“Um, hello—” Tina’s voice cut off with a sharp squealing noise of a microphone too close to a speaker. “Gah! That’s loud.”

Dyna stopped where she was, glad for any excuse to take a moment of rest. She considered herself quite athletic. That hadn’t always been the case. Before becoming an artificer, she had been a lot more lethargic. Now? After all the training and effort she had put into living up to the likes of Ruby and Emerald?

She found it disappointing that she still wasn’t athletic enough to climb up an entire building without her legs feeling like wet noodles. Nothing she had with her would let her cheat either. Ruby wouldn’t have tired on her way up. Emerald would have stopped time. Even Sapphire could have just drifted up the stairs with his odd levitation ability.

“Alright. Beatrice figured out how to get me into the intercom system. We’ve got camera views pulled up too. Beatrice says to not be too specific to avoid giving away important information or letting the enemy know where you all are. Still, I can say that Dyna, you need to be careful around the next corner.”

Dyna blinked, looking away from the speaker mount on the wall. The next corner? Did that mean the next landing? Or…

The next landing had a large number painted on the wall next to the door. All the floors did, but this one was special.

“I’m finally here,” Dyna sighed. Drawing in a breath, she found herself marginally revitalized.

Floor seventeen. Walter and Id had been two floors higher during their talk a few minutes ago but Ado was supposed to be on floor seventeen and the other two had been trying to reach the engineer. Hopefully they had made it down in the time it took Dyna to climb. If not, Dyna was hoping for a mask. The masks used by Tartarus could shut down the Hatman’s ability to wipe memories. Dyna wasn’t sure if they would work against the eye-tulpa’s ability to stop thought, but they had to be better than nothing.

Assuming ‘the next corner’ referred to whatever was on the other side of the door, Dyna quickly checked the next flight of stairs just in case then readied both her watch and the PP-2000 that she had liberated from her opponents. During the climb, she had ditched the others she had looted, keeping the magazines only, in order to reduce the amount of weight she was carrying around She had since removed the laser pointer from her pistol and attached it to the PP-2000s’ Picatinny rail in order to make use of its supernatural aiming capabilities with a weapon that she could actually reload.

Turning the handle, Dyna pushed the door open then immediately grasped her wristwatch. She swept the gun across the room, laser pointer crossing six tulpa all of whom were readied and aiming at the door. She twisted the bezel on her watch just as the crack of gunfire split the air.

Hissing in pain at her side, Dyna found herself prodding her hip. Nothing hit her even though she still felt like something hit her. The door wasn’t even open. She was back just before she had opened it.

Gritting her teeth in a smile, Dyna pulled the trigger six times. Six loud reports echoed up and down the stairwell, but no bullets hit the door she was aiming at. The causality-defying bullets found their homes in the tulpa on the other side of the door.

Pushing open the door again before any remaining tulpa could get their bearings, Dyna found three tulpa still standing, two of whom were clearly wounded. None were looking directly at the door, however. Dyna could only assume that they figured their attacker was elsewhere.

Not questioning her luck, Dyna quickly dispatched the remainder before slowly entering… a showroom?

Dyna didn’t look around much the first time she opened the door. Even now, she was only looking for signs of other tulpa. Finding none, she crossed the wooden stage and ensured that the tulpa wouldn’t rise again to attack her from behind with a second bullet to each of them. Tossing her half-empty magazine, Dyna switched it out and took a fresh magazine from one of the fallen tulpa. Only then did she actually look around at her surroundings.

The large stage had a number of fancy seats arrayed around in an elevated terrace. The quality of the seats indicated that they were for wealthy people. Not common, mass-produced seats like one would find in a movie theater or school auditorium. A display screen covered half the wall behind the stage. On it, the spinning hexagons of Tartarus were encompassed in the eyelet of a larger wrench. Text similarly styled proclaimed the area as the Manufactorium Demonstration Stage.

“Wow. How did—Oh. Beatrice says everything I saw is classified and I’m not to mention it ever again.”

Dyna raised an eyebrow, looking around for a moment until she saw a standard security camera aimed at the stage. Shaking her head, Dyna looked around once again and then pointed both hands. Her left pointed at a door on the opposite side of the stage. Her right pointed up the aisle between the comfortable seating to a door in the back. She then looked back at the camera.

“I would take the left-handed path if I wanted help as soon as possible. The right is a more circuitous route to the same location but might pose less resistance.”

Parsing that, Dyna headed for the left door across the stage. She wasn’t afraid of more tulpa. Getting to Ado as soon as possible was more important. If she cleared a direct path to the stairs, all the better.

Ready for anything short of the eye-tulpa, Dyna proceeded through a few smaller corridors, dispatching several tulpa along the way. The first corridor had an elevator. A large freight elevator. Pressing the button offered no response so Dyna carried on. The corridors were rugged and industrial, clearly not intended for non-employees to see. They were just hallways to move hardware from wherever it was being made to the demonstration stage.

She ended up in a large factory-like room. It lacked all the conveyor belts and automated robotic arms that the rapid prototyping room had, but Dyna could easily imagine that it was designed by the same person. She even spotted a smaller version of the Psychofabber.

