“I’m sorry.” Grisha hung her head in her hands as she tried not to look at the terminal screen. She couldn’t bear to see her wife’s face.

  Ida sighed, her voice distorted mildly by the data stream and poor speakers. “Izzy and I are alright. We just want you home.” Ida was still the beautiful woman Grisha had fallen for, some saw her sharp features as intense, but Grisha compared her to a statue, a goddess cut from stone itself. She wore her favorite house robe as the morning sun shined through a nearby window.

  For Grisha it was almost noon, it was yet another reminder of how far she was from her family. “I wish I could- What I am doing… I can’t go into details but the work is vital.” She lied. It broke her heart to mislead her spouse, but she couldn’t risk mentioning her secret mission lest Nel’Dorn find out. Considering he was currently having every data packet coming out of the Coast scanned and logged, it wouldn’t take long for him to string Grisha up for treason if she ran her mouth. That only added to the stress she felt.

  From off camera Izza began to cry out. Grisha felt the urge to go and console her daughter, but realized she couldn’t as she felt yet another stab in her chest.

  Ida ran a hand through her long red hair. “I’m sorry baby, I have to go and comfort the minnow.”

  Grisha placed a hand on the screen. “I love you. Give her plenty of kisses from me.”

  “I will, I lov-”

  DAILY DATA LIMIT REACHED-

  -PLEASE SPEAK TO YOUR LOCAL ADMINISTRATOR FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS-

  A rage built up in her gut as Grisha stared at those vile words she had seen over and over again. She screamed as she lashed out at the wall beside her with a whip of water from her body. The metal hissed as the thin tip of liquid cut a notch through the steel.

  Nel’Dorn had promised Grisha as much data as she needed to speak to her family, he had refrained from mentioning that he would cut her off whenever he felt like her reports were running behind. Grisha had no choice but to keep digging. To find some secret or nugget of information that would allow her to be free from the Minstella’s reach.

  With a series of angry clacks Grisha typed in command after command as she continued her search through the Keel’s database. The Twin’s palace was ancient, and after a thousand years the data archives had simply been placed over top of each other layer by layer in a never ending trash heap of useless information. She had tried searching by the oldest, or the largest, but for some reason the system groaned in protest at her attempts to breach its security. It was like there was something alive inside the Keel’s computers that was trying to keep outsiders away.

  Grisha didn’t care, she couldn’t afford to waste time on some wild goose chase, she needed to find a smoking bullet that would finally give her the leverage to petition Nel’Dorn to have her sent home; preferably with pay.

  The Demigod still felt that Grisha should be focusing all of her effort on weaseling up to Tayla in an effort to gain her trust. For all the good that would do, Tayla knew plain as day that Nel’Dorn had told Grisha to spy. This routine could continue for so long.

  The computer spat out a diagnostic screen of the whole Keel. The sheer size and capabilities of the Keel was a miracle in and of itself. As Grisha scanned through the information she paused at the cooling intake line. The Keel was drawing a huge amount of water through a series of pumps that stretched deep into the ground to some sort of aquifer.

  Despite all of her efforts she had failed to find any concrete plan or map for the Keel. The scraps of information she found had been vague and obtuse. Hells, she still wasn’t even sure where it was generating its power. A thought occurred, perhaps she could trace the cooling intake to the engine room.

  Tayla was still locked in her room for the foreseeable future, so if Grisha couldn’t spy on the Queen she could at least try and find more information about the mysterious Keel.

  As she shut down the screen she caught a glance at herself in the dark reflection. Her eyes had massive bags under them, her uniform was disheveled and in need of cleaning, she had also started losing weight from stress.

  Grisha hoped Ida hadn’t noticed, she didn’t want to worry her wife any more than she already was.

