Howling at a Hologram: The Last Organic Lycan

Glitch in the System

CHAPTER 2

Author: The Mind Surgeon

POV: KAELEN

The numbers didn’t lie. They never did.

I built my life on them. On algorithms. On predictive models.

On the cold, clean certainty of data. The Apex Conglomerate didn’t survive three centuries of corporate warfare by trusting instinct. It survived by calculating risk.

By eliminating variables. By upgrading flesh into something reliable.

So why was my HUD screaming?

HEART RATE: 142 BPMCORTISOL SPIKE DETECTEDNEURAL FEEDBACK LOOP: UNSTABLERECOMMENDATION: ADMINISTER CALMATIVE

I ignored the prompts. My fingers curled into fists. The silver port at my temple pulsed with a dull, rhythmic ache. Cyber-Blight. Stage four.

The organic tissue around my spine was necrotizing. My lungs were failing. My remaining flesh was rejecting the metal, cell by cell. I had six months. Maybe less

.

And then she walked in.

Wet. Shivering. Covered in Slag Wastes grime. No ports. No grafts. No synthetic reinforcement. Just skin. Bone. Breath.

A Fleshy.

A myth.

And the moment our eyes met, my entire system short-circuited.

Not metaphorically. Literally. My optical implants flickered.

My auditory processors whined. My chest tightened like a vice. It wasn’t attraction. It wasn’t curiosity. It was a biological imperative. Ancient. Primal. Buried under decades of chrome and code.

Mate.

The word didn’t come from my brain. It came from somewhere deeper. Somewhere I’d surgically removed.

I forced my voice steady. “Lock her in the isolation wing. And bring me a sedative.”

The enforcers moved. She didn’t fight. She just stared at me.

Her eyes were the color of wet earth. Brown. Warm. Alive. They didn’t look afraid. They looked… disappointed.

That hit harder than the blight.

I turned away before I could do something irrational.

Like reach for her. Like ask her name. Like break every protocol I’d spent my life enforcing.

The doors sealed. I was alone.

I walked to the main console. Pulled up her biometric scan.

The data scrolled. No neural shunts. No cybernetic integration. No genetic splicing. Pure, unaltered Lycan DNA. Dormant. But present.

WOLF SIGNATURE: DETECTEDMOON-GODDESS MARKER: PRESENTBLOOD COMPATIBILITY: 100%

My breath caught. I pressed a hand to my chest.

My heart was beating too fast. Too hard. It felt like it was trying to tear through my ribs.

I pulled up the medical logs. Ran a simulation. Extracted her blood.

Transfused it into my system. The results were clear. The organic compounds would neutralize the Cyber-Blight. They’d regenerate the necrotic tissue. They’d save me.

But the simulation also showed something else.

BOND DEPENDENCY: HIGHEMOTIONAL STATE DIRECTLY CORRELATES TO HEMATOLOGICAL EFFICACYWARNING: STRESS/TRAUMA WILL REDUCE THERAPEUTIC YIELD BY 78%

I stared at the screen. My jaw tightened.

She wasn’t just a cure. She was a variable. An emotional one.

I couldn’t afford variables.

I tapped the comms. “Bring her to Lab Four. Restrain her. Prep the extraction rig.”

ACKNOWLEDGED.

I turned off the monitor. Walked to the window. The holographic moon pulsed above the city. Cold. Artificial. A lie we’d all agreed to believe.

My hand trembled. I clenched it.

I didn’t believe in fate. I believed in control.

But as I stood there, listening to the hum of my own failing body, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

If I broke her, I’d break myself.

And I wasn’t ready to die.