P-Beam clipped to the backpack’s harness, Dyna used her submachine gun to dispatch several tulpa within Id’s workshop. Unsure about how well the experimental weapon would work on the eye-tulpa, she wanted to save as much of its limited charge as possible. Until she needed it, a gun worked just fine.

Though, given that heavy door requiring a handprint to open, Dyna was a little surprised that she needed a weapon at all. She just wasn’t sure how the tulpa got inside. Then again, she wasn’t sure how the tulpa got into lower Tartarus either.

Either way, she found herself creeping through long corridors, glad that some metal supports jutting from the walls—that might have been decorative—provided cover from tulpa fire. And the corridors were long. They formed a complex grid, winding pathways, and overall extended far beyond what really should have fit within the building. Including upwards and downwards. Dyna had taken stairs both up and down. With how many stairs she had taken from the demonstration stage, she should have found herself descending into the hardware laboratory. This ‘floor’ must have been one of the ones that hadn’t originally existed. Dyna hadn’t thought her power capable of warping reality to the point where a massive and sprawling complex could fit within a single floor of a regularly-sized office building.

The thought honestly made her a bit queasy. It was one thing to pull a dozen cards out of a box that hadn’t held them before. Little changes were hardly anything special. At least when compared to someone like Mel or the other artificers. Something like this? Dyna doubted she could manage it consciously and she had no idea how she would have tricked herself into making it.

Id had managed, so it was possible, but not really something she wanted to think about at the moment.

If ever.

Maybe Ado could design a portable Continuity Engine that she could carry around to stop her power from affecting the world around her at random.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, the entire building shuddered. Dyna’s heart seized up for a moment as a fear that the tulpa had simply decided to blow up the entire building crossed her mind. She hadn’t considered the earthquakes down in lower Tartarus to be a threat like that, but she had discovered the eye-tulpa and its thought destabilizing gaze before she had really realized that they were under attack.

Here and now?

As the tremble subsided, Dyna frowned. Why weren’t they blowing up the building? Ignotus just wanted to kill her, so collapsing the building on top of her seemed like an excellent way to go about their objective. Unless killing her wasn’t their only objective.

They wanted something else?

“Alright,” Tina said over the intercom system. “You’ve made excellent progress. Id just did something to… uh… well, the next two hallways are clear of enemy forces. Take the next left and watch your step.”

So, that had been Id, apparently. Maybe a security system?

Dyna could only think of three alternate objectives Ignotus might have. The first and least likely were the tulpa contained here, both those in lower Tartarus as well as those here in the real world. It wasn’t a likely option because Ignotus seemed to have no problem acquiring tulpa to make up their army.

Second, Alpha might want Walter, Ruby, or even someone like Ado. Personnel that they couldn’t conjure up from thought with specialized skills or abilities. Probably not Ruby given the mountain man’s initial attempt at killing her. Maybe not Walter either given that he had apparently been injured by the forces here. Ado was a mechanical genius of the highest caliber, however, capable of making a machine that effectively replicated Mel’s artifact-enhanced ability among other devices.

Failing a desire to acquire more personnel, the technology itself would be desirable. The Psychofabber, P-Beam, and especially the Continuity Engine. The latter made the most sense. A group dedicated to killing someone capable of rewriting reality would love to get their hands on a device capable of stopping that power.

Ironic that Dyna needed the Continuity Engine to defeat the eye-tulpa.

Stepping into the corridor on her left, Dyna paused, stomach churning. The tulpa employed by Ignotus weren’t human or even human-like in terms of thought capacity. According to November, the tulpa were the functional equivalent to dogs—if that. Still, their bodies looked human. Seeing a hallway filled with broken bodies, blood, viscera, and dismembered limbs disturbed her to her core.

What had Id done? Drops of blood fell from the ceiling even. Had she crushed them?

Did they even need the P-Beam? Advanced tulpa or not, the eye-tulpa couldn’t possibly survive something like that. Could it?

Thinking about it, the advanced disruptor tested in the Carroll Institute had turned the Hatman into a smear. The Hatman had survived the event.

Grimacing behind her mask, Dyna held her breath and pressed forward.

At the end of the next corridor, Dyna found herself in front of another thick door that required a handprint to open. Slapping her hand to it without reservation, Dyna waited for the green light then pressed up against one wall as the door started opening. Using her mirror as a mirror, she peered around the corner with her other hand on her watch, gun hanging from the sling.

She let out a small sigh of relief at spotting the black laboratory coat, drifting hair, and brushed nickel mask of Id. The woman stood over a console, only idly noting the door opening before turning back to whatever she was working on. A bit lacking in self-preservation in Dyna’s opinion. She probably had security cameras telling her exactly who was on the other side of the door.

Just in case this was a trap—Dyna wouldn’t put it past Ignotus to have a shape-shifting tulpa—she entered with her PP-2000 at the ready and her other hand on her watch.

