In the control room, Rayker was sat at a computer with her feet up on the desk. She stared at a screen in quiet concentration as text streamed past, and Byoran had to clear his throat. The woman didn’t react, and he repeated the noise.

“Do you really think I didn’t hear you?” Rayker said distractedly.

“Madam, as requested I have brought the—”

“Yes, I can practically smell her fear. Be quiet and wait.”

Minutes drifted past before she sighed and dropped her feet down, before turning to fix Christie with an annoyed glare. “What do you want?”

Where once a snappy retort might have surfaced, Christie’s thoughts only frothed with a dark and choppy storm.

“What have you done with the other Rangers?” she demanded.

Rayker smiled. “I locked them in a cell together. You’re all remarkably resistant, aren’t you? However, did you know that humans, under conditions of extreme starvation, have been known to kill and eat each other?”

Christie’s voice nearly cracked. “Yes.”

“Unfortunately, it will take a while. Though, I’m wondering if, in that state, the offer of food will be enough to make the weak one break. She’s already starting to look flaky.”

“I’m the only one who could tell you anything useful,” Christie insisted.

Rayker waved a dismissive hand. “I’m over it, frankly. The battle is won, and I’m more interested in this machine.”

“Then let them go.” Christie felt the desperation in her voice and was surprised by how little shame it caused her.

“No. I like torturing people, and that little experiment almost runs itself.”

“Gosh, how imaginative. Thousands of years and all you’ve learned is more inventive forms of cruelty.”

Rayker laughed, stood up and walked over to her. “I learned all the savagery I’ve ever needed before they even made me immortal.”

Christie tried to think clearly through her seething anger. Rayker was talking. Make her keep talking.

“Was that how they bought you? Offering revenge in exchange for selling out humanity?”

“Selling out humanity? My dear, how did I give you such a bad impression of me? Didn’t I explain that I am but a servant of one who is attempting to do what’s best for the species?”

“Twisting Earth’s emperors around your fingers?” Christie snapped. “You aren’t a servant, you’re a puppet master.”

Rayker turned away as she tossed her hair through her hands and stretched.

“Such a drama queen, aren’t you?” She paced a little, then turned, her eyes flashing with delight. “Was I the dark succubus, creeping through the shadows and corrupting men’s dreams? Did I drug them and brainwash them once they fell in love with me?” She snorted. “Oh yes, I can see it now. Me in a scanty nightrobe, purring at the door. ‘My love’, I said, ‘I’ll fulfill your heart’s desires if only you’ll invade Asia.’”

Rayker shook her head as she smiled at distant memories. “No, you child. In that scenario, the warlord standing over his map over the world, waves his hand impatiently. ‘Not now, please,’ he says, ‘I’m planning to invade our neighbours.’ And so, I am left to sleep alone for the next fortnight.”

Christie shot her a sarcastic smile, but the woman seemed lost in her own world.

“Here’s how it really works,” Rayker said, after a thoughtful pause. “All men want to conquer—or rather they did when it was the only worthwhile measure of their greatness. With technology they find new ways to do the same thing. But anyway, all you really have to do is find a sufficiently bright thinker, and poke and prod at his thoughts until he arrives where he already wants to go. What they needed was courage, not instructions.”

She strode back and forth across the control room as she gestured with her arms, and swung through expressive poses in the pantomime of her art.

“You help them with rhetoric, charisma, and you work their crowd of followers. Stoke the fire of admiration and belief. Then you introduce them to people—no one special at first, just the local community leaders. Once they become sufficiently infamous you spread the circle—make connections. ‘My honored Praetor Lucullus, you absolutely must speak to my dear friend Jack Half-wit, I think you will find him quite to your liking.’”

Rayker stopped moving and tilted her head. “At this point, one really needs money, because parties and gatherings become expensive. But power and wealth aren’t hard to amass when you can kill effectively, and convince the incredulous that you’re a goddess. Before you know it, the movement takes on a life of its own, and you’re left cleaning up inconvenient obstacles.” She finished with a theatrical bow, “you get the idea.”

“Certainly,” Christie said bitterly.

“Oh, does it hurt you?” Rayker said with exaggerated sympathy. “Did you think people were too moral to do it on their own? All we really did, me and my colleagues, was navigate by the star of human nature.” She stepped closer to Christie until she was almost breathing in her ear. “Should we maybe review our youthful assumptions? Do we need to grow up a little bit?”

Christie shoved her away, and turned to run, but Byoran caught her arm. His urgent look suggested she had gone too far.

Rayker, having only stumbled backward, cackled harshly. “No, I don’t mind at all,” she said cheerfully. “Let her roam around—she won’t do anything, and the camera coverage is inescapable.” She gazed at Christie for a quiet moment. “I do like you, still. You’re so bright and ruthless yourself—all you need is to wake up a bit.”

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Christie’s head throbbed with black rage. It weighed her down as though it had been filled with molten lead. Her face twisted in resentment, and she threw off Byoran’s arm before turning for the control room’s exit.

She had barely moved before a horrific spider-like creature lurched out of the doorway, and flailed its front legs at her.

“Back up please, make way,” a male voice said from behind it.

The creature agitated its forelegs in a hesitant way, and appeared to be confused about what to do. Christie darted to the side, into the waiting arms of Byoran, while her heart hammered a drum beat. Unhindered by unexpected obstacles, the giant spider tottered forward. It carried a large container on its back, while one of the VennZech guards followed behind it.

“Where do you want this one?” He asked Rayker.

She pointed. “Conduit fourteen, down that way.”

The man made an odd gesture, and the spider immediately turned and headed off in the new direction. Christie realized it was not a completely biological creature—mechanical parts melded grotesquely into hairy flesh all over its body. Some of its eyes and antennae were artificial, while its legs seemed to be reinforced with metal joints and tips.

