The dungeon had started with nine rooms and a staircase that drained the wrong way. Frank knew because he'd mended something in eight rooms before the first winter, then spent most of that winter emptying a bucket at the foot of the stairs. He had written a report on the staircase. Someone filed it under seasonal moisture. He'd never understood how a staircase could have a season.
Twenty years later the dungeon occupied six levels, with three more under construction. The banquet fountain leaked, the cafeteria opened when it felt like it, and water still gathered at the staff entrance. Frank had marked the staircase urgent twice and routine eleven times. When he stopped reporting it, Moss noticed within a week. Procurement hadn't noticed in fourteen years.
He stood in that puddle, inspecting the staff door. Fourteen years earlier he'd wedged scrap brass beneath its sagging hinge. The brass was now wearing through, and Procurement's promised replacement had yet to appear. He kept the promise slip in his toolbox for anyone who claimed he'd never requested it.
"If you keep touching that, they'll put it on your list," said a voice behind him.
Moss came down the steps with orders under one arm and coffee in her free hand, tilting the mug away from a drip overhead. She looked at the puddle before looking at Frank. Her ears flattened, but she stepped through it anyway.
"Already is on my list," Frank said. "Twice."
"Well, there's proof our records are accurate, at least." Moss pulled the orders from under her arm and handed them to Frank. "Construction opened the third floor early. Balik can argue with the builders about the banquet room. I need you in west corridor. Somebody wrecked it last night."
"I waited for the clearance bell last night, then went in for the broken furniture," Frank said. "Someone piled chairs over the emergency drain."
Moss stopped trying to drink her coffee. "And the drain?"
"Still there. Two chairs and a wardrobe on top of it." Frank checked the next order. "You're giving the banquet room to Balik?"
Moss winced over her coffee. "Balik gets the banquet room. You get west corridor."
New hires sometimes stared at Frank's hands until he picked up a screw and turned it. His fingers were useful for that. When a joint loosened, a pin and wire generally set it right. He felt pressure through the bones and not much else; Moss's coffee smelled sour enough to offend everyone on the stairs but him. Her annoyance, however, was plain enough to read.
"I'll need the large scraper," he said.
"That's the problem. The tool room was meant to open at sixth bell, but the Core put an authorization refresh on the lock. I can't find anyone permitted to clear it."
"It's seventh bell."
"As soon as I find a person with permission to touch it."
Frank squared the stack of orders against his forearm. "Who signed off on a lock that keeps maintenance out of its own tools?"
"I asked the Core what an authorization refresh meant. It sent me the same notice again." Moss took another drink of coffee and grimaced.
The ceiling gave a delighted little chime.
"Did I hear my name?" asked the Dungeon Core.
Moss closed her eyes. Frank pressed his thumb against the loose hinge and felt it click beneath the Core's chime.
"Morning, Chief," Moss said.
"Good morning, team! How are my favorite people?"
"Waiting on a tool-room lock," Frank told him.
"Oh, Frank, you and your practical concerns. That's why I like having you around. Other workers might have started the morning with a positive thought."
Frank had heard that compliment before. The Core had once given it to a supply mimic after the thing ate a month's inventory.
"Actually, I've got something to improve everybody's mood," the Core continued before either of them could answer. "Why did the skeleton miss work?"
"Couldn't say, Chief," Moss replied, lifting her coffee to hide her expression.
"He had no body to cover his shift!" The Core paused, apparently waiting for laughter loud enough to echo.
Moss gave the obliging laugh she used for management. The Core left the silence hanging. Frank still needed the tool-room door open.
"Good one, Chief," he said, though the Core had used that joke on him at least eight times. "About the tool room?"
"You see? Team spirit! Now, Frank, I have something special to discuss with you. Please report to the personnel alcove before commencing work."
"Tool room first," Frank said.
"Personnel first. Big day!"
The sound withdrew from the ceiling. Moss sipped her coffee again.
"What did you do?" she asked.
"Nothing that I know of."
"That's what worries me."
The personnel alcove had once held cleaning cloths. Now it contained a desk, a stool, and a crystal panel showing the Core's permanent smile. Frank thought it looked like a salesman selling defective hinges.
"Frank! There you are. Make yourself comfortable. A very special anniversary!" The face expanded until it filled the crystal panel.
Frank stepped into the narrow alcove. "You wanted me?"
"Twenty years with the organization!" the Core announced. "I had your date flagged months ago, although this is the first moment we've found on the schedule to celebrate."
"Yes."
"For twenty years you've helped build this institution into the thriving operation we enjoy today," the Core said, sounding moved by its own description.
"The west corridor's waiting," Frank said. "Can we do this while I work?"
"For once, Frank, this is not about a scraper." The Core brightened the word EMPLOYMENT on the screen. "Your resurrection debt has been paid in full. Twenty years of service, exactly as agreed."
"What debt?" Frank asked.
"The one on your contract."
"I've never seen a contract," Frank said. He remembered a scraper, the basin room, and someone telling him where to start. Nothing resembling an agreement.
