In those last few moments, as my body had begun to infiltrate and assimilate the infected mecha-dragon's flesh, three of my spirits flocked to me, begging to volunteer.

Yuta.

Ichigo.

Dzrtk.

At this point, how could I say no? Not only did I not want to be alone, it would be incredibly stupid of me to let myself be alone.

I had serious doubts I'd be able to keep myself focused on the task at hand when every fiber of my being wanted me to bury myself alive in a dark room, lock the door, and throw away the key.

My motley crew and I materialized inside the Vyx Network. This time around, as I'd taken the plunge, I'd aimed for the deepest parts of the Network. The results spoke for themselves.

The four of us stood in the shadow of the Tower of Light. Fluidic energy churned like melting frosted glass in the maze's translucent walls. The walls iridesced like mother-of-pearl. There were slit windows in its walls, and I could only imagine the view they'd give of the labyrinth. It must have been incredible.

Tears watered up in my eyes. For a moment, I braced myself against the wall with a single hand. I bundled my other hand into a tight fist and slammed it into the wall before common sense could tell me otherwise.

It hurt, and I screamed, but the pain was nothing compared to the torment inside me.

Then I sank to my knees and wept. It was ugly, ugly crying.

"Genneth?"

Turning around, I sat down with my back against the wall and my knees tucked against my chest. "She's gone, Yuta. Pel is gone."

Storm-strewn skies clung around the Tower's base. More of the ominous clouds hung high overhead, but the brilliant white current of energy continuously streaming up from the Tower's peak pierced them and forced them to scatter. That same current lit the Tower from top to bottom.

The whole beasteaten thing fluoresced.

Angel, it reminded me of the sight of the casinos glistening in Vaneppo's nightlife skyline, as seen on my honeymoon. Neither of us gambled, but we both found the casinos' glitz and glamor to be sparklingly decadent.

Pel and I loved seeing cities come to life, both at home and abroad.

I tried to stop crying, and succeeded for a little bit, but then it would start up all over again.

Dzrtk looked on in disturbed confusion. Even during the fight, ze'd been having trouble understanding the nature of my relationship with my wife. From what my dopplegangers had been able to determine, the D'zd had no concept of romantic love. For them, reproduction was entirely a matter of politics and logistics. As if to compensate for it, their sense of familial and communal bonds were even stronger than their human analogues. D'zd lived and died for their siblings, their parents, their offsprings, and their community.

I'd tried to compare my bond with my wife to Dzrtk's bond with Nzk'k'k, zyr favorite sibling. I'd like to think that helped explain it.

"I'm sorry for your pain," Dzrtk said. Ze lowered zyr flower. "May zyr memory be a blessing."

Lacking d'zd eyes, I couldn't see the electromagnetic waves that emanated from Dzrtk's flower whenever ze spoke, though—thankfully—something in the Vyx Network ensured that Yuta, Ichigo, and I could understand zym.

I shook my head and wiped away my tears. I took several deep breaths. I probably should have been having a panic attack here, though, by some miracle, I didn't.

After a couple more minutes, I finally managed to quiet myself, mostly because my spirits were causing problems.

Ichigo yelped in alarm the instant he'd first laid eyes on Dzrtk. It was understandable. He'd never seen a d'zd before. Neither had Yuta, for that matter, but Lord Uramaru was far more even-keeled than his young, hot-blooded protégé.

Ichigo, however, stared at the ammonia-based life-form with awe. He'd bent over in a partial squat to gawk at him.

He reached out to touch Dzrtk's flower, to which the d'zd responded by gently swatting the oni's hand away.

"You should ask before you touch," Dzrtk said.

"What are you?" Ichigo whispered.

Though Yuta kept a much more respectful distance away from the d'zd, there was no doubting the fascination in his eyes.

"Dzrtk here is a being from another world," I said, with a sniffle.

"That explains why it looks so… weird," Ichigo said.

"I'm a ze, not an it," Dzrtk replied. "And, let me assure you," ze added, waving his zyr arm at Ichigo's four-armed, white-haired, red-skinned oni-form, "you look just as strange to me as I do to you."

Yuta nodded, and muted, "I can believe it."

I groaned. "Listen," I said, in a heavy, quiet voice, "I'm not really in the mood for bullshit right now."

