Thea woke up excited the next morning.
The monthly reset was always a highlight for her.
It meant the arcade would finally update with new versions of each game—and, more importantly, with the new high scores from all the players across the sector—for some games, even the entire galaxy—over the past month.
Not only did the top ten on each list earn prizes and entries into automatic drawings for even more rewards, but what really fired Thea up was the renewed sense of competition that always came with the reset.
Beating her own high score again and again just didn’t carry the same weight as pushing herself against someone else’s best.
Checking the old-tech timepiece on her nightstand as she stretched the sleep out of her muscles, she muttered, “Only around 0600, huh? So I’ve got about two hours until the early-hours opening… Better get to it, then.”
She jumped out of bed and started her morning routine.
Every morning before sunrise, Thea followed a strict workout schedule.
It was something the Old Man had insisted on when he’d taken her in, and over the years, she’d learned to appreciate it.
‘Saved my ass more than once down here, that’s for damn sure. Too bad for all those gangers, that they’re missing out on the Old Man’s training regimen; they’d be real terrors otherwise, heh.’
Most people within the undercity didn’t spare a thought for regular exercise or training—survival always came first, and that meant credits, which in turn meant brutally early starts and long workdays.
Being able to work out like this every day was a definite luxury, and Thea never took it for granted.
So she gave it everything she had, every single morning.
She rolled out the thin synth-foam training mat beside her mattress, the material slightly spongy under her fingers as it scraped against the metal floor.
The room was small—barely large enough to fit both, training mat and mattress side-by-side—but she loved it anyway.
It was unmistakably hers.
As she moved through her warm-ups, her eyes naturally drifted to the metal walls, plastered with posters she’d collected over the years: Games, famous UHF Marines, sleek pieces of modern tech.
If she ignored the cold steel beneath the synth-foam mat and the tight enclosure around her, she could almost pretend it was a proper room, maybe even a small suite with tapestry-lined walls instead of bare plating and rockcrete.
There was no window, of course, but an old vent duct sat in the corner opposite the door.
After her first few sets, feeling the warmth of her muscles really starting to work, she crossed the room and cracked it open, the metal groaning under her grip.
A weak stream of outside air filtered in, carrying the dusty, chemical tang of the undercity.
It wasn’t fresh—not even close—but it was better than the stale mix of sweat and warm air clinging to her skin after the night’s sleep and the morning workout.
After finishing the rest of her sets, she went to her small wardrobe—barely big enough to hold a handful of outfits—and pulled out her favorite pair of synth-leather jeans, along with her favourite hoodie.
“Definitely need all the good vibes I can get today,” she muttered. “It’s reset day and that means showtime.”
Still wearing the pants she’d slept in, she slipped out of her room and hurried into the bathroom to take a quick shower, rinsing off the sweat from the night and the early workout.
Moments like this always made her thankful for the Old Man’s place—having running hot water was an absolute luxury in the undercity, unless you counted irradiated steam vents, which she very much didn’t.
He always liked to claim that, once upon a time, there had been running hot water everywhere on Lumiosia—even the undercity!
But, supposedly, over the past few centuries, the mid-worlds of the UHF had supposedly fallen into disrepair as more and more resources were poured into the galactic war.
With the borders demanding more and more attention, planetary governments were left with continually lessening oversight from the Faction, and corruption and neglect had only grown worse over time.
Whether any of that was actually true or not, Thea didn’t really know.
What she did know was that she was extremely lucky.
She had a safe place to sleep—and clean, hot water to wash herself with.
Still, she kept those comforts to herself. She couldn’t afford to look spoiled.
To the other kids, gangers, and anyone else down in the undercity, she had to stay just another gutter-kid scraping by.
After drying off with one of the few towels that had survived countless years of use, she quickly got dressed.
Her favorite deep-blue—almost black—synth-leather jeans were speckled with tiny dots of white, yellow, orange, and red, like stars.
