They all sat down on the living room floor, Linux calmly explaining to Zavin what had happened throughout the day. He couldn’t have him going and telling everyone about him keeping first floorers in his home. If word of that got out, then he’d have to leave before the stars even came out and he still needed more time to prepare things.

So they sat and listened as the insects buzzed around outside and lights began turning off in houses, calling for a good night's sleep. Zavin would be in trouble once he got home, but he didn’t mind it after hearing everything about what happened.

“So they’re good guys?” Zavin asked, looking at Killian’s bald head.

“Yeah, they’re good.”

Kauss nearly laughed at that, and so did Helona. They had to keep up appearances, however, in order to keep him on their side and not rat them out. Zavin looked back at them and smiled. He still had a few baby teeth left over and one of them was crooked, showing signs of falling out soon.

“Zavin,” Linux said. “I need you to keep them a secret.”

“But what if Mom asks where I’ve been?”

“Just say you were with me, and don’t mention anything about them.” Linux pointed to Kauss and the others.

Zavin nodded, understanding what he needed to do. He held out the fan he had for a while and showed it to Linux, who took it. It was a standard house fan that his great grandfather designed with yellow tower energy. The blades were dusty but when brushed off; it showed signs of being somewhat new.

“Will that fan work with the Gaxtex?”

Linux looked at it, and he couldn’t help but chuckle. Zavin looked at Kauss and he just shrugged, not knowing what set him off. Once he stopped laughing, he stood up and walked over to his bedroom. He was in there for only a few seconds and came back with a few journals in his hand.

He placed them down on the ground and pushed them over to Zavin. He grabbed one and looked at the cover. It was written in a messy handwriting that had faded briefly over time. He could somewhat make out the name written on the cover, Junto Fausting. It didn’t take a genius to uncover the fact that was one of Linux’s grandfathers.

He opened the journal, and it was filled with scribbles of different types of Gaxtex’s and mechanical parts. There were instructions about how to put them together and many ways on how to use them with energy from the tower.

He flipped to the final few pages and there was a brief description of a machine and a picture. The description read:

I have finally done it! I had designed a Gaxtex that I called the camera down on the first floor, but sadly it was merely a prototype, only showing things in different variations of grey, so I left it down there along with brief notes on how to suction energy from the cube to re-power it.

Helona and Kauss looked at Killian. They’ve always been told that the scientist had left no notes behind. With their accusatory glares, Killian shrugged and scooted away from them.

“I don’t know anything about that.”

They didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but they let it slide. They were already above the first floor, so it’s not like it mattered now. Looking back at the journal, they began reading again.

The camera uses the tower’s yellow energy and then captures a photo of something in time. In the future, I wish things like this are commonplace. As a demonstration, here is a picture of me and a second floorer that I worked with.

The photo on the other page showed three people in front of a table. They were all male and looked toward the camera, smiling. The man on the right had his first three fingers up. Helona immediately recognized the hand signal as being a member of a gang down in the first floor. The Owerneckers never had a sign, but the other gangs had one as a signal of loyalty.

The first man in the picture was a tall man with blond hair, most likely Junto. He placed his arm on the man to his right and smiled his heart away. His blue eyes seemed to reach out of the photo and look straight at Linux, as if the still frame of a single point of life was proud of where his lineage ended up. Linux couldn’t help but smile back.

The man to Junto’s left was a, hopefully not natural, violet haired man. He was smiling, but not as warmly, as if he was waiting for an excuse to leave and never return. Although Junto was a massive man, the purple-haired guy was incredibly short. He was as tall as Killian was, and when he saw that, he couldn’t help but feel appreciated.

The man that Junto laid his arm on was a normal five foot eleven man. He looked the most normal out of the other two, the only other outstanding trait from him being his ginger hair. A ring was on his pointer finger and it glowed red and surrounded by metal. It looked like he took an energy capsule and shaped it into the ring.

Finally, there seemed to be a hidden fourth person, although he wasn’t in frame. The person holding the camera mistakenly put his finger on the lens. As a result, the top right of the camera was blurred as a finger blocked the lens. Despite that, they never bothered to retake the shot.

Linux removed the tape from the picture and lifted it. A new paragraph appeared under the photo and three names were listed under it.

