Before I could venture down the rabbit hole any further, Jakob called to me from the far side of the room.

  “Dan,” he said, nearly bouncing on his toes in sheer exuberance, “I’ve found something here that I think you’ll want to see—it might help with your hand situation.”

  I grunted and reluctantly pulled myself from the chair, the connection to the terminal severing the moment I stepped away and with it the innate knowledge imparted by the network. I glanced down at my hand as I made my way over to the far side of the room. My limb regrowth was still slower than I’d like, but I’d made some significant progress over the past few days. Instead of a stump with a few gross nubs protruding from the end, I now had a fully formed baby hand.

  Or maybe a toddler fist.

  I wasn’t good with kids and didn’t know how fast they grew.

  But the limb was technically functional, even if it was only a fraction of its normal size.

  Jakob waved me over to the strange machine that looked equal parts blender and photocopier. Or maybe an industrial microwave was a better comp.

  “This little contraption is portable medical regenerator,” he said, positively beaming. “The MedSynth Unit Mk-II. I suspect there are full body version as well—likely located in the Med Bay—but this one should work wonders on your hand.”

  I scanned the contraption with no small amount of suspicion and after a few seconds, the Researcher’s Codex provided a brief description.

  MedSynth Unit Mk-II

  Rare Artifact

  Type: Portable Medical Device (Consumable/Rechargeable)

  The MedSynth Unit Mk-II is a field-grade regeneration platform designed to handle trauma that would leave most people dead or begging for a miracle. Roughly the size of a reinforced lunchbox, the Mk-II houses a nanofabrication system, synthetic stem-cell reservoir, and mana-infused bio-stitchers capable of repairing catastrophic wounds in minutes. It doesn’t just seal cuts or close gashes—it reconstructs damaged muscle fibers, reconnects nerve endings, and restores structural integrity at a cellular level.

  Where it truly stands out is in limb regeneration protocols—always a necessity for researchers conducting questionable experimentation on hostile species.

  Once stabilization is achieved, the Mk-II can trigger accelerated tissue growth, rebuilding severed or missing limbs from scratch using the patient’s genetic template. Full regeneration of a limb can be completed in a matter of minutes with no scarring or loss of function. The Mk-II is also capable of removing hostile and permeant Afflictions, which might otherwise prevent cellular restoration.

  The process isn’t gentle. The nanites burn like liquid fire as they rebuild tissue, and the metabolic toll is heavy. Users are often left exhausted, dehydrated, and ravenous, with some experiencing phantom nerve sensations or temporary neurological misfires during recovery. Overuse can lead to “cellular overdrive,” which sounds like a superpower but really means “extra tumors in fun places.”

  I whistled.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered as I read through the description for a second time. “Jakob… can this thing cure you?”

  He grinned and pulled off the leather glove that rose all the way to his elbow.

  “I already tried it,” he replied, turning his arm this way, then that. Instead of angry flayed meat, the limb was now covered with white scales. “It truly is a miracle in a box. I’ll admit,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “it does sting more than a little, but the price is worth it.” There were tears welling up in his eyes. “For the first time in years, I have no pain.” He paused and canted his head to one side. “Imagine what good this could do—we could regrow Rebecka’s leg or Sven’s missing ears.”

  “Or my hand,” I added, wiggling my baby fingers at him.

  “Or your hand,” he agreed, sliding open the receiving hatch, which would allow me to insert my damaged limb.

  After what I’d seen while plugged in to the terminal, I trusted the VRD less than ever, but if there was one good thing I could say about those assholes, it was that they sure as shit knew how fix the things they broke. I wasn’t thrilled about undergoing another experiment that involved a substantial amount of pain, but if it meant getting my hand back to working order, I’d suck it up and put on my big boy pants.

  I jammed my left hand into the machine and Jakob hit a few buttons, the MedSynth Unit Mk-II coming online with a low, unsettling hum. The interior of the machine lit up with a cold, blue-white glow, casting harsh light across the room.

  A translucent containment ring clamped over my wrist, locking my arm in place before I could reconsider.

  “Hold still,” Jakob said, his voice trembling with excitement.

  “Not like I have a choice,” I muttered, my pulse spiking as the gel-like interior began to shift and mold itself around my tiny hand. It was warm. Too warm.

  Then the pain hit.

  It started as a faint burn, then quickly escalated to “skin-melted-off-by-a-blowtorch” levels in seconds. I clenched my teeth and sucked in a sharp breath as a stream of tiny silver nanites began to scuttle across my skin—knitting bone, tendons, and muscle fibers with manic precision.

