City of void

The elevator ride seemed to go on forever. As they moved deeper into the spire, the lighting changed - from brighter blues through deep purples, and finally into a dull orange-green glow that barely lit anything around the platform they were traveling on. Dustin shifted uneasily as they descended, checking his pulse carbine periodically until at last the lift arrived at their apparent stopping point.

A speaker embedded into the platform railing crackled into life as their downward motion ceased. “Arrived-travelled at the lowest level we have sent research-investigation parties. There are many floors below-down from this one, but they are even more of a hive-home for the building-nesters, so we have not yet wanted to risk-chance investigating them.” The voice of the Moa’thif representative was crackly through the device, the electrical storms that still battered the tower clearly causing some interference.

Reassuring their host that they would remain on this floor for the time being, Dustin readied his weapon and stepped forward. Beside him, Sammie did the same; the pair of humans leading the way out from the round and otherwise empty elevator chamber into the warren of passages beyond. Glass surrounded them, dimly lit by the flickering orange-green glow that seemed to pulse and shift from all angles. The combination of reflections and the eerie lighting gave Dustin the feeling of walking into some vast oceanic trench as they rounded the corner and lost sight of the elevator completely.

“Statement. Why would my species act in this way? I raised this issue during the briefing, but we could not find a conclusion.” Defia’s red eyes glowed brightly in the gloom, the rogue Fractal sweeping the passages in front of them for any hint of her fellow synthetic life.

Dustin shook his head as he moved to one side to allow the void-black woman to take point. “It’s not definitive that it is the Fractals. We know the Durathisians have been adapting Fractal tech. For all we know, they could be here and just be using Fractal writing because outside of humanity and our allies nobody’s got access to a translation for it. Hell, even our friends’ translations would still be rustier than yours, Defia. Or maybe they’ve repurposed Fractal drones, and are using your writing because that’s easier than reprogramming them would be. Either way, our first stop is that writing.”

They paced down the long corridors and through abandoned rooms; everywhere they went, signs of destruction were apparent. The building-nesters turned to grey dust in ****, mounds of the stuff piling up where it was spilling from cracks in the walls. Yril’k stalked forward, head twitching in the gloom. “Dustin’k, there are no signs’k of damage on the walls from the outside’k” she said at last, bending down to inspect yet another crack in the glass. “These’k dead creatures cracked their way out’k.”

The away party paused in the next room to contemplate that discovery. “So, whatever is going on down here, it’s not that they’re being prized out of their home and that’s causing them to die off. If they’re burrowing out… that sounds almost like they’re going haywire” Dustin mused, gazing at the nearest heap. “Sammie, have you got that scanner Bleu set up? Run it over one of those piles, see what it tells us.”

The pilot shouldered her weapon and flipped open the pouch at her hip, pulling out the medical scanner and pointing it in the direction of a particularly large mound of the dead dust. “Well, they’re definitely dead.” She said at last, poking the device’s controls. “Looks like the preliminary scan shows loss of life caused by… **** over-activity? That’d track with them cracking the walls to escape. Can’t get more from this - if we take a sample back to Bleu, or Meli maybe they could look at it? None of us are exactly scientists…”

Dustin nodded. “Go ahead. Defia - while she’s doing that, have you picked up anything?”

Turning, the rogue Fractal surveyed him with warm red eyes for a moment before shaking her head. “Statement. Nothing detected, Fractal or otherwise. However, the glass is heavily obscuring my sensors. I apologise for the inadequacy.”

Shaking his head in a mirror of her gesture, Dustin turned back to their onward path. “Don’t worry about it. Yell if you do feel anything - hopefully, if there are any Fractals or Fractal tech down here it’ll be just as confused by the building as you are. Though… if they can’t monitor each other because the walls are getting in the way, it’d go a long way to explaining why they decided to start writing on those walls, whoever they are.”

Sammie glanced up from where she was busily scooping dust into a collecting tube. “That both makes sense and also makes me edgy, Dustin. If there’s enough of those things - no offense Defia - but if there’s enough of them that they need to communicate via graffiti it means we could stumble on a nest at any point. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing by pressing on with just the four of us?”

Dustin nodded. “The four of us would be most of the combat power of any team I could put together, and we’re only going as far as the location of that writing today. I want Defia to be able to analyse it in person, and if there’s any trails we can follow them up - but otherwise we’ll head back to the ship and get Bleu to run some more tests on the dust. If we can at least figure out what’s causing them to die off - them going haywire or whatever - then we might be able to come up with a solution even if we can’t find who’s causing it.”

He paused, stepping over another pile and gesturing to the onwards passage. “Let’s keep moving. If we can get a handle on things, then hopefully the Moa’thif will then be willing to send a bunch of security to back us up while we sweep for actual Fractals down here.”

Defia moved hastily across to him to take up her leading position once more, and the four of them proceeded to continue on their winding route around the ancient heart of the spire. The map Meli had worked up based on long range scans, some data Emely had gathered and their eavesdropping on Moa’thif communications was holding up strong, and it wasn’t much longer before they rounded a corner to find they had arrived at their destination.

The rogue Fractal considered the writing etched in the glass wall for a moment, before reaching out a finger to trace one of the letters experimentally. “Statement. Writing caused by superheating the surrounding glass. Clean. No breaks. Fingertip work; hypothesis currently Fractal in origin. Unlikely to be other species, temperature range excessive for biological life.”

Dustin winced. Despite everything, he’d hoped the writing wasn’t Fractal, that it’d just been artifacts on the image caused by their intercepting messages where they’d not been the intended recipients. “Anything else you can tell us?” he asked as Defia slowly ran her fingertips over the rest of the writing.

“Statement. Writing illogically structured for Fractal communication. Suggest presence of third party. Probability based on known factors, Durathisian agents working in conjunction with Fractal technology or units. Addendum. Third symbol of each cluster is imperfectly formed. Indication of malfunctioning unit. Hold…” The woman’s head whipped around, the glow of her red eyes fading as she narrowed them and stared back the way they had come. “Statement. Magnetic discrepancy detected. Incorrect signal for known unit construction. Suggest caution.”

Dustin’s thumb flipped the safety on his pulse carbine instantly, his body running on autopilot and adrenaline as the weapon hummed into life. Beside him, the gently hiss of escaping air indicated that Yril’k had pressure-adjusted her suit ready to use her blade arms if needed, while from his other side Sammie’s weapon also whined into readiness.

Defia rolled her shoulders. “Detected signal is maintaining position. Statement. It is blocking our exit. Recommend we identify, destroy if required and return to the elevator rapidly.” Nobody present had any criticisms of that plan; things were rapidly spiralling out of the realms of what they could be reasonably expected to handle between the four of them. Following the rogue Fractal’s lead, the other three proceeded on soft feet back the way they had come.

The group had made it halfway to the elevator when they discovered what Defia had detected. It stood, staring blankly at the wall in the gloom - a pool of void made bipedal. Dustin frowned, ducking back around the corner to discuss the creature with the others. “It doesn’t look like any Fractal we’ve fought so far. Defia, thoughts?” He asked.

“Statement. It does not match any known Fractal design. Purpose and capabilities unknown… addendum. I detect significant densities of minerals within it’s form. This may be important.” The Fractal tilted her head one way and then the other before nodding to herself. “Statement. I believe the Fractal mass has a Moa’thif skeleton. Based on available evidence, it is not a true drone but a primitive automaton of reanimated Moa’thif biology.”

Sammie frowned. “So… it’s basically a Fractal zombie? We have zombies to worry about now?” It didn’t help Dustin’s nerves when Defia turned to the pilot, paused for a moment - and then nodded her head.