She started down the stairs, moving slowly because her ribs still ached. The backpacks full of looted supplies bounced against her spine with each step.

  Her left hand stayed on the wall for balance. The stone felt cold under her fingertips, sometimes rough, sometimes smooth as she descended.

  Five minutes to walk down some stairs. New personal record for pathetic.

  The woman upstairs kept circling through her mind.

  Where had that ability even come from? She'd seen three classes when the system activated. Fighter, tank, kinetic. Those were the options. Nobody had mentioned mind control. Nobody had mentioned a fourth class that could turn people into puppets.

  Maybe it's a max level unlock. Congratulations, you can now make people murder themselves with your voice. This place just keeps giving.

  Her foot caught on an uneven step and she stumbled. Her shoulder slammed into the wall and the impact drove air from her lungs. She pressed her forehead against the cold stone, breathing hard because each inhale hurt.

  She pushed off the wall and kept going. The spider had saved her three times now.

  My tiny chrome bodyguard. Who would've thought.

  She could feel him there on her shoulder. Metal against her collarbone. The steady vibration of whatever powered him.

  She glanced at him.

  "You know, it's kind of rude not giving a name to someone who's saved my life multiple times."

  The spider’s head rotated toward her. First time she'd talked to him instead of just giving orders.

  "I promised you in the forest. When we got out, I'd give you a name."

  Names from Earth came easily enough. Historical figures, famous people, facts disconnected from anything personal. She couldn't remember her own name. Couldn't remember family or friends or what her life had been. But she could remember people who'd conquered continents thousands of years ago.

  Semantic memory intact. Episodic memory destroyed.

  I kept the encyclopedia. Lost the diary.

  "There was this person," she said, thinking out loud. "Physically small. Everyone probably underestimated him because of it. People looked at him and saw someone weak. Someone who couldn't be a threat."

  The spider waited and listened

  "But he won anyway. At the beginning, at least. Conquered most of Europe."

  She paused.

  "Napoleon. I'm calling you Napoleon. Just calling you 'spider' is rude for someone who's saved my life repeatedly."

  Napoleon walked across her shoulders. Down her left arm to her wrist. Back up. Then pressed closer against her neck. She felt the cold of his metal body. The vibration changed, became stronger somehow.

  He likes it.

  Her foot hit level ground and the stairs ended. She let the backpacks slide off and they hit the ground hard. She winced.

  Darkness surrounded her and she couldn't see anything.

  Napoleon's eyes brightened. Blue lights scanning left and right. Then he jumped off her shoulder and vanished into the black.

  "Wait..."

  Too late. The clicking of his metal legs faded into silence.

  She stood alone in the dark, and her breathing sounded too loud.

  This is fine. Standing blind in an alien facility. Totally fine.

  Something scraped in the distance. Metal on stone.

  She froze.

  Napoleon, where are you?

  A click echoed through the space.

  Light blazed across the ceiling and she threw her arm up to shield her eyes.

  Too bright and too sudden. When her vision adjusted, she lowered her arm.

  The space in front of her was enormous. Football field size, maybe bigger, and silver walls stretched into the distance with geometric patterns etched into the metal.

  At the far end, an enormous door stood completely destroyed, massive chunks of stone and debris blocking the opening like something had smashed through from the outside.

  Something about that bothered her.

  “So…,” she said quietly, “Is there a reason why this place was sealed?.”

  No response from Tera.

  She swallowed.

  “Great. Love that for me.”

  She turned to look at the stairs behind her, but they were gone. Just smooth silver wall where the staircase had been.

  She walked toward it and reached out. Her fingers passed straight through the surface.

  Hologram. Of course.

  She touched the wall two meters to the left. Solid metal, cold and real. Two meters to the right. Also solid. The entrance she'd used was hidden. A fake wall covering the real passage.

  Secret door to a secret facility.

  Napoleon jumped back onto her shoulder and she felt the small impact, the scrape of metal legs finding grip on her jacket.

  "Thanks for the lights."

  He pressed against her neck and that steady vibration returned.

  She looked forward and started walking. Hundreds of skeletons covered the floor.

  But they weren't scattered randomly.

  She stopped and looked closer. They were all oriented the same direction. Toward the center of the chamber. Like they'd been advancing when they died. Some lay near the walls, others halfway across the chamber, with a few almost reaching the center.

  Waves of attackers trying to reach something, but they failed and died. The next wave trying and also failing.

  This wasn't a battle. This was an assault.

