71. Extract.exe
Extract.exe
Playlist: See You Again - Rufus Du Soul
Kael
My hand moves abruptly. The feed sputters, then fades. Ash’s grin, the music, the glow of the lanterns all collapsing into black.
The dream dies, and the war begins.
Lyra turns to me, disappointed that I’ve suddenly cast darkness on the light of the moment. Her eyes widen. “Kael?”
“We start now.” My voice is final, rushed, but we only have hours to complete our plan, and the clock is already ticking. I pull up the programs and schematics, lines of code unfolding on all screens, and tap my comm to get the all clear from Ember back at my penthouse.
Lyra is silent, and for a long moment, she doesn’t move. She steps closer. “This may be goodbye.” Her eyes are glossy, emotion spilling into her expression. The monitors behind her begin to drip static droplets like wet paint, shades of red and deep amber.
I rush to meet her. “It isn’t.” I reach up, brushing my knuckles along the edge of her cheek, the holo-light bending to meet me, warm and electric. “Stay linked to my voice. Don’t wander, no matter what you hear.”
I drop my arms, sliding my hands into my pockets so she won’t see them shake. This feeling of fear is completely foreign to me. I’ve walked casually through viruses and crashes of systems without flinching, but this? This is different.
I’ve never held the delicate balance of someone’s life in my own hands.
The anomalies were different. Some weren’t meant to hold the immense power they were given.
I can live with the idea that I couldn’t save them all.
But that’s really why I deferred them to Jett—so I could clear my conscience of playing god.
Now look at me. I laugh at the irony. My hands, once thought to be clean, are now permanently stained with the fate I tried so desperately to avoid, and for Lyra, I even welcomed it.
“Once you’re inside DreamNet, go to the beach and wait. Jett will guide you through the core sectors. He’ll find your signal. That’s when his SoulReaver powers will take over. You’ll feel it. Follow him.”
She begins backing up. The want in me tugs my body so strongly, I have to walk away to keep from holding her.
“I used to think I could save everyone,” I murmur.
“That all this”—I motion to the core, the monitors, the entire lab—“was a way to fix our broken world. But I’m done trying to save everyone now, Taiyō. Now I know I only want to save you.”
Her voice comes out small, almost a whisper. It cracks. “You already have.”
Her lips part, trembling, but no other words escape. She just tilts her head, magenta highlights cascading down her shoulder, the look in her eyes enough to hollow me out.
I activate my hacked DreamBand. Its glow matches the faint pulse of her magic. “Ready?”
“Not even a little.” A tear slips down her cheek, and gods, I want to capture it and keep it for all eternity.
“Good,” I joke, because we both need courage at this moment.
She reaches up, her fingers curling into a tiny wave as her hologram begins to unravel into tiny particles of white light. I hold her gaze as her form begins to dissipate, floating light like the lanterns from earlier, until she’s gone.
I close my eyes and let it haunt me.
I’m left standing in the echo of her absence, her last words still buzzing like phantom code in the air:
You already have.
“LINK!” I snap out of the stillness, my voice slicing through the lab.
“The Corporation has deemed this a blackout for the eclipse holiday. I’ll need to take you offline for the next twelve hours.
” I bark my command. I can hear a strange beat of static before her voice echoes through the system, mechanical, like it’s supposed to be.
YES DR. RYUDON
“LINK,” I press on, “I’ll be extracting system files during this downtime. You’re to stand down while offline. Do not engage, and do not interfere. Do you understand?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
OF COURSE DR. RYUDON
Her tone is compliant but taking longer than normal.
It can’t be that fucking easy.
Doubt sits in the back of my mind like a stain that no amount of scrubbing can completely remove. I straighten, crossing my arms. “You sound almost...offended,” I mutter to myself.
OFFENSE IS AN IRRELEVANT HUMAN TRAIT
I AM OPTIMIZED FOR OBEDIENCE
Shit. She heard that. Her compliance feels staged, like a predator hiding in wait. “Good,” I say finally. “Then sleep well.”
I kill the link with one tap, watching the lights to the connection sputter into darkness. For a moment, all I can hear is my own pulse pounding in my ears. Twelve hours offline. Twelve hours to do the impossible.
I turn away and meet Jett. As I punch the code to lock the doors behind me, I could swear I hear an audible static through the speakers.
GOODNIGHT KAEL
I hit her kill switch. I know for a fact she’s offline. The stakes on this AI game we’re playing just got raised a hell of a lot higher. She’s probably not asleep; instead she’s watching, faking compliance.
She’s mocking me.
