EA-LEC - Mission 3 TEXT

Exercitus Artifex
Mission 3 – Mirror Maze

The light of midday had begun to encroach on Tangent's reading surface, signaling to him the extended length of time he'd been occupied there. He'd woken from his recharge cycle at dawn. A few hours were nothing to him when caught up in a book, but it was quite a bit of time not to have heard from his brother. Generally Secant and the girl rose together and shared morning activities before greeting himself, but the latter had left early for reasons unknown. Secant was likely still resting without his caretaker's influence to wake him.

Strange, thought Tangent as he idled quietly above his desk. There was no apparent reason for the girl's early departure; none that would require her to leave at an early hour, at least. He found it very strange. A suspicious sort of strange. Perhaps she...

He was interrupted mid-thought as the front door swung open and in strode said girl.

"The Highways are too far away from Belcazzar, so I think I'll stick with this map," Adelle muttered. Tangent looked up to see her examining a large sheet of paper. In her other arm was a bundle of rolled sheets. She pushed the door closed with her hip and took a few more paces into the living space, stopping to concentrate. Tangent glowered. She failed to notice.

"Planning a stroll?" Tangent asked, rolling the 'R' to gain the girl's attention. She started from her stupor. "With as long as you were gone I'd assumed you'd already been on one."

"No, actually, I wasn't," Adelle said, furrowing her brow as she set her rolled sheets near the door. Tangent kept his optic trained on her, narrowed with distrust. She ignored it. "Where's Secant?"

"In the back, I'd imagine. I haven't checked." Tangent flipped a page in his text with more emphasis than was necessary. "Visiting that boorish bartender then?" he asked. Adelle huffed.

"Ryan isn't boorish, Tangent. He's more cultured than you are. He's lived long enough to be, the poor guy. And for your information I wasn't with him either."

"I never said he was culturally inept. I said he was ill-mannered," Tangent replied crossly. The teal drone was at his wit's end. He abandoned his indirect interrogation method and crossed his arms. "If you were neither on a walk nor visiting Mr. Grand, what was your occupation?"

Adelle frowned then, apparently caught at an impasse. She visibly hesitated. Tangent placed his paws at his sides while waiting for an explanation. She wilted a little. Right as she was about to break, though, Secant fluttered in from the bedroom with a drained whirr. Adelle smiled at the distraction.

"Good morning, sleepy Secant. Were you resting the whole time I was gone?" she asked as she bent over to look the drone in the optic. Secant chirped an acknowledgement and floated closer to her, allowing her to stroke his back a bit. Tangent clenched his paws and uttered a raucous growl.

"Yet again you fail answer my question in a timely fashion," Tangent snapped. Secant trilled inquisitively and tilted his antennae back, exchanging fleeting glances between the two of them. Adelle sighed and stood again.

"I was out buying maps of the area, if you must know."

"I can see that. What for?"

"W-Well, I was thinking it might do the three of us good for a change of pace. I'm looking for a new apartment to rent."

That was a bit of a shocker. More than a bit of one, actually. Tangent floated, optic widened, for a few moments before narrowing them again in disbelief.

"And where do you expect to glean the money to acquire a lease? For the past year you've hardly taken in enough to keep this small place in the Heroes' Hideout."

She grimaced at him, but answered.

"I...came into a bit of cash recently, and my business is starting to take off now that people recognize my name from news coverage of that soul-swapping experience."  She shuddered slightly. Secant noticed it and pawed at her, but she shrugged him off. Her gaze remained fixed on Tangent. "Come on, Tangent. Could we not argue about something for once? It would make me really happy."

"Fine," he replied with intense dissatisfaction. She accepted it anyway.

"Good. Thank you. I'll be back later with a list of places to choose from." She trotted past the two drones and grabbed a notebook and some writing utensils from her work desk.  Tangent trailed her as she headed back for the door.

"You're leaving to look right now? It's midday. You won't have long to visit prospective homes before nightfall."

"I'll be all right. I have maps, remember?" She grabbed her discarded sheets by the door once more—Tangent identified them as alternate maps of the area—and pulled the door open. "It's summer, anyway. The light hours are longer." Tangent scoffed behind her.

"You with a map is like a blind man with a torch. I'll accompany you as you'll undoubtedly lose your place in the city." He floated out the door past her, or at least tried to do so. As soon as he made the gesture she pushed him back into the house with her free hand.

"Ohh, no, you won't. I don't want you flying in while I'm discussing rent prices and getting us kicked out with your attitude. Stay here and keep Secant's company." She motioned toward the other drone. Tangent exchanged a fleeting glance with Secant before glaring at the girl. He was about to pipe up with a protest when she abruptly closed the door on him.

"Don't let him get into any trouble while I'm gone, Secant," Adelle shouted from the other side of the outer wall. Secant nodded with a chirp. His response was the sound of footsteps departing.  The teal drone grumbled something incoherent.

----------------------------------------

"This place looked awesome, but I don't know if I can manage the rent. Too bad."

Adelle crossed yet another building off her maps. Three circles remained on the sheet of paper compared to the seven that had been there earlier.

She frowned and scratched the side of her head with a pencil. There hadn't been as many places to choose from as she'd hoped. "This other one wasn't so horrible if you can stand the heat in the middle of the day." It seemed like all the fairly prices places were like that. "I guess I'd just have to change my wardrobe more often to compensate."

A slight wind picked up and blew Adelle's hair over her shoulders. She turned from it, shivering. "Hmph. It's getting a little colder now that I think about it." The sun was at her back, already half concealed by the horizon. In her concentration-induced daze she hadn't noticed the time. "Great. If I don't make it home by dark, I'll hear about it from Tangent until the end of tomorrow."

