More than Human [SciFi LitRPG]

"[...and freeze!]" Max sent, halting mid-step. His humanoid-canine form stiffened against the dimly lit wall, fur blending into the textured surface as his chameleon chromatophores synced. Leah and Charlie were somewhere behind him, equally cloaked, their outlines barely rippling the air. All three were linked via a tight band of shortwave radio after countless hours of trial and error. The casino's restricted zones were a strange mix—bleeding-edge security tech alongside archaic systems no sane designer would pair.

The shortwave EM band crackled with interference from the overhead lights and clunky servo motors in the ceiling vents. Frustrating, but the noise helped mask their whispers of encrypted net link activity. The hallway's fluorescents flickered—cheap bulbs rather than OLED panels—casting jittery shadows that made Max's hackles itch.

The door hissed open, and the expected trio of NPC security androids marched through, their matte-black chassis gleaming under the flickering light. Max pressed tighter to the wall, ears flattening. The androids moved in practiced unison—three steps, pause, glance—like clockwork.

As they passed, Max slipped forward and slapped a sheet of smart paper adhesive to the door's edge. The moment it touched metal, the micro-filament adhesive activated, hardening like quick-dry resin. Primitive. Effective. The outdated maglock couldn't latch with the obstruction in place.

"Hey, what's that?" one of the guards asked. Max froze, heart pounding. His augments gave him full 360-degree vision, so he didn't need to turn around to see the security droid's finger extend, pointing down the hall.

Fuck. He thought, grinding his teeth, as he saw the subtle shift of Charlie's hidden form glitching again.

The triple cough of Leah's dart gun sounded before Max could react. He watched, peripheral sensors capturing everything as three darts punched into the exposed neck seams of each android. They convulsed, blue sparks crackling along titanium spines. Leah had nailed this maneuver dozens of times—a flawless shot to the neural relay linking each unit's array to its power core. Silent and precise, the shock darts were perfect for disabling mech if you knew where to hit.

Max barely exhaled as the droids collapsed, limbs locking in fail-safe mode.

Then the alarms hit—a bone-rattling klaxon that drowned out the static on their comms. Red strobes pulsed, washing the hallway in alternating light and shadow. At both ends of the corridor, heavy plates slammed down with a grinding finality. The exit seals clanged into place.

"Shit!" Max snarled, rolling sideways as the ceiling split open, vomiting a lattice of nanofiber monolines. Razor-thin, nearly invisible, and deadly as hell. He hit the ground hard, breath rasping as the walls hissed.

Gas.

"Freeze the simulation!" Charlie bellowed.

Everything stopped. The sparklers in the port apertures froze mid-ignition, tiny diamonds of light suspended in air. Smoke hung in coiled ribbons, unmoving.

Leah shimmered into view, stepping through the frozen tableau. "Good call, Charlie. Even with the sim's pain tolerance dialed down, getting roasted alive still sucks. What went wrong this time?"

Charlie's cloak pixelated into nothing, revealing his lanky frame—despite his rejuvenation treatment, he'd kept a couple small scars on the side of his head. He'd seen more deployments than he cared to count. His jaw clenched. "My bad. Again. I was standing in front of a light source when the patrol hit. Cloak's active, but my goddamn shadow still shows. The skill just won't advance in these sims, and we don't have time for me to grind real-world training." He spat on the simulated floor—a habit from his old life, back when mistakes got people killed.

"Auggie, cancel shared virtual, please." Charlie ordered.

The room flickered, reality bleeding through the simulation like water through cracked glass. The trio floated in a white void as they reviewed the latest attempt.

Max stretched, joints popping. "That was our thirteenth attempt. We need to rethink the approach, Charlie. One of us always gets caught in the murder hole. I don't want to give up on our goose chase scenario though. If we enter through the back door, it'll negate our fake evacuation show."

"Translation: I always get caught. My poor-man's stealth ain't cutting it, and you want me on distraction duty." Charlie's voice was sour.

"Come on, man." Max's canine ears flicked back. "If we time it right, we can still slip you in through the back door once we clear the hall. A little outside chaos pulls patrols away from the vault and help to delay the security team's response."

