Replaced by His First Love
The golden cracks on his palms were glowing with a steady, pulsating violet that smelled of ozone and rock-bursting char.
"I can make the air quiet," Leo murmured.
"No, Leo! Don't—"
I was too late. He closed his eyes, and the first wave hit. It wasn't an explosion, but a heavy, localized suppression of reality.
The violet light from Leo's palms trickled into the SUV’s electrical grid. The dashboard monitors flickered, the green lines stuttering in a desperate, syncopated rhythm. On the roof, the Stalkers were hit with a sphere of raw electromagnetic static. I heard the muffled pops as their optical masks fused to their faces, their silver-lined circuits frying their skin.