by Rick Scott
I’m just about to hand it back to Rembrandt for a closer look when Gilly casts a light spell, flooding the area with a soft luminescence.
“How about now?” she says.
I look again and the impressions become clear.
Klein, Hilda
Scout 521
Citadel L213B
My heart pumps with adrenaline.
“What is it?” Gilly asks. “What’s it say?”
“It’s a name tag,” I say, staring at the pendant like it’s come from another world. “Her name was Hilda Klein…and she was from Citadel…”
* * *
Bruce paced within Carl’s office.
The sonar tech followed him with tired eyes and released a sigh. Carl was probably getting sick of his visits by now, but Bruce didn’t know where else to go.
“And you’re sure it was real?” Carl asked.
“As real as anything I’ve seen,” Bruce said. “The punk took it with him though, so I can’t really confirm it other than that.”
“You think his threat is real too?”
Bruce shoved his hands into his pockets, reliving the terrifying moment when Novak shoved the gun into his temple. “Real enough.”
“What do you think the board is going to say?”
Bruce shook his head. “We won’t be arming a gang, that’s for sure. We’d enact one of our contingency protocols first. But it could amount to the same damn thing.”
“What do you mean? Which protocol?”
“Martial law,” Bruce said and shuddered at the thought of setting Samantha Flores—his twenty-something-year-old, de facto Chief of Security—loose on the population with live weapons. “It’ll be the beginning of the end in either case.”
“You’re thinking this is all Dennis, right?”
Bruce shrugged. “Who else could it be?”
Carl cocked his head in thought. “Even if he has the protocols—and who knows, maybe he does—it’s a hardware thing, not just software. Having the protocols alone wouldn’t matter.”
Bruce creased his brow. “Huh?”
“The protocols are embedded in the nano processors themselves. A single device needs to be either modified or bypassed and that’s no easy feat without the thing blowing up in your face.”
“Even for an AI?”
They both went silent at that.
“Is there any way to stop this?” Bruce asked. “Change the protocols or something?”
“If you can find the machine that printed the gun, maybe.”
“Is there a way to do that?”
Carl paused a second, tapping his chin. “What kind of gun was it again?”
Bruce recalled the name Novak called it as he marveled at the thing. “A…Glock...17 or something...I think.”
Carl pressed a few keys and an image of a handgun appeared on the holoscreen. “This the one?”
Bruce studied it for a second. “Yeah, looks like it.”
“I could write a subroutine that could trace if this item pattern was copied out of a game world and sent to a nano processor. Maybe try to identify which one.”
“Seriously?” Bruce said. “That easy?”
Carl laughed. “Won’t be easy at all. Could take days, even weeks to search through all the transaction data. And even then it could be a longshot.”
Bruce considered it for a moment. Shutting down the production of more weapons was the only chance for a positive outcome to all this. Whether Novak got the weapons or the Board, the result would be the same—an all-out war in the heart of the hub district. But if it was Dennis doing this, then how could they truly stop him?
“Give it a shot,” Bruce said. “There’s literally nothing to lose by trying.”
Carl nodded. “Any thoughts on what to do about Dennis yet?”
Bruce sighed. “With all this I haven’t even had a chance to think about it. One crisis at a time, I guess.”
“Speaking of that…” Carl hit some more keys and the star field-like image of the sonar display popped onto the holoscreen. “The drilling is accelerating.”
“What?” Bruce edged closer and stared at the tiny tunnels that were meandering their way closer towards Citadel. “How far away are they now?”
“Still miles,” Carl said. “But the timing of this and that conversation Dennis had is uncanny.”
Closing in for the kill. “We’ll need to keep an eye on everything. But focus on finding the origin of that gun for now. I’ll need to bring this to the board eventually, but I’d rather have an ace up my sleeve before I do, especially if it’s Dennis behind it.”
“What about Novak?” Carl asked.
Bruce didn’t even want to think about him.
“I’ll have to stall him,” Bruce said. “Somehow…”
Carl nodded. “I’ll work as fast as I can then.”
“Thanks,” Bruce said. “An internal gang war would destroy us far quicker than the AIs ever could.”
Carl chuckled. “I don’t know whether to feel proud or disgusted by that.”
“Yeah,” Bruce said as he made for the habitat door. “Glory to mankind.”
* * *
I stare at the name tag in my hand like it’s the key to everything.
And maybe it is.
“Guys, if this person came from Citadel, then maybe it’s nearby,” Gilly says, again voicing my inner thoughts. “We could be right on top of it!”
“I’ll place a marker on this location,” Rembrandt says and then looks up at Maxis. “How much do you know about the old scouts, Max? How far did they travel?”
“Heck if I know,” Maxis says. “But clearly she got far enough away that she couldn’t make her way back. Hell, maybe she even got lost too.”
There goes my brother being negative again…although maybe he’s just being pragmatic in this case.
“Can I see it?” Gilly says, pointing to the tag.
“Sure,” I say and hand it to her.
