I’d returned the shell I’d used back to the forward operating base and stored it. The room we used for holding it was once the armory, but we’d stripped and converted it into a laboratory. After I’d unhooked myself again from the control chair I headed there, not only to check up on it but also our lead scientist.

The old armory now had an entire section of the wall converted into monitors and computer servers. A single chair sat at the middle of it all, an odd looking helmet attached to the computers via wiring. The other side of the room had a table covered in machinery, some of which I could recognize and others that I had no idea about.

Deepest into the room stood the shell, settled into the maintenance system that we’d made for it. The missing finger was in the middle of being replaced by the small robotic arms that worked on it, while a scanner checked it for any internal damage. A shelf of magic crystals sat next to the system, at the ready if one wanted to exchange the ones already equipped.

There was only one person in the room, and as I hobbled in she glanced up to look at me. Even after the seven years we’d worked together she still couldn’t hide her annoyance at me, but I’d learned that it was more out of a protective nature than anything else.

“Good day to you,” I said in greeting.

Alexia rubbed at her temples while she growled at me. “I really need to figure out a way to get rid of that headache side effect,” she complained, her red eyes shooting daggers at me, “and you already broke the remote controlled combat suit?”

I held up two fingers that were almost touching each other. “Only a little bit,” I told her with a smile, “how’d your download go this time?”

At those words Alexia put one hand on top of the helmet next to her. “Stupendous. I don’t believe I’ve even scratched a tenth of the knowledge he left behind.”

I walked with my cane over to her table of gadgets and looked down at them, noticing that there were a few more than the last time I’d been in the room. “Markov was the smartest of all the Architects, so that doesn’t surprise me.”

“It’s quite compunctious that he wasn’t able to pass down his lineage to my family directly. I wonder how the first floor would’ve turned out if he had.”

“Based on what you and Lucas have told me about the Guild I doubt it would’ve turned out much better,” I told her. I also pointedly ignored the fact that she had fallen into a habit of using words that were a bit odd, at least for casual conversation. I could only guess that it was some aspect of Markov bleeding through the data that he’d stored in his lab.

In fact it’d proved to be a stroke of luck that his descendent had been on the first floor, and that I’d managed to meet her. It was due to her being related to him that we were able to properly access his computers. The systems embedded in his laboratory on the twenty-second floor had held a vast amount of data, and with Alexia’s genetic data everything had opened up.

“I still can’t believe he thought this far ahead, though,” I admitted, more to myself than to Alexia, as I thought on what we’d found.

Detailed instructions had been left behind by Markov, instructions that dealt with how to download his compressed information into a descendent. It was with those instructions we’d made the helmet, and with Alexia’s permission we’d tried the first transfer of information.

The end result was that she’d gained more technical prowess in minutes than most would have over their entire lifespan. I’d tried to have my daughters access the data, but as Mika had put it there was a biological lock built in. While he’d used Architect genetics to help make my daughters he’d utilized a woman’s, and not his own, in order to achieve their creation.

Alexia stood up from her chair and walked over to the table. “My ancestor was smart enough to know that his knowledge shouldn’t be lost,” she told me as she picked up a cylinder from the table, “by the way I’m planning to embed this in the shell so you can use it.”

I studied what she held and tried to figure out what it was, but it looked like a simple black rod with a red band on one end. “What is it?”

“I’ve taken to calling it a magic blade.” Alexia aimed the red band away from her. With a slight shift of her fingers a blade that consisted of ice sprouted from the hilt. “I’ve loaded it with an ice shard and a fire shard, and the crystals should hold enough charge for your entire trip.”

“That’ll come in handy, I think I already broke a few of the systems because I tried to fight them with my bare hands,” I admitted to her, “did you manage to finish the gun?”

Alexia put the hilt down, the ice blade already gone as soon as she let go of it. “Since Markov made it and the stasis fields worked I only had to do some minor tweaks. I’ve set it so that the weapon will only work for your shell, so if anyone else holds it they can’t discharge the crystal energy.”

“And you got the control system to work with the shell, which means I can manipulate the firing pattern?”

Our conversation was interrupted in that moment by a beep from the door, which was shortly followed by another beep as the door slid open. Kuzu walked into the room with a smile on her face, and she gave a small wave to Alexia.

“Hi Lexy, is Fenix bugging you?”

“Our esteemed leader has been a minor annoyance at best,” Alexia said as she walked over and hugged her friend, “how are you?”

“I’m great, but Fenix needs to go to bed,” Kuzu told her.

“I’m perfectly capable of choosing when to go to bed myself.”

“No, you’re not,” Kuzu said as she pointed one finger at me, “you’re an idiot and you’ll keep pushing yourself until you collapse. Now get back to the room and eat what I made. After that wash up and go to bed.”

I started to try and argue but Kuzu glared at me with her green eyes, and all I could do was close my mouth and nod my head. I’d learned quite well that once she was riled up I could never win.

I returned back to my miniature home within the base and ate the dinner. I barely even thought about it, though, since as I washed myself down and prepared for sleep my mind was elsewhere. All I could think of was the upcoming journey to the highest floor, a journey that would be filled with hazards.

I tossed and turned for a bit after I’d gotten into bed, my concerns for my daughters weighing heavily on my mind. I planned to take them into the deadliest places of the labyrinth, and the guilt of that continued to eat away at me.

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

The next morning I’d settled into the control chair of the shell, and I piloted the repaired machine over to the portal on the fiftieth floor. The white sphere floated over a small plot of grassland, not that far distant from where the Architect outpost had been.