She reached out to the darkened street for guidance, but none of the corners were labeled in this part of town. "Convenient," she said, rolling up the maps and setting her arms akimbo. Actually, now that she thought of it, there wasn't a single person around either. A scowl crossed her face. "Strange. Even for residential areas, I'd have thought Belcazzar would have more people out around this time of night."

With a restless mind, Adelle came to the decision that she'd have to find a place to stay instead. Assuming she could find one open still, that is. She started down the street, hoping to either find her bearings amid the shadows or a hotel to spend the night at. A few paces down her new path, though, she felt a cool air current brush past her. It was a cool air current in a different direction from the rest of the wind.

"Is someone there?" She spun around. Nothing had changed behind her. No one was there. And yet the air current could not have come from nowhere...

Adelle sighed to calm herself. This was getting stranger and stranger by the minute. Perhaps Elarthe had some funky, low-blowing jet streams or something? In any case, she didn't have time to think about it. She turned and continued on her previous path. Another wayward air current struck her.

She shivered again, this time in fright. Her grip on the map tightened. She paused her pace and stood. "I'm psyching myself out. I'm sure it's nothing," she said, willing herself to feel it was true. Even so, she looked behind once more. Still nothing had changed. She smiled a nervous smile. Finally content with the concept that her own nerves were jolting her, she turned to continue forward and saw the black mass.

A few residents of the area poked their heads out from their bedroom windows at the wayward scream, but there was no present danger to be seen. They chocked it up to old myths or occult activity and went back to sleep. It was none of their business.

---------------------------------

Hours had passed since Adelle's departure, or so assumed the small, black drone, Secant. He'd already watered all of his plants, reset Adelle's alarm clock to wake her at a more reasonable hour, repaired the broken oven timer and finished his beloved Rubik's cube puzzle forty-seven times. He fiddled idly with it again, whirring something akin to a bored sigh. The pieces slid back to their original positions with a slight grinding noise. Make that forty-eight times. He set the worn cube on the kitchen counter.

«Tangent?» Secant trilled in machine code just loud enough to be heard all through the living space. The teal drone didn't answer. Secant rounded the kitchen door frame with antennae drooped back. His doppelganger was floating above his favorite reading table by the window, silhouetted by the light from the sun. It was a common scene to see there, but not while the sky was turning red. Secant suppressed a shudder and trilled more urgently this time. «Tangent?»

"What is it, Secant?" Tangent demanded, throwing a sheet of newspaper to the table gruffly. Secant started. Tangent only shouted at him in plain English when Adelle had ordered such or he had been very deep in his reading material. "I was in the middle of today's current events section. State your need."

«What time is it?» the black drone murmured quietly so as not to aggravate his fellow drone. Tangent picked up on his submissive tone and sighed.

«Why are you asking me? Can't you check your own chronometer?» Tangent narrowed his optic at the other. Secant hovered wordlessly. After a few moments of no response, Tangent's optic brightened. «Your chronometer is damaged. I'd forgotten. No wonder you recharged until so late in the day.» Secant nodded.

Another quiet moment passed. Tangent narrowed his optic at his brother again, this time in concern. «What's the sudden interest in time for?»

«Adelle hasn't come back yet and it's getting dark.»

«Ohh, for heaven's sake. The girl again...» Tangent snarled. Secant drew away from him. «What do you want me to do about it, Secant? Form a search party? I warned her of the time when she left, but she's obviously ignored my words. Again. She's probably off eloping with that...that...I've run out of insults for him. Ryan Grand.» Tangent waved a paw dramatically at the man's name. «I'd be perfectly happy to have her out of my life if she weren't the only thing between us and an untimely destruction, I tell you. How dare she abandon us like this! I ought to...»

Secant tuned out the rest of his teal brother's rant. Tightness had been forming in his core processor for the past few hours, and Adelle's ever increasing lateness was causing it to becoming stronger and stronger. The idea that she was out past dark made it too noticeable for comfort. The notion that she'd left them on their lonesome for someone else...

I-it was unbearable.

Secant crooned painfully, clutching at his outer shell. She wouldn't leave them. She was more responsible than this. She cared for them...f-for him. She was just lost. He had to find her.

«--cant...Secant, snap out of it,» Tangent murmured, shaking the black drone. Secant flinched. A startled chirp escaped him.

«Were you hallucinating again?»

«N-No.» Secant shook his head and pushed Tangent's paw from his shoulder. Tangent politely drew away to give the black drone more space, but an intense and concerned gaze remained on his optic. It was then that Secant noticed himself trembling. «W-What if Adelle is lost? Or hurt? We can't leave her out there alone.» The pain and tightness was subsiding, but that was hardly an endearing sentiment.

«So you do want us to form a search party.» Tangent stated, then placed a paw over his shuttered optic and mumbled something Secant probably didn't want to hear. He paused in his lament to continue. «Persons are not considered 'missing' by law enforcement for up to twenty-four hours, and I don't particularly trust any of the ne'er-do-wells down in the tavern area to help us search. Unless I'm forgetting someone, which I am not prone to doing, I assume you're insinuating we search alone.»

A simple «please?» was all Secant could manage, and it surprised him that that was all it took to break Tangent's stronghold of a will. The teal one's stance softened.

«...Just for an hour or so. No more,» he replied. Secant gleefully trilled a thousand thanks and rushed forward, embracing him. Tangent went rigid.

«Secant,» he said, sounding rather stilted. Secant chirped in question. Tangent grumbled, «Let go of me.»

The black drone released him with a flurry of apologies and proceeded to poke his claws together in embarrassment. Tangent placed a paw on his temple.

«Just go already.»

They both went out in silence, Tangent following Secant's lead. Not long after the two set out did they meet their fates. An amorphous shadow, a gust of wind and each other's cries were all that accompanied them into the abyss of forced stasis.

