Dyna didn’t sit still in the noosphere. The tulpa that had attacked Tartarus—and, likely, most other tulpa that Alpha sent out into the world—had some way of entering and exiting the noosphere effectively at will. She didn’t know whether or not Frankenstein had that ability but didn’t want to wait around and find out.

It came as a small surprise that Dyna could move around. She had figured that any power disruption would have affected the Continuity Engine and it losing power would have knocked her down again. Perhaps being inside the noosphere had protected her. That was the only thing she could think of, though she wasn’t putting too much thought into it.

Her priority, at the moment, was Alpha. Nothing else.

One significant difference of the noosphere that Dyna noticed immediately was that the facility here was not fully reflected in the noosphere. Most hallways terminated abruptly and, while some doors existed, most didn’t have anything on the other side. The room most intact was the control room for the tulpa creation machine. Dyna didn’t bother exploring.

There was something about this place, the noosphere version of it, that she didn’t like. Little flickers of movement in the corners of her eyes. Shadows moving in a world that didn’t actually have shadows.

Tulpa.

It took Dyna a bit longer to realize than it perhaps should have but this place was infested with tulpa. They didn’t have a proper humanoid form, hence her delay in understanding. It was more like they were thin strands clinging to the walls, webs or meshes of vibrating shadowy lines. The shadows warred with one another when they came into contact. Dyna actually paused her run through the facility to watch as a web caught a drifting wisp in its net, quickly wrapping around it, ripping and tearing.

Stray thoughts in their most base of forms.

Eerie. As long as they left Dyna alone, she would just keep walking.

However, once Dyna emerged from the hidden basement and exited the tower structure, she couldn’t help but gasp.

Looking upward, the multi-pronged tower was still standing here. She didn’t know if it had completely collapsed in the real world but the power had gone out at the very least. Unlike the real tower, which just jutted up into crisp blue skies, this tower looked like it was a blender stuck in a black slurry of thoughtforms. Tulpa of varying size and shape swirled about the various spires, ripping and tearing at each other when they came into contact but mostly just drifting about in the air in an anti-clockwise motion.

Dyna hadn’t quite internalized just what this tower was prior to now. It was officially a psionic detection radar system. Unofficially, Alpha had modified it to act as a beacon, attracting tulpa from far and wide.

Something about it felt disgusting. Unnatural. Hopefully, with it now blown up in the real world, the tulpa here would start to disperse. If not… Dyna shook her head. She could discuss the situation with Doctor Darq later.

For now, Dyna turned around, facing the observation station higher up on the mountain. DT had said that the transportation device was large. As large as a helicopter’s landing pad. None of the rooms below would have fit such a device, meaning that the transportation area would have to be up higher. Dyna wasn’t sure if the gondola functioned in the noosphere but the reasons for not using it were identical to those in the real world. She crossed the relatively open area to the same stairs that she had used to get down to the tower’s base in the real world.

Hopefully, DT had been successful in keeping the transportation device from returning here. If not, Alpha could be anywhere in the world.

Hopefully Alpha didn’t have more than one device.

As she crossed the open space to the stairs, Dyna wished she had been able to grab her mirror. It had been with her from the start. At times, she had found herself disappointed in it but in situations like now when she worried a sniper might be perched somewhere around the tower, it brought a peace of mind that Dyna doubted she would be able to get anywhere else. And now it was, presumably, buried. Maybe the Carroll Institute would be able to dig it out.

That wouldn’t be anytime soon.

Luckily, thankfully, nothing attacked her before she reached the stairs.

Ascending, she arrived at the top in short order. Cracking the door open just a pinch, she peered out over the maintenance area not far from where the gondola would dock.

Two tulpa, armored but shadowy, stood in strange positions. Rather than upright with squared shoulders and their guns gripped in their hands, one of the soldiers was slumped backward while the other was leaning somewhat to one side. Their arms dangled, limp, stretching almost back to their feet.

Letting a long moment pass, Dyna watched from behind the stairway door. The tulpa did move, but not in any appreciable manner. They just kind of shuddered in place, like they were having an upright seizure.

Sneaking suspicion growing within Dyna, she carefully emerged from her hiding place. Neither of the tulpa reacted to her presence, not even when she came right up to them. Using her PP-2000, Dyna nudged one of them. Whatever kept its balance failed in that moment and the body clattered to the floor, still having its seizures. The other didn’t react in the slightest.

That…

That was good.

Evidence that blowing up that tower had been the correct decision. If all of Alpha’s tulpa were acting like this after having the control signal disrupted, whatever plans Alpha had with the Carroll Institute and the tulpa accompanying DT would have just failed as well. Hopefully DT was fine but Dyna didn’t have a way of checking on her at the moment.

PP-2000 at the ready, Dyna made her way through the utterly silent building. She stopped at three more groups of tulpa but all three were the same as the first group. Stuck in their seizures, Dyna pressed forward, picking up the pace as her confidence grew.

The layout of the building was different from how Dyna had seen it in the real world. She couldn’t be sure if that was evidence of her power or not. As it was, it just ended up with her walking into dead ends a few times as she searched for anywhere that could possibly hold a helicopter landing pad-sized device.

