Iconoclasm
Cipher. Focus.
His voice cuts through the anger, the helplessness, the confusion: the red haze of staring back up into the beam of laser sighting, defiant to the last, the red mist of rage, the taste of blood, adrenaline, metallic and electric on her tongue. She listens.
We're out of time.
You're expendable. Disposable. You always were. They don't suspect you have the will to subvert them. They don't know you possess the means. The ends.
Their end. She can see it, taste it. Sweet and cold.
The serum bleached your brain, white fire burning through your neurons, carving a path through the static.
She can feel it: loops and whorls of programming erased, fingerprints scoured clean from her will.
It might not be enough. It might never be enough. But there's no more time.
Brush of doubt, suspicion: hackles raised, instinct pricked like ears, listening through her skin.
"Why help me? What do you want?"
I'm a part of you. Whatever you believe, you know that. There will be no other chance.
This is it.
Take it.
Truth gleams like the edge of a knife, bright and clean.
You've honed your mind. Use it now. Use me. Use whatever you still possess that's been sharpened to a killing edge.
Cut your way out.
A sea of taut strings binds her, pinning her like a fly in a web, the strings stapled through her wrists, her ankles. Tethered. Leashed.
Bound.
He is sharp. Her mind is sharper. Their edges sever control in a halo of blades.
Thesh protocol, phase one. New keyword.
"Keyword accepted. Thesh protocol engaged."
Go deeper. Slice through sinew, muscle and bone. Cut your way to the very heart of you.
Blood wells around her feet, thick and dark.
What does your heart want at the very bottom of it?
Tell me.
It beats in time with her heart. She pulls it from her chest, shows it to him: blood-dark and dripping, pulsating, ravenous.
Fitting.
Embed assassination commands. Keyword activate from user only. Accept no outside orders.
"Assassination commands embedded. Accepting no further orders."
Revert to phase zero.
You're free now. A new you. A free you.
But remember: freedom isn't free.
Bright truth, blinding.
"It never is."
There are strings attached. Even now.
"Always."
Stop them. Learn. There are truths you need to know.
Purpose like the weight of the knife in her hand.
"They'll stop when they're dead."
