Page 57 of Violet Spark
The purple haze thinned as it expanded, but if anything, the glare seemed to brighten as flickers of indigo light flashed between random points in the darkness, like an animation depicting brain synapses firing in an interconnected web.
The moths flew farther, expanding the web. Above us, something sparked… Three drones lost their whirr and fell with a dusty thumps. Looking around, I spotted four other figures huddled in the desert veg around us, even though they should’ve been obscured from my vantage. Each had the outlines of some kind of rifle. Not like they could aim, cringing as they were with the electromagnetic pulse shorting out all their devices.
There was a [reveal] command in Legendelirium that did something like this, turning the world translucent almost. I’d never earned enough to buy it, but I’d seen it used in some gaming vids. Cool. One deep breath of purple air, and I felt buzzed. If this stuff was killing me, it didn’t exactly hurt.
“Imogen!” Alling called.
Dane swiped for me, but he still couldn’t see worth shit, and I slipped sideways out of his reach.
It wasn’t the world that had changed—I had changed.
Switching sides was as easy as walking across the lot. A walk of shame.
My arms suddenly released to fall at my sides. The zip-tie landed on the ground, the severed end melted smooth.
But I wasn’t wearing the glove. So how…?
I reached Alling, and this close, discovered with my moth-amped sight that he wore protective contact lenses. Little purple scuz bits floated on his whites. But he could still see. The dark side had come prepared. And he kept his thumb on his purple bomb. Seemed like the goo still had some charge.
“Release my mom and I’ll do whatever you say,” I told him.
“Of course!” Alling said in his nice dad way. “She’s very comfortable. Just confused. I explained to her about your job offer and the generous benefits package. She got very excited. If only we can get this little security issue out of the way.”
I didn’t fool myself. Brayden had been a security issue, and look what happened to him.
“How’s your health insurance?”
“The best there is.”
“Does it cover bullet holes to the head?”
Alling’s dad smile faded.
Thought so. “How about family members?”
“Yes. We do have an excellent family plan.”
I sure hoped it covered preexisting conditions. Including mine. “Done.”
“I still have the glove!” Dane shouted. “She’s no good without it.”
He’d straightened, but a hand still covered his eyes against the purple glare. The “no good” comment burned, but Dane wasn’t wrong. I should’ve searched him before crossing over to the Alling. Fuck.
“What’s this about a glove?” Alling asked me.
I couldn’t let anything compromise my deal to free my mom. Someone had to look out for her. And that was me. I hadn’t been doing a great job of it, caught up in my own shit, but I wouldn’t fail this time.
Facing Alling again, I lifted my chin. “A VR gaming glove. He told me it has some kind of microscopic matrix that’s symbiotic with the bugs in my nervous system.”
Alling frowned, a deep dimple of confusion cratering in the center of his forehead just above his eyebrows.
I’d thrown him. Yeah, well, I didn’t understand it much either. I attempted to clarify. “I can’t blast anything without the glove.”
“You can blast things with it?” He tucked the cartridge of moths closer to his chest, making me wonder what his could do besides trigger a modified EMP to kill Dane’s SUV and drones.
“Badly, but yeah. Oh, and I powered a massage chair.” The important things in life.
Alling stared at me a long moment, then flashed that white smile wider than ever. “A microscopic matrix. Yes, very important to the function of the moths.”
