“Yeah, this is a great friggin’ idea,” Maya muttered as she moved through the narrow maintenance shaft. “Five and a half hours to go and you’re not even there yet. How long does it take to travel a few hundred feet?”

The shaft was narrow and the trek was difficult. Crawling on her hands and knees on grated metal with sharp objects randomly jutting from the side of the tube was anything but pleasant. Maya felt her former bravado beginning to fade.

She was heading to battle with a creature she knew nothing about.

Rogue AIs? The most she’d ever imagined herself fighting was a parking ticket. Not a killer bot that was hopped up on mana and backed up by stab happy minions.

She had nearly died from the first attack by the low ranking thugs, now she was going to try and fight the big boss at the end of the tunnel?

“If you’re stupid enough to get in a fight, hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em fast,” Pops’ words of wisdom. Maya didn’t think it applied right now, but she was racking her brain trying to come up with something to help her out. “Though if they’re bigger and faster than you, you’ll probably get your ass handed to you.”

Thanks, Pops.

“Don’t hesitate. Confident violence wins the day.”

“Use force, Maya; not The Force, just force.”

Maya chuckled to herself as she paused in her crawl toward potential death. Her knees were aching and sides were battered by the tube, but she saw another access panel before her.

She brought up the Map and looked at it. There was no longer a convenient ‘You are Here’ icon, but she counted the small symbols that denoted an exit out of the maintenance shaft. She had passed a dozen so far, that would put her…

“Shit,” Maya muttered. “I think I’m lost.”

Maya panned her light down the shaft and then back from where she had come from. Everything was alien and it all looked the same to her. Maya sighed and scrutinized the Map again.

Five hours and thirty minutes, she thought. Four hours until I need to get back.

Maya discovered her phone still managed to keep time inside of her inventory so she had set an alarm. Four hours to get the job done and then get back to the medical AI. Then she’d have a good leeway of an hour and a half to get fixed up and ask some important questions before Nanaseto powered down.

It was going to be tight, she thought.

As she crawled down the shaft and between checking her progress and if there were any threats out there, Maya also pondered what she should get out of Nanaseto before she ran out of power.

Obviously, getting her eye fixed was top priority. Then getting more power to the AI was probably second priority. That brought up the question of ‘how?’. Maya’s father had taught her the basics of maintaining her own stuff, but she’d never been one to actually fix anything. She could change a tire, but she didn’t know if she could swap out some corrupted mana batteries for new ones.

If there were even any new ones.

She thought about the knowledge modules that the AI had mentioned. There were basic maintenance modules she had, but could not offer up, until she claimed the ship. Maybe if she could get a hold of more knowledge modules she could begin learning how to fix things.

From what she understood the modules were directly downloaded into the mind, which in itself was creepy, but also awesome. As a student, she had always wished she could just shove the knowledge into her brain and be done with it. The only question was how to do it.

She had left behind the illegal knowledge modules from the Shady Doctor’s stash, but even when she had them, she hadn’t a clue how to use them.

Maya decided that was going to be her third priority. Knowledge was power, blah, blah, blah.

Ahead of her was another access panel, but as she approached it she realized it was opened.

Maya seized up and switched off her light.

Someone was definitely not adhering to ship policy here.

She moved forward slowly. The shaft had gotten larger as she moved toward her destination, but it was still a tight fit. She inched her way toward the open panel and peered into the darkness.

The first thing she noticed was that she could see light. It wasn’t bright, but a dim blue light filled the room.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she peered into the room. She let out a soft breath as she saw just shelves and boxes. She had come across a storage room of some sort. As her eyes adjusted to the blue light, she noticed the demon skeleton that was lying next to the open access panel. It seemed someone had opened it when the ship had transitioned and promptly died like everything biological that entered this place.

That thought gave her pause as she entered the storage room. If she did find a way out of this dimension, would that mean she too would die? The thought sent another shudder of fear down her spine.

At this rate, I’ll probably die of a heart attack or from stress, she thought.

The blue light was emitted from a stripe that seemed to be painted on the ceiling. It was a hand width wide and ran the entire room. Maya looked at it, wondering if it was from twenty thousand years prior or if the spiders had done some remodeling.

Maya glanced at the boxes on the shelves and frowned again. She needed to figure out how to read and understand the language these demons used. If Nanaseto had a language module, maybe that would help.

She added it as another priority.

There were latches on the boxes and Maya flipped them open. Inside was a tool she had no idea what it would be used for. It looked like a spade with a display screen half way up the handle.

Maya stared at it, hoping her Evaluate would activate.

Nothing.

She sighed and looked at the other boxes. The curious part of her wanted to pillage through the boxes and see what lay within them, but she knew what happened to such cats.

“It’s better with two eyes, girl,” Maya muttered to herself. “Depth perception makes everything more awesome.”