After dealing with half a dozen tulpa, Dyna found her eyes drawn to what was clearly the centerpiece of the room. A large circular gateway, held up by massive steel arms painted orange, had stairs going up to it. That alone would have been interesting enough if Dyna hadn’t recognized the machinery. It was almost identical to the noosphere portal technology currently held within Phrenomorphics. The portal machine that the Carroll Institute had taken from the meat packing plant Ignotus had been using as a real-world base of operations.

“What is that doing here?” Dyna mumbled, wondering if this was where all the tulpa were coming from. The machine didn’t seem to be active though. Having seen the one in the Carroll Institute functioning, she could easily tell that this one wasn’t powered on and likely hadn’t been in recent hours.

“That was here before we were.”

Jolting at the voice behind her, Dyna whirled around. She grit her teeth, glaring at the multi-colored lights blinking in Ado’s goggles. “You almost got a hole in your head.”

“But I didn’t,” Ado said, looking around at the bodies on the floor. “Glad you got them before they could get in there,” she added, pointing a thumb to the door she had just come from. Dark tinted glass pockmarked with bullet holes separated the room from the rest of the factory floor. The door itself had a large double-tank sitting next to it. The kind used in oxy-fuel cutting torches. It didn’t look like they had actually started cutting into the room, however.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“How much do you know about the situation?”

“Kit emailed me when it first started. Id and Tina have been in contact in the last few minutes. I should know everything you do.”

“Good,” Dyna said, glad she didn’t have to waste more time explaining. “Walter and Id haven’t made it down here yet, I take it.”

“Addendum to my previous statement. I know everything you do and more. Walter and Id are currently immobilized because of the thought-disrupting tulpa. Walter is wounded and Id is unwilling to venture forth into its vision. They are on the eighteenth floor, secure within Id’s testing chamber.”

Dyna glanced over at the oxy-fuel torch. “How long will they remain secure there?”

“Unknown. Apparently the tulpa have gotten into the Continuity Engine room and are examining it. You are going after them, I presume. Please distract them before they disconnect the Continuity Engine. We don’t want our compound suffering from… you.” Ado motioned for Dyna to follow with her hand then headed back into the room she had just emerged from. “Don’t worry. I can help. I was not idle during my forced isolation.”

The room she had locked herself into was another factory, just on a smaller, more personal scale. There were several 3D printers, a milling machine, a laser cutter, and lots of things that Dyna couldn’t identify. Lots of material for the machines as well. A pile of scrap had been tossed into one corner, with large sheets of metal having bits cutout from them and a disturbing amount of metal dust that hadn’t been vacuumed up by the machines.

Ado stopped by one desk, its surface littered with dripped solder and burn marks, and lifted up one of the brushed nickel-style masks that Tartarus employed. It was a bit of a different model than the one Dyna had used during the Hatman incident. This one had triangular mirrored panels across the front and smooth metal over the sides and top, making it look more like a helmet than a mask.

Ado held it up and, after a glance to Dyna, started adjusting a metal strap that ran around its back.

“Will this protect from the eye-tulpa?”

“Unknown,” she said, holding it up for Dyna to take. “It has never been tested. I designed it in the last hour.”

“Is it better than your standard masks?”

Ado just smiled. “I look forward to analyzing the data its sensors will give me to determine the answer to your question.”

Lips pressed together as she slid it over her head, Dyna blinked as the internal screens came online, giving her a clear picture of the outside world along with a stream of text in one corner of her vision. It wasn’t as comfortable as the previous model that Dyna had worn. The metal strap was the problem. Dyna could only guess that Ado didn’t have whatever padded material they used for the other masks on hand here.

“Is any of it made from Psychofabbed material?” Dyna asked as she adjusted a knob in the back to tighten it to her face. “I have reason to believe that the eye-tulpa will simply delete this from existence if the answer is yes.”

“Unfortunately, the answer is yes. However, the Psychofabbed material is internal to the device, mostly electronics behind the shielding. I designed this specifically with the capabilities of the entity you described in mind. Unless this tulpa is capable of penetrating the shielding, you shouldn’t have to worry. If it is capable of that, you probably have other things to worry about.”

Like it freezing her mind again, this time with allies that might shoot her before a cat goddess could intervene.

“I should warn you that Psychofabbed material does not last forever. I fabbed the materials twenty minutes ago. Most fabbed material lasts for about an hour. Maybe two. There is no redundancy built in, so if even a single critical part fades, the device will no longer function and you will be vulnerable again.”

“Then I better get moving. Thank—”

“Wait. There is more.”

Ado moved over to what looked like a large chest freezer. Lifting up the lid, she reached in and hefted up a rectangular box with straps on the flat side. A backpack of some sort? Thick black cables coming from the side connected to a long array of bare machinery and circuitry. Four thick cylinders much like the cylinder on the disruptor gun were arrayed around a central lens. A long metal arm held up a second lens far in front of the main body. One handle jutted out of the side about halfway forward while a rear grip held a large red button where the thumb was supposed to go.

