Page 125 of Thorne
My vision fringes with gray. Through the cracked plastic, the lines of code on the screen swim, the characters vibrating, multiplying into a jagged mess of green. I don't pull my hands from the keyboard. I can't. If the rhythm breaks, the handshake stalls.
I try to jam my palm over the crack, but the plastic is sharp, slicing into my skin. The halon is a tightening vise around my lungs, a silent, invisible weight pressing the consciousness out of my brain.
Thorne is a dark silhouette in the mist, his rifle dropping as he sees my shoulders heave. He's beside me in a single stride, hiseyes wide behind his own mask as he sees the ruined plastic of mine.
He doesn't try to fix the seal. He knows the math of a cracked plate.
His hands go to his mask.
I grab his wrists.
"You have to finish the upload." He uses his last breath to command me. "Lily needs you. She needs you to finish this. She needs you to come home. She needs you to teach her about seven."
He rips his own mask off. The halon hits him instantly. His jaw locks, his throat corded with the effort of not inhaling the poison.
His hands are on my face, tightening the straps, sealing the mask against my skin.
"Thorne. She needs her father."
His eyes are fierce through the halon haze. Already, he's not breathing, holding, conserving what air he has in his lungs. He takes a step back, and kneels. Conserving his strength. His hands fall to his sides.
His chest is still.
No rise. No fall.
I don't have a choice.
I turn back to the terminal.
Line forty-nine. Line fifty. Line fifty-one.
The vapor is thick now. The screen is barely visible. But Thorne is in my peripheral vision, motionless, not breathing, watching me type.
Line fifty-three. Line fifty-four.
The framework is building. Each line feeds the next. The recursive architecture is taking shape, the trap assembling itself inside Phoenix's own systems.
Line fifty-six. Line fifty-seven.
Error: Invalid syntax. Line 57.
My fingers freeze.
No. No, no, no.
I scan the line. Find the mistake. A single character, transposed in my haste. I delete. Retype. Hit enter.
Error: Authentication timeout. Re-authenticate to continue.
The screen flashes. Phoenix is fighting me. It doesn't understand what I'm doing, but it knows something is wrong. It's throwing obstacles, buying time, trying to force me to break the connection.
I re-authenticate. The same sequence. My fingers fumbling now, clumsy with adrenaline.
Authentication accepted.
I resume typing. Line fifty-seven again. Line fifty-eight.
In my peripheral vision, Thorne's hand twitches. His body is starting to protest the lack of oxygen. His reflexes are kicking in. The desperate need to breathe, a survival instinct he's fighting with everything he has.
