I moved instinctively, shoving Mika away, as a spear aimed to impale her in the chest. The tip of the weapon pierced my left arm instead, and then lifted me into the air. With a flick of the spear my body was dislodged.

When I hit the ground I tried to control the tumble, and so was able to get back up onto my feet quickly. I instinctively lifted my right arm up to defend my head, while my left arm hung limp at my side.

What I saw were two Architects, Toma and someone else, standing near the beheaded corpse of Arim. The new one held a long spear, made of black metal, and I assumed it’d been made from nanites.

I heard the sound of Samara and Rosalind, as their feet touched down on the sand upon their arrival. Yet I didn’t look away from the Architects in front of me.

“What is occuring?” Samara asked, with a hint of panic in her voice.

“Pretty obvious it’s an ambush,” Lisa replied as she pulled out her sword from the back scabbard.

The two Architects who’d attacked us remained calm, almost too relaxed, as they stood and waited. Though they’d killed Arim, and attacked Mika, for some odd reason they’d stopped.

Instead they both stared at us, as though expecting something, as they sneered at us.

I turned and lifted my right hand, to try and get the attention of my daughters and Samara. “Get away from her!”

My warning came too late, as Samara was thrown to the ground, and had one foot put against her neck. Two hands swung forth, each aimed at one of my daughters, and metal chains shot out as the nanites crafted them hurriedly.

Mika ducked away from the chains, falling into a roll that moved her further away. Lisa didn’t even waste time avoiding it, instead her sword flicked at the chain and cut it apart.

“Disappointing,” Rosalind said, as she ground her foot harder into Samara’s neck.

“Superior reaction speed,” called out Toma, as he clapped, “exceeded expectations.”

“So what, she was tricking us all along?” Lisa asked as she rested the flat of the blade against her shoulder.

It did explain a few of the things that’d bugged me. One of which had been those exaggerated emotional acts she’d done. The other had been how devoid of hostility the floors had been, and how few Architects had been in the transit buildings.

“It is a bit obvious now, is it not?” Mika asked in reply, as she reached down to the spheres at her waist, “so what is this then, one executive and two managers?”

The three enemies all started to laugh at that. “Three,” was all Toma said.

Yet it was enough for me to catch on to the meaning. “Lisa, Mika,” I called out to my daughters, “they’re all executives. Don’t hold back.”

“Wait, are you saying what I think you are, father?” Mika asked, as she hesitated to follow through on my permission.

Lisa’s reaction on the other hand was opposite. She let out a loud shout of joy, and then pointed her sword at Toma. “Oh yes! This is going to be fun.”

It was a reaction that none of the Architects had expected, and Toma even took a cautious step away from her. “Pointless bluff,” Rosalind said, as she retracted her chains, “she could barely handle my pretend strength.”

Lisa didn’t waste her breath with refuting that, instead she summoned her halo. As the golden band appeared over her head a pair of wings unfurled behind her.

There was a burst of sand behind her as she leapt at Toma. The movement was fast, faster than anything the shell could do, and all I caught was a blur as the sword was swung at the Architect’s head.

Toma managed to get an arm up to block the sword, his forearm surrounded by a layer of black material. From the side the so far unnamed Architect thrust his spear at Lisa’s exposed left.

Lisa caught the spearhead with her left hand, her fingers bleeding on contact with the blade. Yet she didn’t show any concern for that, and instead flapped her wings while turning to the right.

The thrust of her wings shoved her backfirst along the length of the spear, and as she got closer to the Architect she continued to turn. The sword in her right hand was slashed at the Architect, while her left hand released the spearhead.

Unlike Toma this new one was a bit slower, and so her sword cleaved right into the exposed neck of the Architect. With a bit of a visible arm flex, Lisa severed all the way through to the other side, and then casually kicked the now dead man away.

It was such a casual and quick dispatching that the other executives merely stared at her, their eyes wide. Even Samara, pinned under the threatening foot of Rosalind, looked at my daughter with surprise.

Lisa flicked her sword at the ground, splattering the blood across the sand, and lifted one hand to beckon to Toma. It was an act that made the Architect take a step back, as he nervously glanced at Rosalind.

There was a brief moment where Rosalind was distracted, perhaps terrified, by what she’d seen. In that second Samara struck, as she punched the ankle connected to the foot on her throat. Her punch hit with enough force that everyone heard the snap of the bone.

The thin looking Architect stood up after the foot was removed, and her first action was to shove Rosalind away. It was something I’d have expected out of a child, but it was enough to give Samara some breathing room.

What came next surprised even me, as a black film spread across Samara’s body and fully enveloped her. Her hands curled into fists, and as she pulled back her left arm to prepare for a punch there was an audible hum.

It wasn’t like the shell blinked, yet I still lost track of the movement of her fist. From one moment she was preparing to punch, and yet in the next her fist had already pierced Rosalind’s chest.

Rosalind stared down at the arm sticking out of her chest, and then reached for it. Before she could grab it Samara retracted her arm, then did a roundhouse kick to Rosalind’s head.

“Was this the full extent of your planned ambush?” Samara asked, as she backed away from the dying Rosalind, “three executives?”

Rosalind coughed up some blood, falling to her knees. “You are supposed to be weakling,” she said, as she tried to gather nanites to fill up the hole in her chest, “you are all weaklings!”

The black armor that had spread across Samara slowly withdrew, seeming to almost be absorbed back into her body. She didn’t bother with responding to Rosalind, and instead lifted up one hand.

