The wet grass didn't feel like data. It felt like needles of ice pressing against my bare soles.
I scrambled to my feet, my new lungs burning with the effort of breathing air that hadn't been filtered through a "Atmosphere.exe" protocol. My heart—a heavy, thudding muscle of wet meat—was slamming against my ribs with a violence that made me dizzy. In the Holding, pain was a red bar on a HUD; here, it was a sickening, throbbing heat that radiated from my bruised throat.
"Silas?" I gasped, my voice cracking.
His violet-light form flickered beside me, projected from the high-end "Ouroboros" smart-watch I had snatched from Marcus’s wrist before jumping. He wasn't a man anymore; he was a glitch in the refraction of the streetlight, a ghost made of high-speed data.
"I'm here, Elara," he said,