"Genneth," Yuta said, "you—"

—But I stuck out my hand. "I'm sorry, but, please, don't try to cheer me up." I wiped a stray tear from my eyes. "It won't make me feel any better." I raised my head, and then inhaled sharply. "Beast's teeth, how am I going to tell the kids…?" I cupped my hand at my mouth.

"I'll be happy to help however I can," Yuta replied. "Almost all of your tenants would be."

I nodded. "I know, and… thank you for that. It's just…"

"What is it?" Yuta asked.

Bending forward, I pushed off the floor and rose to my feet.

Beast and Queen, I felt awful.

Swallowing hard, I looked Yuta in the eyes. "Don't let me mope too much," I said. I gazed up at our surroundings. Storms thundered through the clouds overhead. "Don't let me give up," I added. "Despite how much I've lost, there's still so much more that's at risk. I don't want my pain to stop me from preventing others from suffering like I have." I nodded. "I have to do this. It's not all about me." I shook my head in disgust. "But…" I stifled another sob, "I'd be lying if I said I believed we could make a difference."

I was broken all over again, only this time, I had nothing left to fall back on.

No: that wasn't true. I had Jules and Ralph. I still had them to lose.

"I'm damned if I do, and damned if I don't," I said. "If I do nothing, everyone dies. If I do something… everyone probably still ends up dying."

I looked at Yuta. "How am I supposed to do this when I don't believe I can?"

"You do it anyway, and hope your successes will convince yourself enough."

"But what if they don't?" I asked.

He shrugged at me. "Genneth, confidence is a luxury that most of us do not have. When we aid others, they do not care if we did so confidently or not; they care if we succeed."

I lowered my head and mumbled. "Now that you mention it, it is up to me to prevent the D'zd's Archive from freezing over and killing them all. And that's just one of the tasks on my plate right now."

He grinned. "Good. Compared to everything else, it should be easy, no?"

I sniffled, rubbing my tears on my sleeve. "This isn't a very good pep talk, you know?"

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Yuta sighed. "I've never had much charisma."

"You have more than enough," I told him. I lowered my head. "Thank you."

I guess I was really doing this, then. Gosh, this was scary. So much was riding on me—just not confidence.

All I could do was sigh.

Looking over at Dzrtk, I saw ze was standing with Ichigo, off to the side. The two warriors were busy ogling each other's weapons.

Ichigo stepped back, quietly gasping as Dzrtk drew zyr dual scissorblades. I noticed ze still had the weapons ze'd taken from the guards in the Hierarchs' palace.

"How can you swing those things?" Ichigo asked. "They're massive…"

I assumed he was referring to the weapons' width.

Dzrtk turned to me. "Shouldn't we get going, Dr. Howle?" ze asked. "Time is precious."

Ichigo looked quite flustered. "But—"

"—Our friend here is right," Yuta said, pointing at Dzrtk.

"Dzrtk," the d'zd said.

"I'm not going to even try to pronounce that," Ichigo mumbled, with a roll of his eyes.

Yuta turned to his retainer, and then looked at the Tower's entrance. "Enough, we should get going."

"Yes," I said, with a nod. "We can talk along the way."

Ichigo nodded back at me. "Good, because I have lots of questions."

The entrance to the Tower was an arched opening at its base. Past the arch, a path curled out from the Network labyrinth in a gentle, upward incline that spiraled around the Tower, climbing and climbing.

The first leg of the journey up was uneventful. It wasn't even tiring; the Network kept the four of us from getting winded, thirsty, or hungry. I felt too numb to really say anything. Honestly, for my own benefit—as much as I hated to do it—I had to keep my mind off Pel. It hurt too much, and there was just too much for me to do right now, and pain only ever slowed me down.

Yuta and Ichigo spent perhaps twenty minutes straight interrogating Dzrtk with every last question that came to their minds. For what it was worth, Dzrtk didn't seem to mind. From the sound of things, it looked like ze enjoyed the attention.

As for myself, my thoughts turned inward, as I was wont to do whenever I felt like I'd have been better off dead. I drifted back and forth between two obsessions: keeping on the lookout for any AVUs hot on our trail, and trying to make sense of &alon's claim that I was her "father".

The claim shook me to my core, or what was left of it, at any rate.

