33

Control shows remarkable understanding of human body languages; at your slightest glance, two of her units step between the increasingly alarmed Keimia and the chronometer. The huntress seems frightened by the mechanical woman and takes a step back. One of the controllers gives you a satisfied nod.

Then the chronometer flickers, brass numbers sliding until it reads 0000011000000.

"Eleven million?" Stralchus says. "There is no eleven million."

"Maybe it switched to…minutes?" Alexius offers, rubbing the back of his head. But no, you can see that it's set to display the years. A moment later it reads 1100000000000, then 0000000110000, then it flickers back to 0000000000000.

"What has happened?" Stralchus asks Control, his voice strained. "Where are we?"

The robots have no answer, but several are looking straight up. The sun has burned off the fog, revealing a savage landscape of steep cliffs and green jungles all around you, but also something hovering in the sky like a colossal silver iceberg. You recognize it. You saw it rush the Specular. You remember its obscene asymmetry, the symbols that shift crookedly within it. You did not know it was so large, though—the size of a mountain.

"The False Icon," Stralchus says. "It's free. It's here."

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