I am going to climb the tower and leave this journal in Junto’s hands. He shows promise and I don’t doubt that he’ll become even brighter than me someday. If all this stuff is just on the second floor, I can only imagine what types of machines are waiting for me at the top.

Sincerely, Junto Fausting. Gaxtex Relling. Vivus Ulter.

“Who’s the person taking the picture?” Kauss asked.

Linux shrugged. “Probably some random guy they asked to take it.”

Zavin closed the journal and went onto the next one. He hurriedly flipped to the back of the book and saw no picture. He went onto the last one and still no picture. Not to mention the rest of the journals seemed to be written by Junto, where the first book had a mix of both Junto and Gaxtex’s writing.

“That’s the reason I want to climb the tower.” Linux said, re-opening the first journal and pointing at the last paragraph. “What other amazing things could be up there. Better yet, what could I create with them.”

Linux bounced from imagining the amount of inventions he could create with the right materials. One of his greatest ideas for an invention was one where people could talk from across the entire floor, yet still seem like they’re so close. He had no clue what to call it, but it was the dream he considered his magnum opus.

There weren’t many suitable materials left to accomplish such a feat. He had used all the metal he got from the energy capsules to their greatest strength, and the best it could do was create wires. He needed stronger metal, and possibly, if his theory was correct, he could harvest a new type of energy above them.

“So what’s all this for?” Zavin asked.

“You know how you want to be my apprentice?”

Zavin’s eyes lit up, and he leaned forward, ready to yell with an excited passion. Linux placed a finger on his lips, quieting him down.

“You aren’t going to be my apprentice, not yet. You’re going to read these books and absorb as much information as you can.”

“Then I can avenge grandpa?”

Linux shrugged. “Sure, but you got to read first and grow up. Otherwise, you’re not going to last a second. Not even against me.”

Zavin nodded excitedly. He grabbed all the books and ran out the door. Before leaving, he heard Linux yell for him to keep the books a secret, but he knew that already. He wasn’t going to show them to his parents in the first place. They didn’t even want him over there to begin with, so he thought up of a cover story as he ran off into the star filled town.

Inside the house, Linux leaned against the wall, taking food out of a bag. They were standard meat and bread snacks that were being sold along the streets near his house. It was the nearest thing, and he shopped there all the time so he knew of the quality of the place. He planned a big meal, but the meeting with Oculn shook him way too much.

He handed Kauss, Helona, and Killian a snack, and they looked at it oddly. The snack looked like a lump of bread on a stick. Killian bit into it with little doubt of its safety and exposed the dark meat in the center. He chewed on it and swallowed, leaving a spicy taste in his mouth.

“What is this?” Killian asked as Kauss took a bite of his.

“It’s a Yoskel Snak. Spelled with just a k believe it or not.” Linux stood up with his food and walked toward his bedroom. “I’m going down to my lab. Y’all can sleep up here for the time being.”

Linux opened his room door, went inside, then shut it. He could hear them talking on the other side, and he became curious. He listened for a bit, but when he realized they were just arguing about a camera, he left and went down into his lab. A long night is awaiting him.

Linux has been down in the lab for over three hours. He was hunched over a table with dozens of different types of metals, screws, bolts, and capsules. The gun that he was shot with sat to the side that he referenced from now and again to make a gun with the correct proportions.

Truth be told, he could have had it done half an hour ago, but he was kinda distracted. A constant creak of the floorboards up above him let him know what was happening on his bed. He didn’t think never sleeping in his bed again would be a good thing, but after tonight, he wished nothing more than to just leave and let his bed rot.

He wasn’t all too excited about the idea of love and all, and the thought of sex weirded him out. Most of the town was sexually open, but he was just weirded out by it for some reason, until he read about how his grandparents were the same way in one of his journals. Now that he thought about it, he could only hope that Zavin skips that section. He was too innocent for such a thing.

He grabbed a blowtorch that was nearby and placed goggles over his eyes. With careful precision, he welded two slabs of metal together. When he finished, he burnt holes through it that would serve as the place to screw it into the rest of the Gaxtex. He was about to put it together until he heard his cabinet door open.

He didn’t let that bother him too much, so he just kept on working. When the lab door opened, he looked and saw a shirtless Kauss walk into the lab. His hair was all over the place and he looked as if he just had the best time of his day.

“Why my bed?” Linux aggravatingly asked.

