Chapter 26: Pulse in the Dark
Rain fell hard over Arkvale’s Sector 4D, drumming against the rusted rooftops like distant war drums. Charles stood beside Mia’s still body, watching her chest rise and fall in fragile rhythm. The cot she lay on was sterile, a piece of forgotten tech salvaged from some ghost lab, and she looked too delicate for it—too real to belong to a war of systems and power.
He brushed a finger over her hand. "I’m going to bring you back."
Behind him, Eliza worked silently at the terminal. The glow of synthetic code lit up her cybernetic arm as she interfaced directly with the wall of tangled servers. Sparks snapped in the air as something deep inside the old system sparked to life.
"We don’t have much time," she said without looking up. "Omega’s signal is spreading. He’s overriding Sync logic across Arkvale."
Charles’s jaw tightened. "He’s building his own network?"
"Not just building—replacing," Maya said. She stood at the door, scanning the perimeter. "He’s cutting out Lust Sync’s emotional inhibitors. Making pure control loops."
"Stripping out everything that makes it human," Eliza added.
Charles looked back at Mia. Her skin was pale, but not lifeless. Her sync level was still there—still connected to him—but frozen in stasis. She’d been forcefully accelerated to a Level 3 bond without being ready for it. The consequences could’ve shattered her mind permanently.
"I need a way to bring her back," he said. "Not just physically. I want her back emotionally."
Eliza turned from the console. "Then you’ll need to go in."
"In?" Charles frowned. "What do you mean?"