The Human Heart

A deafening, high-pitched *CRACK* ripped through the subterranean clinic.

An invisible wave of electromagnetic energy exploded from the console. Instantly, every light, every monitor, and every surgical drone in the facility died. The red emergency lights vanished, plunging the room into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

The grip around Maya's throat instantly released.

A heavy, dead weight collapsed across her chest.

Maya gasped, pulling the oxygen back into her burning lungs. She frantically pushed Julian's limp body off her, scrambling in the dark to unlatch her remaining restraints.

"Julian!" Maya cried out.

There was no answer. The humming engine in his chest was completely silent. The blue light was gone. The Aegis core was fried, the parasitic AI utterly destroyed by the EMP. But without the core, Julian's heart had stopped. He was dead.

Maya's medical training overrode her panic. The digital world was dead, which meant she had to rely on analog medicine.

She scrambled across the floor in the pitch black, feeling along the wall until her hands hit the old-school, battery-operated crash cart she had insisted Julian keep in the room as a backup. She yanked the drawer open, her fingers finding a heavy, tactical flashlight.

She clicked it on, holding it in her teeth. The harsh white beam cut through the darkness, illuminating Julian's pale, lifeless body on the floor.

Maya dropped to her knees beside him. She ripped his shirt open. The metallic surface of the Aegis core was scorched black.

She didn't have time to bypass the core. She had to shock his biological heart right through the dead metal.

She grabbed the manual defibrillator paddles from the battery-powered cart. She smeared the conductive gel onto the cold metal plates.

"You don't get to die on me," Maya sobbed, her tears splashing onto Julian's chest. "You fought for me. Now come back to me!"

She pressed the paddles against his chest, bracketing the dead core.

"Clear!"

She hit the discharge buttons. Julian's body violently arched off the floor.

She dropped the paddles, pressing her fingers to his carotid artery. Nothing.

She interlaced her hands and began brutal, manual chest compressions, ignoring the hard metal of the core grinding against her palms. One, two, three, four.

"Come on!" she screamed into the dark.

She grabbed the paddles again. "Clear!"

Another massive shock.

She pressed her trembling fingers to his neck, holding her breath, the silence of the dead clinic roaring in her ears.

* Thump.*

A weak, fluttering beat against her fingertips.

* Thump.*

Not an engine. Not a machine. It was a messy, flawed, perfectly human heartbeat.

Maya let out a ragged, hysterical sob, collapsing across his chest, listening to the beautiful, uneven rhythm of his survival. Julian drew in a sharp, ragged breath, his human lungs filling with air.

He didn't open his eyes, but his shattered, bruised hand slowly lifted from the floor, coming to rest weakly against her hair.