Page 115 of GlitchBorn Heart

Kael’s AI is no longer impassive—it’s alive, a living machine with its own rhythm, trying to gain its own soul. I run my fingers along the nearest wall. The surface ripples, shifting under my touch like water over glass. I release everything I have, concentrating on bending, hacking every piece of data around me.

The system shudders, another low vibration running through the floor beneath my feet. I draw in a deep breath as the air shifts. I can see the threads of the top floor feeds. I pull. I have no idea how or why, but I’m suddenly in the holo-tracks of the cold corporate lab in the upper levels of VikkCorp’s containment sector. It’s even worse than I suspected. It looks more like a digital prison of glass.

My holo-form erupts, and I lunge toward Jett. He stands just outside the glass, his palm against it, speaking slowly to Eli. His SoulReaver aura chills the air around him.

I can see the hacked harness around Eli’s wrist barely glowing. Jett must have put it on him in the speakeasy, during the void commotion.

Deep pulses fill my ears, causing me to cover them with my hands. My eardrums tickle as they shake.

It’s Eli, and he’s resisting.

“Lyra, stay there!” Jett warns, not looking back. “You’ll want to see this.”

Every fiber in me wants to scream, to run, but I stay. Because Eli is here.

The containment chamber is a glass coffin humming with tech layers meant to snuff out magic. Eli sits inside, hunched over, his body limp. His eyes are void-lit, his pupils pulsing violet then obsidian with each rapid breath he takes. He looks up at me with such innocence, like a gentle soul navigating a harsh world.

“Lyra?” His voice glitches through the glass, fragmented, as if every word costs him a piece of himself. “You’re not real. You’re just another trap.” He sounds shattered.

“I’m real. I’m here.” I move forward, ignoring Jett’s command. I press my hands to the glass. “Eli, please. Hold on. For me.”

Jett moves quickly, fingers crackling with that unnatural reaping power. “We don’t have much time. Once I pull the void, and his body stabilizes, I’ll slip through and get him out.”

Jett’s tattoos flare dark red, his hands glowing eerily. Veins of lightning splinter down the glass and across the floor to Eli. “Eli, let me have it. Give me the darkness. Touch the glass. End your suffering.”

For a moment, hope blooms inside me. Eli’s void-flare dims, and his breathing steadies.

I’m thrown back from the glass as beams of energy cut through the room. Thin purple spiderwebs of light spread across the chamber walls. He jerks violently, spasms racking his body.

“No!” Eli screams, his voice echoing off every surface. “You don’t get to take my magic! This is who I am now!”

The harness band sparks vigorously, glitch-fire pouring from it. Arcs of purple lightning crawl up Eli’s arms as he tries to remove the harness.

Jett digs in, his voice a low growl. “No, Eli! I’m not taking your magic. I’m trying to anchor it. To keep it from ripping you apart.” He leans closer, eyes glowing faintly with his own SoulReaver power. “You think this is power? It’s a flame burning down to nothing.”

“I don’t care!” Eli’s scream splinters into a dozen voices. His skin shifts between human and shadow. “I don’t want your help! Lyra, help me!”

“No, Eli, please...I can’t do it alone!” I cry, banging on the glass. “Let Jett help. You’ll kill yourself, burn yourself out.”

Jett intervenes, “Or kill you. Eli, your next void could delete your sister from the network. Banish her from existence. You don’t want that, do you?”

The harness cracks again like a gunshot. Black haze leaks out, like arms, throwing Jett back into a stack of servers. Glass shatters. He stays down moaning in pain.

I can see the walls bleed neon and static in my periphery. My magic begins to dwindle, the flare beginning to dull. It hurts like a physical blow. Eli’s void-flare is ripping through the code, tugging me deeper into the system, into the endless void.

“Eli, stop!” I shout, reaching for him, but my hands pass through a wave of distortion. His void surge shreds the floor between me and the glass wall into a black chasm of nothing.

He looks directly at me, eyes wild, frightened, and filled with tears. “I’m sorry.” His voice is like a whisper in a vacuum. His energy explodes outward, the void shattering the harness on his wrist, sending fragments of Jett’s spell work scattering like marbles on the sterile tile floor.

It’s done. The plan is a failure.

My vision whites out. Kael’s voice cuts in, faint and broken through the comms in the ceiling. I’d forgotten he was there. “Lyra! Get out now!”

Jett stumbles to stand and grabs my arm, blood streaking from his nose. He grasps his ribs with his other hand. Eli flickers, one moment in front of us, the next unraveling into violet light, scattering across the chamber like he’s been deleted.

I choke back a sob. “No...no, no, no!”

Jett hauls me over the two CIC guards unconscious in front of the door, his voice is like gravel. “He’s not gone. Not yet. But he’s buried himself deeper. This...this wasn’t a rescue. It was an awakening.”