Silver Saint

Sixteen: Labyrinth

//Report: Quinn, Jackson.

//The Southwestern Wastes.

//Arizona.

//Axion Industries manufacturing base.

//Designation: "The Forge".

//Resume log.

"Wait a minute," Amani stated. I could hear the disbelief in her voice, even as the elevator descended deeper into the facility. "How did this happen? We're smarter than this."

"Doesn't feel like it," Leto replied. His Guardian glanced about the platform placidly, torso swivelling as he surveyed our predicament.

"Hey, I didn't hear you offering any warnings or advice either," Amani retorted. "Did Sanviento not pay you enough to afford self-awareness?"

"Now what?" Kedrick inquired, sidestepping the argument. His Guardian stood near the edge of the platform, facing me. "We lost the chance to eject ages ago, and I doubt comms can reach this deep underground."

"Yeah, why didn't we eject?" Leto inquired, ignoring Amani's anger. "Would've saved us a lot of trouble."

In truth, I'd considered ejecting-but something had forced me to stay put.

"Because she wants us down here," I replied. "This is a trap, that much is obvious, but there's something more to it."

"So we stayed to satiate your morbid curiosity? Leto snapped. "Just great."

"No," I replied. "I stayed to satiate hers."

Ahead of us, I could finally see a bottom to our descent-a slab of concrete that jutted from the edge of the elevator shaft, protruding into the forty-five degree tunnel like a hook. In a few moments, our elevator would reach the lower platform and grind to a halt, releasing us into whatever parts of the facility awaited us below.

"Okay," Leto sighed, "That was an incredibly cryptic and unhelpful response. Care to elaborate?"

"I think I get it," Kedrick replied. Even over the comms I could hear the excitement budding in his voice. "You heard Locke on the surface, right? She's fought us before, but now she doesn't have Blackwell to order her around. She sees us as a challenge to overcome-to prove she's better than Blackwell was!"

"And that's why we'll win," I affirmed. "Trap or not, she's just opened the door and let us deep into the Forge-exactly where we want to be."

"And we'll make her regret that choice every step of the way," Amani beamed.

"You're all insane," Leto sighed, "but I've learned better than to bet against you."

I felt the platform shudder as it came to a rest at the bottom of the elevator shaft, completing it's slow journey downward. Looking up, I could no longer see the sky, nor hear the battle that raged on the surface-we were wholly and truly on our own.

Before us lay an immense industrial sprawl, a subterranean chamber that defied belief. The room was, itself, a canyon, easily a kilometer in length and several hundred meters wide. The ceiling arched high above, reinforced by immense metal pillars and segmented into panels lined with blinking lights and mechanized rails. The walls, too, were broken into modular sections, their dull metal surfaces dotted with recessed tracks, hydraulic actuators, and cameras that gleamed like unblinking eyes. The floor itself was an intricate patchwork of industrial terrain-metal grates and smooth concrete locked together in a strange geometric pattern.

"What kind of factory is this?" Kedrick breathed.

"This... isn't a factory," I replied. "It's-"

Before I could finish my sentence, someone switched on the sky.