Silicon Sirocco: The Crystal Grave

Hijacked Neurons

"My leg just locked!" Omar slammed into the rusted catwalk rail, his boot scraping against the grated floor with a sound like iron teeth on glass. "Laila, my left knee it’s overriding the joint!"

Laila grabbed his tactical vest, snatching him back before he could pitch forward into the hundred-foot drop below. "Then drag it! We have thirty seconds before the heat-seekers recalibrate!"

"I can't drag what isn't listening!" Omar gritted his teeth, sweat stinging his eyes as his left leg kicked out in a stiff, robotic arc, completely out of sync with his body. "The Signal isn't just sending data anymore, Laila. It’s writing code directly into my central nervous system!"

"Then write it back!" She shoved him down a dark side-corridor lined with glowing high-voltage conduits. Her rail-gun hummed a warning chime, its heat sink flashing a violet overload warning. "I am not dying in a sewer because your spinal cord decided to accept an unauthorized software update!"

"It’s not an update it’s an index!" Omar gasped, staggering into the damp wall. His hand shot out without his permission, his fingers locking onto an unshielded power node. Sparks showered over his shoulder, biting into his neck.

"Omar! Get your hand off that!"

"I... I can’t!" He screamed as his knuckles turned white, locked like a rusted vise around the live coupling. Silver light surged behind his irises, bleeding into his pupils until his eyes looked like liquid mercury. "It’s bypassing my motor cortex! It’s using my optical nerves as a display terminal!"

Laila didn't argue. She raised her heavy mechanical arm, spun the hydraulic actuator, and smashed her metal forearm directly into his shoulder joint.

The impact tore him free from the conduit. Omar hit the concrete floor hard, gasping for air as his chest heaved in ragged, violent spasms.

"Did that clear your display?" Laila demanded, kneeling beside him, her eye scanning the ceiling pipes.

"No," Omar rasped, his left hand violently twitching in a series of rhythmic, involuntary pulses against his thigh. "It... it downloaded a map."

Laila paused, her rail-gun dropping an inch. "A map of what?"

"This sector," he whispered, his voice pitching down an octave into a unnatural, dual-toned resonance. "And the hostiles waiting twenty meters ahead."

Before Laila could bring her gun back up, a heavy iron grate above them exploded downward.

Two figures dropped onto the catwalk, landing with terrifying lightness. They wore ragged, dust-caked cloaks held together by heavy copper wiring and scrap armor. Strips of thick black cloth covered their eyes, but their heads snapped toward Omar in terrifying unison.

"The Signal speaks!" the first one hissed, his mouth a jagged ruin of brass caps and filed teeth. "The Conduit flesh walks among us!"

"Drop your weapons!" Laila roared, leveling her rail-gun at the lead scavenger's chest. "Step back or I’ll erase your torso!"

"Iron woman," the second one spat, raising a crude pneumatic harpoon loaded with rusted rebar. "A hollow shell carrying stolen meat. She pollutes the Voice!"

"Laila, don't shoot!" Omar screamed, pushing himself up, but his right arm refused to lift. It clung to his side like dead weight. "Their gear... it’s tuned to the same frequency as my brain! If you fire that rail-gun's pulse, the electromagnetic shockwave will cook my cerebrum!"

"They're pointing a harpoon at my throat, Omar!" Laila shouted back, her fingers itching on the hair-trigger. "I’m taking the shot!"

"You shoot, I die!" Omar yelled, his body jerking sideways as his left leg took an unprompted step toward the scavengers. "They aren't scavengers they're the Sand-Blind!"

The lead scavenger dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead into the filth of the grating. "He knows our name! The core speaks through the flesh! The Prophet has descended into the Deep!"

"I am not a prophet, I'm a target!" Omar snarled, trying to pull himself away, but his legs were stepping forward against his will, drawing him straight toward the kneeling zealots. "Laila, hold me back! My body is walking on its own!"

Laila lunged, catching him around the waist with her mechanical arm. Her servos shrieked under the strain as she fought against his hijacked muscles. "Stop moving, damn it! You're heavy enough without your legs working against me!"

"I'm not doing this!" Omar screamed. His eyes flared brilliant silver, illuminated from within. "The network is pulling me! It wants a physical interface with their array!"

More shadows emerged from the gloom. Dozens of them. The Sand-Blind poured from the ventilation shafts, clinging to the iron pipes like swarming insects. Every single one wore a blindfold; every single one had copper wire woven directly into their ears and scalps, bleeding dry rust onto their skin.

"Look at the blind men," Laila muttered, her voice dropping all hit of humor. "They ripped their own eyes out."

"To clear the noise," the lead Sand-Blind chanted, rising to his feet with his arms wide open. "The eyes lie! The eyes see only dust and decay! But the Signal... the Signal is truth! The Signal is God!"

"Your god is a broken corporate energy grid!" Laila shouted, trying to drag Omar backward into the gloom. "Get out of our way!"

"He belongs to the Core!" the zealot screamed. "Purge the metal woman! Harvest her organs to feed the Voice!"

The swarm moved.

"Laila, duck!" Omar yelled.

His left arm completely rogue now snapped up, grabbing Laila's collar and throwing her onto the catwalk deck just as three pneumatic harpoons whistled through the air where her neck had been a millisecond prior. The iron spikes slammed into the steel wall behind them, spitting red sparks.

"Did you do that?!" Laila yelled, scrambling across the floor and firing a blind burst from her sidearm. The energy shot blew a hole through a pipe, venting scalding steam into the attackers' faces.

"No!" Omar screamed, his body standing upright in the middle of the corridor like a lightning rod. "The Signal saved her! It needs her alive to keep my pulse stable!"

"A mutual hostage situation!" Laila grunted, kicking a scavenger off the edge of the catwalk into the black abyss below. "My favorite!"

The Sand-Blind leader leaped over the venting steam, his copper-wrapped hands reaching out not for Laila, but straight for Omar’s glowing head. "Give us the key! Let us drink the Voice!"

Omar tried to pull his sidearm, but his thumb jammed against the safety valve, frozen by his own paralyzed nerves. "I can't draw! Laila, my hand won't release the catch!"

Laila rolled under a swing from an iron pipe, brought her steel knuckle up into the leader’s jaw with a sickening crack, and hauled Omar by his belt toward an airlock door at the end of the gangway.

"In here!" she yelled, slamming her palm onto the override switch.

The blast door groaned, heavy iron gears grinding down.

"They're coming through the roof!" Omar warned, his silver eyes flashing rhythmically like a distress beacon. "The frequency... it's spiking! They're triggering an EMP pulse from their scrap-rig!"

"Not today!" Laila jammed her rail-gun into the door mechanism and pulled the primary trigger.

The localized kinetic blast fused the steel locking pins shut, welding the heavy door into the frame just as a dozen heavy bodies slammed into the far side, screaming in frantic, holy rage.

The corridor went dead silent, save for the rhythmic, violent thumping against the sealed iron door.

Laila slid down the wall, panting heavily, her artificial heart whirring at a dangerous pitch. "We... we made it."

"No," Omar whispered. He was standing rigid in the center of the dark room, his right arm slowly raising his own sidearm and aiming the barrel directly at Laila's chest.

Laila’s breath hitched. She didn't reach for her gun. "Omar... what are you doing?"

"It’s not me," Omar rasped, tears spilling down his cheeks, catching the eerie silver light radiating from his eyes. His finger tightened on the trigger. "Laila... run. It decided you're a threat to the sync."