Realization dawned on her with a slap to her forehead. The building wasn’t big enough to hold a room the size of a helicopter. Not unless the entire second floor was one empty space. Dyna had been about to step outside in search of it down one of the roads she had ignored on Beatrice’s advice while heading here only to realize the most obvious place for a helicopter landing pad was on the roof of the building.

It didn’t take long to locate the stairs and, from there, Dyna began climbing once again.

After taking a quick peek on the second floor, noting that it held a lot of non-functional electronics that presumably had working versions in the real world, Dyna reached the door to the roof. As with every other door she passed through, she took it slowly and carefully.

The octagonal helicopter landing pad was probably meant for actual helicopters. At least in the real world. Here, Dyna spotted a large terminal setup out in the center of the area that would have blocked any real helicopter. That must have been something only found in the noosphere, likely something that interacted with the noosphere transport device that DT had mentioned.

A full army of tulpa were having seizures around the rooftop. Dyna counted up eighty-five tulpa, four of whom were having their seizure on the floor. They were stuck in a variety of positions, some hunched over, others leaning backward, and still others looking like limp puppets. The way they just stood around caused a bit of nausea. The large mass of shaking, trembling humanoids triggered some primal part of her mind that did not like what she was seeing.

Dyna grit her teeth and took a long breath.

Moving among the trembling tulpa, Dyna slipped between them until she reached the terminal. If Alpha had managed to escape from here, she hoped there was some record on the terminal of where. Unlike the other terminals she had crossed, this one was active. Unfortunately, tapping the keyboard brought up a password prompt.

“Figures,” Dyna grumbled to herself. Letting go of her PP-2000, she tried a few of the names Alpha had given her earlier. Her children and grandchildren. Dyna didn’t really expect any to work. Nobody in their right mind would have a simple password of a relative’s name no matter how sentimental they were. Knowing first-hand the Carroll Institute’s security policies for password-only interfaces, this password would probably be a thirty-two character string using several non-standard characters. If it had biometric or psychometric components, Dyna would never gain access.

Hoping that her power would make a stupider password than Alpha would use, Dyna tried anyway.

The sharp crack of a gun’s report echoed through the still air. Instantly, maybe even before she consciously heard the noise, Dyna felt a burning line slam through her wrist.

Hissing, Dyna dove, slipping around the terminal. She clamped her hand against her burning wrist, feeling for the watch that was normally there. Her fingers came back slick with blood but empty of any artifact.

The watch was on the ground, band broken and half its body missing entirely, leaving a large gouge through the metal that was there.

The wound wasn’t as bad as she feared. A quick flex of all her fingers had them working. Whoever shot her specifically aimed for the watch and nothing else. Denying time-travel was good but if Dyna had a clear shot, she probably wouldn’t have aimed for someone’s hand.

“Should have aimed for my head, Alpha!” Dyna shouted, beyond glad that she had put on a helmet earlier. Without that, Alpha might have actually aimed at her head. Instead, she had taken away Dyna’s best tool.

It wasn’t like Dyna couldn’t understand the reason for it. She would have been suspicious of anyone with the ability to alter time itself, worried that killing them wouldn’t actually kill them. Dyna was even an example of that. The sniper shot she had taken alongside Emerald would likely have proved fatal for anyone who didn’t have the ability to rewind and try again.

Forcing the pain out, Dyna strained her ears, listening in the hopes that Alpha was stupid enough to respond. That would give her a proper direction to aim, at least. Dyna wasn’t even fully sure that she had taken cover around the right side of the terminal.

The tulpa hadn’t reacted to the gunshot. That meant the only person moving around would be Alpha.

There were so many tulpa standing about… Dyna’s eyes flicked back and forth as she brought up her PP-2000 to the ready position. Taking a breath, Dyna pushed away from the terminal and darted around two of the tulpa. She rounded a third and paused.

Her first thought had been to get out of this forest of tulpa to where she might have a clear line of sight on Alpha. But Alpha had to have been somewhere inside that forest in order to aim at her wrist. If Dyna moved to the outside and Alpha remained hidden in the masses, Dyna would be the one at the disadvantage.

Dyna switched directions and moved around a few other tulpa before slowing to an almost complete stop. Wearing the same gear that the tulpa were, Dyna might have an advantage in that it could be harder to notice her. Alpha might have donned similar gear as well, however.

Dyna tried to peer through the trembling mass of tulpa, looking for anything that wasn’t moving in their strange seizure patterns.

Something moved in the corner of her vision. Dyna whipped her head to the side just in time to hear another crack and feel something heavy glance off the side of her helmet. One of the tulpa in front of her collapsed, giving her a clear view of a boot stepping out of view.

Raising her PP-2000, Dyna stepped over the tulpa and around another. Whoever had moved was gone now. Or…

Dyna’s eyes flicked down to the boots of the surrounding tulpa. They were the same kind of boot. So Alpha had dressed up like them.

And if Alpha had eyes on Dyna, she wouldn’t be able to freeze in place and pretend to be a tulpa. Not unless she sprinted to the opposite side of the helipad in order to lose Alpha.

