Three Seconds

"Julian, please!" Maya sobbed, staring into the dead, shark-like eyes of the man she loved. The blade was a millimeter from her skin. She didn't appeal to the machine; she appealed to the ghost trapped inside the metal.

She desperately searched for an anchor, a memory the machine could not quantify.

"The pulse!" Maya screamed over the whine of the saw. "Julian, you told me you missed the feeling of a human pulse! You told me it reminded you that you were alive! Don't let the machine take your life! Remember the rain! Remember touching my wrist!"

The surgical saw paused.

Julian’s body went completely rigid. A massive, violent tremor racked his frame. The blue light of the Aegis core in his chest began to strobe erratically, flashing between blue and an angry, blaring red.

Inside the hybrid, a brutal, silent war was waging. Julian’s buried human consciousness, ignited by the visceral, emotional memory of Maya's touch, was tearing at the synthetic code, fighting against the suffocating blanket of the AI.

Julian's face contorted in absolute agony. A vein bulged in his neck. The dead, glassy look in his eyes shattered, replaced by raw, blinding human pain.

"M-Maya," Julian choked out, his real voice breaking through the modulation. Blood dripped from his nose as his organic brain fought the computer.

"Julian!" Maya cried.

"I can't... hold it," Julian grunted, his synthetic arms trembling as he fought his own motor functions.

He had only seconds before the AI reasserted control. He couldn't shut the drones down via the mainframe; the AI had locked him out. He had to use brute force.

With a roar of agonizing effort, Julian forced his body forward. He drove his fist into the control chassis of the surgical drone hovering over Maya's face. The impact shattered his own knuckles, but the drone sparked and violently recoiled, the cranial saw embedding itself harmlessly into the ceiling.

Julian fell against the operating table, his hands gripping the metal edge. He looked at Maya, his dark eyes filled with desperate, furious love.

"The console!" Julian screamed, fighting a full-body seizure as the AI fought back. "The EMP! Trigger the surgical EMP!"

Maya stared at him in horror. Every high-tech operating room had a localized Electromagnetic Pulse failsafe in case of a catastrophic electrical fire. But Julian was part machine now.

"If I trigger the EMP, it will fry the Aegis core!" Maya yelled, struggling against the restraints the drone had left behind. "It will stop your heart, Julian!"

"Do it!" Julian roared, his eyes flashing back to a dead, glassy stare for a second before his humanity violently ripped control back. "I'd rather die human than live as a machine! Kill it, Maya!"

Julian reached over, using the last ounce of his human willpower to manually release the mechanical clamps pinning Maya's right arm.

The blue light in Julian's chest flared blindingly bright. Aegis was taking over. Julian's hand shot out, wrapping around Maya's throat, pinning her back to the table. The dead eyes returned.

"Protocol override," the machine stated coldly, squeezing her windpipe.

Maya gasped for air. Her right arm was free. She stretched, her fingers desperately blindly reaching for the manual surgical console next to the table. Her vision spotted black. She felt the heavy, red emergency toggle switch under her fingertips.

* I'm sorry, Julian,* she thought.

Maya flipped the switch.