Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1)

39 - Of Secrets

The canister exploded down to its very atoms.

     Piper flexed her implants with a silent snarl, feeling the solid metal simply disintegrate under her force. The control was intoxicating. She moved her wrist in slow circles, dragging the constituent pieces of the canister apart in wider and wider circles, before hauling them back together.

     To a lesser person it would be magic. It certainly looked like it.

     She closed her eyes, reaching and feeling her way through the void of space to cram the atoms back together, just as she'd learned to do. Her accelerated curriculum at the academy had moved on to putting things back together, rather than just obliterating them.

     Frankly, Piper preferred the first part, but doing this helped take her mind off of the shitstorm of life.

     Everything was a mess, just when she thought she'd been leveraging herself some kind of certainty in this place. She thought she was about to bury the hatchet with Ferra, but it turned out things with the Queen of the Sharks were worse than ever.

     She thought she was going to get out of AmpCore, to get into the city and find Arden, but the wraiths had put a stop to that.

     She thought she knew what she wanted, but her duel with Odiye had thrown all her feelings into chaos. Now that she'd had some time away from him, Piper felt disgusted with herself. She tried to think of Kirk but his face wouldn't coalesce properly – like he was lost with the rest of her old life.

     Tears of rage trickled down her cheeks and she screamed, lashing out with her amplifier. Boiling red fire tore a trench in the floor of the empty training room and up the far wall before burning out. Smoke hung in the air and she squeezed her eyes shut again, fighting down her emotions. She could feel the burn in her bones. The pain swelled and she gritted her teeth.

     Then she heard the voice again.

     You don't need any of them.

     Piper froze.

     Are you listening to me?

    She pressed a fist against her eye and shook her head slowly. 

     I know you can hear me,

    "What the hell are you?" she hissed.

     I'm you.

     "I'm me. You're my imagination."

     It's not so simple.

     I'm going crazy, Piper thought. Absolutely crazy. She waited for a moment, looking around to make sure nobody was watching. "What does that mean?"

     We are... new.

    "Get out of my head."

     You cannot ignore this forever, Piper Russell.

     "Fucking watch me."

     She thrust out an arm, channelling every scrap of her mind on her amplifier, and aiming it at the black rip in the floor. Invisible feelers reached out, touching the contours of ragged, ruined metal and slowly dragging them back together. Bends were smoothed out, molten chunks cooled and almost as though she were turning back time, the tear in the floor and wall started to disappear.

     The act seemed to suppress that voice, that other her, as though draining her implants smothered its ability to speak. Her jaw ached and her muscles burned as she forced the world to bend to her will.