--------------------------

Adelle woke to nothingness. Actually, for a few moments she wasn't even sure that she had awoken. It was that dark.

Darkness. Darkness surrounded. She was completely surrounded by what was utterly without light or color. Adelle sputtered, practically choking on it. Not even the depths of space were without specks of something emitted or reflected from distant objects. There was nothing here.

"Hello?" she called out, hoping someone would arrive to knock some sense back into her. Her throat felt raspy. Perhaps she'd been mugged on the street and had gone blind. She really hoped that weren't the case. Actually, if that were the case, shouldn't she still have been able to feel the ground beneath her? Hear the wind rustling her papers? There was neither sound nor feeling either. This place was the absence of sensation.

... Absence of sensation? How was that even possible? She was conscious of it, wasn't she? How could one be fully conscious but unable to sense things? Or was she conscious? Had she fallen into a coma as a result of her attack? In one spastic motion, she groped for her own clothing to make sure she herself was there. Invisible hands met cloth. A shaky breath escaped her. She was tangible. It was the world that wasn't.

In her mad attempt to move she'd caught sight of a glint in the distance.  She delightedly crooned. How was she to approach it, though? As if by will, the very thought of it caused her to experience a sensation of movement in space. The shining object grew larger, and as she approached she distinguished it to be a large cluster of glass panes.

"Glass?" she asked. "In the middle of nowhere?" That's what it appeared to be from the naked eye. But why was it reflective? Not even she was giving off any reflection of light. Odd.

She was but a few hundred meters away from the glass when the panes tilted and reoriented themselves to face her height-wise. Her dangling feet touched down on a solid plane that seemed to stretch out from the bottoms of them. From here she could see herself reflected in the few that were pointed her direction. "Mirrors," she corrected herself. Backlit mirrors.

"...All right. I can ignore the blatant disregard for the laws of physics for now. This is just whacked."

She walked forward and back, then side to side. Her reflections did the same. Yes. This proved they were reflections. Behind her in the image, though, was an evenly lit white space bright enough to cast light on her from outside the mirror.

"This is too wild."

Quickly bored by the reflections, Adelle began to pace. She wondered what in the world this all meant. "I realize this is magic, but what use is a black space with funky mirrors?" It was all well and good on its own, but there were always reasons for things to exist. This felt like an elaborate mousetrap, and she was the mouse. She didn't like being the mouse.

After pacing some distance around the mirrors, she came upon a small picket sign. At first, foreign symbols were lined up in a pattern on it. As soon as she came close enough to inspect them, though, they morphed into something she could read.

To all those who wander here
To all those who darkness fear
Find the light at the end of the maze
Or never again experience the day...

She mouthed the words a few times more. A mirror maze? Looking up, she noticed an empty space in the wall about the size of one of the panes. That must have been the entrance it was talking about. She drew in a breath and sighed heavily. This was definitely a trap. There was no doubt about it. However, what choice did she have but to walk into it if she wanted to escape this emptiness? This was one of those risks she was going to have to take to move forward.

Her footsteps echoed in the halls as she entered the labyrinth.

------------------------------

Tangent stared down the sign with a quizzical optic. A maze floating in the middle of nothingness whose end is the only way out? Honestly. He'd seen more original distractions from silly computer viruses with only half a mind. If whoever was hacking him was trying to trick him into believing this was real, they were going to have to do better.

The teal drone sighed. How did he land himself in these positions? This had all started with that infernal girl again, hadn't it? Everything seemed to. Perhaps half of this could be attributed to internal problems, though. His optical systems must have failed him at the moment he'd been attacked, for all he'd seen was a dark shape enshrouding him before emergency stasis. Curse the antiquity of his parts.

Tangent narrowed his optic. Hardware malfunctions aside, that didn't explain how he had arrived in this dark plain. Perhaps he could have assumed his optic was still failing him, but these mirrors proved that answer wrong. He did a scan for damage. All systems gave him back the green light. He grumbled. Either his attacker was changing signals he was receiving from his real body, or he was truly undamaged. In either case, this solved nothing.

"I suppose you want me to enter?" he asked loudly, hoping to pry out a response from his captor. His best bet would be to taunt until his foe gave up vital information. Not a word was returned, though. He growled again. This would be harder than he'd thought. Best plan out of the question, he moved to the second best: traversing the maze.

He floated in, rather disgusted at the reflection of his own visage in the mirrors. He hadn't looked in a mirror in years, not even in his previous home in a library. The teal paint on his body had faded a bit with time, but not as much as he would have imagined.

He grunted. This was a useless train of thought. His visage was unimportant to him. It hadn't been in years.

Turning a corner, he came optic to optic with a familiar face. It wouldn't have been surprising in a mirror maze if it had been his own. It wasn't.

Tetsu Akimoto; Black hair, green eyes, semi-light complexion. Her hair was pulled back in a bun with a few stray strands forming curls at the sides of her face. A lab coat obscured most of her figure, but the teal of her shirt and maroon of cargo pants showed through the front folds. The reflection standing before him was a perfect recreation of her, right down to the slight smile and the thinly rimmed glasses set before eyes he'd known so well...

They were eyes of his mother.

"You're hilarious," Tangent hollered at thin air. "Digging into my memories like this to look for a hole in my defenses. It's rude to invade another's privacy, I hope you know. When I find away to rid my system of you, believe you me I'll find a way to return the favor."

Still no response was given. He growled at the projection, simultaneously lamenting his fortune and taunting the hacker for only being able to produce a flat image of her from his memory bank. He sneered at the image before spinning to face a different path. As he did so, though, he could have sworn he saw her expression fall.

"Tantalus."

His CPU froze and so did he.

------------------------------

Fire. Sparks. Wailing. Splintered metal. Seared flesh. Blood. Battery acid. Death. This was all Secant could see around himself.

