Project Echo Bunker (The Train)
June 17, 2001
3:15 AM
The iron door didn't thud this time. It didn't groan under the weight of a shadow-hammer. Instead, the air inside the lab began to ripple.
"Aris, what's happening to the monitor?" Kenji asked, stepping forward.
The screens were melting. Not literally, but the pixels were dripping down the glass like wet paint. The white square on the radar had expanded, taking over the entire display until the room was bathed in a harsh, strobing light.
"I... I can't lock it out!" Aris yelled, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "It's not hacking the system; it's bypassing the hardware! It's like the electricity itself is being rewritten!"
Suddenly, the air in the center of the lab—right next to the glass suit-cylinder—snapped.
A man stood there.
He looked like a glitch in a video game. One moment he was a solid figure in a tattered 80s lab coat, the next he was a smear of blue and purple light. He was vibrating so fast that he created a low-pitched hum that made everyone's teeth ache.
"Who are you?" Kenji demanded, raising his gauntlets. The blue lines on his suit flared to a defensive bright white.
The man tilted his head. His eyes weren't glowing blue like the Detective's; they were white, filled with a scrolling stream of data.
"Subject One," the man said. His voice sounded like three people talking at once—one high, one low, and one echoing from a distance. "You're wearing my suit."
"Your suit?" Sarah stood up from the bunk, clutching her broomstick crutch. She squinted at the flickering man. "Wait... Uncle Elias?"
The man turned his head sharply. For a split second, the glitching stopped. His face became clear—young, tired, and remarkably similar to Sarah's father.
"Sarah," Elias whispered. The name seemed to hurt him. "You have your mother's eyes. And your grandfather's stubbornness."
"You're dead," Marco blurted out, his arm instinctively turning to stone. "You died in '84. My dad told me the lab turned into a crater."
"I was in the crater," Elias said, his body tearing to the left and then snapping back. "I was the crater. I've been the silence in your walls and the static on your TVs for seventeen years."
He stepped toward Kenji. Every time his foot hit the metal floor, a ring of blue light rippled outward.
"The Observer is still outside," Elias said, looking at the heavy door. "He can't get in yet, but he's calling for reinforcements. The 'Season 2' protocols have been initiated. They're moving from observation to... harvesting."
"We know," Kenji said, keeping his helmet off so he could look Elias in the eye. "We found the files. What is 'Season 2'?"
"It's the cleanup," Elias hissed. "The King doesn't want a town full of anomalies. He wants the power concentrated. He's going to collapse the Ravenwood server. In forty-eight hours, this town will be 'deleted' from the map. Everyone in it will become raw data."
The room went cold. Maya shivered, clutching her arms. "Deleted? You mean everyone dies?"
"Worse," Elias said. "They'll be forgotten. Like they never existed."
He reached out a flickering hand toward the Black Box on the console. Aris flinched, but Elias didn't grab it. He just hovered his fingers over the brass Compass.
"I can get this train moving," Elias said. "I can take you to the Source. But once we leave the tunnel, there is no coming back. You'll be outside the simulation."
"We can't just leave our families!" Marco yelled.
"If you stay," Elias said, "you die with them. If you come with me, we can find the Master Server. We can hit Undo."
Suddenly, the train lurched. A massive, metallic CLANG echoed from the roof.
"He's back," Aris whispered, looking at the one remaining camera feed.
It wasn't just the Detective.
Standing on the tracks behind the Detective were three more figures. They wore the same liquid-shadow trench coats, but their eyes were different colors—one green, one orange, one violet.
"The Enforcers," Elias growled, his body flashing violently red. "Arthur brought his brothers."
Kenji put his helmet back on. The HUD flickered to life.
"Aris, get to the engine," Kenji ordered. "Marco, Sarah, get to the turrets. Maya, stay with Aris—he's going to need your stamina to jump-start the reactor."
Kenji turned to the flickering ghost of his uncle.
"Elias," Kenji said. "Start the train. We're going to the Source."