Crack in the Kill Code (AmpCore #2)

66 - Burn Together

Holly was good, but Piper had something her AmpCore counterpart did not.

Alright, Cassie, see what you can see, she thought.

Happily. Maintain the connection.

All yours.

She moved her fingers gently over Treysi's scalp, feeling through the thick locks of hair until she could touch the slender metal spines that had been grafted against her skull. The shiver of connection felt different to other machines she'd linked up with, a frothing, vital sensation of actual life.

The closest sensation should remember was the actual AI she'd touched all those months ago. Not as complex, but just as chaotic and unpredictable. Alive, and stripped of the restraints she'd felt in the architecture of her counterparts.

"Just hold still, Treysi," she said quietly. "I know it probably feels weird, but try and relax."

"Okay."

Every bit of her felt tense, but the pathways remained open. Piper pressed on, bring herself and Cassie deep into the hybrid system of flesh and machine. It was different to anything she'd felt before, a living thing, but not whole, the organic and cybernetic parts of Treysi's body barely coexisting in a state of uneasy ceasefire.

She could see – feel – the repair's Holly had affected on the girl's system, and she had to begrudgingly admit that she was impressed. The Internal Principle was a bastard to master – she knew that from painful experience.

She said there was some kind of receiver, she told Cassie as they plunged deeper. Worth a look?

I doubt it. From what she told us, it is just a piece of dumb tech. There is something deeper. Something... imprinted on her. I can feel it. It feels like him.

Osric?

Yes. When you were with him, it felt the same. It is like mould. I... I hid.

She detected a hint of shame in Cassie's words. You were scared? The presence in her head coiled uncomfortably. Embarrassed. Awkward even. Cassie? It's alright. Guy scares the shit out of me too.

He was born from the Schism. So was I. So were you.

Woah, now, we are not the same.

We are more connected than I would like. I do not want to be... that. He hates Piper. So much that it hurts to be near him. I felt like, if I let it, that hate could consume me.

Piper tried to contain her surprise. Cassie's emotions bled out into her – they couldn't not – and she felt the truth of those words. A visceral, biting terror at being reduced to some kind of murdering maniac. She remembered, with a jolt of apprehension, the first time she'd ever heard Cassie.

Kill him. Those had been the first words that exploded in her head, when she'd been boiling over with rage – as though that anger had dragged her passenger out of slumber. There was something dark and aggressive buried in there.

You're not him, she said flatly, and neither am I.

I know that.

So you can feel it? That... whatever he has?

Like a brand.

How'd Holly miss it?

She's a thoroughbred, Cassie answered wryly. All new tech. She couldn't feel it if she wanted to.