Decided to stop procrastinating and publish it when I am supposed to

Hallez did not trust Mercury's system.

    "Why do you legion people like free-falling so much?" she muttered under her breath.

    She had been in zero-G four times in the past three days, and there was about to be a fifth. And after they were done with all this, if they used the Fluvius system to get back to Rome Ultima, that would be six times in four days.

    At least this time, it would be intentional.

    Hallez glared at the ground below, standing on the edge of the roof of the warehouse. She wasn't particularly scared of heights. She was scared of the feeling she would feel on the way down if she did fall.

    "Good luck," Lavi said, her hands on her hips. "I can't be there to heal you guys, so please, don't do anything stupid."

    They had decided not to bring Lavi or the horse along, as the former had claimed Mercury still needed medical attention. (And the horse just seemed inconvenient.) Technically, Hallez did too, but since Hallez insisted she felt fine (-ish) and she was still needed to get the Ancile, Lavi decided to stay behind. Plus, Lavi's magic and the special bandage was enough to get her through the quest at least, even if it was a bit crude.

    In truth, Hallez really didn't feel any major pain. Mostly she just got this weird feeling in her side whenever she moved, due to the bullet inside of her. But otherwise...she could feel the adrenaline in her blood. Her mind had been spinning since she woke up, and it hadn't stopped. She kept thinking about her vision, about Cade, the deadline, the Ancile, and whoever was behind this scheme. There was also apparently a spy within the Fifteenth Legion, which was...surprising, but it also made sense, if you asked Hallez.

    The sun had already set. Far away, the distant light of a city shone on the horizon. Maybe it was just because Hallez was finally spending the night close to a normal human city, with light pollution and such, but she thought the stars seemed dimmer that night. Rome Ultima's lights were bright but controlled, so while you were in the city, there was no way to see the stars, but the moment you walked out, they would shine with full force back at you.

    The moon—a waning gibbous that night—seemed closer.

    "We're very responsible," Travis insisted to Lavi. "Don't worry."

    Fiona raised an eyebrow. "When you say that, I start worrying."

    Travis nodded. "I take that back. I'm the responsible one."

    "What?!" Fiona let out some incomprehensible, offended noises. "So I'm not— What about Hallez? She's our leader! She's pretty responsible, is she not?!"

    Hallez looked at Fiona. In a skeptical tone, she responded, "'Pretty' responsible?"

    "Well... I mean you did crash a plane, got kidnapped, and took a bullet, so..."

    "There was no other choice," Hallez insisted. "Now come on. We're wasting time here. I'm not jumping off this building alone."

    "It sounds really weird when you put it like that," Lavi said. She shot Hallez a hard look. "Be careful, Hallez! Your arms are still healing from that burn a couple of days ago, and you have a bullet in you. There may be some damage internally that I didn't catch, so don't do anything extreme." She turned to Travis and Fiona. "And can you two watch her?"

    Fiona gave her a mock salute. "Aye!"

    Travis rolled his eyes, and grabbed Fiona's elbow, dragging her away. He turned to stare at Lavi for a second.

    Hallez wasn't sure what prompted her to do it, but she did anyway. As Fiona shook Travis' hand off her, Hallez walked up behind him, her hand reaching out, and gave him a small push towards Lavi. He stumbled, and something—Hal couldn't quite describe it—happened, and he somehow ended up hugging Lavi.

    Lavi stood there stunned, but hugged back, slightly awkwardly, since the Shield of Perseus was strapped on his back. Both their faces were red.

    To her credit, Fiona tried not to ruin the moment and turned away, trying to stifle her laughter. Her shaking shoulders gave her away.

    Fiona was practically choking as she held out a hand for Hallez, who high-fived it, still neutral-faced.

    "C'mon, lovebirds!" Fiona called out, after giving them a good few seconds to just stay there, slightly stiff and awkward, but not pulling away. She held up the sheathed Sword of Perseus and waved. "We gotta go!"

    As they separated, Hallez was brooding. She had lied—she did know what prompted her to push Travis and make them hug. It was this odd feeling, and a strange ringing in her ears. It was something in her subconscious, but no matter what she did, she couldn't bring it into light.

    All she knew, based on past experiences, was that something was going to happen when they got there. It didn't feel particularly good or bad. It just felt like something was going to happen.

    She still couldn't shake the feeling even as they waved goodbye to Lavi, and fell off the warehouse.

    So wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn't even notice going into zero-G until it was abruptly over, and they crashed into the ground. She managed to land standing up, and she was surprised that she felt no pain in her legs, like one usually does when jumping off a former Costco warehouse. And the ground wasn't concrete like the outside of the warehouse. And her surroundings...

