[Intro: Minimalist and Tense] (A single, rapid, pulsing electronic bass note) (Spoken word, breathless and strained) Twenty seconds to the Canopy grid. Floor eighty. The lasers sweep. [Continuous Build: Layering Instruments] (Complex polyrhythmic drums enter softly, slowly increasing in volume) (Whispered vocals) Calculate the angle. Shift the frequency. Two-point-four megahertz. Deflect the light. My mother taught me how to disappear. How to shrink my spine, how to swallow the fear. "Be average, Maya. Be small and unseen." But now I am the ghost in the Aethelgard machine. [Accelerating Tempo: Dissonant Guitars Enter] (Guitars begin a fast, circular tapping riff that constantly climbs in pitch) (Clean vocals, strained and panicked) Floor one hundred. The thermal scanners hunt for blood. The white fire is eating the edges of my sight. My cartilage burns. My temperature spikes. A hundred miles of glass suspended in the sky, Built on the graves of those they left to die! Every pristine garden, every spotless floor, Paid for by the bodies in a subterranean war! Hold the frequency! Keep the bubble tight! A localized shadow in the blinding white! [Maximum Escalation: Full Black Metal Assault] (Blast beats erupt, the tempo reaches a frantic, unsustainable speed) (Harsh, agonizing screams) Floor one-thirty-five! Hold the bubble! Hold the space! My Sapiens brain is melting in place! Bleeding from the ears! Bleeding on the glass! Just hold the math until the turrets pass! The blood vessels swell, the optic nerve tears! A century of vengeance climbing up these stairs! I am folding the physics! I am bending the sun! The Glitch Walk is over! The ascent has begun! Hold it! Hold the line! [Sudden Snap] (The music cuts out instantly with a loud, electronic whine of a failing capacitor) (A heavy mechanical bell chimes once) (Spoken word, wet and exhausted) Floor one-forty. We are here.
