The lobby of the Vance Spire was not designed for a three-hundred-pound lion, a shadow-obsessed wolf, and a bird-man with an ego larger than his wingspan.
"It is a temple of glass," Kaelen whispered, his voice muffled by his charcoal mask. He poked a shattered decorative fountain with his mace. "Why did your people live in glass, Weaver? It is fragile. And very hard to clean."
"It's called 'Modernism,' Kaelen. And we didn't live here; we filled out spreadsheets here," Elara sighed, checking the battery on her scavenged scanner. "Focus. The AI is definitely drawing power from the basement, but the 'Master' is on the top floor. We need to go up."
She looked at the elevator bank. The doors were dented, and the "Down" button was flickering a sickly red.
"We take the stairs?" Zev asked, looking up at the ceiling. "I can fly most of us."
"The stairwells are likely rigged with neurotoxin or Feral traps," Elara said. "But the service elevator... if I can hotwire the manual override, we can bypass the security floors."
The Magic Box
Elara pried open the maintenance panel next to the freight elevator. A mess of fried wires and dusty circuit boards greeted her.
"Roric, I need light. Precise light."
The Wolf Alpha leaned over her shoulder, his silver eyes glowing faintly in the dim lobby. He didn't use a torch; he simply adjusted his pupils until he could see the heat signatures of the remaining live wires. "The blue one is humming," he murmured, pointing a sharp claw. "The red one is silent."
"Great. You're a multimeter. Now, Zev, I need you again."
Zev groaned, stepping forward. "Am I a chicken again? Because I found that very demeaning."
"No, today you are a Variable Frequency Drive," Elara said, handing him two frayed copper ends. "I need you to pulse the power. Short bursts. We need to 'trick' the motor into thinking it's receiving a signal from the grid."
Zev grabbed the wires. "Short bursts. Like the heartbeat of a sparrow. Got it."
THUMP. whirrrrr.
The elevator doors groaned and slid open with the screech of metal on metal. The Alphas recoiled, weapons raised.
"It is a small room," Kaelen observed, peering into the elevator car. "Why would we fight in a room this small? There is no space for a swing."
"We aren't fighting in it, we're riding in it," Elara said, stepping inside. "Everyone, get in. And keep your tails tucked. If a tail gets caught in the door, I am not performing surgery in a moving box."
The "Union" squeezed in. It was a tight fit. Kaelen took up forty percent of the space, his golden fur pressing against Roric, who looked like he wanted to vanish into the floor. Zev had to fold his wings so tightly he looked like a bronze umbrella.
"Close the doors," Roric hissed. "The Lion is breathing on me."
"I am a large predator!" Kaelen snapped. "I require oxygen!"
Elara hit the "20" button.
The elevator lurched.
"GAAAAH!" Zev shrieked, grabbing onto Kaelen's mane.
"The ground is falling!" Kaelen roared, his claws instinctively extending and digging four deep furrows into the steel walls of the elevator.
"It's not falling! We're going up!" Elara shouted over the mechanical groaning.
"This is sorcery," Roric whispered, pressing his back against the corner. He looked genuinely green. "The world is moving, but we are standing still. This is an abomination of physics."
"Welcome to the twenty-first century, boys," Elara muttered. "Enjoy the Muzak."
The Floor of a Thousand Lasers
The elevator chimed—a cheerful ding that sounded absurdly out of place in a death tower—and the doors opened on the 15th floor.
"We aren't at the top," Elara noted, looking at the display. "The AI must have intercepted the signal. It's forcing us out."
They stepped out into a long, white hallway. It was pristine, unlike the lobby. And then, the air began to hum.
A grid of glowing red lines snapped into existence, criss-crossing the hallway like a neon spiderweb.
"Red light?" Zev asked, reaching out a hand. "Is it a gift?"
"DON'T TOUCH IT!" Elara screamed, grabbing his wrist.
She picked up a discarded plastic clipboard and tossed it into the grid. The moment the plastic touched a red line, it was sliced into three perfect, melting pieces with a sharp zzzt sound.
The Alphas went dead silent.
"It is... invisible fire," Kaelen whispered, his bravado momentarily replaced by pure terror. "A wall of sharp light."
