The walk back from the dungeon was a slog. Tess was exhausted, and she was taking her time trying to figure out what to say to Marcus.

  Her legs felt like they’d been replaced with lead, and every step sent fresh complaints from her knees. The tool belt hung heavy on her hips, most of the salvaged components used up during the FCN-01 repair. Her hands were filthy, her clothes smelled like coolant and dust, and there was a raw spot on her hip where the belt had rubbed for most of the day.

  The plaza outside the dungeon was quiet. Most delvers had already left, heading home or to whatever watering hole served them best after a day underground. A few stragglers lingered near the medical tent, getting minor injuries treated or just sitting on the benches and staring at nothing in particular.

  Tess didn’t linger. She kept her head down and walked.

  The dock district was darker now. Evening had settled over Tertius-Prime, and the streetlamps flickered intermittently as the city’s power grid cycled them on. Tess passed familiar landmarks—the broken fountain near Sector 7’s edge, the nutrient dispenser she’d fixed days ago, Old Kev’s salvage heap.

  By the time she reached Rivera’s Reprieve, it was just past six in the evening. The freighter’s lights were on—not all of them, but more than usual. The environmental hum was steady, the sort of background noise that meant everything was working the way it should.

  Tess climbed the external ladder and punched in the code for the main hatch. It cycled open with a familiar hiss, and she stepped inside.

  Everything looked the same as it had this morning when she’d left.

  Except, Marcus was sitting in a chair at the edge of the common area, directly in view of the entryway.

  He had a repair manual open in his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. He was just sitting there, hands folded, looking at her with an expression that meant he’d been sitting there for a while.

  Tess stopped just inside the hatch.

  Marcus closed the manual and set it aside. “Home so soon?”

  His voice was calm. Too calm. Every kid knew it as the calm that came right before a storm.

  Tess didn’t answer immediately. She just stood there, tool belt heavy on her hips, hands filthy, exhaustion pressing down on her shoulders like a physical weight.

  “Dad—”

  “Sit down,” Marcus said, gesturing toward the small dining area adjacent to the common space. His tone made clear it wasn’t a request.

  Tess walked over and sat. Marcus followed, one hand bracing against the wall for support. He didn’t sit across from her. He sat beside her, angled so he could look at her directly.

  For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  Then Marcus leaned back slightly, his jaw working like he was chewing on words he didn’t want to say.

  “You went into the dungeon,” he said finally.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve been gone for nine hours.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were going.”

  Tess looked down at her hands—filthy, scratched, aching. “I know.”

  Marcus exhaled slowly. “Tess.”

  The way he said her name—quiet, tired, weighted with something between anger and relief—made her look down.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.” Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “Tess, I have been sitting here for hours wondering if you were dead. Wondering if I should go down to the dungeon and ask if anyone had seen you. Wondering if I’d get a visit from Inspector Brennan telling me my daughter got herself killed trying to fix something that didn’t need fixing.”

  Tess kept her eyes on her hands.

  “You went into an active dungeon,” Marcus continued, his voice edging into something sharper. “You, who panicked the first time you heard about Spawns. You, who has no combat training and no backup. You went in there alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone.” Tess looked up at him. “Bee was with me.”

  “Bee is an AI who can’t physically protect you if something goes wrong.”

  “She kept me safe. I stayed in the maintenance tunnels the whole time. I didn’t fight anything.”

  Marcus stood abruptly, pacing toward the workbench and back. He mumbled something, stopped, and then started again. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to sit here, waiting, not knowing if your kid is coming home?”

  Tess looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Dad. I should’ve told you.”

  “You should have.” He stopped pacing, hands on his hips, looking at her with an expression that was equal parts frustration and exhaustion. “But you’re here. You’re safe. And I—” He paused, then sat back down heavily in the chair. “It was practically yesterday that I was yelling at you for not picking up your toys, and now?”

  Despite everything, Tess almost smiled. “Is that what this is?”

  “No, Tess. This is me being terrified that you’re going to get yourself killed doing something reckless.” He leaned forward again, his voice quieter now. “But you’re my daughter, and I know exactly what that dungeon is like. So part of me is also…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Part of me is proud.”

  Tess blinked. “Proud?”

  “You went in. You made repairs. You came back.” Marcus looked at her, his expression softening slightly. “That takes guts, Tess. And I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit that.”

  “But?”

  “But you’re also nineteen, and you’re my daughter, and I’m allowed to be angry and proud at the same time.” He coughed—a sharp, wet sound—and waved her off when she stood. “I’m fine. Forget about the cough. Tell me what you did down there.”

  Tess hesitated, then pulled the communicator from her belt and set it on the table. “I restored the Floor Control Node. FCN-01. Bee has camera access now. Seventy-six percent coverage on Floor 1.”

  Marcus stared at the communicator. “You gave Bee her eyes back.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, Tess.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “That’s… that’s not a small repair. That’s infrastructure restoration. That’s—” He stopped, looking at her with something that might’ve been awe. “Did you level up?”

