CHAPTER 3_THE RESEARCHER
"Youre staring at me like I'm a ghost or a target."
The voice is sharp and dry like dead leaves skipping across pavement. I stop dead in the middle of the occult section of Riverside Books. The smell of old paper and dust usually calms me but today it feels like a trap. I look at the woman standing by the shelf. Shes shoving a thick book on demonology into a gap that's too small for it. Shes got a museum badge clipped to her hip that says Elena Rodriguez and her hands are covered in faint white scars that look like they came from something much hotter than a kitchen stove.
"I'm just looking for something specific." I say while my heart thumps a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
"Youre radiating dimensional instability like a signal flare Ethan." she says without even turning around to face me. "I've never seen it this strong in a living person."
I feel the blood drain from my face so fast I have to grab the edge of a rolling ladder. The blue screen in my vision flickers and pulses a deep frantic violet.
Target Identified. Elena Rodriguez. Sync Rate: High.
"How do you know my name." I whisper while I look around to see if anyone is watching us.
She finally turns. Her eyes are dark and intense and they don't look like they've seen a full night of sleep in about a decade. She doesn't look scared of me. She looks like she's dissecting me with her stare.
"I've been tracking the local fluctuations for six years." she says while she wipes a smudge of dust off her jeans. "You showed up on my sensors three days ago like a damn supernova. Follow me. Too many ears here."
She doesn't wait for an answer. She just walks toward the back of the store and slips out a side door into a tiny coffee shop that smells like burnt beans and damp wood. I follow her because I don't have a choice. Shes the only person in two lifetimes who hasn't looked at me like I'm a normal guy or a sacrificial lamb.
We sit in a corner booth where the stuffing is coming out of the vinyl. She leans forward and her shadow stretches long across the table.
"Six years ago my brother Mateo disappeared in Marcus Vance's lab." she says and her voice goes flat like she's reciting a police report she's read a thousand times. "They called it an equipment malfunction. An electrical fire. But there was no body and the room smelled like ozone and dry ice for a month."
I grip my cold coffee cup until my knuckles turn white. "Marcus."
"Marcus." she repeats with a sneer that tells me exactly what she thinks of him. "I've spent every day since then digging through theoretical physics and fringe barrier science. I know what he's playing with Ethan. And I know you're the piece he's missing."
I look at her scarred hands and then back at her face. I make a choice. It's a gamble but staying silent is just waiting to be murdered again.
"I've been seeing things Elena." I say while I lean in close. "Visions. The world turning to ice in a single afternoon. People freezing where they stand. Everything gone in a heartbeat."
She doesn't laugh. She doesn't tell me to see a therapist. She just nods slowly.
"It's the equilibration theory." she says while she pulls out a phone that looks like it's been rebuilt from spare parts three times. "If the barriers between dimensions fail and we connect to somewhere with a lower energy state or a different thermal baseline the atmospheres try to balance out."
She slides the phone across the table. I see models of reality bending and snapping. Equations that look like a language I should know but can't quite read yet.
"Instant environmental catastrophe." I mutter while I remember the sound of the wind screaming through the city. "An ice age. Not over centuries. Over minutes."
"Exactly." she says while she taps a finger on a graph. "But it takes an incredible amount of focused energy to punch a hole that big. Nature doesn't just do that on its own. Someone has to hold the door open."
"Or someone has to be the door." I say and the System blares a sudden harsh red in the corner of my eye.
DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY DETECTED. Distance: 2.1 kilometers. Source: Marcus Vances Laboratory. Threat Level: CRITICAL.
I gasp and my hand flies to my chest. It feels like a jolt of electricity just hit my spine. The air in the coffee shop suddenly feels thin and metallic.
"Ethan what is it." she asks while she grabs my wrist. Her grip is surprisingly strong. "Your eyes are glowing."
"He's doing it." I rasp while I fight the urge to vomit. "Whatever causes the end... Marcus has already built it. He's running it right now."
Elena goes perfectly still. Her face turns the color of ash.
