Page 166 of GlitchBorn Heart

A twinge of jealousy sparks inside me. Before I can fire back, Ember’s voice cuts in from across the lab. She and Ash are carrying bags filled with food. “Oh, she’s definitely going,” she says, grinning at me. “If my father’s making me go to see him show off his robot monsters, then I’ll need someone to suffer with me.”

Ash drops one of the bags onto the counter with a dramatic sigh. “Is that what this thing you asked me to go to is?” He digs around searching inside the bag. He plucks out something round and fried to a crisp. “Oh, great, I’m just a boytoy now. Do I get hazard pay for standing in a room full of your father’s psychopath friends? Because I’m gonna need a very large cocktail after experiencing all that moral corruption.” He winks at Kael.

I shoot a glance at her. “What do you mean, Ash? You’re always arm candy. You enjoy it way too much.”

Ember winks. “Come on, every ‘PleazureHolo’ needs a really sexy, really expensive dress. I’ll help you design it. Kael can pay for it!”

“Anything she wants, Dr. Vosse.” Kael smiles, letting himself enjoy the expression for once. He turns back to Jett at the console, quickly returning to planning.

Ember pulls me over to her workstation, her fingers flying across the keys sending images to the holo-fields around us. A cascade of dresses appear virtually: leather, silks, reflective mesh, threads that catch light like shooting stars. “Ever worn anything from the House of Vosse line?” she teases.

She begins coding my dress into the PleazureHolo menu while slurping noodles. Kael disappears into his office, that fierce look returning to his brow, the one he gets when he’s working through the traffic jam of ideas in his head.

Jett eats the space between myself and him. He turns to me, leading me away from Ember. His breath is hot in my ear, as he leans in, eyes steadily tracking Kael. “You know,” he says quietly, “Kael’s doing all this for you. Taking you to the gala, the plan for extraction, all of it. Don’t make him regret the risk.”

His words hit deeper than I expect them to. He’s questioning my loyalty. “I won’t,” I whisper.

His mystery surrounds him like a shadow. Why? Why would he care where my devotion lies? He’s terrifying, not just in physicality. His presence is a vacuum any time he enters a room, and right now I feel it forcing me to confess any lies I may have hidden.

He assesses there’s no threat, no one watching, and brings my chin up to meet his gaze. “I can confirm there are other forces at work here. A LumenSeer is part of the rebellion; she’s been able to predict the future for our cause. You play a rather large role in it, Lyra.” His dark eyes scan me for a reaction. “What if I told you the one who built your prison...isn’t the only one who can save you?”

I snap my face away before Kael sees him touching me. “I don’t care, Jett. I don’t want to be part of a revolution. I want a shower, real food, a great night of sex, and a day where I don’t wake up screaming into the void. You’re just offering me a cage with a softer mattress.” I look over his shoulder at Kael, his back is still turned to us. “I’m not interested.”

64

C:\Users\Ryudon> Creation.exe

Playlist: Send me An Angel – Gunship

Kael

My DataLINK pings with the alarm I set earlier, a reminder that I have mere hours to perfect this program to save Lyra from losing her humanity. Time never exists for me when I’m presented with a problem to solve.

I turn from the keyboard, a stretch will do me good. The room is pitch black, only the glow of monitors and the hum of CPU fans. It takes a tick for my eyes to adjust. I’ve been sitting here since this morning, and now the sky is already turning a hazy gray from rain and smog. Soon it will darken to the pure black of night.

As the light fades, it takes on the color of a dead channel tuned to static, a bruised gray-green. The giant holographic advertisements that tower over the city become prominent through the mist. Tomorrow morning they’ll be shut off abruptly, taken off life support for twelve hours. It’s an unnatural quiet that turns the entire urban landscape into a sinister labyrinth. For criminals, rebels, and deviants like myself, the sudden night will be the perfect window for an extravagant, high-tech heist, a chance to slip past sensors and cameras or to correct the blurred line between human and machine. The crimes are all the same.

“Let’s make history, Taiyō,” I mutter to myself, my eyes tracking the latest test run for the final neural data dump of what makes Lyra who she is. Her memories.

The wall monitor in my living room suddenly blinks to life.

There’s my girl.

“Kael?” Her beautiful, full, cartoonish lips call out, and I’m mesmerized by their playful curve, longing to feel them against mine. “Can I holo?”

“For you...it’s always on.” I glance over to the pad on the wall, double-checking.

“You’re not dressed yet?” Her tone is off, like she’s hiding something.

“Just some final testing. I was just about to get showered. By tomorrow evening, I hope you’ll be able to join me,” I tease.

“That sounds amazing. Let’s see what happens tonight, though, first. We may all be erased by dawn,” she counters, no humor in the statement.

“But first I have a surprise for you.” I see the particles of light begin to sparkle and join under the holo-run. A few impatient seconds later, Lyra stands before me in holo-form, wearing the dress that Ember coded for her, hair half up, magenta strands falling and framing her cheekbones. The dress glows like matter pulled from a distant star—coal black and shimmering silver, light and shadow entwined.

Just like us.

The collar frames her chest and wraps around her neck with sequined bands. The cutouts of fabric continue downward, revealing her flowing holo-skin cleavage and leading the eye down to her rib cage.