«Well, scientist,» he drawled, his voice low and raspy, like metal scraping against glass. «They say you’re the guy who pushed the big red button and arranged this fun apocalypse for all of us. Maybe you can tell us amateurs how to get us into this «Echo’ of yours, and more importantly, how to get out alive? Or are you just another psycho with a god complex looking for a beautiful place to die, taking company with him? I’ve seen those types. They usually end badly. Both for themselves and for those around them.»
«Or maybe you’re looking for something… or someone you lost in there?» Drake added quieter, his grin widening, and his eyes flashed with a malicious glint as he noticed Kyle’s jaw clench.
«Are you only here for this? To be sarcastic?» Eva interrupted sharply, her arms crossed so tightly her knuckles turned white. The scar on her face seemed to darken. «Do you think this is a game, Holt? That we’ve been shoved into „Echo-7“ for someone’s amusement or to see how quickly we’ll tear each other’s throats out?»
«I think none of us are getting out of there alive, sweetheart,» Drake snapped back, his gaze turning icy as he shifted it to Eva. «And you, Carter, seem to be worried about only one thing: can you trust the ’scientist who killed the world’ again. Well, let me tell you: I’d be more worried about what happens if he makes another mistake. One mistake – and we’re all fertilizer for the Wasteland. And I’m not going to become fertilizer because of someone’s ghosts of the past.»
Kyle felt the blood rush to his face, a hot wave of anger and old pain. But he restrained himself, taking a deep breath. Drake was a provocateur, it was clear from the first glance. But his combat skills, judging by the Council’s reports, were phenomenal. The Rifts didn’t forgive weakness, and if anyone could withstand the primal horror that awaited them inside, it was him. Although Kyle was already beginning to suspect that Drake himself might be a greater threat than any anomaly.
«I’m not looking for death, Holt,» he said coldly, his voice even, but with a ring of steel. «And I’m not looking for ghosts. I’m looking for a way to fix what I’ve done. But if you waste time on cheap games and provocations instead of listening and following orders, then maybe you will find your death. Faster than you think.»
Drake laughed, the sound sharp and unpleasant, like a jackal’s bark. He put down the knife, rose lazily, and his shadow almost completely covered Kyle. But Kyle didn’t retreat a step, looking him straight in the eye. The tension between them was almost palpable, like a static discharge before a lightning strike.
«Enough!» Eva intervened, her tone brooking no argument. She stepped between them, her small figure unexpectedly radiating authority. «If we’re going to survive in this hell, we need to at least pretend we’re a team, not a pack of dogs ready to tear each other’s throats out. Rain, do you have a plan? Or did the Council really just throw us to the slaughter, hoping for a miracle?»
Kyle inhaled deeply, feeling the acrid air scratch his throat. He pulled his old, faithful neural interface from his pocket, connected it to the battered projector on the warehouse wall, and displayed a three-dimensional map compiled by the drones. The flickering hologram showed Rift «Echo-7,» pulsing ominously sixty miles north of Bastion, in an area where the very fabric of reality was particularly unstable, torn. The glowing fissure, surrounded by a ring of gravitational and temporal anomalies, looked like an unhealed, festering wound on the body of a mutilated world.
«This is our target,» he said, pointing to the flickering center of the image. «„Echo-7.“ Data shows a powerful, stable energy signal inside, which, theoretically, could be the key to closing the Rifts. But getting to it won’t be easy. The drones are recording extreme time distortions, gravity traps, and… something else. Something they can’t classify. Something that destroyed three out of five reconnaissance probes before they could transmit the data.»
«Shadows?» Lina asked, her voice trembling, her fingers nervously clutching the tablet. «I’ve heard stories… from those who returned. People talk about creatures that move, but aren’t there. About voices that whisper from nowhere. Is it true, Dr. Rain?»
Kyle hesitated. He knew about the shadows. He had seen them himself, in the first, most terrifying years after the catastrophe, when he desperately tried to understand what had happened, what he had unleashed. They were like reflections in a broken mirror, but alive, and their presence evoked a primal chill that penetrated to the very bones, freezing the will. But he didn’t want to frighten Lina any more. Not yet. Her faith, however fragile, might prove more important.
«Maybe,» he said evasively. «The Wasteland is full of illusions, Lina. Our minds are easily tricked, especially there. But our task isn’t to study them, but to find the source. We go in, take what we need, and come back. If everything goes according to plan, in a week we’ll be here, and maybe the world will be a little safer. If not…» He didn’t finish, but everyone understood. In the Wasteland, «if not» meant only one thing.
Drake grinned again, his eyes gleaming predatorily with a strange, unhealthy anticipation. Eva stared at the map, her face impassive as a mask, but Kyle noticed her knuckles whiten as she clenched her fist. Lina, on the contrary, seemed even more determined, though her hands trembled slightly as she put the tablet away in her bag.
«Then get to work,» Kyle said, turning off the projector. The room plunged into semi-darkness, lit only by the dim light from the street. «We have three days to prepare. Eva, check all the equipment down to the last screw, paying special attention to the exosuits and life support systems. Lina, gather everything we might need for first aid and neutralizing… mental effects. Drake, you’re responsible for weapons and combat readiness. And no antics. No surprises. Clear?»
They nodded, each in their own way. But Kyle felt this fragile, hastily cobbled-together alliance already cracking at the seams. He turned to the exit, hiding the shadow of doubt in his eyes. Somewhere in the depths of his tormented consciousness, behind layers of pain, guilt, and endless fatigue, he heard the echo again. A voice, so much like Ella’s, whispered, «Daddy, find us… you promised…» And he knew that, despite all the risks, despite this motley and unreliable team, he would go into «Echo-7.» Not just to save the world. But for them. For the ghostly hope of the impossible.
Chapter 3: «On the Edge of the Void»
2247. The Fortress City «Last Bastion,» Zone 7, Perimeter.
The final hours before departure resembled the calm before a devastating storm – the very kind that raged within the Rifts, only this calm was internal, heavy, saturated with foreboding. Kyle Rain stood at the very edge of Last Bastion’s perimeter, where the shimmering, flickering protective dome thinned, and the world beyond transformed into primal, irrational chaos. Through the murky, distorting glow of the barrier, he saw the Wasteland – scorched, ravaged earth, littered with the skeletons of old cities, where the ominous fissures of the Rifts glowed like venomous, pulsating veins on the body of a dying planet. The air beyond the dome vibrated with anomalous energy, and even here, in the relative, illusory safety, Kyle felt his skin prickle with static tension, the hairs on his arms standing on end. He knew that once they crossed this invisible boundary, there might be no way back. Or it would be completely different from what they imagined.
The team, if this collection of individuals bound by shared doom could be called that, gathered at the hangar in Sector 7. Awaiting them was an armored transport – the Thunderclaw, a rusty, patched-up remnant of former military might, modified by makeshift methods for survival in the Wasteland. Its hull was covered with scars from past forays, like an old warrior ready for his last battle. Eva Carter, focused and as usual taciturn, made a final check of the exosuit systems, her fingers, covered in small scars and calluses, moving with mechanical precision over the sensor panels. She didn’t look at Kyle, but he physically felt her tension – it stemmed not so much from the dangerous journey ahead as from the invisible barrier that stood between them. The past.