  Without a map to work with, Grisha was forced to wander the endless halls of the Keel as she slowly checked pipe after pipe in the hopes of finding what she was seeking. Just as she was starting to think she was wasting her time she finally found a small two inch pipe buried inside a floor grate that was labeled ‘COOLING INTAKE’. Grisha let out a scream of relief as she wondered how best to follow the pipe through the Keel’s many decks.

  She remembered an old game she had played as a child. With her service knife she reached up to her unwashed hair and with a swift motion she lopped off a small chuck, at the moment the knife passed through she willed the hair to shift to water.

  The result was a small pool of liquid that was and was not part of Grisha’s body. She could will it to move and feel where it was in space. It was often used as a game for kids to learn how to control their gifts.

  Grisha moved the liquid around the pipe, it slid along until it came across a seam in the steel that was leaking slightly. With a bit of coaxing the water wormed its way through the welded seam with the help of capillary action. The small bits that made its way into the pipe were quickly swept away by the pressure inside.

  All that was left was to follow the traces of her hair to the engine room. Grisha let herself smirk as she beamed at how well her crazy idea was working. She grabbed a satchel with some instruments and hurried along.

  Eventually the hair came to a stop somewhere deep in the heart of the Keel. Grisha began making her way to that spot without wasting any time. As she neared the core she turned a corner. The feeling from her hair suddenly shifted from being right in front of her to being hundreds of meters behind her. She stopped as she turned back around the corner only to have her hair moved once more to an entirely new location.

  Grisha didn’t dare blink.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She stood still as she tried to apply logic to the impossible. Either she was moving vast distances in a single step, or something was interfering with her connection. The latter was impossible to her understanding, which meant that only the former could be true.

  She moved without turning her head as she stepped over the imaginary point that was causing her such existential turmoil. Sure enough her senses told her she had just teleported across space. Frustration led to rashness as she quickly leapt between the two points again and again.

  The lights above her began to flicker as the Keel seemed to grow confused by her actions. The transporting grew labored as the distance she was moved shrank again and again. Without warning her sense of up and down shifted as she was thrown down the hall. She should have been terrified, but instead she was just angry. Something didn’t want her to succeed, something stood between her and her beautiful family. That was unacceptable.

  Grisha grabbed a nearby wall panel to arrest her freefall as she looked up at the junction she had just been jumping around in. This time she saw a strange blue light shining from around the corner. She could reach out to the piece of her that was separated and felt it was nearby, just down that hallway. She had found the engine room, and the Keel was frantically trying to stop her.

  Laughing aloud like a lunatic, Grisha began to climb from panel to pipe to door frame as she made painfully slow but steady progress towards her goal. From deep within the steel frame she felt a rumble. A nearby air vent shifted and blew blistering heat against Grisha’s hand. It was enough to cause her grip to slip from the sweat.

  With a curse she flailed backwards.

  A nearby wall panel flipped open, the door of the panel falling till it crashed against its hinges as it made a landing of sorts. Grisha fell into the panel as the wind was knocking out of her.

  She rolled on her back. “Fuck you! You can’t just catch me from a fall that you caused and expect me to thank you!” Grisha yelled at no one in particular. Above the blue light began to fade as the ceiling lights started to regain their power. “Oh no you don’t!”

  There was no more time. Grisha looked into the wall that was now exposed thanks to the panel being lowered. There she saw a water pipe of some sort. She drew in her gift as she burst the pipe and wrenched the water from within. With a flourish she swirled the water around herself and used it to propel herself upwards towards the corridor.

  The amount of water was lacking as Grisha came to a stop shy of the corridor, she reached out her hands and desperately scrambled to find purchase. Just as she was about to fall her hands latched onto a riveted beam. With thunderous laughter she hauled herself up, promising on the All Mother’s name that she would definitely start that workout routine and diet that Ida had been pushing her towards for the last couple years.

  Panting, filthy, and covered in sweat. Grisha looked up the hallway to see an impossible sight. There before her was a door that was sealed and chained shut. The entire surface was covered in glowing blue ice that radiated steam without end.