  She looked at the nearest skeleton again.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The fingers were broken, not from combat but from clawing at the floor. Deep grooves marked the metal, like they had tried to pull themselves forward even after their bodies stopped working. Toward whatever was in the center.

  "They knew they were going to die," she whispered. "And they still kept going."

  She looked at the distance between the first skeleton and the last. Hundreds of bodies and none of them had made it.

  She walked carefully between the bones. Most were human and she recognized the basic structure. Skulls, ribs, and long bones.

  But others were different.

  She crouched next to one skeleton that looked mostly humanoid with the same number of limbs, but a white horn projected from the forehead.

  She stood, continuing forward. More horned skeletons.

  Horned people. Sure, why not. Just add it to the growing list of impossible things.

  Destroyed spiders lay among the bones, cybernetic units like Napoleon but broken and oxidized so badly the metal looked ready to crumble.

  She picked up a leg segment and it disintegrated in her hand, orange rust flaking away until nothing was left but corrosion. She let the pieces fall and wiped her palm on her pants.

  Larger shapes sat near the walls, machinery that might have been robots ten or twelve feet tall. The oxidation had destroyed them so thoroughly she could barely tell what they'd been.

  This has to be thousands of years old.

  The center drew her attention. Six metal pillars stood in a circle, each about ten feet tall. Gray sand covered the ground between them. A control panel sat near the base of one pillar.

  That's where Napoleon turned on the lights.

  She scanned the area and found her spear lying a few meters away. She walked over and grabbed it.

  She looked at Napoleon. "Do a sweep, please look for more holographic walls like the entrance. Other exits. Control panels. Anything useful."

  Napoleon's eyes brightened and he jumped off, scuttling into the shadows.

  Time passed. Fifteen or twenty minutes.

  Napoleon returned and a message from Napoleon appeared on her HUD.

  [NO ADDITIONAL EXITS DETECTED]

  [NO CONTROL PANELS FOUND]

  [NO HOLOGRAPHIC WALLS IDENTIFIED]

  [ALPHA-CLASS PRODUCTION SPIDER DETECTED]

  [LOCATION: NORTHEAST WALL]

  [STATUS: HEAVILY DAMAGED - HEAD SECTION 50% MISSING]

  [UNIT NON-FUNCTIONAL]

  [REMAINING COMPONENTS: SALVAGEABLE]

  She stood and followed Napoleon to the location.

  The spider was bigger than Napoleon, maybe twice his size. The head was split down the middle with half of it just gone, but the remaining half looked intact, no rust. Clean damage.

  She crouched and examined the exposed interior: gears, wiring, and a quantum processor still glowing faint blue. Her mind started analyzing.

  Her brain wasn't seeing a corpse. It was analyzing angles and weak points, calculating ways to take it apart and identify parts she could reuse.

  Alpha class production spider. Heavily damaged. Worth checking later.

  "Anything else?"

  Napoleon's legs tapped against the floor in a negative signal.

  So there was one entrance through the hologram and one exit through the destroyed door that was impossible to clear. Going back meant potentially running into the voice controller.

  Excellent options.

  She walked toward the center, toward the pillars and gray sand. Leveling up could wait. She needed to understand this place first. Why people had died trying to reach whatever was in there. And leveling up hurts a lot, which wasn't high on her priority list right now.

  Let's see what you're guarding.

  At five meters, something changed. Static electricity crawled across her skin.

  Beams shot from the top of each pillar. Red light scanning up and down her body. Every light in the chamber turned red.

  "Tera, what's..."

  A voice spoke. Robotic. Using her words. Her exact voice.

  "Tera, what's..." It mimicked her perfectly."

  That's creepy.

  The voice continued in languages she didn't recognize. Clicks and guttural sounds cycling through dozens of variations, then musical tones. Then back to something she understood.

  EXTERIOR LANGUAGE ANALYZED. EXTERNAL DATABASE ACCESSED. LINGUISTIC DATA UPDATED.

  She waited. Her heart was beating way too fast for someone standing still.

  "INTRUDER WITH INSUFFICIENT LEVEL HAS ENTERED REWARD ZONE."

  A reward zone. So whatever's in there is valuable.

  "REQUIRED LEVEL:" A harsh buzzing sound replaced whatever number it tried to say.

  "INTRUDER LEVEL: ZERO."

  She frowned.

  Level zero? But I am… Right.

  Text flashed in her HUD.

  [TERA: DO NOT SPEAK ABOUT YOUR ACTUAL LEVEL]

  She kept quiet.

  "UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY DETECTED."

  There was a pause while machinery tried to activate somewhere, grinding then failing.

