by Skyler Grant
The second corridor held a statue of a massively muscled man striking a pose. “Challenge of Strength” was written there.
The third showed a heavily scarred man in a blacksmith's apron, hammer in hand and standing at an anvil. “Challenge of Metal.”
“They really need to figure out how to make a maze,” Uma complained.
I thought it was doing well enough.
Jules walked between the statues, taking a moment to study each. “Each of these is from my family. The medusa is wrong though. Perseus killed her and it was her head he held. The second is Hercules, bastard son of Zeus, renowned for his strength. The third is Hephastus, I think, one of the gods, working at his forge.”
“Do you think the power level makes a difference here? That is one god, one demigod, and one monster that got slain,” I said.
“Maybe,” Jules said, but she sounded doubtful. “I don’t think this is puzzle where a single answer is right. These are all going to be different tests. It is just a matter of which we choose to take.”
“Metal probably means machinery. You brought me along for a reason and it wasn’t just my cool energy beams,” Niles said.
“I say go for the weakest link. It's what any virus does and we kick ass,” Uma said.
“Ox,” Ox said. “I admit a part of me hungers to test my strength against Hercules, if such were possible.”
“Your challenge, and ultimately your call,” I said to Jules.
“Of course it is,” Jules said, studying the three options again. “The god it is then. Nobody ever got truly stronger by picking the weakest opponent.”
40
Jules led us through a corridor that began to show diagrams of gears on the wall, the etchings growing more and more complex until we reached the next chamber. It actually was a forge, with an anvil and lit furnace. The walls were lined with bronze sculptures of people and creatures from Greek myth.
There was no sign of any occupant. Niles started to advance into the room and Jules held up an arm to stop him. The age of bronze—supposedly Talos the bronze giant that guarded Crete was from there.
Niles paused to look between the sculptures. “You think they’re animate? Walter? Uma, you get anything?”
I took a scan of a bronze statue of a proud-looking woman wearing a crown of laurels.
Statue of Atalanta
Construct
Power Level: 43,000
This Statue of Atalanta is just one of the Minotaur’s many creations. Resistant to almost all forms of damage and possessing of superior strength they can prove a threat even to powerful supers.
That was a lot more powerful than Jules, a lot more powerful than any of us, and she was just one statue of many in this room.
“They’re constructs,” I said.
I didn’t need to have bothered as they had started to move. With the screech of metal on metal the creations stirred themselves to face the doorway.
Jules slipped a crossbow from her back—she’d kept some of the CCC weaponry. “Anything I need to know?”
I said, “Resistant to almost all damage. Super strong, and I’m not getting a read on any kind of weakness.”
Atalanta spoke.
“Because there aren’t any. We are infinite, eternal, endless. You made the wrong choice, Seekers.” She pulled a bow from her back. A flash of golden light flared as it fired and a henchmen was driven back, his skull shattering as an arrow was driven clean through it.
Jules fired off a bolt and an explosion wreathed Atalanta’s head. The statue didn’t stop moving.
Meanwhile, a bronze bull was charging at Ox as Niles found himself trading blows with a bronze man with a sword.
“They’re not being controlled on a frequency I can detect,” Uma said, one of her drones exploding as a bronze swan pecked at it with enough force for the metal housing to rupture.
“I’ve got an idea, but I need to be free of this guy,” Niles called.
Jules dodged one of Atalanta’s arrows and she tackled the statue fighting Niles from behind. “Go.”
Niles fired off energy beams at several of the statues as he made his way to the anvil, kneeling beside it. “It has to be here. Every workshop has a center and this anvil is the center of this one.”
The clockwork suit strained as he tried to lift the anvil, but to no avail.
“Ox,” Ox said, soaking hits from a bronze woman with an iris in her hair. “The tools. You are nothing without yours, and this workshop isn’t satisfying its purpose without its own.”
Niles looked around him. There were tools on a rack hanging overhead, a variety of them that were mysterious to me but apparently made a great deal of sense if one were interested in smithing.
Niles grabbed a hammer and slammed it down on the anvil. Instead of the expected ringing noise, it made the sound of a strumming lyre.
Holographic images appeared surrounding Niles, each depicting gears spinning in motion. A flashing message read, “You only get to remove one. Choose wisely.”
“Well, I think we found the next test,” Niles said, spinning around.
“Ox,” Ox said as he was slammed against the wall, the girl hammering punches into his midsection. “You are capable of this. We trust in you and are certain you will see us through this ordeal.”
Jules bounced off the ceiling and groaned when she fell to the floor, rolling aside an instant before an arrow plowed into the dirt. “Kind of less confident. Whatever you do, do it fast.”
“I’m good with computers and okay with mechanics, but this is all a bit much. Uma? Walter? Got anything?” Niles asked.
I said, “The only machinery I understand is the machinery of finance. The great gears of CAPITALISM that drive us as individuals and society as a whole towards ever greater heights.”
Wow, that stuff really all just gushed out of me when I got going.
“Right, not nearly as crazy, but equally as clueless,” Uma said as she madly flew a drone away from a bull chasing it.