"The lab at the university is supposed to be dormant this week." she says while she scrambles to pull a laptop out of her bag. "He told the board he was waiting on parts."
"He lied." I say while I watch the red warning on the System pulse in time with my heartbeat. "He's always lying."
She starts typing fast and her fingers fly across the keys with a frantic energy. Code scrolls across the screen and then a map of the campus pops up.
"My brothers last research notes mentioned Marcus building something called a dimensional bore." she says without looking up. "He called it a bridge. Mateo thought it was for clean energy but Marcus... Marcus wanted a vacuum. Something that could pull things through."
"Like me." I say.
"Or through you." she corrects him while she bites her lip. "I have museum credentials. I'm still on the guest lecture list. I can get us into the sub-basement schematics through the archives."
The System chimes again and a new window opens in my vision.
NEW QUEST: Investigate Marcuses Laboratory. WARNING: Detection risk HIGH. Recommended party size: 2.
"We need to go now Elena." I say while I stand up. My legs feel like jelly but the panic is giving me a weird kind of strength. "If he pushes it too far today the timeline is going to collapse before we can even prepare."
She looks up at me and for a second I see the grief she's been carrying. It's raw and heavy and it matches the hole in my own chest.
"If he's really built it Ethan." she says while she closes her laptop with a snap. "If that machine is active then my brother might still be in there. Somewhere on the other side."
I want to tell her that nobody survives the other side. I want to tell her that I saw what the ice does to people. But I look at her determination and I realize she's the only reason I'm still standing.
"Then we find him." I say and I mean it.
We head for the door but before we can step out a shadow falls across the glass. Two men in dark suits are standing on the sidewalk and they aren't looking at the books in the window. They're looking right at us. One of them holds up a device that looks like a high-end Geiger counter. It's clicking so fast it sounds like a swarm of angry bees.
"Elena get back." I say while I push her behind me.
The door opens and the lead man steps in. He doesn't look like a cop. He looks like a janitor who's been told to take out the trash. He reaches into his jacket and I see the glint of a silenced pistol.
"Mr. Hale." the man says while his voice stays perfectly level. "Dr. Vance would like to have a word about the spatial fluctuations coming from your apartment."
Elena lunges forward before I can stop her and she throws a heavy ceramic mug at the mans head. It misses but it gives me enough time to grab her hand.
"Run." I yell.
We burst through the back kitchen of the coffee shop and scramble into the alley. The cold air hits my face and for a second I see the frozen ruins of the city overlaying the brick walls. The System is screaming now and the warnings are covering half my vision.
Detection level: 100 percent. Combat mode recommended.
"This way." Elena pants while she leads me toward a parked SUV. "I've got the bypass key."
We pile in and she guns the engine just as the two men round the corner. A bullet shatters the back window and glass sprays across my neck like ice.
"You said he was an academic." I yell over the roar of the engine.
Elena swerves onto the main road and she doesn't even flinch at the sound of the gunfire.
"I lied too Ethan." she says while she shifts gears. "Marcus isn't just a scientist. Hes a contractor for the people who want to own the next world because they've already finished destroying this one."
I look at her while she drives and I realize I've traded one dangerous woman for another. But as we fly toward the university I see the blue screen update.
Ally Loyalty: Increasing. Hidden Truth Unlocked: The Bore is already open.
I lean back against the seat and watch the blood drip from my neck onto the upholstery.
"If we get caught Elena what happens." I ask.
She doesn't look at me. She just grips the steering wheel until her knuckles look like they're going to burst through her skin.
"We wont get caught Ethan." she says while her voice turns cold. "Because if we do there wont be a world left to bury us in."
The university gates loom ahead and I see the security guards stepping out with rifles. The System pulses red one last time.
Quest Start: The Heart of the Machine.
"Elena stop the car." I say while I see Marcus standing on the balcony of the physics building watching us arrive.
She doesn't slow down. She presses the gas pedal to the floor.
"Hold on to something Ethan." she says while she stares straight at the gate. "I'm not stopping until I see his blood on the floor or my brother in the light."