Empty. No door. No amber paintjob. Disheartened, I reminded myself that there were sixteen other shields. It would just be inside one of those – or perhaps in the next compartment over. I went back down, took a transway to the building that held the second column and repeated the trip.

Again, nothing.

I chinned the com. “First shield empty.”

The others checked in as they found their way up into the shields, with all relaying the same result. Patton and I crisscrossed the southern half of Blue Quadrant, ascending columns in Blue Meanies, Laughing Gym, Cubes, Landslide, and Teonanacatl. All dry holes.

Exhausted, we reported our lack of progress and waited nervously for the others to do the same. One after another, they did, until all seventeen shields had been accounted for. No amber door. No Chime.

I crumpled in the base of the last column, dismayed, smelling like a Vortu’s taint.

“Maybe the Chime is somewhere else,” said Naecia. “If anything, we’ve proven it’s well hidden. I... I think we should go.”

If Naecia was willing to give up, then maybe it was time.

“Heading back,” said Izairis.

“Same,” said Patton.

“Aptat?” said Naecia. “Where are you?”

“Squaring some old accounts. You never know who you’ll run into!” they said. “Be on my way shortly.”

Aptat continued talking but I wasn’t hearing the words. Head down, arms wrapped around my knees, I imagined my blueprint of Aszerat. I rotated it like a globe, reexamined the Quadrants, counted shields. Seventeen shields. Two columns each, placed at alternating latitudes and longitudes, with smaller ones at the poles, and long, wide ones near the equator. The pattern was the same all the way around, with the western-most, zero-latitude shields slightly overhanging the neighboring quadrant. Overhanging the neighboring quadrant!

“I’m so stupid!” I leapt up, punched through the door to the external corridor, and started running. “I’m heading into Red Quadrant.”

“I thought you were sure it was in Blue?” said Naecia.

“Fungus,” added Patton unhelpfully.

“It is in Blue,” I said, rushing to the transways. “There’s one shield fin that overhangs Blue Quadrant, but the supporting columns are in Red.”

“Do it, but hurry,” said Aptat. “We see any hint of the Timelance, we’re gone.”

“Except me, I’ll stay.”

“Thanks, Patton. I know.”

* * *

Sparklemuffin104 was among the tallest buildings in the Red Quadrant of Aszerat, one of the first I’d explored so long ago inside the Scythin dredge. The lift ended several thousand levels up in an otherwise featureless space not so different from the basement of an office building where you might find HVAC and water mains. I’d never been in this room – my prior had never been in this room; I knew these things in my soul. And yet I felt closer to the Chime than I’d ever been.