GRADIENT 3: Labyrinth

Asher: Rusty. Scotty: Doc Marty. Nico: Bucky Andrew. Christian: Kanan "Carrion" O'Tool.

Left alone in the scrap-covered court room. Android corpses of Cherubim looted by Red Shuilong. Lewis, dead, against the wall. Bucky Andrew, a nerdy mechanic and soldier, is assigned to the team. She also fucked with Monarch and has to complete a contract. They enter the hallway.

It leads to Fortifications. A blast door, with handprint scanner. Rusty scans his hand, and the door opens. It opens to the back of a stage, facing an auditorium. Hundreds of seats, a massive theater. Dead and dying androids strewn about. Some loot their fellows for parts. Missing jaws, brains, limbs, teeth, eyes. One rises from the seats and begs for help. A red alarm blares. A turret enters from under the ground and shreds the android with machine-gun fire. The divers duck against the wall on their side of the hallway. The turret lobs a grenade. Carrion kicks it back, and they close the blast door. BOOM. They wait, and then check the room. Miraculously the grenade exploded the turret. The androids beg for a savior. Doc Marty guns them down while the rest of the crew aren't looking. He finds a labeled map for Floor 3.1: Maintenance Zone. 

Bucky and Carrion disable the security on an airlock door leading north. 

The corporate hallway becomes concrete. Pipes lining the walls. Stairs up, down, left, right. Then the hallway becomes dark. Walls, ceiling, floor, all pseudo flesh. It reddens, irritated, as the divers walk across it. Shuddering and subtly shifting. Left or right. T-junction. Left. They walk back out into Fortifications.

They enter again. Same pattern, corporate, concrete, pipes, darkness, pseudo flesh, T-junction. Right. A hallway of android ears. They bruise. Gray waxy clumps deep inside. They can hear. T-junction. Right, again. The Core: a bright four-way intersection. Light emitting out of the floor. Fifteen androids, different models in perfect condition, congregate here. They speak praises of the Minotaur. Here he comes now.

Horrifying. Flashlights illuminate the dark tunnels. A pale worm squeezes through. A black pit is the mouth and flashlights shining down it only reveal more rows of shark-like teeth. Deep sockets with glistening animal eyes within, reflecting like predators. Tree trunk sized limbs squeeze the body through, appendages, tens of them, growing and spreading off the stumps. It sticks its bending appendages into three different androids and speaks through them one-after-the-other, one word at a time. 

The Minotaur is Monarch's son, abandoned for discovering a love of humanity. It was cursed to take this form, and trapped far within the labyrinth so it could never aid humankind. It speaks of being freed through Monarch's destruction. The Mind Thief can use his Hell Box. The divers request help. The Minotaur sticks appendages into their heads, inducing a relaxing effect. The Minotaur retreats into darkness.

The divers continue trekking through the maze. Three Chosen carrying a crate. After Rusty brandishes the Chosen King's skull the Chosen become violent. Bucky, using her revolver, kicks ass and wastes the androids. One Chosen chokes Rusty so hard he fractures his skull. After the androids are curb stomped they loot the crate: an Artifact, #44 False memory Disc. 

The divers, exhausted, sleep within the Labyrinth, taking watches. While they sleep...

Rusty. Haunted. A gray wasteland. Dust particles coat the air. A trembling in the ground. Beasts, shadowy centipedes tall as skyscrapers, erupt from the stone and stare down at Rusty with mask-like humanoid faces. He runs. They tell him something. He wakes up. He can't remember.

Marty. Nightmares. Helping Emery, his protege from 100 years ago, in the workshop. Emery says something. Marty can't hear him, so he turns around. Emery's head is that of a woman; her face sagging and her tangled hair wet, draping down to the ground. Dripping on to the floor. Mouth open, fanged. Scary Girlfriend. In the voice of the AI assistant AHANIA: "We want to see you again." Marty jumps awake. 

Carrion. Haunted. A black mountain, so dark it blends with the sky. Ambient light illuminates rain-soaked cliffs. Carrion grabs hold and shimmies. Storm pouring down. The drop is darkness below. Dust floating in the air, even in this weather. he feels a presence next to him. A wet whisper in his ear: "We are so happy please bring us back to the--" Carrion jumps off the cliff and wakes up.

STATUS:

> Day 17: 0 hours post-rest. [R29A]

> 5 hours until starving.

> 5 hours until Arkady returns to the Deep.

> 18mcr in debt.

HOOKS:

The other blast door in Fortifications. Chosen King fallout. Floor 3.1: Maintenance Zone. The Mind Thief and his Hell Box. Artifact #44. Doomed dreams. +Previous hooks.