Within her hand the nanites regathered and formed what looked to be a basic cannon. There was an audible sound of machinery whirring, and then a thin object shot out from the muzzle and pierced Rosalind’s forehead.

“Nanite ammunition!” Toma shouted in surprise, “nanites unrecoverable!”

“If it means victory, why would I care about sacrificing my strength?” Samara asked, as she aimed her gun at Toma.

“Don’t bother!” Lisa yelled, as she flew across the sands at Toma.

When Lisa struck at Toma her sword was met with another, one that he’d created hastily out of nanites. She retracted her sword, and then swung it in again. Every strike lacked finesse, and instead relied on her overpowering strength.

Beneath the flurry of blows Toma grimaced, his hand shaking visibly with every hit. Eventually with a loud snap his sword broke in half, and Lisa’s own drove into the side of his shoulder.

Yet similar to her own actions, Toma reached up and grabbed the blade of the sword. While she paused, most likely in surprise, he attempted to punch her with his free hand.

The punch landed, the force of which was enough to send Lisa up and away five feet. When her feet touched down on the sand she was busily rubbing her stomach, her sword no longer held. Instead Toma had managed to keep hold of it after he’d punched her.

Lisa swung her hand out to the side, and a flicker of light started to gather around it. “Don’t you dare use that!” I yelled at her.

Lisa half-turned to look at me, a bit of a pout on her face. “Thought you said we didn’t need to hold back,” she muttered, but the light around her hand vanished.

I didn’t respond to that unspoken question. Though I’d told them to go at it, I still wanted them to try and hold their trump card in reserve. Whether we were being observed, or another ambush was set up, in either case it would be bad to show everything we could do.

Lisa’s shoulders flexed, and then she swung both of her hands together as quickly as she could. The clap was aimed low, at the ground between the two combatants. The resulting shockwave of her clap was enough to kick up a cloud of sand, one that obscured both herself and the Architect.

She fully vanished into the depths of the cloud. Within that obscured spot there came the sound of a cry, and heavy sounds similar to punching metal, and then finally silence.

When the sand finally settled back down it revealed a defeated Toma, his head twisted around to face his back. Lisa stood over him, one hand held against her side, and smiled at us.

“Nothing to it!” she exclaimed, though she winced while she said it.

Samara studied the scene, and then lowered her arm and reabsorbed her nanites. She glanced at me, and then walked over to Toma. Samara knelt down and inspected him, and then with a nod of her head she stood up.

“Congratulations are in order,” she said, “my expectations of defeat were high given the scenario.”

“My daughters are quite capable at handling executives,” I told her, “though I’d prefer if you didn’t tell anybody.”

Samara didn’t even think on the request, “Of course. Your deception of Rosalind proved fortuitous.”

“Lying has saved my life more than once.”

“Father, while I’m happy we handled that so well,” Mika said as she stepped over near me, “perhaps we should move to somewhere less...dead?”

I took a quick look at the three corpses, and then nodded my head. “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not quite sure where to go on this floor, though.”

“Troublesome, for we must reach floor sixty-eight,” Samara informed us.

I studied the compass readings, the temperature, wind pressure, and everything else the shell was giving me. “What’s there?”

“Our headquarters. Reinforcements, secure rest, no transit though.”

I waved at Lisa. “Can you fly up and get a look of the area, see if there’s anything around?” I asked of her, and without waiting for a response turned back to Samara, “we can get to seventy and use the transit there to get to seventy-five.”

Lisa rubbed her side, though there was no blood visible, and gave a nod of her head. With an upward leap she began to flap her wings, and her ascent was smooth and absurdly quick.

“Astounding,” Samara said as she watched Lisa.

“Yes, she’s amazing, but I need your help with something.” I motioned at my limp arm. “Can you use your nanites to repair the machinery in this?”

“Father! Are you sure you should let an Architect touch...that system?” Mika asked, her gaze bouncing back and forth between us.

“If she was our enemy she would’ve helped those others,” I replied.

Samara stepped over to me, her eyes filled with worry as she watched Mika for some type of retaliation. Her left hand lifted and pressed against the damaged part of my left arm, and then the black nanites spread from out of her skin and poured into the shell.

There were a few alerts that sounded at the intrusion, but I silenced them and patiently waited. Above us Lisa flitted about in a circle, so high up she was a mere speck.

Samara pulled her hand away after a few minutes, her nanites returned back to her body. “The basic mechanical parts should be restored, though I can not comprehend that crystalline structure you utilize.”

I tested the left arm, and the hand that’d gone as limp as the arm itself, and found that most of the mobility had returned. I lifted up my hand and formed a fist, and then released each finger one at a time.

“It’s good enough. I should probably take it to get repaired once we hit floor seventy.”

A shadow flitted over us, and then Lisa landed on the dunes nearby. She stood up straight and dismissed her halo, the wings returning back to nothingness in the process.

“You’re not going to believe it!” she cried out in excitement, as she ran over to us, “there’s something like a big train of wagons opposite of where the sun is!”

“You mean the west?”

“Yeah, and I think they were humans too!”

That was a bit of information that made me look sharply at Samara. “The slaves still exist?”

Samara turned away at my question. “They are not slaves, but neither have they gained freedom.”

Mika half-lifted her one hand. “That does not make sense.”

“They sell their elders to the supremacists, in exchange for allowance to remain on this floor unmolested.”