The large open workspace was dominated by a central column of elongated floor-to-ceiling screens arranged in a triangular fashion. Each of the two that Dyna could see showed off different locations of Tartarus. Squinting, however, Dyna realized that there was something off about the screens.

It hit her when she saw text on the wall that she couldn’t read. Worried she had suddenly found herself crossed over into the noosphere once again, she looked around Id’s office until she spotted some text that she could read.

“You have video footage of the noosphere?” Dyna asked, looking back to the screens. As far as Dyna knew, the Carroll Institute had been unable to transmit video or images from the noosphere to reality, even through an open portal. Video could only be recorded and taken over on a physical medium.

“Tracking the movement of our interlopers,” Id said, offhandedly. “Your eye-tulpa has a similar ability to the Hatman in that it can push people and items from one side to the other, including itself.”

The array of screens rotated several times even though there were only three panels. For some reason, that made the images displayed change as if Dyna were looking through a kaleidoscope. When they settled, Dyna saw it. Sunglasses back in place over the lights of its eyes, the eye-tulpa stood among three others in a hall much like the one all the tulpa had been crushed in just outside this room.

“It is currently within the noosphere, trying to bypass security systems to gain entrance here.”

Dyna glanced back to the door, watching as it slid shut. Several thick metal bars slid into the ceiling and floor, locking it into position. “Good thing it didn’t notice me opening the door.”

“It tried destroying the door with its eyes on the noosphere side of things. It was unable to return to reality in this room. Based on spikes in the Continuity Engine’s power draw, my reconfiguration was successful.”

“So we’re safe?”

“I can’t say how long it will last. The Continuity Engine was not designed to hold back these kinds of constant attacks. Then there is always the possibility that they decide to do something drastic like blowing up the entire building.”

Dyna pressed her lips together, not amused that Id was considering the same thought Dyna had earlier.

“Is Walter alright?”

Id pointed to a large mobile whiteboard covered in equations that Dyna didn’t even bother trying to decipher at the moment. Walking around the whiteboard, she found a makeshift cot made up from canvas tarps. Walter, sleeping, sat on top with his pants in place but his shirt and vest off. Thick white bandages ran around his chest and over one of his shoulders. Blood stained a disturbingly large section of the bandages just to the right side of his sternum. More bloodied bandages had been tossed aside, clearly having been changed out at one point in time.

“He froze from the eye-tulpa’s gaze and got shot. I did what I could with a first-aid kit, but he needs proper medical attention that I cannot administer from here.”

Dyna wondered if she could do anything. The Continuity Engine would be blocking her right now, but if they could get out of the building? She could at least get some kind of surgical kit or blood bags.

Movement at Walter’s legs made Dyna jump back in shock.

A little black cat sat, curled up in a small ball, right on Walter’s thighs.

“I’m not sure how that got in here,” Id said, noticing Dyna’s start. “I certainly didn’t let it in. As long as it isn’t causing further harm, I’m content to leave it alone for now.”

“Did you see Bastet anywhere?”

“Cats are roaming around all the upper floors. Haven’t seen any so-called goddess yet.”

“Probably for the best. As much as it was attacking the eye-tulpa, it almost took my head off. I don’t know that it cares about any people. Just cats.” Dyna looked around the room, frowning for a long moment before looking back to the trio of screens. “Can we force the eye-tulpa back into reality?”

“I would rather not have that thing anywhere near me. I don’t know what will happen if I get caught in its gaze.”

“Be that as it may, it is going to get close eventually unless we stop it.” Dyna patted the P-Beam emitter. “Ado thinks this will work on it.”

Id looked down, mask aimed at the P-Beam. She slowly shook her head. “To be frank, I would rather not have that anywhere near me either. Ado wanted to install mounted versions of those around the facility. It wasn’t in our budget, but even if it was—”

“Then I’ll take the eye-tulpa on without you. Find a place we can lure it to or, and this might be the better option, you leave and I just open the door and let it in. Take Walter with you. See if you can get better medical help for him.”

Id drew in a small breath. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone. We might be different people now, but you’re still me.”

“No offense to you or your tulpa nature, but if a single glance is going to kill you, you’re kind of useless here.”

“I know. And that hurts. I don’t like to be useless.”

“I know,” Dyna said, small smile behind her mask. “Even back when you were trying to steal artifacts from the Carroll Institute, I couldn’t just sit around and leave things to others. We stem from the same point—though I am still a bit confused about when that point was—but despite our differences since, I imagine we still think a lot alike.”

Id laughed a disturbingly familiar laugh. “I should probably apologize for all that. To be honest, I hadn’t planned on that happening exactly as it did. I figured I would lure you out and manipulate you to get what I wanted and then that would have been that. You would never know about me or meet me again.”

“You could have been honest.”

Id shook her head. “I needed you to believe everything you were seeing. All the smoke and mirrors we designed were there to make you think a certain way and see certain things. Even those two men I hired to chase you around were there to plant seeds in your mind that culminated in this,” she said, spreading her arms.

“And after the fact?”

