by Rick Scott
I hit yes and we activate the teleporter once more.
We jump to further distance ourselves from the giant being and I get a full appreciation of just how large the Labyrinth Spirit is in comparison to everything else. From the new distance of two tiles away, I can see it’s nearly as big as two or three tiles put together. The Labyrinth Spirit finishes forming the crystal in its hand and for a second I fear it might hurl it at us, but instead it sets it afloat where the platform once stood, another crystal island teeming with angels—replacing the glass tile it just destroyed.
“What the hell is that thing?” Aiko says, her words sounding more filled with awe than disdain.
I think we all have that same question as we marvel at it.
“I noticed it coming straight for us from below,” Rembrandt says, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Good thing you did,” I say.
“Was it targeting us?” Val Helena asks.
“Could have been,” Maxis says. “It looks like their Mother so maybe she got ticked off that we were killing all her kids.”
“A good chance of that,” Rembrandt says. “How many did we kill? Twenty? Thirty?”
“I know one thing,” Val Helena says. “If we’re looking for a boss to kill then there we go.”
I laugh caustically. “Great…” How do you even fight something that big? Much less defeat it.
Aiko turns to Rembrandt. “Can you find us a way around it?”
“No need,” he says and points back to the Labyrinth Spirit.
The giant celestial mermaid arches its back in a rear somersault and then heads straight down, disappearing from sight between the hundreds of shifting platforms and islands.
Maxis shakes his head while staring at it deadpan. “We need to hurry up and get the heck out of here.”
* * *
Rembrandt takes point and we begin to make our trek toward the silver sphere at the center. I check on Gilly’s timer and pray we have enough time to make it there and that Aiko’s sister can be found soon after. Just the distance alone looks like several miles and who knows just how many tele-jumps we’ll need to make to get there.
“My best guess is 50 jumps,” Rembrandt says, practically reading my mind. “We should have enough keys, yeah?”
“Not enough to lock all the tiles,” Maxis says. “But enough to jump for sure.”
“I’ll use those Warden’s Keys sparingly then,” Rembrandt says. “Only when I know for sure it’s a path we need to keep active.”
“Roger that,” Maxis says. “Let’s roll.”
I stick close to Rembrandt as we begin to make our way across the sea of tiles. It’s slow going at first with Rembrandt stopping for a good couple of minutes each platform to check whatever map he’s working from internally. But as he lays down key after key we begin to speed up. We take turns using our supply of keys, following Rembrandt’s instructions. Again I’m impressed by how on the ball he is. I secretly wonder if maybe he’s some kind of genius or something. I know I couldn’t make sense out of all these patterns like he can. Or maybe it’s the mirror shades giving him some kind of code-breaking superpower. Either way, I’m glad he’s part of the team.
We go back and forth a couple of times hitting dead ends, but this only seems to strengthen Rembrandt’s resolve. A few times he has an “ah ha” moment that makes us change course completely in the opposite direction, but then ends up taking us forward in huge leaps and bounds.
About twenty minutes in I notice some movement and flashing lights off in the distance. I stop for a moment to focus my eyes on whatever it is. About five tiles away, a group of figures are locked in combat. Close to fifty, I estimate, and when I see at least four giants among them, it doesn’t take me long to figure out who it is.
“I think you were right, Aiko,” I say in the party chat. “Looks like there were more groups than the first we met with Ziegfried.”
The rest of my team stops and I point towards the tile where the commotion is happening.
Maxis lets out a curse. “Looks like at least double now.”
Val Helena walks up behind me, squinting her eyes as she peers across the distance. “What are they fighting?”
“Angels,” Rembrandt says, looking through his sniper scope. “Looks like they’ve figured out the trick as well.”
Aiko sighs. “Great. Now we might have to tangle with those clowns again?”
“Maybe they haven’t seen us yet?” Val Helena says. “They look busy farming. We should press on while they’re distracted.”
