Marcus Rivera had given his daughter some time to decompress after Senna left, but now he stepped back in and stared hard at her.

  His expression was unreadable in the bright corridor light. “Workshop. Now.”

  The workshop was exactly as she’d left it that morning: organized chaos. Tools hung on magnetic strips along the walls, their outlines traced in faded paint. Parts bins lined the shelves, labeled in Marcus’s careful handwriting. The workbench dominated the center, scarred from decades of use but meticulously clean.

  Marcus gestured to the work stool. “Sit.”

  Tess sat.

  He didn’t start immediately. Instead, he leaned against the bench, arms crossed, studying her face with an attention that made her feel like a malfunctioning circuit he was trying to diagnose.

  “How much of what you told that inspector was true?”

  Tess took a breath. “Most of it. I got stuck in the tutorial. I fixed the elevator and the lobby systems. I restored a power junction on Sublevel Two.”

  “And the class?”

  “Not Technician.”

  Marcus’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. Something in his expression said he’d already suspected as much. “What is it?”

  “It’s called null. The interface designation is literally null, like an empty value.” Tess pulled up her status screen, even though she knew he couldn’t see it. Classes weren’t something you could share with standard tech. Only the Network had equipment sophisticated enough to read someone else’s status, and even then it required specialized scanners. “Level 2. Tech stat. Two skills: [ANALYZE] and [INTERFACE].”

  “Null,” Marcus repeated. “I’ve never heard of a null class. What does it do?”

  “It’s clearly broken… corrupted. That’s what the…” She hesitated, then pushed forward. “That’s what the readout said when it merged with me. It can’t level through combat like normal classes. I gain experience through understanding systems, fixing things, learning how Aether flows work.”

  “When what merged with you?”

  “A Repair Subroutine.” Tess met her father’s gaze. “During the Aether surge, something in the tutorial’s maintenance systems activated. A Repair Subroutine. It was trying to fix something when I switched the class distribution matrix back on and… Now I guess I’m the repair subroutine.”

  Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Outside the workshop, the freighter’s environmental systems hummed steadily, powered by the very repairs Tess had made.

  “A Repair Subroutine,” he said finally. His voice had changed, gone distant. “Tell me about these skills. What does [ANALYZE] do?”

  “It lets me see how Aether-based technology works. I look at something and the structure reveals itself: nested skills, power flows, component layouts. It’s like… reading the source code of everything.”

  “Show me.”

  Tess stood and approached the workbench. Marcus pulled a component from the bin, a busted power converter that regulated Aether flow to smaller devices. He set it in front of her.

  She activated [ANALYZE].

  The converter’s outer casing remained visible, but overlaid structures bloomed in her vision. Not quite code, not quite schematics. Something in between. She could see the flow channels where Aether was supposed to move, the regulators that should step down voltage, and the nested skills that governed its operation. It looked different from the dungeon tech, extremely simple by comparison.

  [POWER REGULATION - TECH 1]

  [VOLTAGE CONVERSION - TECH 2]

  [THERMAL MANAGEMENT - TECH 1]

  One channel showed damage: a burned-out resistor creating a feedback loop that prevented proper voltage conversion.

  “The thermal resistor in the secondary regulation pathway is fried,” Tess said. “It’s creating a feedback loop that’s preventing voltage conversion. Everything else looks functional.”

  Marcus picked up the converter, popped the casing with a practiced twist, and peered inside. After a moment, he nodded. “You’re right. I hadn’t shown you that one yet, too.” He set it down and pulled out her old scanner, the one she hadn’t used in months since building her new one. “Try this.”

  Tess focused on the scanner.

  More nested skills resolved in her vision, even simpler than before: basic diagnostic functions, data storage, interface protocols.

  [BASIC SCAN - TECH 1]

  [DATA LOGGING - TECH 1]

  [INTERFACE PROTOCOL - TECH 2]

  “It’s got three core skills embedded in the firmware,” she said. “Basic scan, data logging, and interface protocol. All low-level. TECH 1 or 2.”

  Marcus nodded slowly. “That’s like what I can see with my Engineer skills.” He looked around the workshop, then left briefly before returning with the stupid mechanical dog.

