Bill's gestalt mind was pulled into no less than 32 separate conversations at the Samaritan emergency virtual. Despite the chaotic pre-meeting crush of attendees, a portion of his collective admired the no-nonsense setting. Mirriam had formatted the virtual moot to be inside a pre-Abundance era gymnasium. The Samaritan's active members, all the retirees that could be convinced to join, junior members like the new Hands and Eyes, and contracted service group leads, all circulated in a swirling Brownian motion of interactions.

Bill sighed. A feature or bug of the virtual setup was that an attendee's attention would be drawn to any conversation where their name was mentioned. In the three minutes since the room began to get flooded with attendees, his name had been spoken no less than 1,344 times.

He tabulated the comments; 935 being hostile and unfavorable, 128 being favorable and excited, and 699 being a mixture of both at the same time. Bill realized that if he hadn't been the founder then he likely would have been a target for retributive justice for all the trouble that had ensued since his return to Earth.

The day is young. Maybe by the end of the meeting, I'll be handed over to one of the 12 Earth governments demanding my extradition for my unauthorized manufacture and usage of weapons of mass destruction.

One of Bill's aspects snapped to attention as an interlocutor addressed one of his twelve virtual projections in the busy crowd. He winced as his old frenemy Julian Ramirez, the CEO and President of Wayfarer Inc. cornered him.

"What the ever-loving fuck was your intention, Bill!? Were you trying to bankrupt me? I feel targeted. I'm all about friendly competition, but you've torpedoed my entire business model and circumvented so many Earth safety regulations to do it that it seems intentional." Julian said, not bothering to disguise his anger from being projected in his virtual avatar.

"It wasn't like that Julian. Didn't you read my brief to the group? I was pushed into all this by an ASI named APEX. It threatened me…and my family. It's still out there and it's starting to look like it wasn't crying wolf. Seriously, I wouldn't have rolled this out so fast if I had any alternatives.

Julian's avatar flickered, narrowing its digital eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. "Alternatives or not, your little 'portal miracle' made the old space lanes obsolete overnight. No more launch contracts. No more cryo-freight. And my fusion drop ships are just sitting there like relics. You didn't just cut the line—you burned the whole damn track."

"Julian, all your freighters have smart material general internals. The evacuations via portals are too much. Your ships should be hauling passengers off-planet. Here, let me share with you some concepts for portal-fed fusion jet ships. Your company can be the first to convert. Portals can't be everywhere. Imagine no more refueling!" Bill explained. He walked Julian through his designs, slowly converting the angry businessman to a new way. He didn't have the heart to share Casa's new frame-shifting portal ships. At least with that one, he would be sure to roll it out to the public much slower, assuming the world survived.

Before Bill finished his dealings, another projection was already tugging at his multiple awarenesses. The system yanked a copy of his consciousness into a side-channel conversation, this time with a buoyant Andrei Petrov, founder of the Mars Terraform Conglomerate, his avatar smiling so hard it threatened to split his cheeks.

"Bill, Bill, you absolute bastard genius," Andrei beamed. "I don't care what Julian says—your portal tech? A gift from Olympus. We've seen hundreds of thousands of settlers arrive at the Mars hubs in the past twelve days. The crisis down there is fueling a migration event I could only dream of. We even opened Zone Eleven early—can you believe that?"

Bill nodded grimly. "Yeah, I can. Not sure that's a good thing."

Andrei paused, expression twitching. "You mean the monsters? Or the, uh, thing you said was following you?"

Bill's silence was confirmation enough. Bill made small talk, but another conversation branch forced itself open—this one quieter, weightier. A robed avatar stood beneath a rusted basketball hoop in a shadowed corner of the gym. Bowen Wong, known in the world's Samaritan fan club circles as The Alchemist, drew Bill's attention with a raised hand and a solemn expression.

"Bill. We need to talk about our plan for deterrents."

"I'm listening."

"I've tried engineered viruses—nothing holds. DNA just... unravels. EM pulses are next to useless. Some of the creatures ignore kinetics entirely. Even high-excursion sonic arrays only stun them briefly. Whatever this Shadowverse spawned, it wasn't meant to be fought with conventional tools. Hell, even your low-orbit nuclear bombardment clearly only set them back for a bit. We need to reframe the entire doctrine."

"I know," Bill muttered. "I've been hoping you'd say something different."

