From The Stars Ii (Kite And Viero)

Kite was in
A world of light unfolded before them
Pulsing with the complex rhythms
Of synthetic intelligence
The vitals feed came online
Oxygen saturation and heart rate normal
The sense of a body was barely perceptible
They uploaded the first countermeasure
A security skin swiped from corporate
Now they looked like one of them
They floated through the first and
Then thе second firewall
The AIs paid no attеntion
Kite was just another piece of the program
A shadow amid the luminescence
Kite deployed the second countermeasure
An elegant splinter of code
Like a psychedelic for machines
The code bloomed in the sentry's subroutines
Soon it was lost in
Kite slipped past the threshold
Into the sanctum
Kite passed endless chambers
Each containing a swirling
Storm of information
They sensed their distant body
Trembling with adrenaline
Kite focused on their target
A solitary floating file
Neglected and encrusted with encryption
With the passcode the digital
Shackles melted away kite was confused
The content was nothing more than a
Few sentences of archaic language
They read them over and over again
Mouthing the unfamiliar words
Kite heard the faint echoes
Of their own voice
Speaking the strange dialect in The Real

Awakened from dreadful sleep
A single instinct, promise to keep
You killed my kin, your soul I'll reap
But first I feast, there's no escape
I was written in ancient blood
Last of my kind, a prisoner
Ignorance is our release
Again I hunt, welcome to the feast

Kite was never late
Vireo swirled his untouched drink
As the minutes passed
The din of a dozen hybrid languages
Rattled the bar's smoke-filled air
Somehow through the chatter he could hear the
Relentless tick of his old wristwatch
Still stubbornly keeping time after
A hundred years careful not to be followed
He took his time getting to Kite's apartment
With a retina scan he quietly
Pushed the door open
He heard the dissonant tone
Of the vitals monitor
And saw Kite lying on the floor
Still jacked in
He knelt beside Kite's lifeless body and
Heard the door shut behind him

Once locked in pages, I was caged in light
Tormented sleep, I saw without sight
They sought to learn our secrets
They sought to make us slaves
They sought the horrid truths that
We had locked away
I was written in ancient blood
Last of my kind, a prisoner
Ignorance is our release
Again I hunt, welcome to the feast

Vireo's body rose into the air
A muted scream frozen on his face
Rivulets of red swarmed his vision
Forming an intricate network
Of pulsating veins
He heard a voice, a soft strange language
Penetrating his mind the pain was far away
Like someone else's degraded memory
Darkness encroached from his peripheral
As he roses higher the voice became louder
Pulling him toward an abyssal singularity
He heard his watch tick
The emergency subroutine was triggered
Razors burst from Vireo's forearms
Severing the delicate web of
Circulation enveloping him
He fell to the ground, barely conscious
A strobe of images flashed
Across his malfunctioning visual
Through the static he heard the
Voice utter a single word "Mine"

Awakened and in starvation
A desperate being mad from isolation
I claim this body, it must be mine
I claim this body, I refuse to die
I was written in ancient blood
Last of my kind, a prisoner
Ignorance is our release
Again I hunt, welcome to the feast