Chapter 47
ENDGAME
The room erupted into motion. The platforms began to reconfigure, creating a terraced battleground with Faine’s throne at the highest point.
Metal arms extended from the walls, equipped with surgical tools as the floor beneath them separated into segmented panels that began to move independently, making stable footing a challenge.
“Split up!” Levi shouted as an arm swung toward them, its attached bone saw whirring hungrily.
They dove in opposite directions as the saw slammed into the floor where they stood. Levi rolled to his feet on one platform while Asher landed in a crouch on another.
Faine’s laughter boomed through the chamber, amplified by the multiple speakers. “Yes, run! Struggle! Fear and adrenaline only make the biological components more viable!”
Levi scanned the room frantically, looking for weaknesses, for patterns, for anything they could exploit. This was a boss fight, and boss fights had rules—attack patterns, vulnerable phases, critical weaknesses.
What would Ethan do? he thought desperately, remembering how his brother had approached difficult games.
An arm swung toward him, this one equipped with a massive syringe filled with viscous green fluid. Levi ducked under it, then had to immediately roll sideways as another arm stabbed down from above with a scalpel the size of a butcher knife.
Across the chamber, Asher was in constant motion.
He leaped between platforms with ease, dodging appendages and even using them as springboards to reach higher levels.
His movements were predatory, economical, nothing wasted.
This was the killer from the forest in his element—a perfect hunter navigating a jungle.
“Levi!” he called, gesturing toward one of the higher platforms. “Get to higher ground!”
Levi understood—the lower platforms were more exposed to the arms extending from the walls. He began making his way upward, timing his movements between the swings of lethal equipment.
As he reached the third tier, a new horror emerged from chambers that had opened in the walls—the crawlers they’d encountered in the maintenance tunnels, clawing across the ground with mangled hands. Their eyeless faces turned toward him with unerring accuracy, drawn to his panicked breathing.
“We have company!” he shouted, backing away as the nearest crawler skittered toward him with frightening speed.
“I see them,” Asher replied from somewhere above. There was a wet thud, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. “They die just like everything else does.”
An arm swung at Levi, forcing him to dive forward—directly toward the approaching crawler.
He dove over it as it reached for him, feeling the brush of broken bones against his ankle, then scrambled to his feet in a dead sprint.
The platform ahead began to tilt beneath his feet, trying to slide him back toward the creature.
Panic threatened to overwhelm him, but he forced it down, channeling it into focused energy instead. Think, think, think. What’s the pattern here?
He noticed that the arms moved in a predictable sequence—left to right, then top to bottom, before resetting. The platforms tilted on a timed cycle rather than in response to his position. These were programmed patterns, not intelligent responses.
“Asher!” he called, timing his jump to the next platform. “The arms move in sequence! Count to four between attacks!”
A crawler cornered Levi on a narrow platform, and Asher dropped down beside him from above, grabbing the creature and hurling it into the path of a descending saw.
His face was a ruin of sweat, blood from a cut on his forehead, and monster fluids, but he smiled at Levi and looked radiant. “I got you.”
“I know,” Levi panted, returning the smile. “Keep moving, we can’t get caught together.”
Through it all, Faine watched from his elevated throne, his eyes tracking their movements with calculating precision. “Impressive coordination,” he said, his voice carrying even over the cacophony of battle. “You move together with such... intimacy.”
The main monitor flickered again, displaying more footage of their private encounter, this time focused on Levi’s face as he screamed into Asher’s mouth, his face red and streaked with tears.
“Is that what you want?” Faine continued, his voice mockingly gentle. “To be taken? Controlled? Possessed?” The footage shifted to Asher’s teeth at Levi’s throat in the conference room. “Or is it that you’ve simply never had a choice?”
“Shut up!” Levi shouted, ducking under an arm and leaping to the next platform.
“You misunderstand,” Faine replied, the throne beginning to rotate slowly. “I’m offering you a choice now. Join me willingly, and I will separate you from your predator. Free you from his grip. Give you the autonomy you’ve been denied.”