She pushed down her curiosity and slowly peered around a rack of shelves.

Then she immediately froze as a clicking creature exited a row of shelves two down from her. The fear and terror that she had felt when fighting the creatures and nearly dying, came roaring back. Maya couldn’t move and she couldn’t think of anything except the sharpen ends of the spiders claws clacking about on the metal decking.

The spider had its back toward her, looking down the other end of the room. It was slightly bigger than the ones that had nearly killed her and seemed to be guarding the room.

Maya barely breathed as she tried to ease her way back toward the access panel, her eyes locked on the spider. As she moved back she felt and heard the soft crunch of her shoes breaking long dead brittle bones of the demon.

Before she could even scream or run, the spiders clattered its way into her aisle. The familiar red light of doom flashed as it hurried toward her position.

The flight or fight response that Maya was hoping for never appeared. Instead she stood stock still and froze up. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she want to cry in terror, but everything within her seemed to be frozen.

The spider came to a stop a mere two feet from where she crouched. Yet it didn’t attack her outright.

Maya thought back on the first time they had attacked her. She had been the one to initiate violence, then they had kicked her ass.

She continued to not move. Hoping it would see she wasn’t looking for a fight and leave.

Instead of leaving or attacking, a small cone of red light appeared before it. The light panned across the access panel opening, along the shelves, and then upon Maya, before returning back to the access opening. There was a soft chirp from the drone as it seemed confused for a moment.

It skittered forward, panned its light down the maintenance shaft and then returned to the storage room. It panned the cone of light upon Maya and the shelves again before seemingly coming to the decision that there was nothing there.

The moment its back was turned, Maya smashed down with the crowbar that she had summoned from her inventory. The heavy steel drove the spider into the deck with a satisfying crunch. The creature shattered apart into machinery bits and black fluid.

Rogue AI AZNI45 Guard Minion - defeated

12 Experience Points

Maya let out a shuddering breath and collapsed back onto the bones that had given her position away. They dug into her backside, but she was far from caring. She breathed heavily and wiped the perspiration from her face.

She felt her hands shaking and then knotted them into fists. She hadn’t realized the terror she had for the creatures. It had been barely an hour ago when she had nearly died at their hands.

Again, the madness of her attempting to fight the boss of these spiders struck her. Maya closed her eye and then let out a bitter chuckle.

She had to do it.

“When you fall, get your ass up and do it again.”

Maya took another breath and looked at the spider. It seemed pathetic now that it was a smear. She wanted to smash it again, but where there was one, there was probably another. She had to get out of here and get back on track.

Maya paused as she stared at the spider.

Why hadn’t it attacked her?

Nanaseto said that AIs couldn’t talk to one another other than through speech, but did that also apply to their minions? This spider had been a guard, that meant it was protecting this area. Would that also mean it would attack anything that came into this area?

Maya had questions with no one to ask them to. Nanaseto might be an AI, but she wasn’t this rogue AI.

Stop stereotyping, Maya chided herself and laughed.

The first spiders that had attacked her only came active when they saw her digging around the dead demon in the doorway. They had seemed to have been dormant in the room, until she came along.

Maybe, she thought making a leap, maybe they only saw movement?

Nanaseto claimed they were about as intelligent as animals. She knew from various documentaries that some animals were more attuned to seeing movement in their prey.

Maya didn’t know the ecosystem of rogue AIs, but she knew there were more than one in this place. If this were a peaceful paradise of the lost AIs then why would it have guards and why would its minions be able to attack? From what she knew, they basically evolved in this place due to the high concentrations of mana from the mana core.

“They’ve probably never seen biological life,” Maya said. If everything that came into this dimension died upon entering, unless they were lucky as hell, then would that mean the AI would not have known what Maya was? Perhaps she was a creature so alien to them that they didn’t understand fully what she was. Sure, they had attacked her, but that was only after she had struck first.

She chewed on the thought some more before coming to a hard decision. She had to test out her idea.

“Shit,” Maya muttered.

The storage room didn’t hold any more guards. As she approached the open door that lead into the room; she could hear the tell tale clicking of robotic feet.

Fear blossomed once again and she shoved that unwanted feeling back down as hard as she could.

She listened and determined that it was only one creature. It seemed to be patrolling, walking down the corridor and then returning back, a constant motion without stopping. She wondered why it hadn’t heard its compatriot being smashed to bits, but figured it didn’t matter.

She eased toward the door; seeing that it was like the medical room door. A sliding door with a handle on the inside. She gently nudged it and it slid forward without a sound.

The spider was walking away from her, so Maya cautiously looked out of the door. She saw that there was a convenient blue strip of light running down the corridor also. She wondered what it was before brushing aside the errant thought.

The spider was barely visible as it clicked along the corridor. She could make out its distinctive red light. From the size, it was another guard.

