Nathan had been transported to enough mysterious void-like areas to not be too surprised at the current circumstance he found himself in. Granted, it was always disorienting, waking up in an infinite white abyss, but he was at least able to suppress the fear factor.

  He thought back to what previously happened. He consumed the Pandora 2.0 in the privacy of his office, then something either went horribly right or horribly wrong.

  Which one it was, Nathan was still waiting to find out.

  A dream, perhaps?

  “Okay, that's helpful,” he muttered to himself. “Now I just need to figure out how to wake up.”

  He shut his eyes. “Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.”

  He opened his eyes and he was still in the white void.

  “Ha, I really thought that would work," he muttered.

  Nathan took a step forward and felt his feet press against something similar to marble tile. He took another step, and was greeted by the same sensation.

  He counted his steps and walked forward for what felt like a good five minutes. This five-minute stretch into 10, which stretched into 20, which stretched into 30.

  Nathan was starting to get more than a little bit worried. Maybe this wasn't a dream, and he'd been transported somewhere else entirely.

  He turned in a circle, looking up toward the sky. “Thalassa? Is this you?”

  No response.

  Nathan sucked in a breath. If this was a physical location, then he should be able to use his skills to escape, right?

  He held out his hand.

  “[Astral Fishing].”

  Nothing happened. At least, nothing Nathan could see. He reached out his hand toward the air in front of him where he pointed his skill.

  His hand passed harmlessly through absolutely nothing.

  Nathan dropped to the ground with a thud. He laid back, hands spread out.

  A sigh.

  He was pretty sure that there would be some kind of plot device or meeting or message or something that would occur, the question was how to trigger it. Skills didn't work. Calling out the name of Thalassa didn't work. What else was in his arsenal?

  Well, he still had his tongue.

  There was one name he knew that would trigger a reaction pretty much anywhere, save for a certain specific golden alternate dimension. And he wasn't in that alternate dimension right now.

  But on the other hand, did he really want to get the attention of Her? Even if it did work, it didn't seem like a good move.

  He pushed himself off the ground and into a seated position. He reached up, scratched the back of his head, then shrugged.

  It's not like anything seriously bad would happen. He'd made note of her in his mind and in other places, the worst thing that always happened was a random chill. He doubted anything worse would happen here.

  “Mother System? Is this you?”

  As expected, nothing happened.

  Wait, nothing?

  No chills down his spine, no sudden temperature drop?

  His shoulders tensed. Something was wrong. The only place where you weren't supposed to get a reaction was the golden realm, and he wasn't there, so what was happening? Why hadn't there been a response?

  Sweat rolled down Nathan's forehead. Every instinct inside of him screamed that something was wrong, that he'd made a mistake—

  A voice whispered into his left ear, close enough that he could almost feel the air pressing against his cheeks.

  “You called?”

  Feminine, low in tone. There was a playful lilt to it, like the way Sarah would tease Nathan and his friends.

  But behind that, there were… whispers, indiscernable from the main voice.

  Nathan jumped forward and turned around behind himself.

  Nothing. No one. It was like the voice had just materialized out of thin air—

  “That's close,” the voice said. “But it's not quite what's happening.”

  Nathan licked his lips. His eyes darted around from side to side, trying to locate the source.

  “Then what's happening? What am I missing?” he asked, trying to buy time.

  The voice breathed against Nathan's skin.

  “It's more akin to the connection you share with that little plant," it said. "She didn't speak to you at the beginning. It was more intent than anything else.”

  Nathan's hands twitched. “You mean . . . You're just sending these thoughts into my brain?”

  “Something like that.”

  Nathan took a few deep breaths. He needed to calm down. Think about this rationally.

  He was talking to the Mother System.

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  He was talking to an eldritch horror that was responsible for the entire Nine Circles.

  He was talking to a creature older than the earth, older than the seas, probably older than time itself, based on the way Thalassa had talked.

  Yeah, there was nothing to be worried about, right?

  “Your capacity for self-deception is rather impressive,” it said.

  “That's my middle name.” Nathan tried to smile. It looked more like he was constipated. “Nathan ‘Self-Deception’ Lee.”

  “That's a rather unfortunate name.”

  “You're telling me.”

  Nathan's heart rate slowed down. He could do this. He could handle this. This was a chance to extract information, to find out more about this . . . Entity.

  “So, are you really the Mother System?” Nathan said. “How do I know you're not a figment of my imagination? Maybe that Pandora finally accelerated my schizophrenic tendencies.”

  “Perhaps I am. But let's assume that I really am the Mother System, and you're still believing that I'm nothing more than a figment. In that case, you've lost the chance to gain important information about the creature which will bring about your doom unless something is done.”

  Find more information? It was like—

  She's inside my head?

  The mother system didn't respond. Nathan bit into his bottom lip, hard. The pain sharpened his focus and helped push aside the unnecessary emotions.

  Think, think! What are the right questions to ask! What am I supposed to say?!

  “You know, I've been reviewing your progress so far,” it said. “I was impressed. I know many have told you this before, but you're a true anomaly. Completely unlike anything that has ever entered the Circles before. Your strength is unheard of. Your affinity, even before you made that contract, was beyond anything thought possible for a mortal. Even many immortals would hesitate if all they heard was of your potential.”

  Nathan needed to keep her on the hook, keep her engaged. His best shot of doing that was following along with her logic, playing her game.

  “Why do you think that is?” Nathan said. “Is Thalassa right? Am I adopted?”

  “Surprisingly, no." It chuckled, the noise dancing around Nathan's ears. "Your parents didn't find you on their doorstep. You were conceived in the normal way for your species. You weren't brought close to any strange artifacts, you weren't blessed by divinity upon your birth. As far as I could tell, you're a human, and there's nothing unusual about you.”

