Origins (Book 4 of Alfireán age)

The Ganglion

The blue flashes of light faded away, and Alf rubbed his eyes, mentally exhausted. Redirecting the lightning into the spheres had demanded even more focus than using the Basanizos. As Alf's shoulders began to relax, Zaphaniea exclaimed, "It's not over yet. All I did was reboot the system. As soon as the power comes back on, so will the security system."

"Ugh," groaned Alf, lowering his arms. Gazing at the round ceiling high overhead, he waited for Zaphaniea's visions to resume. Sure enough, the ceiling tiles began to glow again, and the lights in the room flickered back to life.

Zaphaniea stepped closer to where the screen had been and raised her hand, getting ready to tap away. "The security system is booting back up. Get ready," she warned.

Drake's shoulders tensed, and he repositioned his small spheres around them. However, instead of arcs of blue lightning, a loud, mechanical, female voice suddenly declared, "Unauthorized personnel detected in the Ganglion. Initiating emergency lockout procedures."

Thick grey metal plates slid over the white walls and screens. A hard armored box then shot out of the floor and ceiling, shoving aside the dead body. The armored box tried to encase the floating image, but Zaphaniea's eyes glowed as she thrust out her hand. Her pink spheres wedged themselves into the box's corners and sides, preventing it from closing entirely around the image.

"Not good!" Drake spat as his spheres raced to the door. But he was too late - thick, armored, metal walls slid over the entrance, trapping them inside.

"Thirty-eight percent of unauthorized personnel have been confined in the Ganglion," the AI, or whatever she was, declared. "Awaiting supervisor's next order. If no order is given, directive 1948 will be initiated, and unauthorized intruders will be purged."

"That doesn't sound good," Alf said, switching his focus to his spheres.

Zaphaniea's eyes glowed brighter for a second. "It's not!" she exclaimed in panic. "The stupid thing is going to flood the room with lava!"

"What?" Alf blurted. His eyes widened as he imagined lava flooding the circular room and burning them alive.

"You heard me, L-A-V-A lava," Zaphaniea said sharply. "The stupid AI is going to flood the room with it."

Drake bounced his spheres off the metal walls blocking their way out. "Is there any way to stop it?" he asked in frustration.

As Zaphaniea's attention returned to the floating image, Alf pulled water out of the air. If she couldn't stop it, he might be able to freeze the lava before it reached them.

Zaphaniea examined the screen and muttered, "I don't know. Someone has overridden the security and locked out everybody until a special command is given. But now that I've rebooted the system, it's gone back to its default settings."

An ice crystal formed above Alf's shoulder as he grumbled, "Yeah, I think I liked the other setting better."

Drakovian helped feed water into Alf's crystal. "Can you override it?" he asked.

"No," Zaphaniea said, fiercely tapping away on the screen. "It has completely locked me out."

"Now what?" Alf asked in desperation as the last bit of water in the air flowed into the crystal.

Drake glanced up at the rather small ice gem and said, "Our only option is to retreat for now." He jutted his chin at the metal wall sealing the exit. "Alf, see if you can break through those armored panels."

Alf nodded, mentally grabbed his giant sphere, raised both of his hands over his head, and slammed them down. The massive sphere whistled as it raced through the air and smashed into the metal wall. A loud clang rang out, but the wall remained unscathed.