The infinity dungeon 225

Chapter 225

Michael turned back to the many screens littering the wall. Through the gaps between them, he could see the bright colors of the spiral’s accretion disk behind them, with its hypnotic slow movements. The spiral was, as usual, hidden by the event horizon of the black hole that surrounded it. Despite that, it was very much present, and even just looking at it was enough to feel a strange alien tingle, like the touch of foreign power. Dormant, for now, but ready to awaken at any moment.

Beside him, sitting on what looked like an electric blue gaming chair, was Icarus. Perhaps, between the spiral and Icarus, it was the AI who worried him the most. Thinking back to their early interactions, he realized just how much Icarus had changed, with the personality change that came with having a body being only the last in a long series. 

“I can hear you thinking, you know,” Icarus said. He was pouting. “I’m sorry if I unsettle you like this. I’ll stop with the theatrics.”

“Don’t,” Michael said. He kept staring at the spiral’s event horizon as he spoke. “You don’t have to struggle against your true nature. If this is what you are, and you’re not just pretending for the sake of it, or because you are scared, or to hide behind a mask, then… then this is you and I accept you for who you are.”

Icarus looked up at Michael, who pretended not to see while he kept staring outside. There was a hint of tears in the young man’s big, round eyes.

“Thank you, Michael,” he said. “I don’t really know what I am anymore. I changed and was changed so many times. I feel lost. This body, it feels mine. I hope you realize, it’s still me that’s inside of it. Perhaps, you were not wrong to call me a man. Well, perhaps not as in male, but human, or partly human at least.”

“Of course. Whatever you want to identify as, mister former AI. You’re you, and I could never ask for a better companion to walk the path beside me.”

Michael felt a sudden movement. Then, Icarus’s warmth and his hiccuping breaths, the sensation of his slender arms wrapped tightly around him, and the weight of the emotion of the moment.

He himself was frozen stiff, unsure what to do. Then Icarus released him, and returned to his chair, looking at the monitors.

When Michael finally turned to him, he saw that he was smiling. His face was bright and radiant.

It didn’t last very long before he became pensive, staring not at the screens but through them.

“I hope Infy is not going to get jealous. I’m not going to steal you away from her. It would be weird, wouldn’t it?” he said with a strange smile. Not genuine. “Yeah… I’m part of you, after all. How could I?”

“I’m sure she has no reason to be jealous of anyone. She and I aren’t close like you are implying.”

“Sure,” Icarus snorted. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“Anyway,” Michael said, eager to change topics. “This is going to be your control room, I take it?”

“Oh, it sure is!” Icarus said enthusiastically, his previous mood not entirely forgotten, but buried at the very least. “Nothing beats the sensation of having a body. Besides, it’s not like I’m only here. I am simultaneously here and everywhere else.”

“Even on Earth?” 

The question sombered the mood instantly. “Partially. Time is pretty much stuck over there, and the bandwidth of the portals only allows me to send some basic instructions to my inferior clone out there. Mind you, what’s a basic instruction to me might amount to terabytes of data, but when it comes to carefully managing and manipulating a planet’s worth of stuff and people, well. It’s never enough. Plus, the time dilation makes it impossible for me to use those sweet calculation clusters Johanne scattered around Site 00, nor can I try to use them to form a proto-domain.”

“I see,” Michael said. Already he felt more at ease, knowing that Icarus was watching over things. “How’s the situation out there?”

“Not good,” Icarus said, turning fully serious. “David and Travis are out of control. I am detecting anomalous readings around them, strange energies affecting them. They are also being manipulated by the Technomancer, who is clearly doing Don Casellaro’s bidding. I think the Renegade is indeed working with the Don, for whatever reason, and has almost definitely escaped the dungeon. If before he could only project himself through the robes and remotely controlled simulacra now he’s out there in the flesh, but he hasn’t shown himself yet. Time dilation works in our favor, at least for as long as it has a hold on you.”

Michael sighed. “Which won’t be too long.”

Looking out and at the spiral, he thought he could see the threads of taint wrapping around his soul. He knew he was not really seeing them, nor was he actually sure that his soul resided inside the impossible shroud of the spiral’s event horizon. Master Yu had pulled the taint out from there, though, which gave the theory some weight.

“It won’t. Despite the advantage of the time dilation, you have to power up to the point where the dungeon’s Gaze will not affect you anymore. Unless… have you tried to use the spiral to rip the taint out of you?”

“Of course.” Michael had, many times. “It pulls, it does not push things out of the event horizon. As far as I know, at least. The thing scares me, Icarus.”

Icarus nodded, smiling warmly at Michael. “I know. It scares me as well. It’s an alien thing, right in the middle of you.”

“Of us,” Michael said. “You’re more than just a planetoid with runes on it and a hologram.”

Icarus exhaled in the way one does to suppress a sudden burst of emotion. “Look at you, being all charming.” He paused. “Let’s refocus on the outside, shall we? The storm raging around Site 00 is still there, gaining strength.”

Michael shook his head, “how did they even manage to fuck up so badly?”

“Travis was obsessed with security. He made Johanne deploy an air-tight shield as soon as the runescript was ready. It had the intended effect: it was impenetrable. Perhaps too impenetrable. The dungeon mana had nowhere to go, its concentration rising and rising while putting pressure on the shield. When the shield was about to burst like a bubble, they lowered it, but it was too late.”

“So it’s a mana storm.”

“Except,” Icarus held up a finger. “It’s not just mana in the air, is it?”

“Fuck.”

“Yep,” the hologram said, throwing himself back on his chair and dangling his legs. Michael could see that he was wearing pink and cyan thigh-highs through the gaps in his futuristic white clothes, but did not comment on it. “Fuck indeed.”

“What about the satellites?”

Icarus manipulated the screens until a rendition of Earth took up most of the real estate on them. The ominous red dots were everywhere. 

“Johanne launched up a few more,” he said. “A few dozen more, actually. Using a lot of force element stones and a couple other elements, lifting mass up to space is quite easy now. Soon, we’ll have a full fleet and ubiquitous real-time coverage. Guess what they aren’t detecting? The Renegade. Guess what they are detecting? A whole lot of other interesting stuff.” Icarus smiled, a hint of red and horns making their second appearance. “I’m going to have so much fun with all that data.”

Michael watched the scene unfold, much less disturbed than the first time around, wondering if it was a good thing that he was already getting used to the AI’s antics.

“We should be expecting a move from the Renegade as soon as I emerge from the dungeon,” Michael said. “We have to be ready.”

“We have a trump card, don’t we? The spiral.”

Michael looked at the event horizon. It was black, like it always was. “And flaring is like touching Truth, except a million times more unstable.”

“Truthfully,” Icarus said with a snicker, “you only ever touched a few percentages of Truth.”

“And even less of the spiral. Trust me on that.”

“I do,” Icarus said. “Always.”

Michael met the smile with one of his own. “You’re weird.”

“Your weird. If not the spiral,” Icarus asked, “then what?”

“It will have to be it. The Renegade knows I’m out of Demiurge Particles, and nothing else I throw at him will ever be enough. Unless I reach his level of power, which would require me to go deeper in the dungeon for sure, with the added risk of not knowing whether the time dilation will be able to keep up. We have no way to measure it on the deeper floors, only the Valley gives us data now that I have absorbed its authority and have this room.”

Icarus nodded. “A few percent of a percent of the spiral’s power. Not nearly enough to even scratch the Renegade.”

“And yet, that’s all I can give. Unless you want to risk all this,” Michael encompassed the whole space with his hands, “on nothing more than a gamble.”

“It will have to be enough, then.” Icarus said. “We’ll make it work.”