Read Online Rupture by Curtis Hox - Free Book Online Page A

look in his eyes, the kind you might imagine seeing on someone at the edge of a cliff, hanging on for dear life. “The Rogues were stealing my soul, bit by bit. I had to escape. I used to think I’d mess up big because of the reason I was at Sterling in the first place: I tend to interface deep into the cyber world. When I return from those trips, I sometimes retain qualities of the avatars I used. It freaks people out. I always thought that would be what messed me up, maybe cost me the right girl, or the right job. But not this ... not being turned into an infected and deformed Rogueslave .”
    She stepped away a bit more, as if she needed a break from him. “How did you escape the clinic?”
    “First, I got the brands. Then I woke up with those digital feeds growing out of my head ... and my body was different. My whole body hurt. I was deformed . I yanked the suckers off and ran. That’s how. Ran into a wall, actually.”
    She smiled, and he smiled back. “I bet.”
    Simone, though, had sensed something when she’d touched him. She knew the indescribable feeling of the void cyber minds—the Rogues who did the bidding of the Great Enemies. But what scared her was that she felt drawn to it, as if something inside her wanted her to embrace him. Only her centering mantra kept her from being overwhelmed. At first she assumed whatever evil intelligence had kidnapped him (and captured part of him, she reminded herself) had left traces of itself. But she believed this was not the work of a mere Rogue AI. Sure, it was possible that he could melt into a mess of goo before her eyes, the very thing the world feared, and infect everything for a square mile. But something worse could happen, the Great Enemies could gain another foothold in their reality, each one a tiny step in the destruction of everything pure, good, and real.
    She stared at him for a moment, trying to shake the feeling that something wanted her, something that had him wanted her. She wondered if his vertebrae had just switched in the cervical area ... then she realized the battle between Order and Unreason was beginning. Her mastery of the mantras and katas was slipping. She was now looking at the handiwork of dark minds and trying to make sense of it. That was the first step in falling into a pit of despair. Then they have you .
    “There’s a partial copy of you in the system,” she said. “Doesn’t seem to me that much of you. Just a little.”
    He looked at her as if she were messing with him. “How can you be sure?”
    “It spoke to me. You spoke to me. Plus, you’re a fan of Orwell? You have a problem with Big Brother?”
    “Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?”
    “There’s a money machine in the Visual Arts building that’s dispensing cash to people who can answer questions from his novel.”
    “I guess it did get part of me. If I fix this, I’ll track every lost copy of that thing down. I must be miserable in there.”
    She knew she should go now because her hold on staying centered was slipping. And that feeling of being drawn to him was growing. “Joss, be brave. The Lords of Right can aid you. I’ll ask for their help. I’ll do what I can for you. I promise. Just hold on. Okay?”
    “Lords of Right?” He sneered, as if she were the freak with her arms on backward and her head all twisted around.
    “I’m an advocate of Order, and you’ve been touched by the Lords of—”
    “Let me guess: Unreason. Got it.” A touch of aggression shuddered through his frame. She stepped back. But she had to force herself, as if she were a magnet and he made of iron. He raised his deformed arms. “Listen, this is no alien intelligence from Alpha Fucking Centauri or some demon god from a dark hell, or wherever you think it’s from. This is a good old-fashioned, fifth-generation Rogue SAI with a nasty streak. I’m guessing a torsion fetish. But it didn’t fully get me, did it? I escaped.”
    “Escaped?” She would only be able to be in his presence