The workshop was quiet for once, save for the rhythmic lap-lap-lap of Lord Kuro enjoying a bowl of "Premium Synthetic Cream." It had cost me half of our earnings from the leech-scrubbing job, but according to Kuro, his tactical brain "functions on lipids, not peasant water."
Vax, meanwhile, was hunched over a flickering holographic projector he'd jury-rigged from a broken heater and some fiber-optic cables. His four eyes were darting between scrolling lines of data with such speed it made me dizzy just watching him.
"Aethryx is a cage, Fuen," Vax muttered, his purple fingers dancing across the interface.
"You want to hit the Star-Floors in thirty days? Look at the math." He flicked a finger, and a graph projected into the air. "At your current XP gain from cleaning vents and fighting street thugs, you'll reach the top just in time to be recycled as a very fit, very dead corpse. Your heart will stop exactly four floors below the throne."
I leaned over the table, rubbing my ribs. "Then what's the alternative? We can't exactly take the stairs. The Enforcers guard the elevators with heavy artillery."
Vax straightened up, his four eyes aligning—a rare sign that he was being 100% serious. "We don't go up. We go out."
He tapped a command, and the map zoomed out, past the city's iron shell, into the cold vacuum of space. It showed the massive Gate Hub—the heart of the city's commerce. "The Archons don't just rule this rock; they trade with the Outer Rim. The Gates connect Aethryx to resource planets.
Missions there are 'unregulated.' No laws, no Enforcers... just raw, unfiltered energy."
"Off-world?" I whispered. The air in the Lower District always tasted like wet pennies and exhaust. The idea of a sky that wasn't made of rusted pipes felt like a fairy tale. "Is it even legal for a 'Gritty' to use the Gates?"
"Legal? No," Kuro chimed in, cleaning a stray drop of cream from his whiskers. "It's highly illegal. Punishable by 'Permanent De-Atomization.' But Vax is a Tech-Shadow. He doesn't do 'legal.' He does 'not yet caught'."
"If we're going to a resource planet," I said, trying to find my 'Commander' voice, "we need a plan. Pod, what's our status?"
Pod, who had been trying to "sync" with a heavy-duty hydraulic jack, let out a vibrant "Bloop!" and tapped his chest. A small, blurry hologram projected from his jelly-body. It showed a crude stick-figure of me being eaten by a giant crab, while a stick-figure of Pod wore a crown.
"Insightful as always," Vax sighed, rubbing his temples. "Look, the first destination is Krios-9. It's a mining moon. High gravity, sub-zero temperatures, and infested with 'Iron-Crabs.' Their shells are made of raw Pulse-Ore. If Pod consumes that ore, he can stabilize his machine-control for hours instead of minutes. He won't just be a slime; he'll be a walking fortress."
"And if I absorb the energy?" I asked.
"You might actually reach Level 5 before the week is out," Vax said. "But there's a catch.
The Gate-fee is astronomical. We'll be going in on a 'Ghost Contract.' If we don't bring back enough ore to pay the 'hidden' tax I'm writing into the system, the Gate will lock from the other side. We'll be stranded on a frozen rock with nothing but each other for company."
"I'd rather be stranded with the crabs," Kuro muttered.
"So, we're betting our lives on space-crabs and Vax's ability to lie to a super-computer," I summarized. I looked at my team. It was a pathetic sight. A purple alien in a duct-taped flight suit, a cat who thought he was a god, and a blue puddle of jelly currently trying to eat my shoelaces.
"It beats waiting for the timer to hit zero," I said, reaching out my hand. "We're really doing this. No turning back."
Vax looked at my hand, his four eyes blinking in a strange, rhythmic sequence. He looked at the map, then at the dirty workshop walls. "Humans and their primitive physical bonding rituals," he grumbled. But slowly, he placed his long, cool, three-fingered hand over mine. "If we die, I am haunts your soul until the end of time, Fuen."
Bloop! Pod hopped on top of our hands, his jelly warm and vibrating with a low, happy hum.
Kuro didn't join the pile—he had a reputation to uphold—but he did walk over and give my ankle a firm, sharp nip. "Don't get emotional, Ground-Level. It ruins your reaction time.
Now move. The Gate-Cycle resets in twenty minutes."
We reached the Gate Hub under the cover of the "Smog-Shift." The Hub was a cathedral of cold blue light and humming machinery.
The Gate itself was a massive, swirling ring of white fire, guarded by automated turrets that looked like they could vaporize a building.
"Stay behind me," Vax whispered, pulling a wire from his wrist-panel and plugging it into a maintenance port. "I'm spoofing our ID tags. For the next ten seconds, the system will think we are a certified 'Elite Scavenger Squad' from the Silver Floors."
"Us? Elite?" I looked at my torn coat and the smudge of grease on my nose.
"Just look expensive and arrogant!" Vax hissed. "Pretend you own the planet!"
The terminal turned green. [ ACCESS GRANTED: TEAM 'NULL-SQUAD' ]
"Null-Squad?" I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Vax, you named us that?"
"It was either that or 'The Toaster-Snatchers'," the alien snapped, sweat beading on his purple forehead. "Move! The firewall is starting to sniff my signature!"
We ran. We ran toward the white fire. As I approached the event horizon, I felt a pull—a sensation like my soul was being stretched through a very thin straw. I grabbed Pod and shoved him into my inner pocket. Kuro dug his claws into my shoulder, hissing as his fur stood on end from the static.
"Krios-9, here we come!" I yelled, though my voice was swallowed by the roar of the Gate.
As the white light blinded me, a final system notification flashed in my HUD:
[ MISSION START: THE FROZEN ORE ]
[ TIME REMAINING: 23 DAYS, 14 HOURS ]
[ OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE DROP ]
[ WARNING: ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE IS -60°C. CALIBRATING.. ]
The floor vanished. The air turned to ice. And Aethryx was gone.