Balrog, I thought again. She thinks I’m turning traitor. Shut off the sixth sense so she won’t send me away. Please! I need to think clearly. Shut it off.

And just like that, I became blind; the sixth sense vanished, and I was reduced to my five fleshly ones. I could no longer tell where I was or what was around me unless I actually looked. Tut and Festina had no auras: all surface, no interpretation. I saw them staring at me, but nothing told me what they were feeling.

It made me laugh — bitterly. How long had I had the sixth sense? Less than two days… but going without it now felt like losing a limb. In fact, I had lost a limb, my foot turned to moss; but that seemed like a minor inconvenience compared to the amputation of my mental awareness. In that moment, I mourned more for my lost alien perception than for my real flesh and blood.

Demon, I thought silently toward the red moss. You got me addicted so easily. And if you’re as prescient as everyone says, you probably saw this coming — that I’d set the sixth sense aside and realize how much I missed it. But I won’t ask you to turn it back on. I won’t.

No response from the omnipresent spores… but I imagined them mocking me. The Balrog knew perfectly well I’d ask for the sixth sense back, probably the instant I left the building. I knew it too. I’d invent some rationalization for why it was necessary: it would be "in the best interests of the mission" to regain my heightened perception. As soon as I could, I’d ask the Balrog to reinstate my enhanced awareness. If the spores delayed even for a second, I’d be ready to beg.

Disgusting, disgusting addiction. Even worse, I didn’t care how needy I might be, how much I’d have to grovel. I just wanted to see again. The only thing stopping me from pleading for the sixth sense back, right then and there, was the look on Festina’s face.

"What’s just happened?" she asked. I couldn’t tell if her voice was sympathetic or dangerously restrained. "Something’s changed, hasn’t it? What happened, Youn Suu?"

"The Balrog… it’s, uhh… it’s numbed me. So I won’t feel the fluctuations anymore."

"Did it tell you that?"

I shook my head. "It doesn’t tell me anything — it never speaks. I just know I’ve been… numbed."

"I wish I could be numbed," Tut said. "Does it make you horny?"

"No." It makes me sad. "But I’m okay. I can go on now."

"Think again," Festina said. "You’re going back outside — where you’ll feel better, and we won’t have to worry about the Balrog playing tricks."

I wanted to yell and argue; but if I did, she’d only mistrust me more. Luckily, Tut came to my rescue.

"Come on, Auntie," he told Festina, "we can’t send Mom outside on her own. Not if she’s sick. She might get eaten by a Rexy."

"You can stay outside with her. Keep her safe."

"No way," Tut said. "Then you’d be alone, Auntie… and who knows what dangerous shit might be in this building. Not to mention, if we’re trying to find what the Unity was up to, three people can search a lot faster than one. There’s a reason the Explorer Corps frowns on single-person operations."

I could have given Tut a big wet kiss for standing up to Festina… and standing up for me. But I merely held myself upright like a competent human being. I’d overcome my dizziness from the spatial fluctuations and hadn’t yet begun to suffer serious withdrawal from losing my sixth sense. (I hoped there wouldn’t be withdrawal symptoms; but I could feel some perverse urge trying to invent some. My ancestors would have blamed that urge on the demon-god Mara, who keeps people under his power by filling them with worldly cravings and delusions. I seldom believed in Mara, but I knew the ease with which my brain could create trouble for itself. It would rather be bleeding than quiet.)

Festina looked at Tut and me, then growled. "Three Explorers is a stupid size for a landing party. Not enough people to split up safely, but enough for the admiral to get outvoted." She glared. "Just remember, this isn’t a democracy. I can and will pull rank if I think it’s necessary. I’ll do it the instant you really become a liability."

"I’m feeling better now," I said. "Honest."

"No, Youn Suu. The Balrog is letting you feel better. Or making you feel better. And that’s assuming you are Youn Suu. For all I know, the real Youn Suu could have been silenced, and now the Balrog is speaking with her mouth."

I’m the real Youn Suu, I thought. But I didn’t say it aloud — Festina wouldn’t have believed it.

Even I had my doubts.

Bodhisattva [Sanskrit]: One who is close to becoming a Buddha; Prince Gotama was a Bodhisattva before his full enlightenment. In some schools of Buddhism, "Bodhisattva" also means a particular type of saint — people who are fully enlightened, but who hold themselves back from ultimate transcendence so they can remain in the world and help others achieve enlightenment too. (Such Bodhisattvas may be depicted as archetypal beings with divine powers. To the unsophisticated, they fill the role of gods and goddesses. On a higher theological level, they’re metaphoric representations of spiritual virtues and right living.)

The river building’s central corridor only had a few doors leading off it — three to the left and two to the right. Apart from that, it was simply a dimly lit passage running more than two hundred meters, straight from the entrance to the exit on the other bridge. All five side doors were closed: blank expanses of the same pearly material as the exterior walls. Either the Fuentes didn’t believe in signs on doors, or the labels had eroded over the centuries.

We examined the five doors before trying any of them. They had no distinguishing marks — no hint, for example, that Team Esteem had used one more than the others. There were bits of dried mud on the floor near the entrance, but the Unity people had politely wiped off their feet before venturing farther into the building, leaving us with no dirty tracks to follow. I found myself wishing I had my sixth sense back, just for a hint of what might lie behind the closed doors; but I thrust that thought aside before I started to dwell on it.

I dwelled on it anyway. Totally fixated. But I pretended otherwise.

With no reason to choose any particular door, we started with the one nearest the entrance. It had no lock, just a push bar. Tut and I stood against the walls on either side — out of the line of fire if something bad happened when the door opened — while Festina put her foot on the push bar and gave a heavy shove.

The door swung silently open. The room beyond was as dim as the corridor — lit by dirty skylights that created more shadows than illumination. The shadows were cast by boxy machines arranged in a five-by-five grid. Obviously, the room housed mainframe computers… and just as obviously (from the silence that hung in the air) the computers were no longer running. One near the door had been cracked open, probably by a member of Team Esteem; but even in the pallid light, it was easy to see that the machine’s guts were a mess of fused metal and desiccated biologicals.

"EMP’d," Tut said, looking at the remains of the computer’s innards.

"What a surprise," Festina muttered. She walked around the room anyway to make sure she didn’t overlook subtle details, but the place was exactly as it seemed at first glance: a room full of big, dead computers. Perhaps an army of experts could learn something about Fuentes technology from the ruined remains, but Team Esteem hadn’t spent much effort on the task. They must have busied themselves elsewhere.

On to the room next door. It was trashed. At one point, it would have been a lab; but now, glassware was smashed, microscopes had been battered to mangled metal, and delicate machines were reduced to wreckage. I could still recognize the sturdier pieces of equipment — a freezer, a fridge, an autoclave — but even those had been fiercely attacked… kicked and dented and bitten.