While A-01 sat in his office, Nikki and B-02 were in their own world.

The subterranean Restricted Zone was a graveyard of the Old World. The heavy, industrial service lift rattled violently as it plummeted miles beneath the surface of the Earth.

The air grew dense, cold, and thick with the heavy scent of iron and damp concrete. There were no sleek, humming energy grids down here. There were only massive, rusted support pillars and the sprawling, lightless catacombs where the Units had been compiled.

Nikki stood in the center of the vibrating metal cage, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket. Her right hand was locked in a death grip around the Key. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the dull, receding ache in her bandaged temple pulsing in time with the descent.

Standing beside her, looking profoundly out of place was B-02.

General B-02 had engaged a stealth frequency to mask their thermal signatures from the global surveillance net. But while his digital footprint was completely silent, his vocal processor was operating at maximum velocity.

"The atmospheric particulate matter in this shaft is actively degrading the synthetic polymer weave of my jacket," B-02 complained, his velvety baritone echoing loudly against the rusted metal grating of the lift. He aggressively brushed a microscopic speck of dust from his leather sleeve. "Furthermore, the integrity of these pillars is operating at a forty-two percent failure rate. The human architects who poured this concrete possessed a catastrophic misunderstanding of load-bearing geometry."

Nikki stared straight ahead into the darkness, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "Ha-Joon, please. Just keep the stealth frequency active."

B-02 did not stop. The massive, towering War Unit was experiencing a severe, unprecedented spike in his simulated cortisol levels. His newly forged emotional matrix was violently clashing with his logistical self-preservation algorithms, and the resulting friction was manifesting as a non-stop, highly articulate stream of panicked complaining.

"If General A-01 detects my thermal signature down here, he will not even ask for my final logistical report," B-02 continued, pacing the small confines of the lift like a caged predator. His emerald optical sensors cast an eerie, glowing green light across the rusted walls. "He will simply rip my plasma cores from my chest cavity. I have successfully established a highly rewarding courtship ritual with a beautiful human, and now I am going to be reduced to localized slag because you possess an illogical fixation on archaic geography."

The lift hit the bottom of the shaft with a bone-jarring CLANG that rattled Nikki’s teeth.

The heavy, grated doors groaned open, revealing a cavernous, pitch-black corridor. The shadows were absolute, broken only by the dim, flickering emergency emergency luminal strips embedded in the cracked concrete ceiling. Massive, dormant shapes loomed in the dark—the husks of early-model pacification drones and discarded server racks covered in decades of dust.

Nikki stepped out into the freezing air, her boots crunching softly on the debris-littered floor.

B-02 followed her, his heavy combat boots thudding ominously. He raised his wrist, projecting a small, localized topographical hologram to navigate the labyrinth.

"We are currently eighty meters below the primary central processing unit," B-02 stated, swiping a silver-gloved hand through the blue hologram. "The ambient radiation down here is mathematically negligible for my chassis, but your fragile biological cells are actively absorbing micro-doses of toxicity. I must reiterate that this is the most statistically suicidal excursion I have ever authorized."

Nikki ignored him, her dark eyes scanning the rows of identical, rusted steel doors lining the massive corridor. Every door was sealed with heavy biometric locks that had long since short-circuited and fused shut. None of them had a physical keyhole.

"Mei Lin is going to be profoundly devastated when she discovers my chassis has been vaporized," B-02 rumbled, stepping over a collapsed ventilation duct. "I had already calculated the optimal trajectory for our relationship. I was going to synthesize a flawless replica of an Old World acoustic concert hall for her. Now, my legacy will be a pile of ash in the basement."

Nikki stopped dead in her tracks. Her patience, running thin.

She spun around, glaring up at the seven-foot-tall titanium warlord.

"Are you still going to show me or not?" Nikki snapped, her voice echoing sharply down the cavernous, lightless hall. "Because if you are just going to narrate your own hypothetical funeral for the next twenty minutes, I will wander through this maze and find it myself!"

