Chapter 4 · Mom's Voice

"You’re a liar, Kade. A beautiful, high-spec, lying piece of scrap metal," I spat, shoving the heavy junk-gun into my shoulder.

He didn't even flinch. He just leaned against the rusted pillar of the first-floor vestibule, arms crossed, looking at me like I was a bug he was deciding whether or not to crush. His human rig was too perfect—too clean for a place that smelled like ozone and rotting concrete.

"I didn't lie," he said, his voice a low, smooth vibration that hit me right in the chest. "I simply omitted the part where the first floor is a meat grinder for anyone without a combat class. Which, in your case, is everyone."

"Oh, so now we're doing the 'I'm just protecting you' act? Please." I stepped closer, the heels of my boots clicking sharp against the grit. I poked the barrel of the gun into his chest, right where a heart would be if he actually had one. "You said the Tower was a shortcut. You didn't say it was a death sentence for Level Zeros."

Kade’s eyes narrowed. He didn't move away from the gun; instead, he leaned into it, forcing me to take a half-step back or risk getting crushed by his frame. The heat coming off him was unnatural—like an engine idling too high.

"And yet," he whispered, his gaze dropping to my lips for a fraction of a second, "here you are. Still breathing. Still stubborn. Still completely useless in a real fight."

"Watch me," I snapped. I yanked the gun back and spun around, facing the corridor.

Behind us, the Tower had swallowed the street, turning the city block into a distorted, flickering dungeon. The walls were shifting, metallic plates sliding like scales. Up ahead, the first wave of System-spawned scavengers was closing in—twitchy, pale things with too many joints and glowing red eyes.

"You can't solo this, Jett," Kade said, his tone shifting from mocking to something sharper. "The System doesn't make mistakes. If it says you're Level Zero, you're fodder. You'll be dead before you even see the boss room."

"Then I'll be the most annoying piece of fodder you've ever seen," I yelled over my shoulder.

I didn't wait for his answer. I bolted.

My lungs burned, the air tasting like burnt copper. Every time my boots hit the floor, the System flashed a red warning in the corner of my vision: [WARNING: LEVEL INSUFFICIENT. DAMAGE REDUCTION ACTIVE]. It was a joke. The System wasn't protecting me; it was just making sure I didn't accidentally kill myself before the monsters got a chance.

I dove behind a fallen pillar just as a scavenger leaped, its claws screeching against the metal. I didn't think. I just rolled and fired.

*Bang!*

Nothing. The shot hit the creature's chest, but the bullet just... bounced. A little white puff of smoke, and the monster looked at me with genuine confusion.

"What the hell?" I screamed, frantically racking the slide.

"Zero damage," Kade’s voice drifted from behind me, sounding entirely too amused. "I told you. You're playing a game where you don't even have the currency to buy a hit."

"Shut up! Just shut the hell up!"

I scrambled up, swinging the heavy stock of the gun like a club. I caught the creature across its jaw, feeling the satisfying *crack* of bone. It wasn't a System-calculated hit; it was just raw, ugly violence. The monster hissed and recoiled, and I didn't give it a second chance. I jumped on its back, digging my fingers into its neck and slamming its head into the concrete again and again.

I wasn't leveling. I wasn't getting XP. But I was winning.

When I finally stood up, drenched in pale, glowing ichor, Kade was standing five feet away. He wasn't laughing anymore. He was watching me with a look that was almost... curious.

"Brute force," he remarked. "Inefficient. Messy. Completely devoid of grace."

"It worked, didn't it?" I wiped a streak of slime off my cheek, glaring at him. "Maybe you should try it sometime, Sparky. Oh wait, you're too busy being a shackled slave to an AI core."

His expression darkened instantly. He moved so fast I didn't even see him blur. Suddenly, he was right in my space, one hand slamming into the wall beside my head, pinning me between the cold metal and his radiating heat. The scent of him—something like rain and scorched electronics—filled my head.

