Ancients One's trail end
The announcement came without ceremony.
No drum of authority. No echo of triumph.
Just a clean, measured broadcast that slid through the Doom Train's corridors like a scalpel.
"Gate Two evaluation complete.
Sector Nine traversal successful.
Thirty-six candidates cleared."
The message repeated once. Then never again.
Across Coach Fourteen, Compartment Ten, the survivors stood where they had been instructed to assemble. Not in rows. Not at attention. Just present. Counted.
Raghu felt the number settle before its meaning did.
Thirty-six.
It wasn't grief that followed. Not yet. It was absence. A hollow pressure where eighty-two presences had once filled the space with noise, impatience, ambition.
Now there were gaps.
Physical ones.
Places where people should have been standing. Where voices should have overlapped. Where irritation should have sparked arguments over positioning and rank.
None of that happened.
Instead, the train hummed softly, indifferent, its pulse steady and unbroken.
Raghu shifted his weight. The floor beneath him responded a fraction of a second earlier than expected, metal tightening as if anticipating the movement. He frowned but said nothing.
Around him, others reacted in quieter ways.
Uren Tally stared at the floor, lips moving soundlessly as if counting again, just to be sure the number hadn't changed while he wasn't looking.
Mira Len's hands trembled. She clenched them, unclenched them, then folded her arms tightly across her chest, breathing shallow, controlled.
Den Olo stood perfectly still, armor plates locked. The man looked carved rather than alive, his massive frame casting a shadow that no longer overlapped with anyone else's.
No one spoke.
The Halo Watches flickered in unison, projecting a list in neutral white.
CLEARED CANDIDATES — SECTOR NINE
No fanfare. No ranking changes yet. Just names.
Some candidates scanned the list slowly. Others didn't look at all.
One man near the back made a small, broken sound. He reached out, tapping his watch again and again as if the name might return if he refreshed it enough times.
It didn't.
Raghu followed his gaze and felt something tighten in his chest.
Lucien's name was gone.
Not crossed out. Not archived.
Removed.
A few lines lower, Drake Lamar. Heena Voh. Zeyn Orl.
People he had spoken to. People who had stood close enough during the trial that he could remember the sound of their breathing.
Now the space where their names should have been felt… thinner.
A voice broke the silence.
"So that's it?"
The speaker was a mid-tier candidate Raghu recognized only vaguely. Sornap Dha. Rank had once mattered. Now it felt irrelevant.
"Is this where someone says 'congratulations'?" Sornap asked, his tone brittle. "Or do we just… move on?"
No answer came.
The train did not respond.
Neither did the CNC.
A door at the far end of the compartment slid open, smooth and soundless. Supervisor Harry stepped through, posture straight, expression carefully neutral.
He looked older than he had before the descent. Or perhaps just more tired.
"Candidates," Harry said evenly. "Remain where you are. This is not a holding delay. It is a transition window."
His gaze moved across them, precise, professional. He did not linger on faces. Did not acknowledge the empty spaces.
Raghu noticed something else.
Harry's Halo interface lagged.
Just for a heartbeat. But Raghu had learned to notice those.
Harry continued, unaware or pretending not to notice. "Sector Nine protocols require post-gate recalibration. Until that process completes, rank mobility is suspended."
A ripple of reaction passed through the group.
Suspended?
Ayush's jaw tightened. Vedant exhaled sharply through his nose. Gudi tilted her head, eyes narrowing.
Harry raised a hand. "This is not a penalty. It is a safeguard."
"To protect who?" someone asked.
Harry's pause was too brief to be accidental. "The system."
That answer landed badly.
Raghu felt the Verdant Pulse stir under his skin, instinctive, reactive. He suppressed it immediately. The sensation of doing so felt different now. Not heavier. More… deliberate. Like choosing silence instead of having it imposed.
The Halo Watches chimed again.
STATUS UPDATE: POST-DESCENT NORMALIZATION IN PROGRESS
REWARD DISTRIBUTION: PENDING
RANK ADJUSTMENTS: TEMPORARILY FROZEN
Murmurs spread.
"Pending?"
"They can't do that."
"We earned—"
Harry's voice cut through cleanly. "You earned survival. Nothing more is currently guaranteed."
That stopped the noise.
Raghu glanced at his own watch. Where others saw the same neutral messages, his display flickered, lines of green text briefly overlaying the standard interface before resolving.
For a fraction of a second, he saw it.
Status: Compatible — Monitoring Ongoing
Then it vanished.
He swallowed, the words lingering uncomfortably in his mind.
Compatible with what?
At the edge of the compartment, a CNC technician whispered urgently into a private channel, eyes fixed on a diagnostic slate. "Supervisor… some of the elimination logs don't have causality markers."
Harry didn't turn. "Flag it."
"I already did. It routed to—" The technician hesitated. "To core review."
Harry's shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. "Then stop looking at it."
The technician nodded quickly and stepped back.
The train hummed again.
Not louder.
Closer.
Raghu felt it through the soles of his boots, up his legs, into his chest. A resonance that didn't ask permission, didn't intrude, just… acknowledged.
He shifted again.
The floor responded instantly this time.
Mira noticed. Her eyes flicked down, then back up to his face. Their gazes met for a second.
"You feel it too," she whispered.
Raghu didn't answer. He wasn't sure how to explain something he didn't yet understand.
Harry cleared his throat. "You will be escorted to temporary rest pods. Full briefings will follow once recalibration completes."
"And the dead?" Sornap asked suddenly. "Do we get told what happened to them?"
Harry met his eyes.
"No," he said simply. "You get told what happens to you."
That ended the conversation.
As the survivors began to move, guided by soft floor lighting, Raghu lingered for half a heartbeat longer than necessary. He looked back at the empty spaces one last time.
Thirty-six.
The number felt final.
As he stepped forward, the train's hum shifted again, just enough that only he noticed. A subtle alignment. A quiet agreement.
Far ahead, unseen rails adjusted their course.
And somewhere deep within the Doom Train's routing lattice, a destination updated itself without requesting approval.
Next Stop: Station of Records.
The train did not apologize.
It never had.