“In collaboration with Doctor Darq, following previous tulpa incursions of this nature, I designed this. The P-Beam.”

Dyna cleared her throat. “Maybe ask someone for a second opinion on the name?”

Ado’s lit goggles turned from Dyna down to the machine. “Why? It fires a beam of pure psionics. The name is optimal.”

“Yes… But… Never mind. We don’t have time.”

“Should it hit a tulpa, it will discorporate them within seconds.”

“I don’t know. It looks kind of bulky. Guns seem to work just fine.”

“Ah, but do guns work fine on advanced entities?” Ado asked rhetorically.

Dyna knew they didn’t. Or at least not on the ones she had encountered. Both the Hatman and the mountain man had shrugged off gunfire without flinching. “Fine.”

It wasn’t just bulky but heavy as well. The backpack felt like she was carting around an anvil and the gun part weighed as much as four or five PP-2000s.

“It was my intention to integrate P-Beams throughout the facility on automated turrets,” Ado said as she helped Dyna into the harness, “but the cost of manufacturing them with real parts was too high. I do hope Kit reconsiders after this situation.”

“Me too,” Dyna grumbled. “How many… shots? Whatever it does, how many do I have?”

“Maybe sixty seconds of total time with the beam activated. I would recommend against activating the beam continuously for that duration, however. Don’t want the device to overheat.”

“That’s a concern? Great. It weighs a ton, is entirely unwieldy, and now I have to worry about my back catching fire.”

“Exploding.”

“Excuse me?”

“Previous incidents with prototype P-Beams were a bit more spectacular in their method of failing than mere fire.”

Dyna glared. Ado couldn’t see it, but she hoped her anger came across in her body language. Just in case it didn’t, she said, “I hate you.”

Ado just smiled. “If you take the stairs up to the next floor, you’ll find Id’s workshop just past the glass room with biomechanical bodies hanging from wires and cords. Good luck!”

“Yeah right.” Dyna shook her head. “Tina said there might be more tulpa on this floor in whatever long route there is from here to the demonstration stage. On my way here, I cleared the maintenance corridors, if you want to leave.”

“No thank you. I’ll secure the laboratory and then I’ve got to get back to work.”

“At a time like this?”

“When else am I going to get access to tulpa bodies that aren’t immediately whisked elsewhere by Doctor Darq?”

Dyna didn’t know what to say to that. With one more shake of her head, she turned and left Ado to whatever she was planning on doing. Between Tartarus and the Carroll Institute, Dyna had to wonder if there were any normal scientists out there at all. The kind who clocked in at nine and left at five. Maybe they would enjoy spending time with their kids or watching football games. From Doctor Cross to Darq to Ado to the administrators—the latter of whom didn’t even have proper names—it seemed like every scientist she knew was utterly married to their jobs and only found happiness in their lives while investigating mysteries and performing experiments.

The way back to the stairs was, thankfully, an uneventful affair. The corridors she had cleared had not repopulated with tulpa during her brief meeting with the chief engineer. Reaching the stairs had Dyna sighing. She had increased the weight she was carrying by enough to make each step up feel like she was lifting half the building on her back.

Luckily, the gun part of the P-Beam clipped to the front of the backpack’s harness, helping to distribute the weight around her and letting her have a free hand for grasping onto the railing. She didn’t have a gun in her hands but absolutely needed the railing to keep from tottering over backwards. With the watch’s power to throw her back in time, she was hoping she wouldn’t need a gun or the P-Beam before she reached the next floor.

It was a small consolation that Ado’s workshop had been on the floor directly below Id and Walter. If she had been back down near Kit Maple’s office and was forced to climb twenty stories with all this weight, she might have seriously considered just leaving Walter and Id to fend for themselves.

“The first hallway is empty. At the juncture, you should be wary from both sides.”

“Wonderful,” Dyna grunted as she crested the steps to the landing, already trying to figure out how to deal with enemies that were presumably on either end of a corridor. Maybe she could get them to shoot each other. “Couldn’t Ado have made P-Grenades? Disgusting name aside, that would have made this easier.”

One hand on the door to floor eighteen and the other on her wristwatch, Dyna pushed into the most twisted laboratory she had seen thus far.

A white and black hallway with glowing red accents greeted her. A thick door, the kind that opened horizontally, stood in front of her, blocking the way with angry red lights. Windows on either side of the door provided glimpses of brains in jars, spinal cords covered in yellow wires, lightning arcing between large electrical diodes, and a bronze humanoid body floating in one large vertical tube. The latter’s body looked more like an exoskeleton than anything else. The biomechanical construct that Ado had mentioned? Except she said those would be hanging from wires and this was in a tulpa containment tube.

Figuring her destination was ahead of her still, Dyna looked over the door once again. There was no other way to go. No side doors or alternate paths. The large door had a small panel to its side, clearly asking for a handprint. Dyna stared at it for a long moment before realizing what this being Id’s private workshop actually meant.

Dyna pressed her hand to the panel.

The light blinked green and a loud hiss of a pressurized atmosphere breaking filled the air as the door slid aside.

Gunfire immediately pelted the walls around her.