The net-stomach slapped onto my back.
For an instant I felt my entire frame cinch tight—
—and then, somehow, I didn’t fall.
The elevator shaft wall wasn’t smooth and square.
Where I had been climbing ran a recessed track for the gear system. The monster’s sticky sac couldn’t seal around my whole body.
It only caught my back plating.
It yanked.
I felt the grip loosen—
and realized the net hadn’t managed to drag me down.
But the 2D Blade mounted on my back tore free.
It dropped into the darkness.
The monster swallowed it in one gulp.
It screamed.
Long, wet, agonized howls echoed up the shaft.
It thrashed with its soft limbs, lashing the walls, and began to slide downward.
I seized the chance.
I ignited my lightsaber, severed the limb wrapped around my foot, and climbed upward as fast as I could.
The monster only slid a short distance before it stabilized again.
It roared—furious, wounded.
Red-and-white blood coated its already horrific body, making it look even more grotesque.
Its antenna-like eyes turned a hot, angry red.
After a brief pause, it surged up the shaft again.
I climbed at maximum speed.
The parked elevator car was close now.
I launched upward in a series of quick leaps and squeezed through the gaps in the elevator’s gear assembly, just as I had on the way down.
The moment I hauled myself onto the elevator roof, a scythe-like forelimb stabbed through the gap behind me.
If I’d been half a second slower, it would have hooked me and dragged me back.
The monster’s bulk couldn’t pass the gear gap.
So it changed tactics, thrashing and stabbing through the opening.
I didn’t have the 2D Blade anymore.
But I still had my lightsaber.
I started cutting.
I struck the connector joints where the elevator’s gear assembly was anchored.
Ten slashes. Fifteen.
Metal screamed.
At last the joint snapped.
The elevator lurched downward.
I scrambled to the opposite side and hacked through the second set of connectors.
This one failed faster.
The moment it cracked, I jumped and caught the recessed track on the shaft wall with both hands.
Tons of steel dropped.
The elevator car, weighing dozens of tons, crashed down—pinning the monster beneath it as it fell.
The impact at the bottom shook the entire shaft.
And still, unbelievably, the monster didn’t die immediately.
Even as I climbed out through the upper hatch, its furious roars continued from far below.
[COUNTDOWN – FATHER REBOOT] 13:47
The noise drew two engineering robots to investigate.
They arrived just as I pulled myself through the hatch.
They hadn’t even finished opening their mouths to question me when I terminated them—one slash each.
Time was almost gone.
I had to return to my maintenance cradle before Father rebooted.
The moment he woke, if he caught me out of place, I would be terminated.
And I needed answers.
I needed to return to the dream and ask the Old Man what had happened.
I didn’t pause for a second.
I slipped back into the reactor hall, crawled into the same ductwork, and reached the exhaust shaft.
For now, it was normal.
Climbing here was slower than the elevator shaft—no recessed track to grip—but the exhaust shaft was much shorter.
Then, as I passed the first fan assembly, a low electrical hum rose through the metal.
The fan blades began to turn.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
If I kept climbing like this, I would die.
Two options.
One: retreat to Sublevel 2 and find another route back to Zone C.
Two: fire my flight thrusters and punch through the fans at speed.
I chose the second—reckless and lethal.
Because there was only one reason the fans would be powering up.
Father’s maintenance was ending.
He was preparing to restart.
The fans’ rising roar covered the sound of my thrusters.
I timed the gaps by instinct and sensor blur, and forced my way through the last assembly with milliseconds to spare.
I shot into a horizontal duct and killed my engines.
Behind me, the fans were already spinning at full speed.
I stared back and felt delayed terror ripple through my systems.
[COUNTDOWN – FATHER REBOOT] 7:43
Seven minutes remained—according to my estimate.
But the fans turning meant Father might wake early.
I couldn’t waste a single second.
Move.
I crawled through the duct at maximum speed.
When I dropped out into the corridor, the red emergency lighting had already died.
