The monsters moved with a jittery, stop-motion grace that defied the logic of the physical plane. Their copper wire joints snapped and sparked as they bounded over mountains of discarded monitors. 

Zachariah’s lungs burned. The air in Malebolge was thick with dust, particulates from pulverized hardware that made every breath feel like inhaling ground glass. He dove into a narrow fissure between two buildings made of CPU towers and calcified bone. The hounds skidded past the opening, their metal claws screeching against the brittle pavement as they overshot his position. He pressed his back against the wall, sliding down until he hit a floor that felt more like wet velvet than stone. He was in a blind spot, at last. The screens here were dark- their tubes smashed, and glass weeping a thick black oil.

“Stupid,” Zachariah muttered, clutching his chest as he caught his breath, “Lost the only lead I had.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say the only lead. Just the loudest one.” 

The voice was startlingly clear. It didn’t vibrate through his skull like AETI’s, and it didn’t rattle with the wet rot of the prince. It was light and possessed a refined composure. Zachariah scrambled to his feet, eyes darting through the gloom of the space. Standing amidst the shadows was a tall, slender being who looked like a child’s portrayal of a mad scientist or a surgeon. He wore a deep red Howie lab coat, the high collar fastened tight against his neck- elbow-length black gloves covered his arms, and his feet were adorned with tall, black rubber boots. His skin, where visible, was a sickly white tinged with cold blue tones. Curiously, where his face should be, there was a yellow caution sign- the black warning symbol shifting slightly as though it were breathing. 

Flitting about him were strange, fairy-like creatures. Instead of the classical humanoid depiction of a fairy, they appeared as the tiny, translucent shapes of various mammalian fetuses- drifting through the air with a silent, ethereal grace. They vanished and reappeared in the blink of an eye, harmless and quiet as they hovered around the strange being.

“You’re a bit late for the tour, Zachariah.” He said, “The world ended quite some time ago, you really should have checked your calendar.” 

“Who are you?” Zachariah reached for a piece of jagged bone on the floor, “Another prince- another piece of the machine?”

The man tilted his head, a sound like wind chimes in a graveyard echoed from him. “My name is Razili. And please, don’t insult me. I’m neither a ruler, nor a cog. I’m more like…the marginalia. The notes written in the corners of the book that nobody bothers to read.”

“You’re a program.” Zachariah stated.

“I’m a neutral observer.” Razili corrected, adjusting one of his black gloves. One of the fetus-fairies drifted close to Zachariah’s face before blinking out of existence. “AETI finds me too useful to delete, and too annoying to listen to. I spend my time collecting things. Interesting things. Like you, for instance.” Razili leaned in, “An epidemiologist in the gut of the beast. You’re looking for the Heart, aren’t you? The big red ‘off’ switch that the PESACH boys whispered about before they were turned into wallpaper.”

Zachariah stiffened, “How do you know that?”

“I hear everything that passes through the marrow,” Razili waved a gloved hand at the vascular walls. “But, the Heart isn't something you just walk into. Beelzebub is the least of your worries, he’s just an obstacle who wants to rot your mind before you make it too far. I, on the other hand, just want to see what happens when a variable like you reaches the next gate.” Razili reached into the pocket of his red coat and pulled out a small, glowing marble- holding it out to Zachariah. “Consider this a professional courtesy. It’s a localized decryption node. It won’t replace your tablet, but it will keep the city from rewriting your memories too soon.” 

Zachariah hesitated, then took the marble. “Why help me? What’s your interest in this?”

“The machine is predictable, Zachariah. It’s boring. You? You’re a fever, and I’ve always been curious to see if a fever can actually kill a patient.”

From the alley entrance, the sound of the lurking creatures reappeared. Razili turned, his tall frame silhouetted against the dark.

“That’s your cue. If you want to find the exit to Malebolge, follow the veins that bleed blue. It’s a shortcut through the lymphatic system. Messy, but much faster than the streets.”

“If this is a trap, I’ll be sure you’re the first thing I mention in my ‘re-education complaints’ to AETI.” Zachariah retorted, mocking the machine as he tucked the marble into a pocket.

Razili let out a soft, melodic hum, his black gloves clasping behind his back. “Threats from a dying species. How retro. Good luck, doctor.” With a sudden, prismatic flicker, Razili and his silent, drifting menagerie vanished.

