Chapter 15: The Air Tastes Like Dead Math

  The transition out of the Wayline was usually a graceful fade. This time it felt like being ejected from a moving car onto a pavement made of algebra.

  I hit the ground, cold unforgiving steel and rolled, my Egress instinctively dispersing the momentum. I came to a stop in a crouch, my boots skidding on grating that smelled of rust and hydraulic fluid.

  Silence.

  Not the heavy, pregnant silence of the Aethelgard Dead Spot. This was the silence of a vacuum, the silence of a room where the party ended a thousand years ago.

  I took a breath. The air was thin, recycled, and tasted of copper and old dust. Tasted like home.

  "Physics." I whispered, standing up and popping a vertebrae in my back. "Good, rigid physics. Non-negotiable. How I’ve missed you."

  Behind me the air shimmered and distorted. Vrex, my new stone-skinned business partner, materialized. He didn't land so much as crater into the deck plates.

  CLANG.

  The metal deck plate groaned under his weight, Vrex stumbled, going down on one knee. The brass collar around his neck, the Mana-Lung whirred loudly spinning up like a jet turbine. A faint blue aura flickered around his head. A tiny, desperate bubble of magic in a world that didn't believe in it.

  "Ugh." Vrex grunted. The sound was like two tectonic plates grinding together. "The air... tastes like dead math."

  "That's just the lack of ambient soul-stuff," I said, checking my coat. "You get used to it. Its called 'reality'. Welcome to the grind big guy."

  I activated the Astrolabe. The golden rings spun in my mind but the Orrery of Worlds display was glitching. The swirling nebula of the local map was gone, replaced by a static wireframe grid.

  [World Classification: Tier 1 Hollow World]

  [Designation: Cygnus-7 "The Iron Grave"]

  [Current: Null / Dead]

  [Type: Contested]

  [Wayfarer Warning: Lumen Regeneration Halted. Atmospheric Atrophy Active.]

  I felt it immediately, my internal battery, the Chalice wasn't refilling. It was a sealed tank now. Every spell I cast, every Kinetic Grasp I used was a bullet I couldn't reload until we left.

  "Status?" I asked.

  The gargoyle stood up slowly. His movements were heavy, the natural grace of his living stone biology dampened by the dead physics. He tapped the brass collar.

  "Lung is at ninety-eight percent." He rumbled. "I am... heavy. The gravity here is rude, it pulls without asking."

  "Yeah gravity is a bit of a micromanager in Tier 1 worlds," I said. "Lets move. The distress signal came from the Core. Which way?"

  Vrex pointed a thick grey finger down a long flickering corridor of pipes and server banks. "The signal resonates from the nadir. Down. Through the security sector."

  We started walking. The facility was a tomb of technology. Massive pistons the size of skyscrapers stood frozen in mid-stroke. Holographic ads for products that hadn't been sold in centuries flickered in the gloom.

  It was creepy, oppressive. And for the first time since I touched that server rack in London I felt like the most dangerous thing in the room.

  Back in Aethelgard I was a virus in a healthy body. Here? I was the only one who knew how to use the remote control.

  "Hold." Vrex rumbled, his arm shooting out to stop me.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ahead, a cluster of red lights woke up in the darkness. The hum of servos broke the silence.

  Three drones drifted out from behind a support pillar, they were ugly, utilitarian things. Flying turrets with gatling guns underslung and sensors scanning the spectrum. They looked like flying engines of murder.

  Vrex stepped in front of me, his rocky bulk forming a wall. "Sentinels. Low-grade automata. I will draw their fire, you flank."

  He prepared to activate something, his stone skin glowing with the amber light of a skill?

  "Save the battery." I said, putting a hand on his arm. "Its a tech support ticket not a monster fight."

  Vrex looked down at me, his stone brow furrowed. "They have rotary cannons Kaelen. They do not accept tickets."

  "Watch and learn."

  I stepped out from behind Vrex. The drones immediately snapped their sensors onto me.

  [Entity: Security Sentinel Model-4]

  [Magnitude: 32]

  [Density: Hollow]

  Rank 2, Hollow Density. I stared at the tag. Hollow. That sounded fragile. They had guns that could shred me sure but metaphysically? They felt empty. Like a chocolate bunny compared to the solid chocolate bar of a real monster.

  Target acquired. A synthetic voice buzzed. Unauthorized biomass. Sanctioning.

  The gatling guns spun up.