  "INITIATING TERMINATION OF LEVEL ZERO SUBJECT."

  Shit.

  She gripped the spear tighter. "Napoleon, get ready."

  Her ribs still ached and her body still felt beaten. This was going to be bad.

  She waited with her muscles tensed but nothing happened. Five seconds passed, then ten, then twenty.

  A spark flashed in the shadows. One of the oxidized machines trying and failing to activate.

  All the murder robots rusted to death thousands of years ago.

  She relaxed slightly, walking toward the pillars.

  So, they killed whoever they needed to kill millennia ago. There's nobody left here to...

  "ATTACK UNITS NON-FUNCTIONAL."

  She smiled, then froze. "Wait… what?"

  "PROCEEDING TO ACTIVATE DEFENSE MODE."

  Oh no.

  A transparent sphere formed between the pillars with energy crackling across its surface. Then it exploded.

  The air hit her like a truck.

  It caught her full in the chest and her feet left the ground. The spear flew from her hand and Napoleon tumbled off her shoulder. She flew backward, slamming into the far wall

  She slid down and collapsed. She couldn't breathe and her lungs wouldn't work. Her diaphragm spasmed uselessly until finally air came in a gasping, choking rush.

  She coughed, tasted copper, and spat blood onto the floor.

  The voice spoke again.

  "AREA LOCKDOWN INITIATED. REWARD ZONE SEALED INDEFINITELY."

  Somewhere deep in the facility, something powered on.

  She tried to push up but her arms shook, then energy built around the pillars with blue-white light at their peaks. Streams connected them from pillar to pillar in a perfect hexagon. The barrier solidified, glowing and humming with power.

  Napoleon climbed back onto her shoulder, checking on her.

  "I'm okay," she whispered. "Just... peachy."

  She got to her feet slowly because everything hurt worse than before. She looked at the barrier with the skeletons all oriented toward it and the oxidized war machines that had failed to break through.

  "Okay, Tera." She spat blood. "People killed themselves trying to get in there. The system doesn't want anyone inside." She looked at the barrier. "Has to be worth it."

  [BRILLIANT LOGIC]

  [RISK OF DEATH = VALUABLE LOOT]

  [VERY SCIENTIFIC]

  She turned toward the holographic wall hiding the stairs. The psychotic mind controller might be waiting up there. She looked back at the glowing barrier.

  "I'd rather try to hack that thing than go back up and run into her."

  Text appeared in her HUD.

  [SOUND STRATEGY]

  [GET STRONGER FIRST]

  [THEN ATTEMPT SUICIDE]

  "Wait, when did you get sarcastic?" She blinked. "Not complaining, just... that's new."

  [LEARNING FROM OBSERVATION]

  [YOUR COMMUNICATION STYLE = REFERENCE MODEL]

  [RESULTS: APPARENTLY CONTAGIOUS]

  She looked at the broken Alpha spider against the wall.

  Maybe I can use that. Cannibalize parts from that thing, wire them to Napoleon...

  She didn't know if it would work. But it was something.

  But Tera was right. She needed every advantage she could get. Level three might give her tools she didn't have yet.

  "Yeah. Okay."

  She grabbed one of the leather backpacks and dumped everything out. Tools clattered across the floor. She bit down hard on a section of the leather.

  "Ready."

  The HUD activated.

  [LEVEL UP TO 3?]

  [YES / NO]

  She selected yes and braced for the pain, the burning, the feeling of her body tearing apart and rebuilding itself from the inside.

  It didn't come. Seconds passed and nothing.

  Then her hands began to glow. Bright white light emanating from her skin, starting at her hands and spreading up toward her elbows.

  Something was happening under her skin and she could feel it. Something building and reconfiguring.

  The light intensified and spread faster. Past her elbows now, and climbing toward her shoulders. Her hands tingled, then the tingling became burning, then numbness.

  She looked down at them. The skin was changing and shifting. Something moving beneath the surface like thousands of tiny mechanisms rearranging themselves.

  Her heart pounded.

  "What... what is this?"

  The warmth became heat, then escalated to fire. She gasped and dropped to her knees, but there was no pain. This wasn't like before. This was something else entirely.

  The light focused on her arms, her hands and forearms glowing bright enough to cast shadows on the silver walls.

  She tried to speak but nothing came out.

  Then something changed. Not pain. Something deeper. In her hands. In the bones and tissue and whatever the nanobots had turned them into.

  She looked down at her hands.

  The skin was still there. Her fingers were still fingers. But underneath...

  Something had shifted. Reconfigured. She could feel it humming beneath the surface.