Page 141 of Immersed
Faine’s face twisted into a scowl. “You reject evolution?”
“We reject you,” Levi stated firmly, finding his voice. “Whatever you’ve done to yourself, whatever you’ve done to this place—it ends now.”
For a moment, Faine was perfectly still, only the soft whirring of internal components indicating he was still active. Then his face split into a smile that stretched too wide, revealing teeth that had been replaced with small serrated blades.
“If you will not join willingly,” he said, his voice deepening as additional speakers activated around the chamber, “then you will join as components.”
47
ENDGAME
Theroomeruptedintomotion. 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 tohis 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 achoice?”
“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.”
