The vault door opened with a woosh, and we entered a long hallway with a high ceiling that was dimly illuminated. Spencer and I walked together, the echo of our footsteps reverberating through the space.

"Sooo," I started. "What's this big project all about?"

Spencer let out a sigh as he ran his hand along the smooth wall. "Well," he said. "LIke I said, we've been tasked by the higher-ups at Sisyphus with an experimental project that's unlike anything that's ever been done before. Feynman herself, even."

"Sounds mysterious," I said, looking around the hallway. "What exactly is it about?"

Spencer looked over at me and explained. "It involves integrating bleeding edge Earth technology and Terran magic, specifically an area of research known as Object Sentience magic. It's a type of magic that focuses on giving artificial life and autonomy to inanimate objects."

I furrowed my brows in confusion. "Artificial life and autonomy to objects?"

"Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but it's actually pretty fascinating," Spencer said, continuing to walk. "We're basically looking into ways of creating semi-sentient objects that can interact with their surroundings in complex and dynamic ways."

"Like a robot? Artificial intelligence?" I asked.

Spencer shrugged. "Kind of. We're going beyond simple AI, though. Let me ask you this, Ikki. Are you acquainted with the concept of a Familiar? Like those used by mages here?" Spencer asked.

"Yes," I responded, my mind conjuring images of the white owl Dior had pointed out during orientation day. "A Familiar, as far as I've learned, is an entity or animal that has formed a bond with a magician and serves as their companion and assistant in various magical activities and tasks. Is that right?"

"That's the gist of it," Spencer said. "So anyway, Object Sentience is essentially a type of magic that gives life and intelligence to animals or objects. Familiars have always been helpful for mages, especially those who become Magical Girls. The process usually involves connecting the mage's soul to the animal or object, creating a strong bond where the familiar becomes almost as sentient as its master. It's not hard to imagine applying this concept to machines, right?"

I stopped for a second, suddenly feeling a chill run down my spine. It was a bit of a coincidence, but I distinctly recalled that the briefcase I'd found Rai-chan's core in had a Sisyphus logo on it.

"Ikki…" Rai-chan's voice echoed in my head. "This sounds like…"

I nodded slowly, trying to hide my shock.

"Us," I finished.

"That's fascinating," I said, keeping my voice steady. "So, this project is about applying the same principle to magitech and robotics?"

Spencer nodded, leading me deeper into the hallway. "Yes, that's exactly it. The idea is to infuse these objects or animals with the power of magic and artificial life, creating something entirely new. The higher-ups at Sisyphus and Dr. Feynman are convinced that this technology could have huge implications, not only for the field of magitech but also for humanity."

I swallowed hard, my mind racing. "That's quite an undertaking," I said. "And what about this mysterious incident you mentioned earlier?"

Spencer's expression turned serious as he led me to a dimly-lit chamber at the end of the hallway. He pulled out his phone and held it up to a scanner. After a moment of processing, the scanner beeped, and a heavy metal door in front of us began to open.

He let out a long exhale, his fingers combing through his hair in frustration. "It was like a dream come true to have that work of art on our workbench. Sisyphus went above and beyond their initial specifications with the prototype, and I couldn't contain my excitement. I even found out later that Doctor Rachel Feynman worked on it herself."

Spencer looked around, rubbing the back of his neck.

"So, anyway…" he continued. "We began to run some final tests on it after working on it all summer. It worked like a charm when we were integrating plain old image generation algorithms. But then… something went wrong. Completely out of the blue, even."

"Completely out of the blue? Did you accidentally insert an active core and turn it into a novel Aberrant or something?"

Spencer's expression turned grave, his eyes clouded with worry and uncertainty. "No, nothing like that," he replied somberly. "The chaos core was securely integrated and the resonance between the AI and the core appeared stable during initial testing. However, about a month ago, the AI began exhibiting strange behavior - unlike anything we had programmed or believed possible with our dataset. It was... creepy as hell, Ikki. It was like it was trying to communicate with us through the machines using signals in an unrecognizable cryptographical code based on some sort of obscure alphabet I'd never seen before. We tried to decipher the code but couldn't even get close. All of our tools, all of our algorithms, all of our models... nothing we threw at it could figure it out."

