The Last Human IV - Ch. 17 - The Black Maze (Patreon)

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***

“I’ll be damned,” the human said. “The android was right. This whole place is dead.”

Agraneia came to the same conclusion. Domineering black walls rose to sweeping arches. Thin spears of Light pierced up through the floor, scattering transparent, golden bars down the hallways. A pale, shimmering mist curled out from the hallways and settled in a low fog. The only sign that anything had ever lived here were the constructs half-melted to the wall, metal dripping like candle wax.

But there was something else about the dam that made it feel lifeless. Once, she had been stationed on Cyre during the Emperor’s Jubilee. Crowds from the outer provinces, from the distant worlds, descended on the Forum of the Gate. There had been a moment when all their shouting, drunken singing, trilling, their overlapping voices and wild laughter changed from a sound to a physical force, like layers of walls pressing in.

But stepping through the Gate and coming here was like the opposite of that oppressive noise. She felt as though some massive weight was lifting from her shoulders. She almost felt naked without it. And despite the sweltering heat in her suit, and the sweat trickling down her back, something wonderful was happening here.

Glaring around the foyer, it took her a long moment to figure it out.

“Khadam,” she said. “The voices.”

“That bad?”

Agraneia shook her head. “They’re gone.”

“Gone?”

“Not a word,” Agraneia said, savoring the silence. No voices, no faces, no imagined shadows. No strange shapes, flitting through the dark places, watching her every move. The only sounds were her own breathing, filling the space in her helmet, and a distant rushing sound, maybe like air venting out into space.

“Hm,” Khadam said. With their helmets on, Agraneia couldn’t read her face—but she was too focused on the silence to care.

Her ears were empty. No thoughts in her head, but her own. She felt a knot untwisting in her stomach. Gods, let it last.

A chirping in her helmet startled her, almost made her jump. Khadam’s voice crackled over the comms, “The Gate’s readout is wrong on this side, too. It’s frozen, but I can’t tell how long it’s been.”

“Maybe it broke when the dam broke.”

After a few moments of interfacing with the system, Khadam hummed her disappointment. “Can’t get local navigation up or anything. Unless you feel like letting your skin cook, let’s keep the helmets on.”

“Loud and clear,” Agraneia said. And she couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face, because she meant it. When Khadam spoke, she heard the human—and only the human.

Some small part of her puzzled over it. Why here?

She scanned the ceiling, as if she might find the answers hidden in the high, black archways curving into the shadows. As if the faces that haunted her were only hiding, waiting to leap out. But if they were, they were doing a damn good job of it.

“Come on,” Khadam said. “Light cells would be this way, if they’re anywhere.” The human’s metal-encased feet clanked into one of the hallways.

The sound of the rushing air grew louder, and Agraneia thought she could hear a slight keening whine on the wind. The hall forked, and forked again. Each time, Khadam had to pause and consider her direction. “It’s been so long,” she said.

“Hm,” Agraneia said.

“What?”

“Be careful. The dam might be damaged ahead.”

“How can you tell?”

“The wind. It’s louder here.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Khadam said.

“Oh,” Agraneia frowned. She rapped her knuckles on the side of her helmet, almost wondering if it was coming from the fans. But no, there was a constant whisper of air rushing through the halls, like some high-pressure gas leaking from a hole in a pipe. Hissing, almost whistling. Or maybe more like the distant ring of a bell, growing louder with each turn they made.

“Come on,” Khadam said, “I think we’re close.”

The deeper they went, the more holes they found in the walls and the floor. Rods of Light speared through, as if the Light had eaten through the metal.

“The Light shouldn’t kill you,” she said. “At least, not quickly.”

Yet, still, Khadam ducked under or slid around the rods. They shuffled through the halls, always following that airy, ringing sound, crouching under or dodging around the spears and shafts of golden brightness.

In the service of the Emperor, Agraneia had seen a handful of alien worlds. Places where the sun didn’t shine, places where the mountains grew in stacked columns, jutting up against the sky like the broken teeth of a dead leviathan, its bones baking in the sun. But this one felt more alien than all the rest, because everything was so perfectly ordered. Each hall, identical. Each door, exactly spaced. Even the rippling geometric texture of the walls seemed designed for some purpose she couldn’t fathom. And all the Light spearing through the walls, or outlining the doors in that shimmering glow only added to the alien effect.

