Nico followed the adept, one step ahead of him, walking through the endless corridors of the Pillar, turning corners. It seemed as if they were descending, taking stairs that went deeper and deeper. Some of those corridors reminded him of those leading to the Waiting Room, but it was clear that they were going even deeper.

  He felt his hands getting clammy, his palms sweaty, as the thought of his friends, unaware of where they were taking him, tightened his stomach. What if they wanted to keep him prisoner to study his interactions with Erebos? He thought.

  After all, he didn't know those people. Or maybe he should just call them programs.

  He looked around frantically, searching for landmarks he could use to find his way back if things went wrong.

  Then, as he continued to look around, his breathing becoming irregular, he felt the need to fill the suffocating silence that surrounded him and blurted out, “You look young.”

  The statement hung in the air as the adept continued walking without even acknowledging him.

  Nico took a deep breath and added, laughing hysterically, “I mean, I wanted to ask: you're young... How long have you been part of this...”

  He stopped. He wanted to say ‘cult,’ but realized that wasn't the best way to start a conversation, so he corrected himself: “I mean... how long have you been working on this project?”

  The girl didn't answer.

  Nico took another breath, his step more hesitant: “Where are we going?”

  He waited, but the question hung in the air, with the adept, one step ahead of him, not making a sound.

  Then he asked again: “Can't you talk because you don't know? Or are you here against your will? If you want, you can run away with me.”

  The adept stopped abruptly and turned, looking at him over her shoulder. “I don't need to run away. This is my place,” said the girl, who, now that he could see her better, seemed to be the same age as Nico.

  Nico laughed and shrugged. “Well, that's what they say in a cult.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his eyebrows raised, waiting for a response that didn't come, then added, “So what are you, exactly? Do you work for him? Do you serve him?”

  The adept did not look away. “We are all the Archivist. Only one possesses knowledge, but we are all his instruments.”

  With that, she turned and resumed walking, as if the conversation was over for her, as if she had already said enough.

  Nico stayed behind, dissatisfied. He sniffed, more to hold back his frustration than anything else, and stood there, motionless, his jaw clenched. Then he shook his head, frowning, and asked, frustration evident in his voice, “What do you mean? So you're the Archivist too?”

  The girl turned back, her face expressionless, returning to him. When they were face to face, she said flatly, “No, I'm not, but I'm part of a layered system. Me, along with the others.”

  Nico shook his head: “So what are you doing here?”

  “We help reintegrate the incorrect codes, once repaired by the Archivist, into the game process.”

  Nico was about to open his mouth, but the girl continued: “You, on the other hand, need different treatment: you must be checked and reintegrated by the Archivist himself, the first of us all.”

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  Nico took a slow breath: “Why do you talk about yourselves as if you were a single being?”

  The girl looked at him intently, straight into his eyes, then said: “How do you think the Archivist knows what's going on inside the game, where the corrupted or damaged codes are? There are many of us, and we all work to contribute to the well-being of the game.”

  Nico, his eyes wide as saucers and his mouth half open, muttered in a faint croak: “So you're a kind of hive mind?”

  “Now that you know, does it change anything for you?”

  Nico clenched his jaw, frowning, as a shiver ran down his spine. Then he shook his head and pointed to the corridor to let the woman know they could continue.

  As they walked, they descended a flight of stairs that led to a single door. Here, the landscape beyond that door was completely different: metal, with panels without visible joints, had replaced the stone and filled all the walls, and even the floor was made entirely of metal, with cold lighting coming from unspecified points.

  As Nico walked along those metal corridors, he asked again, “Can I ask you another question?”

  The girl, one step ahead of him, didn't answer. Nico sniffed, then continued, “If you are one and all, in this kind of hive mind, then why do you let all those worn-out codes down in the Waiting Room stay there without being fixed?” He said the word “fixed” with a slight hesitation and waited.

  The girl slowed her pace for a moment, perhaps pondering what to say, then took a long breath and said, “It's Erebos' fault.”

  She left the sentence hanging, adding nothing more. Nico shook his head, seeing that she wasn't going to elaborate, and added, with a slight hint of irritation in his voice, “Or could you be more specific?”

  “Erebos was about to infect... us.”

  Nico frowned and shook his head: “What do you mean? Have you been infected by the virus?”

  Nico's stomach tightened as a lump formed in his throat: “So it's not safe in here?” He asked, looking around and behind him, fearing who knows what attack.

  The girl stopped at an unspecified point in one of the many corridors, shaking her head: “It happened at the beginning. One of us, on one of many trips to search for worn codes, came across a man.”

  The girl narrowed her eyes into two slits, looking past Nico, then continued: “He had a strange wound on his wrist, like a stain from which black liquid was dripping.”

  “Erebos,” Nico murmured, instinctively bringing his hand to his side.

  The girl nodded slowly: " One of us intervened, believing it was a code wear... but it was infected."

  With a shadow in her voice, for the first time not entirely toneless, she let a hint of pain slip through and said, “Many files have been lost. We are the guardians of the memory of this game. What is lost... is lost, but what we can still guard, we will guard.”

  Then the woman looked back at Nico, her tone flat again: “Since then, all worn-out codes and all codes corrupted by Erebus are worked on by one person, the first of us. The rest of us support, contribute, and work for the well-being of this game, but we no longer correct.”

  Nico nodded sadly, and the girl took a step to the left, her face in front of a metal plate that opened with a hissing sound: one of the metal panels, as big as a door, slid aside like an airtight door. The adept gestured with her hand that Nico could enter, her gaze impassive and without saying a word.

  Nico entered the corridor and immediately the plate repositioned itself behind him with an airtight hiss that echoed off the metal walls. The metallic clang resounded for a moment, and Nico felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Instinctively, he banged his fist against the plate as his heart pounded in his chest, his breath became short, and a feeling of oppression began to crush him like a heavy blanket on his shoulders.

  The corridor in front of him was long, straight, lit by cold, diffused lights that seemed to come from the metal panels themselves: uniform surfaces, without joints, without handholds, without escape routes.

  He advanced, step by step, his gaze fixed on the seemingly endless corridor.

  When he saw the end of the corridor, a solid metal plate blocking every way out, he sped up, breathing heavily.

  A step away from the plate, it began to slide sideways with a hiss, revealing the room beyond.

  Black, luminous cables ran along the ceiling and walls, intertwined like veins of pulsating light. Monitors projected streams of code and flashing lights onto the metal surfaces. The room emitted a constant hum that vibrated inside his chest and temples. There were also visors similar to Nico's and other equipment that Nico couldn't figure out how to use.

  Nico swallowed, trying to swallow that knot of unease, his muscles tense and his breath still short from running.

  As he looked around, unsure whether to enter the room or not, a flat, calm voice behind him made him jump: “Welcome, subject N_01.”