The infinity dungeon 257

Chapter 257

Michael caught Icarus as he fell to the ground. He called for the power of their domain, and the bleeding stopped, but the AI projection’s face remained pale.

He is not a projection anymore, is he? 

“Who isn’t?”

Michael gasped. “You’re back! You had me worried there, for a moment.”

Icarus smiled, but as he tried to get up his smile turned into a grimace. “Hurts,” he rasped. “Thank you for sharing the burden with me.”

Michael realized that the sensation he was feeling was pain, right where Icarus had been stabbed. 

“It’s nothing. I wish I could take more.”

Icarus chuckled, which made him cough. “No need to act all tough with me.”

“I’m not acting. If there is one thing I still have even after I lost everything, is my tolerance for pain. How does it feel to you?”

“It’s strange,” Icarus said. “I had never felt pain like this before. I did not even know I could be hurt. As you said, I’m not just a projection anymore, am I? Did you know that when the Renegade stabbed me, the digital systems out there in the world spasmed and reacted? The damage was transmitted to the code, and now as you heal me, you are also healing the code.”

“Weird,” Michael said.

Icarus laughed. “Your weird.”

“My weird,” Michael conceded.

“I will fully deploy the Deadalus program soon. We need to have a system that works even if I’m incapacitated.”

Michael shushed him. “No talks about work now. Not when you are resting your head on my lap like that.”

Icarus blushed, then his face became teasing. “Oh my, look at you.”

“Which reminds me.” Michael got up and held out a hand to help Icarus to his feet. “Look who’s back.”

Above them, the MIF Garden slowly glided into view. The duo finally left the crumbling platform of rock–all that was left of the Coin Vault–and Michael finally allowed the spiral to have it. It disappeared behind them while they boarded the ship.

“How do you feel?” Michael asked.

“Better,” Icarus replied. He was still pale, but it was his natural paleness now. “Time is still flowing outside. People are waiting for you. Let me worry about fixing the inner space. Our inner space. By the way, we need to stop wrecking everything all time, it’s a pain to always have to fix the machines.”

“Noted,” Michael said. “I can feel how annoyed you are at that. I hope you know I feel the same.”

“Well, I feel a lot of emotion coming from you, Michael. Most of it good, but what I felt during the fight…” 

He let the words hang in the air between them.

“I know,” Michael said. “I will deal with it.”

“Good. It has been fun, but–”

“Don’t worry, Icarus. Now that we are together, I will not let the taint touch you. Will you be okay without me?”

“I’m never without you,” he said teasingly. “Yes. The elves will help me repair everything. Can I also merge my white rooms and the domain with the inner space while I’m at it?”

“Do you even need to ask?” 

“One never knows. I remember you telling me a while ago, that nobody understands their own mind. Even if we are the same mind, I figured I’d better ask.”

Michael turned around, a portal cast with the magic of the domain waiting for him. “Go ahead, cheeky.”

***

Recounting the events of the inner space elicited many reactions. Chief of them all, David cheered and laughed. “The fucker, good riddance.”

Travis was not of the same mind. “You should have subdued him,” he said. “You had some measure of magic back, and you could have interrogated him! He had valuable information about the Don and his movements.”

Michael interrupted him before he could go on, feeling the red-hot fumes of rage returning. He took a deep breath to calm down, to tell his mind that Travis couldn’t even imagine the rage and pain at seeing Icarus hurt. The satisfaction at seeing the Renegade dead. David, however, could.

“Quit it,” David said. “There’s a lot of shoulda woulda coulda in life. It went this way, Michael had his reasons.”

“You’re right,” Travis said with an apology.

After that, Michael explained that he was now connected not only to Icarus, but to Site 00 as well. Everything under the shield above them was now his domain.

“And I think I can use the spiral in here, in fact…” he paused, eyes unfocusing for a moment. To the others, it looked like he had just left his body. Then, when he returned, he was grinning. “Man, going into the web, even just dipping my toes. You guys can’t even begin to imagine. If this is the level of power the Technomancer has and feels all the time…” he trailed off, looking into the distance.

“Faith magic incoming,” Johanne informed them via comms.

Travis and David immediately turned to face the shield, where several robed men were emerging from folded space, surrounded by golden energies. Faith.

“What have you done?” asked Travid. 

Beside him, David was amused. “Oooh, I think I know what he just did.”

Michael shared his mirth. “I just sent Casellaro a message, telling him that his pet is dead. Sent him pictures, and the coordinates to Site 00. He knows them already, of course, but this is as good an invitation as any. Also insulted his family, just to be sure. Now watch.”

He left without saying anything.

“Where did he go?” asked Travis.

“Inside the dungeon,” Johanne replied.