Lisa and Mika had already arrived, and they both had a single bag between them. Within would be their supplies for the upcoming trek, and at a glance I could tell that the amount was a bit lower than I might prefer for them to take.

“Are you two sure you want to do this?” I asked them, as I slung a heavy looking rifle over my shoulder.

“One of us has to go, so we might as well both go,” Mika commented, her gaze fully on the portal.

Lisa gave a small fist pump with a big smile on her face. “Don’t worry about us dad, we can beat any Architect easy!”

“We’ll see,” I replied, and then offered a hand to her, “mind helping me out here?”

It was one of the few downsides we’d discovered with the shell. It was a machine, and that meant that it couldn’t transfer via the portal system unless held by someone. If not for that I probably would’ve gone without my daughters.

Lisa’s smile somehow got even bigger as she gripped my hand. “Sure thing, now let’s do this!”

Floor 51

Within The Darkness

After we’d gone through the portal we arrived on the next floor, and it was a place that was entirely black. There were no lights save for a couple stars far above, and so it was impossible to see anything. Even our own hands when held in front of our faces were basically invisible.

I cycled through the vision options of the shell until I decided to stick with the thermal choice. The nightvision relied on amplifying existing light, and given the lack on this floor that’d only prove pointless.

My daughters had their own choice on how to deal with the problem they faced. Halos appeared over their heads, which put out enough light that they could see everything close to them.

All around us was a lush jungle filled with tall grass and shrubs. Large roots reached up out of the ground and interlaced with one another, competing for the nutrients and water below. The trees were much more squat than what one might expect, and in the light produced by my daughters every plant was white.

I’d always known plants to be green and so my first time on this floor had been a bit of a shock. Lute had told me she’d gotten the idea from a type of plants she’d seen in a cave before, though she’d tweaked it a bit.

“The compass is pointing to the west,” I informed my daughters as I pointed in the direction, “we should try to hurry.”

Lisa held up one hand in an attempt to stop me. “Wait, didn’t you say there was an outpost on like every floor?”

I knew that I shouldn’t have explained everything to them, but I didn’t want a big surprise coming along and getting them killed. “I told you at the briefing, we don’t need to clear every outpost.”

“But I want to see if one of those real Architects you kept talking about is there!”

Mika reached out and grabbed Lisa by the ear, dragging her to the west. “Father already explained time is of the essence. We need to get to the fifty-fifth floor as soon as possible.”

I followed after my daughters, thinking on those words. As Mika had put it we had little time to get to the fifty-fifth floor, as we’d already destroyed one outpost. It wouldn’t be long before the more senior members of the Architect society began to grow interested. If their best fighters showed up en masse I doubted the shell would stand a chance.

Our walk through the darkened jungle was a bit on the surreal side. One would normally expect to hear the sound of birds, but within this dark floor there were none. Reptiles didn’t exist either as there was no sun for them to rely upon. So instead all we encountered for a while was absolute silence intermingled with the light sound of leaves rustling.

It was thanks to my thermal vision that I was able to see the attack before it happened, and I whirled the rifle off of my shoulder and into my hands. The energy beam it produced was thin, but it was more than enough to take care of the doberman sized beetle. The hole it made in the head of the insect went all the way through, and the entirely black bug collapsed on the spot.

“Get ready!” I barked at my daughters as my eyes tracked further movement within the undergrowth.

The pair of halos glowed even brighter as my daughters put more of their internalized energy into them. Lisa whipped her sword out from the back scabbard, while her sister crouched and held her hands on the orbs at her waist.

More of the beetles began to swarm our location, their movements quick and silent. With their black bodies I knew my daughters would have a hard time seeing them, but my current vision made it all too easy to see every single one.

Lisa and Mika went back-to-back as they faced the new threat. For the most part they managed to deal with the beetles, but a few would slip in close enough to nip at them with their large mandibles. It was those that I focused on with my rifle.

While we worked to defend ourselves from the nest we’d managed to run into I began to notice something. The beetles only rushed at my daughters and completely ignored the shell. It was a fact that made the fight all the easier as I didn’t have to put any awareness to my personal surroundings.

After a continual fight of roughly ten minutes the beetles had stopped appearing. My daughters were lathered in sweat, but neither of them looked winded even though they’d never stopped fighting. I felt a bit of pride at that, but I didn’t voice it.

“We should move on before anything else shows up,” I told my daughters as I walked past them. My metal feet crunched on dead beetles, but I paid it no attention. After all I’d stepped on worst in the past.

We moved through the forest for a while, all the while waiting for another attack to come. The entire floor might have been a jungle but it was also an insect kingdom. There were worse things in the dark than the beetles we’d run across.

The portal was easy enough to see long before we got near it. Even with the thick plantlife of the floor the white shine it produced served like a beacon in the dark. As we got closer my daughters pace quickened, and it was only because I grabbed their shoulders that they stopped.

“We need to be careful here,” I whispered to them, “since the portal moves on this floor there’s a high chance for an Architect here.”

Yet when we crept closer to the portal there was no sign of any Architect. I looked around, studying every nook and cranny within the vines and trees, but all I saw was plantlife and very small insects. If there was an Architect they’d hidden themselves so well we had no hope of finding them.

After I’d given my okay Mika and Lisa slipped out of the foliage. My daughters wisely chose to turn their halos off before we walked out in front of the portal, relying on the light of the portal itself. We stepped up to the white orb, once more Lisa taking my hand, and a moment later we flickered out of existence.

And all the while I wondered why there was no Architect.