"We recorded your acceptance during orientation," the Core said. "The record remains valid even if you don't remember it."
"You handed me a scraper and told me the hinge was my problem. That's what I remember about orientation."
"Exactly, and you've done splendidly. Now the exciting part: you may elect to resume the death from which we recovered you, or transfer into voluntary paid employment with advancement eligibility."
The Core displayed a page of writing dense enough that Frank had to move closer to read it. A little timer started at the bottom.
"What does move on mean?" Frank asked.
"You leave."
"Leave the dungeon?"
"The animation sustaining your body ends, and your original death proceeds to whatever follows it. Heaven, hell, something else entirely. We only administer the dungeon portion, Frank, so I couldn't tell you where you would end up."
Frank remembered nothing of being alive. The Core said he'd once been a man; his bones supported the claim, but little else did. He knew this dungeon, Moss's rules about clean tools, and which mortar failed in damp air. He knew nothing about what waited beyond his second death.
"And the other one?" he said.
"Or stay with us as a voluntary employee. You would earn wages, receive experience credit for qualifying work, and become eligible for advancement once you meet the requirements."
"Do I have to sign for another twenty years?"
"No. It's voluntary employment. You may leave at the end of any contracted notice period."
"And if I resign from paid employment later, you'll end the animation? Is that what you're telling me?"
"Leaving paid employment is a separate matter," the Core answered. "There are procedures for that, and you would be advised of the terms at the time. We are discussing what you want to do today, Frank."
Frank studied the page. "What does qualifying mean?"
"I admire the thoroughness, Frank. This is an exciting step, and I'd hate for details to distract from the opportunity. You can consult the employee guide after signing."
"You've never paid me."
"We paid your resurrection cost. A very expensive benefit, I assure you."
"But now you're going to pay me wages."
"After standard housing and service deductions, yes."
"And I can use the tool room?"
"Within your clearance category."
"Can you open it now?"
The Core was silent for the first time that morning.
"That is a separate request."
Frank sat, studying the contract. It listed a small wage, housing deductions, job classifications and a FUTURE ELIGIBILITY section with its higher ranks hidden. He wanted to know what had been done to him before his memory began. Instead he read the terms about tools and days off: things he could measure.
Frank found himself wondering who would take the west corridor if he chose to stop existing. Moss would get the blocked drain and the locked tool room, and some new worker would inherit the scrap-brass hinge. The timer counted down while he pictured the next shift being handed his keys. He still had two pages of contract left to read.
"How long have I got to decide?"
"Until that timer reaches zero."
"Why?"
"Administrative efficiency."
Forty-seven seconds. He hadn't read the last page. He thought of the west corridor, Moss stepping through that puddle every morning, and the doors he knew by the sound they made when they shut. Then he pictured all those doors becoming someone else's problem. He couldn't tell whether the tightening in his mind was fear of death or worry for the life he already had.
"I'll stay," Frank said. The timer stopped before he could change his mind.
A small panel opened at the edge of his vision, steady and square, as if somebody had hung a notice on the inside of his skull.
MAINTENANCE LEDGER
Employee
FRANK
Contract
VOLUNTARY SERVICE
Resurrection debt
PAID IN FULL
Classification
RANK 0: CUSTODIAL UNIT
Experience
0 / 500 XP
Wages
STANDARD ENTRY SCALE
Current clearance
PUBLIC SERVICE CORRIDORS
Advancement track
ACTIVE
"Excellent choice!" the Core shouted. "You're going to love being part of the team."
"I've been part of the team for twenty years."
"And now you're officially part of the paid team. Congratulations!"
Frank stood, leaving the unread contract terms floating in the alcove. "Tool room."
"I'll send a request."
"Could you just open the door?"
"Policy is policy, Frank."
Outside, Moss was waiting with her empty mug and a fresh stack of work orders. She searched Frank's expression for a clue as he approached, though a skeleton did not give her much to work with.
"Well?" Moss asked. "He hasn't fired you, has he?"
"No, as far as I can tell. Apparently I finished paying off a debt today."
On the way back to the west corridor, Frank explained the terms of the choice the Core had sprung on him. Moss let him describe both options without interrupting, but her ears flattened when he mentioned the timer, and she slowed at the stairs to make sure she had heard correctly.
Not every employee paid off a debt on the same day. Some had been assembled from bodies, others from salvage, and the Core treated their terms like replacement-cart invoices. Moss was the first person Frank had told. He hadn't expected anyone else to have an opinion about whether he stayed.
"Did you know there was a choice?" he asked.
"I knew some workers were allowed to leave after their debts were settled," Moss said, "but I never learned the terms. Most of the undead don't talk about what they remember from before, and nobody likes asking."
"I don't remember being alive," Frank said. "I don't even know whether there's somebody out there who remembers me."
"The ones who remember something usually keep it to themselves," Moss said, looking down at her mug. "I've stopped asking unless they bring it up."
Moss had debts of her own: housing, medical bills, a relative in the lower warrens. Frank knew that much after twenty years and very little more.
