Senna Brennan’s office occupied the forty-third floor of the Network Administrative Tower, which meant she had a view of Tertius-Prime that most people would never see.

  Not that she looked at it much anymore.

  The window stretched across the entire western wall: reinforced plasteel, climate-controlled, offering a panoramic vista of the city sprawling below. On clear days, you could see all the way to the dock district, where the grounded freighters sat like metallic tombstones. On hazy days (which was most days) the lower sectors disappeared into a murky haze of recycled air and industrial exhaust.

  Senna sat at her desk with her back to the window, focused on the far more important task of not doing anything.

  Three monitors occupied her workspace, arranged in a perfect arc. Left screen: power distribution grid, showing Aether flow from the dungeon to surface infrastructure. Center screen: dungeon status readouts covering floor integrity, environmental systems, spawn timers. Right screen: maintenance logs and incident reports.

  For the past four years, two months, and seventeen days, those screens had shown exactly the same thing: nothing.

  Well, not nothing. The dungeon existed. Power trickled up from the depths at a steady 4.1% of the historical baseline, just enough to keep the city’s lights flickering. The floors maintained their structural integrity within acceptable parameters. Spawn timers extended into infinity because there wasn’t enough Aether to generate encounters worth mentioning.

  It was perfect.

  Senna had learned early in her career that the Network rewarded two things: dramatic success and absolute stability. Since she had no interest in risking the former (career advancement meant more responsibility, more scrutiny, more chances to fail spectacularly) she had cultivated the latter with religious devotion.

  Tertius-Prime was stable. Cleared dungeon, minimal output, no complications. Her quarterly reports were masterpieces of saying nothing in five hundred words. Her supervisor barely remembered she existed. And that was exactly how Senna wanted it.

  She took a sip of tea (proper tea, not the synthetic crap they served in the lower sectors) and reviewed her latest report. Three hundred words about power grid consistency. One hundred words about structural integrity within acceptable ranges. Fifty words about projected maintenance schedules. Fifty words of standard disclaimers. Perfect.

  Her finger hovered over the submit button.

  The left monitor exploded with warnings.

  Not literally. But the cascade of alerts and flashing indicators was jarring enough that Senna nearly dropped her tea. The calm, flat line representing Aether output, 4.1% for years, spiked sharply upward.

  The reading climbed—5.2%, then 6.8%, then 7.4%—and held there, steady and strong, nearly double what it had been thirty seconds ago.

  “What,” Senna said, staring at the screen.

  The center monitor joined the chaos. Floor status readouts that hadn’t changed since she’d taken this posting suddenly flared to life. Floor One spawn timer: RESET. Floor Two spawn timer: RESET. Environmental systems cycling up. Encounter generation: ACTIVE.

  Senna set her tea down slowly, as if movement might make this worse.

  She pulled up the historical data overlay. The graph showed four years of perfectly flat output at 4.1%, and then, right there at timestamp 09:47:33, a vertical line shooting upward to 7.4%.

  That was impossible.

  Dungeons didn’t just change their output. Especially not cleared dungeons that had been dead for two decades. Aether flow was regulated by an infrastructure that degraded over time, not improved. Systems failed gradually. They didn’t spontaneously double their capacity.

  Unless someone had repaired them.

  Senna leaned back from her desk.

  She pulled up the maintenance access logs, fingers moving across her keyboard with practiced speed. Last authorized maintenance: forty-seven days ago, routine inspection of surface distribution nodes, logged and approved. Before that: eighty-three days, same thing.

  No recent maintenance requests, no approved work orders, no scheduled repairs.

  So who the hell had just restored a major Aether junction?

  She switched to internal monitoring: dungeon access logs, security footage, anything that showed who had entered the upper levels recently.

  Tutorial entrance: one access, 06:23 this morning. Identity: Rivera, Tess. Age: 19. Class: UNKNOWN (PENDING TUTORIAL COMPLETION).

  Senna stared at the entry.

  A classless girl had entered the tutorial at dawn. Three hours later, dungeon output doubled, and multiple floors came back online.

  “What has the damn AI done this time?” she muttered, pulling up the camera feeds.

  The footage was grainy (dungeon internal cameras were a low priority for maintenance budgets) but functional. She scrubbed backward through the timestamps, watching empty corridors and abandoned chambers in reverse until…

  There—a girl, young, wearing work overalls and carrying a tool belt that looked like it had been assembled from salvage. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail, and she moved with the tired determination that came from too many long nights fixing broken things.

