“Once we get that sapper’s table up a few more levels, you can build Katia some great ammunition,” he said.
We hadn’t yet told him about the bolt she’d gotten from her sponsor. There was just so much he’d missed. I’d bring it up soon.
He’d been aghast with some of the chances we’d taken over the past several days, and we had argued quite a bit over some of the expenses, but he’d been particularly impressed with the progress Katia had made plus some of the items I’d manufactured, including the landmines and the heal-infused smoke curtains. Both of those items I’d actually gotten from the cookbook, but if he suspected anything, he said nothing.
We still had a lot to talk about. We hadn’t discussed the Kimaris figure nor the PVP coupons nor a dozen other small items. I wasn’t finished with him regarding that bullshit with Chaco, either, but we simply didn’t have the time.
I finished my daily training to find Katia leaning over the map, chatting with Mordecai.
“But if these railways represent paths to the center of the galaxy, are they really all on the same plane?”
“All I know is what I’ve learned from years of watching Syndicate programs,” Mordecai said. “When my world was taken, we weren’t much more advanced than your world was. We’d colonized a few planets in our solar system, and that was it. I was more interested in fungus and plants than the stars. But you’re right. I think maybe it’s, I don’t know, squished.”
“I put it all together, and we’re still missing half the system,” she said. “Plus that symbol only works from above.” She trailed off. She started scribbling furiously.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, coming to look over the table. “We know where the stairs are. We just have to defend it.”
“Wait,” she said, drawing a line. “Are they able to make things upside down? Like make you think you’re right-side-up when you’re really upside down?”
I thought of the fight with the rage elemental. He’d cast a spell on us that had turned the hallway upside down.
“Yes,” I said.
“They have done that before,” Mordecai said. “They’ve done it several times, actually. It’s easy to do and saves space.”
She took the paper, and she folded it in half. She held it up to the light. She ripped it a little and rearranged it again.
“I figured out how to make the logo work,” she said. “Also, I think I know why there were only six station mimics. And why they’re so big. They’re really occupying two stations at once.”
“Wait,” I said. “So right below our feet, like if we dig down far enough, we’ll come to another train station, and you’re saying it’ll be upside down?”
“It could be right side up,” she said, “but I don’t think so. If it’s upside-down and mirrors the tracks above it, then the map works. We are at station 59 on the zomp line. If we dig, we’ll end up at station 59 on some other line. Probably whatever the inverted color is on the color wheel. Plus, I think there might be an empty chamber between the two levels. Remember that room from the recap episode? With the stairwell and the ladder? I think that’s the space in-between.”
“These tracks are twisting around and over and under each other already. A mirror world doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think it’s a mirror of the entire tangle. Just each individual line.”
“What? Katia, what the fuck? How does that make sense?”
“Just think of every line as a noodle, and the track is on the outside of the noodle. And there’s another track on the opposite side of the same noodle. And think of the abyss as a fork stuck into the middle of the bowl that has been turned a few times. It’s not so much a spirograph pattern like we originally thought, but a chaotic mess. And in the middle of that giant bowl, the named lines make a pattern, spelling out the logo of the Syndicate. Actually, they do it either 12 or 24 times. Or maybe 48. I’m not sure.”
“Yeah, not helping. Jesus fuck. Nobody can follow this.”
“Just pretend like you half understand.”
“Sure. Why not. That’s wild. And weird. And it just makes everything more, not less, complicated. Which goes back to my original statement. It’s amazing that you could figure this out. Really. I don’t want to come across as a dick. But how does this information affect us now other than giving me a bigger headache than I already have?”
Katia shrugged. “I don’t know if it will. But this double-sided noodle thing is a lot of trouble to go through for it to not make any difference. Maybe it’s just extra fluff to appease the nerds. But it’s been bothering me for days, and now it makes sense. It feels like a trap to me. The announcement said we’d have our hands full, but unless something new happens, that’s not true.”
She was right. But what was the purpose other than to be confusing as shit?
“Hey, Mordecai,” I said. “When you first said you figured out the map, before your time out, you said this was something you’d seen before, just on a smaller scale. What did you mean?”
“There was a floor once that was like a rat maze, and it had rooms that were like giant, sliding puzzle pieces. It was also a fourth floor. The pieces of this one area slid together to make the Syndicate logo, and it opened up the exit. Actually,” he said, eyes going wide. “I forgot about this part. Once the pieces were together, the whole thing spun on the center axis, flipping everyone upside down into a hidden chamber below them.”
Carclass="underline" Hey Imani and Elle. What do you know about the province boss that’s hanging out in some of the station 36s?
Imani: It’s a bunch of wrath ghouls tied together. It forms a giant monster covered with mouths. It fills the whole station. It’s pretty much the same thing as the boss at all the station 48s.
I thought for a moment. If the floors flipped, it wouldn’t make a difference. Unless… Holy Jesus.
Carclass="underline" Is the boss attached to the ceiling of the chamber?
Imani: I don’t think so. But I don’t know for sure. What are you getting at?
Think, think.
Elle: The fuckers sound scary as shit. You’re not thinking about fighting one are you? Because I’m pretty sure we talked about this already, cowboy. Nobody can even kill one of those city boss mimics, let alone a province boss. Did you watch the recap? Those poor bastards fought that boss and were wiped in about thirty seconds. Also, that was pretty fucked up. What you did to that poor hyena. I know the show is exaggerating things, but I worry about you sometimes.
Carclass="underline" Do you know if the ghoul generators at 12 and 72 hang from the ceiling?
Imani: I think they just float in the middle of the room. Carl. Speak to me.
I returned my gaze back to the circled station 24, where the Krakaren babies were gathered. They were getting bigger by the hour. By all accounts, they weren’t ranging far from the area. But if there were so many of them, getting bigger by the moment, where were they all going?
“You know,” I said. “If this whole thing is a metaphor like you say, about how bad the Krakaren monsters really are for the universe, about how they’re using the tunnel system to spread their influence or whatever, then I’m guessing they’ll want them to be the final blow. The exclamation point to their stupid political cartoon.”
“But how?” Katia asked.
I think there might be an empty chamber between the two levels.