Chapter 177: Unleashing Sylva

The two Gemini stood in front of them, their hands held up in the same way. A cold, white energy began to form in their palms, ready to unleash the final, killing blow. Jonah and Vanessa were cornered, their own Progeny defeated and gone.

Dr. Aris Thorne watched from behind his glowing, protective shield with a small, satisfied smile on his face. His flawless weapons were about to complete their final, bloody test.

Jonah’s mind was going very fast, trying hard to find a plan. But there was nothing. The Gemini were a perfect, unbeatable machine. They countered every single attack. They predicted every single defense. They were all cold, hard logic and perfect, instant calculation.

A machine…

He looked at their blank, doll-like eyes. He looked at Thorne’s cold, arrogant smile. And then he looked at Vanessa. She was breathing hard, and her face was pale from being so worn-out from the long, hard fight. But when she looked back at him, her eyes showed a strong, unchanging trust in him..

In that one moment, he realized what he had been doing wrong. He had been trying to fight their hard way of thinking with his own bad, desperate strategy. He had been trying to beat a computer at its own game.

But they were just machines. And no matter how good they are, no matter how perfect their logic is, they don’t have hearts. They do not understand what love is. They do not know how strong and confusing a real human bond can be.

Their flawless thinking was what made them strongest.

And it was about to become their greatest weakness.

A crazy plan began to form in his mind. It was a terrible gamble. A stupid risk. It was the kind of plan that a machine could never, ever predict.

“Vanessa,” Jonah said, his voice low but sharp. “I need you to trust me, okay?”

She looked at his eyes, trying to understand him. She saw a crazy, new idea in his look.

“Drop the shields,” he said. “All of them. Don’t put up another one.”

Her smart mind, the part of her that was a genius engineer, must have been screaming that this was suicide. But the part of her that was his partner, his friend, the part of her that had stood beside him in many impossible fights, did not even hesitate for a second.

She gave him a firm nod. “Okay.”

She let her last bit of defensive energy fade away, leaving them completely exposed.

“Interesting,” Dr. Thorne murmured, bending forward a bit, curious about this senseless giving up.

The Gemini paused for a second, their shared mind processing this new data. Their target had just lowered its defenses. The clear thing to do was attack and end the fight. They started to move closer, their hands still glowing with a deadly, white energy.

But Jonah did not attack. He didn’t defend neither.

He did something their programming could never have predicted.

He summoned Sylva.

Sylva appeared between Jonah and the advancing Gemini. It took a gentle step, and where its crystal hoof touched the floor, a small white flower instantly bloomed.

The Gemini stopped.

Their matching movements stopped for a moment. The one on the left moved back a little. The one on the right froze completely. Their synchrony, for the first time, was broken.

Their battle thinking, the program Thorne had designed, was breaking down. They ran into something that didn’t fit their system. This new creature couldn’t attack. It couldn’t defend. According to their flawless calculations, it was… useless. They did not know how to process it.

“An anomaly,” Thorne said, a small frown appearing on his head as he typed very fast on his computer. “Its energy is restorative. Why would he summon a healer at his own execution?”

He didn’t understand.

Because the creature wasn’t the weapon.

The feeling behind it was.

Jonah took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and reached deep inside himself, past the strategies, past the fear. He reached for the one true and unpredictable variable that Thorne could never copy, could never program.

His mind went to Vanessa. He remembered her trust that never changed, her bright mind and her strong loyalty. He thought of her standing beside him in the dark, rainy night of Cinderfall, of her saving his mind from the psychic scream, of her tireless work on the Synthesis Loom. He thought of her terrified face in the kill box, and her determined expression as she faced the AI.

He thought of how much he needed to protect her. A feeling that was more powerful than any Progeny he could ever create.

And then, he released it.

He gave it everything. He pushed all those feelings into the open psychic space of the room. He flooded the chamber with an invisible wave of his own soul.

It was not a good, clear attack. It was a crazy burst of feelings. It was the warmth of being grateful, the strength of being loyal and the fear of losing her.

The Gemini, who only understood the simple rules of logic, were hit by this huge wave of pure, raw feeling.

And their shared mind broke.

A quiet sound in their heads, like glass breaking, filled the chamber.

The two young men cried out, their first and only sound. It was not a battle cry. It was a short gasp of pain and confusion.

Their matched movements completely broke. The one on the right stumbled backwards, his hands flying to his head. The one on the left just froze, his blank eyes blinking with a new, terrifying emotion: fear.

The strong psychic link that had made them a single, unstoppable entity was gone. It had been overloaded, short-circuited, and completely broken by the one thing it could not possibly understand.

They were no longer the Gemini.

They were just two separate, confused, and terrified individuals, standing alone for the very first time in their artificial lives.

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