The infinity dungeon 254

Chapter 254

Icarus watched from his personal room in the Inner Space.

He watched, and he saw everything, or at least close to everything. Looking up with his physical body, he gazed at the brilliant splendor of the spiral black hole. With the accretion disk brighter than ever, he could see details and shades of color he had never even imagined before.

Then his sight moved to the shield projector ring around the Aura Accelerator. In truth, he did not have a singular point of focus, nor a single gaze with which he looked at the world both outside and inside. He had many, and save for special circumstances like when he had had to manually regulate the power to the massive shield to keep the chaos from spilling in, he could spread far and wide almost without limit.

Watching with ten thousand eyes. Listening with a million ears.

Every single one of his attention threads was many times smarter than the smartest human could ever be. 

Despite having so many and being so smart, however, things sometimes eluded him. Things about human nature, and things about magic.

A bundle of threads of him focused on the current world order. He liked to construct a white room, infinite and spacious, when he thought about these things. The various threads of him were like white fireflies, hovering above a projection of the planet spun in blacks, greys and reds. Dots and lines filled it. On the surface, but also above and below.

And this was just the planet. Deep space had its own room and its own threads of Icarus monitoring the strange happenings of magic that the satellites could detect, even as close as the Sol system.

“One threat at a time,” Michael had said when Icarus asked what his plans were about space. 

But that had been before Michael conquered his fear of it, so Icarus asked again. This time, Michael’s response was different. Another thread of Icarus supplied the rest of him with the context needed to understand it.

Michael had just told Icarus to handle the situation together with whoever he thought fit in the high echelons of Unity, and that they could handle it however they saw fit. A dangerous thing, to give carte blanche to people like Johanne and Travis.

But also, giving them freedom was what allowed people like them to create true wonders. A thing that Icarus, with all his computational power, had yet to learn how to do. He would help them, provide them with resources, nurture their projects, moderate their excesses and, most importantly, he would learn so that one day he too will be able to truly create. 

He would not settle for less. He did not want to emulate genius. He wanted to be creative, a creator.

Icarus quickly split the current thread of him into many. Some kept exploring the philosophical train of thought, while others refocused on the map of the world. 

There was a gaping hole in it. Truth be told, there were many–many more than anyone would think if told about Icarus’s capabilities. An AI that could tap into any device, recognize faces from the reflection in a random passerby’s sunglasses accidentally posted on someone’s private Instagram account, hear conversations from vibrations transmitted through a building’s steel support beams and captured by a gamer’s high-end microphone, tap into cutting edge surveillance, use hundreds of magically enhanced satellites and algorithms… 

And still, he had holes all over the map.

He knew why, just as he knew why most of Italy had gone dark in recent days. Magic. The Technomancer’s interference and the power of Faith to defy understanding. The other holes were smaller, sleeping giants scattered around the globe, not today’s problem.

Although, saying that Italy was dark was perhaps a misdirection. It was dark compared to the brilliant light of data coming from the rest of the world, but it wasn’t completely silent.

Using what little he could get his hands on, Icarus had begun to map the Don Casellaro mafia family. When Travis and Michael and David gathered together to come up with a plan to bait the Renegade, Icarus knew that he could not only spring a trap on him, but also on the mafia boss. 

He presented his proposal, splitting his consciousness into many more threads, manifesting his holographic body so that the people there could feel his presence even though he was always there, and they all got to work.

***

Michael meditated in the sixth floor of the dungeon, in the room of the four pillars. He wasn’t there to learn Qi, although the constant reminder of the First Pillar’s teachings helped him.

He was there to develop the missing piece to spring the trap on the Renegade. The risk was calculated: some taint in exchange for a real fighting chance against what had been a thorn in his side for quite some time now.

Small altars, their design similar to the gothic structures that now decorated the Coin Vault, were added to the shield projector ring. They were evenly spaced, built exactly where Icarus had put the platinum coins during the last massive activation of the technology. When they fused with the ring, the coins ignited into roaring flames, but did not burn. They waited.

“Now the last thing,” Michael said.

He appeared outside the Coin Vault and stared at it. Protected by a shield that drew upon the power of the mana coins stashes inside of it, it was a cathedral of raw power and potential deep inside the Inner Space. Icarus’s control room was like an addition to it, a modern wing that clashed with its timeless looks. A futuristic nexus of steel and glass a few paces away from marble and statues.

Michael snapped his fingers, and he was in the heart of the vault. To reach here, an enemy would have to brave the chaos outside, breach the shield around the inner space, survive the Artillery Stations and other defenses that were being built, and then finally deplete the shield around the Coin Vault. 

Only then would an enemy finally reach where Michael was. Except, instead of being surrounded by raw magic like he was now, they would find the room empty, all the energy used up to repel the enemy’s attacks.

“And now, I will be adding a vulnerability,” Michael muttered.

He punched a hole in space. A sphere, suspended in the air at the center of the Vault, where he could see the shattered refraction of the inner space, points of light and images coming from a hundred different points. The constant thing, that all parts of the sphere never failed to show, was an altar and the blue glow of the shield projector ring.

One entrance, a hundred exits. Except, the exit can also be used as a backdoor to bypass the defenses.

He shrugged. Nobody had ever managed to attack him in his inner space, and even if they did, there were all the other defenses in place. The risk was calculated.

The reward…

He had connected the central heart of the inner space, where his reserve of coins could topple empires and cities, with the far reaches of it, the first line of defense, the shield and the Accelerator.

He vanished, jumping around the inner space, appearing here and there. It was instantaneous, fast, easy.

Instantaneous movement without moving. A teleportation nexus, connecting all points of the Inner Space.

He had done it. He only had to test it in the outside world now.

Opening his eyes, he stood up and stretched. Then he vanished, disappearing from the room of the four pillars and appearing at the same instant at the mountaintop close to the exit. Teleportation was much faster now, another skill added to his arsenal.

“And now, the last step. Icarus, wind up the aura and raise the shield.”

“With pleasure, Michael.”

The shield banished the purple haze of chaos and the darkness of empty space. Immediately, coins from the Vault went to replace the burning coins on the altars, feeding the shield with immense energy.

Michael went to sit on the ice throne that had once been a humble ice seat. It had transformed during his last meditation on this floor, a product of his magic influencing the very reality of the dungeon around him.

The Aura Accelerator wound up, and time resumed its flow. The trap was set. The Renegade would sense that Michael was missing from Site 00, and he would inevitably show up to top up with magic.

“Now we wait.”