Gilly studies it, flipping it over in her hands and then her eyes go wide. “There’s a port on here! I think it might be some kind of storage device.”
“Can you access it?” Val Helena says.
Gilly shakes her head. “Nothing’s showing up on my HUD. Maybe it’s binary.”
“What?” I say.
Gilly stops staring at the pendant and then looks up at all of us. “My dad told me once that certain systems back home were made standalone by using binary encoding instead of quantum.”
“What the heck does that mean?” Aiko says, pinching her brows together.
“It makes it so things can’t be accessed from a normal network. He said that’s what happened to us the last time when the Builders attacked,” Gilly says. “The Builders hacked the sonar system or something. It would make sense if this thing were binary-encoded. Max, didn’t you say that they transport us randomly and don’t tell us the location of Citadel to keep it a secret in case we ever got captured or something?”
Maxis shrugs. “Yeah…that’s what your dad told me, anyway.”
“So maybe this is how they did it in the old days,” Gilly says. “Our systems are all quantum-based and so are we and the AIs. We can’t access it because we aren’t speaking the same language. If they were worried about Builders finding the location of Citadel, then using binary would be the perfect way to encrypt any information they had on them.”
“Yes, but the Builders don’t seem like the true enemy,” Becky says.
“They might not have known that,” Gilly says. “We might be the first ones to even know about the Others.”
Becky shakes her head. “No. There were plenty of other people who entered the Labyrinth before us. Remember Michelle and Dillard?”
“Yes, but we’re the only ones who may have escaped,” Rembrandt says, rubbing his goatee. “And even that might not be true. Maybe there have been others who escaped the Labyrinth before us, but one thing is certain. The fact that we, meaning Citadel, have no idea that the Others exist, mean
s that anyone who has seen them, has never made it back to Citadel alive.”
The thought chills me.
We’re holding information that could be key to our long-term survival and we might not be the first to have obtained it. I look to the scout again and my skin prickles. What if she was trying to do the same thing we are? Trying to get back to Citadel with the information on that tag? What if she knew about the Others and was trying to tell them? What if we’re on the exact same quest, hundreds of years apart, still unable to complete it?
Man…there might be more at stake here than we even realized.
The ground shakes suddenly, tossing the thoughts out of my head. The sand around us liquefies and the huge metal box above us creaks as it shifts abruptly.
“What’s happening!” Becky yells.
I’ve felt the ground shake like this only once before. I scan the horizon and spot a skyscraper-sized figure about a half mile away, crouched on one knee, the sand around it still radiating outwards in a shock wave from its high-speed landing.
“An Omega!” Maxis screams. “Run!”
Crap! How did it find us? And then it becomes clear. “Gilly, your light!”
Her eyes widen with comprehension and she extinguishes the light spell. “Darn it! I’m sorry!”
But it’s too late. The huge Omega slowly rises from the ground, already scanning in our direction.
It begins to move.
“Run!” Maxis shouts again.
We all scramble trying to head away from the creaking metal box as it sinks deeper into the sand. I hit Sprint and my legs burn with acid as I pump furiously to make headway, but I’m getting nowhere. What the heck? The world tilts and it feels like I’m running uphill. My friends, who are all sprinting ahead of me, drop to all fours, suddenly climbing up the steep incline of a sand dune that came out of nowhere.
I glance over my shoulder and see the huge box still sinking like a ship at the bottom of the concave pit that has now formed behind us. Then I spot something even more terrifying. Sliding backwards towards the center of the pit is Gilly and Becky, their much shorter Stamina bars already depleted and in the red.
“Guys!” I shout, drawing everyone’s attention as I slide back down the pit towards the two mages.
I reach Becky first and grab hold of her robe, while simultaneously clawing at the sand with my free arm to maintain my position. My heart pumps furiously with the exertion, my breath coming out in short sharp gasps as my Stamina bar rapidly depletes.
125/357 Stamina
85/357 Stamina
“Pass her to me!” Val Helena shouts, sliding back down the dune towards me.
I dig deep and use the last of my Stamina to swing Becky over my shoulder and toss her uphill towards Val Helena.
45/357 Stamina
The giantess grabs her and performs the same maneuver, but with her great strength, easily tosses Becky right to the top of the dune. Maxis and Rembrandt grab hold of her further and pull her to safety along with Aiko.
The ground trembles again and the sand flows quicker as the huge Omega begins to stalk towards us with its enormous strides, covering hundreds of feet with each step.
“Get Gilly!” Val Helena cries, kicking with her booted heels to maintain her position on the slope and not sink further into the sand with her heavy armor. “Pass her to me the same way.”
I slide down to where Gilly is struggling to climb the steep incline. She claws desperately at the sand as it slips past her faster and faster, exacerbated by the approaching Omega.
“Reece!” she cries, her eyes full of fear. “Help me!”
“I’ve got you, Gilly!” I shout, reaching for her, yet still trying to slow my own descent.
35/357 Stamina
25/357 Stamina
Not good…
A massive boom goes off and the sand at the bottom of the pit explodes, shooting high into the sky. A huge area of the desert drops away before me, falling like a curtain into a massive hole a hundred feet wide.
