Waking up feels like swallowing broken glass.
I gasp, my lungs pulling in the sharp, antiseptic air of the deep medical lab. My left arm is completely numb, a dead weight resting on the sterile sheets, while my right hand grips the edge of the mattress so tightly my knuckles are white. The pain isn't localized to my shoulder or my ribs. It is a diffuse, blinding static that crackles behind my eyes and vibrates in the marrow of my bones.
"Her neural pathways are severely inflamed," Margot says. Her voice sounds like it's coming from underwater. "The logic bomb wasn't just a digital attack. It was a polymorphic code designed to mimic genesis frequencies. When it hit her nervous system, it tried to force her biological rhythm into a binary sequence. It caused micro-fractures in her synapses
