They made it out just after dawn.

  No welcome. No warning. Just the heavy grinding of the tower gate opening to spit them back onto the docks.

  The mech collapsed two meters out. One last wheeze of smoke, then it didn’t move again.

  Drex lay on the ground next to it, clutching his ribs. Every breath stabbed. His shirt was soaked in blood. Juno sat slumped nearby, his leg wrapped in a torn jacket sleeve, already dark with dried red.

  “Think we can fix it?” Juno asked, staring at the wreck.

  Drex didn’t answer. He just looked up at the tower, still silent, still black, like it had never opened.

  Behind them, the door closed.

  The return trip was quiet. They hired a hauler to drag the mech back to the yard. The driver didn’t ask questions. Just charged triple and said nothing else.

  Once back, they dropped the mech behind the workshop and collapsed inside.

  Drex popped a few painkillers, then grabbed his old field scanner. He ran a sweep on the metal band they recovered.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Still couldn’t identify it. Material was off the charts—way denser than titanium, but feather-light.

  It pulsed once when he touched it.

  Then went still.

  Juno limped in from the side room, fresh bandage on his thigh.

  “You figure out what it does?”

  “Yeah. Makes me want to go back.”

  Juno didn’t laugh. Just sat down and rested his head against the wall.

  They slept most of the day. At night, someone knocked on the yard gate.

  Drex checked the cam. Small frame. Ponytail. Clean boots.

  He buzzed her in.

  Riley stepped through with a data pad under one arm and a tired look in her eyes.

  “Didn’t take long for someone to talk,” Drex muttered.

  “I saw the tower logs,” she replied. “Unregistered entry. Two biosigns. Civilian mech. No corpses. That narrows it down.”

  She looked over at the wreck behind him.

  “You brought that in?”

  “We pushed it out.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’re lucky you didn’t die.”

  “Yeah,” Juno said from behind the workbench, “but we didn’t.”

  Riley didn’t respond right away. She tapped her pad, pulled up a file, and turned the screen to show them.

  Images: infrared of the fight. Brief glimpses of rats. Sparks. Smoke. The tower recorded everything.

  “You triggered a checkpoint,” she said. “That means the tower adjusted. Next run, it’s going to be harder.”

  Drex leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

  “Good,” he said.

  Riley narrowed her eyes. “You planning to go back in that thing?”

  He shook his head. “We build a new one.”

  She looked at Juno. “You think that’s smart?”

  “No,” he said, “but he’s doing it anyway.”

  She was quiet for a while. Then sighed.

  “I might have something better than junk-grade hydraulics and a gas torch,” she said. “The lab’s shutting down in three weeks. If you want access, you’d better move fast.”

  Drex didn’t answer immediately. He looked back at the mech.

  “Then let’s start tonight.”