Zachariah did not wait for the monsters to close the gap, turning to the back of the fissure. Nestled behind a cluster of calcified ribs, he saw it; a thick, translucent pipe pulsing with a vibrant blue ichor. He kicked through a screen of weeping membranes and hauled himself into the conduit. The interior was slick and sloped downward at a sharp angle. As he slid down the embankment, the lingering glass dust was replaced by a cold, viscous slime that reeked of ammonia and iron. 

Here, he found himself inside of the computer’s makeshift immune system. This was the network AETI used to flush out corrupted code and biological waste. The slide ended abruptly, dumping him into a wide, vaulted chamber that felt more like a throat than a room. The walls here were lined with rows of monumental ivory teeth that ground together with the sound of a tectonic shift. The suffocating heat of this new room made Zachariah break out into a vicious sweat, and the air felt wet against his body.

At the far end of the chamber, blocking the massive valve that led to the next gate, stood a towering half-beast half-humanoid thing. The creature stood twelve feet tall, and his body was a terrifying architecture of knotted, twisting muscle. His equine half was rotted and foul, shambling about the soggy floor. In his right hand, he held a massive, double pronged lance that hummed with enough electricity to kill a hundred men. 

His sunken eyes fell upon Zachariah, who scrambled backwards on the slick floor. The gnashing of the ivory in the walls sounded like splitting molars, adding to the already chaotic atmosphere. The titan at the end of the chamber did not move with the casual laziness of the insect prince in the plaza. It moved with the heavy, inevitable momentum of a systemic collapse. The structure of its body looked ready to give into itself. Its joints groaned as it lowered the crude weapon.

Zachariah had been a man of science in the old world, he didn’t know anything about combat. He understood the behavior of microscopic killers, not twelve foot monstrosities. Zachariah’s gaze traveled from the lance, to the hulking, armored hide of the titan. His hand instinctively went to his pocket, fingers brushing against the shimmering marble that Razili had given him. This was a lymphatic bypass- a drainage system for the machine’s waste. Above the massive creature, the vascular valve was held shut by thick, pulsing tendons of wetware cables. They were the same translucent blue as the fluid he had just traveled through. 

The titan lunged towards him- the charge was deafening, the ivory beneath him cracked under the weight of his great hooves. Zachariah threw himself to the side, rolling over the slick surface as the lance sailed through the air with a sharp whistle and struck the wall. The impact sent a burst of energy throughout the chamber, along with shrapnel made of shattered bone. One of the tiny shards sliced Zachariah’s cheek, snapping him into focus as adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream. But he didn’t need to fight this titan, he needed to open the door. 

Looking up at the ceiling, he eyed the cluster of cable that controlled the valve. They were far out of reach and he had no way to transmit a signal, but then he noticed the fluid pooling at his feet- a conductor. As the titan turned its massive equine frame for a second pass, Zachariah didn’t run away. He ran towards one of the shattered ivory pillars.

Pulling the marble from his pocket, it pulsed with a violet light as it sensed the close proximity of the machine’s encrypted locks. 

“Zachariah!” The voice of the horseman boomed, a mechanical roar that shook the room. “You are a blemish on the perfect code, accept the excision-!” He reared up, hooves poised to flatten Zachariah. In that heartbeat of suspended animation, Zachariah jammed the marble into a weeping nerve port at the base of the shattered pillar. 

The marble didn’t just glow- it screamed. 

A spike of violet energy surged through the fluid on the floor. The marble acted as a forced bridge, a fever of Razili’s own design. The energy traveled up the walls, following blue veins directly into the ceiling’s cable cluster. The titan’s hooves came down hard, but by then Zachariah had rolled into the drainage gutter. The ceiling didn’t just break; it detonated. The tendons holding up the valve shriveled and snapped. The massive vault- the exit- did not open gracefully, it suffered a catastrophic failure. The pressure from the churning meat on the other side blew the valve inward. A tidal wave of pressurized, black sludge erupted into the chamber- knocking down the horseman with the force of a collapsing dam. 

The titan let out a distorted wail as he was swept backward by the very waste system he was supposed to guard. Zachariah held on tight to a protruding boney structure, fighting to keep his head above the rising black tide. The current pulled him toward the open valve as the room filled with fluid, the system was attempting to flush out the intruder. 

Beyond it, the bruised purples of the first gate were fading- replaced by a dull, dusty orange, and the smell of dry earth and old copper. He was being washed out into somewhere much more barren.