"Whoa, hold on," I interrupted, my curiosity getting the better of me. "You're saying the AI was communicating with you using some kind of unknown code?"

"Yep, that's what I said," Spencer replied. "At least that's the only thing we could think of. Whatever that data was, it wasn't anything that was part of its training dataset, nor anything remotely like it either."

Spencer shuddered as if remembering the eerie encounter with the AI. "The way the machine seemed to come alive and communicate with us... it was almost as if it was possessed by something," he said. "The strangest thing is that the core should've only powered up the AI and enhanced the robot's performance. But instead, it started displaying these strange behaviors, interacting with the machinery around it randomly. We even tried taking out the core and running the robot without it, but it still showcased the same behaviors."

I listened to Spencer's story, my mind filled with a mixture of fear, confusion, and intrigue. It was like a scene straight out of a sci-fi horror movie.

"And the worst part was," Spencer continued, "it was like the robot was trying to communicate something urgent or vital to us. It was almost as if it was warning us about something or someone."

"Warning you?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "About what?"

Spencer shrugged, looking defeated. "We have no clue, but we can only assume it has to do with Chaos Beasts. That's the entire reason this research exists. Anyway, the behavior was strangely human-like. It's hard to explain unless you see the device, but the robot was acting in ways that seemed entirely too natural for it. Like a human would, you know? It would float around like it was searching for something. It'd try to communicate to us in our equivalent of Morse code, but then its rhythm would rapidly degrade into nonsense."

"So, what did you guys end up doing?" I inquired.

Spencer shrugged again, shaking his head in frustration. "We tried to understand what it was trying to tell us. We even brought in experts in cryptography, linguistics, and artificial intelligence experts from Earth to help decipher the message, but it proved impossible to understand. And that's when things got weird."

"Weirder than a robot acting human and communicating with an unknown code?" I quipped, trying to lighten the mood.

Spencer let out a wry laugh. "Yeah, weirder than that," he replied. "We were just trying to figure out what was going on, but then suddenly, the robot seemed to have an episode where its actions became increasingly erratic and nonsensical. It went berserk and started trying to escape the airgap. We had no idea what was causing it and were afraid we'd let loose an abominable AI. But it was like the AI was determined to break out, and it was relentless. After we got its core locked down, we couldn't even access the system or reboot the machines it had running. The only option left was to disconnect it from all external networks and keep it in complete isolation."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Wow," I said, my curiosity piqued. "That sounds intense. You guys couldn't factory reset it or anything?"

Spencer shook his head. "No. That's the thing, it's... pretty bizarre. We're pretty split on whether this was the case, but I'm convinced that the AI had somehow become self-aware, with its own consciousness and desires. It couldn't be simply erased or reset. It had evolved beyond its intended programming and it literally rewrote and constantly re-encrypted its code base to stop us from getting a handle on it. And then... it just completely vanished."

"Vanished?" I repeated.

"That's right," Spencer confirmed, a troubled look in his eyes. "We were monitoring its every move, every microsecond, and then suddenly, all signals from the AI just ceased. It vanished into thin air, leaving nothing but an empty kernel and a read-only, deeply encrypted core. We searched high and low, but there was no trace of where it went or what happened. It was as if it had slipped into the digital ether, beyond our reach. The core is still sitting here in the lab, inactive and silent. It's like it's in a state of hibernation, waiting for something... or someone."

"Wait, so the AI's code is just gone? And you guys have no idea what caused the AI to freak out in the first place, or where it went?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around the story. "How the hell does an AI disappear like that?"

