Chapter 27 · Rift Protocol - Chapter 27: After the Last Death

"Don't touch that."

Dalen's hand freezes an inch from the central console. The core room hums around us, all black glass and pulsing red veins of light threading through the walls like exposed nerves. Echidna's heartbeat. My heartbeat.

"Why not?" he asks, not looking at me. His jaw's tight. He knows.

"Because the second you activate it, I'm dead," I say. "And if the anchor doesn't hold, you won't remember why."

He finally turns. "Then we find another way."

"There isn't one." I move closer, close enough to see the muscle jumping in his throat. "We've run this seventy-one times, Dalen. Every loop, we try something different. Every loop, Echidna gets stronger and I—"

"You die," he cuts in. "I know. You've told me."

"And every time, you forget." My voice cracks on the last word. I hate how weak it sounds. "The anchor's experimental. Yael said fifty-fifty it'll even work."

"Yael's the one who wants you dead," Dalen snaps. "Why the hell are we trusting anything he built?"

"Because he's the only one who understood the code." I reach past him and pull up the interface. Lines of data cascade across the screen, too fast for him to read.