On the way back from the arena, Lila was unusually silent. The fragmented whispers about "Destiny’s Ladder" hung over her thoughts like a dark cloud, lingering and unshakable. Beside her, Milo kept pace, his small frame hunched over. The joy of Milo’s mechanical spider’s victory felt so distant now.

  They walked a long stretch without speaking. The clamor of the underground market gradually faded into a low hum, replaced by the sound of dripping water from unseen pipes and the occasional clank of machinery echoing from the depths of Cyber Eye’s subterranean labyrinth. Lila’s mind churned, replaying images of broken bodies and shattered dreams, while Milo’s silence suggested he, too, was grappling with the terror of what they’d uncovered.

  Finally, Milo stopped at a rusty grate overlooking a lower level of the undercity—where rope bridges and flickering lights intertwined, and residents moved like shadows. He leaned against the railing, staring down, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. “I don’t want to go back yet. Not after… that.”

  Lila paused, glancing at him sideways. His face, usually lit with mischief or defiance, now looked haggard, his deep eyes revealing a weariness beyond his twelve years. She let out a short breath through her nose—a sound that might’ve been a scoff on any other day—then leaned on the railing beside him. “Yeah. I get it. That place…” She trailed off, her sharp tongue failing her this time. “It’s not something you can just shake off. I don’t really feel like going back right now either. Can you take me around some more?”

  Milo nodded, fiddling with a loose screw on the railing.

  Lila didn’t answer right away. She tilted her head back, gazing at the jagged ceiling where industrial pipes twisted like veins. The low hum of Cyber Eye’s machinery buzzed in her ears, a stark contrast to the tomb-like silence behind them. After a moment, she spoke, her voice lower than usual, stripped of its typical edge. “I grew up in a place like that. Not a tower, but a dump. The 66th Waste Reclamation Zone. Just a pit full of trash and broken promises.”

  Milo turned to her, curiosity flickering through the heaviness in his chest. “A dump?”

  “Trash heap,” she clarified, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a bitter smile. “Starships, busted tech, anything the Federation Corp. didn’t want—they dumped it there. I didn’t have parents, just an old scrap manager named Garza. He caught me stealing circuit boards when I was seven. Didn’t turn me in, though. Gave me a corner to stash my loot and left me alone.”

  She leaned forward, elbows on the railing, her gaze distant. “I learned everything from that trash. How to splice a comms unit, how to crack an old nav system, how to make useless stuff work again. No books, no exams—just me and the wrecks. By twelve, I’d hacked my first relay station. Just to see if I could.”

  Milo’s eyes widened slightly, the mechanic in him stirring. “You taught yourself all that? No teachers?”

  “Didn’t need them,” Lila said, shrugging. “The trash was my teacher. The Federation Corp. threw out stuff that still worked on the outer colonies—old codes, old systems. I figured out their patterns, their weak spots. It made me realize their ‘perfection’ is just recycled garbage with a shiny coat of paint.”

  Milo let out a dry chuckle, his voice low and rough. “Beats Otis’s damn exam books any day. He’s always on my case about getting certified—‘It’s your way out, Milo!’” He mimicked Otis’s gruff tone, then dropped it with a scowl. “After seeing that ‘Ladder,’ I’ll never trust anything the Federation Corp., up there, hands out.”

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  Lila snorted, a bit of her usual sharpness returning. “Not bad, little punk! Those exams are just chains with extra steps. They don’t teach you to create—they teach you to obey. I’d rather die in a trash heap than let their system wire my brain.”

  Milo kicked the grate, sending a faint clang echoing down the shaft. “Otis doesn’t get it. He thinks if I pass, I’ll get a cushy job, live up top in one of those glass towers. But I’ve seen what happens to people who try. The ‘Ladder’ is just the loudest lie—they’re all traps.”

  Lila studied him for a moment, the edges of her sharp green eyes softening slightly. She recognized that tone—the mix of anger and resignation. It was the same one she’d carried through years of scavenging and running. “You’re not wrong,” she said finally. “The Federation Corp.’s built on traps. Better life, safety, all that sweet talk—it’s bait. You take it, they own you. Or you end up like…” She jerked her head toward the direction of the “Ladder,” unwilling to finish the thought.

  Milo’s hands tightened on the railing, his knuckles whitening. “I just want to build stuff. Like that spider, like the junk I tinker with in the corner. I don’t need their towers or their rules. Why can’t Otis see that?”

  Lila straightened up, crossing her arms. “Because he’s old, and he’s scared. People like him—people who’ve been ground down—they cling to what they know. For him, that certificate’s the only path he ever saw. Doesn’t mean he’s right. Just means he’s stuck.”

  Milo looked up at her, his mechanical monocle catching the light. “But you’re not like that. You don’t buy their crap. Why’d you join Ethan’s team?”

  The question caught her off guard. Lila’s jaw tightened, and for a second, she considered brushing it off with a snarky quip. But Milo’s earnest stare—maybe an echo of her own younger self—made her pause. She turned her gaze to the sprawling undercity below, where lights flickered like defiant stars in the dark.

  “When Ethan found me, I was fixing rigs for a smuggling crew,” she said quietly. “Good gig, decent pay, but the second I stopped being useful, they’d sell me out. Ethan didn’t come at me with a job offer. He said, ‘We need you.’ Not my skills, not my hacks—me.” She shook her head slightly, as if still puzzled by it. “First time anyone ever said that and meant it.”

  Milo tilted his head, digesting her words. “So you trust him?”

  “Trust?” Lila let out a short, harsh laugh. “I don’t trust anybody, kid. People leave. People betray. People die.” Her voice faltered on that last word, an image of Jake’s twisted grin flashing through her mind—his body swallowed by the explosion at Ashen Vale. She clenched her fists, shoving the memory down. “But if there’s a place worth sticking around for, worth figuring out… maybe it’s this. The Rebirth Team’s not perfect, but it’s not a lie either.”

  Milo nodded slowly, his expression softening. “Kinda like this place.” He gestured vaguely at the undercity. “Messy, busted up, but real. Not like the Federation Corp.’s shiny towers.”

  “Yeah,” Lila agreed, a rare hint of warmth creeping into her tone. “Real’s worth something.”

  They fell into a comfortable silence, the distant hum of the undercity wrapping around them like a shield. Milo pulled a small gear from his pocket, rolling it between his fingers—a nervous tic. Lila watched him, then reached into her own jacket, pulling out a battered multitool she’d carried since her trash heap days. She flipped it open, revealing a tiny soldering tip, and held it out to him.

  “Your spider fixed yet?” she asked, nodding at the gear. “Those hydraulics were crap in the last fight. You need something sturdier if you wanna keep winning.”

  Milo’s face lit up, the shadow of the “Ladder” momentarily forgotten. “You’ll help me?”

  “Help?” Lila smirked, her old bite back in full. “I’ll show you how to do it right, so I don’t have to keep bailing your ass out. But tomorrow—six sharp. You bring all your gear, and if I see any junk, you’re done.”

  Milo grinned, a genuine, lopsided smile that made him look younger than his years. “Deal.”

  Lila pushed off the railing, stretching her arms with a groan. “Come on, let’s wander a bit more. I’m not ready to face Tara’s yelling or Otis’s nagging yet.”

  Milo hopped up, falling in step beside her. “Me neither. The market’s got a new batch of parts—wanna check it out?”

  “Twist my arm,” Lila quipped, and they headed deeper into the undercity’s chaotic embrace, two kindred spirits finding solace in the hum of machinery and the promise of creation amid a world of deceit.