The metallic buzz reached that nerve-wracking frequency, resembling thousands of dental drills operating simultaneously, and Kaelen understood that running was no longer an option, but a necessity.
The barrel of "The Judge" spat fire. *BOOM!*
The heavy, armor-piercing bullet plunged into the black mass covering the corridor's ceiling. But the impact was no different from a pebble thrown into the ocean. The bullet was swallowed, ground up within that dark mist, and seconds later, vomited back onto the floor as metallic dust.
"You're wasting your bullets, Detective!" shouted Jester, bouncing along strangely, both panicked and cheerful, just ahead of Kaelen. "They're not biological! They're greedy little pixels! And right now, they're determined to erase this part of the map!"
The Architect's room behind them was already gone. The black mist seeping from the walls – those billions of nanobots – was devouring not just the air, but matter itself. The metal grates they stepped on, the pipes they passed, even the dust motes in the air were being broken down to their atoms by this metallic locust swarm. Only nothingness, a grey void, remained behind.
"Shut up and run!" Kaelen snarled. His lungs were burning. As a former police detective, he had seen many things, but this "eraser" chasing them was an existential horror.
When they reached the end of the corridor, Jester skidded to a halt on his heels. Sparks flew from beneath his boots. Kaelen also managed to stop at the last second to avoid colliding with him, and looked at the scene before them.
The path ended.
Before them was a massive, cylindrical shaft descending into the depths of the facility. The steel bridge leading to the platform with the elevators on the other side was broken clean in half. Below was a nauseating darkness, its end unseen. And within that darkness, the eerie white noise of the Static Age echoed.
"Dead end," Jester said, looking down and whistling. "The scriptwriters love backing us into a corner, don't they?"
Kaelen looked back. The black mist was approaching, devouring the corridor. The crackling sound of metal eating metal was now assaulting their eardrums. They had ten seconds. Maybe less.
"Rope?" Kaelen asked, fumbling at his own belt.
"Forgot it at home," Jester said. His voice was trembling, but not from fear, rather from suppressed energy. "Detective... I can stop them."
Kaelen turned to his partner. Jester's shoulders were tensed. His head was bowed, and his hands were trembling. Kaelen knew this stance. Jester's "Red Mode," that pure destructive software, was about to activate.
"No," Kaelen said sharply.
"I can blow them all up," Jester whispered. When he lifted his head, red glows, spreading like capillaries around his hazel eyes, had begun to appear. "Just a small code error... I'll burn them all."
"And you'll burn yourself too! You'll bring this whole place down on our heads!" Kaelen grabbed Jester by the collar and shook him. The nanobot swarm was now five meters away. A section of the ceiling melted and fell before them.
The redness in Jester's eyes flickered on the brink of madness. "There's no other way, Kaelen! It's game over!"
"There is!" Kaelen brought his left hand to his chest and took the silver circus whistle from his neck into his palm, but didn't blow it. Instead, he looked at Jester's painted, tragic face, directly into his eyes. "Look at me, Clown. No demolition. No destruction. You are not a virus."
Jester paused. The dull grin on his face wavered.
"You are an error," Kaelen said, his voice as steady as an anchor above the din. "Don't crash the system. *Bend* the system."
*Bend the system.*
A lightning bolt struck in Jester's mind. The red rage gave way to something else. To something colder, more complex, and far more unsettling. Possibilities. Variables. The source codes of the universe.
Jester's pupils dilated. The wild red glow in his irises faded, replaced by a deep, electrically charged **Purple** light, reminiscent of the brightest hue of neon signs.
This was Administrator Mode (Admin Privilege).
"Graphics settings..." Jester murmured. His voice was no longer his own; it had an echoing, multi-layered timbre, as if coming from a broken speaker. "Let's increase the render distance."
Jester extended his gloved hand into the void, towards the broken bridge.
The nanobot swarm had reached their heels. Kaelen felt the sole of his boot begin to melt, but he didn't move. He was watching Jester as if mesmerized.
Purple lightning bolts erupted from Jester's fingertips. But this wasn't electricity; it was data. The dust motes in the air froze at Jester's will.
"Copy..." Jester said, moving his fingers as if typing on an invisible keyboard in the void.
