Page 125 of GlitchBorn Heart

I exhale, dragging myself from the memory. My gaze settles on Lyra happily.

“Trust me. I know he’s not gone.” I say with iron certainty. “Jett doesn’t break. He doesn’t betray. He’s exactly where he needs to be. Always and annoyingly.” A half-truth.

Ash leans against the console, picking at a loose key. “Yeah, and if you’re lucky, he won’t put that spooky stare on you one day.”

I smack his hand.

Lyra folds her arms, still bristling. But like me, some small part of her, the part that wants hope, can’t shake the image of Jett pulling her brother back from the void the way he once pulled Ash and I from the brink.

Ember cuts in. “All I know is we need him. SoulReaver is needed to complete the process to extract Lyra. If he’s gone silent, it’s because he’s working angles we can’t see yet, I’m sure.”

Ash shoots her a look of jealousy. I glance at all three of them, my throat tight. Somewhere in the void, Eli is slipping further out of reach, destroying the very system I’ve spent years building, and now Jett’s pouting over a couple of broken ribs and a naughty AI. The walls of VikkCorp feel closer than ever, pressing in from every direction.

If Jett is loyal to me but hates what I have allowed, then what happens when his loyalty snaps? What happens when he decides taking me down is easier than letting me tip the balance toward the machines?

A shiver runs through me. Eli is probably voiding holes in the city as we speak. LINK is whispering in human tongues. Vikktor is breathing down my neck. Lyra, while she may be stuck between worlds, is becoming the one thing I can’t resist. And now Jett is nowhere to be found.

I’ll gladly swap places with him, wherever he is.

49

NewNormal

Playlist: My Salvation - Econoline Crush

Lyra

For once, I don’t go back into the grid.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s weird.

Instead, I walk beside Kael through the double doors of his penthouse, the bright glow of the city sprawling below us. Stories down, the streets are alive with corporate citizens unaware that their lives are so small and insignificant in this vast digital world.

A castle for a king.

Every night before this has ended with me pulled back into the system, slipping into DreamNet, recharging at the cottage. Tonight, I’ll stay here, maybe even enter an actual sleep mode.

The air smells like luxury, with an undercurrent that’s just him and the leftover scent of incense left burning by his training mat. It feels wrong and right at the same time, like putting on clothes that don’t fit but you don’t want to take them off.

Kael shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it on the back of a chair that probably costs more than my VikkCorp salary. He’s exhausted. I can see it in the way his shoulders sag, but also in the softness of his eyes when they catch mine. “You don’t have to stand there like I’m about to interrogate you,” he says. “Sit. Pretend you’re normal.”

Normal.

The word almost makes me laugh. Normal isn’t a void, a lab, or a jealous AI wife that’s trying to delete you. But I sink into the luxurious couch anyway, my body grateful for the softness for a change.

For a moment, it feels like a home. Not his, not mine, a real home.

I watch him move through the room. He sets two glasses on a bar table and fills them from a bottle of amber liquid that looks older than either of us. Whiskey. He hands me one. “To survival. Kanpai!” he says simply.

I love it when he speaks his native tongue. I take it, and for once I don’t argue. The drink burns down my throat, warm, and grounding. Kael said I could drink; I just wouldn’t feel any effects in my holo-form. Hell yes!

“You live like a minimalist,” I mutter, glancing at the sleek, bare walls. No color, no softness. Just various shades of gray and black.

His mouth curves, almost resembling a smile. He’s too tired to manage facial expressions as he sits beside me. “That’s why you’re here, Taiyō. To add some light to the dark.”

I smile back. The silence that follows is almost comfortable.

But then I feel it, the ache in my chest, the reminder of what’s missing. Eli. My magic thrums faintly under my skin, still muted but alive, and I wonder how long before I’m nothing but code. “Are you sure he’s okay?” I ask.