Holy crap!
My heart jumps at the sight, my mind struggling to comprehend how so much mass could move so quickly!
Gilly glances behind her, seeing the same thing and screams. What was once a pit is now a gaping black hole and she’s right on the edge of it! In the darkness I catch the rusted box tumbling as if in slow motion, suddenly illuminated by a faint blue glow from below. Sand falls from it, revealing two sets of treads and the massive barrel and turret of a tank that has to be as big as the Omega.
“Reece!” Gilly cries as her Stamina bar hits zero.
She slides back towards the hole, exhausted.
“GILLY!”
A green light engulfs her and her Stamina bar pops to full.
Yes!
Becky casts Second Wind!
Gilly regains +150 Stamina.
I reach for her as Gilly scrambles to get to me once more. I barely grasp her hand when the ground gives way beneath her.
No!!
She cries out and my heart stops as our fingers slips apart and Gilly tumbles into the darkness.
Chapter 9: Run
“Gilly!”
I don’t even think.
I jump head-first off the ledge and into the unknown depths below.
Wind and sand sting my face as I plummet through the darkness. It slowly gives way to a blue glow as familiar columns of self-illuminating crystals fill my peripheral vision. I spot Gilly tumbling ahead of me, speeding towards the enormous tank that is now sat on its side at the bottom of a huge underground expanse.
I pop Charge Strike and sail towards Gilly at tremendous speed.
“I’ve got you!” I shout as I collide with her.
“Reece!” she screams, flailing as I grab her.
I manage to get my left arm around her slender waist and cast Shadow Copy with my free hand and then stack it with Decoy Shadow for good measure.
You cast Shadow Copy!
You gain the effect of Shadow Copy.
You cast Decoy Shadow!
You gain the effect of Decoy Shadow.
“Make yourself as small as possible, Gilly!” I shout as I wrap my arms around her from behind. I rotate to face the sky, to where the latticework of crystal that forms the ceiling above is broken by the massive hole we just fell through. I’m taken aback by the sheer size of the cavern, much bigger than what I experienced before.
I close my eyes as our speed goes into freefall and Gilly screams in my ear. I mentally engage my Rescue skill, but I’m not sure it will even work. I can take the fall damage with my Shadow Copy, but will it transfer to her? Or will she pass straight through me and hit the ground full force?
Please let this save her…
We continue to fall until my back hits something hard and I explode into nano-dust.
Your shadow absorbs the attack!
A split-second later the full force of Gilly’s impact strikes me square in the chest and takes my breath away.
You Rescue Gilly!
You take 1387(2774) fall damage!
You gain the effect of Shadow Cloak!
My head slams against the rusted steel hull of the tank, my body exploding like porcelain as the world goes black. I come to a second later with the taste of blood in my mouth. My body feels like it was run over by a truck.
I check my Health bar.
345/1732 HP
Geez, that was close.
I cancel the invisibility buff from the Decoy Shadow effect and thank God that I had the sense to use it. A cloud of white debris surrounds me from our impact. My ears ring. I can barely think straight. Gilly’s still in my arms and I shake her to make sure she’s alright.
“Gilly, you okay?” I groan.
She stirs and turns to face me, embracing me at the same time. “Thank you. I thought I was dead.”
I blow out a sigh of relief. Thank God that worked.
Gilly kisses me on my lips and hugs me again. I hug her back but wince as she crushes my ribs.
/>
“Ow!”
“Sorry!” she says quickly. “Here, let me heal you.”
She removes herself from my arm and stands over me, raising her arms with a bright white glow.
Gilly casts Heal V!
You gain +1367 HP!
Soothing warmth fills my body as the spell goes off, topping my HP to full.
“That’s better,” I say and stand next to her.
Gilly spins around in a circle, gazing out into the distance at the forest of crystal columns. “Where are we?”
I do the same and by our surroundings, it’s crystal clear to me where we are. No pun intended. “We’re where I saw the Others for the first time. Underneath the earth.”
But it’s different than what I saw before. The huge crystal columns are still here, fifty feet thick, spanning top to bottom to form a forest as far as I can see, but much taller like I noted on the way down. And where there was blank space in between them before, now I see…buildings?
I almost have to do a double take.
Covered in a snow-like detritus a few inches thick, are the remnants of office buildings and collapsed skyscrapers—leaning against the towering crystal columns which must be at least half a mile high. From atop the massive tank our vantage stretches for miles, and in every direction we see the remnants of city blocks.
Below us streets stretch between the buildings, covered in the same dandruff-like snow and on top of them sit the rusted-out frames of cars and buses from the pre-war era. Traffic lights hang from above, some completely undamaged and at the street corners, signs with writing, although I’m too far away to read what they say.
“Are you seeing all this?” Gilly asks wide-eyed, sounding as mystified as I am.
My HP bar flashes as I lose a point of health.
I recall the same thing happened to me before when I was down here. I open my combat log to check.
You take 1
