Chapter 153 - 151 — Not Yours to Risk II

"Your father’s on Three, isn’t he?"

The question came from Theo.

He was looking at me over the top of his drink, and I realized he had been waiting for a moment when nobody else was speaking.

"Yes."

"Krüger mentioned it before we entered Two. I didn’t think much about it at the time."

"Why are you thinking about it now?"

"Because you kept looking at the Tower interface after we came out."

I glanced at Krüger.

He did not look particularly surprised.

So much for subtlety.

"The floor unlocked," I said.

"For all of us," Theo replied.

"Then congratulations. You can stare at yours too."

He smiled, but Krüger put down his spoon.

"Do you intend to attempt it?"

"Yes."

Mara stopped adjusting the support beneath her leg.

Hana continued eating, although she had plainly heard the answer.

Krüger studied me for a moment.

"When?"

"I haven’t decided."

"Have you reviewed the reports?"

"Not the complete set."

"Then you don’t have a plan."

"I didn’t say I had one."

"You were looking at the entry option."

"I was also looking at my Health. I haven’t attempted to enter that again."

Mara gave a short laugh before pressing her lips together when the movement disturbed her leg.

Krüger did not take the bait.

"I’m asking because Floor Three isn’t Two," he said. "We assembled a party using information gathered by people who had already cleared Two. We knew the objective, the layout, the enemy types, and enough of the rules to train for them. Even then, we nearly lost Mara."

"You nearly lost all three of us," Mara said.

"I’m aware."

"Then don’t make it sound as though my leg was the only problem."

Krüger turned toward her.

"I wasn’t."

She held his gaze for another moment, then went back to her food.

That was one of the things I had come to appreciate about Krüger. He could be corrected without treating the correction as a challenge to his authority. He had led the Stone-Side group through a situation I had not been able to see, and when Mara disagreed with his account of it, he did not suddenly forget that she had been there.

He looked back at me.

"Three has no verified clear. We know people have returned from attempts, but the reports don’t agree on what the floor requires. I’m willing to consider another climb with you. I’m not agreeing to enter that one on the strength of what we accomplished today."

"I haven’t asked you to."

"Not yet."

I set my cup down.

There was no hostility in his voice. I almost wished there had been, because hostility would have been much easier to answer.

"I want to get stronger," I told him. "I want to climb, and I want to reach my father. None of that means I’m going to take six people into a floor I haven’t studied."

"Good."

He picked up his spoon again.

I looked at him.

"Was that the whole interrogation?"

"For now."

"That’s disappointing. I had an argument prepared."

"Keep it. You may need it later."

Theo laughed quietly, and I found myself smiling despite the irritation still sitting somewhere beneath my ribs.

The problem was that Krüger was right about something I had not wanted to examine too closely.

I had been thinking about Floor Three from the moment it unlocked, but I had been thinking about it as my next step. I needed strength. I needed to understand the Tower. I needed to get close enough to Christopher that I would not spend another six years being the son he had to leave behind.

I had not seriously considered whether the other five would want to come.

They had entered Floor Two for their own reasons, and none of those reasons had involved following me toward my father.

Mara solved the problem of what to say next by speaking before I could.

"I’m not agreeing to anything until I know what this leg is going to do."

"You don’t have to," I told her.

"I wasn’t asking permission."

"I noticed."

"If I recover properly, I’ll look at the information and decide. If I don’t, find someone else."

Theo leaned back in his chair.

"I want to climb again, but I’m not choosing a date before we know what Three is. I spent most of Two trying to keep track of things I could sense through walls. I don’t intend to discover at the entrance that the next floor needs something none of us can do."

"That would be an unusually thorough waste of preparation," Anton said.

Theo pointed at him with his spoon.

"Exactly."

Anton looked at his bandaged hand.

"My equipment needs work. So does this."

Hana finished her drink.

"And I’m not signing up to keep five people alive on an uncleared floor while two of them are still arguing with medical staff about whether they’re injured."

Mara turned toward her.

"I asked one question."

"Three times," Theo said.

Mara reached for the nearest bread roll, and he moved his chair just far enough away to make throwing it inconvenient.

I looked around the table.

None of them had refused me.

None of them had agreed either.

I had spent years thinking that strength would make this part simple. If I became strong enough, people would trust me. If they trusted me, they would follow, and if they followed, I would finally be in a position to change what happened to my family.

