Chapter 71

I continued climbing. As I moved upwards I had to avoid the inner workings of the tower. Huge cogs spun. I couldn't know it they were powerful enough to damage my suit, but I had no desire to investigate personally. Flexible pipes ran from vessels of fluid. These, I imagine bore accelerants for flame jets on the outside. I didn't expect that breaking one of those tubes and saturating myself, or the surfaces I climbed, with slippery flammable liquids, would help my cause. There were long stretches where I could simply climb, but my path was frequently interrupted by moving parts and dangerous mechanisms.

I couldn't keep track of the time. I tried to count the rungs as I went, tried to find some kind of mental calculus that would allow me to estimate how I, or how far, I had been climbing. But my thoughts were interrupted constantly my the moving parts of the tower, by the sounds of battle beyond the walls.

The voice suddenly spoke. The thing's tone was teasing. It said, "How long do you think you've been climbing, Tiberius?"

I gritted my teeth. "I don't know. Ten minutes? Fifteen?"

The voice giggled. It was a mean sound, twisted in that high childlike voice. Why was it enjoying this? It wanted me to win, didn't it?

It said, "Oh, much longer than that, I think. Or maybe much shorter. It's hard to say, isn't it?"

I tried to ignore it. It was toying with me. I tried to focus on the climb.

"You know," the voice said, "you could just emerge now. Take your chances. What's the worst that could happen?"

I said, flatly, "The worst that could happen is Lance blasts me off the tower and I end up crippled or dead."

The voice laughed uproariously, as though I had just told an especially funny joke. It said, "True. But isn't that a risk you're willing to take? After all, you did sneak inside the tower. That was quite the bold move."

Again I tried some fruitless exercises in mental math, trying to even roughly estimate how much time had passed, and how much distance I had covered.

"Think about it, Tiberius," the voice said. "You can't stay in here forever. The longer you wait, the more likely the line has passed you. If you wait too long, you'll miss your chance."

I knew the voice was teasing me. But I also couldn't argue with the facts. I couldn't afford to wait too long. I needed to emerge sometime, and too late would certainly be worse than too early. I took a deep breath. I decided that I would count to one hundred, and then I would make my move. It was a gamble, but everything in the Choosing was a gamble.

As I counted I still didn't waste the valuable free time. I counted and flexed my attributes at the same time. Every increase was an addition to the armory of options I would have when I emerged., The voice remained silent.

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I tried to count the rungs I had climbed, at three feet each, and multiply, but I kept losing count, and kept doing the maths wrong. I snapped at the voice, "Why are you mocking me about how long it's been? I asked you to set a timer."

The voice mocked, "I haven't been checking the timer. It's running, don't worry, but this is far more exciting for me if I see what you do without constant reminders."

I screamed at the voice, my frustration echoing in the cramped space, "I thought you wanted to see me succeed! Why would you torture me like this!?"

The voice said, "How do you know I'm not talking to all of them right now as well? Or that other voices aren't talking in their heads, that we're not all just entertained, tickled pink, by the excitement, the peril, the struggle?"

I paused. The jibe poked at my growing sense of specialness. How could I know? Was I really so different? But then reality poured in. The city was amazed at my progress, many knowledgeable men had remarked on my growth. Neither Morningstar nor Katya had indicated they heard a voice when I mentioned it.

Then I found myself laughing. The voice felt less like a sinister source of mockery and more like a teasing friend. By the Oracle, was this thing becoming my friend? The voice spoke, more sincerely intimate, "That's the spirit, Tiberius. It's all just a lark after all. Might as well laugh while we're alive."

I agreed, wiping a tear from my eye, pressure, mania, honest amusement. I said, "Alright, voice, how long has it been then?"

The voice said, "Almost an hour."

My heart froze. I shrieked, "An hour? This is another joke?"

The voice said, "No, when it comes to solid data, I don't joke."

I said, "But... but... if it's been an hour..." I did the maths, 12 minutes a level, 60 minutes to the hour, divided by the square root of how horrendously fucked I was. "If we haven't reached the top level then I'm finished, it's over."

The voice said, "Then I guess it's time to find out."

Even as we spoke, my head hit a solid wall of steel above me. I wondered, was that the pinnacle of the tower? It had to be. If it was, then I was about to emerge above everyone, Lance included, well above not only the light line but the painted line of the safety zone. My mouth watered suddenly at the chance to strike at an unsuspecting Lance from above, to send him hurtling from the tower.

I faced the wall, feeling the pressure mount as I prepared to cut through it. I reached back with my sword and executed a CUT, but it just left a faintly glowing line. Panic began to set in. Of course, the wall here was thicker; this wasn't the lining of an inner corridor. This was the outer wall of the tower, designed to bear the weight of contestants, absorb impacts, and deflect glancing CUTS and BEAMS.

I used CUT again, my sword flaring angrily, the level 2 CUT striking like the punishment of a mad god. Again, it had almost no effect. I hacked again and again, but I was just an initiate. This wall wouldn't hold up under the assault of a Morningstar, but to a lowly contestant in the Choosing, the CUT I thought so highly of was a blunted butter knife.

The voice in my ear, suddenly weary, said, "The seams... Tiberius... There are seams..."

Following the advice, I targeted the seams, my CUT searing through the joints between the sheets that made up the exterior of the tower, shredding little rivets like icicles. Light from the arena flooded in as a square fell away, a square easily big enough for my head and shoulders. The sound of the crowd rushed through me, battering me, staggering me.

I leaned out and looked down. The distance to the ground was dizzying, so far, so very far now. But oddly, I couldn't locate the light line. Perplexed, I looked up, and there it was, inches above my head, creeping away.

Much, much worse than that, Lance was only twenty or thirty feet above me. His lips beneath the half-helm twisted into a demonic smile. His blade pointed at me, swelling with the light of his level 3 BEAM.