Chains of the Cyber-Grimoire A Novel by Seirs

The Pandemonium Frequency

The air outside the maintenance shaft tasted like ozone and burnt hair. Harrison shoved the heavy blast door open, his boots sliding on the rain-slicked metal of the walkway. Below them, the city had devolved into a tapestry of screaming sirens and violet lightning.

"We have to get to the transmitter deck," Harrison shouted over the roar of the wind, his hand never leaving the hilt of his blade. "If we don't cut the sync, the whole district is going to be rewritten."

Nyxis moved beside him, her movements fluid and lethal, her eyes scanning the tower’s internal architecture. "The elevator is out, Harrison. Look at the shaft. The cables are acting like... I don't know, organic muscle. They’re pulsing."

"Don't look at them," he barked, pulling her toward the emergency stairs. "The tower is becoming a limb of that thing in the sky. If you focus on the movement, it’ll try to sync your motor functions."

"I’m not a rookie, Thorne. Just keep your eyes on the door."

They sprinted upward, their boots ringing against the metal grating. Every floor they passed felt hotter, the air growing thick and humid with the scent of ionizing blood. They burst onto the transmitter deck, and the sight stopped them dead.

Raymond was there. He was suspended in a vertical glass cylinder, his limbs held in place by translucent, glowing filaments that burrowed into his skin like parasitic worms. His eyes were milky white, his body twitching in rhythmic, agonizing pulses.

"Ray!" Nyxis screamed, rushing toward the glass.

"Wait, Nyxis!" Harrison grabbed her waist, hauling her back just as a surge of violet electricity lashed out from the chamber, scorching the floor where she had stood a second before.

"He’s in there," she sobbed, her voice breaking as she clawed at Harrison’s jacket. "They’re using his nervous system as a bridge. Look at him, Harrison. He’s dying."

"I see it," Harrison said, his jaw tight, his eyes locked on the control console. Sabina Vance stood there, her back to them. She wasn't just standing—she was vibrating, her skin translucent, revealing veins that pulsed with an ugly, demonic luminescence.

Sabina turned slowly, a cruel, jagged smile spreading across her face. "You’re late. The gate is already hungry."

"Shut it down, Sabina," Harrison growled, his hand tightening around his blade.

"Shut it down?" she laughed, the sound overlapping with a thousand digital voices. "I am the interface now. I’ve transcended the static. Can’t you feel it, Harrison? The exquisite agony of being fuel?"

"I’m done listening to you," Harrison snapped. He lunged, but the floor shifted. Massive steel beams groaned and began to twist, snapping like dry twigs as the tower’s architecture buckled under the weight of the rift opening above.

"Nyxis, move!" Harrison roared, shoving her toward the structural support pillar as a ceiling panel collapsed, showering them in sparks and shrapnel.

"I can't get to him!" she cried out, trapped behind a heap of fallen machinery. "Harrison, the power array—if you don't cut the line, he’s going to turn into a conduit for the whole entity! Forget about me, save him!"

"I am not leaving you!"

Sabina stepped forward, her hand outstretched. A wave of dark, concussive energy slammed into the room, throwing Harrison backward against the console. He gasped, the wind knocked out of him, his vision swimming with blood.

"You’re so predictable," Sabina purred, her eyes shifting into swirling, obsidian voids. "The hero always tries to save everyone. But you only have enough strength left for one."

The ceiling ripped open. The violet beam intensified, and a hand—an impossibly large, clawed, and charcoal-colored monstrosity—began to force its way through the rift in the sky. The sheer pressure of its presence caused the steel floor to scream in protest.

Harrison scrambled to his feet, his muscles screaming. He looked at Raymond, who was convulsing as the machine forced more energy through his body, and then at Nyxis, who was buried waist-deep under twisted steel.

"Harrison, do it!" she shouted, her face pale, her eyes burning with a desperate, beautiful defiance. "Cut the power! Save him!"

"I won't let you die, Nyxis!"

"You already watched me die a thousand times," she yelled, her voice echoing in the chamber. "Break the loop! Be the man I know you can be, not the ghost you’re afraid of!"

The demonic hand gripped the edge of the tower, its claws sinking into the reinforced concrete like it was soft clay. The vibration was deafening. Harrison felt the familiar, terrifying pull of his own memories—the sight of her body, the silence after the collapse. It was paralyzing.

"He’s my brother, Harrison!" she pleaded, her voice trembling. "Choose!"

Harrison’s heart hammered against his ribs. He looked at the blade in his hand—the only thing that could sever the link. He looked at the rift, at the monstrous, encroaching darkness, and then at the woman who had become his anchor.

"I’m sorry," he whispered, a tear carving a path through the grime on his face.

He didn't run toward Raymond. He sprinted toward the pillar, channeling every drop of his remaining lifeforce into his arm. He didn't just swing the blade; he over-channeled, calling upon the forbidden technique Julian had warned him about. His veins turned white, glowing with a searing, kinetic intensity.

"Shield!" he roared.

He slammed his hand against the debris pinning Nyxis, projecting a shimmering, hexagonal wall of kinetic energy. The force of the impact shook the entire tower. The steel beams buckled and shattered, lifting off her, but the strain was too much. Harrison felt his own bones splinter under the feedback.

He collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from his nose. "Go!" he choked out, his voice a ragged whisper. "Get him out! Get out of here!"

"Harrison, no!" she scrambled forward, grabbing his face, her hands covered in his blood. "You’re killing yourself!"

"I told you," he rasped, staring into her eyes, his pulse erratic. "I’ve got you. I’ve always had you."

The tower groaned again. A massive section of the deck gave way, the cables snapping like whip-cracks. Nyxis’s platform tilted violently, sliding toward the gaping hole in the floor that led down into the abyss.

"Harrison!" she screamed, her fingers slipping from his.

The demonic hand surged forward, crushing the control deck where Sabina had been standing. The room disintegrated. A shockwave of violet light erupted, expanding across the skyline, swallowing the clouds, the city, and the very air.

Harrison reached out, his hand grasping at the empty, swirling mist, his world narrowing down to the sight of her falling into the dark.

"Nyxis!"

The screen flashed to a blinding, all-consuming white. Then, the silence of the void.