  “Holy shit,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “I thought you said there was a mild tingle. This? This is not a mild tingle! It feels like my hand’s being rebuilt by angry hornets with welding torches!”

  Jakob glanced at the monitor. “Sehr gut. That means it’s working.”

  The MedSynth pulsed again, and I felt my fingers stretching. And not in the metaphorical sense. They were literally stretching—growing—the tiny bones lengthening and thickening as muscle fibers wove themselves together like meat-colored cables. The sensation was horrifyingly intimate. I could feel every single nerve as it reconnected, sparking like live wires.

  Jakob was beaming. “Your cells are responding beautifully. You’ll have a full-grown hand in less than a minute.”

  “Great,” I grunted, sweating profusely. “Plenty of time to pass out from pain and drool all over myself.” I shot a look at Croc. “You gotta promise not to eat me if I pass out.”

  “Never, Dan,” the dog said, sounding aghast. “Friends don’t try to kill, eat, or dismember each other.” The mimic paused. “So long as the limb remains attached. If something comes off, then it would be a shame for it to go to waste.”

  The machine whirred faster, a soft metallic click-click-click signaling the final growth cycle. My once-baby-sized hand now looked like it belonged to me again, though it was slick with the strange iridescent nanogel that the MedSynth excreted like some sort of disgusting afterbirth.

  Finally, the clamp around my forearm ease and the unit released me.

  My hand was whole.

  Strong.

  I flexed my fingers experimentally, and every tendon responded like it was brand new.

  “Screw me sideways,” I said, staring at it. “Jakob… this thing’s insane. It actually worked.”

  He chuckled, wiping his scaled brow. “I told you it would. Welcome back to full functionality.”

  I gave my hand one last flex and let out a slow breath, forcing myself to refocus.

  We’d already spent too long poking around the chamber. There were places we needed to be and monsters still waiting to kill us, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away just yet. There was too much knowledge here, too much potential, and the Helix Splicers would make one hell of an addition to the store.

  So after hustling everyone out of the chamber, I selected the room on my mini-map and triggered Corvo’s Blanket Fort.

  At least I tried too…

  Instead, I got a strange error message I’d never seen before.

  Whoops! It looks like you’ve just attempted to annex 8,250 square feet of laboratory space belonging to the Variant Research Division. Unfortunately, none of the rooms or subspaces on the Research Levels qualify as Progenerated Material, and are contained within their own restricted Superspace Access Level, which means it cannot be claimed using Corvo’s Blanket Fort!

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Huh. Now that was certainly a wrinkle I hadn’t anticipated, though it did explain a few things.

  Maybe the 25th floor really was connected to the 75th. Hell, maybe every single Research Level was linked together in some kind of twisted, interlocking web of corridors and subspaces no one fully understood. That would certainly explain the odd time dilation we’d experienced when crossing through the kiosk.

  The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

  Maybe the reason why the Research Floors weren’t like the rest of the Backrooms, was because we were never supposed to have access to them in the first place. The other floors were Progenerated biomes, specifically designed to trap unwilling research subjects. But the VRD floors had been purpose built for something else entirely—observation, experimentation, and control. A central hub, where the Researchers could watch their test subjects from the safety of a fortified lab.

  It still chapped my ass, though.

  Knowing I couldn’t just annex the entire area, I tried the next logical thing—planting a doorway anchor. If I couldn’t own the room, I could at least get a shortcut back here whenever I wanted.

  But that also met with failure.

  The second I planted a door placard I received another prompt.

  Whoops! It looks like you’ve just tried to attach an unauthorized spatial anchor to VRD-controlled property. Spatial anchors cannot be deployed on Variant Research Division Levels due to ongoing Progenitor interference. If this is an error, please consult your local Credentialing Administrator for proper clearance.

  “Of course I need proper administrative clearance,” I muttered, glaring at the prompt as if I could intimidate it into compliance. “God forbid anything in this place make my life easier.”

  So, claiming the space was out. Doorway anchor? Also out. Which left me with only one logical option. Steal everything that wasn’t nailed down—and a few things that were.

  “Okay,” I barked at the rest of the team, “if you see anything you can carry, grab it. We’re about to strip this place cleaner than a Black Friday sale at Costco.”

  Croc’s mouth—or the jagged approximation of one—curled into a frown. “Are you sure about this, Dan? I mean, I don’t want to second guess you, but I feel like looting a research wing might get us into trouble…”

  “If the VRD didn’t want me stealing their shit,” I replied, “they should have left it better guarded. That’s on them for the oversight.”