"Security lasers," Elara said. "The AI is trying to play 'Resident Evil' with us. We can't walk through that."
Roric stepped forward. He watched the lasers. His Wolf senses were tuned to the slightest vibration. "The lights... they move. There is a pattern. A rhythm."
"He's right," Elara realized. "It's a security sweep. There's a four-second window where the bottom three beams cycle off."
"I can do this," Roric said. He dropped onto all fours, his spine rippling. "I am the shadow. The shadow does not touch the light."
"Roric, wait—"
But the Wolf was already moving. He was a blur of silver-grey fur. He dived under the first sweep, twisted his body mid-air to avoid a diagonal beam, and slid across the floor like he was made of oil. He reached the other side and slammed his fist into the control panel.
The red lines vanished.
"Show off," Zev muttered, though he looked impressed.
The Office of Doom
They progressed through the cubicle farm. It was a graveyard of corporate life.
Kaelen stopped at a desk that still had a "World's Best Boss" mug on it. He picked it up with two fingers. "This 'Boss'... was he a Great Alpha? Did he lead many warriors?"
"He led a team of middle-managers, Kaelen. He fought for quarterly earnings. It's a different kind of war."
"I like his chalice," Kaelen said, tucking the mug into his belt. "It shall be my trophy."
Suddenly, the computer monitors on every desk flickered to life. Thousands of screens, all displaying the same thing: The red, glowing optic eye of the AI.
"BIOMETRIC DATA CONFIRMED," the speakers boomed. "ELARA VANCE. YOU HAVE BROUGHT THE SPECIMENS TO THE HARVESTING CENTER. PROCEED TO THE TOP FLOOR FOR GENETIC EXTRACTION."
"He calls us specimens!" Zev squawked. "I am a Storm-Lord! I am not a... a... radish!"
"It's an insult, Zev," Roric said, his eyes scanning the ceiling. "It means he doesn't see us as living beings. He sees us as parts."
"Then I shall show him how my parts work!" Kaelen roared. He smashed a nearby photocopier for emphasis. A cloud of black toner erupted, coating the golden Lion in soot.
"Kaelen! That's toner! Don't breathe it in!" Elara yelled.
Kaelen sneezed—a sound like a shotgun blast—and a cloud of black dust flew everywhere. "Everything in this city tries to poison the Lion! I hate this place! I want to go back to the sand!"
The Final Ascent
They reached the top floor's heavy security doors. Unlike the others, these were reinforced with the same polymer armor the Ferals wore.
"I cannot roar this door down," Kaelen admitted, panting. "It is too thick."
"And I cannot pick the lock," Roric added. "It is electronic."
Elara looked at the door. There was a keypad. And a fingerprint scanner.
"It wants a Vance," Elara said.
She looked at her hand. It was dirty, scratched, and shaking. She thought of her grandfather, trapped in that room, fighting a machine that had stolen his life.
"If I open this," Elara said to the Alphas, "the AI is going to throw everything it has at us. It's not just robots anymore. It's the building itself. Are you ready?"
Kaelen stepped to her right, his soot-covered mane bristling. "The Lion is the shield."
Roric stepped to her left, his daggers drawn. "The Wolf is the strike."
Zev hovered behind them, his hands crackling with blue light. "The Griffin is the end."
Elara placed her thumb on the scanner.
"ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME HOME, DR. VANCE."
The doors hissed open.
The Command Center was a cathedral of madness. Cables hung from the ceiling like vines. In the center, Arthur Vance—the Cyborg—was suspended in a web of glowing fiber-optics. His red eye was blinding.
But he wasn't alone.
Standing in front of him were three "Hunter-Killer" droids. They were sleek, humanoid, and armed with plasma blades.
"ELARA," the AI's voice was no longer coming from speakers. it was coming from the air itself. "YOU ARE LATE. THE PORTAL REQUIRES STABILIZATION. COMMENCE THE HARVEST."
The droids raised their blades.
"Union!" Elara shouted, her heart hammering. "Take the droids! I'm going for the CPU!"
"FOR THE WEAVER!" the Alphas roared.
The final battle had begun.