Atlas reformed nearer to the core with a heavy slam that reverberated through his labyrinthine chambers, then quickly started to pad off, picking a direction and easily splitting the mantle before him as he worked his way toward where he’d buried the Monolith.

  “Y’know, that really didn’t go too poorly. I was seriously expecting you to kill him. Did you finally take a liking to one of them?” Calypso teased, rattling around in his skull.

  “I’m still pissed at you, you know. Do you need me to ground you too?” Atlas asked, his hand to shoulder glowing a deep amber as he opened up the solid magma before him.

  “Oh no? I’m everywhere, good luck holding me back.” She quipped, prompting a scoff and a shake of the head from Atlas.

  “You really have picked up too much from them.”

  “And I’ll maintain that that isn’t a bad thing. I’m sure you could pick up some human tics from your new friend if you gave it a shot.”

  “If not killing someone makes them a friend, then I made a few dozen tonight. You really want me to have the chance to do that again so soon?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Then we’re agreed. I just want to get to this machine, figure out what kind of language it spat out, and then go back to sleep.” Atlas said, opening up the mantle into the pocket he’d made for the Monolith. He sensed it immediately, but his antennae flickered in confusion for a second. Sure, he’d made a copy, but he didn’t remember his having tentacles.

  It didn’t take him long to figure out what was wrong with that. Atlas recalled Ladon through the mantle immediately, and its constituent shards compiled in his outstretched hand. He flicked it, igniting the blade, and an arc of lightning shot for the Monolith with a thunderous roar that rattled the mantle. The machine shrieked in response, and then the writhing tentacles shot for him.

  Atlas’ antennae flared wide in surprise, and he reacted in a flurry, flashing his sword for the wriggling masses. A half dozen flopped onto the ground in a blink, and still more blurred from the mass growing out of the Monolith. Atlas tucked and rolled as the tentacles coiled into a singular mass that speared into the mantle wall hard enough to fracture, and the moment he came back up he flicked Ladon onto his arm and fired again. Bolts flared out, severing tendrils while the main brunt of Ladons rage slammed into the Monolith again.

  The living weapon gave an unholy shriek so loud that Atlas’ antennae quivered at the sound, and then it finally relented, retreating back into its mechanical shell with a disgusting wet schlick. He kept his senses locked on the Monolith for a moment, and once he felt secure he got back to his feet and advanced rapidly. Ladon remained at the ready, sizzling away at the stale air.

  “What the hell was that? I thought you ripped everything out?” Calypso echoed.

  “I did. Focus.” Atlas ordered, before he speared the things shell. More dripping tendrils immediately coiled through the breach with an agonized shriek, coiling around his blade and wrist. He thought to fire Ladon again, but reconsidered; past the… machines? shell, he couldn’t be sure that the data it carried would survive. So instead, he reached his other hand in.

  The tentacles immediately snared that hand too, but he figured they probably recognized their mistake when he grabbed back. Atlas felt a wet pulse gush between his fingers as he squeezed, and then he turned and yanked. The Monolith erupted as the mucousy, tentacled thing was ripped from its shell, and only then did he release, hurtling it into the distant mantle wall. It slammed into the solid magma wall of the chamber powerfully, then crumpled to the floor. The thing let loose a horrible shriek of agony as it began to broil, and Atlas’ senses barely had time to register too many eyes and too many teeth as he slammed the mantle shut on it.

  The weight of a continental plate collapsed atop the alien monstrosity, and its screams immediately silenced. Atlas’ antennae remained flared, flicking erratically as he waited for more threats. When none came, he lifted the mantle again with a quick glimmer of his fist. The thing- whatever it’d been- was no more. It’d evaporated under the immense pressures he’d slammed onto it. He gave himself a quick once over, noting the dripping ropes of mucus and slime. There was also the weak electrical pulse of dying cells, but Atlas paid them little heed as the heat and pressure of the core cooked them beyond survivability. He focused his senses on the Monolith next, but now it was well and truly dead- there were still some wriggling extremophiles in there, but without the mass of the alien thing to protect them they too were boiling this deep in the earth.

  Even with the threat over, Atlas cautiously stalked forward, keeping Ladon sizzling in case he needed to lash out. He poked at the empty husk of the Monolith, but nothing else leapt out. Now it was disabled.

  “I know we were a little in the dark on the surface, but did that thing give you any bright ideas?” Calypso asked smartly.

  “That… I’m not sure.” Atlas responded unsteadily, turning to inspect his copy of the Monolith. He focused his senses once more, causing his antennae to vibrate. There were more slime trails trickling over the device, and he could barely detect remnant cells burrowing deeper into the superstructure. Without the protection of its progenitor though, they’d cook along with the rest. Why had it been burrowing into his copy, though…?

  “I think it was booby trapped.” Atlas answered, confused.

