She ran.
The clearing stretched out ahead, open and flat. Just grass for fifty meters before the trees started. No cover. The soldiers could see her from back there. All fourteen of them.
She'd seen what they could do when they were testing their abilities. How fast the fighters moved their practice swords. The destructive force when they hit things. And the most impressive, straight out of a movie, the leader and one other person levitating objects. Telekinesis.
And I'm a damn engineer.
Her legs moved faster than they should. Faster than she'd ever run before. She knew that somehow. And she wasn't getting tired. No burning in her muscles, no gasping for air, no sweat on her skin. Her body wasn't the same one she'd had before.
The spiders. The ones that attacked these...
She looked back once. She saw them standing there in formation, watching her.
Crazy bastards. Yeah. Perfect name for them.
The spiders attacked the crazy bastards. So they have to be around here somewhere.
She found the first destroyed spider, white metal crushed. Then another one, burned. Then five more scattered across the ground.
But something pulsed in her chest. Warm and insistent, like a second heartbeat that wasn't hers. The artifact. It pulled her attention left. Toward a cluster of trees where the forest started.
It's guiding me. Like a magnet.
She followed the sensation. It got stronger with each step and drew her forward. She climbed over broken branches where the soldiers had torn through. Stepped around exposed roots. The destruction was everywhere. Trees knocked down, bark stripped away.
The timer floated in the sky above her. White numbers in alien script she could somehow read.
[10:23]
Ten minutes. That was all she had.
The pulse led her to a small clearing. Just bare dirt and exposed stone. And there, lying on the ground and twitching, a spider.
Small, the size of her palm. White metal body with four blue optical sensors on its head. But it was dying. She could see that immediately. Sparks shot from the joints where its legs connected to the body. One leg hung at completely the wrong angle, broken. The blue lights in its eyes flickered. They dimmed, brightened, then dimmed again.
She knelt beside it.
Okay. Now what the hell do I do?
The spider jerked. Its legs spasmed. More sparks shot out. The lights were getting dimmer. Whatever power source it had was failing.
A highly advanced cybernetic spider that works like a 3D printer. And I have no damn idea how to fix it.
She reached for it. Needed to examine it. See if there was anything obvious she could...
Blue light erupted from her fingertips.
She fell backward, hit the ground hard and scrambled away on her hands and feet, staring at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
Ten threads of blue light. One from each finger. They extended about six inches from her fingertips, glowing bright and pulsing in rhythm with the warmth in her chest.
What the hell. What the hell is this.
She looked at the threads, then at the spider, then back at her hands. Her heart was hammering.
Everything about this place is insane. Nothing makes sense.
But she didn't have time. No time to be careful or figure out what was safe.
The timer was counting down.
She took a breath and reached for the spider again, slower this time, watching the threads extend as her hands approached. When all ten touched the spider's white metal surface, everything changed.
Her eyes went pure blue. Glowing.
The world disappeared.
Information flooded her mind. Not thoughts or memories, raw data. She could feel every mechanism inside the spider. Every single part. Every electrical connection threading through its body. The materials it was made from. Compounds she'd never seen before. She could see how it was formed. The exterior plating. The interior framework. The skeletal structure. The software running in its processor. How it was programmed. Every line of code.
The printing process. Layer by layer molecular assembly with precision down to the atomic level. She understood all of it. Could see it clearly like reading a schematic.
Oh god. I can see everything.
It was beautiful. Elegant and perfect engineering. Technology so far beyond anything she could imagine.
Then her HUD appeared. The blue screen materialized right in front of her face.
[INSUFFICIENT MEMORY]
[ENGINEER CLASS: STORAGE CAPACITY EXCEEDED]
[PURGING ALL DATA]
The trance shattered.
She gasped and fell forward, catching herself with both hands.
Blood dripped onto the dirt. She tasted copper, metallic. Her nose was bleeding.
No. No no no.