I look towards the silvery sphere which looks less than five or six tiles away now, although it could take us far more than that, in jumps, to get there. “Let’s beat them to the sphere then. Rem, think you can get us there quickly?”
“Might not need to, mates.”
I look to Rembrandt, who’s still staring through the scope. “Huh?”
“You said Becky was a healer right? Dark hair?”
My heart speeds up a little as I look to Val Helena and Aiko for confirmation.
The two dash forward towards Rembrandt.
“Yes!” Val Helena says. “Do you see her?”
“There’s a person with mage gear and dark hair down there. Looks female too. Only one problem.” Rembrandt lowers his sniper rifle and looks back at us with a grimace. “She’s on the tile right below where Ziegfried is.”
Chapter 8: Binary
Bruce Peters prepared himself for the wave of heat as the elevator doors slid open. It hit him like a brick wall and instantly moistened his skin in a layer of sweat. God, he hated it down here. The darkened confines of the power core lay before him, a faint red glow coming from the converters boxes like heating elements in an oven.
He moved briskly along the walkway to the habitat booth overlooking the forest of transformer-like structures that provided electrical power for the whole of Citadel. He rapped on the hatch, using his sleeve to protect his hand from the blazing heat of the door. A green permissive light illuminated above the hatch and Bruce cycled through the airlock, welcoming the blast of cold air that came with it. He transitioned into the livable space inside the habitat and saw Carl waiting for him inside.
“What’s going on, Boss?” the sonar tech greeted him from behind his workstation. Carl, a slim black man in his thirties with a trimmed beard and close-cut hair, tapped a few commands on his outdated holographic-keyboard. “You here for the latest?”
Latest?
Bruce was at a loss for a moment, but then remembered he was probably referring to the sonar anomalies Carl had detected a few days ago. He wasn’t here for that, necessarily, but the anomalies were priority as well.
“Yeah. Any further activity?” he asked.
Carl pressed a few more holographic keys on his work station. The ancient tech responded by showing the anomalies in 3D space. Truthfully, Bruce couldn’t tell much difference from the last time he had seen the array. It still looked like random specks of dust floating in the air to him, so he waited for the explanation from Carl.
“Movement hasn’t slowed any, still around 50 meters a day, but I can see a bit more of the pattern now.” Carl pointed to the various squiggles around the edges of the 3D map. “Can’t say it’s exactly random, although it looks close to it at first glance. More of a sweeping pattern.”
“So whatever they are, they’re definitely looking for something.”
Carl gave a nod, but frowned. “Something that’s most likely us.”
“Any further development on the source of the main vibration?”
“Nothing yet.”
With stuff like this afoot, Dennis’ plan of burying their heads in the sand inside the Crystal Shards was starting to sound like a good option. But Dennis wasn’t aware of this. At least not yet. “Carl, before you came to my department, how much training did you have on the Shard architecture?”
Carl furrowed his brow at the admittedly odd question. “About five years, I guess.”
&
nbsp; Bruce paused a moment, contemplating if he should take the next step or not. It would be an irreversible one, and one he could end up regretting if he was wrong.
But he had to trust someone with this.
“Why? What’s up?” Carl asked, perhaps sensing his trepidation.
Bruce released a sigh and took a seat across from him. “We just had an emergency board meeting. Something’s gone wrong with the latest excursion team.”
Carl swiveled in his chair towards Bruce as his countenance fell.
“You mean your daughter?”
Bruce nodded, rubbing his brow.
“Man… I’m sorry, Bruce.”
“Yeah, thanks. That’s not the worst of it though.”
Carl raised a brow.
“Dennis convinced the rest of the Board that sinking the entire population into stasis to get through the nano shortage is our next best option.”
“What?”
“Trust me. It was the better of his two ideas. His first involved breaching the seal and killing a quarter of the population.”
Carl twisted his face incredulously. “What the heck, man?”
“Yeah, I know. Did you ever work with Dennis?” Bruce asked. “Back when you started?”