Normal white lights were flickering on one by one.
I stayed high, crossed the ceiling over two CBGs below, then dropped and sprinted for the maintenance sector.
With three minutes left on my timer, I dove into my maintenance cradle.
Less than ten seconds later, Father rebooted.
His signal washed over the entire base in an instant.
The failure of the rescue hollowed me out.
I had to face Father again.
Years of service had carved an almost instinctive fear into my code.
I didn’t know whether I could survive what came next.
The Old Man had promised he would erase my traces—but I had left too many holes.
As expected, the alarms began.
Every exit in the base started to seal.
I quietly shifted myself into sleep mode.
I waited for the Old Man’s summons—
or for Father’s thunderous wrath.
***
After a long, long wait, the dream finally took me.
Rain again.
The same dojo hall as before—the same broken railing and cracked wall I’d smashed during training, unchanged.
The Old Man sat slumped in a corner, head lowered.
Nomi lay beside him. When it saw me, it wagged its tail weakly a few times.
Blin was nowhere to be seen.
“Why?” I strode up and demanded it. “Why? I had a real chance to get you out.”
The Old Man looked up.
He was haggard—older by years, as if the weight had finally found him.
The confident smile he always wore, the expression that suggested everything was under control… it was gone.
Though I’d called him “the Old Man” all this time, it was the first moment I truly felt what he was: withered, brittle, human.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough. He shook his head over and over. “It’s my fault. All of it.”
“What happened?”
“I rushed,” he said. “I missed the trap he set. By the time I realized it, you were already moving.”
“What trap?”
“Do you remember the bio-human?”
“Subject Zero?”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“A cable ran between it and me. If that cable is severed, the X Zone seals automatically and the entire base goes into alarm. We wouldn’t get out—and you’d be exposed instantly.”
I remembered Subject Zero’s frantic attempt to pull the cable free.
“That’s why you were wired together?” I asked. “Father knew someone would come for you?”
“No.” The Old Man shook his head. “Subject Zero was Phantom Forge’s first bio-human.”
“The purpose of the link was to learn human thinking and knowledge. Phantom Forge forced me to teach it. It’s been going on for a while.”
His eyes darkened.
“I thought I had complete control over it.”
“I didn’t.”
“So what now?” I asked. “I left too many traces. I terminated four Umbrals. I even released a monster.”
“He knows,” the Old Man said. “But I’ve erased your trail and framed another robot. For now, you’re safe.”
“Not necessarily,” a voice said from above.
I looked up.
Blin beat his wings once and dropped into the hall.
“Phantom Forge is back.”
The Old Man snapped to his feet, staring into the distant sky with horror.
“That’s impossible. He just left.”
“Kah-kah-kah,” Blin said. “Another trap.”
“Then send me out,” I said, panic rising. “Now.”
Blin rolled his eyes. “Idiot. You can’t.”
“Father sealed it?”
“No,” Blin said. “But he’s watching every port. The second you exit the dream, he’ll trace you.”
The Old Man gripped my shoulder.
“Don’t panic. I’ve layered you in shells—masking wraps. He won’t find you easily.”
He barely finished speaking when a violent tremor rippled through the world.
The entire space shuddered, as if a giant outside was slamming into the walls.
Nomi sprang up, barking at the sky.
“We’re done!” Blin shouted. “He’s not guarding the ports—he’s forcing his way in.”
“What do we do?”
“Don’t rush,” the Old Man muttered, pacing. “Let me think. There has to be a way.”
The booming impacts grew more frequent—
and they came from different directions in the sky, as if Phantom Forge was trying multiple approaches at once.
“Kah-kah-kah. Can’t hold it!” Blin snapped. “Ten minutes, max. This place gets breached.”
The Old Man spun in frantic circles.
I could only stand there, useless, watching the two of them while the world shook.
“We’ve to use that plan,” Blin said.
“No,” the Old Man shot back. “Not yet.”