One doorway, completely shut, blocked their passage. Agraneia offered to cut it open with her liquid arm, but Khadam shook her head.

“A breach must’ve set off the mechanical seal,” Khadam said. “Not a good idea to go in there.” She tapped a finger on the chin of her helmet, puzzling out their next move.

Agraneia pressed her helmet against the heavy door, listening. She caught the hum of some engine sending a slight-but-unending vibration through everything. When she focused, Agraneia could feel it resonating up through her metal boots, and into her shin scales, just strong enough to be uncomfortable.

“Let’s try the Hab backways,” Khadam said.

They retraced their steps, and the sound of the humming whisper softened, until they came to a hall bisected by huge, metal doors that rose up to the ceiling. Here, the whisper of air rang like the reverberations of a chime. The great doors were shut, but Light had dissolved the tracks so that one of the doors hung at an angle, leaving a gap for them to crawl through.

Khadam crouched down when Agraneia put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go first,” she said.

“We built this place,” Khadam protested. “You don’t know what’s ahead.”

“Do you?” Agraneia asked.

Khadam hesitated. “Fine. Be careful.”

Agraneia knelt down, and crawled through the gap. The metal spine of her suit scraped against the door, and she had to get down on her elbows to slide all the way through.

She found herself in a great, black-walled room, pierced by hundreds of rods of pure Light. Her helmet started to chirp warnings about the high temperature. Here, the ringing sound was louder still. Six huge turbines were suspended horizontally across the room, dominating the massive space.

At first, she thought she could hear the beating of wings, until movement caught her eye. One of the turbines was still spinning. Its thin, delicate blades were covered with millions of interlocking, metallic crescents, that reflected a million dazzling colors as they turned. An endless, brilliant cascade flowed up the black walls, and danced across the ceiling.

“Agra?” Khadam crackled over the comms.

“I thought you said this place was dead.”

Khadam clanked through the gap, and seeing the turbine, put a hand on her hip, and said, “Huh.”

“Hm?”

“Well, they are nearly frictionless. Guess this one’s still picking up the Light from the Scar. That’s a good sign, means there might be a full cell in here, if it’s hooked up.” Then, the human shook her head, and sighed. “You should’ve seen it, Agra. When all the turbines are magnetized, spinning faster than the eye can see. There’s nothing like it.”

Agraneia let her eyes wander across the massive, bullet-shaped machine, turning soundlessly overhead. When all of them were on, did they spin together? Did it suck the air out of the room?

She thought she could almost hear them. A high pitched ringing sound, like the resonating chime of a bell. She felt compelled to lift her hand up, and in a flash, she saw a glimpse of what might happen: when her hand touched the turbine, it would rip her arm from its socket before she could even react.

Agraneia flinched and stumbled back.

“What’s wrong?”

“Saw… something,” Agraneia said. “Or maybe nothing.”

“The Light,” Khadam explained. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better. Here, this is what we’re looking for.”

A chirp inside Agraneia’s helmet signaled a new message. It popped open automatically, filling her vision with translucent images of a few different kinds of cylinder, each one glowing with a peculiar, shimmering light. When Agraneia focused on one, the image expanded and rotated the object in three dimensions.

“Whoa,” she said, waving her hands around as if she might be able to touch the image, but her fingers slipped right through.

“That’s a Light cell. If they’re full of processed energy, they should glow brighter than anything else. Well, except the Scar that is. Split up, and call in if you find something. Anything at all.”

***

Sweat trickled down Agraneia’s brow. It was itchy a half hour ago. Now, it was maddening. Her armpits were soaked, and her arms and back, too. At least I’m not dead, she thought. A miracle, considering the suit was reading temperatures over 300 Fahrenheit.

Still, she wished she could crack open her helmet and scratch her face, just for a second. And judging by the frequency of the human’s curses, Agraneia wasn’t the only one sick of the heat.