“Brilliant creations,” Rayker said idly. “Turns out the transformation chambers were meant for much more sophisticated designs than I could imagine. Whoever built this place used them to merge much simpler life with machines, for completely obedient, and incredibly capable servants. We have a whole stockpile of them to work with, which makes things so much easier. You wouldn’t believe what a stroke of luck that was.”

“Of course,” stammered Christie.

“Which reminds me, Byoran,” Rayker continued. “Go down to the teleporter and check over the security arrangements as soon as you can.”

“Uh…” Byoran glanced at Christie.

“What?” Rayker snapped. “She’s hardly going to try and sabotage her only way out, is she?”

“Um, yes Madam,” Byoran said with a head bow, before turning for the control room’s exit.

“I think,” Christie said as they followed dark passageways deeper into the base, “that you might have mentioned the giant robot spiders.”

Byoran shuddered. “Maybe my brain blocked them out. I hate the damn things.”

Christie sighed. There was no question the things could be repurposed for combat, though Rayker had seemed content in her role of scientific investigator. Oddly relaxed, even.

“Was there any news from Rackeye? About the terrorists?” she asked.

“I haven’t heard anything. But I haven’t exactly had any free time since we came down here.”

Christie’s spirits rose. They couldn’t be too concerned about the surface, which implied that Valkyrie hadn’t gone to war with the whole galaxy. On the other hand, it also meant that Rayker felt very secure, and if anymore of the task force had been captured, she would probably be parading them in front of Christie. So, they had either succeeded, or been wiped out.

A jolt of pain lanced through her chest at the thought, but she didn’t let it show. It didn’t matter. If she wanted to find a way to help stop Rayker, she had only one option remaining. And yet, the woman had dangled the teleporter in front of her like a gift. Why would she be so obvious? Christie was beginning to sense a trap, unless her torture had made her psychotic. But that was the point of trauma, wasn’t it? It made you protect yourself.

“So, there’s some kind of a teleporter?” she asked calmly. It wasn’t like she had anything to lose.

Byoran shook his head. “Damned if I know. That’s what Madam said, but it doesn’t work.”

“Then, why are you defending it?”

“I guess she doesn’t want to risk leaving it unmonitored. It’s not like we can pull the thing apart. Who knows if someone else can activate it?”

And that was another odd thing to say, because Rayker knew very well that none of the other sites could connect to this teleporter. Why wouldn’t she have told her team that same information? A more logical explanation was that she had arranged a possible escape route in case of an attack, and wanted to make sure it was protected. But her general demeanor suggested that possibility was the farthest thing from her mind.

Christie’s thoughts whirled around themselves as they entered a much larger hall where a carved stone archway let out onto an even bigger space beyond. They passed through, and as Christie rounded a column, she stopped dead and let out a gasp.

The cavern she had glimpsed before opened up before them, an immense vault unlike anything she had ever seen. At its heart lay the machine; the city-sized computer that apparently wanted to understand humanity. Vast geometric structures rose up to a ceiling hidden by fog as they crisscrossed and intersected each other. Lights twinkled and streamed across sensor arrays, while highways of cables wove through the maze.

But that wasn’t the worst part. Christie focused her eyes to see dozens of the cyborg spiders scuttling around in the near outskirts of the complex. That gave her enough information to understand that the tiny moving dots all over the machine were probably more of the same thing. Occasionally, something detached from an upper wall, and flew away.

There were thousands of them.

“Pretty freaky, right?” Byoran said as he looked up, and for a moment, a smile darted across his face. “I’m guessing Rayker needed an excuse to send you this way. She wants to impress you.”

“Yes,” Christie breathed, though she didn’t believe him. “I’m certainly impressed.”

“Don’t worry about the workers. They don’t attack unless you try to damage something important.”

“I thought you said this was a risky place?”

“Not here. They’re just busy maintaining the thing, and we think they’re expanding it too. There are hundreds of caverns being dug beneath the surface, and, right now, these guys seem to be working on new conduits for power and data access. Rayker wants to plug into the new lines and track the construction in real time. Might give us an idea how the damned thing works.”

Christie could only smile meekly. “But… how is it cooled?” she asked, more for the continued sound of his voice than anything else.

Byoran tore his gaze away from the machine, and continued along a dimly lit path. “Water. The local river system was diverted down here, and it flows out into the nearby valleys.”

“And the danger?”

Byoran grimaced. “They are packed away in storage. Rayker said not to wake any of them on pain of an immediate and horrifying death. We guessed that she meant by them, not her, and we obviously don’t understand enough about them to risk it. They might see any intruder as a threat. The workers might trigger their activation if you touch the wrong thing, or the installation itself.”

Christie nodded. “It makes sense to keep the science team upstairs, I suppose. No telling what kind of things they might try without thinking.”

Byoran nodded. “Right, you really need soldiers. Everything is a threat until proven otherwise. We don’t try any new interaction without a worker nearby to test it. If it gets antsy, we back off. Worst case scenario is an evacuation plan to the surface, which everyone had to memorize.”

Soldiers, Christie noted, and once again felt a rush of frustration. Byoran had never joined the military. Why were they making this so easy for her? Or was she really so much smarter than everybody else, to include an immortal demon? In the back of her mind, Kayla flashed her a scornful look.

“And yet,” Christie noted, “you brought a teenager down here?”

Byoran glanced at her and stopped walking. His expression grew solemn.

“Just make sure you understand something. When you’re on her side, Rayker has a way of growing on you. She’s extremely loyal, inspiring, and if you earn her respect, she’ll extend a lot of responsibility to you. But never forget that she is a monster through and through. Milani is here for one reason only—to help her get inside your head.”

Despite her misgivings about him, Christie read nothing but honesty in his eyes.