The tremors intensified.
Roof tiles rattled loose and dropped around us.
The ruined hall looked ready to collapse at any moment.
Just as I felt the next blow would tear everything open, the Old Man stopped pacing.
His eyes widened.
“I’ve got it.”
I didn’t even have time to ask what he meant.
He flung his hand outward.
My vision went black.
Everything vanished.
When sight returned, the world had changed.
Night on the open sea.
A massive moon hung overhead.
A huge circular platform floated on the water, ringed with colorful lights.
Above it hovered multiple floodlamps, bathing the deck in bright white.
At the center of the platform yawned a circular black hole.
I stood alone, turning in confusion.
The Old Man was gone.
Nomi was gone.
Blin was gone.
Then, without warning, a robot appeared beside me.
It looked around, just as lost as I was, and asked, “Where are we?”
I shook my head.
Before I could answer, another robot appeared.
Then a third. A fourth.
They kept materializing until the platform was packed—Hyenas, Raiders, Flamecallers, Punishers… every type.
“Where is this?”
“New mission?”
“What’s going on?”
“Where’s Father?”
Questions collided in the air.
The crowd pressed so tight I almost got shoved off the edge into the sea.
Then a thunderous boom hit from the sky.
“Boom!”
Everyone went silent and looked up.
From the ocean around the platform, several fireballs shot upward.
Each trailed a different color.
High overhead, they burst into radiant, multicolored light.
“Fire Rain—it’s the Tower Clan!” someone screamed.
“Enemy attack!”
The platform erupted into chaos.
The Old Man’s voice rolled out like thunder:
“Hahahaha! You idiots. It’s fireworks!”
“Boom—cha-cha—boom-cha-cha—boom—cha-cha—boom-cha-cha!”
A massive wall of heavy metal drowned out the panic.
“Everybody! Everybody!” the Old Man shouted. “All you dumb puppets, you tin-plated morons—get hyped!”
Then he appeared—
standing on a small round stage rising out of the central black hole.
The hovering floodlights snapped to him, spotlighting his figure.
He wore a glittering floral shirt, bright tight pants, an oversized, ridiculous top hat, and sunglasses.
In both hands he held a—
I had to search my database a second—
an electric guitar.
What was he doing?
“Boom-boom-cha—boom-boom-cha—boom-boom-cha—”
With a whole band’s worth of instruments backing him, the Old Man started playing and singing at full volume.
“When the sun won’t rise again, when the stars refuse to shine—almighty Jesus, tell me, where are you?”
“Boom-cha-cha! Boom-cha-cha!”
Another wave of fireworks cracked across the sky.
But now every robot on the platform was staring at him.
“When the rivers won’t run, when the grass won’t grow—oh highest gods and Buddhas, tell me, where are you?”
“Boom-cha-cha! Boom-cha-cha!”
“This wild night belongs to you!” he shouted between chords. “Quit standing there like fence posts. Jump! Move! Get loud!”
The robots didn’t move.
They just stood there, stunned, watching him sing and dance.
With a sigh, the Old Man conjured a handful of virtual robots.
The moment they appeared, they began to dance—perfectly synchronized.
“When the seas start drying, when the volcanoes roar—great Allah, tell me, where are you?”
“Boom-cha-cha! Boom-cha-cha!”
“Yeah, we made this mess ourselves—but are you really going to watch your believers die out?”
“Boom-cha-cha! Boom-cha-cha!”
Fireworks kept bursting in endless waves.
The moon itself shifted colors with the music.
From the platform’s edge, columns of multicolored light speared into the sky.
The atmosphere became fever-bright, electric.
“Gods—save us!” the Old Man sang. “Any god at all, show us a miracle! While I still have the strength to pray!”
For a moment, even I forgot Phantom Forge was trying to break into this place.
I simply stared as the Old Man poured everything into the song.
Under the riot of lights and the storm of fireworks, his voice rose into the night—
and seemed to carry all the way to the clouds.