  There was no way all this stuff would fit into my regular Spatial Storage—not with the two-thousand-pound weight restriction—so I triggered Conveyor Logistics, the store’s not-so-subtle teleportation system, and immediately got to work. The humming sound of the dimensional transfer began to fill the chamber as I swept my hand across the first set of canisters. One by one, they zipped out of existence, instantly transported back to the Store like they’d never been there.

  The Helix Splicers were next.

  Those unsettling, pod-like machines didn’t want to move, probably because they weren’t designed to leave the lab they’d been so painstakingly installed in. But with a few “manual overrides”—i.e. Croc’s tentacles wrenching them free—they disappeared into storage too. The system gave a small, annoyed ping each time one dematerialized, as if to say, What the hell are you doing, Dan? These aren’t meant for commercial use. But I didn’t give a shit. The VRD had abducted me against my will, so I figured robbing them blind was fair play.

  “Shut up and take my loot,” I grumbled.

  Medical equipment, surgical tools, syringes, and scanners went next—along with the MedSynth Unit that had healed my hand. I even claimed the central terminal, detaching the main interface from its mount and watching it flicker out of existence as the logistics system whisked it away in a blink.

  Harper glanced around the increasingly empty chamber with a raised brow. “You’re seriously taking all of it? Even the equipment bolted to the walls?”

  “Especially the equipment bolted to the walls,” I replied, yanking another holo-screen free.

  Within a matter of minutes, the chamber was gutted as though a pack of tech-hungry raccoons had raided the place. Even the floor canisters of weird colored fluids were gone, each one catalogued and shipped back to the store for later examination.

  When I finally deactivated Conveyor Logistics, the only thing left in the room was a faint scorch mark where the terminal had been. I dusted my hands off.

  “Alright,” I said, feeling a little too pleased with my totally justified thievery. “If I can’t have the room, I’ll just take everything inside it. Problem solved.”

  Temperance smirked, leaning on her blade. “I commend your efforts, but aren’t you at all worried the VRD might respond in kind?”

  “Hey, no alarms are going off yet, are they?” I asked.

  Then, as if on cue, the overhead lights flickered, and a sharp klaxon began to howl through the corridor.

  “...Fuck knuckles. I hate this place,” I muttered.

  “INTRUDER ALERT,” a mechanical voice bellowed from hidden speakers in the walls. “Unauthorized PErSONNEL detected. Research Security Golems have been dispatched to investigate. PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE!”

  Somewhere deep in the facility, a heavy door slid open with a hydraulic shhunk, followed by the unmistakable click-clack of metal limbs against steel grating.

  Jakob turned to me with wide eyes. “Das riecht nach ?rger,” the Cendral muttered. “That sounds like a lot of legs.”

  Croc’s ears flattened. “Too many legs. I always say you should never trust something with more than ten legs. As the saying goes, nine is divine, eight is great, seven is heaven, five is fine, four galore, three is the bee’s knees, two is tried and true, and one is likely a very sad workplace accident. But ten?” Croc shook his head. “Never ten.”

  “There’s no way that’s a saying,” Harper replied with a frown. “That’s just so incredibly specific and there can’t possibly be enough scenarios to warrant someone coming up with a saying like that.”

  “Nope, it’s definitely a very common scenario,” Croc assured her.

  “Let them come,” Temperance said. She already had her new weapon drawn and was casually caressing the hilt with a thumb. “We haven’t killed anything in ages. I was starting to get bored.”

  With the alarms still blaring and red lights strobing manically overhead, we hustled out of the gutted room and back into the octagonal chamber, where the other doors connected.

  While the others argued about how many legs was too many legs, I approached the door to the S-Class Restricted Wing, examining it using both Spelunker’s Sixth Sense and the Researcher’s Codex. Neither gave me any good information to work off. As far as I could tell, the door itself wasn’t trapped or warded, and the Codex didn’t give me any additional information.

  There was a digital palm scanner beside the door and, with no better options available, I mashed my hand against the reader and prayed for the best. The palm scanner lit up blue for half a second, then quickly changed to a glowing, angry red as a prompt appeared.

  Your credential key is insufficient for this area.

  “WARNING,” the speakers blared again, “You are attempting to access a restricted VRD Wing without the proper SECURITY clearance. Do not attempt to breach this door and remain where you are. Please do not resist. Failure to comply will result in corrective dismemberment.”

