Chapter 129: The Future is Open
Feelings like this were rare in a world built on survival. Watching Min hurl Ash into the air a few times, Seo-jin felt the stupid spark, wanting to join in. Cooler instinct shut it down. He left them to it and moved to the door.
'What do you think?'
[The lock looks complex. Whoever built this didn't want it opened by chance. Put your hand on it—I'll analyze it.]
He pressed his palm to the cold steel.
The lock was a maze of mechanisms he didn't have names for, gears layered over plates, a numbered wheel mounted over something deeper. As the system worked, his eyes drifted to the inscription.
FOR THE FUTURE
"What's the hold up? Rip it off its hinges."
Min stomped up beside him, still smiling like a fool. Ash trudged behind her, dizzy from all the tossing. He rubbed his head, then blurted out:
"Don't break it down! You'll possibly trigger something. They used traps, puzzles—stuff to keep idiots out. These were made for people trying to rebuild the world. And I doubt that big lock is the way to get it. Only an idiot would build something for the future then put it behind a combination code like that. Makes no sense."
Both adults turned and stared at him like he'd just grown a second head.
"What? I know things."
[He's right.]
'You done?'
[Yeah. The front lock is fake. There's a hidden panel—look for a seam.]
Seo-jin ran his fingers over the steel. The false lock was huge, bank-vault heavy, a giant wheel with a smaller dial embedded in the center. Minutes passed. He found nothing.
Then Ash slipped in beside him and pressed a spot near the base.
Click.
A panel snapped open.
Seo-jin felt his neck heat with irritation.
"How'd you do that?"
Ash shrugged.
"Looked obvious to me."
'Yeah… fuck this kid.'
Shoving Min and Ash back with an elbow, he crouched to inspect the open compartment.
"Looks like a three-digit code. Any ide—"
"Three-three-six."
Both adults stared at him again, like he might be diseased.
Seo-jin narrowed his eyes.
"And why the hell would it be 336?"
Ash pointed at the inscription.
"For The Future. They wouldn't expect anyone to just know the code. So they'd leave a clue. Three words. Three numbers. Count the letters. Three. Three. Six."
Seo-jin blinked once. Then twice.
He turned back to the panel and keyed it in.
"If you're right, you get first pick of the tubberware."
"The fuck he does!"
Smiling and ignoring Min's tantrum, he hit ENTER.
A heavy metallic clack punched through the chamber. The internal gears groaned awake for the first time in a century.
"Good job, kid! You're not touching my tubberware, but you earned your part!"
Min clapped him on the back, hard enough to launch him face-first into the steel door.
"Why…?"
He slid down limply to the floor while Min fussed over him, but Seo-jin barely heard them.
All he heard was the grinding of ancient gears coming alive—
—and the promise of whatever waited behind that door.
'Please be weapons. Please be weapons. A whole bunker of missiles and machine guns. Tanks. A helicopter.'
[It's more likely a database. Or a seed bank.]
'Please don't be seeds. Please don't be seeds…'
Min finally got Ash standing straight when the final lock snapped open. A long, cold hiss spilled from the seams of the door, stale and pressurized.
"Come on, tubberware!"
"Come on, cartoons!"
Seo-jin abandoned his image.
"Come on, nuclear warheads!"
Both Min and Ash stared at him like he'd grown horns.
"I have dreams too."
He ignored their judgment, braced himself, and shoved the door open.
Darkness swallowed everything inside, then the hum started. A rising charge of energy. A metallic clang burst from deep within as rows of ceiling lights snapped alive one by one, stretching into the distance. At the entrance was a large grated platform, with stairs leading down to the treasures below.
"Holy shit… it's huge."
Min staggered forward, steps light and reverent, like she feared a wrong move would break the vision.
Ash rushed in behind her, bouncing on his toes, his ghosts spinning circles around him.
"I can't believe it! I'M IN A TIME CAPSULE!"
He screamed it at full volume.
Both Min and Ash turned to Seo-jin, expecting him to crack a grin or yell back.
Instead, he stood frozen at the threshold, his face locked tight.
"What—?"
Min didn't finish. Seo-jin stormed past them, boots hitting the metal floor hard as he took the stairs down.
Ash blinked.
"What's up with him?"
"Don't care."
Min followed, her strides quickening into an eager descent, like a kid racing downstairs for Christmas.
Ash turned to follow...then stopped.
Rows of shadowed shelves stretched ahead. Behind him, the open door. His breath hitched.
[Go now. They won't notice until—]
'Too late.'
Hex stepped out of the darkness, materializing inside the capsule entrance, cloth-wrapped face pointed straight at Ash.
"What the fuck is this?!"
BAM!
Ash flinched, every ghost on his back puffing up in panic as Seo-jin's shout exploded from below, rattling the shelves and detonating any thought of running.
Letting out a hard breath, Ash followed the others down, ghosts tight at his heels.
"Dead Hands… Blake is gonna shit himself."
Hopping the last step, he hit the bottom and sprinted straight for the nearest shelf.
"You fucking calm down!"
Seo-jin's voice boomed from deeper in. Ash ignored it, right up until he saw what filled the shelves.
"Books? They're all thick. Boring."
He jumped to the next case.
"Books."
Next.
"More books."
Case after case, nothing but paper and disappointment. He started to understand why his boss was losing his mind, but he pushed on. New row. Still books. Next one. More fucking books.
Then he reached the fifth row.
"No way… no way!"
His eyes burned bright. He shot to the next case, hands skimming over spines like they might vanish if he blinked.
"Lord of the Crowns… The Lion Emperor… Toy Tale… Forrest Thump—oh my god. No freakin way. It's here. It's actually here!"