Charlie sighed, running a hand through short-cropped hair. "Fine. We'll try it your way. But I'm telling you—if the vault guardian really is a Siege Walker, I need to be there. If it's anything like the mech walkers I've fought, I've got the best chance of dropping it. I know how hard they are to break, but I can find the weak spots."

"Fair point," Max admitted. "Let's punch out. It's almost breakfast, right?"

"Yup." Charlie's avatar fizzled out, leaving Max standing with Leah.

She smiled faintly, exhaustion lining her otherwise sharp features. Max could see she was struggling with the plan. She wasn't concerned about the heist or even failure. She was concerned about what the two men would face after in Atropos' realm. She'd made it clear she wasn't going in. She'd keep fighting on the Casino levels until she eventually got knocked out.

"Fingers crossed for the morning announcements," she murmured. "If you or Charlie get hit with a knockout challenge, we're screwed. I've still got a refusal token and am only one match away from getting another. We're not ready for a real run yet." She shook her head, flickered, and vanished.

Max lingered, eyeing the frozen explosion one last time. He could almost taste the simulated gas on his tongue—sharp, bitter, a reminder that failure in the Labyrinth wasn't just virtual. It carried real-world consequences.

"Soon," he muttered, breaking his connection. The casino lights died, and the world faded to black. The player villa suite was poorly ventilated, and the team had been camped out for too many hours. Empty cartons from room service food littered the table.

Max was the first to speak, "What do you two think? Breakfast?"

The trio made their way down from the upper floors of the Player's Villas to the busy morning buffet spread. The large hall was filled with Players and NPCs acting as servers and wait staff. The influx of new teams had woken the level up into a crowded frenzy of activity. Max quickly filled his plate and found Leah had already claimed a table away from the busy food kiosks.

The new players were boisterous, some celebrating their first Team Match wins and others equally eager for the next opportunity. The veteran players, most of their original teams gone, were scattered throughout the room. Their attitudes were different. They watched both new and old players like hungry predators selecting their next prey. Max noticed in the shadowy corner of the hall, a raven-haired woman staring him down. He sat down with a curse.

"Fuck. Abigail is still eyeballing me. That's bad news. I've already burned my last refusal." Max growled.

"Can't you sign up for more challenge matches to earn some more?" Leah asked.

"I guess I was thinking we'd be spooling up for our victory run by now. I'll see what's available after the morning announcements." Max said. Charlie arrived and sat down heavily.

"Damn. I know I should have more stamina to pull all-nighters like you all with my rejuv, but I am tired!" Charlie said, slouching down and raising his coffee mug. He took a long slow sip before groaning as the caffeine hit. "That's the stuff right there. Who needs sleep as long as the java flows, am I right?"

Max barked into his own mug and was about to respond when the public announcer crackled to life.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

~~~

"Good morning players! Casino Terminal has locked down the challenge matches. We've had so many entries that we are using all stages non-stop all morning. They will be viewable in the Gaming Theater. First matches start at 8 am, so get those bets in!

The afternoon's entertainment is yet another Team Match. We have a massive Escape Level for our new teams, Cybersport and Glitchmeisters, who join New Boston and Shanghai Surprise in their final team match before they can participate in Knockout matches.

Finally, the night's entertainment. Knockout Matches galore! Be sure to place any wagers before the starting bells!

1700 — Sonny McGuire (MVP Leaderboard) & Donahue Morgan (DAIE), Type: [KNOCKOUT] Player v Player High Stakes Challenge (winner payout x3, loser ejected from Labyrinth), Form: Battle Royal

1800 — Carl Mueller (ACME) & Charlie Hawkins (Utopia), Type: [KNOCKOUT] Player v Player High Stakes Challenge (winner payout x3, loser ejected from Labyrinth), Form: Battle Royal

1900 - Abigail Humphrey (EuroSport) & Max Mitchel (Utopia), Type: [KNOCKOUT] Player v Player High Stakes Challenge (winner payout x3, loser ejected from Labyrinth), Form: Battle Royal

Looks like Sonny is trying to decimate the entire DAIE team and Utopia is a target as well. New teams take note, losing team matches have consequences. Haha! This concludes your daily notifications. The Casino Terminal hopes you all have a lucky day!"

~~~

Max's ears dropped hearing the news. He'd refused Abigail twice now, but she wasn't giving it up. To make matters worse, Charlie would also be on the chopping block tonight. Leah frowned and spoke.

