They abandoned the vertigo-inducing design of the catwalks floating above the abyss for the sure, solid grounded safety of a maintenance tunnel that Alor swore would lead directly to Lyessa’s last known position. The tunnel, barely tall enough for Alor to walk down in comfort, ran like an arterial passage through the greater body of the ancient structure. Emergency lights, powered by some inexhaustible, ever-present energy source from a forgotten age, cast everything in a sick, pulsing amber that transformed shadows into lurking phantoms and made the sweat on Cyrus’s brow gleam like fresh blood.

  “How much farther?” Cyrus asked, ducking beneath a hanging cluster of cables that dangled like desiccated grapeless vines.

  “Her beacon signal came from our research outpost, approximately two hundred meters ahead,” Alor replied, hushed, despite the seeming absence of immediate threats. “Cassandra and Lyessa were investigating preSystem artifacts. Lyessa remained behind when Cassandra came in for our regular report.”

  “Why did she stay?” Cyrus asked.

  “She was in the middle of creating a new minion,” Cassandra said sourly.

  “Of course she was…” Maija muttered.

  The tunnel widened slightly to a four-way split. At the center of the split, a hatch opened to something below. Alor spun the manual latch carefully, precisely, to avoid screeching or making other loud noises that might get them discovered.

  Alor stuck his head down the hole once Matti lifted the heavy hatch open. His head popped up, and he waved the others to follow him.

  Imperceptible black ledges were built into the wall and functioned as an access ladder to the tunnel they had been in. They found themselves in a corner of a pretty modest staging area. Who knew what it had been originally, but the Wayfinders had used it as their base camp? At least that’s what Cyrus assumed as his eyes swept over the tents, boxes, and crates of equipment similar to those he’d seen in the Dome.

  Only it was in complete disarray, as if a whirlwind had torn through the camp.

  “Not good,” Maija breathed, looking at Cassandra.

  Cassandra shook her head, answering Maija’s unspoken question. “It was in proper order when I left.”

  Cyrus scanned the wreckage. Tables overturned, equipment shattered, containers eviscerated with ther contents strewn about like mechanical entrails. Most disturbing were the scorch marks—perfect circles of char that dotted the floors and walls at irregular intervals, each exactly the same size.

  “What causes burns like this?” Cyrus asked, kneeling down to examine one of the patches of char.

  “Not what, who.” Maija’s voice went cold. “Machina. If we’re lucky, Encoded scouts. We usually aren’t lucky, so it’s probably a combat unit.”

  Something caught Cyrus’s eye—a datapad lying beneath an overturned chair, its screen still active. With a twitch of his finger it flew to his hand. A woman’s face filled the screen, her pink and rainbow streaked hair unmistakable even in the poor lighting.

  “Lyessa, right?” Cyrus asked, showing the datapad.

  Cassandra appeared at his side, quickly hitting play.

  Lyessa’s voice emerged, tense but controlled. “—detected Machina activity converging on the artifact chamber. Yes, artifact chamber. It opened up after you left, Cass. I’ve sealed myself inside with the artifact. The door should hold them, but I don’t know for how long. They’re after the artifact, not me, but, well, you know how Machina are about survivors.” She glanced over her shoulder, responding to a sound beyond the recording’s range. “They’ve brought an Encoded Overseer. That’s, like, super unexpected? Must be something special about this particular—.”

  The recording ended abruptly.

  “How old is it?” Cyrus asked, uncertain of the technology or its interface.

  “Six hours,” Cassandra answered, lips tight.

  “The artifact chamber?” Maija asked.

  “Just ahead, through the main corridor.” Cassandra responded.

  “How’d her message get out here, if she locked herself in the artifact room already?” Cyrus asked.

  “Look closely…” Alor said, popping up next to Cyrus. He tapped something on the screen, and Lyessa’s face and voice were replaced with the horrifying visage of a rotting corpse. “See? She was speaking through one of her friends.”