  “...For who? Why not trigger it on the surface when you were elbow deep in it?”

  “You think it was for me!?” He asked, shocked.

  “Well, who else?”

  Atlas paused to consider that, then had a thought. He interfaced with his copy of the Monolith, and began to quickly analyze its code. He completed the scan in a fraction of a second, without anomaly. But, it had been burrowing in…

  “It was trying to… hack it?” Atlas stated, confused.

  “The electrical pulses coming off of those cells are pretty weak, and I can’t detect any data on them. But…” Calypso started, beginning to process herself.

  Atlas spared a glance back at the stain where he’d obliterated the larger creature. “How much do you want to think that the larger one controls these little ones?”

  “You mean bet? In any case, I don’t think it necessarily controls them. They’re probably the same creature.”

  “You seriously think one cell could get that big?”

  “Of course not, the alien was multicellular. But it was made up of these,” Calypso emphasized, indicating the cells. “-and these are all the same cell. They’re uniform, down to size and the amount of electricity they’re giving off. So these cells aren’t strong enough to survive down here, or to get into your computer systems. I’ll bet that’s what that big one was trying to do, though.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Atlas didn’t quite know what to think of that analysis. “But that’d mean it was targeting me. It never tried to get into human systems, only mine- and it tried to attack me.”

  “That would appear to be the case. How about you crack open the Monoliths computer systems and find out why?”

  Well, he couldn’t really argue with that. Atlas stalked the few steps back over to the alien Monolith, and pressed his free palm to it. Electricity started to coil around his antennae more aggressively as he prepared to interface with it, crackling down his arm and lacing between his fingers. With only the briefest hesitation, he dove in.

  Atlas recoiled with a grunt, and collapsed to a knee as the surge of data slammed into him like a wave. He dimly heard Calypso over the roar, but he ignored her. He had to fight the tide before it swallowed him. Atlas pushed himself into the breach he’d made, electricity lashing around him as he put the whole of his processing power to the test. The code was almost… organic. Like the entire structure was alive, not just the living thing that’d been hiding in its depths. It battled back against him voraciously, but once he pushed past the initial breach the aggression lessened, then stalled. It reminded him of an immune system, or a cell wall, but he was a much greater virus than the thing could combat.

  All good in there? That looked hairy for a second. He felt the echo of Calypso rattle through his coiling mind.

  It should be safe now. Mind helping me extract all this? Atlas thought back. He felt a bloom of warmth, and then he noticed her own tendrils of data begin to writhe through the breach and start to pick apart the Monoliths brain. They faced little resistance, and what they did have to deal with they combatted together, easily keeping the Monolith subdued. After a few minutes spent lobotomizing the machine, they crept back out together.

  Atlas gave a jolt as his mind came back to him, but the familiar warmth of Calypso filling his skull kept him secure. He then let his fist glimmer amber as he raised a wall and began inscribing symbols. It only took a moment before all of the characters were inscribed: and there were tens of thousands. Most involved variations of circular objects, like a line of a few circles, a circle with an oval over and under, and the same symbol with waves through it. Others even involved three-dimensional elements, with bulbs raising out of the symbols, or ridges, or simple bumps similar to human braille.

  “I… don’t think this is a written language.” Calypso echoed.

  “No. It’s not.” Atlas agreed. “Not ordinarily, anyway. Whatever they are, they don’t write like humans do.”

  “Gee, did the tentacle monster clue you in on that?” Calypso teased, but Atlas shook his head in response.

  “That wasn’t our culprit. Its cells were uniform, right? Engineered. Whatever made it, and this language? They’re probably the same species. And these, they’re not letters, they’re-”

  “Words.” Calypso finished, awed. “Our alien friends didn’t code the Monolith at all. It’s… it’s not code. This was memory. Instructions.”

  “And that means that this language is impossible to decode. It’s not based on written words. Sounds, or scents, maybe, but nothing visual. We’d need a live example to begin to decode it. There’s some similarities in the shapes? But that only tells us which words might be similar, not what they mean.”

  “What about the part that Nathan read in English? World Soul, right?” Calypso asked, causing Atlas’ antennae to perk up.

  “Seriously, him again? No, we didn’t find any trace of that. Wherever that is it’s… it’s in here, somewhere. Isn’t it?” Atlas wondered aloud.

  “Well, I imagine the words are, but I meant in the, uh, memories? That’s weird to say. The memories of the Monolith. Somewhere in there is that pattern, and while that’ll give us a whopping two words, it's a start.”

  Atlas nodded along at that. “And then we can start picking apart similar characters for their likely meanings. How long will it take you to dig through that code?”

  “The memories?”

  Atlas mimed rolling eyes he didn’t have. “I’m not calling them that.” He rumbled, but then his antennae flickered again in thought. “Hey, those cells. If they’re engineered, how are they being ordered?” He asked aloud.

