THE GLASS GOD: Heir of the living Grid

CHAPTER 7: THE RUST- GUT SANCTUARY

"Jump! Now!" I roared, dragging Lyra toward the edge of the rooftop.

The Crown gunships were shrieking overhead, their spotlights searing the gravel behind us. We didn't hit the ground; we hit a trash-chute, sliding through layers of filth and discarded tech until we spilled out into the damp, lightless alleys of the Null Zones.

The air here was thick with the smell of sulfur and rotting copper. The high-pitched whine of the Grid—the constant hum I hadn't realized was there—suddenly vanished. It was a dead zone. A sanctuary of silence.

"We’re safe," Lyra wheezed, pushing herself up from a pile of rusted sheet metal. "The scanners can't penetrate this deep into the slums. The interference is too high."

I didn't answer. I stayed on the ground, my hands clawing at the dirt. My head didn't just ache; it felt like a library was being burned down inside my skull.

"Elion? You're bleeding again," Lyra knelt beside me, her voice trembling. "Talk to me. We made it out."

"I... I can't find it," I whispered.

"Find what? The frequency? Good! Let it stay dead for five minutes."

"No," I gasped, my eyes darting frantically in the dark. "My mother. Her face. It’s gone."

Lyra froze. "What are you talking about? You were just telling me about her last year. The blue scarf, the way she smelled like ozone and jasmine..."

"I remember the words!" I shouted, grabbing Lyra’s sleeves. My vision flickered with golden lines of code, scrolling over my memories like a virus. "I have the data points. Jasmine. Ozone. Blue. But the image... it’s been overwritten. I can feel the space being used for something else."

**[ REALLOCATING STORAGE: COMBAT LOGS OPTIMIZED ]**

"Overwrite? Elion, you're a person, not a hard drive!" Lyra grabbed my face, forcing me to look at her. "Focus on me. Think of the kitchen in the old sector. Think of the way she used to hum when the power went out."

"I see a 3D wireframe of the hospital," I said, a tear carving a clean line through the soot on my cheek. "I see the exact voltage required to fry a Signal-Hound. I see the sub-routines of the Mark-IV droid. But she’s gone, Lyra. I’m trading my life for combat data."

I felt a quiet, hollow panic that was worse than the fear of the gunships. I was becoming a more efficient weapon every second, and with every upgrade, the "Elion" that Lyra loved was being deleted.

"Tell me," I pleaded, my voice breaking. "Please. Describe her to me. If you say it, maybe I can save a copy. What did her eyes look like?"

Lyra’s lip trembled. "They were brown, Elion. Dark, like rich earth. And she had these tiny laugh lines at the corners because she never let the Syndicate see her cry. She was strong. She was—"

"Stop," a voice rasped from the shadows.

A dozen silhouettes detached themselves from the rusted walls. These weren't Crown soldiers. They were scavengers, draped in mismatched armor plating and holding jury-rigged Solder-Torches that hissed with green flame.

"Look at that," a man stepped forward, his arm a mechanical prosthetic held together by literal duct tape and wire. "I know that face. Hard to forget the kid who turned an entire block into a supernova nine months ago."

"We don't want any trouble," Lyra said, stepping in front of me. She reached for the shiv hidden in her boot. "We're just passing through."

"The Null Zones don't have 'passers-by,' girl," the man sneered. He raised his torch, the green light illuminating the "Solder-Son" emblem burned into his leather vest. "We lost three good scouts in that blast. The Syndicate told us it was a gas leak. But I see the way the kid’s eyes are twitching. That ain't gas."

"Back off," I said, trying to stand. My legs felt like they belonged to a different machine. "I'm not the person you remember."

"Oh, we know who you are," a woman from the back of the group spat. She leveled a harpoon gun at my chest. "You're the jackpot. The Crown just put out a bounty for a 'Bio-Organic Breach' worth more credits than this whole district. You’re our ticket out of the rust, kid."

"He’s sick!" Lyra yelled. "He needs help, not a bounty hunter!"

"He looks like a gold mine to me," the leader said, gesturing for his crew to circle us. "And you? You're just a witness. We don't need witnesses."

I felt the golden hum in my chest start to stir. It didn't care about my mother’s face. It didn't care about my panic. It saw a threat, and it began to calculate the most efficient way to turn the Solder-Sons into ash.

"Lyra, move," I warned, my voice beginning to layer with that terrifying metallic echo again.

"No, Elion! Don't let it take more! If you fight them like that, you'll lose the rest of yourself!"

"If I don't fight them, we die!" I roared.

The leader of the Solder-Sons laughed, stepping closer. "Look at him. The little hero is glitching out. Tie them up. If he resists, take his legs. The Crown only needs his head anyway."

As the scavengers lunged, I didn't see people. I saw heat signatures. I saw the structural weaknesses in their rusted armor. I saw the exact frequency needed to make their Solder-Torches explode in their hands.

"I can't remember her face," I whispered to the dark. "But I know exactly how to kill you."

The leader reached for my throat, but my hand moved faster than humanly possible, catching his wrist. The metal of his prosthetic began to glow a white-hot gold.

"What are you?" he gasped, his eyes widening as the heat traveled up his arm.

I looked at him, and for a second, I wasn't in the Null Zone. I was back in the static, hearing the whisper of the Source.

"I’m the ghost you should have left in the alley," I said.

The alley erupted in a surge of golden light, but as the screams started, a new sound cut through the chaos. A rhythmic, heavy thudding that shook the buildings.

From the end of the alley, a massive armored vehicle with the Crown’s seal smashed through a wall of crates.

"Target confirmed," a speaker on the vehicle boomed. "Deploying dampener field."

The golden light in my hands suddenly flickered and died. I fell to my knees, the "Data Crash" hitting me like a physical wall.

"Elion!" Lyra screamed as a net of electrified wire shot out from the vehicle, pinning her to the ground.

The Solder-Sons scattered, but they weren't the ones the Crown was after. The vehicle’s doors hissed open, and a man in a white suit, untouched by the filth of the slums, stepped out.

"Nine months of waiting," the man said, adjusting his spectacles. "Don't break him just yet. We need the memory bank intact."

I looked up at him, my mind a blank slate of static. I didn't know his name. I didn't know who I was.

I only knew that the girl screaming my name was the only thing in the world that felt real, and I was about to forget why.