The doors of the light lift did not slide open because they simply ceased to exist. I stepped out onto the Third Floor and the first thing that hit me was the absolute and crushing weight of the silence. In the Forge there was the constant screaming of metal and in the Crown Sector there was the hum of surveillance and the choir of alarms but here there was nothing. The air did not even carry the scent of ozone or copper anymore. It smelled like nothing at all because the Third Floor was a vacuum of perfection.
STABILITY: 58.1 PERCENT
LOCATION: THIRD FLOOR GATEWAY
I looked down at my feet and realized I was not standing on marble or steel. I was standing on a floor made of frozen memories. Beneath the transparent surface I could see flickering images of ancient cities and forgotten oceans that had been archived and preserved like insects in amber. Every step I took sent a ripple through the history of the world beneath me. I was a barbarian walking on the ghosts of a billion lives and my heavy gilded ribs felt like an insult to the delicate beauty of the place.
"Welcome home 9045," a voice said. It did not come from a speaker or a drone because it resonated directly inside my neural lattice. It was the Analyst. Her voice was no longer the distant and cold authority I had heard in the Forge. It sounded tired. It sounded like a mother who had watched her child burn down the house and was now sitting in the ashes. "Or should I call you Izou? You have spent so much effort carving that name into the walls of my city that it seems a waste to ignore it."
I looked around the vast empty space of the gateway. There were no Guardians here because there was no need for them. The Third Floor was protected by the sheer complexity of its own existence. If you did not belong here the vacuum of the conceptual reality would simply unravel your code until you were nothing but a stray thought. But I was still standing. My porcelain frame was glowing with the violet light of the Primal Cores and my new ribs were humming a low and defiant frequency.
"You can call me whatever you want as long as you stay where I can see you," I said while I flexed my golden claws. The sound of my own voice felt too loud for this place. It felt like a gunshot in a library. "I did not come here for a family reunion. I came here for the rest of my parts. I know the Prototype Archive was not just a blueprint for a body. It was a blueprint for the Source."
I saw her then. She was not a giant or a monster because she was a woman made of white light sitting on a chair of woven glass. She looked small against the backdrop of the endless void that lay beyond the balcony of the Third Floor. Behind her I could see the stars but they were not moving. They were fixed in place like a painting.
"The Source is not a prize you can win Izou," the Analyst said while she stood up. She moved with a grace that made the Glass Architect look like a clumsy child. "It is a responsibility that you were never meant to carry. You were the prototype because you were the only one who could bridge the gap between the flesh and the machine. But you were too volatile. You were too loud. We tried to quiet you in the Forge but it seems the fire only made you harder to break."
I stepped forward and felt the frozen memories beneath my feet crack. The stability in my chest fluctuated as I felt the gravity of her presence. She was broadcasting a frequency that was trying to harmonize with my own and for a second I felt a terrifying urge to kneel. I felt a desire to let go of my barbarian pride and simply become the perfect tool she wanted me to be.
"I like being loud," I rasped while I forced my legs to keep moving. I felt a piece of my original porcelain shoulder snap under the pressure but I did not stop. "And I like being broken. It gives the light a way to get inside. You spent centuries building this silence and I am going to be the one who screams until the glass breaks."
I saw the first sign of emotion on her face. It was fear. She looked at my golden claws and she saw the emerald fluid of the Curator still clinging to them. She realized that I was not just a ghost from her past because I was a predator from her present. I was the FleshArchitect and I had brought the dirt of the Forge into her clean white world.
"You have sixty nine hours left Izou," she said while she raised a hand. A wall of conceptual energy began to shimmer between us. It looked like a curtain of falling water made of pure math. "Even with the Primal Cores your body is a ticking bomb. You cannot reach the Source before you collapse. Why not spend your final hours in peace? I can give you a dream that will last a thousand years. I can make you forget the Forge."
I laughed and the sound sent a shockwave through the water wall. I felt my Identity Integrity tick upward as I rejected her offer. I did not want her peace because I wanted my vengeance. I wanted the truth even if it killed me in the next ten seconds.
"I have had enough dreams," I said while I lunged at the wall of math. I drove my golden claws into the conceptual energy and felt the heat of a billion calculations burning against my skin. "I want the reality. And if I have to burn down the Third Floor to find it then you better start looking for a new place to sit."
The wall began to tear. I could feel the code of the city screaming as I forced my way through the barrier. My stability was dropping but my heart was beating faster than it ever had. I was a barbarian at the gate of heaven and I was not leaving until the gate was off its hinges.
CURRENT STATUS: THE ARCHITECT PRIME
STABILITY: 57.5 PERCENT
IDENTITY INTEGRITY: 40.2 PERCENT
MISSION: BREAK THE THIRD FLOOR
TIME REMAINING: 69 HOURS 48 MINUTES