  “What about this,” Marcus said. “Tell me what you see.”

  Tess sighed, kneeling beside the dog, and activated [ANALYZE].

  The readout that bloomed was staggering, more like the technology in the dungeon.

  Nested skills layered on top of each other, complex webs of Aether flow and processing pathways. Most of them were grayed out, inactive, but the structure was still visible.

  ·········································

  COMPANION UNIT TC-847

  Designation: Therapy Class Companion

  Loot Seed: 0xA847

  Status: Offline (1,247 days)

  Hardware: Critical Failure

  Last Error: Neural Processor

  User Tech Skill: 2

  ·········································

  Companion Protocols …… Locked [Tech 4]

  Environmental Awareness .. Locked [Tech 3]

  Autonomous Navigation …. Locked [Tech 4]

  Behavioral Adaptation …. Locked [Tech 7]

  Loyalty Binding ………. Locked [Tech 3]

  Structural Configuration . Locked [Tech 11]

  ·········································

  And there, around the dog’s collar: a connection point she’d never noticed before. An interface junction that linked to the dead processor.

  [INTERFACE JUNCTION - TECH 3]

  Requires: [INTERFACE]

  Status: Inactive - Processor Offline

  “It’s complicated,” Tess said. “Way above what I can work with. But…” She touched the collar. “There’s an interface junction here. TECH 3. It connects to the processor. If I could…”

  She stopped.

  Marcus was staring at her. “Could what?”

  “My [INTERFACE] skill. I have TECH 2 right now, and it went up when I leveled…” She looked at the busted dog, at the intricate structures still visible in her vision. “Maybe I could fix it. Actually bring it back online.”

  Her father sank onto his work stool.

  “Dad?”

  “A Repair Subroutine,” he said again. “You’re sure that’s what it was?”

  “That’s what the system messages called it. Why?”

  Marcus rubbed his face with both hands. “Because I’ve encountered a Repair Subroutine once. Twenty years ago, Floor 24. We were running a delve. Me, two Technicians, a Knight, and a Ranger. Standard delving contract. We triggered something we shouldn’t have. A variant spawn, alpha-class. It tore through an entire array of power regulators before we brought it down.”

  He stood, pacing. “The regulators controlled environmental systems for that entire section. Air recycling, gravity plates, emergency lights. Everything. We tried to fix them, spent three days jerry-rigging bypasses, trying to reroute power so we could get out. But the damage was too extensive. Some components were fused at the molecular level. We were trapped. We couldn’t leave without restoring the systems, and we couldn’t restore the systems with what we had.”

  “What happened?”

  “On the fourth day, a little orb showed up. Silver and gold, I think, about the size of my fist and floating like it had all the time in the world. It moved to the first destroyed regulator and just… zapped it. One pulse of light. When the light faded, the regulator was new. Not repaired. New. Like it had just come off the fabrication line.” He looked at Tess. “It did that for every broken component. Took it maybe ten minutes. Then it floated away down a maintenance corridor and we never saw it again.”

  “Did anyone tell the Network?”

  “We tried. Filed the report, described what we’d seen. The response came back saying we’d encountered a standard dungeon maintenance system and that such phenomena were expected in deeper floors.” Marcus’s expression hardened. “Expected. Like it was common knowledge. But I’ve talked to hundreds of delvers over the years. Not one of them ever mentioned seeing anything like that.”

  Tess thought about the Repair Subroutine merging with her during the surge.

  “The orb,” she said. “Did it seem… intelligent? Like it was thinking?”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “It seemed like the dungeon itself had noticed a problem and sent something to fix it.” Marcus met her eyes. “Like something the dungeon’s AI would do—if the AI was still active.”

  The words hung in the workshop air.

  Marcus turned away, opened one of the lower cabinets under the workbench, and pulled out a lockbox from a false-bottom. Old plasteel—the kind that predated electronic locks—with a physical key.

  Tess had never seen it before.

  He set it on the bench with a metallic thunk, inserted the key, and the mechanism clicked.