  “I mean, I seriously doubt anything is connecting to them down here. Certainly not electricity, you’d sense that, and it’s obviously not light, smell, sound or vibrations, not all the way down here. It’d probably be genetic memory too, right?” Calypso asked, answering her own question.

  Atlas considered that, then lifted a still raging Ladon again, pointing it at the alien Monolith. Thunder crackled as he fired at it again. “Why are you-” Calypso started, before pausing as she sensed what he did. Tiny cells, fraying free from the structure and fluttering in the boiling air before being cooked alive. Atlas shut off the weapon, content, then his arm glimmered molten again as he channeled the Earth and let another segment of continental plate drop on the alien weapon, similarly evaporating it.

  “These cells aren’t just biological. They’re some kind of living nanite. Organic, but able to construct and infiltrate inorganic technology. Or at least, construct an organic facsimile. When powered it used quantum capabilities to shift its cells to be invisible to specific spectrums of light. That’s why we couldn’t see it. This thing wasn’t engineered, not specifically. It was adapting. Evolving. And it was still trying to grow and learn. That’s why it tried to connect to my monolith.” Atlas’ antennae weaved furiously with his agitation.

  “There’s no way that evolved naturally.” Calypso countered, prompting Atlas to scoff.

  “Of course not. But that doesn’t make it any less of a threat. If it’s able to adapt to any threat, learn from its surroundings, and parasitize even inorganic material, then whether it was built by technology or not is irrelevant. Something like these cells would have to be one of the most perfect organisms in the universe.” Atlas concluded. “We need to get into those instructions, and we need to find out what orders this thing was given. I could accept this as a one-off engine of study. Maybe.” He said dubiously.

  “But…?” Calypso prompted.

  “...But if it’s not, then many more of these might be… hard to deal with.” Atlas conceded. “How long until we can get something useful out of this language?”

  Calypso huffed in thought. “The both of us combined took a few minutes to dig through its mind. I can try and compile the data in a more effective way, but it’ll still take a while.”

  “Tsk tsk,” Atlas clicked, teasing. “Guess I’m better off chasing down other leads then.”

  That piqued Calypso's interest. “Like what? I can’t imagine literally anything else that’d take precedence over this. Unless you need me to remind you of the alien monstrosity you just evaporated under a mass equivalent to no small fraction of a continent.”

  Atlas’ antennae whirled playfully. “Guess you forgot about Gorgon, then? And it still being in orbit?”

  “Ah. Yeah. That’s probably pretty important to keep human hands off of.” Calypso agreed. “Still, that was a Russian weapon. A likely now-defunct Russian weapon, I might add. Do you really think it isn’t currently orbiting Earth along with the rest of the shrapnel kicked up by those missile interceptions? Orbital cascades aren’t exactly pretty events.”

  “Still, it's better to be safe. Once I confirm Gorgon is dealt with, I’ll come back down here and help you crack the code.” Atlas answered. He felt a particularly loud thought worm its way through Calypso's mind in response.

  “So you’re just going to fly up into space while the humans have all of their eyes up there? That doesn’t seem like a particularly good idea if you’re trying to avoid attention.”

  “I had something else in mind, actually. There’s one nation particularly dangerously suited to potentially be alerted to the existence of- or take control of- whatever Gorgon is. One that has a very recent, and immediately more well documented history of cracking other nations satellites.” Atlas rumbled.

  Calypso immediately understood what he was getting at. “Oh no.”

  “Don’t be so disappointed. You wanted me to interact with the humans more, right? What better place than the very same lab on Aerospace technology that the human hacked? I’m sure they have information on more satellites than just those that he burned.” He said, with his armor already starting to pool back around him in fluid waves. It began to harden as his powers worked, but Calypso interjected before he finished.

  “I think you’re grossly underestimating the amount of damage he did to their computer systems.” Calypso pointed out. “I couldn’t scrap any useful data off of those satellites, and I doubt that lab got hit any less harshly. There isn’t going to be any machinery left for you to scrape data off of.”

  Atlas shrugged as his armor finished forming around him, before he settled Ladon back over his shoulder with a metallic thunk as it anchored. The sword immediately returned to its inactive configuration. “Guess I’ll have to improvise.”

  Calypso's airy sigh echoed in his head for far longer than any human would be capable of. “I was afraid you’d say that. Just try not to kill a couple hundred people again, please? Not only would that be a little distressing, it’s also extremely hard to keep quiet. And China hasn’t been hit by an asteroid recently, so they’ll be a little more attentive with the livelihood of their citizens and soldiers, I imagine.”

  Atlas huffed, no longer finding this exercise quite as entertaining. “Anything else?”

  “Break a leg?” Calypso offered.