Off the Don Valley Parkway, and essentially smack in the middle of Toronto, the Ontario Science Center had been the favourite for school trips and family fun for decades. It was a monstrous building filled with the history of science, an actual DeLorean, and endless walking paths to tucker youngsters out. Tuckering out meant licking glass displays protecting feats of engineering while running around chaotically and looking googly eyed at cool stuff. Since the System came, however, the school trips stopped. Technically, the Science Center was forcibly closed prior to the whole apocalypse thing, due to 'dilapidation', or so the local politicians at the time had said.

It would have made an excellent location for cloud reaching shoebox condos, it turned out. The ones where people could have the privilege of paying fifteen hundred dollars a square foot to smell their neighbours cooking. Societal collapse from the System showing up, and the Dungeon that had formed around Professor Neuronium, had promptly canceled those plans. No maintenance fees, no more shitty food court with cheap poutine, no more stingray petting zoo. The tours now came with a ticket for a whalloping from a deranged Dungeon Boss with a pension for physics.

Alex landed right in front of the main entrance with both feet planted on solid ground. He was getting better at that. The espresso portal trip had been chill. His body had elongated to ridiculous portions through the under space and wrapped itself around a monstrous tank of millions of different coloured shrimp. They colony danced in activity and munched on overgrown water plants. Just vibing and being shrimp. At some point, some bird looking things wearing helmets had zipped by and done a god's honest fighter jet flight pattern, leaving fireworks that exploded backwards. The shrimp watched and continued being happy little crustaceans, content in their world.

There had been no black stone, no sense of being watched. No existential dread from the mountain of people after him. That one was probably the pizza eggs buff.

Born too late to take a nice jaunt through the Science Center when it was open, it now stood like a behemoth of concrete encasing knowledge before him. The signage was missing most of its letters, and the glass had been shattered and boarded up with metal sheets, but Alex was excited. He had seen old videos online. The kid inside him was itching to get moving and see what society was now missing out on. Apparently, there were real dinosaur bones in there! A DeLorean too, an IMAX theater, a living rainforest, and real Mars meteorites. The nerd in him was nerding the hell out.

Just need to not get curb-stomped by a boss with a PHD in whoopass. He threw an [Investigate] onto the rotating entrance doors.

[Ontario Science Center - Silver Ranked Dungeon]

[Current Occupants: 0]

[Time Since Last Defeat: 0 Years, 0 Months, 1 Day]

[Deliver the Pizza to the Customer - Time Remaining - 46:02]

"One day?" Alex said out loud and scanned around the entrance. Just overgrown weeds, piles of candy wrappers, and cracked concrete. "Ordering a pizza the day after? Is someone farming you, Professor?" He was just about to kick off and dive in, but his phone buzzed against the GoCoin and Stone Sword in his pocket. Might as well check it before he ran in.

Britanii DO NOT CONTACT: call me, we need to talk

Alex felt his heart and stomach drop out from under him, but with none of the feeling behind it. Strange indeed. Nothing quite like a text from a toxic ex you turned into a Dungeon Boss to kick you in the metaphorical gonads and jumpstart your circulatory system. Due to the buff, Alex felt his organs clench, but the anxiety typically associated with Britanii was nowhere to be found. Pretty neat, actually. He'd long since decided against ever answering her monthly text message rants that started angry, moved to sweet, and ended in death threats. 'Go incommunicado," Mary had suggested, and Alex had agreed. Incummunicado, save for revenge. Alex flicked the notification away. He didn't block her when they broke up. Better to know if your psychotic ex was coming for you, after all.

His phone buzzed again.

Britanii DO NOT CONTACT: please

Britanii DO NOT CONTACT: its serious. call me. please

Please. Two pleases, in fact. Britanii had never said please. Not ever. "Huh," Alex swiped away the notification again and began jogging toward the entrance to the Dungeon entrance. Was her message some kind of trick? Was he supposed to say sorry for making her a Dungeon Boss? Maybe. Maybe not. She was probably trying to wedge in again. Just long enough to rip his head off and eat it with slippers on a table and reality show reruns. No thanks! Plus, Professor Neuronium was waiting for his pie.

"Sorry I made you a Dungeon Boss, but you tried to kill me. Like multiple times. Sucks to suck!" Alex yelled as he pushed like an excited kindergartener into the Dungeon. The pizza egg buff sure was making him loopy. Maybe a touch of anxiety helped ground him.

The Science Center was quiet. Not spooky quiet. More like school is over and you're sneaking back in to use the washroom quiet. The grand entrance lay bare, save for the stanchions fallen over, the scuffed floor that was somehow still sticky. Just dirt, dust, and the red stuff probably wasn't ketchup. Abandoned convention center with a dash of childhood wonder was the vibe. The shuttered souvenir shop still had goods locked behind metal. Alex looked around at the signs of the different paths he could take. Overhead and around, the tinny crackle of ceiling speakers rung out Madonna singing about how she was a material girl.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Hair-Raising Experience

Into the Wild: Ancient and Modern Biodiversity

Scientific Marvels and Machines

"Killer robots? Walking dinosaur skeletons?...Electricity room?" Alex guessed out loud and took it in. He'd definitely be running and dodging death traps, but he was still excited. He scanned the different paths and pulled out his GoCoin. He eyed the fall side of the entrance and spotted what looked like a car under a collapsed wall divider. He flipped the GoCoin and it shot into the air, ringing as it spun far faster than a coin ever should.

