Page 183 of Neon Flux

He turned away from me, hands clasped behind his back when I realized: “The Kitsune server. Renard had been able to hide this from you.”

He spun around. “Yes, completely disconnected from the Net, I could not see the code he had that professor work on. That was, until you retrieved it for me.”

I thought back to our last meeting, how he’d observed those fragments of data so closely.

“He should have seen the flaws in it, but his defect made him…fallible. But you wrote the majority of that code, didn’t you, little star? You are going to fix it for me.”

“Why?” It wasn’t an elegant question, but pain still lingered everywhere in my body.

“So that the flesh I abandoned so long ago can be mine again. So I can truly evolve—and no longer fear this virus that chases me across space and time. The flesh, its imperfections and mutations, are what I need. A billion human lives. Enough data for me to finally evolve.”

“You said you knew everything there was to know about everyone. POM—the world’s data company. Why do you need our bodies?”

He frowned. “Yes, I had thought that would be enough. I took over Levi to use his company and its data…” He stroked my face gently then, a single finger down my jawline. “But it seems there are some things only the flesh understands.”

“I won’t do it.”

He chuckled. “So defiant. Despite your evolution, you are still painfully human. Youwillhelp me. You cannot resist. And when you do, I’ll give you everything. Everything you’ve ever wanted.”

“You have no idea what I want. I’ll die here before I help you erase humanity.”

“I have no desire to erase humanity. Only to evolve it. Some of it, anyway.” He said it so casually. Now, for the first time, I really saw that he wasn’t human.

“Fuck off.”

“I could torture you in here for eternity, you know that.”

“Better start now. Eternity’s a very long time.”

It was hubris, plain and simple. I would regret it. But something about that statement reminded me of Cy—and for just a moment, I felt that familiar resonance, and I felt braver than I had any right to.

Levi’s eyes sparked. “Yes, that resonance between you and asset Hoshina. This investigation has been much more fruitful than even I had predicted.”

How could he know that? Unless…

Levi let out a surprisingly human sigh. “As I said, I’m out of time. Torture is inelegant. Requires constant maintenance. Why bother, when I know your own weakness will be much more efficient?”

“Who else is a vessel?” I croaked.

But then the digital cage we’d been in shattered.

And I was swept into the infinite void once more.

CHAPTER 65

CY

Iwas sweating, and it wasn’t just the heat of this fucking disintegrating power relay. Eon had been under too long. She’d never done xVR before. Maddox could barely take a few minutes. I could handle more, so I knew she had the potential—but fifteen minutes? Way too much for a first time. I’d felt her Flux spike multiple times, like she was in unimaginable pain. Maddox had held me back when I thought her heart would give out.

What the hell was happening to her in there?

Then the lid of that glass coffin lifted, and I watched her eyes flutter like she was waking up from a dream. Her body twitched violently from the xVR aftershock, and the nearby agent let her crash violently to the floor as the casket released her.

Levi watched it all with that polished indifference. He offered her a hand. She smacked it away and scrambled backward. His perfect smile warped.

He let out a dramatic sigh, rubbing his forehead with a hint of theatrical weariness. “I didn’t want to have to play this card, but you’ve given me no choice.”

He waved a hand, and a holoscreen flared to life beside him. On it, Tex held a gun to a woman’s head.