“How do you know?”

“He just told me.”

“Guys,” David called. “The priests.”

They were chanting, and as their chant reached its end, the shield around Site 00 parted like the Red Sea. They stepped through, strolling confidently, one of them already beginning to preach a sermon while the others chanted once more.

“Why did he go into the dungeon now of all times?” Travis demanded, cards glowing on the back of his hand, preparing for a fight. “Why are you so calm?”

David crossed his arms, scowling at the priests. “Just watch, they will never make it farther than a few yards.”

Right on cue, the air shifted. The light faded, replaced by the sharp twilight of purple and orange.

“The apocalypse,” David said, his scowl replaced by a grin. His arms were wide in a mocking stance, taunting the coming priests. “The end of days! Isn’t it what your bible preaches?”

Above them, at the zenith of the shield, darkness congregated into the terrible end of space-time itself. The event horizon appeared as a lack, a missing piece of the universe, surrounded by an accretion disk bright and frightening. At the center of the hole, forth came the spiral.

A ray of destruction erupted from it. It split into many, one for each priest, striking down faster than the eye could follow. When light returned and the spiral faded away, there was no trace of the priests. Even the grass below their feet was untouched, as if there had never been any weight pressing down on it, not even the foot of a man let alone a ray of destruction and gravity. Let alone the might of a singularity.

“Gone…” muttered Travis. “Just like that.”

“While Michael was inside the dungeon,” David said. “What floor was he in?”

A text message to all their phones, from Michael. Sixth, it read.

“Damn,” David said. “I guess we got ourselves a god in the making.”

While David gloated, laughed and enjoyed himself, as if the victory was his, Travis was quick to get over his shock. He absorbed the information, formulated plans, and schemed.

“Does it work anywhere?” he asked out loud.

No, came Michael's reply.

“Inside the shield?”

Yes.

“And it works even while you’re not here?”

Yes.

“As he said,” David interjected. “It’s his domain now.”

Now it was Travis’s turn to grin. “Let me guess. We can make other such domains.”

Not easy, but yes.

As the tenth minute finally ticked, Michael re-emerged from the dungeon. Travis was gone, but David had remained. He was no longer smiling, and the scowl he had directed toward the priests was back, except this time it was one of worry.

“It was all fun and games, Michael. I admit I loved seeing the priests get smited from above, as if their god himself was doing it. But I can’t help but worry, Michael. You said you have become one with Icarus. You can access the web, all the data that we have. You have been acting strange as of late, and I know you blamed the taint but now… we have a god in the making, don’t we?”

“I heard you say that,” Michael interrupted him.

“I know. I don’t want it to be a mad god.”

“There’s a lot to take in,” Michael said with a sigh. “That’s all.”

“Trust me,” David said. “You ain’t making it easy for us either. You could have come out of the dungeon earlier, or am I wrong?”

“I could have,” Michael admitted. “I could have teleported straight from there to here.”

“Is the dungeon part of your domain?” 

Michael shook his head. “Only the Valley, the rest of it is very much outside my reach.”

“But you could teleport out at will.”

“I could. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think I could have gotten out if I were in the seventh floor. Not until I beat it.”

“Was the time dilation active while you dealt with the priests?”

“Yep.”

“It was a risky move, you know that? An impulsive one. Don’t joke about me being the one to say that, Michael. If I see that, everyone does. I’m just the only one with balls to tell you to the face.”

“I’ll deal with the taint, don’t worry. It’s the next thing on my to-do list. And then, no more abusing the time dilation.” he paused, looking around. “I almost died today. Icarus almost died.” He grimaced. “I’m done being controlled by outside factors. Taint or Gaze or what have you. I can’t just keep…” he inhaled, buying time to find the right words. “...almost losing everything every damn time. Making stupid decisions. The Italy mission, the system breaking down while I did nothing save for speeding up the process. I had thought the Resilience was making me invulnerable to outside influences. Maybe it was, but it was never meant to let me exploit the dungeon as much as I did. Spending literal decades there. Who does that?”

“I’m sure you’re not the first.”

“You heard the stories from Theobond and the others. Rogue mages going insane, tearing planets and civilizations apart. Why do you think it happened, time and time again, to all of them?”

“Do you think beating the floor will rid you of the taint?”

“I have a hunch. I might be gone for a while if beating it doesn’t do the trick, though.”

“Good,” David said. “Honestly, Michael, I’m proud of ya. We all are. We are one team now, everyone of us together. And don’t worry,” he chuckled. “We have a right mess to clean up, and shady deals to make. Travis told me of his plans. It’s time we start making some moves.”

“Sounds like I will be busy when I come out,” Michael said.

“Oh, you will.”