“Ignoring the instability and stress such a revelation might have put on the Continuity Engine before this place had a chance to cement itself in reality, ‘Hello, I’m a weird alternate version of yourself. Oh, sorry for threatening you and invading your mind and hey, want to go out for ice cream?’”

“It might have been awkward, yes.”

“You would have hated me.”

“Kind of still do.”

Id shrugged. “Well, now you know. Ice cream?”

“Maybe later. We need to—”

Sharp wailing chirps sounded over the speakers, interrupting Dyna. Id rushed around her, hurrying back to the console in front of the trio of screens.

The eye-tulpa was missing, though a few of the regular tulpa were still standing around in the noosphere. The screens started rotating once again, images shifting in a kaleidoscope of fractal images before they settled back down. Dyna found herself staring at the back of her own head with Id next to her.

A third person stood in the room with them, hand moving up toward their sunglasses.

Id started to shout something. Dyna didn’t hear. Her hand slapped onto her wrist and twisted the bezel of her watch as fast as she could manage.

The familiar lurch of her consciousness being thrown back in time never came.

Id started screaming.

With no time to think, Dyna pivoted as training took over. The bright white lights of the eye-tulpa’s eyes were aimed directly at her. Unlike the time in lower Tartarus, she could still think enough to raise her submachine gun and open fire.

The tulpa wore body armor over his chest. At this range, it was a simple matter to aim at the man’s head. Surprise riddled his features just before bullets riddled his head. The expected explosion of blood and viscera never came, however. Just more bright light leaking out of every hole Dyna made.

It did, however, send the tulpa stumbling backward. Whether in shock or simple application of ballistics against a physical form didn’t matter. He didn’t fall.

The tulpa lunged forward, fingers grasping hold of Dyna’s mask. She felt the metal band dig into the back of her head as the tulpa tried to wrench it off her. She could feel the seals around eyes break, letting in light from the outside. Her own thoughts started to falter.

A cat jumped onto the tulpa’s head, saving Dyna as the tulpa let go of her mask to grasp the cat by its arms. It held the cat out in front, staring at the now squealing and struggling feline until the creature went still.

Gritting her teeth, Dyna tossed her empty submachine gun aside as the tulpa tossed the cat away. Before the tulpa could try attacking her again, she grasped hold of the forward handle of the P-Beam. Wrenching it off the harness, she aimed and pulled down on the trigger.

A deep, low vibration slammed into her back like an overpowered subwoofer at a concert. Bits on the side of the emitter part of the P-Beam started spinning, lighting up in a muted violet. With an ear-piercing squeal, a thin laser-like beam of much more vibrant violet laced through the lenses of the P-Beam.

The tulpa didn’t react to the beam hitting it in the chest save to glance downward with the white light of its ruined face. The beam thinned out, violet light going almost invisible under its ‘gaze’. But it didn’t vanish completely.

In response, Dyna hefted the forward handle, raising the beam until it met the gaping hole of its head.

The bright white light overpowered the beam for a moment. Dyna actually took a step back as the tulpa stepped forward, hand stretched out toward her. But then it stopped.

The white of the tulpa’s head faded ever so slightly and the beam’s violet became faintly visible once again. The tulpa seemed confused as it tilted its head. That didn’t last long. The white started fading rapidly as the beam became more and more intense. The tulpa staggered back, trying to raise its hands to block the P-Beam. The lethargy with which it moved let the beam stay trained on its face for a few moments longer. Its arms, lacking strength, didn’t manage to stay up for long before they fell limp at its side.

The tulpa fell a moment later.

Dyna released the trigger for only long enough to rush forward and slam the front lens of the P-Beam down into the tulpa’s gaping face. The hum vibrated in her chest once again as the bright violet drowned out all traces of light inside its head.

She held down the trigger, not releasing it for even an instant until the hum of her backpack started to sputter. Even then, she kept her finger on the trigger until the last traces of violet light died and the spinning components of the weapon slowed to a stop.

The light in the tulpa’s head was no more. Just a dark cavity that should have been a lot bloodier than it actually was. Instead, it looked like the interior shell of a black egg.

Dyna nudged the body, lightly at first before full-on kicking it. It never moved.

Dyna let out a long, withering sigh before stress-filled tension tightened in her neck.

“Id?” Dyna said, looking to where the other copy of herself had jumped in an attempt to get away from the tulpa.

She wasn’t moving.

Undoing the buckle of the P-Beam straps, Dyna let the machine fall to the floor without even attempting to set it down gently. She rushed over, sliding against the tiles on the floor as she knelt at Id’s side.

Id was still breathing. Even before she peeled off the nickel mask, Dyna could see her chest rising and falling. Id was still alive.

Or… at least… the body was. That tulpa’s gaze had killed Dyna’s other clone in an instant. That had been in the noosphere, though. It was different. Here there was a body holding Id together.

Right?

“Id?” Dyna said, gently rocking the woman and patting at her face in an attempt to wake her. “Id? Come on. Talk to me. Id?”

The body didn’t move.