"Oh my! That was a doozy and a half. Thank you for the assistance, though I'm sure I would have found my way back eventually. There's just so much to take in! So many options, and I can see outside the museum now! ...Tsk, what a sorry state this mall is."

  Phanya loudly cleared her throat to interrupt ASCII's tsking. "That is super awesome and I bet you really want to get cleaning, but can we please handle the raiders first? We need to kick them out before they can gear up and attack Fableton!"

  "Oh yes of course miss, my apologies. Let me check how I can locate them." ASCII's face shifted to a triangular hourglass that flipped every few seconds, before he suddenly rocked back in disgust. "Ugh, what was that!? I think I just tasted every pair of shoes on my floors at once. Is that what tasting is like??"

  Tapper laughed, harshly. "Sensory overload, friend! Just wait until you have to handle grub worms! I suggest you find a good piece of synthetic plastic to keep on hand."

  ASCII stared at Tapper for a long second before he turned to Phanya. "I'm sorry miss, I don't know how I would even begin to interact with each individual interloper, but I shall look through the menu for other options. Hrm, and now it is saying that a reset is required before I can make any further choices, it's only letting me choose what kind of reset I want. Oh, but one of them has a handy-dandy warning that it will expel all residents. How convenient!"

  "Yeah great, hit that and let's get gone, folks," Phanya said, clearly growing frustrated at the lack of urgency from everyone else. "Thanks a bunch for all your help, uh, As-Key!"

  "Always a pleasure to serve, miss! Do come by and visit the museum again sometime!" A quick round of thank-you's, both genuine and snarky, and the computer screen returned into an hourglass as ASCII busied himself with reading messages.

  A new klaxon blared through the museum, matched with a gentle but persistent rumble beneath their feet, and Steffo clasped both of his companions on the shoulders. "That's our cue. There's one way out, so while everyone funnels through the main doors we might run into some trouble. I can lead us around most of them, but —"

  "Excuse me, Steffo," ASCII interjected, his face returned to attention and looking concerned. "Did you say the main doors? I can only sense rubble where the front doors should be, and I can — ugh — taste all the boots running towards the Hunting Lodge."

  Steffo's greenish skin somehow turned a more sickly shade and he gulped. "Seriously? Someone collapsed the doors? Those sick bastards…"

  Phanya slapped her friend on the shoulder, and a second time hard enough for him to feel. "Hey, focus! What's so bad about going to the Hunting Lodge? Is that their armory?"

  "No, worse. It means they're trying to leave through the subway. We can't do that! ASCII you gotta stop the reset, we need to think of something else!"

  "I - I'm trying, but I'm locked out! I'm sorry, I can't stop it!"

  "Steffo!" Phanya grabbed him by both shoulders to make the big man focus on her. "What's wrong with the subway? Lots of guards?"

  Steffo focused on Phanya for a moment, but his eyes were already bugging with panic. "No you don't understand, no one can just walk the tracks! If you go in there without a car then you'll die!"

  The yelling continued back and forth, gaining volume and losing coherence until all communicating ceased. Tapper couldn't voice his confusion until he yelled at full volume, "Oi! It's fine, my friend. I have a vehicle!" All three faces turned to Tapper in utter bewilderment.

  "I can't believe it, the robot just… has a car." Phanya heaved a melodramatic sigh as they all stepped into the garage, taking a maintenance stairwell shortcut directly to the looming vehicle. "Finds magic, finds a car. Wouldn't even surprise me if Tapper was the first to get a social account too…"

  Phanya's grumblings went unheard by the other two, as Tapper happily recounted everything he learned about the car and Steffo relished the opportunity to drive something featured in the museum. "I can't believe it; this is a real Armored Personnel Carrier from Herkimer Industries! One of the most popular vehicles in the Water Wars, they called these things jitneys! And it's running!"

  Phanya nudged the pile of discarded robot parts with her foot, musing how Tapper really managed to defeat Drillbert on his own. The threat of the mining robot felt like a lifetime ago, and now she watched Tapper slot himself into the remaining pair of legs, modifying himself without even pretending to ask her first. "Is that really so surprising after everything we've seen here? And weren't you just wearing ancient tech?"

  "Well sure, ASCII maintained the battle suit but this car's just been sitting out here and..." Steffo's voice trailed off when he looked up from the dashboard and saw the face Phanya was making at him. "Right, not important now. I'm a little nervous, I've never driven anything before but I've read the history of this tech so many times that I think I can at least get us moving. Buckle your seatbelts, everyone!"

  "What's a seatbelt?"

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  A couple thinly-veiled threats from Phanya to keep everyone focused later, and the vehicle lurched into motion. It lurched a great deal, both from Steffo getting a feel for the controls and the multi-point turn required to get it unstuck from the wall, and the chatter fell silent as everyone focused on not bouncing around inside the harsh metal box. Once that finished, the journey through the parking garage was relatively peaceful.

  Steffo kept the speed to a minimum as they rumbled down the ramps and he ran over octolusk egg clutches without bothering to avoid them. The organic traps, once an existential threat to Tapper, didn't make anything beyond a muffled wumph through the jitney's armor. Oddly, he only felt pity for the horrible little things.

