Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
How many young men has he done this to? How many young women has he drained to power these mad experiments?
I am not a victim. I refuse to be a victim.
But this thing has turned me into one.
And that… I cannot stand.
My rage builds, the spark all around me begins to crackle violently. Hissing and sputtering, it travels down the cord of light to Finn’s shoulder, making him spasm for a moment.
Something chimes in my head and suddenly, spread out before me is…
Well, I have no idea what it is. Some kind of… table. Like the one in the Looking Glass rooms, only it’s not attached to a desk, it’s floating in the air in front of me like a screen on the PPD I’ve been using all week.
“Second!” Xi’s voice is booming, echoing off the dark metal walls all around us. His voice is so loud, it overpowers the sound of the spark and makes the golden lights embedded into the walls flicker with excitement. “Dimension Stability Core!”
Right in front of my face, glowing like a hologram, the PPD screen lights up with words in blue. COGNITIVE PORT INTERFACE: ACTIVE.
What the hell am I looking at?
“This reworked Dimension Stability Core is embedded in the chest of the augment to prevent dimensional rejection syndrome when a god enters. This ensures the human body remains anchored across multiple planes, allowing for cross-dimension piloting. It also auto-tunes to the god’s home dimension, preventing degradation of the vessel.”
Cross-dimension piloting?
Just as I think these words, a new line appears on the holographic PPD screen: DIMENSION STABILITY CORE: ACTIVE.
My mouth drops open.
“Third!” Xi is still going on and on about how he’s ruined the father of my child. “A Multi-Threaded Cognition Matrix that allows parallel processing of two minds in one body.”
Again, a new line of words appears in the air in front of me: MULTI-THREADED COGNITION MATRIX: ACTIVE.
“Your augment will remain aware while being piloted—no memory loss, no dissociation. This enables tag-team combat and decision stacking, where both the augment and the god can act independently or in tandem.”
That’s great, that’s just great. How long has that god been inside Finn’s head? The whole time we’ve been in the Upper Dimension? Was he inside Finn while we were… oh, my god. I can’t even finish that thought, it’s so gross. Was I having sex with that thing?
“Fourth!” Xi must add a flourish of spark to this bullet point, because a wave of it hits me, taking my breath away as it pierces my throat and enters my lungs. “The Phase-Reinforced Neural Sheath will prevent the human brain from melting under divine presence. It reinforces key neuraaal… pathwaaays…” His voice slows into a purring warble that makes the words feel left behind. “And with conductive spaaaaaark-threaded myeliiiiiin—”
Then—everything stops.
Everything down below on the floor, at least.
Just not the mist of spark all around me. This turns into something thicker, wetter—like actual water. And for a moment, I’m that little girl again, wishing the canal of spark-water would take me home.
But it’s no longer a direct route down-city.
I don’t even know what dimension I’m in.
That’s not true, Jasina. You’re in the Upper still. Because Xi can’t be a clashboy lead singer in a down-city spinecore band in the Factory dimension.
Because he’s not real. He can only exist there as a lie.
And this, I realize, is a good thing.
Because while Xi-Factory was a hot mess of a place, devoid of spark—RhoXi is certainly not.
The air is wet with it. It’s all around me, like a sea.
I swim in the spark the same way I swim in water.
It’s not even a plan, that’s how inevitable what comes next is.
Because I’ve been here before.
I’ve been strapped to a plate in a weird Looking Glass room three times now and they all end the same way.
Me spooling up power to break shit or win a fight.
But this time, I’m gonna kill a god.
Because I’m no longer Jasina Bell, down-city whore.
I’m piloting the answer to all Xi’s prayers.
I’ve got one card.
Master’s Bargain. And his name is Finn Scott.
A voice wails out over some kind of system speaker, forcing Xi to shut the hell up about his new Bio-Synch Halo upgrade as the PPD interface in front of me—the mind of Finn Scott himself, flashes bright green.
COGNITIVE PORT INTERFACE: ONLINE
DIMENSION STABILITY CORE: ONLINE
MULTI-THREADED COGNITION MATRIX: ONLINE
PHASE-REINFORCED NEURAL SHEATH: ONLINE
And then, a very simple question.
INITIATE COMBAT MODE? Y/N?
Let’s fucking go.
I smash ‘yes’ with my mind and Finn Scott breaks free of his holding pattern—moving before I even know what ‘yes’ feels like.
One breath, and he’s gone—vanished from the center of the stage and reappearing like a blur. A crash to my left. A body to my right. The first man doesn’t even scream before his chest caves in. The second folds backwards, spine in the wrong direction. The third tries to run but gets pulled back by something I can’t see—Finn’s hand? A spark leash?—and he crumples like wet paper.