Chapter 38 The Architect of Agony
The heat from the electric cage felt like it was melting the skin off my bones. I looked down at Kael, the man I had trusted more than my own life. His eyes, once full of kindness, were now two glowing red dots in the dark. The metal pipe he carried clattered against the ladder. Each sound was a nail in the coffin of my hope.
"You built this?" I choked out. The smoke from the burning wires filled my lungs. "The tanks, the simulation, the pain... it was all you?"
Kael reached the top of the ladder. He stood on the narrow platform, looking down at me through the white-hot bars. "Seraphine was a middle manager, Eara. She liked the money and the status. But she didn't have the vision to turn a human brain into a star drive. I did."
"I loved you!" I screamed. I threw myself against the bars, but the electricity blasted me back. I fell onto the glass lid of the pillar, my hands smoking.
"And that love was the most efficient fuel I ever found," Kael said. He leaned over the bars, his face inches from mine. "Why do you think I was always there to 'save' you in the dreams? Every time I rescued you, your heart produced a massive spike of energy. I’ve been harvesting your relief for a decade."
I felt sick. Every kiss, every whispered promise in the dark, every time he had held me while I cried, it was all a calculation. He wasn't a hero. He was a farmer, and I was just his favorite crop.
"What about the Earth?" I asked, my voice a broken rasp. "What about the people in the tanks?"
"They are the luggage," Kael said, checking his watch. "The ship is fueled. Weaver, you are in position. Once I plug your mind into the core, we leave this dustball behind. We’ll find a new world, and I will be the one who built it."
"I'll die before I help you," I spat.
"Oh, you won't die," Kael said, smiling. He pulled a thick cable from the wall. It had a dozen sharp, silver needles at the end. "You’ll live forever as the ship’s computer. You’ll be the goddess of a new galaxy. You just won't be able to move your arms or legs ever again."
He reached through a gap in the bars, grabbing my hair to pull my head back. He aimed the needles at the base of my skull.
The pain in my heart suddenly went cold. The sadness was gone. The betrayal was gone. There was only one thing left: a burning, icy need to see him suffer. I didn't want to save the world anymore. I wanted to destroy the man who had turned my love into a battery.
I am the Weaver, I thought. And I’m going to pull your world apart by the threads.
I didn't fight his grip. Instead, I grabbed his wrist.
"What are you doing?" Kael hissed.
"You said my love was the best fuel," I whispered. I looked him straight in those red eyes. "Let's see what my hate can do."
I didn't push him away. I pulled. I opened the gates of my mind, not to the golden liquid below, but to the black void I had been hiding. I let out every memory of the resets, every scream I had ever made, and every drop of blood I had spilled.
The electricity in the cage didn't stop. It changed color. The white light turned into a screaming purple fire.
"System overload!" the computer voice shouted. "Core stability at forty percent!"
"Stop it!" Kael screamed. He tried to pull his hand back, but my grip was like iron. The needles in his other hand began to melt. "You'll kill us both!"
"Good!" I roared.
The glass lid beneath me shattered. We both fell.
We didn't hit the ground. We fell into the golden liquid. It was thick and hot, like drowning in melted honey. But as soon as my skin touched the fluid, I felt the minds of the million people in the tanks. They were all there, connected by the same wires Kael had built.
"He lied to us," I told them. My voice echoed through a million dreams at once. He used us. Wake up and take what's yours!
A million screams of rage answered me.
In the real world, the glass pillar exploded. A wave of golden liquid and purple fire swept through the room, knocking over the robots and melting the walls.
I washed up on the cold floor, gasping and coughing. I was covered in gold slime, but I was free. I looked around for Kael.
He was standing near the furnace, his clothes torn and his skin scorched. But he was laughing. He held the silver bird, the one from the hospital, in his hand.
"You think a little splash of juice can stop me?" Kael laughed. He pressed a button on the bird. "I have the master override, Eara. I can shut down your brain with one click."
He pointed the bird at me and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Kael’s smile faded. He pressed it again. And again. "Why isn't it working? The chip is active! I can see the signal!"
A shadow moved behind him. A heavy, metal hand reached out and crushed the silver bird in Kael’s palm.
Kael spun around, his face pale.
Standing behind him was the robot with my father's face. But he wasn't red-eyed, and he wasn't a clone. He was covered in the same purple fire that was burning in my eyes. And behind him stood the patients, thousands of them, their eyes glowing with a unified, silent rage.
"The bird wasn't the master override, Kael," I said, standing up. I wiped the gold blood from my mouth. "My father was."
The robot stepped forward, its metal fingers locking around Kael's throat.
"Wait!" Kael choked out. "Eara, I can still save you! I can."
The robot didn't let him finish. It threw Kael into the open furnace.
I didn't look away. I watched as the man I loved disappeared into the white fire. But he didn't scream.
As the flames swallowed him, Kael’s skin didn't burn. It peeled away like paper, revealing a skeleton made of black glass and glowing green wires.
"You still don't get it, do you?" the thing in the fire laughed. Its voice was a thousand voices at once. "Kael was just a skin I wore to keep you happy. I’m not the architect."
The black glass skeleton stepped out of the fire, its body growing larger and larger until it hit the ceiling.
"I'm the Hunger," the monster said. "And I'm still very, very hungry."
The monster raised a hand, and the floor of the station began to tilt. We weren't falling toward Earth anymore.
We were headed straight for the Sun.