Arthur’s mouth suddenly filled with the cloying, sugary taste of vanilla frosting and wax. It was so real he gagged. He grabbed the edge of the desk, but the wood felt like static—his sense of touch was being intercepted, rewritten.
The wireframe brain on the screen began to glow a deep, sickly violet. Lines of code started hemorrhaging into the terminal window—not C++ or Assembly, but something that looked like a terrifying hybrid of Sanskrit and binary. Encephalon.exe
>> MEMORY FRAGMENT DETECTED: [1994_BIRTHDAY_CAKE] >> EXTRACTING TASTE PROFILE... SUCCESS. Arthur’s mouth suddenly filled with the cloying, sugary