Project Echo Bunker (The Train)
June 17, 2001
3:45 AM
The floor beneath Kenji's boots didn't just vibrate; it screamed.
"Reactor at 40%!" Aris yelled from the pilot's chair. His hands were a blur across the vintage mechanical keyboard. "The Compass is red-lining! Maya, I need a boost or the gears are going to melt before they turn!"
Maya grabbed the copper grounding bar behind the console. Her eyes flared a bright, steady pink. "Take it!" she gasped.
A surge of pure stamina flowed from her through the train's wiring. The engine, a massive hunk of lead-shielded iron, let out a thunderous THOOM. Outside, the rusted wheels sparked, grinding against the tracks for the first time in seventeen years.
The train lurched forward.
"We're moving!" Marco cheered, though he was slammed against a weapons rack by the sudden momentum.
"Don't celebrate yet," Elias hissed. He was standing by the rear monitor, his body flickering like a dying fluorescent bulb. "They're on us."
The Assault on Car 1
Through the rear external camera, they saw it. The Detective wasn't running; he was gliding, his feet inches above the gravel. Flanking him were the three Enforcers.
The Green Enforcer struck first. He raised a hand, and a wave of corrosive emerald static washed over the back of the train. The heavy iron plates began to hiss and dissolve into digital dust.
"Rear armor is failing!" Aris panicked. "The Green one is 'de-rezzing' the hull!"
"I'm on it," Kenji said, snapping his helmet shut.
He didn't use the hatch this time. He looked at the rear wall.
Warp.
He phased through the iron plating, appearing on the narrow coupling ledge at the very back of the moving train.
The wind was a roar. The tunnel walls were a blur of gray concrete. The Green Enforcer was only twenty feet back, his face a featureless mask of glowing jade light.
Kenji leveled his gauntlet. "Reboot this."
New Ability: Kinetic Stream.
Instead of a single blast, the Interface suit allowed Kenji to hold the discharge. A continuous beam of blue energy erupted from his palm, slicing through the emerald static.
The Green Enforcer shrieked—a sound like a dial-up modem crashing—and was forced to veer off the tracks, slamming into a support pillar.
The Heat and the Weight
"Kenji, look up!" Sarah's voice crackled in his comms.
The Orange Enforcer had dropped from the tunnel ceiling. He landed on the roof of the middle car with a sound like a meteor hit. Instantly, the metal beneath his feet began to glow cherry-red. He was an "Overclocker," pumping massive amounts of thermal energy into the train to cook the squad alive inside.
Simultaneously, the Violet Enforcer raised both hands toward the front of the train.
"Heavy..." Marco grunted inside the lab. "Everything... weighs... a ton!"
The train began to slow down. The engine groaned. The Violet Enforcer was increasing the local gravity, trying to anchor the Echo Express to the earth.
"I can't... hold it!" Maya cried, her pink light flickering.
"Marco, get out there!" Kenji yelled over the comms. "Sarah, provide cover!"
The Counter-Attack
The middle hatch popped open. Marco climbed out, his body already fully encased in jagged, dark obsidian. He looked at the Orange Enforcer, who was wreathed in flames.
"You're making it too hot in here!" Marco roared.
He lunged. Because of the Violet Enforcer's gravity field, Marco weighed five times his normal mass. He hit the Orange Enforcer like a falling skyscraper. The roof of the train buckled, but the Orange Enforcer was pinned.
"Now, Sarah!" Marco yelled.
Sarah leaned her head and shoulders out of a side window. She didn't make a sword. She aimed her open palm at the Violet Enforcer, who was still standing on the tracks far ahead.
"Focus..." she whispered.
She released a Photon Needle—a thin, laser-precise bolt of light. It struck the Violet Enforcer right in his glowing chest. The gravity field snapped like a rubber band.
The train surged forward, free of the weight.
The Observer's Move
With the gravity gone and the thermal heat neutralized by Marco's stone hide, the train hit 60 miles per hour.
"We're almost at phase-speed!" Elias shouted from the cabin. "But Arthur isn't finished!"
The Detective (The Blue Observer) appeared directly in front of Kenji on the rear ledge. He hadn't warped; he had simply been "pasted" there by the Signal.
He grabbed Kenji's throat with a gray, lifeless hand.
"The suit is a cage, Kenji," the Detective whispered. "It limits you. Let the Void in. Join your uncle in the static."
Kenji struggled, his HUD flashing CRITICAL PRESSURE. He looked into the Detective's glowing blue orbs.
"My uncle... isn't in the static anymore," Kenji gritted out.
Suddenly, the air behind the Detective glitched. Elias Vance appeared, his hand reaching through the Detective's back—literally phasing through his torso.
"Arthur," Elias said, his voice overlapping in three different timelines. "You always were bad at math. Five subjects plus one ghost equals..."
Elias flared white.
"Disconnect."
A massive burst of raw, unrefined data exploded between them. The Detective was blasted backward, his form flickering and tearing as he fell away into the darkness of the tunnel.
The train hit 80 mph.
The tunnel walls began to stretch. The gray concrete turned into lines of green code. The sound of the wind was replaced by a digital hum.
ZAP.
The Echo Express vanished from the Ravenwood tunnels.
Interior: The Echo Express
Time: Unknown
Location: Outside the Simulation
Silence.
Kenji slumped against the rear door, his suit dimming as it went into standby mode. He pulled off his helmet and gasped for the cool, recycled air of the lab.
He looked out the back window.
The tunnel was gone. Behind the train, there was only a vast, empty void of gray fog. The tracks they were on were made of translucent blue light, floating in nothingness.
"Where are we?" Maya asked, her voice trembling.
Elias stood in the center of the room, his form finally stabilizing now that they were away from the town's interference.
"The Loading Screen," Elias said. "We're in the space between servers. Next stop: The Source."
Kenji looked at his friends. They were bruised, exhausted, but they were all there.
"Elias," Kenji said. "What's actually at the Source?"
Elias looked at the main monitor, where a single, massive glowing tower was appearing in the distance.
"The architect," Elias said. "And the 'Season 1' backup files. If we want to save Ravenwood, we have to perform a System Restore."