After Emmett identified himself, the world fell away.
He was in the forest of cyberspace again, though the outline of the real world was still there. Emmett stood in a clearing—there wasn't any data or power, and so there wasn't any light. To one side, the highway and mainline roared with electricity. Small streams and buildings dotted the surrounding area.
Emmett stood alone in the clearing, and he glowed. The stolen nanite swarm rolled around him like living fog.
Across the field, the storefront glowed faintly, like a barely living tree stump. The three supers stood atop it. Two of them glowed like ghosts, like they weren't actually present in cyberspace. The only one that was actually there was the one who had spoken to Emmett.
Instead of the black and gray swirls of his suit, the man glowed with light—even more so than the drones and biomechs. He was completely mechanical, and electrical signals suffused every part of him. Emmett had to squint to see it, but he discovered part of the reason for the glow; there were layers upon layers of densely packed nanites across his body. His swarm couldn't compare to Emmett's in sheer volume, but it was much more complex.
The man had formed a rifle out of the nanites in his arm. It glowed brightest of all, and Emmett couldn't take his eyes off of it. The gun... the power... even the nanites the man used... all of it was impossibly familiar, and just out of Emmett's reach.
In the real world, the man sheathed his rifle. In cyberspace, the glow softened. Both were true, and but neither lessened the fear that had taken root inside Emmett.
"Can you hear me?" the man asked.
"Yes," Emmett replied, voice shaking.
Their voices were echoes of one another, and yet they couldn't have sounded more different. The man's voice flowed like a steady stream and carried authority, while Emmett's flickered like static.
"I'm not your enemy," he said.
"And I don't want to be yours," Emmett replied.
The man stepped out of himself. In cyberspace, a glowing silhouette walked off of the tree stump and onto the dark field. A faint outline stayed behind, marking where his body still stood on the roof, motionless in the real world.
In cyberspace and in the real world, Emmett shrunk back.
"Who are you!" Emmett's nanites pulsed as he shouted.
The man slowed, but didn't stop walking forward. "There isn't a simple answer."
"Stop!" Emmett's swarm flared to life like a kicked beehive. The man finally stopped. "If you won't tell me who you are, then why should I trust you? You could be working with the Brotherhood! Maybe you're Bastion... Or maybe you're just another biomech."
Emmett couldn't read the man's expression behind his mask, but he felt the man's emotions through cyberspace. He probably could've hidden them, but he let them float freely across the field. The man wasn't offended, but he was cautious.
"Emmett... you know that's not true. I'm not with the Brotherhood—"
"Then why won't you tell me who you are?"
The flow of emotions changed, like the direction of the wind. "...Because I'm afraid of what will happen. I'm afraid for myself... and for you."
Something swept over cyberspace.
Emmett looked up. Until then, there hadn't been a sky. Now, there were rolling clouds overhead. The sky reminded him of his nanite cloud, but it stretched as far as he could see. Sunlight peeked through the clouds and swept across the landscape.
YOU ARE READING
Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)
Science FictionFor this cyborg, power is just an upgrade away. Emmett was used to being caught between college and his engineering internship, but when he gets caught between a powerful hero and an even stronger villain, he becomes collateral damage. Instead of d...