  Something inside her mind screamed that she should turn back. Yet the inquisitive part of her demanded answers. This could be her ticket home.

  Grisha stood on shaking legs as she slowly approached the door. Gravity twisted slowly until she was back on solid ground once more. The Keel seemed to be throwing away its little game now that she had made it to her prize.

  The door hissed and creaked as the frozen steel stood fast. Grisha reached a hand out to feel the air, surprisingly the door gave off no chill, there was no drop in temperature. It was a bizarre sight to behold. She could still feel the bit of her hair on the other side of the door, though it was fading quickly.

  With a deep breath she reached out and poked the door frame. Nothing happened.

  Feeling a bit foolish, Grisha reached for the satchel. A few of the instruments were dented or scuffed from the earlier fall, but none seemed broken. She rummaged around until she found a geiger counter. The ancient device chirped to life as she turned the dial. It began ticking softly, there was some background radiation from the door, but nothing harmful.

  One by one she tried various tools and instruments. Temperature was average, the doors' molecular makeup seemed to be what a steel door should be; every test seemed to treat the frozen surface as if it were just a regular door.

  Running out of ideas, Grisha reached for the most valuable instrument in her satchel. A scanner from the very last days of humanity's prime. It used some form of lesser AI to identify and classify anomalies. As Grisha turned it on the small device thrummed to life, small spheres broke away and began moving around independently as they got to work trying to solve the mystery of the frozen door, each one sweeping a cone of light over the face of the door.

  The scanner spat out a series of errors, the systems intelligence seemed to grow agitated as the spheres shifted their lights to a different hue, then another, and another. Each time a new error came to the screen and each time the machine chirped louder and louder.

  The lights above began to hum as the Keel turned its undivided attention to the small scanner. Grisha’s teeth began to itch as she looked up at the intense lights in the ceiling. Finally the scanner trilled a joyful tune. It had finally found an answer, and it immediately regretted doing so.

  The scanner screamed line after line of warnings and dangers, Grisha started to try and make sense of the codes the machine was spitting out but it was shifting faster and faster. There were foreign particles, subatomic anomalies, quantum signatures that were being transmitted to who knew where, and stranger still there were xeno-radioactive signatures that shouldn’t exist in this plane of reality.

  Grisha frantically tried to transfer the data to her work tablet, the scanner was still detecting more and more readings. Suddenly the scanner began to spark and scream as she dropped the thing with a yelp. It hit the ground as her heart came to a stop. The device was thousands of years old, and she just threw it to the ground.

  With a shaking hand she picked up the scanner, the screen was cracked, the spheres laid on the ground motionless, and an acidic liquid oozed out the side.

  “Fuck me.” Grisha whispered.

  Without the scanner, and dreading the report she would have to make, Grisha decided to call it for the day. She looked at the door one last time as she turned to leave.

  The mission hadn’t been a total failure, the scanner had transferred a sizable chunk of data before it had exploded. The downside was that it hadn’t finished the process, so the data was on the tablet, but was missing the decryption key that would have made it usable.

  What that meant was that Grisha would have to use more system resources to brute force the decryption key. A process that could take months.

  Grisha walked back to her quarters defeated. She was almost there when klaxons began to blare, the halls were cast in a harsh red glow as the Keel roared to life.

  From further down the hall a squad of Celestial guards approached quickly led by Losol the Ono commander. Grisha looked at the striking warrior for guidance, as usual Losol seemed emotionless, but for the first time there was a hint of something, not fear, but a weariness.

  “What’s happening?” Grisha yelled over the alarms.

  Losol stopped for a brief moment. “Go to your quarters. There has been an attack.”

  Even as she made to leave, Grisha reached out and grabbed the tall womens arm. “An attack? By who?” Grisha said as dread crawled up her spine.

  If the ancient warrior was upset by Grisha’s pestering she didn’t show it. “We don’t know. We are still tracking them down.”

  “What are they after?”

  “The Queen.”