39017mp4

He tapped his temple, activating the neural link interface in his eyes, and plugged a fiber-optic lead from his wrist directly into the recorder.

The man slowly turned his head. His eyes were wide, the pupils blown out until they were just solid black circles. Blood was trickling from his ears, but he was smiling. It wasn't a normal human smile; it was a rhythmic stretching of the mouth, pulsing to a beat that the camera couldn't fully capture. He began to hum a low, vibrating tone. 39017mp4

The video quality was poor, full of horizontal tracking lines and digital artifacting. It was a handheld shot, looking out through the reinforced plexiglass of a research dome. Outside, a blizzard was raging, a white wall of screaming wind. He tapped his temple, activating the neural link

Silas froze. She had said his name. He checked the file properties. The creation date was listed as half a century before he was born. He felt a cold sweat break across his neck. He rewound the file a few seconds. Blood was trickling from his ears, but he was smiling

Silas tried to pull the plug from his wrist, but his hand wouldn't move. A heavy, rhythmic pulsing sensation began to throb behind his eyes.

Silas adjusted the playback speed, leaning forward. The background of the video showed another researcher, a man hunched over a terminal, desperately trying to override a locking mechanism. Sparks flew from the console.