72. ArtificialAwareness
ArtificialAwareness
Playlist: AI - Max Brhon
Kael
Lyra breathes loudly, gasping for air like she’s been submerged in a deep ocean. Jett freezes in place beside one of the cybernetic forms, leaning against the wall, afraid to move. For once he isn’t posturing or baiting me with that rebellion swagger. He just looks vindicated.
He works up a hard swallow, and under his breath, so soft I almost miss it, he mumbles, “Just like she said...ascended.”
My mood shifts. “What does that even mean?”
Jett doesn’t answer right away. His eyes stay locked on Lyra, on the way her body is coming to life before our eyes. He steps closer to her and touches her shoulder gently, like a man approaching a divine goddess.
“Kael.” His voice is deadly serious. “Your sister warned me of this very moment. Years ago. Before she disappeared.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid. “What? We don’t speak of her, Jett, you know that. It’s too painful.” I remain holding Lyra’s hand to make sure when she fully becomes conscious, she knows I’m here.
Jett doesn’t even look at me. He’s struggling to keep whatever information he has to himself. He just continues to stare at Lyra on the table, slowly emerging and awakening.
“What did she warn you about? How would she even know about any of this?” I command. “She was only thirteen, Jett, when she disappeared. You’re full of shit...as usual.”
I continue to monitor Lyra as her body begins to move, cybernetic life fusing with a human soul.
“She told me a story one night. She said an architect would be reborn in fire. That he’d find the one soul who could carry his power, and that together, they’d rewrite the system.
Break the world open.” His lips twist. “But she didn’t tell me it would look like this.
” He shakes his head. “She’s not going to believe it when I tell her. ”
My stomach drops. “Wait...what? Tell her?”
Lyra’s glow intensifies like she heard the words: architect and power. She swallows dryly, her lips parting as she tries to speak.
“She said,” Jett reiterates, voice broken, “that when your magic was found, nothing would ever be the same.”
“What do you mean my sister will not believe...” My thought is interrupted as Lyra releases a sound; it pierces our ears. I realize it’s a scream. Something’s very wrong.
The lab rattles, metal groaning, lights flickering as if the entire building is bowing under the surge of magic pouring from her.
Lyra’s body convulses, golden-magenta light ripping out of her in spirals like solar flares.
The screens show data downloading at a rapid pace, but it’s nothing I’ve coded.
She’s loading data like a machine, reading and writing it to her brain.
Jett staggers a step back, eyes huge with shock. Or is it dread? For a terrifying moment, I think Lyra is gone, because the download has completed, all systems stopped. The system pings softly. Quietly.
Like a heartbeat.
Her heartbeat.
She tries to sit up hazily, and ends up resting on her elbows, not quite sure of the sensation of having arms to hold her weight. I support her new body, pale, but perfect, until she manages to sit fully upright.
Her eyes blink several times as if she’s processing data, her neural mesh pulsing signals throughout her entire body.
I feel breathless and anxious, but I manage to form words.
“Lyra?” I beg for her to answer as I look into her eyes.
Her lashes flutter, still processing the surroundings.
I lift her face as they fully open. I’m taken back when I notice they’re not the warm gold I’m so used to looking into.
Instead, they’re blank, almost clear, and empty, like looking through a glass of still water.
Her head tilts as she looks right at me, like my data does not compute. It almost reminds me of LINK, how she used to respond to me when I first coded her...oh, hell no. My heartbeat triples inside my chest.
I stare into both her eyes and cup her cheeks. “Taiyō,” I whisper, voice breaking. “You’re safe. You’re home. I’m here. Right here. Take your time. I know this all feels new.” I need to know it’s her, yet I still can’t shake the feeling something isn’t quite right.
Her eyes widen, not with recognition, but with confusion.
After scanning me up and down, it escalates to fear.
I can tell because her chest is heaving now and her movement is so fast, it barely registers.
In a split second, she was able to flinch from my touch, scramble off the table, and back into the corner, knocking over equipment.
“Where...” Her voice cracks like she’s learning speech for the first time. “Am I?”
My world collapses in that single start of a sentence. I need to calm myself. She has to process all the data I’ve inputted into her, her memories; it will take a few minutes for the neural data to load.