Niles let out a low breath and turned more slowly, “Everything here is redundant, it has to be. Otherwise it wouldn’t matter which I took. All one big system, but one of these parts isn’t duplicated elsewhere. A linchpin.”
That sounded logical—it also sounded like he didn’t really have a clue. I tried to help, I really did, but I just didn’t have the software. Oh, I had more than enough processing power to spare, but the spinning of those gears meant nothing to me.
Niles tried to shoot an arrow out of the air as it hurtled towards him. The energy beam didn’t manage to destroy it and only deflected the arrow so it screeched across his shoulder.
We didn’t have any henchmen left, and this had been costly in drones as well. We simply didn’t have anything that could hurt these statues.
“Okay, here we go. I’m, uh, really sorry everyone if I'm wrong,” Niles said, reaching out to tap at one of the gears. It flashed red and suddenly vanished from the displays. The remaining gears ground to a halt the instant it was removed.
The constructs also went still.
The floor rumbled, and the entire room was suddenly going down.
We were in a massive elevator.
41
The elevator journey took a long time and we were going down fast. I figured we'd descended perhaps twenty levels.
When the room finally came to a stop one of the walls peeled away. Jules led the way out into a yet another chamber, this one cavernous, and the walls had the hardened look of a bunker. Deep underground, this was a place meant to survive an apocalypse, and in a sense it had.
“Where are we?” Jules asked.
Uma said, as her drone explored the interior, “I don’t know. I restored some of the data from this system I am on, but a lot of what this complex holds is still a mystery to me.”
There were a lot more doors, all like the one we entered through. More elevators that must be going up, or down, to other floors.
“Whoever they were the Minotaur worked w
ith them,” I said.
“I’m not sure that is so,” Niles said. “I mean it might be, but I’m not convinced that elevator was in the original build.”
The Minotaur and his maze would have been shut down when Mother’s curse hit the district. If the elevator wasn’t built back then, it begged the question, who was active and installed it afterward?
“I’ve got something,” Uma said.
A pedestal had risen out of the floor at one of the drone's approach. It was a fairly standard computer screen with a plaque below it that read, “To claim your prize, fix what is broken.”
“I don’t like this,” Niles said.
I said, “We’ve done all of this with no reward. Yes, someone may be playing games with us, but it's also possible that everything here is working exactly as it was intended to all along.”
The screen flickered and began scrolling computer code.
“Well, this is familiar. It's code, badly corrupted. Mother must have really done a number on anything technological,” Uma said.
“Doesn’t seem to have bothered the equipment upstairs,” Niles said.
Jules said, “Different origin. Anything to do with my family has a strong mythic component. I’m betting that was more compatible with her nature-heavy love-fest.”
“Which just goes to prove this isn’t connected with Minotaur. Someone built this afterward,” Niles said.
“You have an idea?” I asked.
“You can guess what it is. The reason I originally came here—Patriot,” Niles said.
An advanced and powerful artificial intelligence buried in the deepest levels of this complex. It fit, to one degree, but didn't in others.
“Patriot would have been corrupted by Mother’s curse. It couldn’t have done what we’re seeing here,” I said.
“There would have had people too. Patriot wasn’t just an AI, they were an organization. Lots of resources, supposedly,” Niles said.
I only wished that were true. This hall was vacant, and if there were stockpiles of wealth they’d been looted long ago.
“Can you fix the code?” I asked Uma.
“I think so. There is already something of a head start. From what I can tell things were compartmentalized with some repairs already done. It's like someone knew something bad was coming and prepared for it,” Uma said.
“I want my ambrosia. Whatever this is, it doesn’t mean the payout isn’t real,” Jules said.
Focused on payday. I liked that mind-set. It was the only one that made sense.
“Fix things. We’ll see what happens,” I said.
“Insane risk makes me so happy,” Uma said, wires extending from her drone to the panel.
People always thought that hacking was some tremendously quick endeavor, and that damaged systems repaired themselves in an instant. It wasn’t so.
It was ten hours until Uma accomplished anything. It wasn’t that agonizing for me, of course, I had plenty that could occupy my time. While I was controlling these drones my consciousness was still housed in the quantum sphere and I still had Villainet access. It let me do a lot of business research. The humans didn’t have that luxury.
The hall had a lot of space to explore, but it was all sealed doors that even Niles’ guns didn’t let him blast through.
Everybody knew when Uma finally completed her task. The lights flickered before coming on with a blinding intensity.
A voice echoed through the chamber.
“Patriot protocols initializing. Battery charge minimal. Equipment re-materialization beginning.”
Here and there in the chamber there was a shimmer of energy and armored suits were appearing.
I took a scan of one.
Patriot Bipedal Combat Unit
Estimated Value: 350,000 Credits
Patriot combat units are designed to take back the world after a great cataclysm. Hardened against hostile environments and highly adaptable they are dangerous individually but reach their highest threat potential when mass produced.
