Donahue Morgan whistled as Dominic met his “Honor Guard” in the lobby of the Casino’s central security and main vault. The motley crew consisted of himself, Brandon Ramirez from the ACME team, the troublemaker mut from the Utopia team, and Ava Gadro from the Luna AI team.

  It was genius in a way. By utilizing one player from each of the full teams, he was insulated from obvious collaborations and double-crosses. With each guard likely having their own team watching their backs; he essentially had a small army protecting him from rogues and bad NPC elements.

  The glow coming off Dominic was palpable as he exited the vault. Dominic wanted to shield his eyes, but his augs tamped down the signal before he had to.

  “Excellent! I'm glad to see you all are here and eager to earn a quick buck. Just make sure that I get through the next level gate, and you all get paid.” Dominic said with good cheer. Contrary to everyone else, Brandon had a sour look. He spoke up.

  “How do we know you’re not going to go through and stiff us? I thought you’d be paying up front.” The ACME man crossed his arms with a frown. Donahue eyed him close. His “extra assignment” was to cover for potential betrayals from the dog man, but he flicked his Laser reticule to focus on Brandon. Unlike most, he’d developed the skill into its third tier and taken the option to double his laser emitters.

  “Calmly, everyone. I see how that could be concerning, but rest assured I am dealing straight. I never said I would pay upfront. Where I come from payment is delivered AFTER the work is done. You don’t need to worry about me leaving you high and dry. Casino coins are worthless anywhere but on this level. Ask anyone.” Dominic said with an easy smile.

  Donahue had heard the same rumors when researching the Labyrinth on the DarkNet and grunted. Ava Gadro also inclined her mech head with an affirmative chiming sound. Brandon didn’t look too satisfied.

  “Look, the choice is yours. Walk away now if you don’t like the deal. I’d prefer four guards, but three should be enough. Are you in or out?” Dominic’s chiseled features showed only confidence, while Brandon thought it over.

  “Fine! Let’s get this over with.” Brandon said. Dominic clapped and smiled.

  “Excellent. I’ll send you each a low-level access request for a temporary group network. Please link in and we'll get things in motion.”

  Donahue blinked and his HUD floated up.

  When he accepted, the group net bloomed across his HUD, and Donahue’s WorldMap expanded as everyone’s sense feed contributed with info to fill in the gaps.

  “Alright. Let’s go. Slow and steady, but weapons out and primed. We don’t want to spook anyone but also not encourage them. The Casino security chief, Bruno, mentioned that while his guards and drones will be out on the floor, I’m specifically not his problem as I’ve already declared my intent to leave the floor.”

  “Anyone spies trouble, alert the group. If I say run, I’ll paint the map with a route. Max and Donahue take the lead. Brandon and Ava, cover my back. Let’s do it!”

  Donahue sniggered to himself at everyone’s appearance. Dominic looked like a superhero with a shield and sword in hand and more weapons strapped to his sides and back. Max with his ridiculous fur and canine appearance at odds with his extra blade arms. Brandon’s sported a massive hammer that he swung about like it weighed nothing, while Ava's whole mech body bristled with blades and gun ports.

  Donahue took point, his keen senses and enhanced laser augments ready to detect and neutralize any threats. The group moved with purpose, their eyes scanning for any signs of danger as they made their way towards the next level gate. He highlighted any player character or NPC with obvious weapons for the group HUD as they traveled.

  “[Moran! Monitor EM traffic. I wanna know if there’s any chatter.]” he sent internally.

  “[There’s always chatter, Donny. We just need to filter the gold from the dross. I still think this Dominic is a fool. When our turn comes, I would suggest a massive decoy and sprint without all this pomp and circus!]”

  “[Just keep it sharp. These ain’t my monkeys and not my circus.]”

  Donahue spotted both his teammates, Reeves and Vanessa, on the outskirts of the crowd of NPCs celebrating the armed parade. The food vendors were doing good business and party horns and firecrackers were in abundance within the bustling crowd of partygoing NPCs and players. Donahue cursed the distractions.

  He nodded discreetly to his teammates. They had a deal that any money earned was split across the team, so they would get a piece of this mini mission. Moran had been nagging him that the team was overdue to send their data to DAIE HQ. After this chore, he needed to visit the business center. The job was always getting in the way of his fun.

  He side-eyed Max, looking for any signs of trouble. The dumb kid’s tongue was out, and his damn tail was wagging! The fucking punk was enjoying himself like this was a walk in the park. Donahue stifled a groan. The chump was unlikely to be a turncoat, but also unlikely to be watching for external threats.