  “Fuck!” Cyrus almost shouted, but contained himself to a startled bark. “What the hell is that?”

  “An undead. Lyessa is a necromancer,” Cassandra said with a sigh.

  Cyrus tried to reconcile the cute, mostly pink-haired girl with rainbow streaks in her hair, with a binder of the undead. He gave up. It didn’t matter, anyway.

  “So. Overseer?” Cyrus asked.

  “Someone who was once a powerful humanoid, before they became Encoded. Some bits and bobs of the original still lurking within all the techno-organic assimilation. Makes them worse than pure Machina most of the time,” Matti winced.

  “Let’s go,” Cassandra demanded.

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  Alor took the lead, flanked by Maija and Matti. The corridor beyond the camp showed signs of conflict—more burn marks, scattered debris, and a smear of what might have been blood along the wall.

  A peculiar tingling popped into existence at the base of Cyrus’s skull, almost as if it someone had sent a lightning bolt at him to hone in on a quantum entangled bit of charge in his body. The sensation intensified as they approached a junction where the corridor split into three branches.

  “Stop,” Cyrus hissed at Alor. “Something’s coming.”

  “From where?” Alor demanded, not bothering with how or why.

  Cyrus closed his eyes and let the strange tingle expand. It wasn’t a sound or a sight; it was a disturbance in what he could only describe as the fabric of reality itself.

  “Left branch, three… no, four of them.”

  Alor drew Bladespitter from his belt and slipped in to cover behind a crate. Maija pulled a pistol from her satchel and slipped behind another crate, and Matti touched one of his metal discs, remaining in the center of the junction. A pipe concealed him from the immediate view of the enemies, but it wouldn’t fool the Encoded. Cyrus suspected hiding from them would buy seconds, at best.

  Moments later, the first Encoded scout appeared—a figure that might once have been human but now moved with the unsettling precision of programmable matter. Its skin had a gray, waxy quality, interrupted by geometric patterns of circuitry that pulsed with a sickly blue light. Where its eyes should have been, reflective silver discs tracked with mechanical efficiency.

  Three more followed, each identical to the first in their corrupted uniformity. They moved perfectly synchronized, each scanning an allotted area segment with methodical thoroughness.

  ::Central reports anomalous readings,:: one said its voice is a dissonant blend of human speech and electronic modulation. ::Directive: Locate and isolate.::

  ::Compliance,:: the other three responded in unison.

  Maija held up three fingers, then two, then one.

  Matti stepped out of cover first, and somehow crossed the distance between himself and the lead scout at a pace no human could run. Matti’s gleaming metal shoulder slammed into the mixture of flesh and techno-organic technology, sending the first scout flying as if a train had hit it.

  ::Wayfinder detected,:: the scout announced, as it rose from the floor seemingly undamaged. ::Initiating containment protocol.::

  The scouts moved with inhuman speed, slower than Matti’s mad charge but faster than Cyrus could run. They spread out in an attempt to flank Matti, but one of them, Cyrus noticed, morphed their arm into what looked an awful lot like an energy cannon and pointed it at Maija.

  Cyrus flicked his fingers without conscious thought. The air between him and the scout rippled as if reality was trying to fight against what he attempted. With annoyance, Cyrus pushed harder. The scout's arm jerked to the side, and its volley hit another scout dead center in the torso, causing significant damage.

  One of the others pivoted towards Cyrus.

  ::ANOMALY DETECTED!:: it declared. ::PRIORITY TARGET ACQUIRED.::

  Something inside of Cyrus responded to the creature’s assessment—a fierce, almost joyful recognition of the confrontation and impending violence. He pushed outward with his mind, visualizing a wall of force between himself and the advancing scouts.

  The air shimmered slightly, but the lead scout collided with something invisible yet substantial. The scout recoiled, silver eyes swiveling and recalibrating as it assessed the unexpected obstacle.