"Damn it. If these refusal tokens were tradable, I'd help you guys out. Max, we've been practicing assuming a late-night run. What if we move it up to just before the knockout rounds?"

Max focused and ran all the details through his mind, trying to assemble the new plan with an earlier execution. The guard schedules, the EMP timing, and their needed route played out in his imagination. If Charlie was outside of the casino to help create the distraction instead of inside with him and Leah.... He grimaced as the plan kept falling apart.

"No good. The new plan with Charlie on the outside as distraction doesn't work with the evening security shift. We need the late-night skeleton crew to force the casino security to use internal guards as backfill. And the timing of the internal patrols and EMP zones don't line up right to give you enough time to Houdini the vault door." He sighed.

"Shit. I didn't train against the chimera for nothing. We just have to win our goddamn matches if we can't avoid them!" Charlie slammed his mug down, then stopped as Max's eyes lit up and his ears swiveled forward. "What? Come on, Max. You have an idea?"

"Yeah. I do. Remember your first challenge match against Mueller?" Max asked, leaning forward.

"Fuck yeah, but I don't think I'll be able to drown the bastard again. He'll have been training counters to that."

"I mean beforehand. You almost missed the match because Mueller goaded you into a fight on the casino betting floor. Your first taste of security's chimera."

Charlie grinned, recognition dawning. "And now that I've trained up resistance...no. I thought we needed to keep that under wraps for our back door plan?"

"Correct. I wasn't saying you'd take the hit. We make sure that Mueller does, so he misses your match." Max's eyes gleamed. "Mueller and Abigail both hang out at Tyche's high roller table. Maybe we can get them both involved in a fight."

"I don't think that'll work, Max. They're both too cagey to fall for it. If they're not actively throwing punches, I doubt security will take them down." Charlie shook his head.

Leah looked thoughtful, while Max just smiled, baring his teeth slightly.

"Consider this good practice for your heist-night diversion. We need a brawl big enough to confuse the situation. Here's how we play it...."

Max approached the high roller table. The privacy shell was down and several Players from the new teams were in retreat. Judging from the large grin on Tyche's plastic face, they were leaving with fewer chips than they'd arrived with. Mueller, Brandon, Kane, and Abigail were at the table, each with large stacks of their own.

"[Alright. It's go-time. A trio of security drones are overhead, and the pit boss is looking this way.]" Max sent into his team chat. Internally, he pinged Captain Cypher. "[Looks like Abigail's the only player at the table not actively accessing her smart suite. You know what to do!]"

Tyche's LED eyes flickered as Max approached and the large mech spoke.

"My dear Max. You've finally come back to my table. Have you come into some funds? Talking with my friends here, I was under the impression that you and your team have had a string of tough luck."

Max eyed the table. Abigail studied him, looking for any hints or weaknesses she could exploit. Max had no doubt she'd researched him well. Carl was looking for Charlie but didn't see him. Max exposed his teeth somewhere between a grin and snarl in anticipation.

"Just a short-term setback, Tyche. I look forward to winning our evening events," Max said with forced cheer.

"You'd better! I expect every credit I've lent back...with interest," Kane said with a sneer.

"Oh! My dear boy, you've elected to bargain with our local devil." Tyche twittered. "I do hope for your sake that you win, and quickly. I've heard that Kane's rates are somewhat lopsided."

Kane stood up menacingly. "That's right. Twenty points vig every six hours. If he doesn't win, I'll be taking everything he owns." He smiled his fake smile, holding his large, bejeweled fingers up and clenching them into grasping fists. Max paled.

"Wait! You said ten points a day! You can't change the deal!" Max yelled, voice rising with genuine panic.

"Stupid Player fodder trash!" Kane spat. "What I said scarcely matters—that's what was written on the contract. All of you noobs are so blithe, lording your Player status over us NPCs. Casino rules are the only thing that matters down here."

"CHEATERS!" came the expected cry from the other side of the table behind Brandon, as Charlie entered the crowded area around the high roller table. The chair he threw was a solid casino swivel chair that must have weighed a hundred kilos.

