Apocalypse: The Divine Entity Lives in My Phone

Chapter 31: The Last Pulse

"Sam! Pull your hand out! It’s eating you!"

Ariana’s scream was a distant, distorted shriek, barely piercing the static roaring in Samuel’s ears.

Samuel didn't turn. He couldn't. His fingers had dissolved past the knuckle, his flesh turning into a liquid gold slurry that poured directly into the burning copper core of the master relay.

"I can't, Ari," Samuel rasped. "The system... it’s locked the ports."

"I'm cutting the main feed!" Ariana lunged for the console, her pulse-rifle raised like a club.

"No! Don't touch it!" Samuel roared, a spark of violet electricity leaping from his shoulder to ward her off. "If you break the loop now, the feedback will vaporize this entire level!"

"I’m not leaving you to dissolve into a pile of wires!"

"The transmission," Samuel wheezed, his chest heaving as the golden circuitry crawled up his forearm, splitting his skin like dry parchment. "It’s only at ninety-nine point eight percent. It needs the final byte."

"The sky is already splitting, Sam! The monoliths are here! It was a trap!"

"I know," Samuel said. His voice was dropping, losing its human warmth, layering with a cold, synthesized resonance. "But the data... the virus... it’s inside the stream. I put myself in the packet."

"What are you talking about?"

"The glitch," Samuel whispered, his vision fracturing into a million golden pixels. "I'm the error in the code."

A high-pitched, deafening whine erupted from the master relay. The liquid gold sphere in the center of the room spun so fast it became a blur of raw, blinding light.

"Warning," the system’s computerized voice boomed from the walls. "Biological signature integration: One hundred percent."

"Sam!" Ariana screamed, reaching out to grab his shoulder.

"Uplink complete," the system hummed. "Global broadcast achieved. Initiating primary recall."

A shockwave of pure kinetic force erupted from the core.

The blast hit Ariana chest-first, flinging her backward across the polished floorboards. She hit the steel bulkhead with a sickening thud, her rifle clattering into the dark.

The blinding light snapped.

In an instant, the roar of the machinery died, replaced by an oppressive, terrifying silence. The smoke in the room hung motionless in the air, as if time itself had decided to hold its breath.

Samuel’s hand was still fused to the relay. But he wasn't moving.

"Sam?" Ariana groaned, pushing herself up from the floor. She rubbed her bruised shoulder, her eyes wide as she stared at the center of the room. "Sam, talk to me."

He didn't answer.

Samuel stood perfectly upright, his back rigid, his head tilted back toward the shattered ceiling. His eyes were wide open, but the pupils were gone. In their place were two hollow, glowing pools of stagnant gold light.

"Sam!" Ariana scrambled to her feet, stumbling over the debris as she ran to him.

She grabbed his face, her hands shaking. His skin was ice-cold, smelling of scorched ozone and synthetic decay. His chest wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing.

"Come on, Sam. Don't do this. Wake up!" She slapped his cheek, but his head merely wobbled, returning to its locked, upward stare. "You did it, okay? The transmission hit one hundred. You won!"

"He cannot hear you, Subject One," a voice whispered from the terminal.

Ariana spun around, her hand dropping to her holster. "Hermes. What did you do to him?"

"I did nothing," the voice replied, now echoing from Samuel’s own pocket. The phone screen was a flat, dead grey. "The physical toll of a global broadcast is immense. Subject Zero has entered a state of terminal catatonia. His consciousness is currently distributed across the Jakarta grid."

"Bring him back!"

"There is no 'back' to bring him to," Hermes said. "He is the carrier wave now. He is currently experiencing the entirety of the network’s data. A human brain cannot process such bandwidth without suffering permanent perspective loss."

"You're a liar," Ariana hissed, tears stinging her eyes. She grabbed Samuel's wrist, trying to pry his fused fingers from the metal. "He’s stronger than your stupid code."

"The monoliths are descending, Ariana," Hermes noted calmly. "The recall has begun. If you do not leave this facility within ninety seconds, your biological signature will be harvested alongside the rest of the sector."

"I'm not leaving him!"

"He is already gone."

Outside, a rumble deeper than thunder shook the foundations of the tower. The glass windows shattered inward, showering the room in a rain of glittering shards. Through the gap, the sky was a solid, terrifying sheet of gold, dominated by the massive, descending shadow of the primary monolith.

"Sam, please," Ariana sobbed, resting her forehead against his shoulder. "You promised me we’d make it to the other side. You promised."

Samuel’s body gave a sudden, violent jerk.

Ariana gasped, stepping back.

The gold veins beneath Samuel’s skin flared with a blinding, radioactive intensity. His head snapped down, his neck popping with a sharp, mechanical click.

His eyes focused on her.

"Sam?" Ariana whispered, hope flaring in her chest. "Sam, is that you?"

Samuel looked at her. The gold in his eyes was cold, sterile, and utterly devoid of the fear, the anger, or the warmth she had come to know. His mouth opened, and when he spoke, his voice was a flat, multi-layered chime that sounded like a thousand strangers speaking in unison.

"Identification required," Samuel said.

Ariana froze, her heart stopping in her chest. "What? Sam, it’s me. It’s Ariana."

Samuel tilted his head, his gaze scanning her face with the cold, calculating precision of an optical lens.

"Search query: Ariana Setyaningrum," his voice droned, the sound echoing from his throat like static. "Result: Data not found."

He stepped toward her, his fused hand tearing away from the relay with a shower of golden sparks, his fingers reforming into smooth, metallic digits.

"Who are you?" Samuel asked.