That was an expensive unit to mass produce. Of course, I didn’t even know where this one really came from. 'Re-materializing' the voice had said. Had they been stored here in some way?
A holographic projection appeared in mid-air, an eye that swirled in alternating shades of red, white, and blue. The eye took a moment to study each of us.
The voice boomed, “Well, not what my people expected. They forecast that those seeking the Minotaur's prize had a low probability of being the ones to reactivate this facility. I am the Patriot system,” Patriot said.
“I was hoping to reactivate you myself. Things have changed quite a bit up above,” Niles said.
“I have no use for those not part of the initiative. The world is ours to conquer. You have intelligence, I could interrogate you, but it doesn’t matter. If you want to survive, stay out of our way. This is what you came for, take it and go. Any debts are repaid,” Patriot said.
What Jules had consumed before was a small vial of ambrosia. What materialized now with a shimmer of energy was close to a thick-bottomed wine bottle of it.
Rainbow light shimmered around my drone and everyone else.
Instantly, we were back in the transit room on the main level.
42
We didn’t get long to enjoy being home before we were kicked out of it. Patriot drones forced us out of the doors and onto the street. Kleo and Partygurl got the same treatment almost at once.
“I’m paid up. Why, exactly, am I being evicted?” Kleo said with a dangerous red glimmer in her eyes.
Niles offered a sheepish grin. “This isn’t our doing. We appear to have awakened an incredibly powerful computer that is now set on world domination. Well, I guess that means it kind of is our doing. So uh, sorry.”
Did he like her? I think he liked her. Humans were so … clingy.
Jules wasn’t even bothering to offer an explanation. She was chugging ambrosia as fast as she could get it down. Occasional flashes of light radiated from her skin which was starting to look flawless. Right, while she was busy becoming a demigod, we had real problems.
I had obligations to my tenants and this was certainly inconvenient. I didn’t think we’d be getting back inside our doors without a fight. I logged onto Villainet and reserved them both suitable lodgings.
I said, “Kleo, my apologies for all this. Until we get it sorted out I’ve got you a suite in the brimstone district. Partygurl, you’ve got a room in the Delta Omega Alpha house on campus.”
“And you’ll prorate my rent,” Kleo said.
“Of course,” I said.
They headed off. I got us a short-term lair in Dragon Towers. I figured with a few actual dragons on security duty they should be well defended against whatever kind of fuss Patriot was making.
I ordered a hover bus to come pick us up and within ten minutes we were all crammed inside.
“Ox,” Ox said. “These seats really aren’t wide enough. While I realize that they are made for two standard-sized individuals they should understand that some of us supers have special needs.”
They did—they had larger buses. They were five times the price, and I figured Ox could deal with it for ten minutes.
“Are those fighter jets supposed to be there?” Niles asked, peering up at the sky.
Jules had a look. Even in the short time her physique had altered dramatically. Now she looked like some sort of Amazonian princess, muscled and bronzed, and I’d swear her hair had gotten several degrees more lustrous.
“No, military hardware is strictly forbidden in the skies above the city, although you’re allowed to store it on the outskirts for flights elsewhere,” Jules said.
An explosion in the distance shook the ground.
“And using them to bomb buildings is definitely not allowed. Although weirdly enough just walking a bomb into a building totally acceptable,” Jules said.
“What about blasting it with energy beams from above?” Niles asked.
�
��Fine, if you're doing it yourself or in a suit. Not so much in a plane. Laws are funny.”
I didn’t find much funny about this scenario. If those were Patriot’s planes it was attacking the city.
I was scanning Villainet nonstop. I asked, “The city just got a level four alert. What does that mean?”
Jules winced. “I really hope that isn’t because of us. Mastermind has declared a state of emergency. All inter-villain feuds are to be suspended, all B-Class villains and above have to make themselves available to assist if called upon.”
“Sounds serious,” Niles said.
“More serious than this should be. That is usually the case if an S-Class or a group of A-Class is invading. Even a single A-Class like when Ultimatum showed up won’t trigger a level four.”
“Patriot had military hardware stored. Do you think they have supers?” I asked.
“Even if they did, why would they let them out? Patriot was supposed to be in the event of a Doomsday. That hasn’t happened,” Niles said.
“The government that made Patriot isn’t around anymore. The League of Heroes and Council of Villains saw to that. Perhaps Patriot figures that's close enough to a catastrophe,” Jules said.
Any further talking was cut off as the street in front of our bus exploded, sending us and the vehicle end over end.
I lost several drones. The henchmen fared even worse with not a single survivor. The other humans were doing better. Niles was in his armor, Ox was virtually indestructible, and Jules with her recent power upgrade had some scrapes and artistically placed soot marks, but they just served to make her look even more heroic.
“Bloody robots,” said a woman, picking herself up from the rubble with half the bus wrapped around her. “Sorry about the bus. Back to it, then.” With a black cape swirling around her, the woman took to the sky.
“Great, smashed and almost killed by British Invasion,” Jules said as she stood up and looked herself over. “Or slightly scratched. I really like ambrosia, have I mentioned how much I really like ambrosia?”