Kane was too fast and ducked out of the way. Brandon was not so lucky. He hadn't been looking in that direction and took the hit from the side, forcing him off his chair and into Abigail. An explosion sounded in the thick crowd, concealing a couple of rapid-fired coughs from Leah's spetsdods that she shot from a concealed position amongst the nearby slot machines.

Max ducked and yelled, "Brandon took a shot at me! You need to control your team, Carl!"

Internally, Cypher pinged Max back, and he saw Abigail's look of surprise when her arm was yanked into a weak push, hitting Brandon. Brandon, already off-balance, staggered backward falling into a server NPC, sending her sprawling. Carl's face was a rictus of pain, veins bulging in his neck. Max saw that at least one of Leah's darts had found their mark.

Drones dropped from the sky as the utility foglet network surrounding the table began to solidify. Charlie lobbed another chair toward the high roller table and slid back into the crowd. The chair bounced off the lead drone, which turned in that direction. A large player wearing a Barbarian costume from the new team, the Glitchmeisters, stood alone at the edge of the crowd yelling in excitement to see a real brawl. He'd been lifting another chair to get in on the fun.

"All Players stand down or face the consequences!" The drone's vocoder pealed out, amplified to painful decibels as the foglets solidified into a grid of webs. It leveled both of its dart guns at the suspicious Player. It might have ended there, but Max tensed in the net. A player with maxed out strength could break free or EMP the foglets to crumble the net, but he had a better idea. He sped up his thought processes.

"[Leah, trigger another flashbang! I'm going to try something.]" Max accessed the foglet strands touching him and slid into its control systems using his Joining skill. Max's alien hacking skill overwrote the foglets' programming and assumed control. Max purposely restricted it to only trace down a thin strand of chained foglets back towards the drone with the darts.

Max's control spread out, only where he wanted it. The flashbang detonated and Max yanked and squeezed with the foglets surrounding the lead drone. Its dart guns erupted in full automatic, coughing a stream of darts with the deadly chimera poison. Max used the net to drag the gun's muzzle as darts sprayed into the crowd. Screams and chaos reigned as Max faded into the background. Once he was free of the foglet net, he cut his link. His abandoned foglets shorted and sparked, dropping to the ground dead, as he left them behind.

Max hurried away when an anonymous comm chimed in his systems queue. He opened it.

[Nice try, Max. I hope you have more surprises for me on the stage. See you at 1900. ~ A.H.]

Max slipped away from the chaos, making his way through the crowded casino floor where patrons were still buzzing about the brawl. Security drones hovered above, but their attention was focused on the high roller area and the medical response team carting away victims of the chimera darts.

The Nebula Lounge sat three levels up from the casino floor—far enough from the incident to avoid scrutiny but close enough to maintain a view of the aftermath. Max found Charlie already there, nursing a drink at a corner table partially obscured by holographic star formations that gave the lounge its name.

"Nice work back there," Charlie said as Max slid into the seat across from him. "Though I think you might have overdone it with your supposed outrage. Acting much?"

"Go big or go home," Max replied with a shrug. "Seen Leah?"

"Right here," came her voice as she approached from the bar, carrying three glasses of something amber. She set them down and took a seat. "Thought we could all use this."

Max's nose twitched at the scent. "Real whiskey? Not the synthetic stuff?"

"Small victory celebration," she said, raising her glass. "Mueller's down. Security took him to medical with a full dose of level 3 chimera. He's going to miss his fight for certain."

Charlie's face broke into a grin. "That's one problem solved," Charlie said, raising his glass. "Now we just need to figure out how to get Max out of his date with Abigail."

Max frowned, pulling up the anonymous message again. "She knew what we were doing. Either she's got incredible intuition, or—"

"I was certain I hit her, too," Leah said. "Do you think she has resistance to chimera?"

Charlie sighed, "She says she's been working the level for months. Maybe she tussled with security before and got some extra resistance training in? Or she's got an inside man like Max here."

The trio fell silent as a group of noisy Players passed by, celebrating some minor victory. When they were gone, Max leaned in.

"I guess I don't have a choice. I'll have to face her. I may have to reveal some more of my trump cards, but that could work in our favor." Max said, with a finger held up alongside his long muzzle.

They all knew better than talk aloud about the layered deception. Lachesis might play by the rules, but the team knew she had eyes and ears everywhere.