"You think I ought to have gone?" he asked.
Moss took a moment before answering, long enough for the cart traffic to pass. "If you'd gone, I'd have been furious with the Core for making you decide in a minute, not with you for leaving. I'm glad you're here, and yes, I'm glad I don't have to find someone to cover the west corridor. Those are two different things."
Moss turned her empty mug in her hands. A chip in the rim caught against one thumb. “You ought to have had longer than a minute to decide whether you wanted to keep existing,” she said. “And before you say he would have been generous, he had twenty years to warn you.”
"I was still reading the contract when the timer hit forty seconds," Frank told her. "I don't know whether I made the right choice. I don't know what the other one meant."
"You going to be all right?"
Muddy boot prints crossed the broad dark stain on the west-corridor floor. Above them a damaged lantern leaked oil onto a crate. Someone had left a shield blocking the emergency drain.
"I'd rather finish the corridor," he said, and reached for the shield.
Moss took down the leaking lantern while Frank moved the shield off the drain. They worked for an hour without mentioning the contract. Frank was relieved whenever passing carts interrupted the quiet.
The small scraper snagged in the old mortar. Frank worked it free and handed Moss the loose lantern bracket while she kept a courier's cart off the wet grout. They used the little chisel he kept in his private box. A job that should have taken an hour took three, and the workers who had kept the tool room locked were nowhere near the floor they had delayed.
A Monster Operations runner trundled dented breastplates through the passage, then returned with an empty cart whose rear axle squealed at every turn. Frank pointed him toward the dry edge before the wheel ground debris into the grout.
"Are you allowed to look at wheels?" the boy asked, glancing at Frank's tools. "My supervisor said I ought to bring it down, but I can't get it back uphill if the bearing locks."
"Not with this floor open. That bearing needs grease and a proper jack. Take it to the shop and tell your supervisor I sent you."
The boy pushed his squeaking cart toward the shop without another apology.
When Frank finished the corridor, he closed his tool box and waited for the familiar order to begin the next task. Instead, a brief notice appeared.
WORK ORDER COMPLETED
Assignment
WEST CORRIDOR SANITATION
Operational value
ACCESS RESTORED; DRAIN CLEARED
Experience awarded
+18 XP
Experience total
18 / 500 XP
Eighteen points for work he'd done hundreds of times without credit. Frank nearly calculated the missing twenty years. Then he looked at the crusted mortar on his tools and realized that the number would mean nothing without an answer about who had decided those years were worth nothing. He shut the box. The question could wait; the answer wasn't in the ledger.
The tool room opened near shift's end, far too late to help with the corridor. Frank left the unused large scraper on its shelf and went to the staff dining room. After twenty years, it still seemed strange that paid employment came with a choice of supper and no particular obligation to eat it.
Two kitchen workers were disputing the disappearance of a soup ladle. The younger swore it had been there when the stew started; the older wanted Maintenance to build one nobody could borrow.
"Chain it to the stove," Frank suggested. "Then everyone can serve dinner around the chain."
The older worker snorted. "That's the sort of answer you give when you don't have to eat the stew."
"I don't eat any of it," Frank said.
"Lucky bastard," she whispered to the other cook. "If anybody knew what went into that stew, nobody would touch it." She nudged a chair out with her foot. Frank stayed a while, listening to them argue over whose turn it was to wash the dishes.
On the unfinished staircase to the employee wing, two workers were trying to get a rolled tapestry through an arch too narrow for it. One proposed unrolling the thing in the stairwell; the other asked whether anyone wanted to be responsible for its picture touching the mud. Frank showed them a way to turn the roll without scraping the carved stone lion beside the arch. Neither thanked him, but neither damaged the arch. He considered that enough for tonight.
Frank's quarters held a bed he didn't use, a chair he'd repaired twice, a shelf of unauthorized home tools, and a viewing glass. He kept the bed for spare towels; an inspector had once called a bedroom without one an unauthorized storeroom. The glass let staff watch public chambers, which the Core described as entertainment and Frank considered a preview of tomorrow's repairs.
He sat in his chair, stretched his long legs across a second stool, and touched the rim of the glass until its image brightened.
A party of four adventurers stood around a locked door on the fourth floor. Their wizard was arguing that the hinges were on the wrong side. Their fighter wanted to kick it down. The healer was studying a sign that said MAINTENANCE ACCESS, DO NOT FORCE.
The fighter backed away from the maintenance door and flexed his leg for a kick. Frank knew the iron hinge pins; he'd installed them after a fire spell ruined the originals. The door opened toward the public corridor. Nobody in the party seemed to have considered trying the handle.
"That door opens toward you," he told the empty room.
The fighter kicked. His foot bounced off the reinforced wood, and he sat down hard on the stone.
Frank laughed at the certainty of the fighter's failed kick. The healer offered a hand; the man refused it and announced that the door must be enchanted. Frank leaned back, pleased not to be responsible for any of them tonight.
On the screen, the wizard raised his staff and began heating the hinges.
Frank's fingers closed around the chair arm. He had installed those hinges himself.