Shattered server screens glowed like electronic fireflies at Ayla's feet. As her chisel pried open a corroded motherboard, oxidized circuitry thorns drew cerulean blood. Five hundred meters above, Neumann's banquet hall dome projected Selene's holographic bridal image—diamond dust and nanobots spelling "Eternal Vow" at frequencies masking the graveyard's EMP signals.
"Their champagne tower's taller than your painkiller stash." Max crunched licorice loudly, his cane prying open rusty server racks. "Suggest stuffing virus codes into the e-flower bouquet. Wedding gift."
Ayla ignored the quip. She molded tombstone adornments from Caged Moon fragments, each petal embedded with slum kids' neural sensors. When Lucas twisted expired neural chips into a ring, coolant dripping on gypsum stamens activated holograms of the lab explosion three years prior—Selene's ring laser precisely scorching Ayla's sculpture coordinates .
"Shorter lifespan than our memories." Lucas slid the ring onto her bleeding finger, mechanical knuckles trembling from bioelectric feedback. "When oxidation finishes, it'll crumble like Neumann's promises."
The graveyard ignited in cyan luminescence. Hundreds of tombstone LEDs broadcast Selene's wedding livefeed—the bride's gene-edited gown flowing with liquid metal, guests' neural necklaces pulsing matching frequencies with the prosthetics' graveyard. Ayla crushed gypsum petals, nanobots riding EMP waves to hack the banquet power grid, twisting "Eternal Vow" into "Lie Expiry: 3650 Days".
"Heartbeat sync at 89%." Max's laser dot circled Lucas' chest. "Detonate the EMP when they cut the cake—your ventricle becomes fireworks."
Lucas suddenly pressed Ayla's palm against his spinal port. Overloaded pumps forced bio-synchronization. All tombstones erupted lab archives—fifteen-year-old Selene tucking wedding invites into cryopods containing comatose Ayla bearing Neumann's triangular brand.
"Now you taste eternity?" Lucas' vocal modulator glitched, bioluminescent veins revealing invitation metallurgy. "Rust, coolant, and the acidity of evaporating lies."
As Selene tossed her bouquet, the EMP storm peaked. Ayla's e-flower bouquet sprouted thorns piercing the server-fragment altar. Lucas' mechanical heart hummed whale-song frequencies in the magnetic field, tombstones exploding into blue-green fireflies—replicating their first storm's starscape.
When drone spotlights speared the graveyard, Ayla found encrypted data in the ring chip—127 prosthetic coordinates Lucas repaired over years, each light point forming arrows across Neumann's underground maps, all converging on Selene's gene-modification chamber.