28

I tried to jump across the first gap but couldn't make my feet move. Above me, the stars seemed to start turning like the ledge I was standing on was swaying from side to side.

"Take a breath, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "It will get easier the more you do it."

"I doubt it," I said. "I've been dealing with this my entire life. There isn't much that scares me, but once I fall, I won't have any control over what happens."

"Yes, that is a problem." X-37 beeped a few times, indicating he was searching for a solution, which made me laugh. My limited artificial intelligence might seem heartless and uncaring, but he was trying to solve the problem of gravity so that I wouldn't be afraid of plummeting to my death.

"Check on Elise while I do this," I said, then jumped to the top of the first spire. It seemed like it was smaller than the others, requiring me to land with my feet very close together and my hands out for balance to keep from tipping over into the abyss. To make things worse, I didn't have any room to make a run at the next jump.

"Would you like me to release endorphins that will control your bladder?" X-37 said.

I started laughing, but it felt more like crying. "Do whatever, X. But if I had to choose, I would like to have my hands steady over dry pants."

I flung myself to the next ledge and landed on my hands and knees, looking over the edge of the spire into blackness. In the distance, I heard gunfire of an increasingly violent battle between Elise, Path, and our enemies.

"Perhaps I can do both. I'm attempting to regulate your hormones and adjust the sensory input of the mask to make this easier for you," X-37 said. "By way of update, Elise and Path are still alive. They seem to have greatly angered the Union commandos, however."

I climbed to my feet and jumped to the next spire before I could talk myself out of taking action. This one was wider and gave me more room to run before my next leap. Which was good, because the distance between spires was getting greater and greater.

"For the record, X, I find this really annoying. Why can’t I just fight a big monster or maze boss? Maybe solve a Randandoo Puzzle or something to prove my worth. Twisting an eighteen-sided puzzle to make each surface a uniform color didn’t seem that hard right now—not compared to my fear of heights. Did they build it this way on purpose as a security measure, or did some idiot think this would be funny?"

"Unknown," X-37 said too brightly. "You are nearly thirty percent across the spires. I should warn you that the available surface to land on becomes larger but rougher as you progress."

"Good to know." I felt like I was more than a third of the way across. X-37 did things like this sometimes, making things seem harder than they were so that I felt relieved when I finally succeeded. It was like somebody's kid programmed half of its artificial psychology.

"I think you can handle it from here, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "I'm going to resume my planning of our escape from the system and monitor Elise and Path. If you're interested, she has dropped two Union commandos and Path has killed eleven. They are very convinced a Reaper is toying with them."

"How many do they have left?" I asked, doing the math as a way to distract myself from the next jump.

"I forgot to tell you. The Union teams received reinforcements from the carrier,” X-37 admitted in a rush. "But how are you doing? Do you need help calculating your next leap across certain death?"

Was X trying to distract me from certain doom?

"No, I'm good. Get back to work and I'll let you know if I die," I said, then jumped three spires one after another, hoping that some momentum would get me through this before I had a nervous breakdown.

I would rather be in a sword fight with Uriah and three others like him than continue to jump across these windy gaps. The air had a way of grabbing me at exactly the wrong time and stripping away my confidence. Then, when I struck my landing zone, the impact felt even harder for being unexpected.

Reaching the other side almost came as a surprise, but suddenly I found myself on solid ground once more. The doors to the tech shrine loomed higher than I had anticipated. The strangeness of the terrain made getting a proper perspective difficult until you were close to your objective.

Something hissed at me. Seconds later, I saw three serpent-like things—long lizards with no legs or arms—emerging from the shadows, slithering through the air as they hunted me. I couldn't see the parts of them that were still on the ground and assumed they were very long and relatively thick, probably almost as solid as my right forearm.

“Fucking lizards! Not a fan of armless, legless lizards!” My voice went up higher than I would have liked as I realized they were all part of one creature.  “But after what I just went through, this is like actually a relief," I said, snapping out my blade and getting my act together.

The rest of the creature showed itself. I made a quick adjustment then turned and ran away. There wasn't a lot of space for me to evade the monster, but I needed time to think.

"You did say something like you'd rather fight some local creature than continue on the agility course," X-37 reminded me. "A quick check of Union and Deadland databases shows no match for whatever this thing is. It does look hungry, if that helps."

"It doesn't help!" Turning to face its charge, I retracted my blade and swung up my HDK. Firing the weapon would alert the Union of my presence and ruin everything Elise and Path had done to get me here.

There wasn't much of a choice. I opened fire on eight feet of slithering animal tentacles that were chasing me. Every three or four shots, I retreated a step. I reloaded two magazines before dropping the thing to the rock surface we stood on.

Each of the serpent-lizards had an eye above the mouth. I thought it looked blind—all milky and disgusting—but it had somehow chased me this far. "X, can you tell me if there are any more of these things?"

"I didn't detect the first one," X-37 said, halfway answering my question. "Two squads of the Union reinforcements have been deployed to investigate the gunfire."

There wasn't time, but I indulged myself with a view of Elise's camera. She was breathing heavily, shooting, moving, and reestablishing her cover just like I had taught her. I was actually surprised at how tactical her movements were.

Maybe she was a natural or just had a really great teacher. On-the-job training suited her well, apparently.

I couldn't determine exactly how much ammunition she had remaining, or if she was wounded. To see her clearly, I would need to look through Path’s camera and it didn’t appear they were near each other now, which was good. If they bunched close together, the Union would just drop a grenade on them.

With effort, I put aside thoughts of my friends and moved to the final portal in search of the secrets that haunted me.

Something hissed, filling the air with a dreadful sound I was too familiar with at the moment.

I stopped, turning slightly to see one of the rough passages opening near me. Above, bright stars cast down their light to create disturbing shadows on the monster.

This cluster of monster tentacles was twice the size of the first. Its bulbous head had writhing, fleshy tendrils, more horrible than anything I’d yet seen.

Every part of its surface was a writhing mass of vine-like organisms—with mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. It shambled forward, leaving a path of slimy venom behind it.

“What the—” I started to yell.

“Use a grenade!” X-37 shouted. “Do I have to throw it for you?”

“I wish you could!” I didn’t carry much ordnance like that, and it definitely wasn’t my go-to combat modality, but thankfully I’d packed a few in my kit. Retreating and angling away at the same time, I yanked a grenade from inside my coat and hurled it into the thing’s mouth.

Then I just ran, not caring which direction I was heading. As long as it was toward the center of the tech shrine complex, it had to be enough. Silence followed the explosion and I imagined the creature’s massive head being splattered across a canyon wall. I didn’t look back, focusing on running when all I wanted to do was stop and breathe.

I’d gone nearly fifty meters before the thing roared again, its voice distorted by the damage I’d caused it with the grenade. The fact that it wasn’t dead made me want to curse.

The monster wasn’t fast. I heard it screeching in pain and eventually lost it, nearly losing myself as well. A clean kill would have been better, but at least I’d slowed the thing down enough to escape.

Each time I approached my destination, I was forced back twice as far as I’d come. Everything on this planet was against me, from the wildlife to the terrain. Or that was what it felt like. The morning stars began to fade, creating a new level of darkness just before the dawn.

“You’re going to make it, Reaper Cain. My analysis of the maze shows you are definitely getting closer,” X-37 said.

“It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. This is like trying to take out a high interest loan,” I complained.

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