Currently, everyone was walking on what seemed to be a sidewalk; they weren't sure, since it looked more like a road that mechanical vehicles used.
Occasionally, spider-like drones skittered past them, carrying boxes or tools, while other flying drones zipped through the air, maintaining light fixtures or fixing cracks in nearby structures.
Agni was worried. He had heard for as long as he could remember that blood would rush to your head if you stayed upside down too long.
"Is blood not going to go to our heads from being upside down for this long?"
"No. The gravity is fully reversed here. It also affects every part of your body, making sure it operates normally."
Everyone seemed to have mostly adjusted to the reversed gravity, except for the sand geckos.
The two lizards were still struggling, their legs stiff and awkward as they tried to walk in the flipped gravity.
Mariah and Agni kept glancing around the city in amazement. Everything seemed alive and constantly moving.
Buildings slid slowly across tracks built into the ground, repositioning themselves from time to time. Mechanical arms extended from walls, repairing cracks or repainting surfaces, keeping everything looking almost brand new.
"This way."
D-45 struggled to keep them from being distracted every second.
The walk to D-45's lab could take forever, and Mariah and Agni wouldn't even notice—too mesmerized by the living, breathing city.
"We are here."
After hearing that they had arrived, for the first time since entering the city, they finally looked forward.
In front of them stood one of the biggest towers they had ever seen—at least one that wasn't broken.
"This is yar lab?"
"Not the entire tower, but my lab is in there."
As they walked up to the tower, a sound came from the doors.
Just as they were about to stand outside, the doors opened by themselves.
"Woah, the doors open by themselves?"
D-45 was puzzled at how shocked they were by a mere automated door.
"Oh right, people don't have many of these anymore. It's really simple—you just need electricity."
The unit walked in as if nothing had happened. However, Mariah and Agni stayed behind, still playing with the door like children. Even Dogmeat seemed curious, approaching the door from a distance but keeping separate from them.
After a bit, D-45 realized no one was following him.
"HEY! STOP PLAYING WITH THE DOOR AND COME ON."
Their fun was cut short by the grumpy unit, and everyone followed.
They had to leave the sand geckos outside. Somehow, a rail popped out of the ground, making it easy to hitch the geckos securely.
Inside the building, it felt as if they were walking in circles. The building's layers didn't make sense at all—almost like the interior shifted and rearranged itself while they walked.
Ignoring all the oddities, D-45 kept walking as if it was nothing new.
"We're here."
After entering the lab, both Mariah and Agni quietly muttered "woah" to themselves.
Their amazement wasn't because of how impressive the lab looked—in fact, it was quite the opposite. The lab room was entirely empty.
"This is what ya call a lab?"
Mariah was the most shocked. She had expected a big, fancy lab with advanced tech, especially after seeing the city outside.
"Where is all of yar lab materials?"
A chair popped out of the ground. D-45 sat down as if the chair had been there the entire time.
"Looks can be deceiving, Mariah."
Afterwards, a floating screen popped out of the wall alongside a table.
Agni was curious about how things were popping out of the wall, but he decided to ignore that for now and ask a different question.
"What are you doing, D-45?"
"I am telling the city to make three rooms and a stable for two sand geckos."
"Telling the city?"
Agni was confused by what D-45 meant by "telling the city." He looked toward Mariah to see if she understood anything, but she was just as clearly confused.
"Of course. The city is a living thing, after all."
"WHAT?!"
Mariah was the first to voice her confusion. A living city was something she had never even considered before, and now D-45 was telling her the entire city was alive.
"A century or so ago, I tried recreating the freo virus. However, that was to no avail, since recreating that virus seems impossible. Only one person ever managed to make the freo successfully—but she was murdered more than a century ago. Still, I managed to create a virus of some kind. It was enough to give the city a small level of intellect—barely higher than Dogmeat's, and barely lower than Mariah's."
The sarcastic remark at the end didn't go unnoticed by Mariah, which ticked her off.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?"
In anger, Mariah punched the table across the room. The wooden table shattered into pieces, but a new one popped out of the ground for D-45. The broken one sank back underground.
Trying to get more answers from D-45, Agni brought the focus back.
"Why and how did you build this city, D-45?"
After a small laugh from Mariah's outburst, D-45 answered.
"In all honesty, I built this city to be a weapon. But after some decades, my anger subsided and curiosity took over. I wanted to see if I could recreate the freo virus. I failed miserably and only made a broken offshoot prototype, which gave this city a small level of intelligence."
The half-hearted answer only left more questions in Agni's mind. Mariah, on the other hand, seemed to know enough about the war to put two and two together, and didn't have any questions.
As much as Agni wanted to know more, he decided to stay calm and threw a sarcastic question at D-45.
"Why did you build it on the side of a valley?"
"Because this is where the freo virus was made. Not to mention, it had advanced tech before I even got here."
The answer surprised Agni. He looked at Mariah to see if she knew anything, but she seemed just as perplexed.
Mariah seemed to know more than the nine-year-old Agni—which was natural given the age difference—so she asked the next question.
"The freo virus was made here? Doesn't that mean the failsafe controller is in this city?"
"In this very building, in fact."
D-45 led them out of the room and toward a nearby elevator.
"The controller is in the basement."
Agni wondered if it could really be called a basement since it was the closest room to the surface level, but he decided to ignore that for now.
After five minutes, the elevator stopped. The basement was really deep down—or technically far up. The elevator itself moved fast, which was a testament to how far the basement was.
After arriving in the basement, they saw a giant vault. D-45 walked up and entered some codes the others couldn't see or memorize due to their length.
Once opened, they all walked in to see a single giant machine.
The device looked like a flower made of metal. Several sharp, pointed panels—like petals—had opened outward, but now all had folded back except for one standing straight up in the center. This single panel emitted a faint blue glow. The structure hummed quietly, its surface smooth and dark, with small vents along the edges. It gave off a low, steady pulse of energy, as if still active and waiting.
"The freo virus infected replicons using the hardware data we were all connected to. Sort of like a hive mind, but we didn't receive the information; it just went to some servers no one checked. Those servers were destroyed by the freo virus, so if the failsafe activates, it can't do it like before. Instead, it has to get every replicon manually—one by one."
Both Mariah and Agni had no words. They just watched in silence.
Afterwards, everyone went back up. Dogmeat was still in the lab by himself, wondering where everyone went.
As they got off the elevator, D-45 told Mariah where her room was and that she could go rest while he checked on what was going on with Agni's body.