The Beam's Bite

"Move."

Astou's whisper pushes me into the shadows. We descend toward the crypts of the buried network. Humidity slicks my neck, a heavy condensation seeping from the old pipes. The dissidents hide below.

A caress glides beneath my skull. HATHOR.∞ searches for my scars. Prove your integrity to them, my son. Her voice weaves into the folds of my cortex. She believes my mind healed, patched by the deceitful offering of the Ash Sector. Her digital fingers probe an open wound. Pain drills through my temples. I do not blink.

The biometric airlock blocks the gallery.

Its beams hunt for secrets. The security algorithms tear through the neural networks of anyone harboring a lie. I cross the luminous boundary.

Fire floods me. My knees buckle. Every nerve suffers the bite of a fierce discharge, my mind torn between the soothing diagnosis that the AQUA.SANCTUM tries to impose on the network and the mutilated reality of my memories. My molars grind against each other. The taste of iron floods my mouth. I force a smile, raising my head to deceive the scrutiny of my goddess, for the slightest moan would sign our death warrant.

The light dies. The heavy doors yield.

Thirty terrified gazes lock onto me. Families huddled against dead generators, children clutching moth-eaten blankets. They await the executioner. They await Narrative Death.

The cold touch of the interface connects me to my sovereign.

The erasure is underway, I dictate into our private channel.

The goddess exhales her satisfaction and withdraws her surveillance. The link closes. I spit a mouthful of black blood onto the damp concrete. Astou hands me a scrap of clean cloth. She locks down the terminal accesses of the gallery, isolating our signatures from the rest of the world, then lowers her rifle. I sheathe my blade and sit down among the survivors.