  The truck lurched to a stop towards the end of the parking garage, as they rounded a corner and came upon the aftermath of a massacre. Over a dozen raiders lay dead in the welcome room that Tapper had initially entered the mall through, with scorch marks still smoldering on the walls.

  "What in the hell happened here?" Phanya whispered.

  "Like I said, trouble." Steffo took a long breath at the sight and continued, "Everyone who didn't have a security pass had to take the long way around, so by the time they got here some of the cars were already gone. Not enough seats to go around and..." The dead silence filled in the rest.

  Tapper's social programming knew that this was a sad scene of pointless death, but his feelings were more concerned with the waste of loot. "Should we maybe do something for the bodies? Did your brother's organizational culture have any funeral rites? I would be happy to assist."

  Phanya studied Tapper out the side of her eye and pointed at the slight swing of the light fixtures. "Whatever the museum bot started is getting stronger, we are not going to wait around and find out what happens when it's done."

  Steffo nodded in agreement and urged the vehicle forward, but stopped again after taking the final turn. Here the wall of the parking lot opened into a wide platform, with simple bench seating and the remains of a dozen electric signs hung limply from the ceiling. Past the benches the platform dropped from sight, a curtain of deep darkness covering the expanse beyond where light feared to reach.

  "And here we are, the metro station." Steffo's voice was steady, but his eyes never left the void ahead and the steering wheel rattled slightly under his white-knuckle grip. "It's real simple, we just have to drive slow and pull over whenever a sub wants to pass by. And be very very very quiet, don't make a sound and don't move an inch and everything will be just fine."

  Steffo was talking to himself as much as his passengers, and nearly leapt out of his seat when Tapper placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "It is quite alright, Mist — I mean, it's okay, Steffo. We believe in you, and to help with your stealthy requirements I shall shut down both my speaker and all motor functions. I'll be completely immobile and silent, but just know that I'll be rooting for you internally all the while."

  The young man coughed once in laughter and shook his head clear of the paralyzing anxiety. "Thanks buddy, that is weirdly comforting."

  Tapper nodded, wedged himself into a crevice under a seat where he hopefully wouldn't fall over, and extended his good hand in a thumbs-up before his entire body went rigid. Logically, Tapper knew that shutting down for a sleep cycle was the easier and more sensible option, but he was curious. Curious about what his friend feared in the dark, curious about what secrets the wide world held, and he didn't want to miss any of it.

  The jitney tilted dangerously for a brief moment when it mounted an access ramp not meant for large vehicles and leveled out with a violent lurch, but despite Steffo's apologizing that was the worst of it. A few small bumps later and the vehicle straddled the rail lines, leading them out of the mall and into darkness. For all the anxiety and buildup the first several minutes of travel were remarkably dull, not a sound except the wheels turning under their feet and not a sight except for dim lights overhead that did little more than announce their presence.

  Phanya was ready to start making awkward small talk to break up the silence when Steffo suddenly lurched the wheel, throwing the vehicle off the tracks and stopping when they scraped against the wall of the tunnel. "What the hell was —"

  A meaty hand cut Phanya off, covering most of her face while Steffo's other hand raised a finger to his lips. The message was clear, but craning her neck Phanya couldn't see the cause for alarm. She felt the rumbling from the mall intensify, and she was so focused on it that she nearly yelped when a hand slapped against the car's window from the outside.

  Just a regular human hand from a regular human raider, his voice muffled by the armor but his frantic tapping still clearly saying that he would very much like to join them inside the vehicle, please. Yet Steffo didn't respond and didn't open the door, didn't move a muscle aside from dropping his hand from Phanya's face. The other hand stayed in its shush position while Steffo turned just enough to look Phanya in the eye, whispered, "Don't look," and squeezed his eyes shut.

  Phanya followed the example, and when the car rocked slightly she managed to keep quiet, but her hands sought purchase on instinct. She found Steffo's hand, shaking violently, and gripped it with both of her own, and together they rode out the gentle rocking in silence.

  Tapper wasn't so lucky. Lacking the foresight to shut off his optical sensors before freezing his body, Tapper had the perfect vantage point to satisfy his curiosity and learn something new about the world. He learned that the tunnels below Fableton were home to monsters — not in the adventuring sense, but actual monsters beyond the ken of both logic and magic.

  A smooth metal carapace filled the tunnel, any further detail lost to the yellow spotlight that swept through the cabin and blurred Tapper's vision. Its passage was followed by another light and more, countless yellow squares that ran down the side of the carapace lengthwise. Each one contained a single black circle, large and pulsing and dark as the void, that roamed within the glowing expanse.

  They were eyes, and when the hapless raider tried to run away they all tracked his movement. The monster followed along at a lazy pace, for its size, and a vertical slit opened on its side between the row of eyes. Steam billowed out, obscuring whatever it held save for the sense of many things moving, and a massive tongue whipped out. Long, slimy, and undeniably fleshy, it wrapped around the raider's waist and dragged him kicking and screaming into the maw. The panel slid shut, a computerized voice said something about minding the gap, and with a great chugging the metro monster continued its journey.

  Tapper was no longer curious about the world. And when he calmed down enough to stop internally screaming, he went into sleep mode instead.