It was absurd. Endless shelves of movies stacked by the thousands. Every film he'd ever heard rumors of, and hundreds more. His throat tightened. Sweat slid down his brow. He reached for one, fingers trembling, lifting it like it might crumble under his touch.
"Ghost Capturer Sakuna… I didn't even know they made movies…"
Triss, Onion, and Gruff tightened their orbit around him, all three ghosts crowding him in a rare moment of reverence. Ash held the case to his chest, shaking.
Then he threw his head back and roared.
"I love the Dead Hands!"
Deeper inside, Seo-jin pressed his palms hard against the bunker's back wall, dragging them over every seam.
"Just stop already. You look pathetic."
Min lounged behind him in a metal chair, boots on a desk, arms crossed, face sour enough to curdle milk.
Slam!
Seo-jin dropped his forehead to the cold steel as his fist hammered the wall, along with whatever hope he'd had left.
"Not even a knife. What the fuck. Just books and movies."
"Comic books!"
Ash's shout echoed through the bunker, bright and thrilled, and somehow it punched Seo-jin right in the patience.
"Fucking nerds."
Min kicked the desk hard enough to shift it, then yanked drawers open one after another. All of them empty. Her fingers curled like she might crumple the metal.
[Whoever built this must've believed popular media was vital. Temperature-controlled, humidity-controlled—preserving it to this extent wasn't cheap. Doesn't appear goverment built. A wealthy fanatic probably.]
Seo-jin drew a long breath off the steel wall, forcing his pulse down, trying to think instead of break something.
'Fine, it's fine. Money won't be an issue now. Weapons would've been nice, but I can buy them—'
The calm snapped.
"Worthless piece of shit! Fucker, fucker, FUCKER! How am I even supposed to watch any of this?! You stupid—dumbshit— goddamn MOTHERFUCKER!"
He wanted to kill whoever built this place. Personally. Slowly. Grimm floated high overhead, shrinking back, thinking he'd somehow caused the outburst.
Seo-jin reached for the desk, ready to fold it in half, when Ash skidded into view, lungs dragging behind his words.
"Guys! No way—you—you gotta see this! Come on!"
He didn't wait. He spun, nearly slipped, then sprinted deeper between the shelves.
Seo-jin clenched his jaw, shook the rage loose, and followed. As he passed a row, he spotted Min pressed against a wall, palms exploring for hidden panels.
"You look pathetic!"
He threw it at her with a grin as he walked past. She froze mid-search, teeth grinding.
The tiny flare of satisfaction died the moment he rounded the corner and saw Ash's smiling face. For a second, Seo-jin almost spit at him.
"You've got two seconds to calm down before I slap the happy out of you."
The kid's smile snapped off his face. He straightened fast, swallowed hard.
He'd forgotten to read the room.
"Sorry, Boss. I know you're disappointed. But I don't think this is the real time capsule—or at least not all of it."
Seo-jin felt his pulse spike, his eyes flashing crimson for a moment.
"Show me."
Ash nodded fast and jogged toward the far wall. A few steps ahead, he turned back with a grin he tried, and failed, to hide.
"Follow me."
Then he ran further ahead, stopped, and walked straight through the wall, ghosts slipping with him.
"He can walk through walls? What the fuck is going on?!"
Seo-jin strode up, braced to smash through, only to find Ash standing calmly just in front of him.
"It's an illusion. The walls are seamless. If you're not right on top of it, you'd never know there was a hallway here."
The kid wasn't smiling like he'd been told, but everything else gave him away, voice loud, face flushed, hands jittering. He was barely holding himself together as he bolted deeper into the hidden corridor.
Looking over the optical illusion, Seo-jin let a shard of the excitement bleed through and allowed himself a small, brief smile as he followed.
[More is often times better, even if it's not a nuclear arsenal.]
'As long as it's not seeds, I won't lose my...'
"Shit."
His steps slowed the instant he saw it. Fresh light spilled through the end of the hall, sharp enough he had to squint as he stepped out onto another raised platform.
His breath stilled as fire lit in his chest. His hands closed around the railing, steel crumpling under his grip without notice.
"Green..."
Below, a carved-out gorge stretched for acres, an impossible oasis buried under the city's corpse. Above it hung a false sky, summer-bright, clouds gliding across a sun warmer than anything Shatterbay had seen in decades.
A field of grass filled the chamber, green so vivid it looked fake. Arcs of water spun in slow circles, mist rolling off them. Groves of trees flared with color in the distance, flooding the air with a clean sweetness he'd never smelled before.
And at the center of it all stood a two-story house, something torn straight from his stolen flashes of Earth. Wraparound porch. Blue-and-white paint untouched by time. A place that had no business still existing.
Ash's laughter broke his trance. Seo-jin watched the kid tear through the grass, arms wide as the spray hit him. Triss, Gruff, and Onion swirled around him, pouncing, rolling, bobbing, feeding off the boy's joy.
"What is this place, Broodfather? It smells horrible."
Hex approached from behind, nose wrinkled, lips smacking like the scent offended him.
"I'm not sure. Go get Min. Tell her we found something."
"Yes, Broodfather."
Hex practically skipped as he headed back.
"Ahh!"
A scream snapped Seo-jin's gaze to the porch. Ash had hit the ground hard, scrambling backward.
Then Seo-jin saw why.
On the bench sat a clothed skeleton, feet and hands crossed neat as if it had simply fallen asleep. And beside it, standing tall and still, was a figure of pure white with a round black face, watching them.
Seo-jin vaulted the railing.
Only one word formed as he closed the distance, pulse pounding in his teeth.
"A robot? No way."
For the first time since they'd entered, it was his turn to feel excited. A robot was much better than seeds.