Escaping My Fatal Digital Marriage

My eyes snap open. A blinding, blood-red holographic warning sign hovers inches from my face. The light sears my retinas. A sharp, tearing pain rips through the center of my skull, right behind my eyes. My stomach heaves. I try to lift my hand to press against my throbbing temples. Metal grinds against metal. My wrists don't move. A ring of pale blue energy bites into my skin, locking my arms to the heavy arms of a cold steel chair. "User bound to the Sandbox." A new voice, cold and authoritative, designates itself in my mind: The Warden. It echoes directly inside my brain. It doesn't come from the room. It comes from inside my own head. My lungs stop working. I can't pull in a single breath. My chest tightens until my ribs ache. I force my head up. Beyond the transparent, floor-to-ceiling glass in front of me, a city bleeds neon light into a smog-choked sky. Massive holographic advertisements flicker against dark skyscrapers. This isn't my apartment. This isn't my city. This isn't my reality. A heavy hiss of depressurization pulls my attention away from the glass. The thick alloy doors at the back of the room slide apart. A rush of freezing air hits my arms, the chill seeping through the thin fabric of my shirt and raising goosebumps across my skin. Malachi walks in. He wears a dark, carbon-fiber suit that absorbs the light. He stops a few feet away, looking down at me. His eyes are dead. He looks at me the way a butcher looks at a slab of meat on a scale. A humanoid assistant follows him. Brenda. Her movements are too smooth, too precise. She stops beside Malachi and hands him a translucent data pad. Malachi takes it. He doesn't even blink. "Asset seventy-three," he says, his voice flat. "Your digital marriage to a lower-tier error program is scheduled in two cycles." My pupils shrink. The blood drains from my face, leaving my cheeks numb. "No!" I scream. The sound tears at my dry throat. "You can't do this! That's a death sentence!" My voice bounces off the reinforced glass and dies in the empty room. Malachi sneers. He lifts his right hand and taps a finger in the empty air. Gravity crushes me. An invisible weight slams into my shoulders. It feels like a concrete block has been dropped on my spine. I grit my teeth. I try to push back, to keep my spine straight. The pressure doubles. My muscles scream. My spine bows forward, forcing my chest toward my knees. Cold sweat bursts from my pores, soaking the fabric of my shirt in seconds. Brenda tilts her head. Her mechanical voice fills the room. "System resource returns for this union will increase the Skinner family's bandwidth by fourteen percent." Fourteen percent. My life is worth fourteen percent. A cold, heavy knot of despair drops into my stomach. I close my eyes. I try to pull up the coding strings I know from the real world. I try to force a backdoor open in the system. Nothing happens. My brain hits a solid, blank wall. The system has completely blocked my external skills. The Warden's voice slices through my thoughts again. "Warning. Data collapse imminent. Find a breach point or face immediate erasure." Erasure. Death. My heart slams against my ribs, a frantic, erratic rhythm. The sheer terror of dying here, in this cold room, floods my veins with adrenaline. I stop fighting the pressure. I let my body go limp. I drop my head, letting my tangled hair fall forward to hide my face. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste copper, forcing myself to look entirely defeated. Malachi chuckles. He taps the air again. The crushing weight vanishes. I suck in a ragged breath, my lungs burning as they expand. He turns his back to me, walking toward the holographic console on the far side of the room. He reaches out to input the final confirmation for the marriage. I flex my fingers. I dig my nails into the tiny gap between the blue energy cuff and my skin. The Warden's interface flashes across my retinas. "Power supply line located three millimeters to the left." I don't hesitate. I twist my left wrist violently to the right. Skin tears. Hot blood trickles down my arm. The pain is blinding, a sharp spike that makes my vision go white for a second. But my bone hits the blind spot. The blue energy flickers. The hum of the cuffs stutters, and the pressure around my wrists loosens just a fraction. Brenda's head snaps toward me. Her optical sensors whir, focusing on my bleeding wrist. She opens her mouth to sound the alarm. I throw my head back and let out a blood-curdling scream. "My back!" I shriek, twisting my body as if the residual pressure is tearing my muscles apart. "It's breaking!" Malachi stops typing. He glances over his shoulder, his face twisted in annoyance. "Get her a painkiller data packet," he snaps at Brenda. "I need her conscious for the transfer." Brenda turns away from me. She walks out the sliding doors, taking her optical sensors with her. Ten seconds. That's all I have. I yank my hands upward with everything I have. The flickering energy cuffs shatter. My arms fly free. A thick, angry red welt circles my wrists, bleeding sluggishly. I don't rub them. I don't make a sound. I push myself up from the chair, my bare feet silent on the cold metal floor. I stare at Malachi's back. He is still standing at the console. The Warden's text burns across my vision. "Main Quest: Escape the apartment and make contact with a core program. Failure results in immediate digital erasure." Malachi raises his finger to press the final confirmation key. I lunge. I grab a heavy, solid metal sculpture from the edge of the desk. I swing it with every ounce of strength in my body, aiming straight for the back of his skull. The metal connects with bone. A sickening crack echoes in the room. Malachi grunts, a wet, heavy sound. His eyes roll back, and he collapses to the floor like a puppet with cut strings. I drop the bloody sculpture. I look at the blinking console. My fingers hover over the keys.