“That was the only comfortable spot.” Kauss said, unbothered by the fact he did such an obscene act on another person’s bed. “I’ve been hurt for the past few days, so Helona wanted to catch up. What’s wrong with that.”

Linux didn’t even bother to slaughter him with insults. He had so much anger on his tongue, but he couldn’t keep getting distracted. As he finished with the welding, he saw Kauss approach the bag that their clothes were in. He got on his knees and bowed his head, as if in prayer.

“What are you doing?”

Kauss remained silent as Linux began screwing in the metal piece that covered the trigger. All he had to do was make the cover and it should be done, but once again he let his mind wonder. This was the main reason he never bothered working with others. As he silently put the cover on, he waited for Kauss to answer his question as he was still praying to the bag.

Kauss raised his head and lowered his hands. “It’s a religion grandmamma made up. One practice is that I have to pray both day and night to dead family members.”

Linux hummed to himself. “Is that it?”

Kauss nodded his head and went back up the stairs. Linux couldn’t help but feel weird about that. It sounded more like a lifestyle than a religion. Still, he didn’t question it. The answer to who God truly was isn’t something that people took lightly. The people on the floor believed God built the tower in order to protect humanity from a destructive force outside.

As a child, he could remember going to the council hall to offer food sacrifices every day since, according to whoever made it up, the food burning would power God and the tower to protect us for a century longer. That was just one thing those people did, but he didn’t really feel like going through it all. If he did, then he’d spend hours thinking of how dumb it was rather than finishing the gun.

Kauss slept next to Helona on Linux’s bed, while Killian was sleeping in the living room. As Kauss slept, he dreamt of his mother again, as if she had never gone away and stayed with him. He’s had this dream all the time. She would take care of him, trying to give him the best life on the first floor, only for her to get shot trying to protect him, then he’d get shot himself.

When that scene began to play out, he woke up just before the bullet went into her head. He groggily opened his eyes, turning to lie flat on his back. At least that time, he didn’t need to see her getting killed again.

He turned over and looked at Helona as she was sleeping. Her chest rose and fell from her breathing, and Kauss couldn’t help but feel relieved. He was always afraid of a time if he woke up and saw her or Killian dead. It was another one of his nightmares, but is it really a nightmare if he became used to it over time?

The cabinet was pushed to the side as Linux came out with a gun in hand and the bag of clothes they had packed up. Kauss shook Helona awake, and she woke up with a yawn and groan. She saw Linux standing over them, setting the bag down in front of them. His face was red, looking away from her.

“Put some clothes on. We’re leaving.” He set the gun and a belt that was filled with red energy capsules down on top of the bag.

Helona pushed away the cover and dug through the bag for a shirt to put on while Linux went to the living room to wake up Killian. He made his way to the living room and noticed that Killian had been sleeping with the gauntlets on. With one wrong turn, he could’ve ended up electrocuting himself. He had no idea if he was stupid or just believed in his luck. He sighed, as he was pretty sure it was the former, and the latter was just as dumb.

“Wake up.” Linux said, nudging Killian with his foot. He didn’t expect what came next.

Killian shot up from the floor and punched him across his jaw. He flew back and landed all the way in the kitchen. He groaned and looked up, seeing only Killian’s eyes from the darkness of the living room. They weren’t his normal eyes. These were eyes that screamed of unconcentrated bloodlust and murder. They were feral, shaking from something inside of him, calling for him to be satiated with blood filled terror.

Linux hurriedly turned on his lamp and lit up the room. He could see Killian blink, and when his eyes re-opened, they were back to normal. He looked around, almost as if he were confused about where he ended up at. As if he never remembered a thing.

Killian looked at Linux on the floor and pointed at him. “Why are you over there?”

“Because you punched me over here.” Linux said, confused at what was happening.

“Oh.”

Killian sighed and walked over to him. He put out his hand and Linux looked up at him, not sure if he should trust that hand.

“Just take it. I’m fine now.”

Linux gulped any nervousness down his throat and grabbed onto the hand. Killian lifted him up and there was no second punch coming. Instead, he walked away, and walked over to the bedroom where Kauss and Helona were. Linux had no idea what had happened or why he switched from murder to kindness in a snap. It was as if he were two completely different people.

