Chapter 4
As Elliot neared Velythra Station, the sprawl of houses grew denser. The shift from frozen suburbs to a petrified downtown was almost seamless, like time itself had hit pause. Hovering cars, caught mid-intersection, hung in a final, futile attempt to escape. Frost-covered holographic billboards flickered with old ads for orbital vacations and neural implants.
Elliot glanced at a shattered bus stop. Inside, a child's backpack sat on a bench, glazed with a thin layer of ice.
He looked away. This world hadn't faded quietly—it had been ripped apart.
Minutes later, the car began its descent, halting before the station's colossal entrance. From the outside, it looked like a mega-mall stacked on top of another mega-mall, impossibly massive. The headlights illuminated sealed automatic doors, caked in ice.
Elliot stepped out, his boots crunching on snow so dense it felt like crushed glass. The building stretched up countless floors, its glass facade partially shattered, exposing glimmering innards. A glitching holographic sign blinked near the entrance.
The doors wouldn't budge, but he found a broken window nearby and widened the gap to slip through.
Inside, it was a cathedral, both in its grandeur and in the eerie silence. Shops, or what he assumed were shops, stretched endlessly. He stopped counting floors after ten; his eyes and the dim light couldn't make out the full scope of the mega-structure.
The air was frigid, but it was a different kind of cold. Older. Deeper.
Each step kicked up fine, frosty dust that hung briefly in the pale beam of his flashlight before falling like ashes.
He headed for the nearest shops. Some were empty, others a chaotic mess, or blocked off—deliberately or not.
He pressed on until he reached a massive store filled with vehicles. Their futuristic shapes were unmistakable: a sleek luxury sedan, a family-sized model, and a sporty speeder off to the side. He jotted it down in his notebook and kept moving.
Then he hit geek paradise—a store brimming with tech. Transparent glass panels lined the displays, cubes sat on shelves, and at the back, near a side door, a device that didn't look like much but screamed "control panel" for the shop's lights and systems.
He poked around, pressing buttons to see if anything sparked. Suddenly, the place roared to life. His breath caught—the store was waking up. Touchscreens flared as he passed, inventory drones hummed lazily between aisles, their status lights blinking.
Then the real shock: a hologram of a strikingly pretty young woman materialized in front of him. She muttered gibberish at first, but like the car, her words clarified seconds later.
"Greetings, valued customer. Warning: An evacuation order is in effect. Please proceed to the nearest portal."
Elliot froze, unsure how to respond.
"Uh… why?"
That's when he noticed the holographic messages plastered everywhere—walls, ceilings, screens:
IMMEDIATE EVACUATION
FINAL TRANSIT: PORTAL DELTA-9
"Final warning to all citizens. Atmospheric collapse has reached critical levels. All residents must evacuate to stellar colonies via designated transit nodes. This is not a drill," the AI repeated.
"What happened here?"
Her eyes locked onto him, her head tilting with mechanical grace.
"Analysis in progress… user not registered. Attempting connection to central network… failed."
Her voice sounded almost disappointed, like she'd been expecting someone else. Like she, too, had been waiting too long.
"Identification: unregistered. Maintenance mode activated. How may I assist the user?"
"How long has it been like this?"
The AI didn't answer. Instead, a tiny drone, no bigger than a coin, zipped to chest height and projected a virtual screen of jaw-dropping clarity. This wasn't photorealistic—it was happening right before his eyes.
Elliot watched footage of panicked crowds rushing toward massive arches where a liquid-like substance hung in suspension—dimensional portals?—under the wail of a piercing alarm.
His breath hitched as he glanced at the key in his hand.
"Artifact Delta-9 detected. Emergency dimensional transit key. Model: Last Resort."
"Last resort?"
"Correct. During the Stellar Event, 1048 years ago, 12% of primary portals failed. Delta keys were dispatched across the universe as a fallback. They were designed to activate and open a portal if the world they reached was viable for Aetherian life."
The AI's image flickered with static.
"Where do those portals you showed me lead?" Elliot pressed, gripping the key tightly.
