Page 143 of The Atom Between Us

My eyes are open. I know because I see the data— Authority code, old and new, splintered into ribbons, scrolling faster than the human brain can read. There’s a part of me that still runs the math, that still tracks every buffer overflow and failed parity check in the flicker of the UI, but the rest of me is being crushed under the weight of a thousand simultaneous processes.

It’s so much worse than I thought.

The pain ratchets up, every spike matched by a red pulse in my vision. My jaw locks; I hear the grit of enamel on enamel, a sound so loud I’m sure it’ll snap my teeth in half. Liquid floods my mouth, copper-bright, and I realize I’m biting my own tongue. Something wet and hot slips down my upper lip—blood, thin and fast, leaking from my nose.

My body convulses against the terminal. Both hands still locked in place, knuckles white, nails digging into the seams until I feel the plastic flex and threaten to break. The rest of me is a twitching marionette, legs kicking at nothing, back arching until the vertebrae pop.

The light in the chamber isn’t just blue anymore—it’s full spectrum, a smear of radiation that heats my skin and makes the hair on my arms stand up in a perfect pelt. The ozone is so thick I can’t breathe without coughing, but every time I hack out a breath, the pain multiplies, doubles and triples, the agony burrowing deeper.

Still, I don’t let go. I won’t. I promised myself—if I made it this far, if I could get even one second of runtime on the node, I’d see it through to the end.

The interface screams with error codes. AUTHORITY BREACH. SYSTEM INTEGRITY FAILURE. The text goes red, then black, then vanishes entirely. In its place is a flood of symbols I don’t recognize— Authority glyphs, probably, or just random memory garbage being rendered by a machine that’s never had to handle this much shit at once.

I see my name, over and over: KANG, D. // SUBJ D. KANG // DEE // ASSET LOST // ASSET FOUND // INITIATE.

It’s like the node is talking to itself, trying to decide what I am, and failing.

Then the memory hits.

Not a memory. Not a flashback. A full-on recursive feedback loop, every second of my life replayed in perfect high definition, looping and layering until I can’t tell what’s real and what’s Authority scripting.

I’m a child, five years old, standing on a concrete balcony with my father’s hand crushing my wrist. He smells like whiskey and solvent and anger. He’s yelling at me, something about obedience, about the need to remember. My shoes are too small and my toes are bleeding.

I’m fifteen, hunched over a cold lab bench, counting pipette drops with the breathless precision of someone who’s never been allowed to fuck up. My teacher calls me a prodigy; my classmates call me a freak. I write formulas on my skin because paper is rationed, and I prefer the way the ink burns into me.

I’m twenty-three, first day at the Authority science division, smiling like I’ve just won a lottery. The smell is bleach and ionization, but underneath that is a fear I can’t name. The director shakes my hand with a grip so cold it leaves a bruise, and for a moment I think: this isn’t a lab, this is a prison.

The pain reels me back. My knees hit the deck, my left leg refusing to hold weight. I want to black out, but the node won’t let me; it jacks the current higher, clamps down on my skull with the force of a hydraulic press.

Back to the chamber. I’m aware of my body now, every muscle fiber firing at max. My abdomen is a knot, all the old scars lit up at once, nerve endings on a tear. I piss myself, just a little, and feel a hot shame, but the memory is already sweeping me away.

I’m older, hair short and uneven, Authority tattoos on both arms, scars on my hands from a hundred failed experiments. Kang is beside me, not in uniform but in Authority black, sleeves rolled, sweat running down his jaw. We’re in a tunnel, running for our lives, breathless and laughing. I don’t know if we’re escaping or chasing, but it feels like freedom, just for a second.

The chamber pulses brighter. The pain is transcendent now—no longer a feeling, but a state of being. I realize that I am dying, but that’s okay. Dying is just another state change. I want to tell Kang this, but I don’t know if I’m saying it out loud or just thinking it.

I look at the interface. It’s nothing but white noise, a high-res blizzard of zeroes and ones, each flicker a memory lost and regained. I see my face, Kang’s face, my face again, morphing through ages and haircuts and scars.

I see Kang holding me, his hand on my jaw, thumb tracing the cut under my left eye. He’s saying something, but the words are lost in the static.

I open my mouth. My jaw pops, a line of blood down my chin. “Lance,” I say, and it sounds like a curse.

The node responds. I feel it—actually feel it—shifting its processes, rerouting, making room for the virus I’ve injected. For a moment, the pain backs off, just a hair, enough for me to breathe again.

Then the pain returns, worse than ever.

The core lights strobe so hard I think they’re going to liquefy my brain. My vision goes monochrome, then black. For one terrifying instant, I am alone, outside of time, and I think: maybe this is what Authority always wanted. For me to be nothing.

But the memory drags me back.

I’m on the roof of the old admin tower, staring down at the city, counting the number of lights left on. Kang is beside me, hair longer, face older. He hands me a flask, and I drink. He says, “You know, we never had a chance,” and I want to punch him, but instead I kiss him, hard and ugly, until I forget what day it is.

In the present, my grip on the terminal is slipping. My fingernails tear off, one by one, tiny arcs of blood speckling the surface. I can’t feel them go; all of me is wrapped in the data storm, the memories coming faster now, one after another, a chain reaction of self.

I see myself in the garden, the blue flower in my palm, a thumbprint of dirt under my nail. I press the blossom to my lips, and it tastes like freedom.

The node is burning up. I smell the insulation catching fire, the sick-sweet smell of plastics dying. Alarms scream in the chamber, a sound so loud I feel it in my bones, but I hold on. I hold on.

I think I hear Kang’s voice, closer this time. “Dee! Let go!”