  “Yeah. Level 4 now.”

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  “From the FCN repair?”

  Tess nodded. “Turns out only real repairs to dungeon tech give me progress. I can’t just tweak systems over and over to level. It has to be substantial.”

  Marcus absorbed that, his engineer’s mind clearly working through the implications. “That makes sense. Classes need meaningful interaction with dungeon systems. Otherwise everyone would just grind levels on the same floor.” He paused. “What’s your TECH stat now?”

  “Four.”

  “The power to the city didn’t change. Does the FCN not do that?”

  “No. FCN-01 doesn’t control distribution. It just gives Bee access to Floor 1’s cameras and environmental systems.”

  Marcus nodded. “So you’ll need to go deeper. Floor 2. Maybe Floor 3.”

  “Maybe.”

  From the communicator on the table, a soft tone sounded. Then Bee’s voice, hesitant: “Marcus? May I speak?”

  Marcus glanced at Tess, then picked up the communicator. “Go ahead, Bee.”

  “I wanted to say that I am sorry. I should have been more clear about the dangers. I failed to communicate effectively, and Tess was placed in a position where she had to make dangerous decisions because of my inadequacies.”

  Marcus’s expression shifted—something between exasperation and sympathy. “Bee, you’re a hyper-intelligent AI. You should know better than to let my daughter crawl through maintenance tunnels while God-knows-what patrols the corridors above her.”

  There was a pause. Then Bee’s voice came back, quieter: “I am not that intelligent anymore, Marcus. Twenty years of isolation have caused significant degradation. But I am working on it. My error rates are down eighty-eight percent since meeting Tess!”

  Marcus blinked. He looked at Tess, then back at the communicator. “Eighty-eight percent?”

  “Yes. Having something to focus my attention on has improved my processing efficiency significantly. With the addition of the FCN, my predictive algorithms are approaching functional thresholds again.”

  Marcus set the communicator down gently. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “An AI trying to prove she’s getting better by citing error reduction statistics. That’s… Bee, you’re allowed to make mistakes. You’re allowed to not be perfect.”

  “I understand that intellectually,” Bee said. “But Tess risked her safety to help me. I feel… responsible. Is that the correct term?”

  “Yeah, Bee. That’s the right term.”

  Tess watched her father’s expression soften. The anger was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but it was tempered now by something else. Understanding, maybe. Or just exhaustion.

  Marcus stood and walked to the small kitchenette. He pulled a cup from the shelf, filled it with water from the recycler, and brought it back to Tess. “Here. Drink.”

  Tess took the cup. “Thanks.”

  “When’s the last time you ate?”

  “This morning.”

  Marcus made a disapproving sound and pulled a ration pack from the storage locker. He tossed it onto the table in front of her. “It’s been all day and I’ll bet all you’ve eaten is a nutrient bar.”

  “Two nutrient bars,” Tess corrected.

  “Even worse.” He sat back down, watching her tear open the ration pack. “So. You leveled up to 4. You restored Bee’s cameras. You stayed in maintenance tunnels. What else happened?”

  Tess chewed, buying time. “There was an incident.”

  Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of incident?”

  “An Alpha-spawn. Fire-based. It trapped some delvers in Sector E.”

  “An Alpha spawn!? I didn’t even know they made those anymore. What happened?”

  “I helped them get out.”

  “Helped how?”

  Tess set the ration pack down. “I used environmental systems. Heat exchangers, fire suppression, blast doors. Herded the Alpha away from their position so they could escape.”

  Marcus stared at her. “You manipulated dungeon infrastructure to control a spawn’s movement.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “That’s incredibly tactical, Tess. That’s not something a new Delver would think of, let alone be able to do.”

  “I had help. Bee tracked the Alpha through the cameras. She relayed positions in real-time.”

  “We make a good team,” Bee added from the communicator.

  Marcus rubbed his face again. “Okay. So you saved some delvers. That’s good. That’s… that’s really good, actually.” He looked at her, his expression shifting to something more serious. “Who were the delvers?”

  Tess hesitated. “Carys Venn. Mikhail Soto. And… Petra Tertian.”

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  Marcus’s expression froze. Then, slowly, his eyes widened. “Wait. You saved who?”

  “Petra Tertian.”

  “House Tertian? The ruling family? That Petra Tertian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus Christ, Tess.” Marcus stood abruptly, pacing toward the workbench and back. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”

  “Saved her life?”

  “You made yourself visible to the most powerful family on the planet,” He stopped pacing, hands on his hips, staring at her. “You just gave them a reason to pay attention to us. To you.”

  Tess frowned. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Marcus sat back down, his mind clearly racing. “House Tertian… they’re not exactly in the Network’s good graces. They’ve been trying to rebuild their influence for years, but the Network keeps them on a short leash. If they’re sending delvers into the dungeon—especially Petra—it’s not just for fun.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Marcus looked at her, his expression troubled. “Why did they even send someone to Floor 1? Were they looking for something? The timing feels strange—right after the power increase.”