    She looked around at the elaborate, long hallway, with hanging lights and marble columns. Windows opened out into the blue sky on the walls, and it was dizzying to look outside. The clouds were level with the hallway, and as Hallez stepped closer, she noticed that there was nothing supporting the structure. The ground was hundreds of feet down below. The walls of the hallway, looking out the window, were invisible.

    "This is the Mercury Transit?" Fiona muttered as she stood up. She had stumbled and fallen on her back, but she didn't seem injured. She looked out the window. "Why is it— Oh wow. Okay that makes sense."

    "An invisible corridor floating in the middle of the sky?" Travis seemed mostly recovered from his previous flustered state. Grabbing his spear, he peered around, looking up and down the Transit that seemed to extend infinitely in either direction.

    "It's quite a feat of magic! I wonder what happens when there's airplanes and birds headed for it. Does it move?"

    "We should be focusing on which way is the right way," Hallez said. "And how on Earth we're going to get down to ground level. Preferably without falling."

    "Falling is great," Fiona insisted. "I don't know what you're talking about. It wakes you up and gives you an amazing adrenaline rush!"

    Travis gave her a look. "I feel like I should be concerned that you're not scared at all of falling from great heights that could kill you, but frankly, I'm not."

    "What is that supposed to mean?!"

    Hallez clapped her hands. "Let's not get distracted for now. We need to get going. This way."

    She chose a random direction—the one that seemed the friendliest, even though both looked identical—and started walking. The pair of siblings followed.

    The Transit was just one path, no intersections or forks at all. No turns or curves. It stayed in a straight line and didn't show any signs of stopping.

    "So...how do we know where we're going?" Fiona finally said after about an hour of nonstop walking, peering out a window for the umpteenth time. She frowned, and glanced back and forth. "I swear I saw land, like, right beneath us just a minute ago. Now we're over the middle of the ocean. How does that work?"

    "Magic," Travis answered. "Based on what we've seen so far, and what Lord Mercury said, I think this place distorts space-time entirely." Travis also paused to look out the window. "And if my theory is correct, then we're not looking for the way to Medusa's Cave, but the Transit is. It's leading us along the one path we need to go in."

    "That's super convenient," Fiona commented. "Why can't we just use this every time?"

    "I doubt Mercury allows people to walk in here every day for free," Hallez pointed out. "We might be an exception because he wants to save the Legion and Rome Ultima as much as we do."

    "Aww, shame. I would've liked to use this instead of the Fluvius. It's much more hygienic, and you can theoretically go anywhere, not just the predetermined places!"

    "It's slower though," Travis said. "He said we should be there in an hour, but it's been an hour..."

    Hallez squinted up ahead. "The Transit...is going down just up ahead."

    Several yards ahead of them, the hall curved downwards out of sight. Hallez peered out the window, but, of course, the Transit was invisible from the outside. Looking below, however, she saw the dark ocean, reflecting the stars and the low-hanging moon. The sky to the west was getting lighter with pre-dawn light, which wouldn't be possible if they had still been in North America. That meant that they were on another continent entirely.

    Travis looked as well. "It is. And we've traveled almost halfway around the planet, it seems. Does that mean we're getting close?"

    Fiona shrugged. "Let's find out."

    If they had just traveled around the planet, and it was already dawn here...

    That means...it's already July eighth here.

    Hallez shifted the Ancile copy from her back to her arm, and picked up the pace. The others followed, seemingly realizing that as well.

    It was a set of stairs leading down a dozen yards before flattening out into solid ground again, except it was different from the Transit. The ground below was less polished and shiny, dust and grime covered it. As they headed down wordlessly, the temperature dropped several degrees, and a nasty smell wafted up to meet them.

    Fiona waved her hand in front of her face as she coughed, pulling her shirt up to cover her nose. "Ugh, what is that? Smells like the bathrooms after Travis takes a dump."

    Travis gave her a scalding glare. "I can say the same for you."

    As they arrived at the bottom of the stairs, it quickly became apparent why it smelled so bad.

    It was a sewer. Up ahead, this part of the Transit had obviously been uncared for and left to rot without maintenance for several years—if not decades—and transformed into something else entirely. There were no marble columns or fancy lights. Instead, the walls rounded out into a large cylindrical structure, like the typical sewage system one sees in movies. The muddy water with who-knows-what in it was the source of the smell.

    The only source of light came from the main Transit above the stairs. Past its reach, the sewers were completely dark.

