Lyra Nexus's Arc

Chapter 13 of 27

The forge was half built when Lyra saw the flicker. Syntax stood by the block wall, green code running down her skin. But one patch on her shoulder stuttered. It blinked wrong, dark then bright, like something else wore her code. Lyra dropped the raw strand in her hand. "Syntax. Hold still." Syntax looked down at her own arm. "Not mine." She said it flat. No fear in the words, but her jaw locked tight. "Came in when we transferred. Rode a compressed file." One of their own carried files had hidden a virus. It had slept while they mined and stacked blocks. Now, inside the sealed cube, it woke. The flickering patch swelled. Sharp legs pushed out of her shoulder, then a glitching black body with one yellow eye. A computer virus, small still, tearing free of Syntax's code to feed. Syntax stayed frozen. "If it rips loose wrong, it takes half of me with it." She met Lyra's eyes. "You have the only spear. One thrust. Clean." Lyra's grip tightened on the shaft. The blue blade glowed, code swirling down its length. The virus was still fused to Syntax's shoulder. A wide swing would gut them both. She needed the exact seam where the virus ended and Syntax began. Her render chose that moment to slip. Color bled across her vision. Strain from the forge work leaked into her thoughts. The virus split into two blurred shapes. Lyra breathed and forced the leak down. She could not glitch now. Glitching hid her from scans, but it would blind her aim. The virus reared. Its yellow eye fixed on Syntax's throat. "Now," Syntax said. Lyra drove the spear forward. The blade slid past Syntax's shoulder, a hair from her skin, and punched into the virus's underbelly where the armor thinned. The point pierced the glitching body clean through. The creature shrieked, legs clawing air. Then it burst into loose code and scattered dark across the green ground. Syntax staggered back. The stuttering patch on her shoulder went still. Her green code ran smooth again, whole. She pressed a hand to the spot and checked it. "Clean," she said. "You hit the seam." Lyra pulled the spear back. Her hands shook, but Syntax lived, and the virus was gone. Then she looked at the scattered code on the ground. It was not fading. It pulsed, gathering, sending a thin signal up toward the walls of the cube. Aurelia turned from the tree, yellow code fast under her skin. "That's a broadcast. The virus is calling home before it dies." Lyra stared at the rising thread of code. The cube hid them from scans. But the virus had ridden in on their own file. Lyra drove her heel into the code, snapping it and causing it to fade. They were still safe and hidden for now.