She pulled on a simple gray tank top, then topped it off with her favourite violet hoodie.
The back of it showed one of her favorite characters from an old retro arcade game: A fierce woman with short violet hair and oversized energy gauntlets, ready to kick some ass.
Thea checked herself in the mirror one last time, making sure everything looked right.
Her cyan-coloured eyes stared back at her, appearing as if they were glowing from the inside out, as they did for all Cyans.
She really liked them, despite what other people said about them.
They always reminded her of the galaxy's nebulas that she had often seen on the Old Man’s tour-of-duty pictures.
Her shoulder-length dirty blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, secured with several rubber bands, just like the Old Man demanded for “combat readiness reasons.”
‘Not the first, and definitely not the last, of his weird rules,’ she thought. ‘But… I can’t say they haven’t paid off. I’ve lost count of how many times one of his strange requirements actually ended up saving my life in one way or another.’
There was a reason he was called Old Man James, after all—he was old.
And in the undercity, that alone meant a whole lot.
Reaching fifty was already a stretch for most people, yet the Old Man claimed he was over two hundred years old.
Whether that was fully true or not, he clearly had to be doing something right, and Thea wasn’t about to ignore advice just because she didn’t understand it right away.
She could always stop later if it turned out to be pointless.
But if it mattered and she ignored it and died? That would break Golden Rule Number One—and she’d never forgive herself for throwing away such an easy advantage.
Wasting a free edge like that, when it cost almost nothing to keep up, was simply unacceptable.
Lastly, she checked her hoodie and pants for any issues—new holes, loose seams, tears; the works.
She couldn’t afford her favorite outfit falling apart, especially not on a day like this.
It was hard enough to find decent clothes this deep in the undercity, let alone ones that actually fit her properly. While she didn’t look that different from a normal undercity denizen at first glance, her exact makeup had made clothing a constant headache over the years.
At fifteen, she stood around 168 centimeters tall.
That wasn’t especially tall for a human woman, actually below average if compared to all of humanity—but for an undercity girl, it made her downright huge.
Most girls her age barely reached 145 to 150 centimeters, with only a few rare outliers pushing into the high 150s. Even most undercity boys her age struggled to catch up to her.
The Old Man had always blamed it on her genetics, guessing her parents had been tall themselves and maybe not from the undercity at all, combined with the physical training he’d drilled into her.
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He had also made sure she always ate properly, even during the rougher times.
‘A balanced diet is something most people down here can only dream of… We were lucky the Old Man’s UHF veteran stipend let him afford proper nutrient supplements to pad out the rest of our meals all these years.’
Her height alone wouldn’t have been much of an issue, of course—she could have just worn adult clothes—but being built far sturdier than most mid-worlders had only compounded the problem.
Years of constant training, decent genetics, and a solid diet had left her lean and more muscular than most people her age.
Paired with a low body-fat percentage—though some of it had recently started settling around her chest—finding clothes that fit both her height and her broader thighs, arms, shoulders, and legs was an absolute nightmare in the undercity.
Because of that, she took great care of the few pieces that didn’t just fit her, but felt genuinely comfortable to wear.
With her morning routine finished and her clothing confirmed to be operational, Thea left the bathroom, tossed her sleep pants haphazardly back into her room without a second thought, and hurried toward the front door, eager to get a head start on the day.
Just as her hand reached for the datapad to unlock it, she heard Old Man James step out of his room.
“Ah. Good morning, Old Man! Am about to head out for the big reset! Super excited! Look, I’m even wearing my lucky outfit! I’m so gonna beat ’em all today—I can’t wait!” Thea bubbled, stepping towards him.
He didn’t mirror her energy.
Instead, he walked up to her with a determined stride.
“Thea…” he started, an uncharacteristically troubled look on his face.
“Make sure you bring my old plasteel knife with you. You promised you’d take it on reset days. We never know who might be after your credits, especially once the highscores and prizes get revealed.”