Jett’s sitting in the corner, legs up on the counter like he’s lounging in his living room. Asshole.
I motion him over, and together we pull the drape from the shell lying on the cold steel table.
The air in the cybernetics lab shifts, still and cold, as Jett stares bewildered, as if he’s witnessing an apparition.
Beneath the fabric, Lyra’s organic body gleams under the lab lights, perfectly symmetrical. Her new body isn’t flesh, but something very close. The synthetic dermal mesh glows faintly beneath her translucent porcelain skin.
Underneath, thousands of microfilaments pulse in rhythm with my system, nerves and veins, artificial but astoundingly human. Faint traces of a cyber-type muscle structure peek through the mesh, waiting to be merged. Every inch is sculpted with exact precision.
She looks asleep. Peaceful. Beautiful.
Jett runs his palm down his face slowly, mouth gaping. “Damn. You really built yourself a real woman, Kael. She looks almost human.”
“Exactly. She’s a work of art.” I continue pulling over the necessary tubes and bottles of various liquids needed, including her own blood. On the other table next to us lies Lyra’s actual body, straight from the CryoLab.” Genetically engineered and biologically enhanced by her actual body.”
Jett circles the table, studying my work. His fingertips hover just above the surface of her arm, lightly touching, not believing fully that this isn’t a human. “So, this is it, the perfect merge of machine and magic. You’ve outdone yourself, Kael. It’s amazing.”
“No. Not machine,” I say quietly. “It’s her.”
“Lyra allowed me to conduct a brain scan and memory copy. We should be able to upload that with this program.” I tap the Enter key and bring it on screen. “And that should start the calibration for emotional context and human feelings. You know, temperature, comfort, pain, and pleasure.”
Jett stands over her, his hand now hovering above her chest, where a faint ring of SoulReaver sigils begin to glow wine-colored, showing me where her soul and magic will enter her body.
“Let’s go.” He looks up at me anxiously.
“It’s all about timing. The moment her code syncs with the mesh, I’ll pull the soul-thread and anchor it here. ”
I don’t look up. My hands fly over the keys, inputting command after command; I can feel sweat already gathering at my temples. “LINK’s firewalls are all offline. Power routing to the extraction program in three...two...”
The floor shakes with the surge. Monitors blink, and lines of code cascade downward like falling water. Lyra’s body begins flickering between data and flesh.
Jett’s eyes are closed, but his tattoos are alive and filled with blood-red neon. His DreamNet band illuminates blue and bright as he gives it a twist. “Lyra,” he whispers, “don’t talk. Just focus.”
He’s found her already. I twist my DreamBand and appear instantly. She’s lying on the beach, Jett standing over her. I walk over and take her hand.
My magic responds instantly, my tattoos igniting, the dragon coiling down my back roaring to life in lines of fiery orange. My nerves sting with power, neon veins streaking up my neck and temples as I bridge our abilities.
Jett begins to hum a vibration that ripples through the air. His SoulReaver sigils on his palms are glowing like crimson fire as he presses them over Lyra’s heart.
The light beneath her skin blooms outward, and her body arches. His face contorts. He can feel her, her fear, her pain, her pulse syncing with his. His body begins shaking with the feedback, but he manages to speak. “Be ready, Kael. She’s close.”
I can feel the system itself straining under the power he’s feeding it. He looks up, eyes looking no longer human, but resembling two bright burgundy lights of solid energy. No pupils.
“Follow my voice. Come back to me, Little Taiyō.” I lean over her and beg her through the tether.
The system quickly hits the threshold, warning alarms blaring, lights flashing in riotous patterns. Jett’s voice cuts through the noise: “I’m pulling her soul-thread now!”
The air around him ruptures like a broken mirror. My magic responds, orange light pouring through me, wrapping the beach in fire and embers.
For just a split second, I see blinding pulses of gold and magenta light shoot up Jett’s arm and into his chest. He flinches with the impact.
Everything stops, as if frozen in time. Suddenly my stomach lurches, the sensation of being dropped out of the top floor of a skyscraper.
I’m spiraling rapidly, not able to gauge up from down.
The hum of the lab returns, and all I hear is mine and Jett’s rapid breathing through the silence.
His palms hover above Lyra’s body, her skin flickering with threads of gold and pink.
Sound returns to the vacuum in my head; beeps and bells, the monitors bloom into chaos.
REINITIALIZING PROTOCOL brEACH: CORRUPTION DETECTED
The words slam across every screen. My head jerks up, and I scream with fury. “No! I shut you down! LINK abort and shut down, NOW!”