Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The sound was annoying. It was rhythmic, high-pitched, and painfully real.
I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like they were made of lead. My throat was dry. So dry it felt like I had swallowed sand.
Air. Cold, sterile air rushed into my lungs. It hurt. It tasted like chemicals and dust.
I coughed. It was a weak, wet hacking sound.
"Vital signs stabilizing," a robotic voice said. But it wasn't inside my head. It was coming from a speaker on the wall. "Subject is regaining consciousness."
I forced my eyes open.
The world was blurry. No high-definition overlay. No HUD. No health bars. Just a harsh, fluorescent light stinging my retinas.
I was lying in a tub. No, a pod. It was filled with a thick, translucent gel that was slowly draining away. Tubes were hooked into my arms, my chest, my neck.
I lifted a hand. It was pale. Thin. Atrophied. There was a bruise on the inside of my elbow. The nails were short and jagged.
It was the ugliest, most beautiful hand I had ever seen.
I pulled the oxygen mask off my face. The motion made my muscles tremble with weakness.
I looked around. I was in a room filled with server racks. Rows and rows of black towers with blinking lights, humming with the noise of a million trapped souls.
Across the room, there was another pod.
The glass was foggy, but I could see the silhouette inside. A boy. He was still. The monitor next to his pod showed a flat green line.
Kael.
My heart slammed against my ribs. My real ribs.
I tried to climb out of the pod, but my legs wouldn't work. I collapsed onto the cold metal grating of the floor. I dragged myself, inch by inch, toward his pod.
"Kael," I croaked. My voice was barely a whisper. My vocal cords were atrophied from years of disuse.
I reached up and slapped my hand against the glass of his pod.
"Wake up," I wheezed. "We beat him. Wake up."
Nothing.
Then, a screen on the wall above the servers flickered to life. It was a simple, command-line interface. Black background, green text.
It wasn't the Admin. It was a system report.
[SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED]
[SERVER 7 STATUS: OFFLINE]
[USER: ELENA_SOURCE]
[UPLOAD STATUS: FAILED]
I stared at the words. Upload Failed.
I hadn't uploaded my mind to the cloud. I had downloaded myself back to reality. I had rejected the heaven they built for me.
And then, a second line of text appeared below it.
[USER: KAEL_ADMIN_OVERRIDE]
[STATUS: REBOOTING NEURAL LINK...]
[1%]
Inside the pod, the boy’s finger twitched.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of his tank and started to laugh. It was a rough, broken sound, but it was mine.
Outside the server room, I could hear sirens wailing. Police? Corporate security? It didn't matter.
I was weak. I was broke. I was dying of a dozen different muscular disorders.
But I was real.
And for the first time in forever, the silence was music to my ears.
16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcNIXX5HuQB
16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyB4I6kYLQQ
16Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzSwSavZ27N
Closing Note：I’m stuck on a plot point! Help me decide the Heroine's next move on our Discord:
https://discord.gg/M4nEZ7TzW7 or unplot_joshua
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.