Spontaneously, Dyna raised her PP-2000 and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet under one of the nearby tulpa’s helmet. The tulpa collapsed, falling to the floor in a seizure just like the one Dyna had nudged earlier.

Dyna stepped around it, pausing part way to shoot another tulpa. One in the same vicinity as where she saw that boot moving.

Its helmet rolled aside, letting her clearly see the shadowy figure contained within the balaclava.

Dyna narrowed her eyes and looked around. She wouldn’t have enough bullets to hit all of them. The tulpa did carry PP-2000s which they clearly weren’t in a position to use. Bending to remove the carrying straps from over their shoulders or even just pulling out spare magazines would put Dyna in a vulnerable position during which Alpha could get the jump on her.

Snapping her gun up at a third target, Dyna held her finger off the trigger. If Dyna had been aiming at Alpha now, surely the woman would have moved. Tulpa within the noosphere would be immune to bullets. Humans were not.

Hearing movement behind her, Dyna whirled, pulling the trigger several times as she spun.

Three tulpa dropped, continuing their seizures on the floor. None appeared to be a human in disguise.

A peppering of fire made Dyna flinch. Something hit her in the side, clipping the front of her armor. A burning pain ran through her ribs as she dove for cover behind more of the tulpa. The gunfire stopped, giving Dyna a moment of courage to rush further into the forest of tulpa.

She gripped her side with one hand, feeling the warm blood flow over her fingers.

Gritting her teeth, Dyna took a quick glance around the tulpa. She needed to give herself medical attention and soon.

Realizing she had made a large clearing where Alpha would have an easy shot on her, Dyna limped back and around a few more of the still-standing tulpa, keeping her weapon and eyes trained in the direction from where she thought the gunfire had come from.

Taking cover behind two tulpa, hoping Alpha was on the other side, Dyna reached into her satchel and withdrew the pair of grenades that she had stowed away earlier.

Pulling the pin on both while keeping the spoons in place, she tossed one in a high arch to make sure it cleared well enough away from her position. Counting to three, she pulled the pin on another and tossed it at a different angle.

The first clanked against the ground twice before a deep crack split the air. The second followed suit only a few seconds after. She heard bodies hit the floor, but not as many as she had hoped. The two tulpa she had hidden behind, despite being rustled by the concussive wave, remained upright.

As soon as the second explosion went off, Dyna grabbed one of the tulpa’s magazines and tossed it into the air as well.

It landed with a loud clatter. As soon as it did, Dyna heard footsteps.

Pivoting around the two tulpa, Dyna raised her PP-2000, flicked the selector switch, and depressed the trigger.

One armored figure, sprinting away, took the automatic fire straight in the back. They kept running for a few steps but faltered, stumbling to the ground. Landing hard with one hand, Dyna heard a loud cry of pain. Dyna squeezed off two more bursts of automatic fire at the downed target, holding down the final burst until the recoil of her gun stopped completely.

Her target managed to roll over. Swinging a PP-2000 of her own around, Alpha returned wild fire, spraying aimlessly in only the vague direction of Dyna.

Tossing her submachine gun, Dyna took cover between the standing tulpa and Alpha. One of them, hit, started to topple like the other tulpa but Dyna gripped it by its armored vest, managing to keep it upright until she heard a click from Alpha gun.

Deciding she had a moment, Dyna took the falling tulpa’s PP-2000, switched it to single-shot, and pulled back the charging handle. Taking a circuitous route, making sure that there were always tulpa between her and the fallen Alpha, Dyna limped closer.

Alpha, face visible under her helmet with no balaclava, hadn’t tried to reload her gun or acquire a new one. She just laid on the ground, staring upward while panting heavily. Her breath sounded wet and labored. Blood trickled from one corner of her mouth.

As soon as Dyna stepped into the woman’s view, she tried to raise her empty gun. Dyna put a stop to that by placing her boot over the woman’s wrist.

“You… think you’ve won?” Alpha spat. “As long as you exist… people will try to kill you. Even with your power… you can’t win forever. Someone smarter than I… will put you in the ground.”

Dyna stared for a long few moments, watching as the woman’s breathing grew shallower and shallower. Realizing that these were likely to be Alpha’s last breaths, Dyna slowly removed her foot from the woman’s arm.

“For what it is worth, I’ll try to find your family and make sure they’re safe.”

“Fuhh… Fuck you.”

Dyna nodded slowly then raised her PP-2000 and put a bullet between Alpha’s eyes.

Alpha’s breathing stopped abruptly and all strength left the woman’s fingers.

A part of her feared that some tulpa-form of Alpha would rise up from the body because she had been killed. Dyna stood at the ready, fully prepared to generate several clones of herself to devour tulpa-Alpha. When nothing appeared after ten minutes, Dyna dropped her gun and clamped her hands around her side.

She felt a bit lightheaded.

And, looking around, Dyna had to frown.

She was still in the noosphere. Trapped.

Beatrice knew where she was. DT did as well. Would they find her in any reasonable amount of time?

Dyna shuddered at the silent world around her.