  The crew marched steadily, keeping the riffraff from getting too close. Watcher drones filled the sky, but the group’s collective vanguard of scout and offensive drones were already overhead providing screening cover and preventing any flyovers. Only one got too close, and Ava shot a focused NERF at it; making it veer off and power away quickly. The Cherenkov glow coming from Dominic’s money pouch was distracting and kept creeping into the WorldMap visual channels.

  “[Level gate is just ahead.]” Dom sent over the chat line. Donahue grinned already planning his new bet lines with the extra credits when Moran alerted him to trouble.

  “[Boss. Trouble 2 o’clock and 5 stories up. Looks like a cloaked player!]”

  Donahue focused on the target; impressed with Moran's attention to detail. The player was invisible, but subtle signs of heating were showing on the wall itself. He shared the data with the other guards.

  “[It’s Abigail from EuroSport.]” Max sent with a growl.

  “[Impressive. How did you ID her? I can barely detect her.]” Dominic sent. Max just chuffed under his breath, narrowing his eyes but not answering. Donahue reconsidered the kid. Maybe he did have more going on than he revealed.

  “[No worries, I’ve shared the target with my sniper teammate. He’s got her in his scope now. She makes a move, and he will take her down.]” Ava sent.

  “[Ok. A little faster now. Ten yards and we have defensive cover while I cycle the gate.]” Dominic sent.

  The team set up a perimeter and Dominic cycled his treasure into the kiosk beside the door. The insistent glare of radiation faded as the 1 mil credit grandmaster chip was safely deposited. Donahue snorted as the massive doors slid into the walls and clouds of foglets spilled out.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The Labyrinth AIs always overdo the theatrics, he thought to himself.

  “Alright. Thank you all for your help. Look me up on the outside. If I get deep enough, I’ll be a shoo-in for the next round of the Diamond Man.” Dominic saluted and passed out four casino money pouches with the promised chips.

  He turned and stalked into the fog without another word and the doors banged shut behind him. The shared team net snapped off when the portal closed, and everyone backed away with their prizes. Donahue scanned his pouch and smiled. Sure enough, just over 60,000 credits were inside.

  “[Don’t forget the business center. Our team's update to HQ is overdue. No stopping for bets or drinks.]” Moran sent.

  “[Jesus. Nag, nag, nag. I'm not a disembodied daemon like you. I'm human. I got needs. No, stop the lecture. I'm going, already.]” Donahue stalked into the side streets, angling deeper into the NPC sections.

  Moran clicked to himself. His last order from Moriarity was to embed a full report on Max’s progress and training advancements, buried and encrypted within the DAIE report. He didn't know why Moriarity needed the info, or Zero-One more likely since it was no secret who Moriarity was working for, but he followed his orders. Moriarty was scary smart, and whatever angle he was playing was above Moran’s pay grade.

  Max entered the business center and was surprised to see another player engaged with the supervisor NPC Trevor. He had never seen anyone else use the services. The pair, Trevor and Donahue from the DAIE team, had been dickering over the price of sending a message. Both stopped silent and looked at him when he entered abruptly.

  “Ah, Max. I'll be with you in just a moment.” Trevor said and turned back to Donahue. Although the pair talked quietly, Max’s enhanced hearing easily picked it all up.

  “Now then. I can certainly send your missive at the described rates, but you’ve pre-encrypted this instead of utilizing our services for it. I'm afraid this is not customary. We guarantee unbreakable encryption with our services. All players also must abide by our standard NDA clause regarding details of the Labyrinth levels and challenges. I'm afraid that this message could violate these rules and be vulnerable.”

  Trevor folded his arms and backed away from his counter just a bit. Donahue looked irritated and with a slight glance back toward Max, dug into his uniform pockets.

  “Look here. This mem chip has the unencrypted message to my daughter, you can keep this on file if you want for your records. This means a lot to me…you trust me, right?” Donahue soothed, placing the chip on the counter and sliding it over.

  Max pretended to be viewing the center's rates and statistical displays of the Casino’s record tracking, but he heard more than one chip. It sounded more like a stack of chips. He saw through his world map sweep that several thousand credit chips had accompanied the mem chip. Trevor hurriedly covered the chips and responded.

  “Ah…yes. This should be fine. I see that the encrypted file and the unencrypt have the same storage size, so I have no reason not to trust you. Good customers like you are a boon to this humble android's dreary day. Thank you for your patronage.” Trevor slotted the encrypted chip into the transmission terminal's slot and then swept the unencrypted version into a drawer under the counter, along with the other credit chips.