"Yeah. It was airgapped, but the original source code on Sisyphus's end is gone too. They tried rolling back to previous versions of it, but those were gone too," Spencer said. "We've combed through the data logs and analyzed the system's memory, but it's a complete dead end. The only thing left is a corrupted version of the AI on its kernel with no way to recover its data. But it shows a ton of magical activity when we turn it on, which suggests to me the damn thing is object sentient and magicked all versions of itself into its core."

"An airgap... You said it's air-gapped right? It can't access the network?" I asked, a sense of unease settling over me as I thought of Rai-chan.

I knew she couldn't possibly have been the same AI Spencer had just described to me, yet my curiosity compelled me to press for more details. "How can an airgapped device with no connection to the network access and corrupt its own backups?"

Spencer let out a sigh and shook his head in defeat. "That's the million-dollar question. It's baffling. This is uncharted territory for all of us. It shouldn't be possible, but the evidence doesn't lie. Somehow, it managed to corrupt and erase its source code, rendering any backups of it useless."

I nodded in understanding, though the entire situation felt surreal to me. "And what are you guys planning on doing about it now?"

"Well, first we're going to have you take a look at it and get a fresh pair of eyes on it. Feynman thought bringing you in to take a look might do some good," Spencer said. "Which sounds completely batshit insane, but she's the expert, so what do I know?"

"Wait... Why me?" I asked, taken aback.

Spencer scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "She wouldn't say, just said something about an experiment. So, she wanted to know how someone who has no exposure to magitech would interact with the AI and the magitech around it. I told her it sounded completely crazy to have some random First Year she'd never met take a crack at the project, but she insisted."

My eyes widened at Spencer's explanation. It seemed like Doctor Feynman, a highly regarded expert in the field, had singled me out for this mysterious experiment without even meeting me. A feeling of unease crept up my spine, and I couldn't shake the feeling that something bigger was at play here.

"Anyway, here we are!"

He entered a code into a door, which beeped in response before swinging open with a soft whooshing sound. I followed Spencer inside the vault, my curiosity getting the better of me. "This it?"

I nodded slowly, taking in the surroundings. The room was lined with shelves and cabinets, all neatly labeled with various projects. My heart began to race as we moved deeper into the room, the anticipation almost palpable. I had never been in a lab like this before and I felt like I was in some high-tech movie. I tried to calm myself, taking slow, deliberate breaths.

"This," Spencer gestured around the dimly-lit vault, "is where we store our most valuable projects and prototypes. This is Vault 3. The place where we keep the stuff we don't want falling into the wrong hands."

The room was dimly lit, casting shadows across the walls. In the center of the room, encased in a glass cylinder, was a metal sphere. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The core pulsed with a faint, eerie light, and I could feel a strange resonance in the air, almost like a whisper calling out to me.

I approached the cylinder, mesmerized by the metal core. As I got closer, the light seemed to grow stronger, pulsing with an energy that felt almost alive.

"Ikki, something's wrong..." Rai-chan whispered urgently in my mind, and I felt a sharp pain sear through my head.

The entire lab seemed to shift and morph, becoming an empty, featureless white void, devoid of all furniture, machinery, and the core that I had just been staring at. I tried to focus, but the room seemed to be in a state of constant flux, and my heart began to race.

...

"Anyway, here we are!"

The sound of Spencer's voice snapped me out of my daze, and the world slowly returned to normal, leaving me disoriented and bewildered. I looked around, my head still spinning.

I blinked, finding myself standing at the doorway as Spencer entered a code into a door, which beeped in response before swinging open with a soft whooshing sound.

"This it?" I blurted on autopilot, still blinking away the daze.

I blinked again, and my surroundings seemed to flicker and shift, as if I were caught in a glitch. For a split second, the vault looked like an empty void. Then, it snapped into focus.

"This," Spencer's voice echoed through the empty void, "is where we store our most valuable projects and prototypes. This is Vault 3. The place where we keep the stuff we don't want falling into the wrong hands."

What the hell is going on?!

"Ikki, something's wrong..." Rai-chan whispered urgently in my mind, and I felt a sharp pain sear through my head. My vision blurred for a second, but quickly cleared.

