“Noosphere adjacent?” Dyna asked, looking around.

If she blocked out the impossibly large cavern they were standing in, the place—Tartarus, apparently—looked remarkably similar to the containment areas of both Phrenomorphics and Tartarus—the real-world section. There were large containment units stationed around, though far less organized than either of the real-world locations. Everything was lit in that odd, uniform, near-twilight look to it. That might have been enough to make her realize that they weren’t in proper reality, but still, she might not have noticed.

Obviously, Ruby’s odd shadow was the biggest giveaway.

“Noosphere adjacent, yes,” Darq said, smiling as he looked around the place. “Not quite the noosphere, but not quite the… hmm, if noosphere then biosphere? The realm where biological organisms live.”

While Darq started mumbling to himself about the definition of words—Dyna wasn’t sure if the Carroll Institute had a special term for the real world—Dyna found herself slowly walking behind him, staring at all the various containment tubes. Most were occupied, she noted, though none with anything remotely human in appearance. The entities contained within were swirling shadows of varying shapes and sizes. Somewhat like the mountain man had been while in the noosphere.

“These things aren’t going to escape, are they?”

“Certainly not,” Darq said, offense in his tone. “In my time as the Conservator of Tartarus, not one escape has been made.”

“The mountain man escaped from containment similar to these when we brought him into the noosphere,” Dyna said.

“Tartarus is not the Carroll Institute. Your precautions were clearly inadequate. In addition, as I said, this is not the noosphere but noosphere adjacent. Even should one of these containment cylinders fail, Tartarus is secure.”

Dyna glanced back to the elevator, not believing Darq. It had no guards at all when they stepped out. Now, however, Dyna found herself blinking several times. There was no elevator. The area where they had just been was just another large empty space in this unnatural cavern.

A chill ran down her spine, wondering if she had somehow been tricked into containing herself within Tartarus. Her head snapped back to find Darq. Luckily, he was still there, a few steps ahead of her. Dyna, using a few quick hand motions, pointed out the absence of the elevator to Ruby and then motioned to Darq. Ruby gave an affirmative nod of her head. She would keep a watch on him.

“Does Id know about Tartarus?” Dyna asked, looking back to Darq.

“Id is the acting director of Tartarus.”

“Does Id know about this part of Tartarus?” Dyna clarified. If Id did know about this place, then Dyna felt relatively confident that she wouldn’t let herself sit around in containment forever. Dyna still wasn’t sure that she trusted Id—what kind of person ran around invading people’s minds, even if they were the same person—but she at least trusted that Id didn’t want to cause undue harm.

If Id did not know about this place, then the only one who would know Dyna was down here was Darq.

Darq turned to her with a smile and reached up to remove his goggles. They left a red mark around his face, but he was otherwise a normal person with regular blue eyes underneath. Although he didn’t have a shadow around him like Ruby or a completely different form like November and the mountain man, Dyna had suspected that he was a tulpa of some sort and was using the goggles to hide some anomaly.

He was a normal human, as far as Dyna could tell.

“Miss Graves, if I wanted you in containment, you would be in containment,” he said, practically reading Dyna’s mind.

Perhaps literally reading Dyna’s mind. She could never be sure without knowing what, if any, psychic abilities Darq possessed.

“That’s a small comfort. Maybe.” Unless he suddenly changed his mind. “You said that nothing has escaped during your tenure here? How long has that been?”

“Fifty-three years,” Darq said, slight edge of nostalgia in his tone.

Dyna had to do a double-take. The man didn’t look older than twenty-five. Maybe thirty. Fifty-three years working here, assuming his started immediately following high school age, would make him seventy. At least. He had to be older than that, even, simply because Dyna didn’t believe some nineteen year-old would be made into Conservator of Tartarus straight away.

“That’s quite a bit older than I expected. Older than the advent by a great deal too. Did you have a predecessor?”

“Of course. Doctor Marq was the conservator for about twenty years before I took over,” he said with a small laugh. “I’m not nearly as old as this place.”

“Doctor Mark…”

“With a q.”

“Marq,” Dyna said, feeling like she should have expected that. “How did you capture tulpa before the advent? Or how did your predecessor?”

“Tulpa have always existed. The noosphere, though it hasn’t had that name until recently, has always existed. Psychics have always existed as well. All three are tightly bound together, all drawing their abilities from the power of thought swirling about in places like this.” Darq paused at one large cylindrical tank, frowning for a moment before walking over to a control panel.

Dyna couldn’t read the words on it, but Darq, after donning his goggles once more, started tapping away without hesitation. The containment tank didn’t have shadowy tulpa shapes in it, but rather bright light that flickered and pulsed like lightning. Or, maybe it was lightning.

