Chương 15: Two man enter, one man leave.

Charlie's door slid shut with a hiss. George saw a red shape emerge from the door to George's cradle and rush into the common room. The creature that Charlie had become was crawling on six limbs. Somehow, Charlie had sprouted another two arms from his torso and was skittering along the ground like a Komodo dragon. George saw Charlie surge into the room and then screech as he stepped onto the broken bits of glass. The sound came through the door as a distant wail.

It began picking its way more carefully through the pile of junk and bits of broken glass that George had scattered in the room. The pack of cigarettes was halfway-burned. George tapped on the glass, and the creature's head snapped around and stared down the hallway. At the same time, George cast bind on the burning cigarettes and the emptying liquor bottle next to it. Charlie crawled down the hallway toward the door just as the cigarettes slid into the puddle of whiskey and ignited it.

Blue fire swept down the hallway, and Charlie slammed into the door. George stumbled backward and waved the knife in front of himself, but the door held. At the same time, the flame reached the liquor-soaked pile of furniture and clothes and the whole thing burst into flame. >>Ha ha! Take that, freakshow! But none of the fire was on Charlie. George had poured all the alcohol on the pile in the common room and left the space in front of the door clear.

"He's not on fire." >>That fire is going to eat up all the oxygen in that room in a few minutes. I think we're still good. Charlie had turned around to watch the fire and George could see him laugh, though he couldn't hear it. Charlie backed up a few steps and then threw his shoulder against the door. There was a loud thump but the door didn't break. Charlie backed up even farther down the hallway and ran at the door again.

The door held on Charlie's second charge but a long crack appeared in the center of the door on the third charge. A grin split Charlie's monstrous face and he lifted his foot to kick the door in again and again. The long crack began to grow and spiderweb outward. Charlie's foot was bleeding. He was talking to George through the door but George still couldn't make out the words. With one last kick, the door caved in along its top edge.

Charlie took a running start down the hallway again and charged the door once more. When the door gave out. It happened all at once and Charlie came crashing through the door in a shower of glass and a wave of heat. George held the knife tightly in front of him but had no time to swing or even aim it. Charlie bowled into him and smashed him backward against the far wall. George's head bounced off the wall, and a light flashed in his vision.

Two of Charlie's arms gripped George's arms, and part of his brain noticed that the kitchen knife was lodged in Charlie's side. Charlie stabbed George three times in the stomach in quick succession with the hand that still had the long horn sticking out of it. Charlie released him and George slid to the ground. George was dazed from the knock to the head and curled around his belly. The places where Charlie's hand claw had punctured him burned like it had been coated with acid.

Charlie stood over George for a moment and watched him writhe. Then, he turned his back on George and walked over to the pile of silver cubes. He withdrew a thin silver glove from his pocket and put it over one hand. Then, he used the gloved hand to pick up one of the Matryoshka figments. George forced himself onto his knees and began crawling toward the staircase. The pain was getting worse. I've had a concussion, he thought—but that didn't explain the numbness creeping through his legs.

Charlie noticed him crawling but didn't intervene. He carried the nanite cube to the door and pressed it against the panel on the wall. George reached the base of the stairs and fumbled for the railing, missing it again and again. His body wouldn't cooperate. He collapsed against the steps and dragged himself upward, inching along like a worm. The heat from the hallway suddenly cut off and George painfully turned his head around to see that the door was totally restored.

Charlie stood next to the door and watched his prey struggling. George's left leg had gone completely numb but he used his right leg and elbows to lever himself up the stairs. He was leaking a trail of blood from his stomach onto the stairs. He kept expecting to be pulled backward down the stairs at any moment but he wasn't. George reached the top and flopped himself face down on Charlie's bedroom floor. His arms and legs felt like they belonged to someone else's body.

He tried to push himself up, but his arms only twitched and lay still. George could see Charlie through the glass floor. The kitchen knife was on the ground at Charlie's feet. He was changing back into his human form. The two extra arms he'd somehow sprouted from his sides were getting smaller and the scale-like ridges that studded his body were sinking back into his skin. The pain from where Charlie had stabbed him was undimmed but the numbness in his legs was spreading to the rest of his body.

