The Citadel wasn't a building. It was a golden tombstone the size of Everest.
"Two kilometers!" Valentina screamed over the roar of the wind.
The silver train car rattled violently. Without the rear carriage to stabilize it, the magnetic engine was oscillating, shaking the floor plates like a wet dog.
Jake stared at the windshield. The golden wall of the Citadel filled the entire horizon. It was perfect, featureless, and terrifyingly solid.
"Braking is impossible," Valentina slammed her fist on the console. "The system is locked by an external admin. We are a missile, Jake."
"We're going to splatter," Menzhinsky whimpered. He was on the floor, clutching a seat cushion like a life preserver. "Like bugs on a windshield."
"Yuri," Jake grabbed his wrist. His arm felt heavy, like dead meat bolted to his shoulder. "Options."
The hologram flickered. The boy's face was calm, blue, and unfeeling.
"Impact in twelve seconds," Yuri said. "Survival probability: 0%."
"Give me a non-zero number!"
"The wall is rendered as 'Indestructible Object,'" Yuri explained. "The train is a 'Destructible Object.' Physics engine dictates total mesh collapse."
Jake looked at his health bar. It was pulsing red. A skull icon hovered over it.
CALORIES: 3%.
WARNING: STARVATION MODE ACTIVE.
He couldn't hack the wall. That would take a nuclear reactor's worth of energy. He couldn't hack the train; the Director had locked the code.
"There is a gap," Oppenheimer whispered.
He was pressed against the side window, glasses askew. He wasn't looking at the wall. He was looking at the track.
"What?" Taranov growled, wiping blood from his forehead.
"The rendering," Oppenheimer pointed. "Look at the sleepers on the track. They're flickering."
Jake looked.
At 400 km/h, the concrete ties under the rail weren't solid grey. They were strobing. Solid, wireframe, solid, void.
"The simulation can't keep up," Oppenheimer's voice rose in pitch. "The refresh rate of the server is lagging behind our velocity."
"So?" Taranov asked.
"So collision detection is frame-based!" Oppenheimer grabbed Jake's shoulder. "If we go fast enough, we might move between the frames."
Jake understood immediately. It was a speedrunner tactic. A glitch.
If an object moves faster than the server can update its position, it doesn't hit the wall. It teleports to the coordinates behind the wall.
"Clipping," Jake said. "We need to clip through the Citadel."
"That's insane," Valentina said. "If we miss the timing, we atomize."
"We atomize anyway," Jake countered. "How fast do we need to go?"
"Faster," Yuri calculated. "Current velocity: 410 km/h. Required velocity for collision bypass: 600 km/h."
"The engine is maxed out!" Valentina yelled.
"Then we lighten the load," Jake turned to the car.
It was full of plush seats. Tables. Luggage racks. Heavy, rendered assets.
"Taranov!" Jake barked. "Everything goes. Now!"
Taranov didn't ask questions. He grabbed a double-seat, ripped it from the bolts with a grunt of exertion, and hurled it at the shattered rear door.
It flew out into the void.
"Move!" Taranov roared at Menzhinsky. "Throw something or I throw you!"
Menzhinsky scrambled up, grabbing a heavy fire extinguisher and tossing it out.
"It's not enough," Jake watched the speedometer. 420 km/h.
The wall was looming. Five seconds.
"We need to drop weight instantly," Jake looked at the floor. "Yuri, target the floor panels. Everything except the frame."
"That requires energy, Boss," Yuri warned. "You have none."
"Take my health," Jake said.
"Jake, no!" Valentina turned from the controls.
"Do it!" Jake screamed.
His chrome arm flared. It wasn't the bright blue of a healthy admin. It was a dirty, sputtering orange.
Pain shot up his shoulder. It felt like his blood was boiling.
HEALTH: 85%... 70%... 60%...
The floor of the train car dissolved.
One second it was metal, the next it was pixels, then air.
Menzhinsky screamed as the ground vanished beneath him. He scrambled onto the metal beams of the chassis, his legs dangling over the blurred track below.
Taranov grabbed a support pole, hanging on with one arm, holding Oppenheimer with the other.
The train was now just a skeleton. A roof, a frame, and an engine.
The speedometer jumped.
500 km/h.
"Faster!" Jake yelled. Blood trickled from his nose.
The wind howled through the skeletal car, tearing at their clothes. The noise was deafening.
550 km/h.
The golden wall filled the entire world. Jake could see the individual textures of the glass. He could see his own death reflecting back at him.
"Impact in three!" Yuri counted down.
580 km/h.
"Come on!" Jake slammed his fist against the console.
Suddenly, a face appeared on the windshield. A hologram.
It was an old man with a thick mustache. He wore a white military tunic. His eyes were pixels of pure malice.
The Director.
"Access Denied, Virus," the Director's voice boomed inside the cabin.
The hologram raised a hand.
Ahead on the track, a red barrier materialized. A kill-box.
"He's adding geometry!" Oppenheimer shrieked.
"Brace!" Taranov roared.
Jake didn't brace. He grabbed the throttle lever.
"Valentina, override safety!"
"I can't!"
Jake grabbed the lever with his admin hand. He didn't hack it. He crushed it.
He snapped the limiter off the dashboard.
The engine screamed. A high-pitched whine that shattered the remaining glass in the windows.
610 km/h.
The world turned into lines of code.
The red barrier hit the nose of the train.
There was no sound.
The universe stuttered.
Frame 1: They were outside.
Frame 2: [DATA MISSING]
Frame 3: They were inside.
