Even Monarch's death passed like a ripple in a sea of moments, one equation in an algorithm. His people wanted to mourn, gaunt as they seemed, but there was no time to while the rest of the world beckoned. It was Beelz who gave the order to keep going, and Jessica agreed, trudging over the fallen on the 86th floor. One functional elevator carried the last operatives to the next level. And as the number blinked from 86 to 87, Jessica felt a hand squeeze her arm. She was met by the evergreen death stare.
"Make this count or else..." said Beelz.
Jessica pulled away. "I've been counting just to keep my head. Monarch died on the 1,687th second since the start of this mission."
The doors opened to a white antechamber. Dim lights, a single wall, and a line of doors reminded Jessica of the Tantive IV blockade runner from A New Hope, where Darth Vader apprehended Princess Leia. This was worse, a security checkpoint, which meant the other side held something important.
Each entryway had a pedestal with a round orb, like the one used to access the Azarean armory. Jessica approached the closest device then activated her Vambrace.
"Where'd you get that?" David asked, ogling the violet.
"Developed it with some help," she answered.
Beelz eyed Jessica's arm with similar curiosity. A single ding confirmed a successful hack before a strange scope lowered from the ceiling. Here, Beelz unveiled Malvis' replica eyeball.
"The final verdict," she said and pressed the iris against the scanner. A foreign voiceover spoke through invisible speakers. Almost no one understood the language, but the door opened. Jessica advanced, Beelz smothering her personal space to inspect her arm.
"Care to explain where you found that holo-brace?" said the redhead.
"Call it an heirloom."
Beelz stopped, compelling Jess to stop along with her. "You're not going to stand there and tell me someone just gave that to you. You know what that is..."
"Guys..." Raptor muttered.
Everybody stopped to observe the latest in a series of strange places. The room beyond the white doors was dark, ornate, and circuitous as if the interior decorator came from a murky otherworld. On all sides, to the non-discerning eye, the surface pattern of the walls was like flowing metal and swooning flora. And environed by something so alien, Jessica felt like an astronaut.
Her mind's eye brought a house of strange alloys and organic material that coalesced into a symmetrical sanctum. Most prominent about this interior, its rows upon rows of seats circled like the rings within a tree stump... or Saturn. From the outermost to the innermost, they shrunk, enveloping a spherical device directly in the center of everything. Around the room, against walls and equidistant from another stood four major support pillars – Energy shone from incandescent lines inscribed along the contours, their bright green like the inconsistent texture of flowing water, and they extended and bent high overhead, unifying at the zenith.
Beelz veered from the room's macabre majesty, distracted by flashing blue light on her watch. "Secure the door," she ordered. "Guard this room! Make sure no one else—Azarean or otherwise—follows us." The last three members of Gemini did as told and sentried the long series of doors.
Jessica ran her fingers across the seats. "If I were a fly on the wall..." She shifted to the round instrument at the center of everything. This orb reminded her of the nexus back at Sub Terra HQ. What secrets did it hold? The question burned the tip of her tongue.
They use this place to commune.
At the same time, Raptor ambled closer, gawking at the mysterious device.
"Capture," Jessica whispered.
"I'm picking up additional energy readings above us," said Babel.
"Then it's safe to say these pillars are channeling power into the floor above this one?"
"And throughout the megastructure."
Mired by curiosity, Raptor inched his hand closer to the center sphere. Jessica jumped and slapped his hand away, shaking her head. "I wouldn't pull on that thread," she told him. "You don't know who or what is waiting on the other side."
Raptor stared back and forth between her and the enticing orb, then silently nodded.
David, meanwhile, spun around the room like a curious child. "There was a reason we never saw the executives," he said, "why there was always a meeting room but never a meeting, and why they never showed their faces downstairs."
The hiss of sliding metal carried Jessica's attention to one end of the room. She saw Beelz step into an open capsule elevator. The door then enclosed and lifted her to the top.
We're out of time.
Jessica hustled to the closest elevator. Raptor and David followed, and, side by side by side, the three of them crushed into coffin-sized capsules before ascending.
They were ascending Goliath, to a realm none but Azarean gods had laid eyes on. At the corner of claustrophobia, everything stopped. Less than an hour ago, they were on planet Earth. How did they get to this place?
The sliding door revealed an area as mysterious and subdued as the last. Distant city lights shined beyond the windows on all sides, reminding Jessica that life continued below. She advanced in cautionary steps before she could get lost, surroundings draped by a symbol she hadn't seen before. A banner bedecked each vertice of the room, with a circular insignia whose three distinct sides appeared as Yin and Yang with a third sibling.
Railing underneath the windows, there lay an entire network of terminals. Lights for every button, colors for every function, functions for every secret Goliath solicited in its hive of lies. Jess only needed one, one access point to the giant. And one materialized directly before Beelz, risen from the room center like a candlewax mold. It was a single, round node with a perfectly smooth surface.
Now or never.
Without a doubt, this was the kernel from which to dive headfirst into Goliath's network: transportation, net applications, space installations, Asgard. Assuming position around the mechanism, alongside Beelz and David, Jessica studied the components obsessively
"There's no stopping now," she said, betraying a note of excitement.
Raptor stood vigil by the elevators, gun snug. "Now or never. Make your mark, Lynx!"
In the blink of an eye, the node fired green holograms that strobed across the room. Jessica tested a theory by placing her fingers on the interface. The texture was indescribable, "Like creamy plastic," was the closest she could get. She felt at home, an otherworld home but home nonetheless, and the controls felt like riding a bike.
"I have access!" she said.
"Then you're going to hack their infrastructure?" asked David. "Go public with their clandestine projects?"
"It starts with this," she said, brandishing her R2-D2 flash drive. "This recording will be the tip of their Seppuku."
David placed his hands on the holograms. "I can help. I'll make sure the data circulates corporate channels and public domains for good measure. It won't be much, but it will go a long way in discrediting Goliath and Spearhead."
Beelz's fingers were already navigating the holograms opposite of Jessica. "Goliath has contingencies and allies in The Union for mitigating disaster," she said. "So, I'm going to flood WON's Cyber Command with a DDoS they'll never see coming. When—if they find the source, it won't matter. They'll be in a bottomless hole by then."
Breathing into her mic, Beelz coordinated with Boros and Amon who, judging by the holograms, were helping transmit Beelz's virus across the intercontinental map. Meanwhile, Jessica and David undermined Azarean cyberspace like a fire at the center of a web. Together, their computer savvy gambit filled the room with nothing but the sound of typing and high-pitched ringing. It was a contrast to the loud start of Curtain Fire.
"Isn't it strange that Malvis always had unrestricted access to Goliath?" started David. "You'd think he was the—"
"Just have to broadcast!" Jessica interrupted.
"Looks like the prime networks are active," Beelz replied. "You can deliver a simulcast over the Transnational Eden Network. Everyone will hear Malvis and the terrorist while we spread the contents of that chip."
Jessica grinned feverishly. Setting the stage, as it were, had almost concluded, the show near ready to commence. David distracted himself, however, eagerly toggling holograms as he did. "I think I've found a hidden cache in this room."
"Worry about that later," Jessica muttered.
Killed by curiosity, David tapped the node. His touch invited a mechanical grate from an instrument rising between the trio. At the corner of her eye, Jessica noticed two crisscrossing pistols.
"Jessica," David called.
"Not now."
"Lynx!" Raptor yelled.
The wall blew.
Jessica slammed against the floor, splashed by dust and rubble, sight wavering between blurs and blankness while the sky enveloped them. Despite temporary deafness, she could discern the terrible noise of gunfire.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