Thea blinked, then lightly tapped the hilt of her right boot. “I… I always have it with me. You know that. What’s wrong with you?”
She stepped a little closer, studying his face carefully. “Is everything alright?”
Seemingly realizing how much his tone had affected her, Old Man James smiled broadly and waved her off. “Ahh, don’t worry about it. This old man is simply realizing that the passage of time is indeed always faster than one expects. Truly, nothing to worry about. Was just concerned about your health, is all.”
Still not fully convinced, Thea backed toward the door again, trusting that he’d tell her if something truly serious was going on.
He always did, because there was no reason for him to keep secrets from her.
“Oh—but one thing before you go. Promise me this,” he said, his expression hardening enough to make her shrink back from his gaze just a bit. “Absolutely go for the high score. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Get the number one spot.”
The steel in his voice caught her completely off guard, as she hadn’t heard it in a long time.
Thea paused, forcing herself to breathe and center her thoughts—just like he’d taught her.
“If you get overwhelmed, find your quiet place and reboot. A panicked mind is the precursor to a dead one.”
After a few steadying moments, she met his gaze, nodded firmly, and said, “Yes, sir! I will.”
She unlocked the door with her datapad, then glanced back one last time. “I always do.”
And with that, she sprinted off into the early mist…
Thea raced through the hazy alleyways of Lumiosia’s Undercity on her way to the Golden Age arcade.
Neither of the two suns the planet orbited had risen yet, but the half-working streetlamps cast enough dull light for most undercity folk to get by.
Unlike the dead quiet of the late night, during which most people stayed hidden inside their own homes in fear of roaming gangs or wandering wild beasts, the streets were very alive.
Alleyways, side roads, and storefronts positively buzzed with movement.
Early mornings were a kind of unspoken truce—larger local gangs and the undercity authorities keeping the peace just long enough for people to work, trade, and survive.
It was one of the few times of day where a fragile sense of normalcy existed.
Because of that, Thea had to take a slightly different route every day.
Some of her favorite shortcuts were often clogged with foot traffic or makeshift market stalls, which all changed day-by-day, depending on what merchants set up shop first and where.
That didn’t slow her down, however. She knew the undercity better than anyone.
No one could beat her at hide-and-seek, and no one had ever escaped her if she had decided otherwise. There wasn’t a nook, crawlspace, or collapsed ruin in her part of the undercity she hadn’t explored at one point or another.
That, too, had been the Old Man’s doing.
Golden Rule #5: Always know your AO.
Even if this wasn’t exactly a battlefield, he’d insisted it still very much counted.
She’d taken that to heart—painfully so. Every dead end, every collapsed tunnel, every half-forgotten access shaft lived somewhere in her memory.
This morning, the undercity felt different. Lighter, somehow.
Maybe it was just her own excitement bleeding into everything, but the air felt less oppressive than usual. The low mist clinging to the lower levels of the grey metal and rockcrete buildings helped soften the ever-present gloom, at least in her mind.
She ran through it all with easy confidence, half-lost in her own head, imagining herself moving like the old ninja heroes from the Old Man’s movies.
Still, her eyes never stopped scanning.
Habits like that didn’t simply turn off, just because one didn’t pay much attention.
And despite the Old Man’s reassurances, a small knot of unease lingered in her chest—his strange behavior from earlier refusing to fully let go as she disappeared deeper into the waking undercity…
Around fifteen minutes of running, dodging, and jumping through the drab, dirty—and sometimes downright filthy—undercity alleyways finally brought her to the local arcade.
Her second home, really.
She probably spent more time here than at the Old Man’s place, but who was really counting.
The Golden Age arcade sat inside what used to be an old entertainment park, now mostly fallen apart and swallowed by the undercity.
It was one of the last clear remnants of a better time on Lumiosia.
Not only was it still mostly intact, with a neat red-and-white striped coat of paint on the outside, but it even boasted holographic 3D ads for popular games at the entrance, casting the thick morning mist in shifting, colorful light.