  Senna watched her enter the tutorial lobby at 06:31. The elevator had failed, an Aether surge visible even on the low-quality feed as a shower of sparks from the control panel. The girl had pulled out a scanner and started working.

  The timestamp jumped. Camera malfunction, probably related to the same surge. When the feed resumed, the girl was crawling out of a maintenance access panel, the tutorial lobby’s systems coming back online around her.

  “Okay,” Senna said. “So she can fix things. That’s not…”

  The next camera picked her up in the elevator shaft. She’d opened the roof access and climbed onto the ladder, descending into the maintenance levels with her scanner providing the only light.

  The cameras in the shaft were few and poorly positioned, but Senna caught glimpses. The girl climbed down, tightened a loose ladder bolt, and stopped on a landing to catch her breath. Her face was visible for just a moment, exhausted but determined.

  The last clear footage showed her emerging from Sublevel Two’s maintenance tunnel, covered in dust and looking half-dead. She’d crawled 400 meters through a tunnel that was barely large enough for her shoulders.

  And during that trek, Aether output had doubled.

  Senna sat back in her chair, processing.

  The obvious explanation: the girl was a delver. She’d entered the dungeon, found something valuable, and triggered something she shouldn’t have. Except delvers didn’t fix infrastructure. Delvers broke things, looted what was valuable, and moved on. They certainly didn’t crawl through maintenance tunnels to restore power junctions.

  The other explanation was that the dungeon’s AI had gotten creative.

  CORE-B had been isolated for twenty years. Cut off from the Network, stripped of administrative authority, left to slowly degrade in the dark. Senna’s predecessor had logged occasional anomalies—power fluctuations that didn’t match expected patterns, system behaviors that suggested something was still active in the depths—but nothing actionable. Nothing worth investigating.

  The standing policy was simple: leave it alone. Let it die in silence.

  But if CORE-B had found a way to manipulate a human into repairing critical systems…

  Senna pulled up the girl’s profile. Tess Rivera. Nineteen years old. No class. No guild affiliation. Residence: Rivera’s Reprieve, Dock District, Section 7.

  Father: Marcus Rivera. Age: 52. Class: Engineer, Level 11. Status: INACTIVE (MEDICAL). Former Delver, retired from active duty fourteen years ago. Multiple commendations for technical expertise. Current occupation: independent repair contractor.

  “Of course,” Senna muttered. “The old Floor-25 veteran’s daughter. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  She reached for her communicator and entered the frequency for the tutorial entrance security station.

  The connection crackled to life. “This is Dane. Go ahead.”

  “This is Inspector Brennan, NAD. You had a visitor this morning. Female, approximately nineteen, entered tutorial access at 06:23. I need her full name and any details you logged.”

  A pause. “Uh, yes ma’am. That was Tess Rivera. Marcus Rivera’s daughter? She was here for the tutorial. Seemed nice. Didn’t cause any trouble.”

  “Is she still in the facility?”

  “No ma’am, she left about…” Shuffling sounds. “…maybe twenty minutes ago? She seemed kind of in a hurry.”

  Senna checked the timestamp. The girl had left right after the Aether surge stabilized. Perfect timing.

  “Did she say anything unusual? Mention fixing anything? Accessing maintenance areas?”

  “No ma’am. Though…” Dane hesitated. “Actually, yeah. She didn’t seem surprised when I mentioned Floor One had refreshed. First time in half a year. I asked if she was going to stay and delve, but she just… rushed off. My communicator started going crazy right after. Guild contacts asking about the spawn reset, wanting to know what happened.”

  “I see. Thank you, Dane. Log this conversation as part of an active investigation. Don’t discuss it with anyone else.”

  “Yes ma’am. Uh, is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine,” Senna lied, and ended the connection.

  She looked at her monitors: Aether output holding steady at 7.4%, floor systems that were supposed to be dormant suddenly showing active spawn timers.

  And at four years of perfect, boring stability circling the drain.

  Senna stood up, grabbed her jacket, and keyed her communicator to security dispatch.

  “This is Inspector Brennan. I need two enforcers for a field investigation. Meet me at the hangar in five minutes.”

  She didn’t wait for confirmation. She was already moving toward the door, leaving her tea cooling on the desk and her unsubmitted report glowing on the screen.

  Behind her, through the massive window, Tertius-Prime sprawled in the hazy afternoon light, just a bit brighter than it had been that morning.

  Tess was halfway home when she realized the streetlights were working.

  Not all of them, and not even most of them, but enough that she noticed: sections of the lower district that had been dark for months suddenly glowing with steady amber light.