Everyone finished getting dressed and grabbing their weapons. They all met up in the living room for one final breakdown before they left to go hunt a Tetson. Linux noticed that Helona was looking at her gun oddly. Thinking that she needed some confirmation about how it worked, he asked her if anything was wrong.

“Yeah,” Helona said. “It doesn’t look like it’ll shoot anything.”

The gun didn’t look finished at all to her. Certain metal parts stuck out and the places where he welded pieces together still showed in a sloppy mess. He could have used fire and a hammer on the metal to make it look better, but he didn’t have time for that.

“You said you wanted a gun quickly, and there it is. Trust me, it’ll still shoot.”

Helona sighed as she tried to get over the paranoia that it’ll backfire on her. She realized quickly on how to load the gun since it worked just the same as a normal one, except it used energy instead of real bullets. The energy capsules were all on a belt that she wore around her waist.

“So here’s the plan.” Linux announced. “We’re going to leave and find a Tetson hole. They’re everywhere, so it shouldn’t take too long, and we know where one is. Right Kauss.”

Kauss thought back to anytime he saw a Tetson hole and a location immediately popped into his mind. “You mean at the elevator?”

“Correct. Now, they live and sleep underground. They’re also diurnal, so they sleep during the night.” Linux took out a large book with several pieces of paper that were drawn sloppily on. “Now here’s some things you should know about Tetson’s before going in.”

The first picture in the book showed a sloppily drawn blue tail sticking out of the ground. An arrow pointed to a stick figure person standing next to it. Around the tail were yellow dots that came out of the tail.

“After nature realized that Tetson’s were being hunted by people en masse, it gave them a new trick. The tail of a Tetson can release pheromones that, when hitting a person, makes them hallucinate someone they know being there. It also drops nearly all danger awareness of the person looking at it. Interestingly enough, if the pheromones hits more than one person, they’ll hallucinate the same person, and it doesn’t have to be someone from memory.”

Linux flipped the page and showed a second sloppy drawing. This drawing was one of a Tetson breathing fire from its mouth. Another stick figure next to it, but this time being on fire.

“A Tetson can breathe fire thanks to several factors. Its breath is highly flammable, and an organ sits on the top of its throat to add a hotter gas that ignites the flame. Once it finishes toasting whatever’s in front of it, it’ll release a secondary cooling gas that’ll both numb the throat and keep it from burning.”

He flipped the page and a drawing of a Tetson’s head and neck was all that was on the page. It was breathing fire from its mouth and it cut off at the end of the page.

“There is a certain trait that the Tetson has that we can exploit. When it breathes fire, in order to not burn itself, blood rushes to its neck and hardens it, keeping it straight. It also stays completely still in order to not run headfirst into the flames.”

“So it’s neck gets an erection?” Kauss asked, wondering what it would feel like for his neck to suddenly stiffen like that.

“No, but it has the same properties as that.” Linux uncomfortably said. “What we need to do is bait it to use its fire breath, then slice at its neck when we get the chance. Because of the blood flow concentrating there, one slice to the neck should instantly kill it.”

Linux flipped to the neck page, and it showed a picture of a blue organ sitting in a pool of blood. Despite the pictures being badly drawn, Kauss couldn’t help but give him points in creativity.

“However, there is a drawback that we have to keep in mind. Just as the neck stiffens when blood flows through, so does its organ. In order to not constantly release the ignition gas, blood flows through the organ constantly, keeping it shut. So once its dead, the blood flow quits after a while, and gases will constantly release.”

Linux took out two brown energy capsules that he had in his pocket. “In order to stop the gases from leaking out, I’ll need to keep the organ contained in here. Once we got an organ, we’ll return here, I’ll finish the Gaxtex, then we leave. Do you understand that?”

Kauss and the others nodded, understanding the plan at hand. On paper, it sounded pretty simple. Slice the neck, grab the organ, then move on with their lives. Kauss really doubted that it would go off that easily, though. He remembered fighting the Tetson before and only one strike broke his arm.

He looked over at Helona who smiled optimistically at him. She didn’t know the power of that thing yet, and he was glad she took the long range option. He didn’t want her anywhere near that monster. With one last hurrah from everyone, they left the house and attempted to leave the dome.

However, as soon as they exited the front door, several guards were blocking their way out. They weren’t leaving without a fight.