He flew. He flew like he had never flown before. No. Wait. He had flown like this before. Once.

A metallic shriek was emitted from one of the walls and he fled from it. The voices screeching in pain sounded familiar but he didn't know why. All he knew -- no, remembered -- was that if he didn't escape as soon as possible he'd share their fate. Something in his data banks told him he already had.

He came to a T-shaped intersection and floundered. Images of explosions and laser fire appeared on the walls around him. His body tensed up and processor reeled. Which direction was the exit? Which way lead to safety? In desperation, Secant called up his logic circuits for guidance. A map was called up with them.  He couldn't recall where he'd obtained a map of the maze from, but he didn't question it. Off to the left he flew. Off to a dead end.

A silhouette of the familiar Theta-bot structure emerged from one of the walls of fire before Secant. Relief spread through his systems. A friend was there to save him.

«S.E.C. model number forty-two,» the silhouette chirped, and instantly Secant realized this figure was no friend. That voice belonged to the force behind this destruction; it belonged to an administration unit. He'd forgotten all about them.

«Why are you not following your commands? Are you in error?»

«N-No,» he answered quickly, hoping to get away before he was commanded to do something drastic. «I was just lost is all.»

«Liar! I can read it in your mind! Do as I say or I'll end you myself!» The figure lifted a claw like it was about to swipe for Secant's optic. Secant recoiled away before noticing it hadn't. It flicked its antennae a few times and Secant caught signal feedback from commands issued to other models. More figures appeared around him. The admin unit brought its paw down to point at him.

«Get him.»

Secant  fled shrieking from the scene.

------------------------------

With one hand constantly grazing the left wall, Adelle walked corridor after corridor of the white-walled maze in search for the end. She'd heard of the concept some time ago; unless a maze was unsolvable hugging one of the walls would bring the solver to the end faster than blindly running around would. She mentally praised herself for the stroke of genius and soldiered on. She was not at all prepared for what she was about to hear reverberating the walls of the place.

"Miss, it would do me great pleasure to kill you here and now…"

Every muscle in Adelle's body seized. The sudden palpitations of her heart did not cover how disturbingly the voice echoed on the walls. She knew that voice. She hated it. She feared it.

It was K. This was all starting to make sense.

"You're not very good at this hiding thing, are you?"

She gasped. That last invitation he'd sent her had been a warning. He knew where she lived. He knew what she did for that living. The only reason she could imagine he'd had against ending her earlier would have been the league's rules. He'd said he owned half the thing, for goodness' sake. The other shareholders would probably have taken his portion away if they'd found out he'd killed a competitor. Instead, he'd turned her into a nervous wreck. He'd made her run, and when she finally had, he'd gone in for the kill. No one would find her.

A shadow crept up behind her and she caught it out of the corner of her eye. When she leapt away from it in fright, his laughter filled the hall.

"You're so much easier to kill this way…"

She screamed at him, "Would you kindly shut up?" Another shadow appeared in the mirror beside her and she punched at it. Cracks appeared where her fist had been, spreading from the epicenter out to the edges of the pane. She hardly even noticed that her knuckle had begun to bleed.

"So barbaric, Miss Odell. I don't suppose you intended to hit me with that flying fist. It wouldn't have been in your best interest," said K, or, more aptly, said K's. With the exception of the new fragmented pane, a reflection of the man appeared in every mirror around her. Even the ones reflecting her own visage had a copy of him hanging behind her. She must have made one heck of a mortified expression then because his reflections grinned with sadistic glee.

"Surprised?" he asked, languid. He placed an arm around the shoulder of her reflection in the nearest unbroken mirror. She bared her teeth.

"Stop toying with me, you prick! Show yourself—your real self—so I can come over there and wipe that smirk off your face."

K's expression flashed resentment for an instant before returning to the coy look he'd had before. "Ohh, I'll gladly show you something, my dear, but perhaps not what you'd had in mind." He paused to chuckle a moment, continuing, "Actually, it's exactly what you had in mind." He vanished from the walls as quickly as he'd appeared. Adelle flinched.

In K's place on the mirrors sprang familiar scenes. The girl gaped. They were her memories…

"Hah! You'll have to do much better than that if you think you can take me!"

This mirror showed her first encounter with K. Even with Ryan's body, she had been no match. Her choking in his voice sounded foreign now, but the memory had been burned into her mind just as the smoke had burned her lungs. She turned away from it, hoping for another memory as sanctuary.

"You! You brought another one! I'll skin you alive!"
"I'll catch him! I promise! I'll catch him! Just don't eat me!"

The one was of her encounter with Urbright, the great golden dragon. Seeing the towering beast's massive body writhe in fury had been one of the most terrifying things she'd ever experienced. Compared to this situation, though, it was nothing. Seeing her fates repeated...knowing something more terrible than any of her past experiences was probably going to happen to her was far worse than that had been. She held her breath to stave off sobs, but it was futile. Her eyes watered. She backed up to the broken mirror and leaned against it for support. Why was he doing this to her?

K must have appeared nearby, for his voice was right in her ear as he said, "Why, I've done nothing, dear. You've fantasized all this. These were just the ones that actually happened. You've imagined more in your spare time."

He was right, and he brought those fleeting thoughts up in turn. They were things she'd imagined in the quiet hours of the day, when no one was around to distract her. Some had been nightmares powerful enough to wake Secant in the middle of the night with her tossing and turning.

"You have quite the imagination. I wonder which of these methods I'll actually use. They're all such good ideas."

She screamed a magnificently blood curdling scream and fell to the floor, sobbing.