  “Hehe. We speak the same language, mister supervisor. I plan to be here for a while and will probably be back. Here’s a tip, for excellent service.” Donahue said, sliding yet another thousand credit chip over.

  “My rusted servos thank you. Come back soon.” Trevor’s faceplate beamed with good humor. Donahue gave Max a curt nod as he sauntered out the door. Max turned and saw that Trevor’s expression had changed. He looked annoyed.

  “[Hah! This android is dirtier than your fur was when you spent the night in the trash pile.]” House crowed in his head.

  “[Indeed, he looks annoyed. He probably would have pressed for a bigger bribe if you hadn't been in the room.]” Sherlock observed. Max focused on Trevor, trying to be positive.

  “Back again. I see. I don't recall seeing any messages since the last four times you've visited.” Trevor said with disdain. Max bit his tongue to avoid retorting. It had been a couple of days since he had sent his message to his father. Max knew his dad was distracted and distant at the best of times, but even he should have responded by now. Max noted Trevor’s fingers tapping on the counter and grimaced in understanding.

  “Um. Could you maybe check again? Maybe it's been mistakenly filed away. Here, use my room key number instead of my Aug ID.” Max made a show of fumbling his key and spilling several high-value chips on the counter. He smiled weakly.

  Trevor looked him up and down with slight surprise and glanced at the door. The office was once again quite deserted. He pulled the extra chips into his drawer and took the key.

  “One moment, let me check again,” Trevor said. He hummed a tune, horribly and off-key, as he worked on his archaic terminal. He bashed the side of the device several times.

  “Ah. You were correct, my good sir. It seems this bucket of silicone had this message in a junk mail folder. It seems the off-planet address confused the mailing daemon when it came to legitimizing it as valid incoming mail. It was quite lost, but with diligent work, I have recovered it.” Trevor said with a hopeful look, sliding over the mem chip that the machine had spit out.

  “[I would suggest another contribution, Max. You may need his assistance in the future.]” Sherlock advised.

  Holding back a growl, Max smiled with an excessive amount of teeth and took the chip…leaving a couple more thousand credit chips behind on the counter.

  “Thank you, Trevor. I'm so glad you found this. I really appreciate your hard work.” Max palmed the chip, accessing it even as he left the business center. The message was brief as he had requested.

  Max considered the message and opened discussions with his daemons while he navigated the twisty NPC resident alleys. Musashi spoke first.

  “[Casa’s advice is sound. That skill feels like wielding a broken sword, likely to hurt us as much as an enemy.]”

  “[Look, I get it but those skills have gotten us out of a lot of jams. Shouldn't I practice with them to better understand how they work?]” Max countered.

  “[Max, you’ve already gained several modern programming languages using your SkillZ ability. It's one thing to know a language and quite another to really grok it. You know what I mean. I know twelve and I can’t make any sense of those weird skills of yours.]”

  “[Hmm. I have been using the language and skill transfers a lot, but you're right. Even with the Chthonian language imprint, I can’t seem to predict the logic paths. Right, I need a better intuition on this. Cipher, set up a dream learning curriculum for tonight. I need to really understand this without leaning on my augmentation. My own mental ability has grown, I just need to put the time and effort into this.]”

  Max skidded to a halt as he saw a trio of familiar androids blocking his path. He crouched, ready to run or fight, when the center android spoke.

  “Max Mitchell, we meet again. My name is Tony Lombardi, or Lefty now, thanks to you.” The android’s plastic face sneered, holding up his mismatched left hand.

  “No need to worry tho’, that’s corrupted files in the delete bin, yeah? We’re here ta extend an invitation. Mr. Kane is playing at the high table tonight. He wants you there, yeah? You’s got an hour. I suggest you make sure yous got enough credit on hand for table stakes. Minimum buy-in is 10k per hand.”

  “Right…Look. I’d love to play cards with Mister Kane, but I’m in the multi-team event tomorrow. I really need to get ready, not stay out all night playing games.” Max said. He was about to spin and run when his team chat pinged.

  Max growled and clenched his fists. Tony smiled brightly and spoke again.

  “Hehe. I can see that you understand how it is now. Get yourself to the table on time and the kid will be just fine. Now get going. It would be a darn shame if we had ta teach another player who really runs tings here in da Casino. Da kids got some extra arms, maybe I don’t gotta settle for scrapyard mech components, eh?”