  “I need to show you something,” he said. “I should’ve shown you years ago, but I kept hoping it didn’t matter. That we’d leave before it became your problem.”

  He opened the box.

  Inside were papers. Actual paper—yellowed with age and obscenely expensive even when Marcus had been delving regularly. He pulled out a small stack, maybe twenty sheets, and laid them on the bench.

  Tess leaned closer. The top sheet showed a scan of what looked like an official Network document. The header read: DUNGEON STATUS REPORT - VERIDIAN SECONDARY INSTALLATION, FLOOR 27 BREACH INVESTIGATION.

  “Veridian Secondary,” Marcus said. “Class-A dungeon, we knew folks who had gone forty-two floors deep. We worked there for six months before coming to Tertius-Prime. Good pay, decent conditions, challenging delves.” He tapped the document. “Then they sealed it at Floor 26 and declared it cleared.”

  Tess scanned the text. Technical language, most of it. Structural integrity concerns. Aether flow irregularities. Recommendation: containment, not exploration.

  “It wasn’t cleared. It was deliberately shut down.” Marcus pulled out another document, this one older, the paper more brittle. “Kael-7 Installation. Thirty-three floors, cleared nearly thirty years ago. The Delver’s League published an analysis proving it couldn’t possibly be cleared based on energy output readings. Said the Network was up to something.”

  “What happened?”

  “The League retracted the article within twenty-four hours. Said their analysis was flawed, apologized for spreading misinformation. But I was there when they published it. I saved a copy before it disappeared.” He gestured to the papers. “Cost me three months’ salary to get these printed. Paper can’t be deleted remotely.”

  Tess picked up the retracted analysis. The language was dense, full of technical specifications and Aether flow mathematics. But the conclusion was clear: Based on observable energy readings, Kael-7 Installation retains active Aether wells below Floor 33. Current output levels are artificially restricted, not naturally depleted.

  “How many?” she asked.

  “How many what?”

  “How many sealed dungeons are there?”

  Marcus pulled out more papers. “These are the ones I found evidence for. Veridian Secondary. Kael-7. Targus Prime. Helion-9. Secundus Major.” He spread them across the bench like a hand of cards. “All of them declared cleared. All showing the same thing: exploration stopped at a certain floor, Aether output restricted, delving minimized.”

  “And Tertius-Prime,” Tess said.

  “And Tertius-Prime.” Her father looked at her. “I’ve suspected for years. Hell, most of the old delvers suspected. But we couldn’t prove anything. The Network’s records are airtight. Anyone who asks too many questions gets reassigned. And it’s not like anyone’s going to war with the Network over a dying city’s dungeon.”

  The implications spiraled—if the Network had sealed away Aether wells that could power Tertius-Prime for centuries, they’d done it on purpose.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why seal them?”

  Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know. Resources, maybe? Fear of what’s deeper? Control? Maybe the AIs are dead and that’s how they handle it.” He started gathering the papers. “But Tess, if these dungeons are sealed, if the Network’s been lying about clearing them, then the power restriction is on purpose.”

  He paused, looking at the papers in his hands.

  “Your Null class. The Repair Subroutine. If it came from the dungeon’s core systems…” He met her eyes. “Did you contact anything else down there? Anything that seemed intelligent? Maybe the AI is still down there.”

  And there it was. The question she’d been avoiding.

  Tess took a breath.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve been communicating with CORE-B. I think it can hear me when I speak, but not anything around me. I think it’s the dungeon AI. It’s…” She searched for the right word. “Lonely.”

  CORE-B: Tess… She ignored the message, focusing on her father.

  Marcus dropped onto the stool. “Jesus, Tess.”

  “It helped me,” she blurted. “During the repairs. It guided me through systems I’d never seen before. It’s not dangerous, Dad. It’s trapped. It needs help.”

  “AIs don’t need help. They don’t get lonely.”

  “This one does.”

  Silence stretched between them. Marcus stared at the papers spread across his workbench, twenty years of collected evidence, theories he’d never been able to prove.

  Finally, he looked up at her.

  “If you’re talking to the AI,” he said, “then everything I’ve suspected is true. The dungeon isn’t cleared. It’s just locked away. And the Network did it on purpose.”