Echoes of her desperate joy clangored in my ears.

Daddy Genneth! I've found you! I've found you! Daddy Genneth!

I couldn't be her father. That had to be impossible, certainly no more or less impossible than the other impossibility in my lap: that she was somehow my music. I mean… what did that even mean? I mean, yeah, if it was true—and, for the record, it wasn't—I guess she could call herself my "child", though it would be more like brainchild.

In that place—the not-here-place, maybe?—where &alon had taken me after I'd sung my Sonata as a wyrm, she'd played my own music back at me. Despite that, she'd heard me play parts of my Sonata, and I certainly hadn't ever stopped her from accessing my memories of it. I wouldn't put it past her to fixate on it on the off chance that she recognized its importance to me. The one big hole in this argument was that it wouldn't explain why &alon had reacted to my music the way she did. And it wasn't the first time she'd responded that way; it had happened back at the hospital, before the big fight.

Before she'd remembered what she truly was.

Not only that, after I'd played my Sonata to everyone at the hospital, silver-eyed wyrms had started to sing an eerie distortion of it in the distance.

No!

I shook my head and clenched my fists.

It couldn't be true. There had to be some kind of mistake. She was just confused, like she always was. At this rate, I was going to convince myself that she was telling the truth!

It was at this point that Dzrtk skittered over to me and spoke up. "You've been awfully quiet, Genneth," ze said.

Yuta turned to face me. "Though I can't hear your thoughts at the moment, I can tell you're torn over &alon's claims that you are her 'father'." He smirked. "Mostly because you've been muttering about it under your breath."

I drooped my arms at my sides. "Flibbertigibbet…"

I hadn't even noticed it.

There was a momentary pause.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Yuta asked.

"How much did you hear?" I asked.

"You don't and can't believe that her claims are true," he replied, "even though parts of you worry otherwise."

I shook my head. "Then there's nothing else to be said?" I looked up the rising passage. "I just want to keep moving forward. I…" I lowered my head. "For once, I don't want to think anymore. I'll have all eternity to make myself miserable, assuming I survive." I shook my head. "Let me regress in peace. I've got plenty of demons to run from." I sighed. "Please, I want to change the topic."

"I can help with that," Ichigo said. He flexed his upper pair of arms, raising their elbows to the ceiling as he scratched his back. "Dzrtk told us about what happened in the Archive. What do you expect we'll find in this Prison?"

"I don't know."

Still, now that the topic had been brought up, I reached into my right-side coat pocket. From the moment we'd entered the Network, I'd felt an unexpected weight there. Something deeper than instinct told me what it likely was, which was the primary reason why it didn't come as a surprise when my fingers grasped a smooth, familiar geometric surface as I pulled the object out of my pocket.

Yuta bent toward me to look. "Is that…?

"Yes," I said, with a nod. "The Key."

It floated preternaturally in my grip, never quite touching my fingers or palm.

After staring at the Key for a while, Ichigo glanced at Dzrtk and then at me. "According to our silver friend, the reason why you wanted to open the Prison in the Tower was to free the Imprisoned Ones and get their help in climbing this Tower?"

"Yes," I said. "Though, obviously, that plan has since changed."

"I still hold out hope that we'll find the noble K'rrt when we open the Prison," Dzrtk said.

"We'll find out when we get there."

I didn't have the heart to tell Dzrtk that I shared zyr hope, because that would have been a lie, and I was done with lies.

"But if these Keret are not there," Yuta asked, "why risk freeing the Prisoners? They might very well be dangerous."

"Anything the Keret oppose is worth having as an ally," I said. "But, please, Yuta, don't jinx it." With my free hand, I fidgeted with my lucky bow-tie. "I really don't need any more bad luck."

All of a sudden, the Key spun around in my hand like a gyroscope. Seams of light lit up along its cylindrical surface.

"That's… ominous," I said.

"It could be a good portent," Yuta replied. "We might be getting close."

Sure enough, over the next few minutes, the glow grew brighter and the spinning faster the further up we trudged along the never-ending incline.

"I think you're right," I said.

Unfortunately, my words jinxed us: a chorus of harsh, tinny voices blared in unison throughout the Tower.

"UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. INTRUDERS, BY ORDER OF hU-en dE THE UNDYING, LEAVE NOW, OR BE DESTROYED."