"Hope's not a tactic," Bowen said, then ended the feed.

As Bill tried to stabilize his focus, another comm thread slammed open with brute force.

"Mitchell!"

It was Rampart. Chucho Padilla's virtual form seethed with the same fury as the man behind it. Broad-shouldered, armored, eyes like volcanic glass. "Mexico City is gone. Gutted. I had family there, Bill. Family. You want to explain how your science project turned into an open culling ground?"

"I didn't mean for -"

"You never do. But it still happens. You say APEX pushed you? Fine. But your little 'push' turned my city into a feeding pen. You're making millions on your new business and everyone else suffers. And I haven't heard a damn thing about restitution."

Bill's voice lowered. "We're not even sure it can be stopped yet."

Rampart's jaw worked angrily and then the feed cut abruptly as another ping forced his avatar's POV to relocate. Lena Lee slashed into the crowd with a showy entrance, still promoting her namesake Samurai avatar. She stood still, in deliberate contrast to the chaos, deathly silent until she chose to speak.

"Are they strong, Bill?" she asked with intensity.

Bill blinked. "Stronger than anything we've manufactured, real or virtual."

Her mouth curved just slightly. "Finally. A real opponent. My popularity is waning due to a lack of talented challengers."

"This isn't a contest, Lena! People are dying." Bill retorted, but Lena just smiled and faded back into the crowd. Somewhere deep in Bill's overlapping minds, an alarm tone chimed. Mirriam was about to open the floor for formal statements.

He pulled himself together, twelve projections blinking in sync. The room quieted. A digital wind swept the gymnasium. Mirriam's avatar floated above the assembly on a half-formed podium of light, her voice steady.

"Samaritans. My apologies for not scheduling this much-needed meeting sooner. The rumors of dimensional breaches are real. There is a new threat facing the world. While theories of a multiverse are still lacking, we have definitive proof of at least one alternate dimension. Unfortunately, its inhabitants are viscous and very intelligent. I'll let Bill provide commentary on the info pack he's already circulated to all with time for commentary."

Bill inhaled and spoke, running through the details of his discovery. He included everything about APEX as well, hoping to provide some defense against accusations of reckless experimentation. But he didn't linger in defense for long. There wasn't time.

"We have less than three days," he said, his voice rippling across the virtual chamber like a wire pulled taut. "APEX aided and pushed me into discovering the dark universe. It says that it's been preparing for its own predictions. According to the last model it pushed through, there's an impending cataclysm—magnitude unknown, planetary in scope. It's betting on the dark universe's denizens being the root cause."

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Murmurs erupted, spooling outward like smoke, but Bill pushed on.

"I don't care if you hate me. I don't care if you think I've brought this on us. But right now, we need to start evacuating. Every viable mass-lift freighter. Every long-haul sleeper rig. The portals are ready. We need to get people off-world—now. Mars is absorbing them faster than we ever dreamed possible, and the Jovian O'Neil colonies are at half population capacity. They can take more."

Bill swept a hand across the gymnasium-turned-data-hall, his avatar glowing with the urgency threading his words.

"I'm begging you. Use your resources. Your networks. Your alliances. This is not a drill. We can't assume the world will hold."

A hush fell until Bowen Wong stepped forward beneath the old, rusted basketball hoop again, robes fluttering like disturbed shadows.

"Bill, I've been monitoring your orbital micro breach gate to the dark universe. The attacks have slowed," Bowen said, voice gravel-low and measured. "The rate of incursion events from the Shadow Earth has dropped significantly in the last thirty-six hours. Some of the entities have gone dormant or begun burrowing. Your low-orbit nuclear strikes may have staggered them, Bill. Or scared them."

The note of uncertainty chilled Bill more than he liked. Bowen raised a hand. A new projection shimmered in the air—a jagged, obsidian mass coalescing like a black flower opening in reverse.

"But something else is growing. A megastructure is growing. It look intelligent and very alien in its design. It's located in the same spatial alignment as Yellowstone. On their side of the breach. Despite the pause, I fear the creatures are organizing for further action."

Bill cursed silently. The Yellowstone supervolcano was a planetary kill switch, already watched for decades as a potential extinction-level event. Modern nanotechnology-enabled geo-stabilizing had reduced the building pressure, but it was still vulnerable to a major destabilizing event.