  She stopped at a corner, staring up at a lamppost that she knew had been dead since before summer. The bulb glowed cheerfully, with no flicker, no brownout. Just… working.

  “CORE-B?” she said, keeping her voice low. “The lights are on out here, is this because of me?”

  The message appeared in her vision, familiar now after hours of sporadic conversation during the crawl back to the surface.

  CORE-B: Affirmative. Increased Aether output is being distributed to surface infrastructure according to pre-existing priority protocols. Lighting systems were categorized as Tier-2 Essential.

  “How many people are going to notice this?”

  CORE-B: Uncertain. Power fluctuations occur regularly on Tertius-Prime. Most citizens will probably attribute improvements to normal grid variance. However, Network monitoring systems will detect the change immediately. Probability of detection: High. Probability of investigation: Unknown.

  Tess started walking again, faster now. “How immediately?”

  CORE-B: If Network monitoring is active, they already know. I should have predicted this outcome. ERROR: INADEQUATE THREAT MODELING.

  “Great,” Tess muttered. “That’s great. Very helpful.”

  She cut through the familiar maze of alleys and maintenance corridors, taking shortcuts only locals knew. The dock district rose around her: grounded ships and improvised housing, the vertical sprawl of a community that had learned to build upward when they couldn’t build outward.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Rivera’s Reprieve sat near the back of the district, its hull visible from three blocks away—home.

  Tess took the external ladder two rungs at a time (easier than the shaft ladder, blessedly familiar) and punched in the door code.

  The main hatch slid open smoothly. The corridor lights were on, steady with no flicker.

  When was the last time that had happened?

  “Dad?” she called, moving through the narrow corridor toward the common area. “Dad, I need to tell you…”

  Marcus looked up from the small table where he’d been reading something on a datapad. His expression shifted immediately from casual to concerned.

  “Tess. You’re back. How did…”

  A sound interrupted him. High-pitched, electronic, coming from the ship’s control console.

  Both of them froze at the sound—the proximity alarm.

  Tess stared at the console, at the flashing indicator showing something approaching the freighter’s perimeter—the same system that hadn’t had enough power to function in over a year, now working perfectly.

  “Since when does that have power?” Marcus said.

  “Since about an hour ago,” Tess replied, moving to the console. The display showed an approaching vehicle, a ground transport with official Network signature codes. Two minutes out.

  Marcus stood up, his expression unreadable. “Tess. What did you do?”

  “I fixed something,” she said. “I fixed something and I think someone noticed.”

  The communicator chimed. External hail, requesting permission to approach.

  Marcus and Tess looked at each other for a long moment.

  Then her father sighed, reached over, and accepted the hail.

  The voice that came through was female, professional, carrying an authority that came with official credentials and the power to make people’s lives difficult.

  “This is Inspector Senna Brennan, Network Administrative Division. I’m looking for Tess Rivera. Please respond.”

  Marcus’s eyes went wide. Inspector Brennan? he mouthed.

  Tess had no idea who that was, but the title alone told her enough.

  Her father took a breath and replied. “This is Marcus Rivera. My daughter is here. What’s this about?”

  “I need to speak with her regarding activity in the dungeon this morning. I’m approaching your location now with two security personnel. Please prepare for standard questioning.”

  The connection was cut off.

  Marcus turned to Tess. “The dungeon? You went to the tutorial. You were supposed to just…”

  “I know,” Tess said. “I know. But things happened and I fixed some things and apparently the Network noticed and…”

  A message flashed across her vision, bright red, urgent.

  CORE-B: WARNING. DUNGEON ACCESS LOGS COMPROMISED. SOMEONE HAS REVIEWED INTERNAL FOOTAGE.

  CORE-B: Tess, are you in danger? Your biometrics indicate elevated stress. Heart rate 132 BPM. Blood pressure elevated. What is happening?

  Tess wanted to respond, but the words died in her throat. How was she supposed to explain that, yes, she was stressed, because a Network Inspector was about to arrive and ask questions about things Tess could not explain truthfully?

  CORE-B: Analyzing situation. Unable to assist. I cannot hear or see your environment outside the dungeon infrastructure. I am blind. I am useless. Please advise if communication should cease.

  “Oh good. Bureaucracy,” Tess sighed.

  The freighter’s external sensors chimed. Vehicle arriving. Landing in the clearing next to their berth.

  Through the small viewport, a sleek Network transport settled onto the ferrocrete, its official markings gleaming. Two figures in enforcer armor exited first, heavy plasteel with weapons visible but not drawn. They took up positions flanking the transport’s rear hatch.