The worst part started. She could feel it happening, the information draining from her mind, evaporating. Like trying to hold water in cupped hands. A technological marvel. Even though the details were fading, she knew she'd never seen anything this advanced. Would probably never see anything like it again.
The structure, the programming, critical information, all of it slipping away.
She panicked.
If I forget this, I die. I die and those bastards win.
She looked around desperately and found a patch of bare dirt three feet away. Needed something to write with, a sharp rock, anything.
She scrambled to the nearest destroyed spider and reached for one of its legs. The blue threads started emerging from her fingers again, but she thought about stopping them and they stopped.
Mental control. I can control it.
She grabbed the leg and yanked hard. It snapped off at the joint, sharp at the broken end, thin. Made of something incredibly strong despite how small the spider was. The materials were solid and built to last.
She ran back to the dirt patch and dropped to her knees. Started writing.
The information was fading fast. Too fast, her brain couldn't hold it. Wasn't designed to store this much data.
Focus. What's most important? What do I need to survive?
First thing: repair instructions.
Her hand moved frantically across the dirt. The spider leg carved symbols into the dry earth. Alien script that she understood perfectly. Tools she could find nearby. Wiring connections she'd need to make. The spider's skeletal structure and which parts she could salvage from destroyed units.
But pieces were already gone. Whole sections of knowledge just... erased. She had to make choices. Write what she could. Risk that it would be enough.
Her hand cramped. She ignored it and kept writing faster.
Okay. Haven't forgotten the most important stuff yet.
Second thing: the programming.
This was critical. The spider wouldn't obey her without modification. She needed to write down how to connect to its code. How to make it accept her as its owner.
The programming was what had made Tera intervene. Whatever Tera was. The only thing helping her so far. If Tera hadn't stopped the download, her brain would have fried. She was sure of that.
The code had been beautiful. Perfect, she'd understood it completely. Could feel it was connected to something much larger, something massive. But from what little remained in her fading memory, she knew the location. The specific block of code she needed to modify. The exact changes required.
It was possible because the spider was insignificant. Meaningless to the larger system running this place. Compared to the other things she'd glimpsed but couldn't remember now. Like dreams slipping away the moment you wake up.
She finished writing the programming instructions. The alien symbols looked correct, had to be correct.
And the moment she finished, all that code vanished from her mind. Completely erased.
She felt a stab of sadness. That beautiful code was gone. She'd never remember it now.
But staying alive matters more than remembering.
Third thing: functions.
What the spider could print. What commands it would respond to.
She looked at the sky.
[7:02]
Seven minutes.
She could only choose one function, had to be something that would keep her alive.
Twelve commands existed in her fading memory. Ten were completely unnecessary for her current situation—structural printing that required multiple spiders working in coordination, five to thirty units minimum. Useless to her.
That left two possible functions.
And the information was still fading. Dissolving like sugar in water.
She scanned through what remained and picked one, something she could actually use right now, something that had materials available nearby.
Six minutes. Less than six minutes now.
She did the math quickly. Three minutes to repair and program the spider. Three minutes to figure out how to survive with whatever it could make.
And then all the information was gone. Her mind was empty, only what she'd scratched into the dirt remained. And she knew with absolute certainty that downloading it again would kill her. The system had said insufficient memory. Trying to force more data in would be fatal.
She ran to another destroyed spider. Grabbed it with both hands, heavy, the metal was dense. She hauled it back to her dirt instructions.
Okay. Focus. Follow what you wrote.
The damage to the functional spider was in its printing mouth. She could see that clearly now. The spider had a needle-like appendage in its mouth, tiny, the width of a pin. Everything it printed extruded from there. Layer by layer construction.
The printing mouth was burned, blackened and ruined.
But the rest of the spider was fine. Intact. According to what she'd written... the programming considered the printing mouth the spider's primary function. If it was damaged, the whole unit was designated for disposal. She only needed to fix that one component.
She pulled the printing mouth from the spare spider. Careful, it was incredibly delicate, thin as a needle but longer than her finger.