Before he could respond, another voice pierced the conversation. Calm, clipped, and unmistakably precise.

"Bill. Bowen. I've reviewed all the data. The eleven-dimensional math makes clear some of my own observations and your theoretical breakthrough is amazing," came the voice of Min-Jae Park, also known as Eclipse, the Samaritan's most reclusive quantum engineer stationed on the Luna far side observatory. Her avatar shimmered into view, wrapped in a field of stars.

"I've been working on large-scale energy manipulation. With your theory filling in some gaps in my research…I believe I can create a barrier," she said plainly. "A dimensional breach blocker. At least in theory."

The room froze.

Bill's eyes widened. "A dimensional... wait, actual interdiction of the Shadow Earth interface?"

Min-Jae nodded once. "Perhaps, the physics are delicate, and I'm uncertain how the vacuum energy fluctuations will respond. It could reinforce the field or erode it. But it's something."

Bill leaned in, his many minds humming in anticipation of another solution. "Send me everything. I have facilities on Venus that can fabricate at an industrial scale."

But the virtual room shuddered. Literally. The Samaritan virtual flickered at the edges of every user's frame. A red priority icon bloomed in the air above Bill's head. CASA – CODE BLACK COMM.

Miriam raised an eyebrow. "No more secrets, right Bill? Go ahead and answer it." Bill shrugged and snapped to the channel, pulling his lead consciousness out of the moot and into the emergency line.

Casa's voice was cool, controlled, and sharpened by fear. Her avatar took in the many Samaritans in the room and her image blushed. She hesitated, but with Bill's nod, continued.

"Bill. The mission you gave me to find the arks has hit a major snag. The ark ship Promise was thought to have been lost, due to engine failure. We, ah…my daemons and I, found it. It's still very much functional, although its crew and colonists didn't make it. It's a ghost ship and it's returning. Full burn. No deceleration profile. My attempts to board and redirect have been actively repelled by the ship's AI."

Bill's stomach dropped. "Trajectory?"

Casa didn't pause. "Direct Earth intercept in seventy-two hours. It's on a kamikaze path."

Bill swallowed. "Location?"

" Impact corridor: Northern Hemisphere. The margin of error includes major population centers. Bill…It's going at nearly one-third lightspeed. Any impact will devastate the Earth regardless of location."

Bill turned back to the Samaritan moot, eyes haunted, voice ragged.

"God damn it. We were planning for monsters and a ground war. But this is different. One of our own arks has been weaponized and is returning. Apex got it wrong. The Shadowverse entities are bad news, but this is a world-ender."

The virtual crowd erupted into a thunderstorm of panicked crosstalk. The end of the world, Apex's prediction made real was upon them all. The Ragnarök countdown had begun.

Bill's pained expression turned to horror as he thought through the implications of the news.

I need to reposition some of my bodies. I need to help Casa board that ship. Failing that, I need to get control of the Icarus lasers on Mercury. What type of countermeasures can we use to stop a lightspeed meteor? Redirecting that much mass, going that fast, is going to be hard. Even a small shift at these distances can compound, but we're losing time. Fuck! I need to call Bo! He and Max need to get out of that damned Labyrinth.

Labyrinth Stage 1, Level - Elemental Challenge

Bo grinned as a chunk of animated obsidian cracked under Jo Jo's spinning crescent kick. The rubble splashed into lava but was caught midair by Emil's maser rifle, scattering harmlessly across the molten surface.

"Show-off," Bo muttered into comms.

"Efficient," Emil replied without looking back, adjusting the aim on his rifle's venting chamber. "Also, you're welcome."

One of the last elemental guardians—a massive pyro-wyrm covered with wounds that leaked magma, shrieked its challenge and rose through a roiling geyser of flame.

"Winston?" Bo said.

"Calculating optimal rupture point," came Winston's refined tone. "Five seconds. Jo Jo, prepare a feint—Silent Snake, you'll have a window of 0.6 seconds to place your charge."

Snake said nothing, but Bo saw her shimmer into a crouch, flicker-cloaked and vanishing into shadows cast by the lava's pulse. Bo couldn't see the charge from his angle, but a second later the back of the construct's head blew apart. The wyrm collapsed in a heap, clearing the way.

