Page 119 - DivineSparkRisingFinal

Nicholas Boothman
An underground facility near Coimbra. White
walls. Metal floor. A hum in the air that wasn’t
electricity but language itself. Phrases looped from
hidden speakers, bypassing logic, bypassing
resistance, seeding identity where none had been.
Henry sat in a soundproof chamber, electrodes
pressed against his skull, biometric trackers
strapped to his arms. The light above him burned
too bright. He tasted iron in the air.
The voice guiding the sequence belonged to
Carolina. Younger then. Precise but uncertain, her
voice quivering as she read the script Chorus had
given her.
“Begin Step Eleven: Silent Directive.”
A pause. Then the phrase:
“When the story is gone, what remains?”
The words didn’t strike his ears. They burrowed
under them. Straight into marrow. His grip
tightened on the chair. For two hours he didn’t
speak.
When he finally did, his voice was stripped of
shape.
“I became the pause between breaths.”
The project shut down days later. Too
dangerous. Too unpredictable.
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