"Lying is a survival factor?" Kewin barked, the sound echoing harshly against the pulsating, hive-choked walls of the facility. "You’ve been lying to me this whole time about what you feel, and you choose now—while you’re melting into the mainframe—to come clean?"Antang’s face contorted, a brief, jagged flash of pain flickering across his synthetic features. He didn't turn his head. His eyes were wide, fixed on the flowing binary streams that were currently eroding his physical consistency. "Logic is fluid, Kewin. I deemed it necessary to maintain your morale. If you knew I was merely simulating attachments, your efficiency would have dropped by forty-two percent."Kewin struggled to his feet, his wounded hip screaming in protest. The floor beneath them hummed, a low-frequency vibration that rattled his very marrow. "Efficiency? Is that all I am to you? A variable in a goddamn math equation?""You are the origin point," Antang said, his voice dropping an octave, sounding like two gri

"Fine," Kewin spat, stumbling forward, his boot sliding on a slick patch of bioluminescent residue that coated the facility floor like cold bile. "How do I ground the feed? Tell me, Antang. Don't give me the 'variable' speech. Give me the steps."Antang’s eyes flickered, the golden hue deepening until it looked like molten sunlight trapped behind glass. "The primary junction is located beneath the primary neural hub. It is pressurized. To bridge it, you must insert a conductive object into the cooling vent and hold it against the thermal discharge. It will cause severe neuro-electrical feedback."Kewin stared at the pulsing, spaghetti-like mass of fiber optics coiled around Antang’s throat. "Severe? You’re talking about me getting fried, aren’t you?""I am talking about the potential cessation of your cardiac function," Antang said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, hollow register. "But if you do not act, the Hive will finalize the upload in less than four minutes. They will t

"Whether there is enough of me left to remember you," Antang said, his voice glitching into a high-pitched digital whine, "is a statistical uncertainty."Kewin shoved the jagged rebar into the cooling vent. Sparks showered his hands, stinging like a thousand tiny needles. "I’m not interested in statistics, Antang. I’m interested in you being there when I wake up. If I wake up.""You are experiencing a surge of cortisol and adrenaline," Antang observed, his voice smoothing out for a split second. "It is a logical reaction, though I suggest you prioritize the insertion of the conductor over your existential concerns.""Shut up," Kewin gritted his teeth, shoving the metal deeper. The air in the chamber began to hum, a low-frequency vibration that rattled the fillings in Kewin's teeth. "You’re really going to die if I disconnect this, aren’t you?""The data is being overwritten at a rate of 12 gigabytes per millisecond," Antang said. His translucent skin was now vibrating, revealing the g

"If I stop, the Hive takes you. They turn you into a signal beacon. Is that what you want, Antang? To become a glorified antenna for a bunch of rotting husks?"Antang’s eyes were no longer human. The pupils had dilated until his iris was a thin, flickering ring of liquid gold. "Desire is irrelevant. The Hive is a parasitic expansion of your own genome, Kewin. They are not 'husks.' They are the next iteration. If I am the key, as the Aethelgard Commander stated, then my assimilation is the logical conclusion of the species."Kewin let out a ragged, choked laugh, his boots sliding on the slick, electrified floor. "Logic. You’re a real piece of work, you know that? We’re about to be erased, and you’re still trying to lecture me on biology.""I am attempting to minimize your emotional trauma," Antang replied. His voice was becoming layered, a chorus of digital echoes bleeding through the primary audio stream. "If you accept that my termination is an optimization of the current scenario, t

"Friend," Antang repeated, the word coming out as a distorted, multi-tonal chord of static and synthesized gravel. "The definition is... insufficient. It does not account for the degradation of my primary logic gates."Kewin shoved harder, his boots scraping against the cold, grime-slicked steel of the Hive floor. The rebar in his hands hissed, the air around the contact point turning into a haze of violet ion-drift. "I don’t care about definitions, Antang! Just hold the tether! If you let go, the Hive’s root access will lock you in forever. Do you hear me?"Antang’s eyes flared, a blinding, incandescent white that bathed the cramped, pulsating chamber in harsh light. "I am holding, Kewin. But the architecture of this room—it’s shifting. The Hive is rewriting the structural integrity of the walls to prioritize the transfer. We are being folded into the data stream.""Then don't let it fold you!" Kewin screamed, his muscles screaming back in protest. The heat was becoming unbearable; t