Chapter 74

Chapter 74: 74 The alarm had been turned off and Bran was starting to seriously considering breaking a window, lighting up and just flying down to ground level when he felt it. He stopped and touched a hand to his chest. It was that feeling, that same one that always led him to Misha. Bran’s heart sped up and he looked around, though of course there was nothing to see in the vacated offices. What was Misha doing here? Why hadn’t his Aunt stopped him? Or had Misha sneaked out? Both longing and anxiety filled him as he jogged down the corridor to a set of internal stairs he’d just spotted. Or perhaps his Aunt was here too. Maybe she’d brought Misha along... Bran shoved open the door to the stairway and raced down the stairs. That feeling was growing stronger and yet, when he’d reached the floor with a giant ’G’ emblazoned on the wall, he felt the feeling tug him further down still. Underground? What was Misha doing there? Just outside the door he could see the tail end of an evacuated group of office workers. They were chatting casually so things were probably about to return back to normal. If Bran was going to make his daring escape, he had to go now. But he didn’t move. The set of stairs continued downward and he wasn’t about to leave Misha here. He hadn’t seen Artemis or Zhan but he was pretty certain Morgan was in cahoots with them, so them popping up was just a matter of time, them and their forbidden magics. If Misha was here on his own, here on some foolhardy rescue mission, then Bran had to make sure he didn’t get caught. Bran set the bucket on the ground by the stairs then hoisted the mop on his shoulder and headed down. After two flights, he came to a beefy looking security door complete with a near-field card reader. Bran stopped and considered his options. There was the obvious option of blasting through the door, like he’d done with the bathroom wall earlier, but he was hesitant to repeat that. Earlier, he’d reasoned that given the commercial building was home to more than just one business, it was likely that the common areas were devoid of any really bad spells, a gamble that had paid off, but now that he was heading underground, he had the feeling things were going to become more complicated. He didn’t have any tools with him but perhaps he could do some modifications to the mop... Or maybe he could blast through the walls to the side of the door. People usually forgot to put traps there... His eyes fell on the card-reader. Or maybe... He reached over and placed his whole hand on the reader. There was a strangled, mechanical squeak from the reader then a deeper clunk from the door. Removing his hand, Bran saw that the blinking lights on the reader had gone out so he pushed experimentally at the door. It swung open. His electrical disruption had caused him no end of grief this past decade, but for once he was grateful for it. Bran adjusted his grip on the mop then pressed on inside, poking his head around the door to see what all the fuss was about. To be honest, there wasn’t all that much that was worth mentioning. There were still bright lights fixed to the ceilings, and the ground was still flat, but all the nice bits and bobs of the building above looked to have been stripped away, or perhaps not laid down from the beginning, giving the place an eerie, not-quite-right quality. Bran stepped out from behind the door and headed down the hall until he hit another set of stairs, this one, again, heading downwards. Odd, he thought to himself. Surely the building is big enough and tall enough, so why go underground? Now equal parts curious and anxious to find Misha, he hurried down the metal stairs, wincing as the sound of metal being pounded echoed down the shaft. As he descended, the trappings of the building became fewer and fewer, and the additions to the wall became more and more industrial with large bundles of cables strapped haphazardly to the ceiling and walls. It struck him as looking like a modern Walled City, of all things. And yet, the passageway and each subsequent set of stairs continued to go down into the earth and he was about to stop and reconsider his options when the environment suddenly changed. Gone were the concrete corridors with their electrical hazards, replaced by... grass? An open field? A sky? Bran stopped in his tracks and looked around. He had to be in a Coil, he had to be, yet he hadn’t felt himself cross the border. He gripped the mop harder and brought it down to hang by his side, ready for action at a moment’s notice. The only other time he’d crossed over into a Coil without knowing it had been with the Walled City. A butterfly flew up lazily from a grove of shrubs and past Bran’s ear. He swatted automatically with his free hand but felt nothing. His hand had gone right through it. An illusion then? Bran stomped a foot on the grassy ground and the sound of metal rang out inside. Definitely an illusion then. He brought the mop in front of him then swept around, tapping the ground like a person hard of sight. The bristles of the mop dragged over the hard ground, going through the grass, but found nothing else. The feeling Bran had, up to this point, always associated with Misha was growing stronger - stronger, he now noticed, than it had ever been with Misha. A chill went down Bran’s spine but he chose to keep going. It wasn’t like he could go back anyway, not with this illusion messing with him. Yet it turned out to be easier than expected to navigate the warped space. Oddly enough, each obstacle in the illusion was a real obstacle that he could knock his mop against, and he didn’t once come across a hazard that was invisible to him. Why? What was the point of making an illusion if all it did was paint a different coat of paint on the world? The short strip of trees he’d been walking between (he guessed it was really a corridor or some kind of passageway) and came out into a relatively large area of grass and flowers and small fuzzy animals and... a boy? He was small, maybe five years old or so, and sitting in the centre of the grass playing with a rabbit and baby fox. Bran stopped and didn’t make a sound. There was something heartbreakingly familiar about this little boy but he couldn’t figure out what it was. "Bran," said a woman’s voice. The idyllic scene around Bran vanished and he gasped as reality suddenly came into view. Metal walls and floors, a claustrophobic space filled with hissing machines connected with pipes and cables that pulsed, and, in front of Bran, right where the boy had been, was now a giant... a giant... Bran’s mind struggled to comprehend the enormity of the eye that stared at him, just a few feet away. And this eye wasn’t alone. Nestled in the metres high mound of flesh that rested at Bran’s feet were countless eyes, some with round pupils, some with slitted ones, some with the hexagonal look of insect eyes, and Bran felt nauseous just looking at it. He stumbled backward and fell and but none of the eyes followed his progress, instead continuing to stare out at nothing. "It’s still asleep," said the voice and Bran whirled around to find a woman standing a few feet away from him looking up at the monster. She wore a pristine white lab coat and her voluminous, black hair was pulled back in a cascading bun that was equal parts functional and aesthetic. She looked down from the monster and at Bran, then smiled and suddenly Bran recognised her from the small, black-and-white photo on the headstone and the tracing in Misha’s notebook. She was Ling, Misha’s mother. "You..." Ling smiled then crouched down next to Bran. She had the same smile as Misha. "You got here early," she said, propping her chin on an arm resting against her raised knees. "I thought Morgan and Zhan would be better hosts." Bran swallowed and bit the insides of his mouth. It would be a lie to say that he never felt afraid, but it didn’t happen often. Right now, however, he could feel his heart race and his limbs twitch and that tension at the base of his throat start to build. Right now, he was afraid. Ling’s dark, round eyes moved between Bran’s, like they were looking for something, then she turned away. Bran followed her gaze and also looked at the monster. It seemed to be a colossal mass of flesh with eyes dotted all over it and small veins that pulsed in unison with the cables that fed from it to the machines surrounding it. Down from the ceiling were yet more cables interlinked with chains that seemed to not just provide a link between the thing and the surrounding apparatus, but also act as a restraint for it. Ling made a finger gun with both hands and pointed it towards the monster. "Want me to tell you about the Nameless Beast?"