The facility lights were on.
Actual lights, steady and white, buzzing overhead like the last hour hadn’t happened. The spawner going offline must have released whatever power it had been hoarding. Now the corridors looked like they had when they had arrived.
Tess made her way toward the maintenance level access point that Vasquez had mentioned, her footsteps echoing in the empty halls. The contrast with an hour ago was jarring. Same building, same layout, but without the red emergency glow and the constant threat of something trying to kill anything that moved, the place felt like it belonged to a different reality.
“How are you holding up?” Petra’s voice came through the communicator, tinny but clear.
“Better than I was.” Tess checked her interface reflexively. Still 1 AP. Still exhausted. But the headache had faded to a dull throb, and her hands had finally stopped shaking. “I’m almost at the maintenance access.”
“The researchers are getting restless. One of them keeps asking about data backups.”
“Tell them to wait five minutes.”
The maintenance access turned out to be a heavy door at the end of a service corridor, marked with faded warning labels about restricted personnel. The control panel beside it was intact—unlike the one outside Lab 4—but locked behind a biometric scanner that definitely wouldn’t recognize her.
She pulled out her multi-tool and got to work.
The panel came off easily enough, revealing a nest of Network wiring that looked like it had been installed by someone who’d never learned any actual electrical work. Color-coding that made no sense. Connections that looped back on themselves for no apparent reason. A bypass circuit that seemed to exist solely to make her life difficult.
Still. This was regular, simple work. No Aether patterns, no skill crystals, no interfacing with systems that wanted to drink her dry. Just wires and circuits and the satisfaction of understanding that she’d been repairing systems like this since she could walk.
Three minutes later, the door clicked open.
“I’m through,” she said into the communicator. “Heading to the Lab’s secondary access now.”
The service corridor beyond was cramped and utilitarian—pipes running along the ceiling, cable bundles snaking down the walls, the air thick with the smell of machine oil and recycled atmosphere. Tess followed the path toward Lab 4, counting junctions until she found the access panel Vasquez had described.
This one was even more straightforward. Someone had designed it for emergency use, which meant the override was clearly labeled and easy to reach. She pulled the lever, felt something heavy shift behind the wall, and heard the distant grind of a door opening.
“We’re in!” Petra’s voice crackled through. “They’re coming out now.”
Tess retraced her steps, emerging from the maintenance access just as the last of the researchers filed into the main corridor. Twelve people, most of them looking dazed and uncertain, blinked in the restored lighting like they couldn’t quite believe the nightmare was over.
Dr. Vasquez found her immediately. “Ms. Rivera. Thank you.” His voice was steady, but his hands weren’t. “I don’t think any of us expected to walk out of there.”
“The spawner’s offline. The spawns are gone.” Tess glanced down the corridor toward where Petra was directing the researchers away from the lab. “What happens now?”
“Now we contact the perimeter team and…” Vasquez stopped, frowning. He pulled out his communicator and dialed. Waited. And dialed again.
Nothing.
“That’s strange.” He tried a different frequency. Still nothing. “The internal comms are working, but I can’t reach the exterior.”
One of the other researchers—a younger woman Tess vaguely recognized from the vent conversation—pushed forward. “Dr. Vasquez, I’m not getting anything either. It’s like the external channels are being jammed.”
Petra appeared at Tess’s shoulder, vibroblades sheathed but hand resting on a hilt. “The exit?”
They moved as a group toward the main entrance, researchers clustering behind Tess and Petra like they were the only solid things in an uncertain world. The corridors were still empty, still eerily normal, but tension had crept into the silence. A weight that hadn’t been there before.
The main door was sealed.
Petra tried the control panel. Access denied. Tried her family credentials. Access denied.
“That’s not possible.” She tried again, fingers stabbing at the interface. “I have clearance for this entire facility. I was just using it a couple hours ago.”
“Someone’s overriding from the security station.” Vasquez had gone pale. “The purge protocol—if they’re trying to trigger it manually…”
“How long?” Tess asked.
“Who knows.” The younger researcher was checking a datapad, scrolling through information with hands that trembled. “The automated countdown was disabled when you fixed the containment field, but a manual trigger bypasses all of that. If someone in security initiates the sequence…”
She didn’t need to finish. They’d all heard what the purge protocol meant.