Charlie walked over to the pile of weird metal cubes and picked another one up, walking back into George's line of sight. Charlie held the cube up toward the ceiling as if to say See it? Now watch. Charlie held the cube against the wound in his side where George's knife had gone in, and the cube seemed to dissolve against his skin and pool out into a puddle of liquid metal that covered the front of his chest and wrapped around the side of his back. A moment later, the silver patch faded into Charlie's skin.

When it was gone, so was the wound. Charlie raised his hands and laughed like a magician showing the end of a trick to his audience. And look… the wound is gone. >>Well now we know what a Matrioshka figment is. Concentrated nanites. Charlie's body continued transforming back into a human form. He leaned against the wall for a moment as his knees popped and bent the correct way. >>George. Upgrade me. There was some kind of poison on that spike of his. You have 19 gold. Dump it into upgrades.

>>What will the upgrade do? >>More of the same, hopefully. We don't have a lot of options. Temperature control isn't going to help you right now. Just do it! George called up the store interface and mentally selected Upgrade Familiar three times. Purchased: Upgrade Familiar—3 gold. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Purchased: Upgrade Familiar—4 gold. Purchased: Upgrade Familiar—5 gold.

The pain that had accompanied the first time Nod's black fingers had appeared on his hand was absent this time. George did feel pressure deep in his arm and wondered if the poison that had paralyzed him was also numbing him to whatever was happening in his arm. >>What is it doing? >>Can't tell. Still happening. Charlie picked up two more of the silver cubes and they washed over his hands and seemed to hasten his transformation. He walked upstairs and George could hear that he was actually whistling.

He grabbed George by the feet and pulled him toward the stairs. George's head bounced on each stair as Charlie dragged him down but he couldn't feel anything. He couldn't even move his eyes to look around or blink. >>Uh oh. Just had a thought. >> Is it related to being paralyzed and about to die? >>Yes. I'd say it is definitely related to that. >>Do you know what is about to happen? >>In a manner of speaking. George, look. I think we accidentally made a bomb.

When that door opens in 05: 22 this room is going to go boom. >> What? >>Backdraft, man. We created a superheated room that probably just ran out of oxygen. That door is on a timer and those hot gases are about to be exposed to the oxygen in here. Then… kablooey… >>Now you tell me this? >>Better late than never. What do you bet Charlie doesn't have a spider friend in his head telling him what's what? >>This doesn't help me! I'm still paralyzed. >>Working on it.

Charlie bent over George's body, and his face came into view.

"Good trick with the fire. Almost had me," Charlie said. He gave George's cheek a little slap, turning his head to the side. George noticed Charlie walking over to the wall and placing his hand on a slightly discolored patch that George had not previously noticed. <Cradle interface panel> George started rising into the air. He could not tell if he was levitating or if something was rising from the floor beneath him.

Charlie stepped out of George's line of vision, and he could hear the sound of metal on metal rattling. Then he heard a hum so low it made his vision vibrate. Charlie clasped George's head by the cheeks and turned it so George's face pointed up. A silver ring that had not been there a moment ago was hovering over now George's body.

"This never would have worked out for you anyway," Charlie said.

"I'm a member of House Saar. When you kill a Saar in a trial, they hunt you down. Like a dog."

"Here's what happens next. You've got a lot of nanites in that body of yours. This machine will sort of… dig around inside you and get 'em out for me. Then, I'll just…" >>Nope. Charlie's words cut off when suddenly, George's arm shot up and grabbed Charlie by the face. Charlie jerked backwards instinctively, but he didn't dislodge George's hand. The hand itself had changed. Each of the fingers was longer now and was tipped with a black multi-jointed extension where they tapered to points.

His fingers had become so long that the sharp tips where his nails should have been wrapped around Charlie's head and met behind his neck. Charlie screamed, and he threw himself backward. The motion pulled George's body off the table, and he flopped onto the floor beside the silver cubes. Three more spindly fingers ripped themselves free from the back of George's hand and hovered briefly in front of Charlie's face before plunging into his eyes over and over like rapid and relentless needles.