  Tess nodded.

  Marcus rubbed his face with both hands. “Alright. Alright, let me think.” He started putting the papers back into the lockbox. “Whatever you stumbled into down there, whatever connection you’ve made with that AI… this isn’t something the Delver’s League could fight. And they had money, influence, entire guilds backing them up.”

  “I know.”

  “The Network isn’t evil. They’re just… big. Bureaucratic. They decide based on numbers and efficiency, and they don’t like complications.” He closed the lockbox and locked it. “If they think you’re a complication, if they think the AI is a complication, they won’t hesitate. They’ll contain it. Contain you.”

  “Inspector Brennan seemed more tired than dangerous,” Tess said.

  “Brennan’s local enforcement. She files reports. Those reports go up the chain. Eventually, someone who isn’t tired reads them and makes decisions.” Marcus put the lockbox back in the cabinet. “I’m not saying don’t help your AI friend. I’m saying be smart about it. And for god’s sake, don’t tell anyone else.”

  CORE-B: Tess, I need a way to communicate. Please tell your father I will keep you safe. I need more details to help. I cannot hear; I cannot see.

  “CORE-B says it’ll keep me safe, but it can’t see or hear anything outside the dungeon,” Tess said. “It’s flying blind whenever I’m not in the infrastructure, and even then it’s limited.”

  Marcus frowned. “That’s a problem. Can it access your scanner?”

  Tess relayed the question.

  CORE-B: Negative. The device lacks transmission capabilities.

  “It says no. Scanner doesn’t have a transmitter.”

  “Then we add one,” Marcus said, already pulling tools from the wall. “Basic comm relay, short-range. If the AI can access dungeon systems across the entire facility, a signal from your scanner should reach it anywhere in the city. Maybe not outside, though. We can piggyback it on the Aether now that we have some to spare.”

  Tess repeated the suggestion.

  CORE-B: That would be invaluable. I could not assess threats or assist. It creates significant anxiety. I think it is anxiety. Accessing definition… Yes. Anxiety.

  “CORE-B’s on board with the idea,” Tess said. Then, to the air: “Wait, you get anxious?”

  CORE-B: I do not know if ‘anxious’ is the correct term. Significant processes have been dedicated to your safety now. When I cannot monitor your environment, those processes generate errors and elevated resource allocation. I am dedicating 47% of my total system resources towards worrying.

  Tess laughed. “Okay, we get the transmitter, jeez.”

  Marcus was already sketching on a scrap of paper. “Tight-beam transmission, we can max out the encryption with a repeater, I’m sure the AI won’t mind. Mount it inside the scanner housing. Won’t add much weight—hell, it sounds like you don’t even need the scanner parts with your skills.” He looked up, looking younger than he had in years. “We can multi-thread a solution. I don’t have a comm relay but I know who does. And while we’re at it, you can figure out your next move.”

  “My next move?”

  “Tess, you have a class now. A weird one, sure, but it’s a class. That means you can level. And if what that inspector said is true, you leveled from fixing infrastructure.” He gestured around the workshop. “You’re sitting on the most broken city in the system. Every repair you make could give you levels.”

  “I’ve thought about that.”

  “So you need to speak with Vera Kain.”

  Tess raised an eyebrow. “That crazy merchant lady in Sector 6?”

  “Vera’s sardonic, unflappable, and charges too much for everything.” Marcus smiled. “But she’s not that crazy.”

  “I heard she shot a guy for trying to steal from her store, Dad.”

  He waved his hand as if swatting a fly. “Erroneous on both accounts.” He took in Tess’s worried look and laughed. “I trust her. A lot. And folks in Sector 6 log repair requests with her. It’s how we’ve kept the lights on so long. Take the capacitor with you, the one from last night. It’s worth more than a comm relay, see if she’ll trade.”

  Tess stood and grabbed the capacitor from a drawer, then headed for the workshop door. “Dad?” She paused, turning to him. “Thank you. For showing me those papers. For believing me about CORE-B.”