Locally, the arcade served as a gathering place for all ages—kids and teens during the daylight hours, adults and old-timers later in the evening.
By undercity standards, it was a thriving hotspot.
The monthly reset turned it into something like a small festival, as hopeful gamers lined up to chase high scores and prizes that might just give them a leg up in life.
And today was naturally no different. A crowd had already formed in front of the doors.
‘Around three dozen people waiting for the updates to finish and us to open up shop… Slightly more than usual, huh?’ Thea thought as she approached.
She didn’t join them in front of the arcade. Instead she veered off slightly before the crowd, headed for the back entrance, and swiped her bracelet over the datapad by the door.
It let her in without delay.
Inside, she stashed her bag in one of the employee lockers and made her way toward the front desk, curious to see what Thomas had been up to already.
Just as she crossed the doorway from the back rooms into the main arcade, she saw it.
Right in the center of the arcade—where Thomas had set aside a large space that was usually used to display his collection of showpieces, from old-world tech to retro games—stood a monolithic metal cube.
It was roughly twenty meters wide and long, and about ten meters tall, filling the entire central plaza of the arcade and nearly brushing against the ceiling of its golden-age architecture. Every side was painted a flat, matte black, with no markings, lights, or obvious indicators of what it was supposed to be.
Even so, it practically screamed new-tech at her; if not next-tech.
It was something she had never seen before in her entire life.
The most modern tech she’d ever laid eyes on was the old, battered datapad Old Man James kept locked away in his drawer—and even that was nearly a century and a half old by now.
This thing, though? This was unmistakably new at the very least.
Completely captivated, Thea slowly moved closer, her eyes darting across the cube as she searched for any flaw, any seam or access point she could peer into.
‘What is this even made of…?’
She scanned it again, closer this time. The matte finish was perfectly uniform, swallowing the light without a hint of reflection or texture.
‘That’s definitely not durasteel; too few imperfections. Normal steel’s out of the question for something this massive and I don’t know of any alloys that would be viable to be used instead… It’s not anything I’ve ever seen...’
Even plasteel—one of the most trusted and well-used alloys across the entire galaxy—usually showed tiny imperfections at a massive scale like this.
But this cube was truly flawless.
There were no dents, no scratches, no flaws; not even any miniscule voids in the matte finish that had been applied to the entire thing.
There was nothing, no matter how hard she looked.
Excitement welled up in her chest as she picked up her pace.
If she could just touch—
The arcade lights suddenly flared to life.
The sudden brightness snapped her out of it, and she spun around instinctively, heart jumping as she tried to see what, exactly, had just happened.
“Thea..? Why are you here in the dark…? You’re early, too. That’s good though, ’cause we ran into some issues with the updates last night. A couple machines could really use your magic touch, if you don’t mind,” Thomas said as he stepped away from the main breaker behind the front desk and pulled up some information on his datapad.
A knot of dread tightened in Thea’s stomach as she realized she’d completely forgotten to turn on the lights when she entered the arcade.
Not that she needed them—she’d always been able to see perfectly fine in even complete darkness—but that wasn’t the point.
It meant she’d broken her routine. Something she never did.
‘Routines keep you going. Routines keep you alive,’ Old Man James had drilled into her head ever since she’d been old enough to run.
It wasn’t quite a Golden Rule, but it was close enough that she lived by it.
Breaking it felt wrong. Unacceptable.
And yet, all it had taken was one look at the matte-black cube.
No matter how she tried to justify it, there was no excuse that really satisfied her.
Looking at the cube had felt like an invitation.
An invitation she wouldn’t—no, couldn’t—refuse.
With anxious dread creeping up her spine, she slowly turned back toward it.
The cube towered over her and cast a deep, swallowing shadow.
The overhead lights were blocked from view, and for a moment, she felt cut off from the rest of the arcade—alone, small, and standing face to face with the unknown…