Tess looked at the sealed door, then at Petra. “Can you cut through it?”
“Not even close.” Petra drew one vibroblade anyway, examining the door’s construction. “This is blast-rated. Even with both blades, they’d die before I got through a a meter of cutting.”
From somewhere outside the door—muffled by walls and distance but unmistakable—came the rhythmic pops of gunfire.
Everyone froze. The researchers drew closer together, some of them grabbing onto each other, all of them staring at the door as if they could see through it to whatever was happening outside.
More gunfire. Shouting. Then nothing.
Silence stretched for ten seconds. Twenty. Tess counted heartbeats, waiting for something—anything—to break the tension.
The door exploded.
The blast-rated panels blew inward in a shower of metal fragments and smoke, and through the gap came a flood of armored figures in Tertian colors, weapons raised, spreading out to secure the corridor with practiced efficiency.
Leading them was a woman Tess recognized from Petra’s delving team. Carys Venn—Knight class, Level 7—looked like she’d been born in her armor.
She swept the corridor with her weapon, took in the cluster of terrified researchers, and then her eyes found Petra.
“Facility secure.” The tension in her voice cracked slightly. “Lady Petra. You’re alright?”
“Carys.” Petra sheathed her blade, and Tess saw something pass between them—relief, concern, the wordless communication of people who’d worked together long enough to trust each other completely. “The situation inside was handled. What happened out there?”
“Network infiltrators. Six of them, embedded in the perimeter security team.” Carys gestured, and more soldiers filed in, herding a group of restrained figures in front of them. “They were trying to trigger something from the security station. We stopped them.”
Tess studied the prisoners as they were marched past. Most were zip-tied, hands behind their backs, expressions ranging from defiant to terrified. But three of them wore something else—thick metal bands around their necks, glowing faintly with a soft teal light.
“What are those?”
Carys followed her gaze. “AP suppressors. Standard issue for detaining anyone with combat classes.” Her voice was flat, professional. “They can’t use abilities while collared. Keeps everyone safer during transport.”
Tess filed that information away. AP suppressors. Another piece of the world she was only beginning to understand.
“This wasn’t just the Director,” Carys continued, turning back to Petra. “The infiltration runs deep. We’re going to have a lot of questions for a lot of people. They took an opportunity to harm House Tertian, and they almost succeeded.”
Through the ruined doorway, Tess could see the sky—gray and overcast, the first natural light she’d seen in hours. And hovering above the facility, visible even from this angle, were dozens of military vessels. Tertian colors. Heavily armed blocks of metal and guns hovered in the air over the facility.
A show of force.
“The Duke sent the fleet?” Petra’s voice was flat, controlled.
“The Duke sent everything, Petra. There’s a Frigate stationed above us in orbit. He’s making a statement,” Carys’s expression didn’t change, but a flicker of warmth crossed her eyes. “When we received word the facility was compromised, he mobilized immediately. You’re his daughter, Lady Petra. Did you expect anything less?”
Received word. Tess felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. Had someone sent a message? How had House Tertian known they were in trouble?
Bee had relayed information to Marcus. Had Marcus found some way to contact the Tertians? If he did, there were going to be questions. A lot of questions that Tess didn’t want to answer.
“Come.” Carys was already moving, gesturing for them to follow. “The skipper is waiting on the roof. The Duke is… eager to see you both safe.”
The way she said eager suggested Amos Tertian was anything but calm.
***
The Skipper’s interior was a stark contrast to the lab, but Tess didn’t care. It was comfortable, and she was tired. Military escort vessels flanked them on either side, visible through the curved windows.
Tess sat across from Petra, watching the facility shrink beneath them as they climbed. The researchers had been loaded onto a separate transport—statements to give, debriefs to endure. She and Petra had been pulled aside, given their own vessel, treated like something between honored guests and valuable assets.
Neither of them had spoken since takeoff.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable exactly. It was the silence of two people who had too much to say and no idea where to start. Tess stared at her hands, still faintly trembling despite her best efforts to keep them steady. Petra stared out the window, her expression unreadable.
Finally, Petra spoke.
“That thing you did. With the containment field.” She didn’t look away from the window. “Walking through it like it wasn’t there.”
Tess kept staring at her hands. “Yeah.”