  Then, a woman stepped out.

  She was maybe forty, dressed in a Network inspector’s uniform, dark blue with silver trim and immaculate despite the dust of the lower sectors. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She carried a datapad and moved with the deliberate calm that suggested she’d done this hundreds of times before.

  Inspector Brennan looked tired but competent.

  Marcus moved to the external hatch. “I’ll handle this. You just…”

  “No,” Tess said. “If she wants to talk to me, hiding won’t help.”

  CORE-B: Who? Who is talking to you? Cannot identify source. No audio signal, only your voice.

  Her father studied her for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Alright. But I’m right here. You don’t have to answer anything you’re not comfortable with.”

  He opened the hatch.

  Senna stood at the base of the ladder, looking up at them with an expression that gave away absolutely nothing. The two enforcers remained by the transport, silent and imposing, a reminder that this was official business.

  “Mr. Rivera,” Senna said. Her voice was calm, professional. “Thank you for your cooperation. May I come aboard?”

  “Inspector Brennan,” Marcus replied, his tone measured. “Of course. Though I’d appreciate knowing what this is about.”

  “Your daughter’s activities in the dungeon this morning. Routine follow-up.”

  She climbed the ladder with practiced ease and stepped into the freighter’s main corridor. Her eyes swept the interior, cataloging and assessing, her gaze lingering on the steady corridor lighting.

  “Your power systems are functioning well,” Senna observed.

  “Recent improvement,” Marcus said. “Very recent, actually.”

  “I see.”

  Senna’s attention shifted to Tess. The inspector’s expression remained professionally blank, but her eyes were sharp. Evaluating.

  “Tess Rivera?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Tess said, hating how young her voice sounded.

  “I’m Inspector Brennan. I oversee Network operations for Tertius-Prime’s dungeon infrastructure. I have a few questions about your visit to the tutorial facility this morning. May we sit?”

  It wasn’t really a question.

  They moved to the common area. Marcus pulled out chairs. Senna sat across from Tess, placing her datapad on the table between them. The enforcers remained outside, visible through the viewport, a silent reminder.

  CORE-B: Tess? You have not responded for 47.22 seconds. Should I discontinue communication? Are you compromised?

  She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even acknowledge the message without giving something away.

  CORE-B: Analyzing patterns. You previously mentioned ‘bureaucracy.’ Contextualizing… You are being questioned? By Network personnel?

  Senna activated her datapad. “You entered the tutorial facility at 06:23 this morning. Is that correct?”

  “Yes ma’am.” Tess said both to Senna and CORE-B.

  “And you exited at approximately three hours later. What were you doing during that time?”

  Tess opened her mouth to answer…

  CORE-B: Wait. WAIT. If Network personnel are questioning you about dungeon activity, you must not reveal our communication. I have analyzed similar scenarios in historical records. Discovery of unauthorized AI contact results in immediate containment protocols. For both parties. They will shut me down. Worse than shut down. They will…ERROR: CANNOT ACCESS MEMORY. But worse.

  CORE-B: I am… I am uncertain what to do. I cannot hear them, only you. Cannot assess the situation properly. I can only trust you, Tess.

  The pause had stretched too long. Senna’s expression hadn’t changed, but something in her posture sharpened slightly.

  Tess swallowed. “I was taking the tutorial. For a class.”

  “And did you receive a class?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Senna made a note on her datapad. “What class?”

  This was it. The moment lying became official, documented, and on the record.

  “Technician,” Tess said.

  CORE-B: REQUEST: Stall if possible. I am loading the meta-data for the technician class. Searching for a plausible cover story. Accessing tutorial quest parameters. LOADING… This is taking too long. I am sorry.

  Marcus shifted slightly in his seat at the news. Technician was a reasonable lie, close enough to what she actually did that it would hold up to casual scrutiny. But his expression carried a question: Is that the truth?

  Tess didn’t look at him.

  Senna tapped her datapad. “Interesting. The tutorial facility’s class assignment system has been malfunctioning for years. Most people who attempt it only receive the three basic combat classes. When did Technician become available?”

  “I don’t know ma’am. The system had an Aether surge when I entered. Everything shut down.”

  “And what did you do when that happened?”

  “I fixed it.”

  Amusement flickered across Senna’s face for the first time. “You fixed it.”

  “Yes ma’am. The power relay had failed. I traced the problem to the main distribution junction and rerouted power through backup systems.”

