At fourteen, I didn’t understand what this was. But now, I know exactly what they’re doin’ to me. It’s calledthreadin’. Lacing my body with conductive pathways—wires of spark so thin they dissolve into my nervous system. Mergin’ with it. Rewritin’ it.
A jolt. A snap. Somethin’ burns along my spine.
Luther giggles. “It’s in! It’s in! Marker one reached!”
The machine adjusts. More threads. Deeper. Into the bone now. It has to fuse.
Pain blooms—a sharp, searin’ heat runnin’ the length of my limbs, twisting in my joints, burrowin’ into the marrow of my bones.
Luther is mutterin’. “Needles and thread, needles and thread, just like the dollies.”
Marker two.
The pain changes. Becomes brighter. My nerves are conductin’ spark now. It’s in my bloodstream. In my cells.
Here’s the problem with all this—I mean, there are like a hundred fuckin’ problems happenin’ all at once right now—but this is the main one:
I’vealreadybeen threaded. It’s only doneonce.
So naturally, it can’t happen again.
“It’s not working!” Luther is grabbing at his hair, pullin’ on it. His eyes wide. His feet dancin’.
“Calm down,” Epsilon coos to his little jester. “It’s expected. He’s one ofthem.”
“One of them, one of them!” Luther repeats. “Not like me.”
Through all my white-hot pain, I hear Epsilon chuckle. “That’s right. He’s not like you at all. Keep going.”
I don’t know what Luther does, I just feel it. Agony. The pain seeps deep into my bones. Hittin’ resistance—the spark clashin’ with the older threads. Pushin’ against them, fightin’ for control.
“More!” Epsilon yells. “More!”
A snap. A crackle. Then?—
My back bows. My muscles seize. My vision whites out.
This is not going to work.
“Marker two… holding. Pathways resisting,”the threadmaster states.
Resistin’? What’s he mean by that?
Another beep. A rustle of movement behind me.
“Proceeding with protocol override per home god instructions,” the threadmaster says. “Initiating secondary layering.”
Secondary what?I want to know what that means, but there’s no time. Because whatever the override is, it’s already happenin’. All I can do is exist in the fire spreadin’ through my body. My muscles twitchin’, my fingers curlin’ and uncurlin’, like someone else is controllin’ them. I start shakin’—seizing.
A hand presses against my head, fingers cool against my temple. Somethin’ injects into my neck. A rush of cold.
Then—a flood.
The fire shifts. Changes. Like it’s no longer tryin’ to consume me, but become part of me.
The threadmaster speaks again. Calm. Unbothered. “Proceeding with secondary spark integration. Layering complete. Data display initializing.”
A snap inside my skull.