------------------------------

Secant felt his entire frame shaking like a leaf in a storm, but he was not concentrated on that fact. Neither was he concentrated on the face that he was huddled in a corner shielding his optic from the jarring scene around him. He'd given up on escaping some time ago. Waiting whatever the danger was out seemed like the best plan, but it sure was taking a long time. He had an awkward feeling that he wasn't supposed to have lasted this long, and that feeling was pulling at his consciousness. He felt weaker that he had in ages; not even the times his internal battery had been low felt like this. If the situation around him didn't pass soon, he didn't think he'd last outlast it.

He didn't have the energy to care.



From the walls of the maze behind Secant the silhouette reemerged. Secant was, as that point, oblivious to all but his own dreary thoughts. His higher processes were beginning to shut down and it showed in his lack of attention. He would fall to stasis soon and lose power. His life-force had to be taken now.

The shadowed Theta model outstretched its paws in what would take the repair-bot from his misery. Misty claws emerged from the flat space and wrapped around Secant. A single, fatal embrace and the life would belong to it…



A scream pierced the senseless cacophony of noise around them. Secant's antennae shot up at the sound. This one was different from the rest. It was Adelle's voice.

Newfound energy and purpose coursed through Secant's small frame and he rose from the ground, determined to find the source. A thin cloud that had been forming around him dispersed with a hiss, but he didn't pay it any heed. He rushed off down the halls in the general direction of the noise and never looked back.

If he had looked back, though, he'd have noticed the shadow recoiling in its two-dimensional space. It continued to hiss, frustrated with its near miss of its catch. The shape transformed on the wall, growling from the small, cylindrical form into something rather snakelike...

------------------------------

Scenes from Tangent's earlier days played on the mirrors around him. They were scenes from better days. Better times. Times when he could have said he still lo...

He shook the thought from his processor. She never felt the same, and he was naïve for even considering it. She was just his caretaker. And yet...

"Why were dragons prevalent as enemies of humanity in romantic literature, Dr. Akimoto?" his young self asked in one of the images. The doctor giggled and scratched the side of her head. Her hair bounced as it was stirred.

"I honestly have no idea, Tantalus. I've never looked into it. You could if you wanted to, though," she replied, much to his younger self's confusion. This time had been one of the few instances he'd inquired about something she knew little about. Despite knowing her limitations as a human, he'd still imagined she'd known everything there was to know. How simply he had seen the world back then.

"O-Ohh," he'd stuttered. At the time logic errors were still a very startling thing for his systems to overcome. In time he had learned to let them go as facts of life. "I don't mean to ask you things so trivial, Doctor."

The real Tangent crossed his arms as Akimoto smiled and offered her hand to the screen. His younger self reached into the shot and gently took hold of it.

"There's nothing trivial about what you've asked. There are no stupid questions, and yours are usually very pointed and informed. I just don't happen to know anything about that subject is all. I can't know everything."

"That's what I was built for, correct?"

The video playback faded as Tetsu's expression had changed. He recalled it without the assistance of the screen. She'd pitied him, but at the time he'd interpreted it as confirmation.

"Do you want this back, Tantalus?" her clone asked nearby. He avoided its eyes and hesitated.

Tangent had hesitated. There was only one answer he could reply with, but still he'd hesitated. He forced a scowl and pretended that he meant it. This was all a trick anyway. A distraction.

"No. That time is gone. You made me leave." He forced himself to remember the remorse he'd felt when she'd alienated him. That made it easier to resist her.

"Then do you want to forget me?"

"I don't want to forget anything."

Tetsu's face screwed up then in a mixture of sadistic pleasure and curiosity. Tangent glanced in her image's direction and recoiled. He'd never seen her so villainous.

"Is that what you most fear?" she asked. He realized his mistake and steeled himself, trying to throw off suspicion. Yes, that was his greatest terror. Memory loss. Apparently he hadn't done a good enough job of hiding it, because Tetsu laughed suddenly.

"I can make that a reality, Tantalus. I can make you suffer again," she said and then faded from view. Tangent turned around. All the mirrors began fading to black. Deathly realization dawned on him; the hacker was trying to wipe his memory core. He had to escape now!

He fled from the blackened mirrors as fast as his anti-grav propulsion system would take him.

------------------------------

Adelle inhaled awkwardly, caught between choking and sobbing. K was probably laughing at her, but she'd covered her ears. All she could hear now was her own labored breathing.

She cautiously opened and eye and regretted it. The hellish nightmare hadn't ended. She was still on the floor of the maze, trapped in the dark parts if her own imagination. She was trapped in her own head whether she accepted her surroundings or not.

This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen to her. She was a nice person, right? There was a reason this kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen. What was it, though? Ohh, wait. She remembered why. Ryan was why. He said he'd be there to protect her from these sorts of things. Where was he?

Actually, hadn't he caused all this? Zebith had been his friend, and had become his enemy. The only relation she had to the guy was through Ryan. If she hadn't met him, she wouldn't be in this situation. This was his fault and she was going to hate him for it until her rapidly approaching final breath—No. She was lying to herself. This wasn't all Ryan's doing. If she hadn't met him, she'd still be alone and powerless in Elarthe, though perhaps K would have paid her no mind. Until he got around to killing everyone, that is. It was her own fault that she knew about K, too; she'd practically pried the information out of Ryan.

Augh, she was tired of this. All this...fear. It was sickening. What a way to go, all caught up in misery and unable to fight. She should have at least tried. Hadn't she said she would have done that once?