The words struck at Levi’s deepest insecurities—the fear that what he felt for Asher was nothing but trauma bonding, that his apparent choices were just the least-bad options available to a captive. For a fraction of a second, doubt crept in.
Then he glanced up at the platform Asher had moved to and saw those mismatched eyes somehow conveying absolute confidence in Levi’s response. Not controlling, not demanding—just certain.
“I choose him!” Levi shouted. “Every time, I choose him!”
A savage smile curved Asher’s lips, and then he was moving again, a blur of deadly grace as he continued his ascent toward Faine’s position.
“Disappointing,” Faine sighed, the sound distorted by his voice box. “But not unexpected. The human mind is so susceptible to emotional manipulation, to chemical dependencies, to the illusion of connection.”
As he spoke, a new horror emerged from the chambers in the walls—the Applauding Horror they’d encountered before, still strapped to its chair, hands endlessly clapping in that ritualistic pattern.
Unlike the crawlers, it didn’t move toward them but remained stationary, its endless applause setting a maddening rhythm that seemed to interfere with Levi’s ability to concentrate.
More creatures emerged—patients transformed by Faine’s experiments into monstrosities that were neither fully human nor properly mechanical. They formed a protective ring around the lower tiers of Faine’s position, blocking the most direct routes to the top.
“Behold my earlier works,” Faine announced, gesturing toward the creatures with pride. “Prototypes. Imperfect, but educational. Each failure taught me something valuable.”
Levi reached a platform high enough to get a better view of Faine’s throne.
He could see that the components weren’t simply attached to Faine’s body—they were his body.
His chest cavity was open, internal organs replaced with pumps and filters.
His spine had been reinforced with a metal framework that extended beyond his skin.
Only his head remained mostly human, though even there, components had been integrated into his jaw, eyes, and ears.
But most importantly, Levi could see the power source—a glowing core at the center of Faine’s chest cavity, pulsing with energy that flowed through tubes connected to his remaining organic components.
That’s it, he thought, recognizing the classic weak point. The core. That’s what we need to destroy.
The challenge was reaching it. Faine’s throne was surrounded by protective barriers, and the approaches were guarded by his creations.
Even if they managed to fight through, the core itself was shielded most of the time, only briefly exposed when Faine leaned forward or made particularly expansive gestures.
“Asher!” Levi called, gesturing subtly toward Faine’s chest. “The core!”
Asher’s eyes narrowed as he followed Levi’s indication, quickly understanding the objective. He nodded once, then resumed his deadly dance through the obstacles, working his way steadily upward.
As they fought their way closer to Faine’s position, the attacks intensified.
More arms emerged from the walls, their movements less predictable.
The platforms shifted more violently, sometimes tilting to near-vertical angles without warning.
The creatures became more aggressive, coordinating their movements as if directed by a central intelligence—which, Levi realized, they were. Faine controlled everything.
They were making progress, but too slowly. At this rate, they would be worn down by attrition before reaching their target. They needed a new strategy.
“Distraction,” Levi muttered to himself. One player draws the boss’s attention while the other attacks the weak point.
“Asher!” he shouted over the din. “I need to get his attention! Be ready for an opening!”
Asher’s head snapped toward him, eyes narrowing with concern. He clearly didn’t like the implication that Levi would be putting himself at risk. But after a moment of obvious internal struggle, he nodded.
Levi began moving more aggressively, making himself a deliberate target. “Hey, Faine!” he called, his voice cutting through the cacophony. “For someone who’s ‘transcended humanity,’ you’re still using the same old tricks! Is this really the best you can do?”
Faine’s eyes locked onto him with laser-like focus. “You dare mock my work?” The throne rotated to track Levi’s movements, arms redirecting to focus on his position.
“Mock it? I’m disappointed by it!” Levi continued, timing his movements between platform shifts. “I was expecting something more impressive from the great Dr. Faine! Instead, I get predictable attack patterns and third-rate monsters!”
Faine’s face contorted with rage—an expression made all the more disturbing by the inhuman angles his features could achieve. “You understand nothing of what I’ve accomplished! The barriers I’ve broken! The limitations I’ve transcended!”