Chapter 8. “Heartbeat on the Cross: live streaming traffic is the countdown to your execution”

The charging tank's bloodline climbs to 99% when Elena's ribs suddenly burst into fluorescence - the latitude and longitude coordinates that her mother had stabbed in with radioactive paint, pointing directly at the Holt family cemetery.

"Kill him so the coordinates will be complete!" Rayne's mechanical eye flashes the Marcus family crest, and hydraulic pumps are pumping Lucas's RH-negative blood toward the artificial heart.ESPN's live streaming pop-ups cover the sky: "Slice his dick off!" "I want to see a brain dunk!"

Lucas pierces the floor with the remains of a crucifix, and a particle gas pedal designed by his mother is buried beneath the church. The yellowed title page of the start-up manual reads, "To my boy: when you read this line, please place Rayne's heart in urn number 13."

Marcus kicks over the camera and rushes into the pool of blood, his custom sneakers stomping on Elena's severed finger: "My dad didn't pay to watch a family ethics drama!" He flings out the genetic test - Rayne and Lucas have 99.8% DNA similarity, but the mother's pregnancy test date is three months before the fire.

"Surprise mongrel?" Marcus glues the detonator to Lucas' forehead, "Your mom was pregnant with you and married the scapegoat!"

The particle gas pedal suddenly overloads and Rayne's mechanical arm begins to melt. Elena rips out the Madonna impaled in her ribs, and the spiked monument plunges into the charging slot to reverse the direction of the blood flow - Lucas's blood begins to pour throughout Rayne's body, and the mechanical prosthetic's riot control mode automatically kicks in.

"NO!!!" Rayne scratches his face in the rain of blood, the artificial skin peeling off to reveal the truth about his mother's disfigurement with acid. He frantically taps his mechanical wristwatch, and the electronic screens at basketball courts all over the city simultaneously light up, "Live Confession of the True Killer in Holt's Gambling Case - Now Open!"

Marcus' father's face suddenly dominates all the screens.

"I bribed Layne to play fake football twenty years ago, but his wife stole the evidence." Marcus Sr. licks his cigar, "So I made her carry the evidence box into the incinerator, and by the way-" he gestures to the camera to silence him, "she was still pregnant with Raine's seed at the time."

Elena suddenly grabbed the syringe and stabbed Lucas in the eyeball, "The antidote is a trick! The one that could really kill him..."

The words were swallowed up by the explosion.

Rayne activated the self-destruct program, and the church floor tiles flipped to standard basketball court size. The countdown hovered in the air: 00:00:13, blinking in the same frequency as urn 13 of his mother's diary.

Lucas rips off his blood-dripping retina, and the sticky tissue is revealing a map of his mother's leftover schedule - the coordinates for the final showdown are, after all, the glowing cemetery locator on Elena's ribcage.