“Fucking shit!” Something crashed across the other side of the generator chamber. “Empty! Again! Why are they all fucking empty?”

“Maybe someone’s been here before us,” Agraneia said.

“Who?” Khadam said. “The Historians? Even if they were here, they never leave. The cells should still be here. There should be hundreds of them in storage but these are all empty. Wait. Maybe the engine room… But what about the Scar?”

The Scar?

But Khadam was already clanking across the generator chamber toward another hallway.

Agraneia followed her, trying her best to ignore the heat. Gods, it was oppressive. Drops of sweat rolled down her face, and when she licked her lips, she tasted salt. Her head hurt, and the humming of that damned bell wasn’t making it any easier to think.

She almost bumped in to Khadam, who had paused at an intersection. “Not sure which way. Normally, the navigation system draws a map. I’m pretty sure that one leads to maintenance, but the others… I can’t tell.”

Agraneia nodded at one of the tunnels. Great holes had burned away pieces of the arched ceiling, and the floor was littered with ancient struts of fallen metal. “It’s this one.”

“How can you tell?”

“The sound. It’s coming from here.”

“What sound?” Khadam frowned at her.

“That bell sound. It’s louder here.”

“I don’t hear a thing.”

“Hmm,” Agraneia grunted, trying to ignore the icy feeling gripping her heart. There would be time to figure it out later. Right now, they were both inching closer to heat stroke, and the deeper they went, the hotter it got. This time, Agraneia led the way. The fans in their suits were running at full blast, drowning out her own clanking footsteps… but not the chime.

“Whoa,” Khadam said when they turned the corner.

Twin blast doors looked like the gates of heaven. Raging, beautiful light outlined the doors, cutting diagonal rays through the walls, and burning crumbling lines into the ceiling in front of the doors, as if the doors were holding back a sea of brightness.

“You found it,” Khadam said. “You really found it.”

“What about the Light?” Agraneia shouted over the sound of that ringing chime.

“If we’re quick, it won’t matter.”

“What?” Agraneia cupped a hand to the side of her helmet, gesturing for Khadam to speak up.

“I said,” Khadam shouted, “If we’re quick, it won’t matter! Can you get it open?”

Agraneia stepped up to the door, and pressed her helmet against it. The ringing sound sang through her helmet. It made her head hurt. Made her wonder, is this a good idea?

The voices were noticeably silent.

I came here to serve. So, I will serve. Agraneia rolled her shoulders, and pressed the liquid arm against the door. The metal appendage slid into the crack between the doors, liquefying itself until it was thinner and sharper than any blade. Agraneia could feel the arm—feel that part of herself—spreading like the roots of a tree as it crawled through the gap.

The lock’s mechanism was more complicated than any lock she had ever seen before. If Eolh were here, he might’ve told her how to pick it open. But she didn’t need to be so delicate. Instead, she willed the liquid metal to wrap itself around the industrial-sized bolts. She clamped down, and felt the satisfying slice. She pulled the liquid arm back, reformed it into a pry bar, and leaned her weight against the doors.

They screeched, and barely moved an inch before scraping to a stop. Khadam came to her side, and together they heaved, yelling and roaring and shoving until something cracked in the doorframe, and the blast door slammed against the wall, throwing them both to the ground.

Light poured over them. The helmet’s sensors dimmed quickly, but she still had to blink away the brightness. It poured out from a door on the far side of the engine room. It illuminated the turbines, making pale ghosts of the machines. One of the turbines had fallen from its supports, and another leaned heavily above the floor, though it left no shadow.

Somewhere deep in the structure of the dam, something groaned, low and heavy. An alarm let out a high-pitched chirp.

“Shit,” Khadam said. “We’ve got to hurry. Look for the cells.”

But Agraneia was preoccupied with something falling down from the ceiling. “I think I see something.” They looked like leaves from a tree, raining down in little tufts before touching the Light, and burning away to ash.

She caught one. Not a leaf, then, but a feather. Black, almost blue, in that shining brilliance.

“Are you sure no one else is here?” Agraneia asked again.

“If you’re hearing voices,” Khadam said, “It’s in your head. I’m getting nothing.”

