Page 13 of The Gathering
Bishop quickly rebuilt the third lattice. Then the fourth.
The anomaly at the adrenal axis pulsed and destroyed the feedback loop taking the fourth lattice with it.
He was back to three layers—all cracked and holding by nothing.
Bishop’s neural space hemorrhaged static and his fucking blood ran hot with the architecture at this speed. One more hit and his system would need to eat itself for more processing power. This fuck was cornering himself for a suicide.
Bishop wrote a script for a fatal blow, but his system released something else entirely. A gamma wave that jolted through him and dropped a two-hundred pound Sinrik to the ground. Instant shutdown—lights out—system offline.
“Oh!” Beatrice screamed, out of breath from all her efforts. “Oh no! What happened?”
Holy.Fuck.
Bishop stood over him, his body shaking as he identified the power he’d unleashed. It came from his blood but it wasn’t his. It was a fusion. Him, his wife, and something else.
….His son.
“Is he dead?” Beatrice shrieked, dropping and pressing her ear to his chest.
“No,” Bishop said, winded with awe as the remnant of that power settled, leaving a crystal clear signature. “He’s…asleep.”
One blow. One massive sleeping pill. To protect his father.
AndSinrik.
“What do we do?” the nun worried, looking up at him then hurrying to her feet. “I’ll go get help.”
Before he could think, she cut out across the parking lot, white robes flying like a fearless dove in a storm.
Bishop pulled his phone out, gaze locked on the two-hundred-pound anomaly at his feet. He found 8-Bit’s number, wondering how long before the problem woke up or worked through whatever he’d done to him.
“Eveque.”
“Come to the parking lot, I’m on the—”
“We know where you are, we’re coming.”
He pocketed the phone and lowered to Sinrik, his adrenalin far from done. He pressed along his neck, looking for data as pounding boots grew louder behind him, matching his pulse.
Nothing.
He pushed into muscle, searching faster.Why the fuck can’t I see anything?
“What happened?” 8-Bit hurried, hunger blasting out with his vapored breaths.
His brothers formed a circle around them as he moved his touch to his temples.
“Shiiiit, you put him out?” Hurricane wonder-marveled.
“Hope you put a neuro round in his ass,” Bullets muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Shank asked as Bishop gave up with a shake of his head.
“You need assistance?” Lesion asked.
“Yeah, get him in restraints.” Bishop stood, his muscles doing an odd calibration dance under his skin. “Patches.”
“Right here,” he said, stepping forward.
