04:47 AM.
The underground complex slept. But not Tian Wei.
His footsteps echoed as he descended to Level 3 – The Archive Chamber.
A vast cylinder stretched into shadow, lined with crystalline matrices. Thousands of holographic records floated in the air like fragments of forgotten dreams.
Tian's bio-lenses flickered. Streams of data poured straight into his cortex—failed patents, abandoned logs, discarded theories. Digital ghosts of human ambition.
And then—
A folder pulsed into view.
PROJECT RESONANCE FIELD – STATUS: TERMINATED 2558.
Tian froze. His pupils dilated as he opened the file.
Terraforming experiments. Resonance fields. Catastrophic failures on Mars. The project shut down, locked away, left to rot in the archives.
But the diagrams—
The specifications—
Something clicked.
"If we can't stabilize coherence internally…" His whisper trembled with electricity. "…then we stabilize it externally."
For 589 failures, they fought decoherence from inside the field.
What if they could fight it the moment it began? Detect the collapse—strike it down with precision pulses before the quantum fabric unraveled?
The ERF-7. A crystalline-cored generator built for shaping atmospheres.
Reborn, it could be a guardian—a sentinel to detect instability and inject energy with surgical accuracy.
Tian's mind blazed. His heart pounded. Breakthrough.
He sprinted.
Corridors blurred as motion sensors flicked on emergency lights, chasing him through the facility. Shadows stretched. His breath burned. But he didn't stop.
Blast doors hissed. Security systems screamed warnings:
"UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. SAFETY PROTOCOLS BYPASSED. LEVEL 9 CLEARANCE REQUIRED."
He ignored them. Protocols had stolen three years from him. Tonight belonged to genius.
Sub-Lab C.
Covered in tarps. Branded with warning glyphs.
The ERF-7 waited like a slumbering beast.
Eight hundred forty-seven kilograms of danger. A planet-shaping weapon.
And Tian's salvation.
Anti-gravity lifters groaned as he moved it. Sweat stung his eyes. His arms trembled. But desperation made him stronger than steel.
Hours blurred into seconds as cables spread like glowing veins, linking PEC1R to ERF-7. Quantum fibers pulsed, threads of light humming with enough power to vaporize cities.
Algorithms were coded. Sensors locked in. The guardian was ready.
05:14 AM.
Tian pressed his palm to the scanner.
"Attempt 590. Enhanced protocol."
The PEC1R awakened.
Dark matter swirled in suspended dance, black sparks chained in magnetic fields.
"Coherence: 89.3%... stable."
His heart leapt. Higher than ever.
At 3.7 seconds, instability trembled through the system.
Coherence fell—84.7%—
But before collapse could take hold—
The ERF-7 fired.
A pulse of energy ripped through the quantum web, striking the core with blinding precision.
"Stability recovered: 88.1%."
Tian's fists clenched. His shout filled the empty lab.
"It's working!"
For the first time, they had stopped decoherence.
Twenty-three minutes.
Pulse after pulse.
Coherence held—91%, 92%—unshaken.
But the system demanded more. More power. More sacrifice.
At this rate, it would fail within the hour.
Unless… he pushed further.
Warning glyphs glowed before his eyes:
"DANGER: OUTPUT EXCEEDS RECOMMENDED PARAMETERS."
Tian's lips curled into a grim smile.
"Caution failed me 589 times."
He overrode the limit.
ERF-7 surged to 2.4 terawatts.
Coherence soared.
95%. 97%. 99.7%.
Tian's laughter echoed, wild and triumphant.
"This is it! Humanity's dawn!"
The facility trembled.
Level 1 hyperloop froze.
Level 2 residents woke in terror as furniture shook, lights flickered, air shimmered.
Alarms blared:
"MASSIVE ENERGY DRAW DETECTED. ALL PERSONNEL REMAIN CALM."
Elena felt it first—the signature of a runaway experiment.
Kai and Amara followed close, sprinting through corridors.
They knew. Only Tian would dare this madness.
Blast doors split open under their emergency override.
They burst inside—
And froze.
Tian stood like a conductor at the center of chaos, arms raised, eyes blazing. Holograms bathed him in impossible numbers. His contacts flickered like twin stars as he commanded the impossible.
"IT'S WORKING!" His voice thundered above the quake.
"Coherence: 99.7%—SUSTAINED!"
Elena gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth.
Kai whispered, "This… this breaks physics…"
Amara's neural crown flared as she confirmed the impossible data herself.
The air shimmered.
Aurora-like lights rippled through the lab.
Reality bent. Spacetime groaned.
For a single heartbeat—
They stood at the edge of perfection.
At humanity's next age.
Then—
99.7% became 0%.
The dark matter sphere collapsed.
A gravitational anomaly ripped the lab apart.
2.4 terawatts discharged in a single instant, shattering every system, bending the air like glass.
The shockwave threw them like ragdolls. Smart suits saved their bones but not their spirits.
The roar of breaking laws filled the chamber. The universe itself screamed.
And then—silence.
Red emergency lights bathed the ruins.
Four scientists lay unconscious, scattered like broken dolls.
05:47 AM.
The moment of greatest triumph became humanity's greatest failure.
But the consequences stretched beyond the lab.
189 lives in the complex now trembled on the edge, systems faltering.
And unknown to them…
What they had unleashed was not failure.
It was a door.
A door that could never again be closed.