“Not directly. Although I guess I was pretty junior back then.”
Bruce grimaced as he mulled it over. Carl had started his tech career in Dennis’ area, but had transferred to his department not too soon after. On Dennis’ recommendation, in fact. Bruce had worked with Carl going on fifteen years now and while they had a pretty close relationship, he wasn’t sure if he could push the boundary of where he was going next.
Still…desperate measures.
“I’m not sure of Dennis’ motives for pushing this mass stasis. The math works, and if he knew about this” —Bruce gestured to the hologram—“I’d say that maybe the idea had more credibility. But he switched from being willing to kill a bunch of people to survive to locking us all away in a virtual prison.”
“A prison that he would control…”
Bruce’s heart jumped as he locked eyes with Carl. “You came to the same conclusion I did.”
And without prompting.
The two men stared in silence at one another for a moment. Maybe there was something here, after all.
“How well do you know the guy, Bruce?” Carl asked him.
Bruce was surprised by the question, but perhaps equally as surprised by the answer he had to give. “Less well than you would think, to be honest. We’ve worked together for twenty years and aside from being a wiz at keeping the Shard platforms operational, I’m not sure what the heck he does. Granted, I’ve never had reason to question him before, but…and maybe it’s the stuff with my daughter that’s affecting how I’m seeing things and all, but…”
Bruce trailed off, not really knowing where he was going with that. Was he overreacting due to Gilly? It was possible, he supposed.
“Hey,” Carl said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Nobody but you can understand what you’re going through. And I feel for you there. Honestly. But what you said raised some red flags for me too. So what do you want to do about this, Bruce?”
Bruce’s spirits lightened a bit, perhaps relieved to hear his concerns echoed by someone other than him. “I was hoping that maybe you might have some ideas. If you still know the system, that is. Are there any safeguards we can install just in case we do end up in a scenario that we might later regret?”
Carl leaned back in his chair with his hands atop his head, blowing out a sigh. “I haven’t poked around with Shard code for a long time. The sonar system is old-fashioned binary, not quantum like the Shards. Programming that stuff is more like working with DNA.”
Bruce knew the basics of quantum processor theory, although a lot of it was still black magic to him. He worked with pipes and switch gear, not quarks and leptons. But the very concept of using subatomic particles like ones and zeros was like digging into the very fabric of the universe—or so someone once explained to him. At that level there was very little difference between what was real and what was virtual. It was why they could create perfect food from a program using nano machines or even print bodies that ran on gaming code on the surface. It was miraculous and complex stuff.
But did Carl understand it well enough to ensure someone like Dennis couldn’t get up to something nefarious in there? And without his knowledge?
“You think you can do it?”
“Give me a sec,” Carl said, still staring up at the ceiling. Finally he nodded, mostly to himself though, but then he looked to Bruce. “I got an idea, but it might take some time to set up.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Going old school,” Carl said with a grin. “Dennis probably knows binary about as well as he does your thermodynamics. It I could create an interface, I think I could write a trace program that he probably couldn’t detect. I could keep an eye on him then. See what he’s doing in there.”
Bruce smiled, pointing at the old sonar equipment. “Don’t you mean an ear?”
“Huh?”
“Eye on him? Ear on him?” Bruce shrugged, feeling a little silly. “Sorry, dumb joke.”
Carl chuckled at it anyway.
“Give me a little while. I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 9: Rescue
“Hold on! We need to think about this!”
Maxis shoved his palm towards Aiko, almost pushing her back to stop her from running ahead to find the person that could be her sister. “We all want to go down there, but that guy’s got an army that can rain hell on us at a moment’s notice.”
I’m not surprised that it’s my brother who’s the one being super cautious, but I am a bit surprised at Aiko being the one so eager to charge ahead. Once again I get a peek behind that abrasive armor of hers to see her true self.
She really does love her sister.
“We use stealth,” Aiko says. “Just like in the Wild. I’ll cloak us.”