It was a neat little theory.

It had not survived contact with five people who were perfectly capable of making their own decisions.

Krüger wiped his hands and stood.

"When you have something worth discussing, contact me."

"I will."

"And Jace."

I looked up.

"Your father isn’t the only person who entered Three with a reason to be there."

He did not explain further. He did not need to.

Christopher had taken twelve experienced Players into the Tower. Every one of them had brought equipment, spent time preparing, and chosen to enter a place nobody had cleared. They were not there because my father needed an audience.

I had known that before Krüger said it.

Knowing it and remembering it at the right moment were apparently different skills.

"I understand," I told him.

He held my gaze long enough to decide whether he believed me, then nodded and collected his equipment.

We separated outside the medical facility.

Krüger was taking Mara back to her accommodation, with Theo carrying the equipment she had not yet persuaded anyone to return. Anton had arranged to have his damaged gear inspected once he was rested, and Hana reminded all of us to follow the medical advice we had been given.

She directed the last part at Mara and me.

I thought that was unfair until I caught Mara considering whether she could put more weight on her injured leg while Hana was looking the other way.

I decided not to mention it.

Before they left, I made sure I had a way to contact each of them directly. We had communicated more efficiently through Resonance Pillars than most people managed while standing in the same room, yet I had spent nearly the entire floor without a means of speaking to the others whenever I wanted.

It seemed a poor arrangement to carry into ordinary life.

Theo sent me his contact information and told me he wanted to compare the routes we had taken through the two versions of the city once everyone had rested. Anton said he would send the specifications of his repaired equipment before another training session, if there was one.

Mara told me not to let Theo convince me to schedule that session before she could stand properly.

"Why would I?"

"Because he’s already thinking about it."

Theo opened his mouth, looked at her, and shut it again.

I left them arguing about the difference between planning a session and scheduling one.

The district was still busy when I made my way home, but I found myself noticing things I had ignored on the way to the medical facility. A group of Players were arguing over a map outside a supply shop. Someone had left an equipment case open beside a repair bay, and a technician was explaining why replacing the visible damage would do nothing about the internal frame.

Ordinary problems.

Expensive ones, judging by the expression on the Player’s face, but ordinary all the same.

I had no idea whether the others and I would enter another floor together. That depended on five people whose lives did not begin or end with mine, and I found that the uncertainty bothered me less once I stopped treating it as something I was supposed to solve.

My next decision was simpler.

I needed information.

There were two reports on Floor Three that Christopher had studied before his expedition, and I had known about them before I ever entered the Tower. I had heard enough about their contradictions to understand why he had taken so much equipment and spent so long preparing.

I had not read them myself.

At the time, Floor One had been the only floor I could enter. Then I had needed to prepare for Two, and whatever waited on Three had been somebody else’s immediate problem.

Now it was available.

The thought made me reach for my Tower interface again.

I stopped before opening it.

There was nothing useful for me to do with the entry option. Looking at it for another ten minutes would not bring my father home, and it would not turn me into a Player capable of surviving a floor nobody had conquered.

I went through the estate’s main entrance and headed toward the operations area.

The east hall was occupied again. Not by Christopher’s expedition, of course, but by clan personnel preparing equipment for other work. Cases had been brought in, a table had been moved into the middle of the room, and someone was checking fastenings on a set of armour while another person read from a tablet.

I slowed as I passed the doorway.

When I had come home from Floor One, the room had been empty. There had been four clean rectangles on the dusty floor where my father’s equipment cases had stood, and I had spent more time looking at those rectangles than I wanted to admit.

Now someone had put new cases in their place.

The clan had work to do whether Christopher was here or not.

I continued down the corridor.

At the operations desk, a member of the staff looked up as I approached.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I need the reports on the previous Floor Three expeditions."

"Which reports?"

"The ones my father used when he prepared his team. I know there are two accounts that disagree about the floor, and I want to read both."

The staff member set down the document they had been working on.

"Are you preparing an attempt?"

"I’m preparing to find out whether I should."

I waited while they considered the request.

For the first time since Floor Two ended, I had something more useful in front of me than an unlocked entry option.

My father had gone into Floor Three carrying information written by the people who had survived it before him.

I intended to find out exactly what that information said.