Chapter 16 - Episode 16The Ghost in the Glass

INT. NEW HIDEOUT - DAY

The air is thick with the smell of ozone and solder. The three components for the Chronovisor lie on a workbench like the organs for a monstrous transplant. The team is exhausted, frayed, and on edge. The build has been a week-long nightmare.

ARIS is at his breaking point, his hands shaking as he tries to integrate Kaelen's futuristic schematics with the primitive 90s hardware.

ARIS > It's not working! The processor's quantum architecture is rejecting the power regulator's analog signature. It's like trying to mix oil and water, if the oil was from the future and the water was from a haunted Soviet submarine!

KAELEN places a hand on his shoulder. Her Temporal Sight allows her to see the problem not as a hardware issue, but as a disharmony in the temporal frequencies of the objects.

KAELEN > Stop thinking like an engineer, Aris. Think like a musician. They're not fighting. They're out of tune.

She closes her eyes, concentrating. Using her own psychic energy as a bridge, she helps Aris find the precise calibration. With a final click, the components lock together. A low, stable hum fills the room. They have done it.

INT. MALAKOR'S HIDDEN BASE - DAY

A chilling, parallel scene. MALAKOR stands before his own, perfected Chronovisor. A terrified INEZ REYES is strapped into the chair.

MALAKOR > The Oracle erased dozens of threats to create its utopia. But one was different. One was not a person, but an idea. A weapon. Find it for me, Doctor. Find the "Prometheus Project."

Inez, weeping, resists, but Malakor's machine tears the information from her mind. On his screen, an image begins to form: a secret laboratory from the 1980s, and a design for a terrifying, reality-bending weapon. He now has a target.

INT. NEW HIDEOUT - NIGHT

The team stands before their completed Chronovisor. It is a monstrous, beautiful hybrid of chrome, crystal, and tangled wires, humming with a dangerous energy.

KENJI > The second we power this up, we're lighting a flare in the dark. Malakor, the Ghosts... they'll all see us.

KAELEN > We do one low-power test. We don't look for the "Original Sin." We need a target that's close, temporally. Something we can verify.

JULIAN, who has been silent and brooding, steps forward. He opens Aris's grandfather's journal to a heavily redacted page.

JULIAN > There was a story my grandfather told me. A boogeyman for new recruits in the Analog Ghosts. Agent "Zero." The only agent they ever had to "erase" themselves. He was a powerful sensitive who went rogue in the 80s. They trapped him in a temporal loop, a prison in time. Find him. Find Agent Zero. If this machine can see a ghost that my own organization tried to bury, then I'll believe it can do anything.

This is a huge moment of trust from Julian. Kaelen agrees. They power up the machine, targeting the coordinates from the journal.

The crystal lens glows. The monitor flickers to life, showing a grainy, black-and-white image of a sterile interrogation room from 1987. A man, AGENT ZERO, is strapped to a chair, laughing.

AGENT ZERO (on screen) > You can't hold me. Time is a cage for you, but it's a playground for me.

Suddenly, he looks directly at the "camera"—directly at the team. He smiles.

AGENT ZERO (on screen) > I see you. The woman from tomorrow. The broken soldier. The boy who sees the glitches... You finally built a window. Did you think you were the only ones looking through it?

The crystal lens on the Chronovisor cracks. Black, oily tendrils of energy snake out from the crack, not into the room, but into the image on the screen, corrupting it. The image of Agent Zero is consumed by this darkness.

ARIS > Shut it down! Shut it down now!

He kills the power. The room goes dark. Silence.

The monitor snaps back on with a shriek of static. Agent Zero is there, but he's changed. He is a twisted, glitching Echo, his form warped by decades of temporal imprisonment. He presses his hands against the glass from the inside.

ECHO ZERO > You opened the door. Now it's my turn to play.

He reaches a hand through the screen. The glass ripples like water as his arm, a thing of flickering static and black energy, emerges into their room.

But before he can pull himself all the way through, his face contorts. The image behind him shifts. For a split second, the team sees what he sees from his prison in time: a vision of the Oracle's "Original Sin," but from a new perspective. They see the politician the Oracle erased. But the man is not an innocent victim. He is standing over a schematic—the same "Prometheus Project" weapon Malakor is searching for.

The vision vanishes. Echo Zero, roaring, pulls his head and shoulders through the screen. He is a living nightmare, a ghost in the glass, and he is in their sealed room with them.

FADE TO BLACK.

END OF EPISODE 16