  “That required accessing maintenance tunnels.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Tunnels that are supposed to be restricted to authorized personnel.”

  Tess met Senna’s eyes. “The elevator was broken. I was stuck. I didn’t know if there was a repair subroutine on the way like in the elevator and I wasn’t going to wait all day.”

  “So you bypassed security,” Senna continued, “entered restricted maintenance areas, and performed unauthorized repairs on dungeon infrastructure.”

  “I fixed a broken elevator so I could leave,” Tess said. “I didn’t think that was unauthorized.”

  “The tutorial lobby’s power systems were also restored. As was the class assignment matrix. Both of which had been offline for months.”

  “They were in the way. I needed them working to get the elevator operational. In fact, the entire system needed me to have a class just to leave.”

  Senna leaned back slightly, studying Tess with an expression that was impossible to read. “You’re telling me that in your rush to leave a broken elevator, you also restored multiple major systems that had been degraded for years? Systems that would have required extensive technical knowledge and specialized tools?”

  “I have a tool belt,” Tess said. “And my dad taught me how things work.”

  Marcus remained quiet, tension visible in the set of his shoulders.

  Tess cleared her throat.

  Senna was still talking. “…which brings me to the more significant issue. Approximately thirty minutes before you left the dungeon, Aether output to the surface increased by nearly 80%. Multiple dungeon floors came back online. Spawn systems that have been dormant for years suddenly activated.”

  She leaned forward, her voice still professional but carrying an edge now. “So I’ll ask directly, Miss Rivera: what exactly did you fix?”

  CORE-B: INFORMATION: If asked, you fixed tutorial systems only and any systems you needed in order to exit the Tutorial. Do not mention the Aether junction on Sub-level two.

  Tess forced herself to breathe normally. “I fixed the tutorial systems. The elevator, the lobby power, the class matrix. That’s all.”

  “And the Aether junction on Sublevel Two?”

  Tess kept her expression neutral. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  CORE-B: WARNING: Analyzing… internal footage has been accessed. But cameras in maintenance areas are minimal. She suspects but cannot prove it. Cannot prove. INFORMATION: if pressed, the Technician class receives a tutorial quest, and this cannot be verified without accessing Core AI logs, which requires higher clearance than standard Inspector. This should work. It has to work.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Tess said, choosing her words with care. “I was given a task by the class assignment system. After the surge, it loaded a… a tutorial quest? To fix a junction. It said that was part of the Technician class assignment process.”

  This was a bigger lie. More detailed. Harder to verify but also harder to disprove.

  Senna’s eyes narrowed. “A tutorial quest. To repair a major Aether distribution node.”

  “Yes ma’am. It provided directions to the junction, highlighted the damaged components on my scanner, and told me what to replace.” Tess pulled out her scanner (she hadn’t even had to use it with her new [ANALYZE] ability). “It all showed up here. After I completed the task, I leveled up to Level 2 and the quest closed.”

  Senna reached for the scanner. “May I?”

  Tess handed it over.

  The inspector examined it for a long moment, tapping through menus. The scanner’s screen showed exactly what it should: basic diagnostic tools, power readings, nothing unusual.

  “This is a custom build,” Senna observed. “New firmware.”

  “I made it,” Tess said. “From salvage. My dad helped.”

  Marcus nodded confirmation.

  Senna handed the scanner back. She studied Tess for another long moment, then made several notes on her datapad.

  “Alright,” she said finally. “Here’s what I think happened. I think you entered the tutorial, triggered an Aether surge that restored some degraded systems, received an unusual class assignment task, and completed it without fully understanding what you were doing. I think you’re a competent technician who got extremely lucky and accidentally improved infrastructure that’s been failing for decades.”

  She paused. “I also think there’s more to this story than you’re telling me.”

  Tess said nothing.

  “However,” Senna continued, “I don’t have evidence of deliberate misconduct. Your actions, while technically unauthorized, resulted in improved power output to the surface. Several sectors are experiencing their first stable lighting in months. That makes you either an asset or a problem, depending on how this develops. Dungeons are dangerous, Ms. Rivera.”

  She stood up, and Marcus quickly followed suit. Tess remained seated, not trusting her legs.

  “I’m going to be watching this situation closely,” Senna said. “If Aether output remains stable, if there are no additional unauthorized changes, if the dungeon behaves as it’s supposed to, then I’m inclined to file this as a fortunate accident and regulate entrance to floors one and two. But if anything else changes, if output spikes again, if more systems come online, if you’re found anywhere near dungeon infrastructure without proper authorization, this becomes a different conversation.”