In the void where the broken bridge had been, the texture of the air distorted. The image flickered. Reality shook, as if an old video cassette had been inserted.
"...Paste."
*VZZZT!*
With a sharp, digital tearing sound, the "should-be" form of the bridge appeared in the middle of the void. But this was no ordinary steel bridge. It was a translucent, purple wireframe bridge, its pixels not quite settled, flickering – a "glitch" bridge. It was the raw state of matter.
"Run!" Jester shouted. His voice was filled with pain.
Kaelen didn't hesitate. He grabbed Jester by the arm and lunged onto the flickering, ephemeral bridge.
When their feet touched the "ground," there was no metallic sound. Instead, a dull, muffled sound emerged, as if they were running on frozen water. The bridge shifted beneath them, pixels rearranging. The endless darkness below winked at them through the purple grids.
The nanobot swarm behind them reached the point where the bridge began, but stopped. They couldn't recognize this "new" matter. The data for this bridge wasn't in their code. The swarm began to accumulate and pile up on itself at the edge of the void.
With a final lunge, they jumped onto the elevator platform on the other side.
Kaelen rolled onto the hard ground, immediately righting himself and pointing his weapon backward. But Jester wasn't so lucky. The moment he landed on the platform, the purple bridge he had created collapsed into a single line with a *beep*, like a television shutting off, and vanished.
Jester collapsed to his knees. His purple eyes suddenly faded, turning grey.
"Hah..." he gasped, out of breath. "The resolution... was too high."
Then, he bent forward, retching.
From Jester's mouth and nose, instead of blood, a dark grey, mercury-like liquid poured out. This fluid emitted a metallic odor. It was a mixture of cerebrospinal fluid and nanotechnological waste from his body. The price of bending reality was the collapse of his own biology.
Kaelen immediately knelt beside him, placing a hand on Jester's back. The always cheerful, restless clown was now a trembling heap of flesh.
"Hold on, kid," Kaelen said, as he took Jester under his arm and helped him to his feet. He slammed his fist against the elevator's call button. "We're getting out of here."
The heavy freight elevator doors rumbled open. Inside, it smelled of rust and oil, but to Kaelen, this scent was like heaven. He dragged Jester inside and pulled the lever down.
The elevator began to ascend, shaking, towards the surface.
With every second, they moved further away from the metallic hell they had left below. Jester leaned against the elevator wall, wiping the grey fluid dripping from his chin with the back of his hand. The paint on his face had run, his tear-streaks mixed with the grey vomit. But his lips still forced a trembling smile.
"See, Detective?" he whispered, his voice raspy. "The graphics were terrible, but... we passed the level."
Kaelen didn't answer, just nodded.
The elevator stopped. When the doors opened, what greeted them was not darkness, but a blinding white.
Heat. A scorching, dry, merciless heat.
They stepped outside. The perpetually rainy, dark streets of Nova-Veridia were not here. This was the "Wastelands." Bone-colored sand dunes stretching to the horizon, and a pale sun hidden behind a static haze, suspended in the sky.
Kaelen set Jester down on the sand and turned around.
The place they emerged from was a massive concrete bunker entrance, half-buried in the middle of the desert. And at that very moment, a muffled rumble came from underground.
The sands shook. The entrance to the Aion Facility began to collapse inward, as if pulled down by an invisible hand. The facility's security protocols had activated. The nanobots were sealing everything left inside – the Architect, the tanks, the lies.
Within a few seconds, all that remained of that massive complex was a slight depression in the sand.
Silence. Only the whistle of the wind.
Kaelen holstered "The Judge," shook the dust from his trench coat, and looked at the horizon.
"Is it over?" Jester asked, lying on his back on the sands. His eyes were fixed on the broken sun in the sky.
"No," Kaelen said, shielding his eyes with his hand. On the horizon, a faint silhouette shimmering amidst the heat waves could be a sign of the Consortium's next move. "This was just the tutorial level."
The Detective extended his hand. Jester reached out his grey, trembling hand to his partner, and Kaelen pulled him up.
"Well then," Jester said, spitting out the metallic taste in his mouth. "Welcome to level two."