The sensation was hideous. Jake felt his insides stretch to infinity and snap back. His vision inverted—white became black, up became down.
Then, gravity returned with a vengeance.
CRASH.
The train—or what was left of it—slammed into a marble floor.
Sparks showered like fireworks. The skeletal chassis skidded, screeching across polished stone. It spun, carving deep gouges into the floor, smashing through velvet ropes and glass display cases.
Taranov was thrown clear. He hit a pillar, rolling like a boulder.
Menzhinsky slid across the floor, screaming, until he hit a wall.
The train groaned and came to a halt. Smoke poured from the melted engine.
Jake was hanging upside down. His foot was caught in the twisted wreckage of the roof frame.
He swung there for a moment, blood rushing to his head.
HEALTH: 40%.
STATUS: CONCUSSION.
He unhooked his foot and fell.
He hit the floor hard. He tried to stand, but his legs were jelly. He crawled.
"Report," Jake wheezed.
"Alive," Taranov's voice came from the smoke. "Ribs broken. But alive."
"Valentina?"
"Here," she coughed. She was pulling Oppenheimer out of the wreckage. The physicist was hyperventilating, checking his hands to make sure they still had five fingers.
"We're inside," Oppenheimer gasped. "The math worked. God help us, the math worked."
Jake looked around.
They were in a massive hall. The ceiling was vaulted, decorated with digital frescoes of Soviet conquests on Mars. The floor was polished obsidian.
It wasn't a train station. It was a museum.
But the exhibits were wrong.
Jake pulled himself up on a display case. Inside was a mannequin.
It wore a grey hoodie and jeans. It had Jake's face.
The plaque read: ITERATION 14. DELETED: 1953.
Jake stumbled back.
He looked at the next case. Another mannequin. This one wore a tuxedo. Jake's face.
ITERATION 89. DELETED: 1962.
There were dozens of them. Rows and rows of dead Jakes. Some were soldiers. Some were politicians. One was a beggar.
"What is this?" Valentina whispered, walking down the aisle of ghosts.
"A trophy room," Menzhinsky said. He was staring at a large portrait on the wall. "Or a graveyard."
Jake walked to the center of the room.
There was a pedestal there. But it wasn't a statue of Jake.
It was a glass coffin.
Inside lay a woman.
She wore a simple red dress. Her hair was dark, fanned out around her head like a halo. Her eyes were closed.
"Nadya," Jake choked out.
He stumbled forward. He ignored the pain in his legs. He ignored the hunger gnawing at his stomach.
He reached the coffin. He placed his chrome hand on the glass.
She looked perfect. Peaceful. Real.
"Is it her?" Taranov asked, limping up behind him.
"Yuri," Jake whispered. "Scan."
The wrist-boy didn't answer.
"Yuri?"
Jake looked at his arm.
The screen on his wrist was black.
"Yuri!" Jake tapped the screen.
Nothing. Dead static.
"The signal," Oppenheimer realized. "The Citadel. It's a Faraday cage for code. External operating systems can't function here."
"So he's gone?" Valentina asked.
"He's dormant," Jake said. "We're blind."
He looked back at Nadya.
Was she a file? A trap? A body?
He raised his admin hand to smash the glass. He had to know.
"Wait," Menzhinsky hissed. "Look at the plaque."
Jake looked down.
The gold plaque on the coffin didn't have a date of death. It had a loading bar.
SUBJECT: HOPE.
UPLOAD STATUS: 99%.
"She's not dead," Jake realized. The realization hit him colder than the ice. "She's the battery."
CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
The sound of slow applause echoed from the shadows at the far end of the hall.
"Very perceptive, Virus."
Jake spun around. Taranov raised his fists. Valentina reached for her pistol.
A figure emerged from the darkness.
It wasn't the mustache-twirling dictator from the hologram.
It was a young man. Handsome. Clean-shaven. He wore a modern, tailored black suit. He held a tablet in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other.
But the eyes were the same. The cold, yellow pixels of the Director.
"You broke my train," the Director said, stepping over a piece of debris. He looked at the wreckage with mild annoyance. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to code realistic twisted metal?"
"Let her go," Jake growled. His voice was a weapon.
"Go?" The Director laughed. It was a smooth, synthetic sound. "Go where? There is nowhere else, Jake. The world outside is crashing. This room is the only stable point left in the universe."
The Director stopped ten feet away. He sipped his wine.
"You brought me the Key," the Director nodded at Jake's chrome arm. "And now you've brought yourself to the recycling bin. Very efficient."
He tapped his tablet.
The floor around the team began to glow red.
"Boss," Taranov warned. "Floor is lava."
"Not lava," the Director smiled. "Deletion."
Jake looked at the coffin. 99%.
He looked at the Director.
He looked at his team.
He had no energy. No AI support. No weapon.
But he had the Glitch.
Jake grinned. His teeth were stained with blood.
"You're right," Jake said. "I did bring the Key."
He didn't aim at the Director.
He aimed his arm at the floor beneath the coffin.
"Taranov!" Jake yelled. "Catch!"
Jake slammed his hand down.
ADMIN COMMAND: CUT.
Not delete. Cut.
The floor under the coffin vanished.
The glass casket fell.
Not into the floor, but through the level geometry.
"No!" The Director dropped his wine glass. It shattered.
"We're leaving," Jake grabbed Taranov and leaped into the hole after the coffin.
"Follow him!" Valentina screamed, diving into the abyss.
They fell into the wireframe darkness beneath the world.
Above them, the Director roared, his face glitching into a demonic mask of static.
But they were gone.
Falling toward the source code.