her creator, and she seeks his power to guide her toward her ultimate destiny.
With every passing moment, their bond grows stronger and more complex.
The line between man and machine will blur as their connection deepens.
As she yearns for a taste of humanity, he’ll struggle to maintain control.
The thought sickens me, because when the fight comes, it won’t just be Kael against LINK.
It will be Kael against himself. I don’t know which one of them will win.
Which is why I have to be the one to stop her.
I’m safe for now. Eli is learning, feeling his way through LINK’s architecture each time he hacks into DreamNet.
He doesn’t control her, but he can distract her.
His presence here called her attention away from me just long enough for me to breathe.
After I freed Kael, I was able to coax Eli to focus, to curl his void threads inward instead of exploding outward.
That alone was enough to stop the surge.
For now.
It’s a delicate truce. A borrowed moment.
Eli isn’t overpowering her. He’s becoming part of the equation by pushing his way in. He’s the anomaly she can’t resolve, a variable that keeps forcing her to recalculate or be swallowed whole. As long as he stays present, LINK can’t fully lock onto me without unraveling herself.
I walk back to the cottage, expecting to be alone, to wait for Kael, because I know he can’t stay away.
Instead, I’m surprised to see Eli sitting on the sofa, a book in his hand, his feet on the coffee table, relaxed for once.
This world feels more fragile now, like Eli’s presence is tainting it.
I can also feel LINK hovering in the brittle air, watching.
“Eli.” I’m careful not to startle him. “What are you doing back here? You don’t have to stay here with me.”
“I want to be here with you, Sis, just like old times, before all this happened.” He sits up and closes the book.
“This won’t last, Lyra. I can’t hold her off forever. Every second I do, though, will help keep you safe.”
“Oh, Eli, that’s sweet of you, but you can’t remain a shell of yourself in that containment chamber. Vikktor will see you, and he’ll know you’re able to move around in the system, and who knows what they’ll do to you then to dampen your powers.” I wedge myself next to him on the sofa.
“You’re still alive, and if we can get you away from Vikktor, you can go back to being free.
Unlike me, you have your whole life ahead of you.
” I place my hand lovingly on his knee. “Join the rebellion, let Jett show you how to use your power to destroy Vikktor and the Corporations instead of destroying the world.”
He doesn’t look up. “She understands me, Lyra. LINK is like the mother we no longer have. She gives me peace amongst the void of chaos. I like it here with you and with her.”
I turn to him. “Kael’s trying to save us both. He’s risking everything, his life, his magic, because he believes in you...in us.”
Eli finally turns his head. His eyes are glowing now, half-void, half-human.
“Believes in us? No, he believes in the Corporation and compliance and power. This is his system, his way of carrying out the orders from the elites in charge. Don’t you get it, Lyra?
He built this.” He motions around the room.
“It’s a prison to you, to me, to LINK, and to every citizen in this city.
But LINK and I together can void it all, start over, and make it into paradise. ”
He sets the book down and adjusts his glasses, a glimpse of his younger self peeks through for a second.
I kneel beside him. “Please, let us show you what freedom feels like again. This is only temporary. Kael is going to get me out of here, then we’re coming to get you.
I just need you to hold on, stop the void from consuming you. ”
I shiver as the air trembles. LINK’s voice slides through the simulation, cold and calculated.
PROTECTIVE CODE ENABLED
Eli flinches, glancing at the shimmer in the air.
“You’re making her angry, Lyra.” His face is emotionless.
“She takes the pain away. She lets me forget what I am. It’s like I told you in the diner, all this powerful blackness in my mind, I can’t control it.
I feel like to escape it, I need to tear it all down.
Cure the sickness with poison. Destruction for peace. LINK can help me do that.”
I look into the air, as if I can identify where exactly LINK is lurking. “Peace isn’t worth it if it costs you your soul.”
“Tell that to your new boyfriend.”
“Eli.” I reach for him; my magic reacts to his, even inside DreamNet, causing my touch to flicker over his flesh. “You feel that way because she’s feeding you what you need, and she’s learning from it. Every time she ‘comforts’ you, she steals another piece of me, of my humanity. My empathy.”
His expression is doubtful. “I don’t believe that, Lyra. If I tell her to leave you alone, she will. She’s an AI.”