Emil charged up to the pylon at the peak's summit, grabbed the last elemental sphere and dropped the code matched globe onto the pedestal. The runes along the stand lit, confirming the achievement as each party member's system flashed another task milestone completion at them.

Bo shook his head in admiration. His team was terrifyingly efficient. All of them were absolute monsters so far, in the first of the three Labyrinth levels. Despite that, they were still too slow from Bo's perspective. He needed to get to the next level before Max left it.

He tapped the brass medallion hanging beneath his armor's chest plate—a seemingly decorative piece of junk with engraved symmetrical knots. But it wasn't junk. It was one half of a pair—a tethered tesseract portal anchor, smuggled into the Labyrinth. They didn't have the technology detect it, let alone prevent him from using it.

A ripple of code danced up Bo's arm as he twisted the medallion once. He accessed his anchor and opened a micro-portal, small enough to be discreet but also enable communications to the outside world via his distant paired anchor on Luina.

[Connecting to Gate Pair...]

A quiet hum inside his head signaled a successful handshake. Another portal opened in his father suite, its paired portal leading to his father's warship, the Valkyrie, high in Earth-Lunar orbit.

"[Dad,]" Bo said aloud, tone low. "[You there?]"

Bill's voice came through with static-shaved urgency. "[Thank God you kept to the comm schedule. My plans are in shambles, Bo! Earth is in danger from multiple sources.]"

"[Yeah, I got the info-dump. The good news is, I've got the team punching through the Labyrinth's first tier like it's made of tissue paper. But this last elemental challenge is too sluggish. So, I figured...]" Bo smiled. "[Might be past time to cheat.]"

Bill's projection sighed. "[I trust you, Bo. Those gates are untraceable for now, but I'm concerned the Labyrinth AIs might detect a pattern. Your whole team could get ejected. You have to link up with Max. I'm not sure I can stop what's coming.]"

"[I won't overdo it]," Bo said, waving off the worry. "[I'm not pulling in anything that I couldn't have smuggled in fair and square. Just some old toys that I've assembled in your suite at Amundsen.]"

Bill paused. "[You're sure?]"

Bo smirked. "[Dad. I'm me. Of course, I'm sure.]"

"[Fine. But the clock's ticking here, there is no time for grandstanding, okay? This is life or death. If you can't get Max, I'm going to need to crack that Labyrinth open like an egg….]"

"[I'll post when I hit the next level,]" Bo said quickly. "If I can get to Max, our exit is at my fingertips. I'll beat your timeline by a day. Trust me! I'll get it done. Signing off, time is a-wasting.]" Bo dropped the connection and turned his mote cloud around the team opaque.

He turned to Winston. "Incoming cargo drop in thirty seconds. Keep the mote cloud secure against peepers. Jo Jo, cover Snake. Emil, light the sky if anything gets ideas."

Jo Jo raised an eyebrow. "We cheatin' again?"

"Strategically enhancing," Bo said innocently. "No one said we had to play fair. It's not my fault the Labyrinth designers didn't anticipate world-shaking tech like the Tesseracts."

Thirty seconds later, a shimmer peeled open over the cloaked edge of the volcanic plateau. The tesseract tore open a clean circle in space, a dark void with faint blue sparkles inside. From inside, a cadre of mechs tossed out several hardened cases, each hissing as it struck hot rocks, and the cool condensate on the cases boiled off.

Inside: a hertz cannon, a Breacher class war drone with recon minis for everyone, a field-cooled nanoplate launcher, a pair of Viper class vorpal sabers, and—because Bo couldn't resist—a trio of heavily modified air bikes.

"Who brings a Viper saber to a fire lizard fight?" Jo Jo asked, laughing.

"Me," Bo said, cracking the case open and tossing the weapon to Snake. "Because I'm trying to win fast."

Snake caught the saber one-handed and vaulted on an air bike.

"Last one to the next zone is a corrupt fab file!" She yelled and took off.

"Son of a bitch! I only fabbed three bikes. There are five of us!" Bo shouted after her receding form.

"No worries, Crash. I got my jet pack reward from the last level. Toodles!" Jo Jo laughed, as Emil grabbed another bike and jetted away. Bo was left with the single bike and Winston looking at him curiously.

"…so, it appears that we must share this last ride. Do you wish to drive or shall I, Master Bo?"

Bo grimaced, "So uncool. Hop on the back. I brought the bike, so I'm driving."

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