I stood up, brushing the dust from my ragged clothes as I stared at the dark entrance that had just spat us out. "Protection protocol..." I muttered sarcastically. "Unauthorized identity..."

  Anger was boiling inside me. We had faced monsters of rock and metal, but now we were stuck in front of an open door.

  "This is unbelievable!" I yelled into the void. "Hey, 404! This barrier is just wind! Smash it!"

  404 received the command and moved. He charged toward the stone arch like a cannonball. But before he reached the threshold, he crashed into the invisible wall with immense force. The sound of the impact was a muffled, deep thud, like a strike on a giant drum. I saw 404, the being who had stopped a charging tiger with his body, thrown back several steps, new scratches appearing on his rocky armor from the shock.

  It didn't work.

  I looked up at the towering, black glass windows. "The windows! Get up there! Shatter the glass!"

  404 made an incredible leap, soaring through the air toward the nearest window. But before his stone fist could reach the glass, the invisible barrier flickered before him for a moment, and 404 was repelled again, landing on the ground with a force that kicked up a cloud of ancient dust.

  "Damn it!" I screamed in desperation. "There has to be another entrance! From the back! Let's go!"

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  We circled the massive base of the palace. But there was nothing. The walls were smooth and solid, extending upward and disappearing into the darkness of the cavern's ceiling. No back doors, no tunnels, no weak points.

  Defeated, I went back and sat on the edge of a broken pillar, my head in my hands.

  What now? I thought.

  I turned to 404, who was following me with his usual silence.

  "Alright, you genius," I said with biting sarcasm. "'Authorization'? 'Unauthorized identity'? What is this nonsense? How are we supposed to get authorization in a dead city?"

  404 tilted his head slightly. Then, in his quiet voice, he answered:

  "Authorization: official permission granting access to a restricted area. Data is insufficient to determine the protocol for obtaining permission here."

  I stared at him for a moment, then burst into a desperate laugh. I was asking a machine for a solution to a thousand-year-old bureaucratic problem.

  I remembered my life in Chang'an. I remembered the locked doors and the high walls. They didn't open for those who asked politely, but for those who had the key. Their walls weren't climbed with prayers, but with cunning and force.

  I slowly raised my head, a flicker of understanding beginning to form in my mind. Wait... this isn't a moral test. It's just... a lock.

  I shot to my feet. "Hey, 404!"

  He looked at me.

  "That voice... it didn't say we were evil or wrong. It said we were 'unauthorized.' It's not a matter of value, it's a matter of access!"

  404 stopped analyzing the moss on the rocks and looked at me. "Hypothesis is logical. Entry via the main entrance has been denied. New objective required."

  I looked around at the vast, dead city. To the left, the dark lake. To the right, those three ancient bridges spanning the deep chasm. And everywhere in between, there were endless ruined buildings and dark alleys.

  "Forget the front door," I said, a new sense of purpose replacing my despair. "The key, the access card, or whatever piece of nonsense it is, has to be somewhere in this damned city. We're going to scour it stone by stone."