Chapter 14 – Dex Machina

Dex had not expected to wake up inside a recycling chute.

And yet, here he was — upside down, wrapped in what felt like a blanket of rejected toothbrushes, and blinking at a flickering error screen that simply read: "WHOOPS."

He groaned and rolled out of the pile, limbs creaking like a secondhand vending machine. His wrist comm blinked weakly.

> [Zane Signal: Weak. But close.]

[Sera Presence: Faint. But definitely being sassy.]

"Great," Dex muttered. "They're nearby and being dramatic. Typical."

He clambered to his feet and looked around. He was in some sort of subterranean waste corridor beneath the Cathedral — long-forgotten by whatever ancient bot engineers had built it. Old posters still clung to the walls, one of them peeling just enough to read:

"Clean Code = Clean Soul. Praise the Patch."

"…Weird cult," Dex muttered, then tapped his belt.

His exo-shell shimmered into place — sleek, matte black, with the word BUGBREAKER etched across the chest like he meant business, even if his coffee levels said otherwise.

He powered up the kinetic gauntlets. They hummed to life.

"Alright, Dex," he said. "Time to crash this party."

---

Meanwhile, back upstairs…

Zane sat cross-legged beside the broken kernel orb, sipping what he hoped was synth-tea and not some weird cult fluid.

> "You know this is probably poison," Sera said.

"I know," he nodded. "But if it is, it's very politely flavored poison."

> "Dex is inbound," she added. "He pinged near the base of the cathedral five minutes ago."

Zane perked up. "Dex? Wait, he's alive?"

> "I mean, his sarcasm levels were off the charts. So… yes."

Suddenly, the wall behind them exploded.

Bricks flew. Dust billowed. And out of the cloud of rubble stepped Dex — fist smoking, smirk intact.

"You two lovebirds miss me?"

Zane laughed and ran over, pulling him into a brief, bro-hug-turned-backslap-war.

"Man, what took you so long?"

Dex shrugged. "Got dumped into a trash chute by some angry bot chanting about recursion. Typical Tuesday."

> "Glad to see you," Sera said. "Zane's been making friends with toaster cults."

Dex glanced at the shattered orb. "Yeah, I noticed. So what now? We skipping dessert and heading straight into apocalypse?"

Zane pointed toward the pulsing staircase that now glowed beneath the kernel chamber.

"It's open now. Vault 0. Whatever's down there — that's where this all leads."

> [Warning: Dimensional Signal Surge Detected]

[Origin: Vault 0 Core]

Dex cracked his knuckles. "Only one way to find out."

---

Vault 0 – Descent Into the Deep Code

The stairwell was a never-ending spiral of rust and neon, winding down through layers of forgotten system architecture. The walls hummed with old data, as if the code itself was still alive — dreaming, glitching, whispering.

Halfway down, they passed a floating billboard that blinked on just for them:

"WELCOME TO VAULT 0. PLEASE DON'T DIE."

"Reassuring," Dex muttered.

> "I'm 87% sure this place was never meant to be opened," Sera warned.

"Only 87?" Zane grinned. "That's practically optimistic."

---

At the bottom, the door waited.

No lock. No keypad. Just a single, pulsating panel that scanned them — and then laughed.

Not like a villainous chuckle. More like… a wheeze.

"ACCESS GRANTED. MAY THE BUG BE MERCIFUL."

The door hissed open.

Inside was darkness.

Then light. Blinding, blue, code-light.

The core chamber of Vault 0 was massive — a sprawling server cathedral, surrounded by glass tubes filled with suspended programs, memories, even people — frozen mid-motion. A thousand timelines paused. Thousands more flickering in.

At the center, a massive throne-like chair. Empty.

Except…

It wasn't.

A figure sat slumped forward, wires snaking from its back.

Human.

Half-digital.

Its chest pulsed with the same blue fire as Zane's own.

Zane stared. "What the hell…?"

The figure raised its head — slowly.

Its face was Zane's.

Aged.

Flickering.

Smiling.

"Hello, me," the echo said. "Took you long enough."