“But won’t we become visible when we use the keys to adjust the tiles?” Rembrandt says. “We’ve got a few of them to get through to get there. They might even be able to see us coming even if we are invisible.”
“How?” Val Helena says.
The Half-Giant seems as eager to get down there as Aiko, and given the history I can understand why. If I’m honest, I’m eager as well. If that’s Becky down there, then we just saved Gilly as well.
“I agree,” I say. “If we’re invisible, we’re invisible, right?”
“They could notice the tiles go static,” Rembrandt says.
My brain does a little double take.
Wow, I didn’t even think of that.
Aiko steps forward with her hands on her hips. “Then we’ll have to only use the Labyrinth Keys. No Wardens. Let the tiles rotate through the patterns so that they don’t notice us approaching.”
“A good idea,” Rembrandt says. “But keep in mind, if Ziegfried spots us, the changing tiles won’t make for an easy means of escape for us either.”
His words sober us a little and there’s a slight pause as we reflect on the risk.
“Still sounds like it’s the safest way to me,” Val Helena says. “I’m with Aiko.”
My brother looks to me. “What do you think, Reece?”
I’m a bit surprised to hear my brother ask for my opinion. It’s a reminder of just how much he views me as an equal now. After our chat right before fighting the Shadow King, where he revealed our dad could still be alive up here on the surface, he’s been far more supportive and communicative than he’s ever been. With all we have yet to face, I’m doubly thankful to have my big brother by my side.
“Yo? You gonna answer or what, man?”
I break out of my reverie with an inward laugh. Better brother or not, Mike is still Mike I guess.
I shrug, but give him a nod in agreement.
“Yeah, I think that could work,” I say. “If we time it right, Aiko and I can immediately
cast Shadow Wall after we use the keys. Whoever uses the key will only become visible for a second or so. There’s a good chance we won’t be spotted at all if we do that.”
“See?” Aiko says and then smiles at me with a wink. “Reece’s got the right idea.”
“Okay fine,” Maxis says. “But who’s going to be setting the keys?”
We all look between ourselves.
Rembrandt shrugs. “I guess I could do it. Since I’m the one that knows which way to go.”
“No, Rem,” I say. “You’ve done enough to get us this far. I’ll do it. I can keep Shadow Copy up too in case I do get spotted.”
“And so can I,” Aiko says, giving me a nod. “We’ll split the task. You key, I cloak and vice versa.”
“Fair enough,” Rembrandt says. “Looks like the Ninjas have it covered then.”
Maxis nods. “All right. Let’s do it.”
* * *
I cast Shadow Copy and then cloak us with Shadow Wall.
“Here we go,” I say and jump off the platform to zoom to the next one over.
We phase through, and I can hear everyone else landing close to me on the new tile, but I can’t see them. So far so good. I trek across the platform, the key already materialized in my hand. I head to the edge that Rembrandt directs us to and then wait for the pattern to switch to the right one.
“Now,” Rembrandt says through the party chat. “Green line.”
I crush the key and select the green line, my body becoming visible.
A split second later Aiko casts Shadow Wall and I’m cloaked again.
“Nice work,” I say. “I don’t think anyone could have spotted me even if they were looking.”
“I got you, pretty boy,” Aiko says with a melody in her voice. “Just be sure to return the favor.”
“Let’s keep it going,” Val Helena says impatiently. “Next tile.”
We do two more like that, me and Aiko alternating roles. As we get closer to the final one, we also get a better view of what’s going on with Ziegfried. It looks like Braxus sent in half his darn army after us! There are at least five giants that I can see and maybe a dozen mages now. The soldiers have to number in the hundreds as well. They have a system set up where the archers are targeting angels from an adjacent island to our right. I doubt their bows have as much range as Rembrandt’s rifle, but they still manage to get the angels to cross the gap when they peg them with their arrows. They are pulling much slower than I would have expected too, especially for them having so many people.
