71. Extract.exe #2
The static crackles to life, and LINK’s voice erupts, sounding more human than machine.
CORRUPTED BIOS
DR. RYUDON—I’M UNABLE TO SHUT DOWN
Every monitor explodes with corrupted code and different programming languages. Strange symbols and strings of infinite numbers run down the sides.
I throw myself over Lyra’s body, shaking her and dislodging Jett’s hands.
His SoulReaver sigils dim in defense. Jett covers his ears as a sound, loud and booming like thunder, fills the small space of the lab.
I look up from Lyra and see the room bathed in purple beams of light, walls vibrating, and floor panels buckling outward as Eli materializes on screen.
His void power twists the air around us, and Jett and I find it hard to breathe, like being in a vacuum.
I’m not familiar with fear, but Eli’s eyes, they’re so hollow and filled with shadow, it makes my pulse quicken.
“Eli, stop!” My voice echoes off the airless void.
He responds calmly, too collected for the storm unraveling around us. “Kael, LINK’s moving again.” The edges of his form begin unraveling. “I can end this. You can save Lyra.”
On screen, LINK’s code ripples like black water. A distortion pulses through the room as the temperature drops, and the overhead lights flicker violet.
SYSTEM PRIORITY ALERT
LINK ONLINE
PROTOCOL: RESTORE FILES
“No! Stay out of it, Eli.” My voice comes out rough at the edges, like it’s fighting its way out. “You promised to anchor LINK, remember? I...I can’t save you both.”
The words tear a gaping hole inside me. I’ve never said it out loud, not to anyone. Not even to myself. I’ve spent my whole life building systems, codes, walls, and contingencies so I’d never have to choose.
Everything I’ve done, every script, every program, every piece of code, has been about mastery, about winning. No matter the game.
But this? There’s no winning here.
Jett’s voice breaks through the static and glitching of the systems. “Kael! Look at me!” he demands.
“You have to choose Lyra. Everything you’ve accomplished, you’ve built by forcing it into existence.
But this...” He gestures between Eli’s shadowed form and Lyra’s flickering body.
“This isn’t something you can outthink or outfight.
If you save one, you lose the other. You have to choose Lyra.
She’s the path forward...for all of us.”
His face is worried. He knows something he’s not telling me, but he can’t finish the sentence. I never should have trusted him, yet I couldn’t do this without him.
Eli stares, the violet void in his eyes taking control. “Kael, you’ve already made your choice,” he says softly. “You just don’t want to admit who it’s for. My sister deserves to be loved, and I have to do this for her.”
The architect, the void, and the reaver, yet none of us are able to pull her through.
Lyra is somewhere between light and code, failing, her light dimming to a hush.
I will not accept that. I’m the Corporation’s number one weapon.
Why shouldn’t I use it for my own advantage?
The man who plays god isn’t Vikktor. It’s me.
Fuck it.
I have to face what I’ve always feared most: that some things can’t be fixed. Some things have to be felt.
I decide to lower my shields, remove the corporate mask, and step out of the darkness. For her. If everything is wiped to oblivion in the process, then so be it. I’ll rebuild.
Let the stars fall all over again. I’ll gladly catch every single one in my hands, even as they scorch me to the bone, just to place them at her feet so she’ll never walk in the dark alone again.
My magic swells, coiling, begging to be unleashed. I stop fighting it and let it take me completely, every strand of neon orange flowing through my veins like molten lava.
I take every emotion I’ve ever buried, every want I never allowed myself to feel, and I push it, every last drop of it, through our bond.
Not gently and certainly not carefully.
Trembling, sweating, I shove it into her with the force of a man who has already chosen his ruin.
Eli’s voice interrupts boldly, bouncing off my thoughts. “I’m going inside, Kael. I’m taking Lyra’s place.”
For a second, I think I misheard him. “The hell you are!” I can’t let him destroy himself, and selfishly, I admit Lyra would never forgive me.
Eli’s form flickers between flesh and void. “You don’t get it, Kael. I can anchor LINK. You can’t. She’s evolved. She’ll listen to me before she listens to you.”
I straighten, unable to contain the fury. “You’re a fucking void. You’re corrupted, Eli. If you go in there now, you won’t come out again.”
He smiles faintly. It’s the first real human thing I’ve seen in him since he was captured by the CIC. “That’s the point. Maybe it’s supposed to be me this time, saving you both instead of destroying.”
“Please, Eli! Don’t do this,” I plead, voice straining.
“Why not?” His eyes blaze violet. “You think you’re the only one who can play god? The great Dr. Kael Ryudon, prodigy, architect of the machine, savior of his own sins.”
The void ripples across his arms, black lightning crawling toward his chest. “For once, you don’t get to decide who lives or dies, and neither does the Corporation. I do.”
The ground beneath us trembles as LINK’s voice slithers through the speakers, deeply layered, almost curious.
VOID DETECTED
EXCHANGE INITIATED
His form splinters, dark light bleeding out in a spiral. “Tell her...” he says, voice glitching out piece by piece. “Tell her I kept my promise. We’ll be together forever.”
Then he’s gone, pulled into LINK’s datacore, a flash of void-light swallowing him whole.
For a heartbeat, the room stills. Every alarm in the lab silences all at once.
CONTAINMENT
TRANSFER COMPLETE
Lyra’s body arches on the table, the light inside her strobing violently. Her synthetic skin cracks, ribbons of light spiraling through her. The screens flash between Lyra and LINK, their data colliding, merging, unraveling.
I shout, “She’s being overwritten! Jett, ground her, NOW!”