Sector 0 — The Sea Wall Access
The city above was screaming.
From the maintenance catwalks under the highway, Kazuki could hear the chaos. Sirens wailed endlessly. Drones buzzed like angry flies. Kaelen Rhyne's ultimatum had turned Neo-Tokyo into a riot zone.
"Keep your head down," Renji hissed, vaulting over a rusted pipe. "And turn off your Core. Completely. If you emit even a single photon of energy, the Nullifiers will smell it."
"Nullifiers?" Kazuki whispered, struggling to keep up without his speed. The unpowered suit felt heavy, like wearing a wetsuit made of lead.
"Hunter-Killers," Aeva explained, checking a handheld scanner. "Androids designed to hunt Speedsters. They emit a localized dampening field. If they get close, your suit turns off. You become a statue."
They reached a massive, rusted circular door set into the concrete sea wall. It was marked with a faded radiation symbol and the date: 2034.
Renji jammed a pry-bar into the wheel and heaved. The metal groaned, then popped open with a hiss of stale, pressurized air.
"Welcome to Old Tokyo," Renji said. "Or what's left of it."
The Undercity (Old Tokyo Ruins)
They descended into the dark.
Neo-Tokyo was built on top of the ruins of the "Old City" after the Great Flood of the 2030s.
Here, there were no neon lights. No holograms. Just rotting skyscrapers jutting out of black, stagnant water. The air smelled of mold and dead fish.
They walked along a rusted monorail track that hovered just above the water level. It was a ghost town.
"Why are we here?" Kazuki asked, his voice echoing in the vast, watery graveyard.
"Because Kaelen won't look for a time machine in a place where time stopped fifty years ago," Renji said.
He signaled for a break inside the shell of an old office building. They sat on the floor, surrounded by rotting desks and ancient computers.
Renji cracked a glow-stick, bathing the room in eerie green light.
"Kazuki," Renji said, looking at the boy. "You asked why Kaelen wants the suit so badly."
Kazuki looked at the heavy silver armor on his chest. "Because it makes me fast?"
"No," Renji shook his head. "There are plenty of ways to go fast. Kaelen is faster than you. The Nullifiers are stronger than you."
Renji pointed at the glowing blue circle of the Velocity Core.
"That isn't an engine. It's a Key."
Kazuki frowned. "A key to what?"
"To the Causal Anchor," Renji explained. "The Crimson Helix exists in a dying timeline. Their world is falling apart. They want to move here. To our timeline."
Renji picked up a piece of debris and drew a line in the dust.
"Kaelen can cut a hole in reality, like he did tonight. But cuts heal. The universe stitches itself back together. That's why he can only stay for a few days."
He poked the dust.
"But the Velocity Core... Dr. Vaunt designed it to generate infinite stable energy. If Kaelen puts that Core into his machine... the hole never closes."
Renji looked up, his eyes haunted.
"He doesn't want to kill you, Kazuki. He wants to peel you out of that suit, plug the Core into the sky, and bring his entire army—millions of soldiers—into this world permanently. They will conquer this timeline and erase the old one."
Kazuki felt cold. Colder than the damp air.
"So... I'm not just a superhero."
"No," Aeva said softly. "You are the only thing standing between Earth and a full-scale colonization."
Suddenly, the water outside the building rippled.
Sploosh.
Renji froze. He killed the glow-stick immediately. Total darkness.
"Quiet," he breathed.
Outside, on the monorail track, heavy footsteps approached.
CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.
A beam of red light scanned the windows of their building.
Through a hole in the wall, Kazuki saw it.
A Nullifier.
It was eight feet tall, humanoid but faceless. Its head was a smooth black dome with a single red scanning eye. It had four arms—two holding heavy rifles, two hanging loose, tipped with jagged claws.
The air around it shimmered. Kazuki could feel the "dampening field" Renji talked about. Even from here, his suit felt dead. The HUD flickered and died.
[WARNING: PROXIMITY ALERT. SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT.]
"It's tracking the residual heat from the glow-stick," Renji whispered. "We have to move. Deeper."
"There's no way out," Aeva whispered back. "The back exit is flooded."
Renji looked at the dark water below.
"Then we swim."
"Renji, the suit weighs 200 pounds!" Kazuki hissed. "I'll sink!"
"Then I'll pull you," Renji said. "On three. We jump into the water. We hold our breath. We swim under the foundation to the next block."
The Nullifier stopped right outside their window. Its red eye narrowed. It raised a rifle arm.
WHIRRR.
It began to charge a plasma shot.
"One," Renji counted.
"Two."
"Three!"
They dove.
SPLASH.
They hit the freezing, black water just as the room above them exploded in a blast of blue plasma fire.
Underwater, it was silent.
Kazuki sank like a stone. The suit was dragging him down into the crushing dark. He kicked, but it was useless.
Panic set in. I'm going to drown. I'm going to die in a basement.
Then, a hand grabbed his collar.
Renji.
Renji kicked hard, dragging the heavy armored boy through the murky water, navigating the maze of submerged rebar and concrete.
They swam until their lungs burned.
Finally, Renji yanked Kazuki upward.
GASP.
They broke the surface in a different cavern—a dry, sealed underground laboratory.
Kazuki dragged himself onto the metal floor, retching water.
"I... hate... swimming," he coughed.
Renji climbed out, dripping wet. He ignored the cold.
He looked around the room.
It was a pristine, white laboratory hidden deep in the ruins. The lights were on. Computers were humming.
"We made it," Renji said, wiping water from his eyes. "This is it. The Vault."
Aeva stood up and looked at the main console. Her face went pale.
"Renji..."
"What?"
"The lights are on," Aeva said, her voice trembling. "This place has been abandoned for fifty years. Who turned the lights on?"
From the shadows in the corner of the lab, a slow clapping sound echoed.
Clap... Clap... Clap.
"Excellent deduction, Aeva," a smooth, cultured voice said.
A man stepped out of the shadows. He sat in a wheelchair, his legs atrophied, but his eyes were sharp as razors. He wore a white lab coat.
He looked exactly like the man on the Crimson Helix wanted posters.
Dr. Orelis Vaunt. The smartest man in the Helix.
"I've been waiting for you," Vaunt smiled, adjusting his glasses. "I calculated a 94% probability that Renji would bring the Core back to its birthplace."
Renji raised his rifle, but Vaunt just pointed a remote at them.
"Ah, ah. Look up."
They looked up.
Mounted on the ceiling were four automated turrets, locked onto them.
"Welcome home, Renji," Vaunt sneered. "Now... let's get that suit off the boy, shall we? I have a scalpel ready."
[To Be Continued…]