Althea scrambled to her feet, staring up at the vast corpore city in the sky. Below it, a group of drones had changed course, vectoring towards her position, growing larger by the second – maybe only a couple hundred from her. Althea watched, searching for a sign.

Do you understand what’s happening to you? Are you trying to stop it? Trying to survive?

Despite anna of study, and brutal – intimate – experience, she had no certain answer to those questions. Doubt peppered her thoughts.

Had her program worked, or not?

A popping sound, followed by the unmistakable smell of burning flesh, burning circuits, diverted her attention. She looked back down at her transmission system as it smoked – sparked. She dropped again to her knees, gathered up Dorian’s case, noting the green still glowing on the interface. Success – matched transmissions. They must have successfully sent the command signal, but…

“Did it all get in?” She wanted to hear his confirmation.

The transmission was complete. I was able to send it twice before the system burnt out.

Twice should be enough, more than enough.

Then the panic hit her. The drones continued to howl towards her, no more than ninety beats away now. Her program could destroy them all at any moment.

Althea ran, Dorian’s case in hand, across the platform of melting, blowing snow. In her haste, she almost overshot the dark opening, slipping– stumbling to a stop on its lip stared back at the colossus in the sky, then began to climb down into the shaft.

Beams and cables crowded the darkening depths. A tricky drop, but it still looked deep enough to survive the worst of the corpore’s destruction.

The whine of the drones’ engines accompanying the roar of the corpore screamed in Althea’s ears. There should be time to reach the bottom. She just needed to let herself drop, like the snow trickling down into the depths, and land lightly.

Securing Dorian to her tunic, Althea guessed the drop – took the big step. Wind rushed past her, blew her hair from her face as she dropped straight down, landing on a solid beam. Snow and other debris shook off as she landed, shuddered, then shifted her body, balanced precariously for a moment, then dropped another five or two into the dark.

The narrow pipe she landed on rested at a sharp angle, forcing her to fall forwards, grab a support brace as her feet slid back on the slick, icy surface. Gripping the cold metal, she took the moment of regained stability and safety to stare up into the dim light.

A loud roar came from above. Hot wind blew down into the shaft. Fear rose again – fear that the program had failed and the corpore would survive – fear that the drones above would act on her deception.

It was too late. There were no second chances, no second choices. Swinging from the pipe, she dropped again. The bottom of the shaft was within sight.

She heard pounding, felt it. Was the drone searching for her? Was it landing – or attacking?

“It’s not happening.”

Her program should be taking effect. Trilium stores all through the things should be changing state from energetic to explosive.

It is an exceptionally large corpore. Your command may take time to work through its protocol structure.

“Or I made a mistake.”

She couldn’t drop the rest of the way. It was too far to the shaft’s floor. Althea tested a hanging cable. It seemed strong, unyielding. She began to climb down, easily, automatically, leaving her mind to run through the possibility – and the consequences – of failure.

“Or it was rejected by its system.”

That is not likely.

She was still doubting, gripped the cable with both hands as she considered the possibilities, still maybe a couple fives from the bottom of the shaft. A bright blue beam of light shone down from above; falling dust reflecting, glittering around her. The drone was searching!

“It must be working,” she tried to convince herself. It was too high to drop on an unknown surface, so she continued cautiously – hand over hand, down.

“It responded,” she told herself, she had seen the figures. “The–”

There was a sudden rumble, followed by a flash of light from above. Then the whole shaft shook as blasts louder than a thunderclaps pounded all around her.