Charlie screamed again and writhed in Nod's grip. George's arm contorted and his hand squeezed tighter until George felt the vibration of Charlie's skull cracking under the pressure. Just as suddenly, the hand released its grip and Charlie rolled to his feet, holding his bleeding face and running into the opposite wall. He crashed into it and fell down. George watched the eight new fingers on his hand crawl rapidly toward the pile of silver nanite cubes and plunge into them.

The hand speared one of the cubes and pressed to the wound in George's stomach. The metallic silver goo flowed across George's midsection and disappeared. >>02: 31 until the door opens. Time to haul ass. >>Your ass, I mean. Two of the long spider-like fingers unfurled and plucked up one cube each, pinning them against the back of George's hand. They stayed gripped there even as the hand crawled back across his body and reached for the corner of the wall leading to the stairs.

George felt his body flipped over as the hand pulled it forward. The fingers on his hand bunched together and then sprang up to grab the railing on the stairs like a jumping spider. George's hand worked its way up the railing one finger at a time. Every few seconds, the hand squeezed the railing tight, and George's arm contracted, pulling his body up the stairs. George discovered that feeling was starting to come back to his legs.

He couldn't see his body, but he wondered if the silver nanites had absorbed into his skin and were healing him like they had done to Charlie. He tried to use it to help get them up the stairway, but he only flopped, and the hand slipped a few inches down the railing. >>Stop, George. I got this. So George just let Nod pull them painstakingly up the stairs as his head flopped and his vision alternated between a view of the ceiling and the floor.

Nod gripped the side of Charlie's bedroom doorway and heaved his body inside the room. George kicked his legs and managed to push them farther into the room. Nod walked their hand across George's body again and one long finger stretched out to catch the corner of the bedroom door and fling it shut. One of the fingers that had been grasping a nano cube reared back and speared it through the middle and then stretched it out toward the door like a marshmallow on the end of a s'more stick.

The finger pressed it against the doorway, and the silver goo flowed around its edges. It ran around the crack until the whole door was outlined in silver. Then it faded to white, and the door blended seamlessly into the wall. The finger carrying the other cube speared its own cube and held it just over George's chest, ready to push it into his body. >>00: 30. I'd say brace yourself, but whatever is about to happen is just going to happen.

In the room below, Charlie was blindly feeling along the ground for the silver cubes but he was several feet away from the spot where he had stored the pile. >>3, 2, 1. The door opened, and a deep boom shook the whole cradle. Fire rolled in like an angry, red flood. It swallowed Charlie in an instant and ran into the kitchen, over the nanite cubes. It burst up the stairs but did not enter the bedroom where George was curled on the floor.

George found that he could blink and reflexively closed his eyes as the entire cradle shook, and the noise of the fire raged beneath him. When George opened his eyes, he saw a new notification. Trial Complete! The Convergence of the Twain Description: Two man enter, one man leave. Objective: Be the last player alive. Reward: Access to Treasure Room. Reward—Solo victory: 100 gold. Reward—Crafted first trap: Store upgrade. Reward—Underleveled victory: 5000 experience points (incompatible) You have won the Trial.

Would you like to visit the Treasure Room? Below them, the fire was burning its way through all of Charlie James' remaining possessions. Whatever the clear material that the floor and walls were made from was starting to get warm. >>You know… I'm pretty sure you peed your pants a bit back there. Poor thing. You couldn't even feel it. I guess I could have stopped it but I figured… let the good times roll, you know? >>When am I going to be able to move? >>Don't worry about that.

I can see these nanobots are already working on it. He had some kind of poison or something on that gross fingernail horn. >>Yeah… you think? >>I mean… talk about nasty. I hope your tetanus booster is up to date. >>Nod. Thanks for saving me. >>Yeah, yeah. Just wait until I get me a few more upgrades. We'll go all full-metal Sigourney Weaver on these assholes. >>That isn't going to happen. >>Fine. But don't come crying to me next time you are paralyzed and reenacting Charlie and the Nano Factory again.

George mentally answered "yes" to the trial prompt and Charlie's burning cradle disappeared.