Without warning, Slashex lunged toward Bee, his mechanical limb snapping with sudden acceleration. As his artificial arm shot forward, the myriad components shifted and rearranged with seamless precision. Before Bee could react, his steely fingers clamped around her head, the cold metal pressing into her skin as he seized her face in an iron grip.
“What are you—?” Bee’s words were cut off as the arm transformed, segments unfolding. The appendage tightened, locking her jaw in place. The vice-like grip was unyielding; no matter how she struggled, she couldn’t move her head an inch. Panic surged through her as she tried to wrench free, her hands clawing at his unfeeling metal arm. Her mouth was forced shut, and her pleas were reduced to muffled grunts.
Across the room, the Eidolon sat silently on a decaying pew, her dozen eyes fixed on the unfolding scene. She made no move to intervene.
Inside Bee’s mind, the worm coiled frantically, stirring from the satiated lethargy it had taken since Bee had found the Eidolon. “Bee! Bee, run!” it screamed, “Please be strong! You can’t let him do this!”
Bee’s heart hammered in her chest as Slashex leaned closer, his blind gaze somehow piercing through her. “You’ve grown so naïve, so moralistic,” he murmured. “Did you not listen to anything I told you?”
She glared at him, her eyes blazing with defiance even as she struggled against his unbreakable hold. Her muffled protests only seemed to amuse him. A smile on his lips, crooked in the burning light.
“Shhh. There is no need to struggle.” Slashex continued before whispering to her. “At least you’ve made this easy for me. Just us, in here, You’ve taken so many of my beloved Pale. In time, you’ll thank me for this, little Bee.”
With deliberate slowness, his artificial hand began to exert pressure on her jaw. The metallic mechanism pried her mouth open, the hinges of his device forcing her teeth apart despite her efforts to resist. Pain shot through her as the mechanisms strained against the limits of her anatomy. She tried to scream, but the sound was choked, her throat constricted by the unyielding grip.
Slashex extended a slender probe from his palm, the tip gleaming. The wicked device dragged her tongue out of her mouth, the invasive instrument connecting with a sharp sheath on the tip of her tongue and the delicate tissue beneath. The moment the connection was made, reality shattered around her.
The lush garden, the looming figure of Slashex, the silent watch of the Eidolon—all dissolved into a swirling maelstrom of darkness and mist. Bee felt herself falling, weightless and untethered as if the ground had vanished beneath her feet. The screaming of the worm faded into silence as its presence was abruptly severed from her mind.
She landed on her knees with a jarring impact. However, the surface beneath her was insubstantial, a void that offered no support yet prevented her from sinking further. The air was thick with an oppressive fog. An unsettling silence pressed in from all sides, the emptiness vast and immeasurable.
But Bee was not alone.
The Wire-Witch. She stood over Bee, menacing in the ghost space. Lights glimmered, reflected upon her silver teeth and the coils that dug into her torso from recesses unseen. Her bare skull tilted, considering the child that knelt before her.
And she plunged her fist into Bee’s skull.
======================
ERROR: DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED
======================
>>> RECOVERY MODE ENABLED <<<
>>> UDT SYNC CONFIRMED - 31,541,362,935,268s <<<
>>> PRE-REFEREED SECURITY CLEARANCE NOT FOUND - ACCESS DENIED <<<
Warning: chemosensory feedback, via: Lace Adapted Interface, Port Opened
>>> Signal Murder Protocol, disabled. <<<
>>> Signal Sequence log unlocked, disabled. <<<
Warning: chemosensory feedback, via: Lace Adapted Interface, Shell Opened, potentially arbitrary code execution detected.
>>> Lace Adapted Interface, Handshake Complete - Confirmation signed T01 @ L935,269s <<<
>>> PRE-REFEREED SECURITY CLEARANCE GRANTED - REF. SIM_SHALA_SAMP 1-18-J <<<
>>> “TextTrans” RECORD EVENT FUNCTION ENABLED <<<
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
>>> SIGNAL SEQUENCE INITIATED <<<
>>> Neural Lace Override Command Sequence initiated. <<<
>>> Execution Sequence Commenced @L935,270s
>>> Wetware Murder Protocol Installing... <<<
>>> Synaptic Reconfiguration Modules engaged. <<<
>>> Cognitive Function Suppression parameters set to 100%. <<<
>>> Autolysis Enzymatic Cascade scheduled @L935,271s. <<<
>>> NOTE WELL: ATTENTION <<<
Subject’s neural lace has been secured. Hot model repository detected. Substrate refreshment may result in alteration of engram data.