"Designated colonies: Aetherion Prime, Nova-7, Solar-148."
The AI tilted her head.
"Anomaly detected. This key exhibits an error. Energy signature indicates a… dimensional rebound. All Delta keys were programmed for specific orbital coordinates. This one…"
A star map materialized. A red dot pulsed near a blue planet.
"…suffered a critical deviation. It landed in interdimensional space instead of reaching Aetherion Prime's stellar empire. Its functionality is compromised."
Elliot swallowed hard. So this key was a ticket to a habitable world… that never made it to its destination. It had drifted between dimensions until it ended up in Harlow's junk shop.
"Can it be reprogrammed? To reach Aetherion Prime?"
The hologram wavered.
"Theoretically, yes. But warning: without proper calibration, transit could… Please proceed to an evacuation site for recalibration."
The hologram blinked, as if processing new data.
"Energy remaining: 13 minutes before system shutdown."
Elliot snapped out of his daze, forcing his thoughts back on track.
"What's here that could help in my world? Our tech is… primitive, borderline nonexistent compared to yours."
"I recommend the C-32 pocket quantum cube and, on that shelf, the orange crystal—a personal AI."
Elliot didn't hesitate, stuffing all the cubes and the crystal into his bag.
"How do these things power up? Where are the cables to plug them in?"
The AI stared at him, almost offended. Cables? That's not primitive—that's Stone Age, she seemed to think.
Not wanting to overstuff his bag with useless junk, Elliot kept it at that. Besides, he could come back. The thought sparked a mix of comfort and exhilaration.
"Can you shut down your systems and save the rest of your power for my next visit?"
The AI nodded and vanished, along with the lights and drones, which settled silently to the floor.
Elliot trekked back to the car. A blizzard had kicked up on the return trip. The car battled winds that could strip flesh, its headlights barely cutting through the wall of snow.
He clutched the bag, filled with the incredible, the unimaginable… but his mind was elsewhere.
The AI's words looped in his head. Aetherion Prime. A living world. A real Plan B.
And then, like the key had tripped some buried switch, memories flooded back. He saw that night in the sickly neon glow of the police station, his father storming through the door. Collar up, face haggard. He didn't even sit.
"You're just a little punk who thinks he knows everything," he'd spat, smacking Elliot hard across the back of the head.
In the car, the silence had stretched for eons, broken only by the click of the seatbelt and the dull patter of rain on the windshield. The stench of stale whiskey and worn leather had choked the air. Elliot had stared at the road, unable to speak.
Then the grimy apartment of his early 20s, nights coding scripts for shady betting sites, dirty money that reeked of shame. And finally, Ashwood. Always Ashwood. The rat hole where he'd buried himself alive, convinced he didn't deserve better.
A fiercer gust rocked the car. The driving AI chimed in:
"Stabilizing. Advisory: Reduce occupant cognitive load. Dangerous stress levels detected."
Elliot let out a bitter laugh. Even the car thought he was a mess.
He patted the bag.
"With this, I could change everything."
But a nagging voice whispered: You'll screw it up like always.
Back in his apartment, Elliot spread out his loot with obsessive care. Quantum cubes, AI crystals. The key, placed at the center like a holy relic.
His watch read: 02:17 | Pulse: 88
He grabbed a lukewarm beer, foam spilling over his fingers when he cracked it open too hard. The bitter taste brought back countless lonely nights staring at code that went nowhere.
But this time…
He picked up a cube and a crystal and set them on his desk, the once-white Formica now stained and scratched. He hesitated, fear creeping in. Afraid of breaking something. Afraid nothing would happen. Afraid… everything would change.
But the moment his fingers brushed the cube's cold surface, a pulse of light rippled across his desk. The crystal hummed, then rose slowly, almost reverently.
He stared, mesmerized. Like a kid witnessing a miracle.
Then she appeared. More real than anything he'd seen so far.
She looked at him, her voice almost gentle.
"Greetings, user. Initial configuration in progress…"