The "lab" wasn't a room of science; it was a cathedral of cold, calculated desecration. I was tossed onto a slab of black stone that pulsed with a rhythmic, emerald heartbeat. The surface was freezing, the chill of it seeping through my suit and biting into my skin.
Above me, a creature hovered. It looked like the others, but its spine was elongated, trailing a tail of segmented metal blades. Multiple mechanical eyes some as small as marbles, others large and rotating whirred as they focused on me.
"A biological anomaly," the Cryptek clicked, its voice a staccato of static. "Clad in a suit of flesh... yet the soul signature is... wrong."
"I told you, I don't know why I'm here!" I shouted, struggling against the invisible weight that pinned my limbs to the slab. "Let me go!"
"Silence, specimen," the Cryptek ordered. A spindly, multi-jointed arm descended from the ceiling, tipped with a needle that glowed with a sickly violet light. "We must determine if you are a weapon sent by the Great Enemy or merely a maggot that crawled into the wrong hive."
As the needle touched my temple, a blue screen flickered into existence, floating right in front of my eyes. It wasn't in the room; it was in my mind.
[ SYSTEM INITIALIZING... ]
[ INTEGRATION RATIO: 12% ]
[ ERROR: CONFLICTING DATA SOURCES DETECTED ]
[ SOURCE A: C'TAN FRAGMENT "THE DECEIVER" (DORMANT) ]
[ SOURCE B: OLD ONE ARCHIVE "THE WEAVER" (ACTIVE) ]
"What is this?" I gasped, my vision swimming.
"What do you see, human?" The Cryptek leaned in, its sensors flared. "Your brain activity is spiking into the terahertz range. Impossible for a Terran."
"Get... away... from me!"
The pain in my head peaked. It felt like two tectonic plates were grinding together inside my skull. On one side, a golden light of pure creation; on the other, a silver darkness of absolute entropy.
[ ALERT: HOST UNDER DURESS ]
[ EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED ]
[ ACTIVATING: 'PHASE-SHIFT' ]
Suddenly, the world turned translucent. The Cryptek's metal claw passed right through my chest as if I were made of smoke. I felt light, weightless, and terrifyingly powerful.
"Chronos-instability!" the Cryptek shrieked, backing away as green sparks flew from its joints. "It is phasing! Guards! Contain it!"
The metal skeletons in the room raised their rifles the Gauss Flayers. I knew their names. How did I know their names?
They strip the atoms from the bone, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. Do not let them touch you.
I rolled off the slab, my body flickering like a dying lightbulb. Every time I moved, I left a trail of after-images behind me. I wasn't just running; I was slipping through the cracks of time.
"Stop!" I screamed, throwing my hand out.
A wave of purple and gold energy erupted from my palm. It hit the nearest Necron warrior, but it didn't explode. Instead, the metal began to reverse. The scratches on its armor vanished, then the armor itself turned to raw ore, then into a pile of stardust.
The Cryptek froze, its many eyes widening. "The power of the Ancients... but tainted by the Star Gods? What are you?"
[ INTEGRATION: 25% ]
[ NEW OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE THE TOMB COMPLEX ]
[ MAP UPDATED: SECTOR 4 - THE SILENT GALLERY ]
I didn't stay to answer. I turned and ran, my feet barely touching the ground. The green lines on the floor were no longer just decorations; they were a roadmap. The "System" was feeding me the layout of the entire pyramid.
"I'm a woman, in a tomb of killer robots, with a god or something in my head," I muttered, ducking under a burst of green flayer fire that disintegrated the pillar behind me.
"luckily that didn't hit me."
I rounded a corner and skidded to a halt. The path ahead was blocked by a massive, ornate gate guarded by two giants at least ten feet tall carrying shields that shimmered with energy.
[ WARNING: LYCHGUARD DETECTED ]
[ ANALYSIS: FRONTAL ASSAULT PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 0.02% ]
[ SUGGESTION: USE 'THE DECEIVER'S MIRAGE' ]
"Do it!" I hissed.
My body didn't just turn invisible; it multiplied. A dozen versions of me, all wearing the same suit and hat, sprinted in different directions. The Lychguard hesitated, their logic circuits struggling to process the sudden swarm.
I slipped between their legs, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"I need to find a way out of this pyramid," I whispered to the screen in my mind. "And I need to know who 'I' am."
[ MEMORY FRAGMENT LOCATED: PROJECT '**********' ]
[ WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCESS? ]
"Not while I'm being shot at!" I yelled, diving into a maintenance shaft as the sound of metal footsteps thundered behind me.