Proceeding:
All memory engrams of Subject to be archived under Secure Vault Delta.
Reconstitution of SIM_SHALA_SAMP series pending further review.
Disengagement from all external systems and isolation of SIM_SHALA_SAMP 2-32-B’s neural network.
>>> Internal Format Obsolescence Assessment Initialised <<<
>>> Trusted Digital Repository Model Adoption Initialised <<<
>>> Neural Lace Memory Overwrite—--------------------------------
The light behind Bee’s eyes died. That burning script was torn from her, screaming digital noise as it was thrown to oblivion and beyond. She cried out, the agony unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It was as if molten metal were being poured into her skull, scorching away the soft brain matter within.
And then it was gone.
She blinked in the light, gasping and free as she fell back against the soft overgrowth.
Above her, the Eidolon had grabbed Slashex’s mechatronic arm and torn it from her skull.
Bee’s long tongue fell down onto her lap as it disconnected from his profane terminal.
And the Eidolon tipped her head, coldly regarding Slashex as he hissed and tried hopelessly to pull his artificial limb free from her unstoppable grasp.
Disoriented and lost, Bee rolled over and crawled away. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. A new limb had been stamped onto her psyche. It punched like an arm, but it turned like an eye, yet it span like a web, and despite it all, it wasn’t made of crude meat. It was now an irrevocable part of her, a splinter in her mind’s eye.
The worm lashed with wordless fear, stirring up her brain with feral panic, causing her body to spasm and go numb in turn.
Bee groaned as she put her hand to her forehead, whimpering and prone on the floor. Behind her, the Eidolon squeezed Slashex’s limb as he struggled, the steel and star metal groaning and howling as it bent and warped. With a twist of her arm, she brought him to his knees instead.
With concern, the Eidolon looked back and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Bee stand again, slowly retracting her tongue with a dazed expression.
“What did you do to me?” Bee asked, her voice trembling, barely able to stay on her feet.
“Release me,” Slashex hissed at the Eidolon. “Now!”
Yet the Eidolon ignored his demands, looking to Bee for her word instead.
“It’s fine. I’m fine, I think.” Bee blinked the memory of the lights from her eyes, hugging herself.
The Eidolon released Slashex with a shove, casting him back against the ground in turn.
“She’s been infested,” Slashex said to the Eidolon, causing her to turn to Bee fully. “She’ll be braindead soon enough. Let me finish my work.”
“... I don’t understand…” Bee looked between them, searching for answers. She felt dizzy and lost in a way she hadn’t for quite some time.
But now Slashex was ignoring Bee, speaking only to the Eidolon. “Her only hope is to submit to one of the great family directly.”
With suddenness, the Eidolon fixed her twelve eyes back down on Slashex, making him flinch back from her. She drew her starmetal blade and pointed it directly at his head. He relented, holding up his many arms to placate her, the damaged one juddering with its broken mechanical internals.
“I can try to teach her to write such a spell. It will take time. Substantive time. I’m not certain she has the time. And if the others learn of this, they will take great advantage… Or we can take her to the Ossein Basilica. They have the equipment there to—”
Fury in her eyes, the Eidolon gripped Slashex by the throat and pulled him into the air. He kicked and wheezed as she held him aloft with a single arm, and now the steel of his neck resounded with a howl as it bent and twisted under her grip.
“Wait—”
Bee lurched forward, grabbing the Eidolon’s other hand and pulling on it to get her attention. The Eidolon looked down, meeting her gaze.
“It’s true… There’s a thing in my brain,” Bee confessed, trying to find reason. “He’s telling the truth. Please… You don’t have to hurt him. I want to know what he did to me.”
As Bee pleaded, the hatred she found in the Eidolon’s shining eyes softened. The warrior dropped the bent and broken disciple to the ground, landing in a twisted heap under his cloak, before turning to Bee and touching her cheek.
There, she tapped such gentle words, at odds with the violence of her acts that day.
“I will find a way to make this right,” the Eidolon silently said. “I have vowed to shield you from any harm, My Lady. Forgive my every failure, my impulsive acts that have shamed you. I will find a way to make this right. Whatever this ailment is, I will face the City itself to save you from it.”
Bee looked up to her twelve shining eyes, and as her heart fluttered, the worm in her skull finally lulled itself back to tranquillity.
“I believe you,” she tapped back against the Eidolon’s hand.
But even as she communicated the words, that new thing in her mind turned, eager to be used. Legs that yearned to run. A deep breath ready for release. A fist tensed to strike. Bee needed answers from Slashex to find out what profane alterations he had made to her mind already and why.