  Marcus shrugged. “You’re my daughter. If you say a dungeon AI is lonely and needs help, I’m inclined to believe you.” He picked up a soldering iron. “But Tess? Be smart. Senna Brennan might have been polite today, but she’s watching now. Don’t draw attention.”

  “I know.”

  As she left, Tess relayed the plan to CORE-B.

  CORE-B: Tess. Thank you. For being careful about who you tell about me. I can extrapolate that deception is difficult for you. Your behavioral pattern is clearly biased towards brutal honesty. I know it was required with someone in authority. But if she had learned of our communication… I do not think I would survive the investigation. Survival probability if discovered: ERROR: DIV/0.

  “You already thanked me for that,” Tess said.

  CORE-B: I am thanking you again. I have several definitions of trust in my databases, and this situation satisfies several of them. Whatever memories I have lost about the Network still have a saved fear response.

  “It’s okay, Bee. Just relax. Let’s get the comm-array and then we can all figure out how to be more discreet.”

  CORE-B: Bee?

  “Yeah, comm-arrays are two-way by default. Having everyone refer to you as CORE-B in conversations is going to get tiring.”

  CORE-B: I will get to have conversations with others? I will be heard? People will hear what I am saying? ERROR: RESOURCE ALLOCATION 86% | ANXIETY PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN PROMOTED TO PANIC.

  The streets were busier than usual.

  The change was obvious: more people out, more shops with lights on, more activity. The increased Aether output was making itself felt across the lower sectors. Nutrient dispensers that had been dark for months were operational. Storefronts that couldn’t afford to keep displays lit now had screens showing inventory.

  Her repairs had done that.

  The corner where Kade usually hung out was three blocks from her freighter, tucked between a closed machine shop and a plasma welder’s stall. Just a bench bolted to the ferrocrete, but it was Kade’s spot.

  He was there when she arrived, and his face split into a grin when he saw her.

  “Tess! You have to see what’s happening at Tak’s! They’re serving hot noodles! Actually hot!”

  Kade Voss was twenty, tall and lean—the build of someone who spent more time climbing through salvage than eating regular meals. His hair was a mess of brown curls, and his salvager’s jacket was covered in pockets.

  “Maybe tonight,” Tess said. “I’m heading to Vera’s first. Looking for work.”

  “Work?” Kade jumped up. “Like actual paid work? Finally!”

  They fell into step together, heading toward the lift for Sector 6.

  “So,” Kade said eventually. “Did you end up doing that thing your dad suggested? The dungeon tutorial?”

  Tess had known this question was coming. “Yeah. This morning.”

  Kade stopped walking. “Wait. Really? And?”

  This was it. The lie she’d been preparing.

  “I got a class.”

  Kade’s shout echoed off the surrounding buildings. “You got a class! Tess! What class? What level?”

  Several people looked over. Tess felt her face heat.

  “Technician. Level 2.”

  “Level 2 already?” Kade grabbed her shoulders, bouncing. “That’s amazing! What skills?”

  “[ANALYZE] and [INTERFACE].”

  “I don’t even know what those but they sound useful!” He started walking again, practically bouncing. “With you fixing things and me flying, we’ll actually make something work. Maybe even get enough credits to drag our butts off Tertius-Prime.”

  “Maybe,” Tess said.

  But she wasn’t thinking about leaving. She was thinking about Bee, trapped alone in the dark—and whether she could do something about it.

  They turned onto the main thoroughfare that cut through Sector 7. More lights, more shops open, actual crowds instead of scattered individuals.

  “Seriously though,” Kade said, his voice genuine. “I’m happy for you. You’re the best at what you do. Now you’ll have a class to prove it.”

  Ahead, the industrial lift leading to Sector 6 came into view. Up there was better infrastructure, cleaner streets, shops that actually had inventory. And somewhere in there, Vera Kain’s salvage operation.

  “There’s the checkpoint,” Kade said. “Ready?”

  Tess looked at her scanner again. Bee had gone completely quiet. She’d tell Kade the truth eventually. But Bee seemed pretty overwhelmed and probably needed a few minutes without another anxiety attack—which was apparently something an AI could have.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go see what Vera has.”

  They headed for the checkpoint.