As he worked, he continued talking. “Before the advent, access to the noosphere was next to nonexistent, tulpa were exceedingly rare, and psychic abilities manifested so sparingly and so inconsistently that any who claimed to possess such abilities were effectively frauds. Especially so when put up against the beliefs of skeptics. You are what you think, but you’re also what other people think.” Darq nodded to himself, pressing one final button on the control panel. “Good. Zeus always gives us a little trouble. My predecessor’s short tenure as conservator was because of this tulpa.”

“Zeus?” Dyna said. “Named after the mythological god?”

“No. Zeus is named after himself.”

“The god of thunder?”

“That is certainly what people thought.”

Dyna licked her lips, slowly glancing around. “How… How old is this place?”

“A few thousand years. Unfortunately, precise bookkeeping was not among many of my predecessors’ skills.”

“This is mythological Tartarus. Prison of the titans and primordial deity?”

“Deity?” Darq said with a laugh and a shake of his head. “It is a location of thought, adjacent to the noosphere, nothing more. We do have a few titans down in Sector T, however.”

“And… you’re saying that old mythological gods are tulpa?”

“Hard to believe? Consider what you know of the noosphere and of tulpa. Is it really that unlikely that so-called gods, worshiped by many, would come into some semblance of existence?”

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The noosphere was a world of thought, reflected by the collective thinking of all of humanity. When something in the real world changed—a new building built or a car moved from one parking space to another—it took time to reflect that change in the noosphere. Time for people to think about it and disperse their thoughts into the noosphere.

Tulpa formed from individual thoughts shed into the noosphere merging together. According to November, most thoughts were transient and insubstantial, but some could be larger and more important. Especially if it was something someone thought about for a long period of time. Dyna had no idea what ancient religious ceremonies were regarding Zeus, but she could easily imagine large amounts of people spending plenty of time in worship, all of which would generate thoughts relating to the subject in close quarters, allowing them to merge together easier…

Considering it like that brought up a few implications that Dyna wasn’t sure she wanted to consider, most revolving around more modern deities. In many parts of the world, religion had been on the decline for decades. A feat that only accelerated following the advent… But still, if Zeus and titans were contained within Tartarus…

Dyna shook her head. It didn’t matter, she supposed. Whether extremely powerful tulpa were running around or were contained, they weren’t a concern. They weren’t after Dyna. A very human threat that was after her life, not manifestations of deities.

Though…

Looking around, Dyna thought back to what she had done to the mountain man and wondered just how many copies of herself it would take to subsume a tulpa like Zeus. With a name like that, Dyna presumed it was a powerful entity. Probably leagues more powerful than the mountain man. Then if she were to release Dyna-Zeus, it could probably handle Alpha and any other threats without even trying.

“That, Miss Graves, is the kind of thinking that results in you being inhumed.”

Dyna turned to Doctor Darq with narrowed eyes. “You are a mind reader.”

“Something like that,” Darq said with a casual shrug. “I would make an extreme recommendation against attempting to subvert the security and sanctity of Tartarus. Regardless of what you think, you would not survive.”

Dyna shuddered at the surety with which Darq spoke. He was absolutely confident, even in spite of her ability to alter reality. That was a bit unnerving.

Then again, she supposed they weren’t in reality at the moment. Although Dyna had affected change in the noosphere before, this wasn’t the noosphere.

It was noosphere adjacent.

“I wasn’t going to try anything,” Dyna said, not quite sure if she was telling the truth or not.

“Good. Come along.” Darq headed down a wide catwalk that took them over what Dyna could only describe as a bottomless pit. “Now, Dyna Graves, the primary reason I brought you down here was to test a little something, if you please.”

Heavy doors slid open in a small wall, revealing a proper room. The kind of room that wouldn’t be out of place anywhere within the upper levels for Tartarus or in the Carroll Institute. It was clearly designed with security in mind with its thick walls, making Dyna a little hesitant to step inside, but Darq walked right in without noticing. With a glance to Ruby, who just shrugged as she kept a harsh glare on Darq, Dyna decided to enter behind him.

“Your ability, as far as I can tell, affects the noosphere to such an extent that it forces your beliefs into reality. I barely understand the mathematics behind it all, quite the impressive feat all things considered, but the long and short is that you think with such intensity that the noosphere effectively overflows back into proper reality. I wish to observe this happening from here, as close to the noosphere as I am willing to venture.”

A control panel popped out of the ground right in front of Darq. In the very center of the room, a cylinder descended from the ceiling. It was much like the containment tubes, except not filled with any liquid or tulpa. Just an empty chamber.

“Picture something simple, if you will. Maybe a stone cube or wooden sphere. Whatever is easiest.”

Dyna frowned, looking at the cylinder that Darq was indicating. “My previous experiments show that my power works best if I am not consciously aware of what I’m trying to change. If you close a box and say you put a blue card in, I could pull out a blue card, but if I’m staring into an open box, no card will ever appear no matter how much I think about it.”

“Odd, given what I know,” Darq said, then pressed a button on his console. A slatted metal sheath lowered from the ceiling, blocking off the view of the tube. “I pressed a button which made a rubber bouncy ball appear within the containment chamber.”

