Cerulean mucus oozed from Lucas' spinal port like molten solder mixed with coolant. When Ayla pried open the sixth vertebra's shield with her silver bookmark, the memory module inside was charred black, veined with virus hyphae resembling blood vessels.
"Sure about this?" Max's cane-light traced Lucas' decaying arm, licorice stem bobbing between his teeth. "This thing's neurotoxin could puppet three prosthetics for Selene."
Ayla didn't answer. She pressed the bookmark into her clavicle scar interface, cerulean blood creeping along the metal grooves toward the chip slot. When the virus chip touched her unmodified nervous system, bitter cedar exploded across her tongue—the sole olfactory data Odile hadn't erased from Lucas' memories.
The coma felt like a reverse blizzard.
Fifteen-year-old Lucas cowered in lab shadows, his wolf-claw prosthetic trembling against Wolf in the Thorns' gypsum base. Those quivering metal fingers left hairline scratches matching his later restoration techniques. The phantom cedar intensified as real-world Max laser-shaved decaying components off Lucas' arm, metal fragments hailing onto surgical trays.
"His heartbeat's mimicking your pre-coma brainwaves." Max's voice echoed through the storm. "Like two cedar root systems sharing poisoned soil."
The memory jumped to lab vents. Teen Lucas crushed expired painkillers into coolant paste for his cracking arm—the same formula Ayla now used to stabilize his joints. When memory-powder touched metal, real Lucas convulsed, his mechanical heart pumping blood-tinged saline instead of coolant.
"Virus is rewriting his memory backups." Max smacked the bioscanner displaying Odile's triangular watermark overtaking brainwave patterns. "Keep this up and your nervous systems will eat each other like digital ouroboros."
Ayla seized the cedar scent in the coma's depths. She saw Lucas hide a stolen neurochip inside Caged Moon's base, its files holding daily revised love letters. When the gypsum shattered in memory, she awoke gripping his exposed heart casing—engraved with: "When reverse roots meet, toxicity becomes our growth rings."
Selene's drones shattered the clinic window as Ayla extracted the half-melted virus chip from her neck. Lucas' mechanical pupils contracted into wolfish slits, his ravaged vocal cords rasping: "Is...your gypsum lamp...still lit?"