“And the spawns. Making them just… stop. Dissolve.” Now Petra turned, and her eyes were sharp despite the exhaustion on her face. “That’s not a Technician skill, Tess. I’ve worked with Technicians my whole life. None of them can do what you did.”
The moment stretched. Tess could feel the weight of it—the fork in the road she’d been avoiding for weeks. She could deflect. Make excuses. Keep the secret she’d been guarding since the tutorial.
But she was tired. So tired. And Petra had just spent the last few hours fighting spawns to keep her alive, trusting her despite everything, following her into danger without hesitation.
The cat was already out of the bag. Had been for a while now, probably.
“I’m…” The words stuck in her throat. She forced them out anyway. “I’m not a Technician class.”
Petra’s expression didn’t change. “Yeah. I gathered that. Weeks ago, actually.”
Tess looked up.
“You have maintenance tunnel access in the dungeon.” Petra’s voice was calm, almost gentle. “The way you see problems with skill crystals. The way they seem to respond to you. I don’t know, maybe the dungeon AI in your pocket? In your head?” She laughed. “I wasn’t going to force you to tell me. Some secrets are worth keeping.”
“I don’t know if you’ll tell your family.” Tess heard the vulnerability in her own voice and hated it. “At this point I’m in over my head. Way over.”
“I try not to tell my family anything at all.” Petra’s smile was thin, humorless. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t find out. They have resources. People. Ways of learning things they shouldn’t know.”
She paused, looking back out the window. The estate was visible now, a sprawling complex of towers and gardens growing larger on the horizon.
“Normally, I’d say you can trust them. At least a little.” Her voice hardened. “But after today? After Allen, and the spawner, and six Network plants embedded in our own security?”
She turned to face Tess fully, and her expression had shifted to determination.
“I want answers just as much as you do.”
The communicator crackled.
“Tess.” Bee’s voice—not text this time, actual audio, warm and familiar despite the slight distortion of the signal. They must be close enough to the dungeon now for full communication. “I can hear you again. Both of you.”
“Bee.” Tess felt something loosen in her chest at the sound. “We’re okay. We’re heading back to the estate.”
“I know. I have been monitoring the situation and… was the one who told Marcus how to contact Amos Tertian. They mobilized significant resources once they received word of the facility’s compromise.” A pause. “I am uncertain how this will play out. The facility’s communication systems should have prevented external contact. Our connection to one another is unique.”
Petra raised an eyebrow at Tess. Tess didn’t have an appropriate answer.
“Bee,” Petra said carefully, “what do you mean unique?”
Another pause, longer this time. When Bee spoke again, her voice was thoughtful.
“Her connection to me is not standard—it is not something that should be possible based on the data I have access to.” The words came slowly, as if Bee was choosing them carefully. “She is a dungeon repairwoman. Not just in class designation, but in function and purpose.”
“A dungeon repairwoman,” Petra repeated.
“Her class allows her to interface with dungeon systems in ways that no other class can. To see what I see. To access what I access. To bridge the gap between human and dungeon. Nothing in my databases show that this is possible, and yet… it is.”
Tess’s thoughts drifted back to the spawner. The way she’d connected to it, seen through it, understood it. The living crystal and the Aether flows and the desperate, isolated intelligence trying to do its job without any guidance.
She thought about Bee, feeling whole again for just a moment.
“The Tertians will have questions,” Bee continued. “About how you communicated with your father. About what you did in Lab 9. About the nature of your abilities.”
“What do we tell them?”
“That is your choice. But Tess…” Another pause. “Whatever you decide, I trust you. You and Petra have proven yourselves to me in ways I did not think possible. Thank you.”
The estate loomed larger in the window now, landing pads visible on the upper levels, figures moving on the ground below. Amos Tertian would be waiting. Sara would be waiting. Questions and explanations and the complicated dance of politics—that Tess had wanted none of.
But Petra was beside her. Bee was in her head. And whatever came next, she wouldn’t be facing it alone.
“Thank you, Bee.” Tess kept her voice low, aware of how much she meant it. “For everything.”
“Thank you, Tess. And you, Petra. For reminding me what I am.”
The skipper began its descent toward the estate, and Tess watched the ground rise to meet them, wondering what answers she’d have to give—and what answers she might receive.