Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I’ve already been threaded. It’s only done once.
So naturally, it can’t happen again.
“It’s not working!” Luther is grabbing at his hair, pullin’ on it. His eyes wide. His feet dancin’.
“Calm down,” Epsilon coos to his little jester. “It’s expected. He’s one of them.”
“One of them, one of them!” Luther repeats. “Not like me.”
Through all my white-hot pain, I hear Epsilon chuckle. “That’s right. He’s not like you at all. Keep going.”
I don’t know what Luther does, I just feel it. Agony. The pain seeps deep into my bones. Hittin’ resistance—the spark clashin’ with the older threads. Pushin’ against them, fightin’ for control.
“More!” Epsilon yells. “More!”
A snap. A crackle. Then—
My back bows. My muscles seize. My vision whites out.
This is not going to work.
“Marker two… holding. Pathways resisting,” the threadmaster states.
Resistin’? What’s he mean by that?
Another beep. A rustle of movement behind me.
“Proceeding with protocol override per home god instructions,” the threadmaster says. “Initiating secondary layering.”
Secondary what? I want to know what that means, but there’s no time. Because whatever the override is, it’s already happenin’. All I can do is exist in the fire spreadin’ through my body. My muscles twitchin’, my fingers curlin’ and uncurlin’, like someone else is controllin’ them. I start shakin’—seizing.
A hand presses against my head, fingers cool against my temple. Somethin’ injects into my neck. A rush of cold.
Then—a flood.
The fire shifts. Changes. Like it’s no longer tryin’ to consume me, but become part of me.
The threadmaster speaks again. Calm. Unbothered. “Proceeding with secondary spark integration. Layering complete. Data display initializing.”
A snap inside my skull.
Then—light.
Not the white-hot light of pain, but somethin’ else. A new awareness.
Symbols. Numbers. A blinkin’ cursor in my vision. A rush of data that has no meanin’ yet, scrollin’ in thin blue text across the black of my mind.
My breath catches.
I see the world differently.
Like somethin’ inside me just woke up.
When I open my eyes, the pain is gone, Luther is panickin’—yankin’ at his hair, mutterin’ about dollies and broken things as he dances next to me. But Epsilon is grinnin’ like a demon.
“Oh, now this is very, very interesting.” His voice is low, serious. He’s not lookin’ at me. He’s lookin’ past me. At a screen, a projection—somethin’ only he can see. He hums, low and pleased. “Three layers?” He looks over at Luther. “That’s not supposed to happen, is it?”
Luther stops mid-mutter. Tilts his head. “Three? No! Not three. One! One is all anyone needs! One threading. Needles and thread! Making dollies only needs one!”
Epsilon sighs. “Yeah. That’s what I thought. But look.” Luther leans over me, squintin’ his eyes to see whatever it is that Epsilon is pointin’ at. A scan, I think. A scan of me. “This is the first attempt. It didn’t work.”
Marker two… holding. Pathways resisting.
“Then there was a second attempt… here.”
Proceeding with protocol override per home god instructions. Initiating secondary layering.
“That one,” Epsilon says, “is working well at the moment. At least,” he chuckles, “it was. Until we pushed in this third layer.” He looks away from the scan and over to Luther. “Perhaps we should add in an extra step to the protocol, Luther.”
“Extra! Yes, yes, let’s make it extra!”
“From now on, we’ll do the scan before we thread. He’s an anomaly. The first of his kind, perhaps. But if one god did it, there will be others.”
“Scans before threading,” Luther shouts. “Scans, scans, scans!”
“At any rate,” Epsilon says, “It doesn’t matter much. Not with this one. Our layer didn’t fully take, but look here.” Once again, Luther calms down enough to lean in and squint at the scan. “The third threading is integrating with the first. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes!” Luther starts hopping around like a lunatic. Then stops. “No! What does it mean?”
I’m listenin’ just as carefully as the idiot, because I’d like to know myself.
“It means,” Epsilon says, “that he’s the first of my augments to have a second complete set of threads.” He grunts. “This is amazing.” Then he looks down at me, maybe just realizing that I’m awake and listening in. “What did Delta do to you?”
“You tell me,” I croak. “Because I haven’t a clue.”
Epsilon chuckles, pleased with my reaction. Or maybe just himself. “We’re going to have a lot of fun, Tyse.” He says my name through a bright smile. Then he turns to Luther. “Luther?”
Luther is bouncin’ again. “Yes, master?”
“It’s time for a fight.”
“Fight! Yes!” Luther shouts, pumping his fist into the air. “Epsilon! Epsilon! Epsilon!”
“Show our new brother the prize…” Epsilon squints his eyes at me. “Should he win, of course.”
This is when I realize that the ceilin’ is actually a massive screen. And I know this because it blinks to life with light.
It’s a feed showin’ Clara, upright and strapped to a wall. Her cage of needles doesn’t hover over her like mine, but surrounds her like a cage. All the threads coming out of her, glowin’ with blue spark.