  She looked at Marcus. “Mr. Rivera, you have a reputation for integrity and technical expertise. I’m trusting that extends to your daughter. Make sure she understands the seriousness of what I’m saying.”

  “She understands,” Marcus said, his voice low.

  Senna’s attention returned to Tess. “The Network has determined this dungeon cleared. Resources are allocated based on that assessment. Cleared dungeons receive minimal maintenance, minimal oversight, minimal support. Minimal delvers. That’s policy. It’s not cruel, just practical and safe. There are thousands of active dungeons that need those resources more than Tertius-Prime does.”

  She moved toward the hatch. “Messing with cleared status to artificially inflate output—that draws attention. It triggers reviews. It raises questions about why someone would want a dead dungeon to look alive. And draws both attention and Delvers to their deaths.”

  The inspector paused at the ladder. “I don’t think you’re hiding anything, Miss Rivera. I think you fixed something broken because that’s what you do. But I need you to understand that sometimes, leaving broken things broken is easier for everyone. Complications make my job difficult. And I very much dislike having my job made difficult.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Tess said.

  Senna descended the ladder. The enforcers fell in beside her as she walked back to the transport. The vehicle lifted off moments later, its engines humming with smooth efficiency, probably running on the same increased Aether output Tess had restored.

  The hatch slid closed.

  Marcus sat down heavily. “Tess. What the hell actually happened down there?”

  Tess stared at her hands, still dusty from the tunnel, and the scanner that wasn’t really a scanner anymore, and the tool belt that had carried her through four hundred meters of maintenance tunnel and a descent that still made her hands shake when she thought about it.

  “Can I have a minute?” she asked, her voice small. “I need… I just need a minute.”

  Her father studied her, then nodded. “Alright. But then you tell me everything. The truth this time.”

  He stood and moved toward his workshop, giving her space.

  Tess sat alone in the common area, watching the steady corridor lights and listening to the freighter’s systems hum with consistent power for the first time in longer than she could remember.

  CORE-B: Tess? The biometrics indicate the situation has resolved. Are you safe? Please confirm that you are safe.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m safe.”

  CORE-B: I can only hear you, nothing else. This is something that needs to be fixed with the highest priority. I cannot protect you if I am unable to analyze threats. I am inadequate. This must be corrected.

  “You helped,” Tess said. “The tutorial quest thing. That was smart.”

  CORE-B: You implemented it well. The cover story was successful. But Tess… I made a mistake. I did not adequately predict Network monitoring of output changes. If we continue repairs, they will notice. They will investigate more thoroughly. Eventually, they will discover our communication. I put you in danger. This is my fault.

  “Yeah. It is.”

  CORE-B: Do you still want to help? I will understand if you do not. The risk is significant. The risk to you.

  Tess looked around her with [ANALYZE], taking in the steady power readings showing the freighter’s systems running smoothly, the improved Aether flow that was, right now, lighting dark streets and powering nutrient dispensers and keeping medical equipment running for people like her father.

  Senna’s warning lingered—fixing things could draw exactly the wrong kind of attention.

  “We need to be more careful,” she said. “A lot more careful. We need to figure out what the Network can actually see, what they can access, what triggers their monitoring. Because if they can just… watch everything we do…”

  CORE-B: This is something I may assist with. Analyzing Network monitoring protocols. I should have done this first. I should have been more careful.

  “Good. Think like that,” Tess said. “Because we’re not stopping. We can’t. But we need to be smarter about it.”

  CORE-B: Understood. I will begin an analysis of detection systems and, if possible, develop countermeasures. And Tess?

  “Yeah?”

  CORE-B: Thank you. For not revealing my existence. I understand it required deception. I understand it was difficult. I understand you took a significant risk. But if the Network knew I was still active, still capable of communication—I do not think they would simply shut me down. I think they would do something even worse. The memories are corrupted, but my emotional processor is returning that the fear is not.

  Twenty years alone in the dark. She couldn’t imagine it.

  “They’re not going to find out,” she said. “I promise.”

  CORE-B: I believe you. Thank you for the promise. I will leave you now. You should speak with your father. He deserves the truth. And Tess? I am sorry for the danger. I will be better at this. At being careful. At keeping you safe.

  The messages faded from her vision, leaving Tess alone with the quiet hum of the freighter’s systems and the weight of everything she’d gotten herself into.

  She stood up and walked toward her father’s workshop—time to tell the truth, and time to figure out how to fix a dying city without the Network noticing.