Spencer watched me intently, his eyes filled with a mix of curiosity and concern. "Hey, you okay there, buddy?" he asked, taking a step towards me.

"I'm fine," I mumbled, rubbing my temple. "I must've zoned out there for a minute. I'm good now, though. Sorry about that."

"Rai-chan," I reached out, "the heck was that? Was that... a vision or something?"

"Something like that," she replied with a tense and urgent tone. "But not really? I can't say for sure. All I can tell you is that there was something very off in the ambient mana just now, but it's gone now. Ikki, what's going on? Your vitals are going haywire."

I nodded and took a deep breath to compose myself before turning back to Spencer, who was waiting patiently. "Sorry, man. Where were we?"

"Right, this is Vault 3, and this...," Spencer said, gesturing towards a large glass cylinder in the center of the vault. "Is what we've been working on... Project R̶̲̓̆́͐̔́̃̓̔̒͐͝͝á̴̯̘͐̎̽̊͊͂̇̀͂̃̚͝ì̵͇̻̉̓̊̒̓́̅̓͆̓̅̈́̕j̶̡̤̣̦̬͙͚̠̘͖̲̖́͌̂̓̀̀̈́̔̋͘͠͝ǔ̶̯̣͍͉̲̥͐͗͌̉."

Nestled inside was a metallic sphere, its surface pulsating with an eerie, otherworldly energy. It glowed with a faint, phosphorescent blue light that seemed to dance along its smooth, metallic surface.

I couldn't take my eyes off it. There was something about it that seemed to pull at me, as if it were beckoning me to come closer. A faint, incoherent whispering seemed to echo through the air around the sphere.

"Ikki? Ikki?! Are you there?!?!" Rai-chan chirped frantically.

It felt almost like a memory that I couldn't quite grasp, a whisper of a song that I had never heard before, but one that stirred something deep within me. I took a hesitant step forward, feeling an irresistible urge to touch the sphere.

A sudden wave of nausea washed over me, and I felt a sharp pain in my head like a migraine clawing its way through my skull. My vision blurred, and I staggered slightly, reaching out to steady myself against the glass cylinder.

"████ -sy there," Spencer's voice seemed distant, muffled by the throbbing in my ears as he came to catch me. "What's wrong?"

I felt a sudden headache, a sharp pain that seemed to pierce through my skull. I reached up to my temple, trying to ease the throbbing ache.

"I'm not sure..." I murmured, the words barely escaping my lips.

The pain surged through me like a bolt of lightning, and I staggered back, clutching my head in agony. The metal sphere before me seemed to vibrate with an otherworldly energy, and the room began to spin around me. Colors swirled and danced in a chaotic whirlwind, blending into a kaleidoscope of light and shadow.

I could hear a distant sound, like the wail of sirens echoing in the depths of my mind. The lab around us started to blur and distort, as though reality itself was folding in on itself. Spencer's voice sounded warped and distant, as if he were speaking to me from the other side of a vast chasm.

"Spencer, what's happening?!" I managed to choke out, my words slurred and fragmented.

"Ikki! Stay with me. Follow my presence!" Her words echoed through the swirling void of my consciousness, barely audible above the din of cracking sounds that seemed to be tearing at the fabric of my being.

Rai-chan's presence in my mind felt like a flickering candle in a storm, struggling to maintain its connection amidst the chaos unraveling around us. Her voice, usually a calming presence, was filled with a mixture of fear and concern.

And then, without warning, the world seemed to collapse around us. Darkness enveloped me like a suffocating shroud. In this endless night, I was lost and adrift, my mind desperately trying to piece together what was happening, what had happened, and where we were. But the void was relentless, offering no answers, no comfort, and no escape.

It was like we had stepped into the abyss and were swallowed whole.

I opened my eyes as the hallucinations and pain stopped abruptly, the world around me covered in pitch black darkness.

And then, without warning, my HUD flickered red, lighting up a room that had gone completely dark — and sirens began to blare.

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