  "System," I murmured, my Kensho flaring to life. Ignoring the spinning barrels I focused entirely on the signal.

  In a magical world I saw ley lines. Here, I saw the network. I saw the wireless handshake protocol the drones were using to coordinate their targeting. It was a jagged, ugly stream of binary data floating in the air. The center drone was broadcasting, the flanking two were listening.

  Master/Slave protocol. Take out the router, drop the network.

  The guns flashed.

  Bang-bang-bang!

  Vrex roared throwing himself in front of me. The bullets sparked harmlessly off his Mantle of the Stubborn Earth. He didn't even need to activate the invulnerability, his base Horizon laughed at small-arms fire.

  But while he tanked I moved.

  My Egress, 12 points of supernatural agility kicked in. I moved in a blur, sprinting along the wall my boots finding purchase on the rusted piping.

  I raised my hand. I couldn't hack them mentally, I wasn't that advanced yet but I could use blunt force physics.

  I targeted the center drone, didn't try to be fancy. I visualized a massive, invisible hand slapping it out of the air. I poured a chunk of my precious non-regenerating Lumen into the Kinetic Grasp.

  "Sit down," I snarled.

  I shoved.

  The invisible force slammed into the lead drone. It wasn't elegant but it was heavy. The drone careened sideways, smashing violently into the support pillar. Metal crunched and sparks showered down as the targeting lens shattered.

  A sharp chime rang in the back of my mind, cutting through the noise of battle.

  [Remembrance Ability Improved: Kinetic Grasp]

  [Proficiency Increased: Level 1 -> Level 2]

  [Insight: The Heavy Hand. Force output increased against aerial targets.]

  "Timing," I muttered. Feeling the mental pathway for the spell widen slightly. The mental pathway widened, snapping open like a thrown punch.

  The signal stream I was watching with my Kensho fractured. The two flanking drones wavered, their guns spinning down as they lost their targeting lock from the leader. They drifted confused, entering a 'searching' loop.

  "Lag," I grinned, dropping from the wall and landing behind them. "The universal killer."

  I drew the Void-Knife.

  It felt heavy in my hand. Quality: Tyrant. It bullied the environment.

  I lunged at the nearest confused drone. Chopping down hard, the blade hit the drone's chassis and didn't just cut metal it sheared through it like it was wet cardboard. The Tyrant quality ignored the hardness of the steel, enforcing its own dominance.

  I ripped the battery pack out with my free hand. The drone died instantly dropping to the floor with a heavy thud.

  The third drone started to swivel toward me, rebooting its own targeting.

  WHAM.

  A massive stone fist pulverized it against the grating. Vrex stood there dusting off his hands.

  "Effective." The gargoyle rumbled, looking at the wreckage. "You identified the command unit, severed the link. Basic squad tactics but well executed for a squishy thing."

  "I prefer 'dynamic troubleshooting'." I said, sheathing the knife. "And you saw that tag? Density: Hollow? They folded like tin foil. I barely used any force."

  Vrex nodded, not looking surprised in the slightest. "This is a Tier 1 world Kaelen. These machines have no soul. They are just matter and electricity. To the Astrolabe they are barely real."

  He kicked a piece of scrap metal. It skittered away clattering loudly in the silence.

  "That is the danger of the Hollow Worlds," Vrex said, his voice grim. "And the opportunity. Things here break easily. But so do we if we run out of juice."

  "Right," I said, looking at my Lumen gauge. I’d spent about 1.5 units on that shove. I was down to 7.5/9.

  "Tier 1 World," I muttered, adjusting my sash. "Where the enemies are made of paper but I'm running on a double-A battery."

  I scanned the wreckage of the drones.

  [Item: Depleted Uranium Ammo Belt (Grade 1: Inert)]

  [Item: Servo-Motor (Grade 2: Latent)]

  "Grab the ammo," I told Vrex. "And the motor. I have an idea for a winch if we need to climb down a shaft."

  Vrex scooped up the heavy belt like it was a string of pearls. "Scavenger." He grunted, though there was a hint of approval in his tone. "You fit right in."

  "I fight efficient." I corrected, starting down the hallway again. "Now come on. If the security is this outdated the Core AI is probably running on Windows 95. I might be able to have this whole planet making me coffee by lunchtime."

  We moved deeper into the dark. Vrex was the shield, the unshakeable mountain. But here in the rust and the wires I was the arrow.

  For the first time I stopped running. It was time to hunt.