Problem was, she wasn’t hearing much of anything, other than that endless ringing. And then, the chirp of an alarm pierced her thoughts. An urgent sound.

“What is that?”

“The dam is breaking,” Khadam said.

“Because of us?”

“Can’t tell,” Khadam said. “Might be the door we threw open. Or maybe its been making that sound for hundreds of years, and we just woke it up again. Hey, look.”

It was hard to find her finger in the brightness of the engine room. Easier to follow Khadam’s silhouette as she rushed across the metal floor, and bent over something.

“Empty. Empty.” Then, she bent over again. “Another one? Agra, come look at this.”

Gray, metallic canisters, each one about as long as Agraneia’s arm, and as thin as the shaft of a spear. A trail of them, leading to the door at the far end of the engine room. Some of them were dull, others had burst open. Splinters of metal had embedded themselves in the nearest turbine. Volatile little things, she thought. Suit won’t protect against that.

“It looks like someone was carrying them in there,” Khadam pointed. “Into the observation deck.”

They followed the trail. Each step she took toward the room made the ringing in her ears grow louder. In the corner of her vision, the red temperature numbers ticked up.

Then, Khadam stepped into the doorway, filled with Light. It was so bright, Agraneia couldn’t even see her silhouette. And when she followed her in…

“By the gods…”

“Don’t stare at it too long.”

But how could she not?

The deck was long and narrow, and one side was dominated by a great, black shutter that almost covered the full height of a floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Only a crack was open at the bottom, just high enough for Agraneia to see the void of space. And the Scar.

Shifting, shimmering streaks of Light—each one, thousands of kilometers long—poured out from a massive wound in the fabric of space. Huge, unknowable shapes flashed and flickered in the heart of the Scar, baffling in the way they changed shape. Like an entire universe was slipping by. The strands of Light grasped at the dam, and where they touched, vast auras blasted rings of energy against the black metal, as though the Light was trying to eat away at the dam. Broad panels at the base of the dam were gouged and corroded, and more than a few of them drifted free, going nowhere. Somewhere, that urgent alarm chirped too loud, making Agraneia wince.

“I found one. Agra, I found one!”

But Agraneia couldn’t see her through all the Light. Even with her sensors dimmed, she couldn’t see much of anything. She spun in a slow circle, trying to get her bearings.

But the columns along the window started to bend, and the walls took on a reddish quality that didn’t make sense. Not here.

Not now.

And the ringing in her ears was so loud, she wasn’t sure she could hear it at all. Shouldn’t have come here.

“Another one!” Khadam shouted from somewhere in the white shadows. “That’s it, Agra. That’s all we need. But if you find any—wait. What is that?”

Agraneia put both hands out. Trying to find Khadam. Or, at least, trying to find the wall. Her foot crunched on something. Not glass. She looked down, and saw the fracture skull of a lassertane, cleaned of any flesh, grinning up at her.

No. Please.

The walls groaned. Chirp! Khadam was further now, so far away. Whispering to herself, “This was Rodeiro’s design. This shouldn’t be here. Agra, you have to look.”

And something screamed.

And screamed.

And—

“What is that?” Agraneia shouted over the screaming, trying to squint through the haze of Light. “Do you see that?” There was someone hunched over a pile, chopping and hacking away. Both arms raised, bringing down a machete. Chopping … bodies. Limb from limb, from the living, screaming pile.

“Agraneia?” Khadam asked.

The murderer’s head jerked to the side. A cyran. Agraneia’s gut clenched. She knew that face.

Agraneia looked herself in the eyes. Covered in blood, teeth and lips stained red from the spray, eyes wide with mad delight.

“You’re not real,” she whispered. “You’re not real!” she shouted.

The other Agraneia roared, and leaped at her, knife raised. She threw her arms up to deflect the blow, but the other Agraneia wasn’t weighed down by all this armor.

She felt the tip bite into her stomach. Felt it stick there, felt the other wrench it and twist it deeper. Agraneia coughed, spitting blood on the inside of her helmet. She started to keel over, whispering once more, “You’re not real.”

And dry, bitter laughter croaked in her ears. “Oh, cyran. Don’t you wish that was true?”

***

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