  The click-clack of approaching metallic legs filled me with a deep sense of urgency and more than a little fear.

  Something terrible was coming—I could feel it in my bones.

  We needed to get into the Restricted Wing, and we needed to do it before we had a meet and great with the “corrective dismemberment welcome committee.” Obviously, the scanner wasn’t going to let us through without the proper credentials, but there was also a cardkey slot, located directly beneath the palm reader.

  Maybe I could use that.

  I dropped to a knee and pulled one of my most valuable Artifacts from Spatial Storage. The Quantum Skeleton Key. With no time to waste, I unceremoniously jammed the strange brass key into the override slot, and used one of the two remaining charges.

  The airlock door vibrated and rattled in its metallic frame as the key shimmered and pulsed, the metallic edges phasing in and out of alignment. It was the locksmith’s equivalent of black magic—quantum tumblers shifting through millions of potential configurations per second until reality gave up the will to live and let us through.

  Behind us, the rhythmic clicking grew louder. Faster. More insistent.

  Croc let out a low whine. “Dan, its getting closer. Much closer. I can smell the tungsten and motor oil.”

  “Just another few seconds,” I grunted.

  I let out a soft sigh of relief as the lock finally released, followed by a ker-chunk as the door slid open with a whoosh of pressurized air.

  “Go!” I shouted, pushing Jakob through first, followed by Croc, Harper, and Temp in turns. I slipped in last, and the door slammed shut behind us just as something heavy hit the far end of the hallway with a metallic clang.

  “Move your asses,” I hollered, already quick casting Unerring Arrow to guide our way.

  The corridor ahead ran straight for a hundred feet then twisted left and dipped downward, red lights still flashing overhead as we barreled through. Behind us, I heard the airlock door open again followed in quick succession by the rhythmic pounding of metal limbs. In short order we came to another octagonal chamber—this one with even more corridors branching off.

  But it was too late to run.

  Something skidded into view behind us, and I knew we were going to have to fight our way out of this like it or not.

  “Battle formation,” I thundered, wheeling back to face the corridor we’d just exited from.

  Jakob, Croc, and Temp formed a curved wall, shielding me and Harper from any direct line of attack. The room was too cramped to summon my entire army of Horrors, but I still called forth a few of my heavy front-line hitters. Drumbo, Synthia, and Timmy all shambled into view, then quickly moved to take up positions near the door.

  I held my breath as the VRD Security Golem finally scuttled into view, charging toward us on a sea of arachnoid legs.

  The creature didn’t look anything like the Cannon Fodder minions from my store. It was brutal fusion of battlefield engineering and surgical efficiency—equal parts armored turret, and mobile defense drone.

  It was easily eight tall, its armored chassis resting on a dozen heavy-duty mechanical legs, each built like a jackhammer with claws sharp enough to punch through steel. Twin plasma cannons were mounted on broad shoulder plates, and beneath those hung a cluster of secondary limbs. Attached to each was something awful—razor-sharp scythe blades, articulated claws, rotating plasma cutters, and what looked suspiciously like a bone saw attached to a shock baton.

  Atop its hunched torso sat a flat, disc-shaped head with a single glowing red eye that swept the room in slow, methodical arcs.

  Administrative Agent 1.750250B – VRD Security Golem [Level 50]

  Constructed by the Variant Research Division to provide immediate tactical response to security breaches, the VRD Security Golem is immune to most magical interference, impervious to emotional manipulation, and built to withstand direct artillery fire. Capable of operating in zero-atmosphere environments and deeply hostile biomes, its job is simple. Locate the target, contain the target and, failing that, disassemble the target into small, manageable chunks for later analysis.

  At level 50, this thing was a force to be reckoned with, and even worse it wasn’t tagged as a Dweller. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, but I doubted it was good.

  The golem also seemed to be fully inorganic, which meant StainSlayer Maelstrom would be about as effective as a bottle of Windex, and I doubted Temperance’s plague and disease-based Relics would fare any better. On top of that, its armor was thick enough to shrug off most attacks, so it would probably also be resistant to Hydro Fracking Blast and anything that dealt slashing or piercing damage.

  In short, it was a mobile tank designed specifically to stop creatures with hostile magic.

  Creatures like us.

  The golem paused at the entrance to the room, its limbs adjusting with a series of clicks. Then it locked onto us with that unblinking red eye and spoke in a smooth, genderless voice.

  “Unauthorized lifeforms detected,” it droned. “Lethal force approved. Begin disassembly. Please do not resist. VRD thanks you for your compliance.”