Calm, Kael. Give her time. Do not react.
Behind me, I hear Jett gasp. “No, no, no...Kael.” From then on, what he says is like jumbled sounds and the mashing together of words because I can only see and hear her.
She’s alive, real, and breathing. Everything I wanted for her, every piece of data input, every code written, every hour spent in front of a keyboard, all worth it.
My magic led my fingers to create all the stimulus to be received, guiding me through the process, and now she’s looking at me like I’m a complete stranger, a monster... a threat.
My knees nearly buckle, but I force myself to stay steady for her. I lift my hands as if surrendering, but my voice barely comes out. “It’s me,” I whisper. “Lyra...it’s Kael.”
She recoils harder, her magic flickering violently and bleeding all over every screen in the lab. If it weren’t for the complete blackout, it would be all over every screen across the city. I don’t know how to feel because I’ve never let myself come this far, be this vulnerable.
I think I feel broken.
Lyra stands up so quickly, the air snaps around her.
Her body moves before thought, a blur of precision, like a video feed processing at three times the speed.
She remains in the corner, but pivots, eyes narrowing, taking in exits, threats, angles.
Instinctive analysis of her surroundings, just like a machine, just like LINK.
Even worse, I’ve seen this look in Vikktor’s cyberbots.
I watch her head tilt, eyes never leaving mine, like she’s hearing a sound I can’t.
Maybe the hum of the battery-powered electricity running through the lab.
She moves again, and the air flickers and ripples around her, as if she’s breaking through it.
In the blink of an eye, she’s across the room, standing in front of Jett, chest rising and falling like she’s assessing his threat level as well.
Her fingers curl once, the neural mesh under her new skin glowing briefly, a faint magenta-gold pulse that spirals up her arms then fades. It’s followed by several tiny blips of other colors chasing after. She’s testing her strength, reborn, recalibrated, and terrifyingly aware of it.
Jett moves carefully, that shit-eating grin across his face letting me know he’s planning something self-serving. He lets out a low whistle, slow and dangerous.
“Well now, Lyra...look at you.” His eyes rake over her, not only with lust but also with the kind of calculation a general gives a newly forged weapon. He steps closer, hands in his pockets, to not threaten her. “Do you have any idea what you are now? What you could be?”
Another step closer, and I notice his smile widening like a general seeing a war turn in his favor. “The rebellion won’t just rise with someone like you.” His gaze locks with hers. “It will win. You’re incredible.”
He circles her like she’s a sight he just can’t look away from. “Damn, sweetheart.”
And I hate every fucking word. I move before the sentence even finishes leaving his mouth, a blur, silent, just like I’ve been trained to do. My hand closes around Jett’s collar, and I slam him back into the wall.
He doesn’t flinch, just lets me pin him, a laugh threatening to escape his traitorous lips. “Back off.” My voice is low and dangerous. “Do not call her that. Have some respect.”
Jett laughs at me mockingly. It only makes my grip tighten. “She’s not your weapon, not your cause, and she sure as hell isn’t yours to circle like you’re choosing a prize.” I grit my teeth. Someday, I will end up killing him.
A faint pulse of orange streaks across my vision, my magic threatening to surface. Jett notices. “Good,” he murmurs, his eyes squinting. “Hold onto that. You’ll need that when she finds out what you’ve done to her.”
I shove him once more, threatening to crush his collarbone. “You mean what we’ve done, SoulReaver.”
Jett smooths his shirt, eyes gleaming. “This is going to get interesting.”
Lyra freezes. Even her breath stops. Her translucent eyes widen again as she stares down at her hands, as though they’re not hers. Because they aren’t. Not fully. Not yet. She’s still calibrating. Still loading signals into her neural framework.
She takes another step, faster than the human eye can track and much faster than she was expecting. She catches herself on the counter, palm slapping down with enough force to dent steel, but the table doesn’t even shake. She’s stronger than she realizes. She’s faster than she should be.
And every instinct in me screams that she’s becoming something more than either of us can fathom.
A weapon. A prophecy. A machine.
A human version of LINK.
Her gaze lifts to mine sharply, and her question comes out accusatory. “What did you do to me?”