  Maija seized the moment of confusion to attack, her weapon firing controlled bursts that targeted the joints of the scouts. One fell, its leg severed at the knee, but it continued to drag itself forward with determination—and an expanding line of metal thread flowed from its knee towards the severed leg.

  “We need to reach the artifact chamber,” Maija’s voice cut through the fighting. “These are just the vanguard!”

  Cassandra flowed past Cyrus.

  “Drop the field,” she whispered as she blurred past him. Galatine looked like a flashlight lit in a dark room, so quickly did the glowing blade flash this way and that, and Cassandra turned into a blur of white and red, gracefully dancing between blows that could kill an ordinary human as if she were merely out on a stroll to pick up the groceries.

  “The artifact chamber is down the main tunnel,” Alor reminded them. Immaculately timed pulls of his weapons trigger plunged glowing blades into wounds made by Galatine, and then there was Matti, driving a huge metal fist like a hammer to drive the glowing razors from Alor deeper into the wounds caused by Cassandra.

  “Run, now,” Maija hissed, and each member of the party bolted.

  The second Alor thought they were clear, and he wasn’t being generous, the blades exploded inside the four scouts, creating a rain of flesh and technology splattering the walls and ceiling. Cyrus threw up another barrier to stop it from reaching them, just in case Alor had been premature.

  “Good call,” Cassandra said with a nod, but she didn’t stop to catch her breath, she jogged past him ready for another fight.

  The middle corridor ran for ten feet and opened into another larger room. Between them and the relatively massive circular door at the end of the room stood only one figure. Taller than your average human, with skin that showed techno-organic circuitry under it, and at least half of its body looked to be cybernetic, it had a presence far different than that of the scouts. Where they were clearly converted humans, this thing seemed to exist in a space somewhere between organic and synthetic, its form constantly shifting to find an optimal, final configuration.

  “Overseer,” Maija hissed.

  The Encoded Overseer surveyed the group with eyes that cycled through all the known spectrums, and some known only to the Machina. It seemed bored, until it paused on Cyrus, head tilting in what might have been recognition.

  ::Anomaly profile matches restricted desginate: Terminus Vector,:: it announced in a voice free of the mechanical flatness of the scouts. Instead, it spoke with unsettling clarity and something approximating emotion. ::You are an existential threat.::

  A cold shock ran through Cyrus at the designation. Terminus Vector? The words resonated with something profound but also deeply buried in his fragmented memory, but nothing roused. What the fuck was a Terminus Vector?

  “What does that mean?” Cyrus demanded.

  The Overseer didn’t respond to his question. Instead, it raised both arms, which dissolved into swarms of metallic filaments that shot forward like striking snakes.

  Cyrus instinctively created a barrier of telekinetic force between then and swept the filaments aside long before they could reach him. The effort it took surprised him, for the first time, he had barely accomplished what he set out to do with his telekinesis. Control, not strength, had been his Achilles heel thus far.

  “Behind!” Maija called. She didn’t fire her weapon but stepped in to seize a scout's arm and, barehanded, touched the cursed thing. Organic flesh and technology separated, circuits dulled, metal softened, and human tissues wept blood. The scout emitted a high-pitched keening sound, the first indication of stress any of them had shown—even when Cassandra had dissected them.

  The other three scouts closed in on Cassandra, Alor, and Matti, while the Overseer closed in on Cyrus, who had somehow gotten between the Overseer and the ancient, sealed door.

  The Overseer only half paid any attention to the scouts and Wayfinder Expeditions, his sensors focused completely upon the Anomaly that was Cyrus. The filament like arms retracted and reformed into bladed appendages.

  ::Dissection was always your fate,:: the Overseer laughed as it stomped towards Cyrus.

  Cyrus flung telekinetic bolts at the Overseer, trying to knock him backward or find a weak spot. The huge figure took most of the blows as if they were nothing, and the few that did land caused a strange flow of silver over the areas—adaptive transformation.