Ichigo grimaced. "Hoo en dee?"

"FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL TRIGGER EXTERMINATION IN 3…"

The four of us looked at one another in startled confusion.

"2," the voice said, about a second later.

That's when we started to run.

"1".

Then came the alarm, along with an all-too-familiar refrain: "INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"

AVUs began emerging from the walls around us. Bits of silvery, metallocrystalline substance dripped out of the walls and swirled around the AVUs as they pulled themselves free.

My three companions drew their weapons. I, however, had a better idea.

Now that the AVUs had found us, there was no reason not to use my mental powers to the fullest.

I teleported us forward and up. Not knowing how much further it was till we reached the Prison, I only teleported us in short spurts, traveling up one turn of the path at a time, while keeping my eye on the Key. If it dimmed and/or slowed down, that was the sign I'd gone too far. Were it not for the gradual change in the walls' color as I teleported us up and up, I wouldn't have thought we'd moved at all.

They grew paler and more luminous, from nacre, to opal, and soon, approaching radiant pearl.

Unfortunately, the Vyx anti-virus defense system had no problem throwing the book at us. AVUs emerged everywhere at the same time.

"Enough of this," Yuta said. With his sword in hand, he stepped forward and gave me a sidelong glance. "Genneth!"

Nodding, I willed the three of us into our battle forms: Yuta and his inky kanakatana; Ichigo, the four-armed oni, and me, the half-pangol cleric.

Dzrtk skittered back in surprise, but steeled zymself once Yuta drew first blood—not that the AVUs had any blood to begin with. Lord Uramaru sliced several AVUs in half with a single arcing sheet of ink.

Ichigo ducked down, so that the AVUs charging at him collided with one another. While the murderous machines were briefly stunned from the recoil, Ichigo leapt up, pushed off the wall at his side and struck the AVUs from behind.

But my Munine companions were almost sluggish compared to Dzrtk. The d'zd was more nimble than any of us. He dragged his blades along the floors and walls to supercharge his body until he was little more than a silvery blur as he leapt and struck with biting swipes of vacuum heat.

I ported us up floor after floor. The walls and the AVUs blurred around us as they kept moving with each jump, jostling about from frame to frame. The Key grew brighter and brighter and spun faster until it let out a keening tone that threatened to drill straight through my head.

The next jump after that, the tone went silent, and the Key faded to a silver ember.

I teleported us one level down, wincing as the Key flared with energy once more. Thankfully, I banished the glow and the ear-splitting noise with a well-placed thought. Up ahead, instead of the same endlessly spiraling walls we'd seen all the way up, a hallway extended outward from the middle of the wall into a moderately sized antechamber beyond.

I yelled, and then braced myself to run. "We're here!"

Unfortunately, so were the AVUs. The ones now emerging from the wall were massive. The thick swarms of metal swirling around them deflected half the blows my guardians flung at them. One of the AVUs passed beyond the reach of Dzrtk's blades and rushed toward me, ready to rip me to shreds. Dzrtk swung at it, launching a wave of blisteringly hot vacuum, but the darn thing dodged it with a midair whirl.

Taking that as my cue, I fell forward onto all fours and called out my inner beast, exploding into my giant pangolin form.

Dzrtk yelled in surprise and skittered back, stinger tail bobbing behind zym. Ichigo grabbed the d'zd by the tail and leapt with Yuta onto the walls and out of the way as I curled into a ball and rolled down the corridor in the outer wall. The AVUs tore through my scaly armor and the flesh underneath, wracking me with pain, but I endured it and continued, undaunted, rolling through the opening in the wall and into the antechamber beyond.

I flopped onto my belly, sliding across the slippery floor on sheer momentum, toward the wall at the far end of the chamber. There was an imposing cylindrical recess in the wall back there, and I knew exactly what it was for.

I wrapped the spinning, gleaming, screaming Key up in my tongue, and held it like that as I shifted back to humanoid half-pangol form, grabbed the wet artifact and shoved it in the recess, sticky saliva smearing between my fingers. The wall pulled back, opening a doorway of pure light that I leapt into just as the AVUs budding from the nearby walls rocketed toward me in frenzied fury.

Then my fingertips touched the light, and everything turned white.

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