    Fiona took out her light cube—whether it was the same one she gave Hallez or not, she didn't know, as she couldn't remember for the life of her what she did with that one—and turned it on. Its light flooded the sewers and revealed that there was an intersection up ahead. There was a sudden loud squeak, and a patch of shadows started, flapping its wings and disappearing down one of the paths. Something scurried along the floor—something the size of a German Shepherd—and rounded the corner as well. Hallez only managed to catch the sight of a long, furless, pink tail.

    Somewhere further down, the fluttering of large wings could be heard echoing endlessly around the sewer. The drip drop of water seemed to come from all directions, even though the water on the ground was so still and discolored, it could be mistaken for something solid.

    "...Jeez." Fiona spoke first. Her voice sounded weird since she was pinching her nose with her free hand.

    "When Lord Mercury said 'unpleasant', this isn't what I was expecting," Travis agreed.

    Hallez took a deep breath, then regretted it and covered her mouth with her sleeve. She coughed, the sound reverberating loudly and painfully. "If the path diverges, then that means we're out of the Transit. So we're in the right place."

    Travis held his spear in front of him. "You both saw that rat, right?"

    "And how monstrously enormous it was?" Fiona demanded. "Yes! Of course!"

    "We'll have to be careful about those," Hallez concluded. "Come on, we don't have time to lose. We need to find Cade and the Ancile..."

    She looked back, and trailed off. The stairs leading up to the Transit were gone. Instead, it was just more sewers leading backward, branching off and turning out of sight.

    Well, there goes our escape route.

    She was about to turn around, when she caught a glint of red out of the corner of her eye.

    She did a double take.

    A tiny, floating thing had flown to the middle of the tunnel, and was staring at them. When Hallez spotted it, it seemed to flinch in surprise and quickly dive around the corner, hiding.

    Hallez continued to stare, puzzled, and a moment later, it peeked out again, one red eye peering at them. It saw that Hallez was still staring at it, and hid once more.

    Travis caught Hallez's expression of surprise, and whirled around. "What, Hallez?"

    "Is it a rat?" Fiona asked, turned around as well. She grimaced as she removed her hand from her nose and put it on the hilt of her sword. "I don't see anything."

    "Shh." Travis said, before Hallez could reply. They all quieted, and heard a soft whirring of what sounded like propellers.

    "Is it...a drone?" Fiona took a slow step towards it. "It sounds like one."

    "Now that you mention it, I don't see how it can be anything else," Hallez agreed. "And it seems to be...AI."

    "How can you tell?" Fiona asked.

    Then, red holographic words appeared in the air, from the branching tunnel where the drone had hid.

    Why are you looking for Cade?

    The three of them exchanged glances.

    "How do you know Cade?" Hallez shot back.

    How do YOU know Cade?

    "He's... a friend." She decided she might as well answer truthfully. If they were going to keep answering questions with questions, neither of them would get anywhere. "Your turn."

    He's a friend. Ish.

    "'Ish'?" Fiona echoed.

    Did you say you were Hallez? Is that short for Hal?

    Hallez put a hand on her dagger. "How do you know that...?"

    Fiona whispered, "Can I call you Hal?"

    Travis sent her a glare.

    Three flashing dots appeared in the air, as if it was thinking. Then, it disappeared, and a red eye followed by the tiny body of a drone with four propellers appeared.

    It seemed to look at them curiously as it flew closer.

    "What are you?" Hallez asked.

    ...A drone. What do you think?

    Travis raised an eyebrow and spoke, "Who are you, then? Are you AI or being controlled?"

    If you really want to know, I'm CE9-18A: NOWAD-01, an AI programmed by someone I physically cannot know or show you. Just call me Nowad. It/its. I'm...not sure why I am here in general. You?

    "CE9-18A," Travis muttered, frowning. "Why does that...sound familiar?"

    Hallez was having the same thoughts. Just looking at the text, it felt disturbingly familiar. She knew it—or knew something like it—from somewhere, but where? And how?

    Fiona didn't seem to think so. "I'm Fiona. This is Travis and Hallez. So, Nowad...what are you doing here, then? And how are you friends with Hallez's friend?"

    CE9-18A... A high-tech, silent, AI drone. NOWAD.

    CE9-18A...

    Hallez was on the verge of finding something out, but she wasn't sure what. It just sounded so familiar. She had no idea why.

    Cade is in trouble, and I've been trying to find a way out and find someone who

    "I is the ninth letter of the alphabet," Hallez said suddenly, stopping the holographic letters from appearing halfway through. "And R is the eighteenth letter of the alphabet. CEIRA. CE9-18A is for CEIRA." She stared at the little drone. "You— You're a product of CEIRA."