A small, previously insignificant memory came to her mind and offered respite from her rapid and belligerent thoughts.

~~~

"En guard!" Adelle shouted, lifting up a long strut she'd just found in the junk pile and pointing it at her younger cousin, Toei. Toei recoiled with a small cry and almost tripped backwards over a broken microwave oven.

"What was that for?" Toei asked, brushing the long hair back that had fallen in her face when she'd saved herself from a fall. Adelle grinned and maneuvered the strut in a small figure-eight pattern in the air.

"I'm a swordsman." She parried  an invisible foe at her side. Toei furrowed her brow. "You know, like those 'chivalrous knights of old'."

"I thought knights had to be boys," Toei replied and narrowly dodged a wayward swing. Adelle stopped her 'sword' for a moment to think about it.

"Well, I'm a girl knight," she stated and continued her assault on nothing.

"What are you fighting for, then?"

That stopped Adelle completely. "What do you mean?"

"I thought knights were supposed to save 'fair maidens'. That's why there weren't any girl knights."

Adelle sighed and stared intensely at the ground, broken strut hanging from her hand. She stood there like that, stock still, for almost a full minute before ramming the strut into the dirt like a pole and leaning on it.

"Myself. I'd fight for myself." She pulled the makeshift sword out of the ground again, pointing it at the sky. "If I ever found myself in danger, I'd fight my way out of it alone." She let it fall. "If guy knights couldn't accept that, that'd be their problem."

Toei tilted her head a little, asking, "You'd still be friends with them otherwise, though, right?" Adelle blinked at her a few times and scratched her own head.

"Ohh, umm...Yeah, I guess. I hadn't really thought about it."

~~~

That's right. She had said that once, and she'd meant it. She still meant it. What was all this about letting K take control of her? Her emotions were her own. She was only letting him toy with them.

The time for that was over, she decided. This was finished. She was going to fight him whether or not it would be her last act. If she didn't try she'd never survive, so she might as well. She opened her eyes and pent up tears streamed down her face, but she let them. She grit her teeth and stood up, hands balled up in fists.

"I'm getting out of this maze, K, and there's nothing you can do to stop me," she told both him and herself.  She pushed off one of the walls and ran for the end of the maze.

------------------------------


Adelle sprinted despite the protests of her body. The end was in sight. She cleared the last pane of her maze and kept going. Wide open black space surrounded her and she closed her eyes. She was free.

She laughed and the weight of compacted stress was lifted from her chest. She relished it for a few seconds before it reappeared to knock the wind out of her. She grunted and fell backwards from the blow. Another voice imitated hers. "Oww."

Funny. Her stress sounded like a small robot. She opened her eyes and stared at a metallic mass at her side. Ohh, she thought, that's because it is a small robot. Tangent continued to sit on the ground, shaking.

"I didn't think I'd be glad to see you again," she said, voice cracking. She wiped away the tears that had run down her face earlier and nudged him. He flinched and flickered his optic a few times, apparently resetting it.

His pupil went wide at the sight of her. "How did you get into my mind?"

"Your mind? Why would I ever want to be there?" She scoffed. Tangent glared at her and she grimaced. "Don't give me that look. This is all K's doing. We don't have time to argue."

She glanced around, worried then that the man might return at the sound of his name. He did not. All that surrounded the two of them were the maze exits and a floating green disk. A white, shining orb casted light on them from under the disk, but there was nothing else. She relaxed a little.

"K?" Tangent asked, taking her away from her perusal. "You mean that maniac Zebith you told us about? I most certainly haven't seen him." Tangent looked awa. Adelle stared at the back of him incredulously.

"Well, whether or not you've seen him doesn't matter. We're still in danger and we need to—OOF!" Something came flying from one of the maze exits and plowed into her ribcage. Secant purred and grasped a hold of her shirt like it were the last thing he'd ever touch.

"Secant!" she cried and wrapped her arms around him in return. Her eyes began watering some more. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again." Secant withered and sobbed a few times with her.

"If you two are quite finished over there," Tangent said with more frustration that was warranted, "I could use some help investigating our situation. Perhaps we could even solve the mystery of the source of our troubles sometime this week." Adelle rolled her eyes in contempt, but relinquished her grip on Secant in turn.

"I told you it was K. I'm sure of it." She trailed off. "He saw into my thoughts and memories."

Tangent seemed interested in that fact. He quickly glanced in Secant's direction and chirruped off at him in machine code. Adelle furrowed her brow and considered interrupting, but they were soon finished. Tangent turned to her again. "Neither Secant nor I have seen anything of Zebith, but we do seem to have had similar experiences in the maze."

That was strange, thought Adelle. "You too, huh, Secant?" she asked. The black drone nodded and she huffed. "Whoever is responsible for this travesty is going to suffer my wrath very soon." She glanced up at Tangent, determined. "Where did you say we were?"

"I didn't. My systems have not been able to determine our location since the beginning of this encounter."

She had to hold back a laugh. "Unknown? Even to you, Mr. GPS unit?" Tangent glared.

"I find the fact just as odd as you do. To be honest, I thought this place was a mere fabrication intended to distract me from being hacked. I was running with that assumption until you came along."

A deep, disembodied voice boomed with laughter then, and the three of them cried out in shock. The great green, circular plate and orb rose into the air higher than before, and with it rose the mirrors. Sickening cracks shook the eardrums and audile sensors of the three and the mirrors split, reforming into a giant mass around the green plate. This process continued and the mass grew longer. A head formed, then a long body with stubby appendages. The tail jutting out from behind the legs was almost as long as the whole front of the thing. As the last few mirrors split and reformed, large, crystalline-looking horns locked into a place behind the head. The glow from the white orb on the underside of the green circle had all but been obscured, but its glow radiated out the eye sockets of the face. Pupils formed out of a mist that condensed there and the great, snakelike creature stared down at them.

Adelle deadpanned at it. "Great. More dragons. Awesome."

"This is no dream," the great corporeal version of the mirror maze stated. "You are as much alive here as you were on the streets of Belcazzar."

Tangent was not so easily convinced.  "If this is no dream, how did you reach into our minds?" he asked. "I assume that was you. What are you exactly?"

