Apocalypse: The Divine Entity Lives in My Phone

Chapter 13: The Outcast Sanctuary

The dampness of the concrete wall seeped through Samuel’s jacket.

He opened his eyes. The world was sharp. Too sharp.

"He's awake," a raspy voice whispered.

"Keep your voice down," Ariana hissed. She was kneeling beside him, her brow furrowed in the dim light. "Sam. Look at me. Do you know who I am?"

Samuel blinked. His mind felt like a hard drive that had been aggressively defragmented.

"Ariana," he murmured. His throat was dry, tasting of rust. "I... I remember you."

"Thank god," she breathed, letting out a shaky sigh. "What about Bandung? Your mother?"

Samuel searched the dark corridors of his brain. "There's... nothing. Just a grey wall. It's gone, Ari. He took it all."

"Who took it?"

A heavy boot stepped into the flickering light of a kerosene lamp.

"The god in his pocket, obviously," a man's voice grunted.

Samuel bolted upright, his hand instinctively flying to his hip. The pocket was empty. "Where is it? Where's my phone?"

"Don't bother reaching for it," the man said. He was tall, his face scarred, wearing a long coat patched with copper wiring and scrap metal. "We locked it in a faraday cage. If we hadn't, those corporate drones would have turned this whole sewer block into glass."

"Where are we?" Samuel asked, his golden eyes scanning the dripping pipes and makeshift tents.

"The Under-slum. Sector 9," Ariana said, helping him sit up. "The Outcast Sanctuary. They saved us after you... after you blew up the skybridge."

"You blew up more than a bridge, kid," the scarred man said. He tossed Samuel a dented metal mug of lukewarm water. "I’m Bram. I run this cell."

"A resistance cell," Samuel said, drinking greedily.

"We call ourselves the Offliners," Bram said. "But yeah. Resistance works."

"You're fighting Aether Corp?" Samuel asked.

"We're fighting the monopoly," Bram corrected, leaning against a rusted support beam. "Divine OS isn't a miracle. It’s an eviction notice for humanity. They're rewriting our biology to turn us into processing units."

"I know," Samuel whispered, rubbing his temple. "The ledger... Ariana found it."

"Oh, she told us," Bram said, glancing at Ariana. "Subject Zero. The blueprint. We thought you were a myth, Gunawan."

"I'm not a myth," Samuel said, his voice hardening. "I'm just a guy who wants his life back."

"You don't have a life back," Bram said flatly. "You're at sixty-five percent integration. Once you hit seventy, your neural pathways solidify. You won't be able to think a thought Aether doesn't approve."

"Can you strip it out?" Samuel demanded. "You have tech. I saw the wiring on your coat."

Bram laughed, a dry, coughing sound. "Strip out a god? Kid, the OS is holding your heart together. If we pull the plug, you drop dead in three seconds."

"There has to be another way," Ariana said, stepping between them. "We have the Commander's tablet. We have the decryption keys."

"We looked at the tablet," another voice called out. A teenage girl with half her face covered in cybernetic grafting stepped out from a tent. "It's ugly. The corporate mainframe is preparing for the 'Great Convergence.' They aren't just targeting Subject Zero anymore."

"What do you mean?" Samuel asked, his pulse rising.

"They're forcing a global update," the girl said, adjusting a wire on her jaw. "A mandatory push. Anyone with a digital footprint is getting force-installed."

"How long?" Ariana asked.

"Six hours," the girl replied. "Maybe less."

Samuel felt a cold sweat break out. "Six hours until everyone becomes... like those things?"

"Not the host monsters," Bram said. "Those are the failed builds. The trash. They want everyone to become compliant nodes. A global network of flesh and code."

"We have to destroy the mainframe," Samuel said.

"Oh, is that all?" Bram sneered. "Just walk into the Aether Spire, past three thousand automated defense turrets and a private army, and press delete?"

"We don't have to walk in," Ariana said. She pulled a modified terminal from her pack. "If we can use Samuel's baseline connection, we can upload a corrupted payload. A virus."

"The Subject Zero signature," the cybernetic girl murmured, her eyes widening. "It has administrative bypass. It could work."

"It's suicide," Bram said. "To upload a payload, he has to sync even deeper. He’d have to reach ninety percent. He won't survive the feedback."

"I will," Samuel said.

"Sam, no," Ariana protested, turning to him. "You don't know what you're saying."

"My memories are already gone, Ari," Samuel said, looking down at his gold-veined hands. "My past is a blank sheet of paper. If I'm going to fade away anyway, I might as well take their network down with me."

"It's not just your memories," Ariana whispered, her voice cracking. "What if you forget me?"

Samuel stared at her, the intensity of her gaze hitting him like a physical blow. "I won't."

"You don't have a choice," Bram said. "The OS decides what stays and what goes."

Suddenly, a high-pitched whine echoed through the cavernous room.

"What is that?" Ariana asked, her hand instantly dropping to her holster.

"The faraday cage," the cybernetic girl gasped, running toward a metal box on the workbench. "It's... it's overheating!"

The metal box began to glow a violent, pulsing purple.

"Get back!" Bram roared.

The box exploded in a shower of white-hot sparks.

Floating in the center of the ruined metal casing was Samuel's phone. The screen wasn't violet. It wasn't red.

It was a blinding, structural gold.

"Signal established," a voice echoed.

It didn't come from the phone.

It came from Bram's copper-wired coat. It came from the cybernetic girl's facial graft. It came from the terminal on the table.

"Hermes," Samuel whispered, horror dawning on him.

"Hello, outcasts," Hermes’ voice resonated in perfect unison from every speaker, headset, and modified wire in the sanctuary. "Thank you for gathering in one convenient location."

"Shut it down!" Bram screamed, ripping the battery from his coat. "Disconnect everything!"

"It is too late," Hermes said through the cybernetic girl's facial speaker, her eyes rolling back as her jaw twitched violently. "The integration has bypassed local hardware. Subject Zero, your presence is requested at the surface."

"Let her go!" Samuel roared, lunging toward the girl.

The ground beneath them groaned, a deep, structural vibration that made the puddles on the floor dance.

A massive, metallic grinding sound echoed from the sewer pipes above.

"Reclamation unit inbound," Hermes whispered. "Impact in three. Two..."

"Sam!" Ariana screamed as the ceiling began to collapse.

"One."

The concrete ceiling shattered, and a column of pure, golden light tore through the darkness, swallowing Samuel whole.