Her arms were trembling as she tapped the deck beside her loudly. The guard spider immediately stopped and spun around. Its red light blazing for a moment and seemingly staring at her. The small cone flashed, extending down the corridor and nearly causing Maya to flinch.

She had a test to accomplish. She held her position for a ten count as the spider continued to peer about looking for the source of the noise. Then she shook her head and ducked back into the storage room. The spider raced toward the storage room, its clicking feet thundering down the corridor.

Maya didn’t flee, instead she pushed herself up against the bulkhead and held the crowbar across her knees. The spider burst into the room, its cone of red light splashing against the racks and boxes, before panning down the room.

The light flashed across the bulkheads and across Maya before making another circuit around the room. The guard chittered something and then entered the storage room, the light narrowing and brightening.

It’s looking, Maya thought.

She sat stock still as the light came back around toward her again.

Maya steeled her nerves and then jerked her arm slightly.

The spider attacked instantaneously. Maya had thought she was prepared and that she was the one in control of the action, but the speed at which the spider went from scanning to jumping at her with its pointed legs aiming to kill, left her shocked for a second.

It was a second that caused her pain, as one pointed leg raked against her forearm, easily cutting her skin and causing a rush of blood. The pain was immense.

Maya nearly screamed, but she knew she had to focus on the monster before her. She flung out her injured arm, catching the spider in mid leap and received another piercing pain in her shoulder. The force of her strike send the lightweight spider to bounce against the bulkhead.

She was ready this time, feeling a surge of anger and rage, Maya burst forward and slammed the crowbar down upon the spider before it got back up. Like the first spider, it exploded into a mess of mechanical bits and black sludge.

Cursing, Maya rushed to the door and slid it closed. It clicked locked and she collapsed against the wall, breathing heavily. Her arm and shoulder throbbed, but she felt she had accomplished this small goal.

She hadn’t initiated an attack, but the spider guard had attacked her first. She had also been sitting as still as possible when it entered the room and its scans didn’t seem to have seen her.

Maya pulled out some small bandages from her inventory and began closing up her wounds. The cut on her forearm was superficial, but it was long. The wound in her shoulder wasn’t deep, also cutting across the skin. This spider seemed more of a slicer than a stabber.

“At this rate, I’ll have no clothes left,” Maya said as she felt another hole in her shirt. Her trousers were in tatters and bloodied, and her shirt had a multitude of holes in it, enough that it would be considered immodest in most situations. “Heck, I’ll go battle this boss AI bare breasted like some Amazonian Berserker.”

She flexed her hand and groaned, there was pain, but it wasn’t debilitating. She could keep crawling.

After ten minutes of crawling, Maya would give her soul for some morphine. The two aspirins she had swallowed weren’t cutting it. Her forearm was burning and her shoulder was the throbbing definition of agony.

“Whiskey for pain. Scotch for Pain,” was one of Pops favorite sayings. Since he loved scotch, what constituted Pain was an ever changing thing. He had claimed Pain when he broke his favor socket wrench.

With all her blood loss, Maya figured she’d only need a good whiff.

The Map showed she was nearing her destination.

The maintenance shafts had gotten a lot more roomier as it neared the engineering section of the ship. She wasn’t about to be eviscerated by the jutting bits of machinery that filled the tubes, so that was a plus.

A change had also begun as she continued down the shafts. Light began to diffuse into the tunnel. She couldn’t see the source, but as in the storage room, there was enough blue light for her not to need her flashlight. She could feel an almost electric tingle in the air, like ozone or the smell of fresh coffee in the morning.

The only thing Maya could assume was that it was mana. Nanaseto said the mana core would keep emitting the mana it collected, but Maya didn’t think it would be this much. She had assumed it was akin to solar panels. Sure you could say it collected and stored sunlight, but you didn’t actually see any sunlight coming out of it.

She had figured the mana core would be similar, but if there was enough mana to actually feel and see it, would that mean she was heading into high levels of mana?

What did Nanaseto say? A hundred or more gens would screw her up royally? What the hell was a gen anyway? Mutation was a word that sent a spike of fear down her spine.

“It’ll be cool if I regrow my missing eye, but don’t let me grow a third arm,” she muttered.

Maya reached the end of the road. The Map displayed that there was a large open area behind the last access panel. That panel lead to the mana core. She stared at the Map and tried to glean as much information out of it as possible.

It wasn’t a complete and detailed map. It just showed areas, corridors, and large machinery that did things for space ships. All of it was written in demon language anyway, so she didn’t know what the rest of it was. Engines, atmosphere generators, bad ass gravity field makers? Just black spots on the Map that could mean anything.

The mana core was also a black spot, but it was marked in red.

Taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, Maya unlatched the access panel and nudged it open enough to peer into the engineering bay.

“Oh, shit,” Maya hissed.