"No way. That's gotta be the DeLorean." He hoped the GoCoin told him to head that-a-way.

Instead, the GoCoin hit the ground with a clink. What was strange was that it landed on its side, and just kept spinning. The smiley face that covered the arrow spun in lazy circles. For the first time since he used it, the GoCoin had no direction to point him in.

"What the hell does that mean?" He snatched it off the ground. "Is this a pick your poison situation? All equally terrible?" It stopped easily in his hand and he held it up to glare at the Relic. "You're no help. You're supposed to show me the way." he muttered and shoved it back into his pocket.

Guess I'm trusting my gut.

Said gut tugged him toward the half-buried shape in the far corner towards the Marvels and Machines path and more importantly, the DeLorean. He was pretty sure the wings of the Center all connected eventually.

"Science, meet pizza." He took off, [Blazing Hot] roaring to life quietly under his feet. The air seemed to wrap around his body as he dashed forward toward the car and the Marvels and Machines entrance. The entrance blazed by, and he leapt over a fallen display of pamphlets. They read: Science Center officially slated to close October 2024.

"Born one year too late to see the real thing. Now it's all mine to explore!" Within seconds, Alex was approaching the DeLorean. It must have been years since anyone had been in here that could actually appreciate it.

What's a little look before dashing through the other marvels of the Dungeon?

Alex approached the DeLorean with a sense of reverence. The legendary car lay under a fallen display wall, a bunch of wires, and what looked like a model volcano that had seen better days. The gull wing door pointed out from beneath the rubble. He got within five feet of it when the rubble shuddered.

"What the–" he skidded to a halt.

With a pneumatic hisss, the wall exploded off the DeLorean in an explosion of compressed air and blue lights. Alex retreated with wide eyes. Before his eyes, he saw the panels snap into place as tires rotated inwards and formed piston legs. The engine ignited as the hood unfurled like origami, revealing a mass of metal plating. The car folded and unfolded into something resembling a human, and steam hissed from the grill. There was a display on it's chest that blinked that read '88.8% CHARGED'. The grill that approximated a head looked directly at Alex.

"If my calculations are correct…" the machine intoned in a synthetic radio voice that sounded suspiciously like Christopher Lloyd. "We're about to have a really bad time."

It raised an arm and fired a net at Alex. The cords sailed through the air right on their target, about to wrap Alex up for good.

He yelped and triggered [Phantom Step] an instant before impact. The net wrapped around air, and Alex appeared ten feet to the right. He still clinched the steaming pizza box aloft.

"Oh come on! Why are all my childhood dreams trying to kill me!? Just once, damnit! ONCE!" He shouted and sprinted towards the massive hallway. The DeLorean monster revved and stomped after him, sending splinters of concrete and rusted metal crashing through the air. Under the faux metal sign that read Scientific Marvels and Machines Alex ran while the DeLorean transformer gave chase.

"Where we're going…we don't need roads!" The DeLorean Monster yelled.

The room's lights flickered to life. Dim strips lighting the displays. Around him, he ran around dirty plexiglass displays showcasing robotics arms, a Mars rover curled up like a dead crab under a mound of dust, and there were Tesla coils stationed everywhere. Slowly but surely, the machines began to whirr to life. Alex started to leave the Monster in the dust as it squeezed through and broke the doorway.

"Ok. Ok. Ok. This isn't so–"

Then his stomach lurched.

"What the fu–"

He was falling upward. Like someone had flipped the switch on gravity, his pumping feet left the ground and he began to fall towards the ceiling. The pizza box began to spin in his grip, and his body corkscrewed helplessly like a cat in Zero g. Above? Ahead? He didn't know how to frame it, but he was sailing right towards a bunch of ancient appliances roaring to life. A line up of toasters, a dishwasher with metal spoon teeth, and a small legion of blenders.

"WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT ON THE CEILING!?"

As Alex's form grasped the pizza box and every single electronic device around him began to stir, he tried to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do. Phantom Step? Illusory Copy to distract? Those blenders didn't have their safety lids on. Alex had to agree with the Madonna song. Right then, he agreed with Madonna. He felt very material, and did not want to be ground up into little bits.

And in the distance, from somewhere deep in the bowels of the Science Center, someone was swearing. Like a frustrated tinkerer that couldn't get the damn screw to sit on the bit. Over the whirring of motors and the pneumatic hissing, a voice sounded.

"Where is the fucking charging cord!? HAS ANYONE SEEN MY TEN FOOT USB CHARGING CORD, DAMNIT!? I NEED to charge my laptop before they come back!"

Alex just flailed harder and prepped a hail Mary [Phantom Step] in some direction he couldn't figure out.

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