The briefing room was hushed except for the whine of projectors pouring maps onto the steel wall. Red blotches pulsed across the ruins of Midtown—fresh Babel growth rising like tumors overnight.
Hyde stood at the podium, his voice sharp, clinical. "Our drones confirm critical spread. Civilian remnants in Grid Seventeen must be evacuated within twenty minutes, or they will be engulfed. Captain Monsigny's unit will handle extraction. Brea will neutralize threats."
Aya's stomach churned. She felt the limiter's presence even now, a cold thrum coiled behind her temples—like a parasite breathing in rhythm with every thought.
Gabrielle's jaw locked as she sat beside Aya, arms folded. She hadn't spoken to Hyde since yesterday's violation. But her glare promised fire. Aya wanted to reach out, to reassure her, but Hyde continued without pause.
"The limiter is calibrated," he said without shame. "Should neural flux exceed tolerance, my command line will correct it. Understand, Brea—you will obey my directives without deviation."
Aya nodded faintly, unable to trust her voice.
---
### The Descent
The transport rattled low over shattered avenues, wind shrieking through gaps where whole skyscrapers had been torn up like rotten teeth. Soldiers buckled in tight. Guns checked. No jokes, no chatter—everyone knew the death toll that lurked under the red sky.
Gabrielle leaned across the aisle, lowering her voice. "Stick close. Don't push beyond what you can handle."
Aya tried to smile, but her lips refused. "I don't know what 'I can handle' means anymore."
Gabrielle's eyes softened a shade. "Then trust me to tell you."
The transport jolted. The ramp dropped. Smoke and dust clawed inside.
Hyde's voice snapped from the comms. *Deploy.*
Aya stepped into a world spent and bleeding. The Babel tower loomed in the distance, cancerous light pulsing through a broken skyline. And already she felt them—the twisted threads of host bodies waiting for her dive.
She braced herself… and let go.
---
### The Dive
Her consciousness tore loose, hurled like a blade into another soldier's skeleton. The world warped, re‑stitching itself from alien angles. She gasped into lungs not her own, gripping a rifle that hadn't been crafted for her hands.
The limiter hummed. *Stabilization commencing,* Hyde's cold voice filled her skull.
A stinging current surged against her will, forcing her breath steady, her pulse aligned to some foreign rhythm. Aya grimaced. She hadn't commanded her hands to lift the rifle—yet they lifted. Her will lagged half a second behind motion that was no longer hers.
Monsters erupted from fissures in the street—chitin slick with Babel's light. Soldiers shouted, firing. Aya tried to aim—but her arms jerked past the target, snapping unnaturally to Hyde's mark. The shot blew a shrieker apart, gore splattering asphalt.
Gabrielle's rifle barked nearby. "Aya!"
Aya staggered, clutching her helmet. "It's… it's not me—"
Hyde's voice interrupted. *Efficiency increased twenty‑three percent. Do not interfere, Monsigny. Let the limiter guide her.*
But every shot burned Aya's soul raw. She could feel the soldier whose body she occupied screaming faintly in terror, his consciousness brushing hers like broken glass. She had always hated this part—the trace of life she displaced—but under the limiter, his voice was amplified, pressed against her until her own drowned.
She screamed through clenched teeth: "Stop! You're crushing us—"
Hyde's command was steel. *Continue.*
Her body obeyed, firing, diving—leaping across the battlefield with precision she no longer owned.
-------------------
The horde thickened. Tendrils burst from pavement, dragging men screaming into scarlet fissures. Gabrielle's orders cut through chaos, rallying scattered squads. Aya tried to follow—*she* tried—but Hyde's control snapped her elsewhere, forcing dives between soldiers Aya hadn't chosen, ripping them apart faster than she could think.
She felt less like Aya Brea, more like electricity burned into wires.
Then it happened—her limiter pulsed too hard, clashing with her fractured memory. A flood of images smashed through her mind: Eve behind glass, Kyle's silent back, the birthday cake smeared with white frosting. Real? Not real? She couldn't tell.
Her rifle turned on an empty street. Finger twitched. She couldn't stop it.
Gabrielle's voice rang out, raw. "Aya, you're locking onto friendlies—pull back!"
Aya's scream split the comms. "I can't!"
At the last second she fought the surge, wrenching her consciousness sideways into another body. Pain lanced through her skull like molten knives, but the bullet spared her allies.
Hyde's voice thundered. *Deviation detected. Correction commencing.*
The limiter ignited fully. Pure agony shredded Aya's nerves. She hit the ground choking, muscles convulsing. The soldier she rode spasmed, falling with her.
"Enough!" Gabrielle's roar tore across the channel. She sprinted to Aya's crumpled host body, crouching over it, firing point‑blank into lunging beasts. "She's not your damn puppet, Hyde!"
Hyde's voice stayed ice. *She is alive only because of control. Stand down, Captain, or I'll suspend you from command.*
Gabrielle snarled obscenities, gunning another creature backward. Then she bent close, lowering her voice just for Aya. "You hear me? Not him. Me. Stay with me, Aya."
Aya's blurred eyes locked on her friend's. For a heartbeat the pain dimmed. She clung to Gabrielle's voice, drowning out Hyde's sterile orders.
-----------------------
An explosion rocked the block. A tower of flesh and bone erupted from the earth, shrieking. The evacuation timer screamed red on every visor: two minutes left.
Hyde's commands slammed Aya's nerves: *Overdrive now. Strike the core.*
Aya hesitated. Her body vibrated between chains—the limiter forcing, Gabrielle pleading.
"Trust yourself," Gabrielle urged. "Don't let him strip that away."
Aya shut her eyes. For one impossible moment she shoved back against the limiter's current. Pain roared, fire in every vein. But she seized a trace of her own choice, seized it and dived.
Her consciousness ripped through scarlet haze into the core nearest the beast. She landed hard, rifle blazing, *her aim*, *her choice*.
The creature shrieked, collapsing in a fountain of ichor. Soldiers poured fire into the carcass. The blockade's breach shuddered, then slowed.
Evacuation complete. Survivors fled into the transport.
Aya collapsed inside the host's helmet, sobbing against steel. She couldn't tell where her tears ended and the dying soldier's mind began.
-------------------------
Back aboard the transport, silence smothered the cabin. Bloodied soldiers stared at her like she was both savior and specter. Aya sat hunched, trembling. The limiter still hummed in her skull—mocking reminder of chains that had nearly consumed her.
Gabrielle sat heavily beside her, hand brushing Aya's shoulder, steady but fierce. "You fought him. You kept yourself. Don't forget that."
Aya couldn't answer. She wasn't sure she *had* kept herself—not entirely.
Hyde's voice cut over the comm, unreadable. *Mission complete. Brea's effectiveness confirmed. Protocol justified.*
Aya lifted her gaze, hollow and haunted. For every monster killed, she felt another inch of herself had died.
And in the whispering hum of the limiter, she heard it: not just Hyde's control … but something darker, deeper, waiting to devour what little remained.
---
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