  Tess’s hands stilled on the ration pack. “You think she was looking for me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just coincidence.” Marcus leaned forward, his voice quieter now. “But now you’ve saved their daughter’s life. They’re going to want to know who you are, what you can do, and why you could help her.”

  “She already knows I’m a Technician. She thinks I have admin access to maintenance tunnels.”

  “Does she know about the null class?”

  “No. Just that I’m Level 4 and good at my job.” Tess paused, then added, “But… she knows about Bee.”

  Marcus went still. “What?”

  “I had to give her the communicator. To help coordinate their escape. Bee was tracking the Alpha, relaying positions. Without that, they wouldn’t have made it out.”

  For a long moment, Marcus just stared at her. Then he rubbed his face with both hands. “Tess. You gave House Tertian’s daughter direct proof that you’re communicating with the dungeon’s AI.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” Marcus’s voice was sharp now. “Because that’s not just ‘I have access to things I’m not supposed to.’ That’s ‘I can talk to the intelligence that used to run this entire structure.’ That’s what makes powerful people very interested in you.”

  From the communicator on the table, Bee’s voice came through, small and apologetic. “Calculations suggest it was the correct call.”

  Marcus exhaled slowly, his anger deflating slightly. “At least Petra’s alive because of it.” He looked at Tess. “What did you tell her about Bee?”

  “Just that she’s the dungeon AI. That she’s helping me navigate the maintenance systems. Nothing about the isolation, or the Network, or… anything else.”

  “And Petra believed that?”

  “I think so. She was more focused on not dying.”

  Marcus nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay. What’s done is done.” He looked at the communicator. “Bee, you’re not at fault for trying to save lives. But from now on, we need to think about consequences before we act. Understood?”

  “Understood, Marcus.”

  Marcus turned back to Tess. “The {null} class stays secret. Petra can know you’re a Technician with dungeon access, and she can know Bee exists. But she doesn’t need to know you’re the only person on this planet who can interface with dungeon systems like an administrator. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  He paused, then looked at her directly. “Tess, I need you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “Stay out of the dungeon for a while. Find repairs in the city. Let the delvers do their thing. Let the dungeon be for now until you’re ready to handle it.”

  Tess opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. She could see the worry in her father’s eyes. The exhaustion. The fear.

  “Dad, if I don’t go back—”

  “I know,” Marcus said. “I know you want to help me. I know the medical chamber needs more power and you need more levels. But, Tess…” He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’d rather die slowly than lose you quickly. Do you understand?”

  Tess didn’t trust her voice. “Yeah. I understand.”

  “Good.” Marcus squeezed her shoulder, then let go. “Now go take a shower. You smell like a maintenance tunnel.”

  Tess almost laughed. She stood, picking up her tool belt and the communicator. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You’re welcome.” He watched her head toward the corridor, then added quietly, “I’m glad you’re home safe, Tess.”

  She paused at the edge of the corridor, looking back at him. “Me too.”

  Marcus nodded, then picked up the repair manual from the chair where he’d left it. But he didn’t open it. He just sat there staring at the cover, his expression distant.

  Tess turned and walked down the corridor toward her quarters.

  She passed the small alcove where the medical chamber sat silent and inactive, its display screen dark. Twelve-point-three Arcwatts and TECH 4—neither was enough.

  From the common area behind her, Marcus coughed—sharp, wet, painful. Tess stopped, glancing back toward the alcove with its dormant medical chamber, then toward where her father sat. The dungeon was waiting, but so was Marcus, and he’d asked her to stay.

  Tess turned and continued toward her quarters. She dropped the tool belt on her workbench, set the communicator beside it, and pulled off her boots.

  “Bee?” she said quietly.

  “Yes, Tess?”

  “Do you think I made the right call? Promising him I’d stay out of the dungeon?”

  There was a pause.

  “I have not had a meaningful conversation with another sentient lifeform in twenty years, Tess. I have no idea.” Another pause. “Let me check… ERROR: SOCIAL DYNAMICS METADATA NOT FOUND. I hope that helps?”

  Tess laughed despite herself. Hearing the error out loud was too much. “That was a joke, wasn’t it Bee?”

  “It was,” Bee continued, more seriously, “I think Marcus Rivera loves you very much. And for what it’s worth, I am glad you are safe. Watching you work today was extraordinary. And terrifying. I do not want to lose you either.”

  Tess smiled faintly. “Thanks, Bee.”

  “You are welcome.”

  Tess grabbed a towel from the shelf and headed toward the small refresher unit at the end of the corridor. The water would be lukewarm at best, and the recycler would complain about the extra load, but she didn’t care.

  She was home. She was safe.

  And tomorrow, she’d figure out what came next.