"Careful, Jett," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "The leash is short, but the teeth are still sharp. Don't mistake my patience for weakness."

I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs, but I didn't pull away. I leaned in, my breath hitching. "What's the matter? Does the truth hurt? Or is it just that you hate knowing a Level Zero can do more damage with a rock than you can with your fancy calculations?"

His gaze flickered down to my neck, then back to my eyes. For a second, the tension was so thick I thought he might actually snap—or do something worse. His fingers twitched against the wall, the metal groaning under the pressure.

Then, he stepped back, the sudden coldness of the air making me shiver.

"Fine," he said, his voice returning to that detached, robotic clip. "Clear the floor. Prove you're not just a glitch in the system. But if you get yourself eaten, I'm not carrying your corpse back to the vats."

"Deal," I snapped.

I spent the next hour fighting through the corridor, a desperate, ugly crawl of one kill after another. I didn't use the gun—not until I had to. I used pipes, shards of glass, and my own teeth if I had to. Every time I thought I was done, a new wave of red-eyed freaks appeared.

But then, something changed.

As I approached the heavy, obsidian-black doors of the Boss Room, the air didn't feel heavy anymore. It felt... familiar.

I stopped dead.

*Jett...*

I spun around, my gun raised. "Who's there?"

There was no one. Just the flickering neon lights and the piles of dead scavengers. But the voice—it wasn't a System prompt. It wasn't a robotic announcement. It was soft, warm, and laced with a grief that made my stomach flip.

*Jett, come home. Please, just come home.*

"Mom?" I whispered. The word felt foreign in my mouth. I didn't have a mother. I had a vat, a serial number, and a brother who slept in a tube.

"Who are you talking to?" Kade asked, stepping up beside me. He looked at the Boss Room doors, his eyes scanning the energy signatures. "The room is active. High-level threat. If you go in there now, you're essentially committing suicide."

"I heard her," I said, my voice shaking. "She called me. She knows my name."

Kade stiffened. "Impossible. There are no auditory ghosts in the System's architecture. You're hallucinating from the adrenaline."

"I'm not!" I shoved him aside, my anger flaring. "You lie about everything else, why not this? Maybe there's something in here that isn't a monster. Maybe there's someone who actually gives a damn about me!"

"The only thing in that room is a Level 10 Guardian," Kade said, his voice dropping an octave. He reached out, grabbing my wrist. His grip was firm, not enough to bruise, but enough to tell me I wasn't going anywhere. "Look at your status, Jett. Look at the numbers."

I looked.

[NAME: JETT QUINN] [LEVEL: 0] [CLASS: ERROR] [STATUS: DELETION COUNTDOWN: 47:12:09]

I stared at the red numbers. Forty-seven hours. That was all I had left before the System decided I was a bug that needed to be patched out.

I ripped my wrist out of his grip. "Then I've got nothing to lose, right?"

I turned to the doors and slammed my palm against the sensor.

*CLANG.*

The obsidian doors groaned open, revealing a chamber bathed in a blinding, oppressive gold light. At the center stood something massive—a suit of armor that looked like it was forged from dying stars, holding a blade that hummed with the sound of a thousand screaming voices.

I stepped inside, the heat of the room singeing my eyebrows.

I looked down at my junk-gun. The rusted metal was starting to glow. Not a normal glow—a glitchy, flickering violet light that pulsed like a heartbeat. The weapon was vibrating so hard it nearly shook out of my hand, and for the first time, the System didn't give me a warning.

Instead, a single line of text appeared in my vision, flickering violently between red and gold:

[CRITICAL ERROR: WEAPON OVERLOAD. DAMAGE MULTIPLIER: ???]

"What the hell is happening?" I muttered, the gun suddenly feeling hot enough to melt my skin.

Kade stepped into the room behind me, his eyes wide as he stared at the weapon in my hand.

"Jett," he said, his voice sounding genuinely terrified for the first time. "Drop the gun. Now."

I didn't drop it. I aimed it right at the center of the gold giant and pulled the trigger—