Frowning, Dyna squinted her eyes in thought. When she was a child, she had visited an arcade once with a simple coin-operated vending machine filled with bouncy balls. There had been a wide variety in appearances, from solid colors to swirls, half red and half blue to soccer balls. She didn’t get a chance to think of one in specific before Darq pressed another button.

The slats around the chamber lifted up, revealing a large glass ball filled with bouncy balls, standing atop a zig-zagging dispenser that would make the ball bounce around before finally settling into the receptacle. The same vending machine that Dyna had been thinking of.

“Not quite what I asked for, but interesting nonetheless.” Darq pulled a small leaver.

The floor underneath the vending machine split apart, opening a trapdoor beneath the tube. The vending machine fell in. Dyna winced as she heard a loud crash of the metal vending machine, glass ball, and dozens of bouncy balls hit whatever was beneath their chamber.

Darq paid it little mind, closing the trapdoor. A second later, the slats covered the glass once again, obscuring the interior from view.

“Alright. This time, I put in something special. Tartarus has been working on the world’s most advanced cellular phone, complete with holographic displays, tactile feedback, and an x-ray camera safe for frequent human exposure. I just placed a prototype into the chamber.”

Dyna shot him a look. She had spent long enough around medical technology to know how most of it worked, even if only the most basic of terms. Regular cameras worked by picking up reflected light. Whether that was reflected off something from ambient light or reflected from the flash of the camera didn’t matter. X-rays, on the other hand, did not reflect. That was the whole point. They passed through the subject to the other side where they would be picked up by a sensor or other detector. An x-ray camera on a phone didn’t make sense unless there was a detector that had to be manually placed by the camera operator.

“Interesting,” Darq said, pulling the lever that had dropped the vending machine through the floor. He did not lift up the slats for Dyna to see whatever it was she might have created. “We’ll have to study that one later.”

“What was it?”

“I wonder. Don’t worry, it is in a continuity sheath. You won’t be able to affect it if you think about it more.” Switching the lever back to the closed position and pressing another button, Darq smiled. “This one might be tricky, but now there is a simple code designed to say ‘HELLO WORLD’ in the chamber.”

“Code?” Dyna said, frowning. “Programming code? Like a tablet or even a piece of paper with code on it?”

“No, nothing like that. Just code.”

“That’s…”

Dyna frowned, mind drawing a blank as she tried to think of what computer code, floating in the air with no… source, might possibly look like. First she thought of letters floating in the air on their own, like holograms or reflections on the glass, but that was obviously not what Darq wanted from this test. He wanted code. He hadn’t even specified a language for the code.

Maybe this wasn’t to see what she could come up with consciously, but something that her subconscious would have to handle on its own. Which, she felt, was dangerous. Dyna wasn’t quite sure to what extent her subconscious could come up with things, but without her conscious mind reining her ability in, she was a bit afraid at what it might produce. The possibilities—

A sharp, piercing high-note that rapidly descended into a low and vibrating bass startled Dyna out of her thoughts. It repeated again and again, with Dyna, Ruby, and even Doctor Darq looking around in alarm, before she realized just what it was.

An alarm.

“It wasn’t me,” Dyna said, almost on reflex as Ruby moved closer, drawing a knife that Dyna wasn’t surprised she had despite their recent flight.

“No. No it wasn’t,” Darq said with a frown, looking down at his control panel. He pressed a few buttons, none of which affected the cylinder in front of them. “Oh my.”

“What is it?”

“It appears as if Tartarus is under attack. A spatial anomaly ripped open in the main lobby.”

“Tulpa? Ignotus-33?”

Darq shrugged. “We’re safe down here. Nothing to worry about.” Another button silenced the alarm in the room. “Now, as for that code—”

“The place is under attack and you want to continue experimenting?”

Bright blue eyes looked to Dyna as if he couldn’t quite comprehend her complaint. “Yes.”

Dyna shook her head. “No. We need to get to Walter and Id.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. This has happened a few times. Your Ignotus group wants to steal the tulpa we have in containment. Luckily, none of the topside tulpa are, in any imaginable way, as remotely dangerous as those contained down here.”

“That doesn’t mean we can just leave the others to fend for themselves!” Dyna shouted. “We need to get back there. Your coworkers are there! What if they get down here?”

“Ado is quite capable—”

Darq didn’t get to finish before he was almost thrown off his feet. The ground underneath them rumbled, feeling like the worst earthquake that Dyna had ever been through. Something overhead hissed as a pipe broke and she heard the distinctive sound of glass cracking on the other side of the metal slats.

It stopped quickly, but now Darq’s eyes weren’t quite so calm. His head snapped around to the various corners of the room, though it looked more like he was looking through the walls than just at them.

“What was that?”

Darq slowly looked back to Dyna, lips pressed tightly together. “Perhaps we should call an early end to our experiment after all.”

“You think?”

Darq nodded slowly. “A titan has breached containment.”