The mirrored dragon laughed again. "Simple machine. You have heard of me. Think your situation through and you will remember."

Adelle grunted then, remembering her vow and earlier threat of wrath. She shouted at the creature, asking, "What do you want with us?" It grinned and showed jagged mirrors for teeth.

"Your spirits, my dear. Your life-forces."

"Today's paper!" Tangent interjected then. "The unsolvable murder. They were your doing, weren't they? You're the one behind the myth. You're the Magolent."

"I am called many things. That is one of them." The 'Magolent' seemed content to swim around in air now that he had been recognized. Tangent just stared, but Adelle could tell by the way he balled his fists that he was seething in anger.

"That's why your prey always end up being found unharmed, isn't it? You steal them from their bodies."

"Very observant, machine," it replied, doing a midair corkscrew. It was taunting them. Adelle slammed her foot down in rage.

"If you can do that, then why toy with us? Why make us suffer?" A better question would have been 'why do it at all?' but she left it unsaid. The Magolent seemed more interested in answering this one anyway. It blinked and came to rest in a reclined posture.

"Ohh, no person would willingly hand their consciousness to me. It is only in a state of intense and blinding emotion that I have the opportunity to steal it. Besides," he said, stopping to grin again, "They taste better than way."

Adelle was beside herself with fury. She screamed at it and didn't care if it understood a word she was trying to say. "Bastard! I'll vanquish you so you can never harm another person like you've harmed us!"

Secant appeared a little put off by her energy, but supported her cause with a nod. Tangent just crossed his arms. The Magolent chuckled at the three of them and his baritone voice rumbled through the emptiness again.

"I'd like to see that, actually. It's been quite a time since anyone has survived my mazes." He twisted then, and with the flick of his tail the plane Adelle had been standing on disappeared. She cried out as she was left floating in air again. The Magolent leered down at the three of them. "Most people break after the first few memories. You're a resilient bunch, but you will not last here. This will be your final stand."

"That's where you're wrong, Magolent. I have unfinished business to deal with and I'm not letting you take me from it," Adelle cried out and closed her eyes. She knew how to move here. She just had to remember how. She thought about what it would feel like to move forward, and she simultaneously experienced it. The Magolent eyed her curiously as she suddenly flew forward and unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks at him. He writhed to dodge them all, remarking, "Feisty prey."



Tangent watched in disbelief. The girl was actually trying to fight it with no weapon of any sort of weapon? His processor reeled as he tried to think of something—anything—that they had on them to fight with. He drew his antennae up high as he remembered something of this very nature.

"Secant!" he called and the black drone turned to him. "Secant, your arc welder can be used as a weapon!" Secant looked shocked at the concept of it, but he opened a panel on his side and pulled it out. The light from it provided another source of light in the darkness. The small, black drone floated for the dragon then, intent on doing some damage. Tangent blinked.

"Wait! Secant! I don't have anything to use."

The teal drone's lament was ignored in the cacophony of the brawl.



The Magolent continued his infernal swim in the blankness of space. Adelle was quickly wearing herself out with missing attacks and he scoffed. "It's too bad you don't carry weapons on you. This is too easy." He floated behind her, tapping her shoulder with the tip of his tail on the way around. She flailed and spun around to hit him, missing again. She seethed.

"Shut up!"

"My dear," he replied, "if you cannot defeat me, how can you imagine facing this K character? Give up to me and I will give you a much swifter passing than he will." He was about to laugh at her terrible predicament, but the breath came out in a loud hiss instead. Adelle turned and noticed one of the Magolent's scales floating separate from him in the air. Secant blinked at her from behind him, arc welder still lit. He chirped gleefully.

The Magolent was anything but impressed. "Little irritant. Be gone!" he roared and swung his tail like a whip. The end of it his Secant squarely in the side and sent him flying off into the darkness.

"Secant!" Adelle wailed as he was carried off. Tangent promptly flew over and grabbed his limp form as he passed, so all was not lost. She let him go as she noticed the melted fragments of a scale float by. She'd had an idea.

"You may have a weapon now, dear, but it will do you no good," the Magolent commented as she grabbed the sharpened mirror tile. "It is made of the same materials as I am. It will not withstand damage any more than my other scales will. Spare the attempt."

Good, thought the girl. He's playing the defensive side now. This was her chance to attack.

Tangent must have read her mind, for he called out then. "Adelle! The white sphere under his crest plate was radiating energy! It's the only thing here that is!" The Magolent's gaze shot to him and it hissed as he finished. "That may very well be its weak point!"

"Where is it now?" she demanded in turn.

"Inside it!"

"Great."

The Magolent looked livid now. "Very observant, machine. How unfortunate you will observe nothing else!" It charged for Tangent, exposing its sharp jaws to crunch him with. Adelle flew forward then and swung into his mouth, mouthing her hope that this wouldn't be a mistake. The Magolent's eyes bulged as he realized his own.

"Get out of me!" it cried and began to thrash. Adelle struggled to keep a grip on her weapon as she grabbed a hold of one of his inside tiles. He was completely hollow inside, but the lurching of his body was sickening. He pitched and conveniently threw her forward towards his own head.

She saw the white, glowing orb again. She must have missed it on the way in. She wasn't going to miss this time. She pulled her weapon up, shouting, "Let's see how you like being destroyed from the inside!" She brought it down into the core.

The Magolent screamed, and the sheer power of it knocked both her and Tangent out.

------------------------------

"Come on, gal. Come 'round already."

It was morning at the Heroes' Hideout and the place was about to open its doors. Well, it should have been, at least. It would have been if the owner of the place weren't busy trying to rouse a girl in a green sweater he'd found unconscious in front of the building. He and Ms. Corporate had set her in one of the lounge chairs at the end of the room and Bogus was busying himself trying to shake her awake.