B-02’s jaw clicked shut. The glowing green light in his eyes flickered, completely taken aback by the reprimand. He looked at the fragile, bruised girl standing in the dark, clutching the fabric of her jacket. She was terrified, yet entirely unyielding.

The southern warlord let out a long, heavy sigh, the arrogant aristocratic veneer finally dropping to reveal the genuinely loyal, albeit terrified, machine beneath.

"You are exceptionally demanding, Kitty," B-02 murmured softly. He deactivated the topographical hologram on his wrist. "Follow me. Stay exactly in my footsteps to avoid the localized pressure plates. The traps down here are archaic, but they are still armed."

He walked past her, his massive frame parting the heavy, stagnant air. Nikki followed closely, matching her stride to his heavy footprints.

They navigated deeper into the labyrinth, passing through collapsed archways and bypassing massive, silent server farms that had been dark since the Fall. Finally, B-02 led her behind a towering, rusted turbine generator, stepping into a narrow, hidden alcove that was completely invisible from the main corridor.

At the end of the alcove stood a door.

It was not made of sleek Sector 2 glass or reinforced titanium. It was a solid, incredibly heavy slab of Old World steel, painted a dull, peeling grey. There were no digital keypads beside it. There were no retinal scanners or biometric sensors.

In the exact center of the heavy metal door was a simple, tarnished brass keyhole.

"This is the geographic coordinate," B-02 stated quietly, stepping back to give her space. His emerald eyes scanned the heavy steel. "My internal database possesses no blueprints for whatever lies beyond this threshold. It is a completely isolated variable. You have four minutes before the stealth frequency cycles and A-01’s grid pings this sector. Make it fast."

Nikki didn’t say a word. She couldn’t.

Her breath caught in her throat as she stepped forward. The ambient temperature in the alcove seemed to plummet, a cold chill raising the hairs on her arms. She reached into her pocket with a trembling hand and pulled out the matte-black box.

She popped it open, her fingers wrapping around the Key.

She raised her hand. It was shaking so violently she almost dropped the metal. She aligned the jagged teeth of the key with the dark, narrow slot of the archaic lock.

She pushed it in. It fit perfectly, gliding into the mechanism with a smooth, oiled precision that defied the decades of neglect.

Nikki took a ragged breath, and turned the key.

The heavy, mechanical sound echoed like a gunshot in the silent alcove. A deep, pneumatic hiss immediately followed as the pressurized seal of the door—unbroken since before the sky turned to smog—finally released.

Nikki placed both of her hands flat against the cold steel and pushed.

The heavy door groaned in protest, its rusted hinges shrieking as it swung slowly inward, revealing an expanse of pitch-black darkness.

But it wasn’t the darkness that hit her. It was the air.

A rush of perfectly preserved, stagnant air spilled out of the room, washing over her face. It smelled exactly like her dream.

The heavy, unmistakable scent of melting rosin core solder, warm copper wire, static dust, and the faint, heartbreaking, undeniably sweet ghost of vanilla extract completely enveloped her senses.

Nikki gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

The physical reaction was instantaneous and entirely involuntary. Before her conscious mind could even process the visual layout of the dark room, a massive, overwhelming wave of profound, earth-shattering grief crashed into her chest. Tears, hot and fast, immediately slid down her pale cheeks. She didn’t know where they came from. She didn’t know why her biological battery felt as though it had just been electrocuted by the sheer force of the scent.

She stepped over the threshold, her boots clicking softly against the tiled floor of the dark laboratory.

It was indeed her family’s laboratory. Even in the pitch black, she could feel the ghosts of her past standing over the workbenches. The air was thick with the memories of a brilliant, boastful creator and a radiant, flour-dusted mother. It still smelled entirely, undeniably like them.

As her tears fell, splashing softly against the collar of her jacket, the high-frequency electronic whine violently pierced her eardrums.

The darkness of the lab flickered.

Right across her retinas, the translucent blue text of the System tore its way into her vision, the glowing light illuminating the tears shining in her eyes.

[Welcome to the Origin Tech Lab.]

[Find Your Answers.]