  The voice got closer to his ear, dropping to the tiniest of whispers. “You must understand how interesting this is for me. I've seen thousands of species live and die out. I've seen the beginning of worlds and the end of worlds. It all becomes a sort of mindless sludge. Day after day, doing nothing but consume the fuel necessary to maintain my existence.”

  Nathan was getting really weirded out by the fact that he seemed to attract female-coded divine/eldritch beings like flies.

  Is it in my cologne? Maybe that's the deodorant I had back home did something to me? No, that doesn't make sense, I never showered, so I never used deodorant . . .

  “Is that a good thing or bad thing?” Nathan asked.

  “It's a bad thing. For you, at least. I don't imagine you'll be pleased to know that I'll be watching your progress from now on.”

  At the very least, she didn't sound hostile. Maybe there was a chance that she'd actually just let him go.

  A sharp laugh rang against Nathan's ear and he jumped back.

  “Let you go?” The voice let out a few more chuckles. “I'm choosing to let you live out of an idle curiosity. But don't misunderstand, I fully intend to consume you. I'm very curious what you'll taste like.”

  Nathan's jaw clenched. All along, she'd been—

  “—reading your mind, yes. Did you really think that I was incapable or unwilling to do that?"

  In retrospect, Nathan really should've seen this coming. He kind of did, it's more that he was just desperately hoping that for once in his life, the universe would give him a break.

  “The universe has given you plenty of breaks. Do you know how many would kill for your level of power? For your abilities?”

  The words weren't spoken with judgment, but rather as a sincere question. At least, that was the read Nathan was getting.

  “It doesn't really matter, does it?" Nathan asked. "After all, I'm going to be consumed in the end, power or not.”

  “Very true, very true.”

  Nathan's mind raced.

  There was something off about what she was saying. There was some kind of hole in his knowledge of what was happening.

  The way she was acting wasn't aligning with his expectations of her. She was supposed to be mindless. Or maybe her thoughts were supposed to be so complex that they would be beyond his comprehension. That's what made her an eldritch entity.

  The thought hit him instantly.

  “You're not the mother system,” he said. “At least, not the whole thing. You're the head. The steering wheel to the ship.”

  “Clever boy,” the voice seemed to coo. “You are correct. My body is currently occupied consuming a particularly delicious instance of the Nine Circles. It's taking time for it to digest. I happened to be reviewing the status of my domain when your name popped up. They were going to eliminate this instance. Send in a dozen administrators to take you out. But I told them that I wanted to speak to you myself, first. I waited for the opportune time, a moment when your defenses were particularly weak before I attached myself to your mind.”

  “Is that going to be permanent . . . ?”

  “It could be, if you wanted it to be. I don't know why you would desire such a thing, however. I think you have enough voices in your head causing you trouble.”

  Nathan thought through what she had just said earlier and about how she'd created this space.

  “You're limited,” he said. “Just like Thalassa said, without the body, you're weak. In fact, you're even weaker than she thought. You can't even get into my head without me having my guard down.”

  A clapping sound, applause from every direction.

  “Correct!” The voice said. “Yes, I'm severely limited compared to when I'm in alignment with my greater half. Strong enough to cause trouble, but not strong enough to do whatever I please.”

  Nathan narrowed his eyes. He was glad to hear his suspicions confirmed, but—

  “The fact that I told you all this is rather disquieting, yes?” The voice laughed, the sound like rusted wind chimes. “Why would I give you all this information? Why would I tell you that I'm weak? Why would I confirm all of your suspicions? Come now, you're a smart young man. You figured out all of these other things, surely you can put together the pieces.”

  He didn't want to admit it, but . . .

  “Because you're confident," he said. "You're completely certain that there's nothing that I'll be able to do, even knowing all of this.” He thought through what she'd said earlier, her tone, the way she'd been treating him as a curiosity. “You already said it. You're doing this for your own amusement. To you, this is nothing more than a game, a way to occupy your attention.”

  “Oh, so close and yet so far. You're almost there, but there's an important factor that you're missing.”

  “And what's that?”

  “You see, Nathan, power is the most delicious thing in the world to me. Mana, energy, whatever you want to call it. I really can't get enough of it. I'm always hungry. Always.”

  “And what does that have to do with me?”

  “It has everything to do with you, Nathan. See, the thing that creates power is a drive. A reason to be. The reason to fight beyond your limitations, to push yourself to the edge. That is the reason for the Nine Circles, that's why they exist. It is . . . What's the term? A pressure cooker.”

  Nathan grimaced. “So what you're saying is that you're giving me this information because you want me to fight. You want me to try to take you down, because that'll only make me a better meal.”

  Nathan clenched his fists. “You're wrong. I am going to defeat you. Nobody thought B32 could be taken down, and I proved them wrong. And it's the same thing with you. I'm going to cut the head off the snake. You've given me this weakness, and you think it won't matter. But I promise you, in the final moments before your death, you're going to think back to this moment and wonder how you'd ever been so stupid as to tell me all of this.”

  Laughter echoed out in every direction. It grew louder and louder, almost deafening. The white void ripped apart like paper, revealing blackness behind it. It ripped further, running a crack between Nathan's legs. It slid out to the left and right, and Nathan fell into the black abyss.

  Nathan's eyes snapped open.

  The wooden ceiling of his office greeted him. It was still dark, the curtains drawn behind him. The stone bust of his head remained in the same place.

  He leaned back in his chair.

  "Note to self," he said. "Do not have breakfast tacos before eating a Pandora. You're gonna get some really funky dreams."

  Nathan dismissed the fact that he hadn't had any breakfast tacos in his entire time in the Nine Circles.