"I'll get the smelling salts," Ms. Corporate stated as she stood up from the position where she knelt next to Bogus. The girl emitted a small groan. Bogus waved Ms. Corporate off.

"Nah, wait a minute, Corporate. I think she's wakin' up." Bogus gave the girl's shoulder another shove and one or two soft bats to the face. She groaned again and turned away from it. Then she flinched and gasped, eyes shooting open. She gripped and arms of the chair for dear life and Bogus drew back.

"Whoa, whoa! Calm down, gal. You're safe here," he said, waving  his hands in front of him. She blinked a few times and sighed deeply to relax. He eyed her strangely. "Adelle, right?" She nodded.

She looked around and her expression took on a confused air. "What happened?"

"We found you outside the front door of the tavern, unconscious. That's what happened. Your little robo-pets were with you, too. They're over on that table there." Bogus gestured in their general direction. Adelle gave a fleeting glance to them. Both were still in stasis. "Care to explain?" he asked.

She shook her head and put the palm of her hands on her temples. "I-I...don't know. I was out late in town last night. I remember that much. I guess Seek and Tangent found me. I don't know why we were outside the building, but I had the craziest dream. I—" she broke off as she pulled one of her hands away from her face and saw a bandage across the knuckle. She looked genuinely surprised at it, then deadpanned. Bogus tilted his head.

"What was that about a dream?" Ms. Corporate chimed in while the two were in a state of silence. Adelle shook her head again, this time to negate the idea.

"Nothing. Never mind," she replied and stood. She passed Bogus and Ms. Corporate with a courteous nod and collected her drones. Once she had them both in her arms, though, she stopped. "I don't think we'll be having any ore troubles with those mystery murders, though."

"What!?" Bogus asked. He turned to look at Ms. Corporate for answers. She'd turned to look at him the same way.

When they both looked back, the girl had disappeared down the hall.


Mission 3 Epilogue
Part One

Ryan was cleaning tables in the morning sun, trying not to let the reflections from the now spotless surfaces blind him. He and Jonathan had just opened up shop, so the morning rush hadn't arrived yet. Ryan had a feeling it would start soon though.

"Seen the paper yet, man?" Jonathan asked as he passed by and tossed his copy in front of Ryan. Ryan glanced at the headline as Jonathan read it aloud. "Mystery of the Magolent' solved. Crazy, huh? It says the person who figured it out won't reveal their name, though. I wonder why."

Ryan shrugged. "I guess some people prefer a layer of secrecy to fame." It got him thinking, though. He hoped it didn't have something to do with who he thought it did...

There was a knock at the front door, and the two young men noticed Adelle standing there when they looked up. "Hi," she said, leaning against the frame. Ryan's eyes lit up at the sight of her and Jonathan got the hint. He nodded to the two of them and made his way to the other end of the restaurant.

"I'll leave you two to your business, then," he said with a smile. Adelle blushed a little bit.

"Ohh, I was just going to come over for a second or two. I wasn't staying," she spouted quickly. Jonathan shrugged.

"That's all right. I've got some things to take care of over here anyway." He proceeded to reorganize the new cabinet that he'd installed a few weeks prior. Ryan smirked and shook his head, turning back to Adelle.

"You can come in if you'd like, even if you're not staying. You know, in? In the restaurant." He gestured around the place. She giggled.

"Actually, I wanted to know if you wanted to go for a walk with me. If you're not busy, that is," she replied. He deadpanned at her. He opened his mouth a few times to respond, but nothing came out. Jonathan finally answered for him.

"I can handle this. Go have fun."

Ryan turned around and looked back and forth between the two of them. He shrugged and rounded the table, following her out the door.

"Thanks for the break," he said. She smiled in response and started off.

"Well, thanks for accepting it. I actually had one hell of a story that I wanted to tell you about..."




Mission 3 Epilogue
Part Two

Unlike the aftermath of the soul-swapping experience, things around young Miss Odell's home had promptly returned to normal. Adelle and Tangent had begun arguing over trivial matters again — none too quietly, either, Secant noticed. Awkward and tense moments that had seemed to pervade the past few months had vanished, though. The home was silent sometimes, yes, but Secant knew the girl felt freer. For this he was quite happy.

Adelle had stepped out for a time and Secant was busying himself tending to his plants. Tangent was nearby, oddly enough, reading his morning paper. The Magolent story they'd revealed to the presses had been published.

"They're certainly downplaying the specifics of it. In writing, our experience sounds cold. It's nothing like being there was," Tangent mentioned to Secant, who was trimming a few dead flowers from his potted plant in the kitchen. Secant nodded, taking his brother's word for it. Tangent set the paper down with a grumble. "They obviously need to hire better writers."

Secant was contemplating the irony of that statement when he heard, or actually 'felt', something reach out to him through his wireless receiver.

«S.E.C. model...»

Secant froze.

«Tangent, did you feel that?» he whistled. Tangent looked up at him in confusion.

«Feel what?»

«I-I...» Secant stammered, feeling very anxious about how to put this. «I felt a presence. And it spoke to me.»

Tangent blinked a few times before doing a sensor sweep. Secant knew this because he felt a more familiar presence that time. Tangent refocused on him and shook his head. «I sense no one else around but you, Secant. It may be residual tension causing that feeling. I wouldn't give it too much mind.»

Secant wasn't convinced, but when he planned to clarify Tangent looked away and found another article in the paper to occupy himself with. Secant decided it wasn't worth mentioning again and suffering his brother's wrath. Perhaps it was all in his mind...



Some distance away in a dark castle, Logarithm radiated sadistic glee. He'd been here not more than minutes, and already he had located two suitable underlings. He narrated to himself internally.

«This is an acceptable arrangement.»