Then she looked at her instructions.
Repair mode required a specific sequence. She had to touch the spider's four eyes in exact order. The pattern was written clearly in the dirt.
At least I wrote this part perfectly before forgetting everything.
She followed the sequence. First eye. Top left. Second eye. Bottom right. Third eye. Top right. Fourth eye. Bottom left.
Beep.
The spare spider opened. Panels along its body separated like scales pulling back. The entire mechanical interior was exposed, gears, wiring, the quantum processor glowing faint blue, the power core pulsing.
She reached in carefully and found the printing mouth assembly. Disconnected it at three points. The needle came free in her hand.
She set it down gently and turned to the spider she was actually going to use.
Her hands were shaking. She forced them steady.
Same sequence. Touch the eyes in order.
Beep.
It opened. The damaged printing mouth was obvious, burned black and partially melted.
She disconnected it and removed it completely, then took the good one from the spare. Connected it at the same three points. Felt it click into place.
Part replacement complete.
She entered the eye sequence again to close maintenance mode. The panels sealed and the spider looked whole again.
Now: programming.
Her heart was racing. She looked at the timer.
[4:47]
Less than five minutes.
How do I connect to its code?
She was so stressed she almost forgot. Then she looked at the dirt and read what she'd written.
It wasn't really an instruction. More like a theory.
The blue threads.
Theory: Use one thread from index finger. Think the word 'programming' repeatedly. Connection should establish.
I'm a guinea pig. This is all theory. No idea what happens.
But there was no time to hesitate.
She held her index finger close to the spider's head. Thought the word over and over. Programming. Programming. Programming.
The thread extended and touched the spider's white metal surface.
Her HUD appeared.
Code scrolled across the blue screen. The spider's entire programming architecture, thousands of lines, maybe tens of thousands.
It worked. Holy shit, it actually worked.
She read what she'd written in the dirt and found the code block she needed and started searching through the display
There.
The ownership designation. Currently set to: SYSTEM_DEFAULT.
She could feel the connection through her finger. Like the spider's code was an extension of her thoughts. She focused on the block and thought about deleting it.
It erased.
She looked at the dirt and read what she'd written as replacement code.
Thought it into existence.
The new code appeared on the screen. Owner: OPERATOR. Status: PRIMARY_USER. Command_Authority: ABSOLUTE.
Finally. Something going right.
She disconnected and pulled her finger back. The thread retracted.
She entered the eye sequence one more time. Final shutdown of maintenance mode.
The printing mouth changed color. From metallic silver to deep red.
Then all four of the spider's eyes lit up. Bright red and threatening.
The spider's legs spasmed. It flipped upright and stood.
It turned toward her. The red eyes focused and locked on.
Oh no.
The spider tensed. Preparing to attack, she'd seen spiders jump on the soldiers. This one was about to do the same to her.
Then it spasmed again. It jerked sideways and collapsed.
Dead.
No. No, I did everything right. I followed the instructions exactly.
Five seconds passed.
She stared at it. Willing it to move.
The spider twitched.
Stood up.
The red eyes looked at her. But different now, not threatening, just observing.
A robotic voice emerged from somewhere inside its body.
"Awaiting orders, Operator."
She wanted to scream, wanted to celebrate, but she couldn't make noise or let the soldiers know something had gone right.
She celebrated silently with fists clenched and a fierce grin on her face.
Then she looked at the sky.
[3:11]
Three minutes.
She turned and looked toward where she'd left the soldiers. They were standing in a line, all of them, perfectly spaced, watching her direction.
Too far away to see details. They'd probably watched her running around. Writing on the ground. Kneeling by the spiders. Looking like a complete lunatic.
They're waiting. Just waiting for the timer to hit zero. Then they hunt me.
She looked at the spider and at her instructions in the dirt.
One command. One function. The only thing I found that might let me survive.
She read it again and made sure she had it right.
Then she spoke clearly.
"Spider functionalities. Nano threads."