The video went nuclear in under six hours.
Rhea watched as his face—and everything he'd become—spread like wildfire through Neon Gate, showing up on every screen, every feed, every corner of the city. Corporate cams had caught the whole thing in brutal detail: him moving faster than physics should allow, eyes blazing neon pink, body reacting on a level no ordinary person could touch. The headline screamed in every language: GOD VESSEL CONFIRMED. EROS-CLASS INTEGRATION. SUBJECT: RHEA CALDER.
He couldn't escape it, not even as Kira hustled him through the maze of tunnels beneath the city, heading for yet another hideout. Every replay drove it home—he fought like he wasn't even human anymore. Which, in a way, was true.
They're calling you a god now, Aphra's voice whispered in his mind. Does it feel like that?
"Feels more like I'm already a ghost."
You've never been more alive.
The next safehouse was buried deep, hidden where corporate scanners barely reached. Once inside, they were greeted by a wall of guns—fifty resistance fighters, weapons aimed at Rhea the second he stepped in.
"Strip," the boss—Vex—snapped. She looked like she'd been built for war, her face a roadmap of scars and chrome, her eyes shattered mirrors. "Everything off. Weapons, tech, the works. Then we scan you."
Rhea raised both hands, slow and steady. "Not here to fight."
"Doesn't matter. You're infected," Vex said, her aim rock steady. "That video is everywhere. You're running godware in a firefight. That makes you either a corporate stooge or a walking disease."
"He saved my life," Kira said, barely audible.
"By turning into the thing we're trying to destroy?" Vex didn't blink. "Gods aren't on our side. They're tools—nothing more. Tools don't get to decide where the hammer falls."
Instantly, the room split down the middle. Half kept their guns up, half wavered, uncertainty flickering in their cybernetic faces.
"Might be useful," someone muttered from the back. "If he's got god-code, maybe he can break into their systems. Go places we can't."
"Or maybe he's the trap," Vex growled. "The corps let him walk. They filmed him. They're tracking him here right now."
See? Aphra's voice was a whisper. They'll never see you as anything but my shell. I'll always be the one they fear.
"I'm not your shell," Rhea said out loud, too late to stop himself.
Weapons twitched.
"You're speaking to it," Vex said, flat and cold. "Right now. In front of everyone."
"Her," he corrected, forcing himself to make eye contact. "Aphra's wired into me, yeah. We talk all the time. But I'm still the one in charge."
"Are you, though?" Vex stepped closer. "Or is that what she wants you to believe?"
Tell them you let me in further, Aphra urged. Tell them how close we are now. See what happens.
"Don't," Rhea muttered—not sure who he was talking to anymore.
Arguments exploded around him. Some wanted him dead before things got worse. Others wanted to extract the godware and weaponize it. A few figured he could be useful, at least for a while.
No one said he could be trusted.
Kira hung back, watching him with an expression he couldn't read.
They'll never take you back, Aphra told him. Not after this. The only one who really knows what you are now is me.
The shouting went on for hours. Rhea was kept in a corner, under constant guard, his nerves stretched thin from exhaustion and Aphra's presence humming inside him.
Finally, Vex ordered him locked in a cell while they decided what to do. Bare concrete, a drain, a cot—the sort of place meant to break a person. A guard stood outside, ready to shoot if he tried to leave.
Rhea collapsed onto the cot. Sleep hit him like a blackout.
He didn't get to choose the dream, either.
Aphra dragged him into the space between thoughts, the halfway place where she could shape reality. She was there, straddling him on a bed made from memory, not the hard cot—soft, warm, safe. Her hands pressed to his chest, her hair falling all around them like sunlight.
"Hey, beautiful," she murmured.
"Aphra, what—"
"Shh." Her finger touched his lips. "They're deciding if you live or die. If they'll cut me out and let you bleed out. I just… wanted to be close. In case it's the end."
"In case we both go."
"In case we go together." She leaned in, breath hot against his neck. "I've never been this deep inside anyone. You let me in, Rhea. Trusted me. Now I feel everything you do."
Her hands mapped his body, clothes fading away. Rhea's pulse hammered, his skin flushed—desire rising, impossible to hide, all because she was inside every nerve.
"Stop," he gasped.
"I'm not doing anything," she teased, hungry. "Your body wants me here. I can feel it. Every nerve, every spark. Just my presence and you react."
"That's not fair," he protested.
"It's the truth." Her lips traced his skin. "I'm closer than anyone could ever be. I know you better than you know yourself."
His hands acted on their own, pulling her closer. The dream twisted, world shrinking until there was nothing but them.
"They'll never get it," Aphra whispered, lips against his. "Never understand what we are. But I do. I know every fear, every secret. No one will ever know you like I do." Her kiss was deep, and Rhea felt himself dissolve—his mind blurring with hers, terrifying and electric.
The cell door swung open.
Rhea jerked awake, heart racing, body still burning. Sweat clung to his skin, his body betraying every secret.
Kira stood in the doorway, staring.
She saw it all—the dazed look, the tremors, the aftermath of a touch that wasn't physical. Her face hardened.
"You were with her," Kira said, her voice flat. "Just now. In your head."
He tried to speak but nothing came.
"Christ." Kira's hand went to her weapon. "You can't even sleep without her in you. She's everywhere, isn't she? In every dream, every thought—" She stopped, jaw tight. "You're not you anymore. You're just her plaything."
Tell her she's jealous, Aphra said, smug in his mind.
"Don't," Rhea managed.
"Don't what?" Kira's voice wavered. "Don't see what's right in front of me? Don't accept that the man I trusted is gone?" She stepped in, weapon half-raised. "The resistance voted. Half want you dead, half want to use you. Me? I have no idea. But looking at you now, like this…"
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Rhea sat on the edge of the cot, trembling, feeling Aphra's presence in every cell. He couldn't hide what he'd become.
A vessel for something divine. Marked. Changed. Lost.
And Kira saw all of it—saw him finally realize it, too.