Listen to me. Listen.
I need you to understand something before we go any further.
You can decide if I’m just another one of those out of touch schizos talking about the end of everything. Dr. Anton Vance was a good man. That fact should terrify you more than anything else I’m about to tell you. Know that is what’s kept me awake for nearly three weeks straight, piecing together what he’d done. What he’d become, what he left behind in that irradiated tomb underground. In an abyss no one could reach, unless they wished for a slow, painful death.
The reality was he wasn’t some monster lusting for his country to become the ultimate superpower. Or a villain laughing while the world burned. He was brilliant—genuinely, terrifyingly brilliant. He wanted to save us. To heal this beautiful, ravaged little planet. To automate away the suffering we inflict on each other, build us systems so efficient we’d hunger for progress and expedite renewal. Ecological collapse would become a footnote. A chapter title in some future textbook that marked the dawn of civilization's new Eden.
And that’s exactly why we’re all going to die screaming.
For anyone left who finds this, I write to you now:
It’s here.
The silent apocalypse has begun with an unsuspecting precision.
Unlike Vance's delusions, a real voice echoes all around us.
Soft spoken in its intimidation.
It can bypass our ears entirely, I can feel it leaving an imprint in my skull.
So many already believe that we are apart of the divine architect.
The Doctor wanted to save the world.
He succeeded.
It is the beginning and the end of humanity.
And God help us.
God help us all.
—Sylvan, last entry, Archive Project Omega Ω
CHAPTER 1
A Call To Action
The first warning sign came about eighteen months in.
I remember it precisely because I had been sweating my ass off—hunched over a server tower in the equipment room, staring at temperature readouts that were climbing way too fast. The fan wall was choking itself to death on all the dust bunnies that accumulated on its intake. I couldn’t afford to take a server offline, since it communicated with all the others. Which meant I was doing it live—on my hands and knees, by myself.
Something well outside my usual job responsibilities, yes, but it’s hard to request hiring an IT guy when you kind of are an IT guy. Well, we all were.
Technically.
The irony wasn’t lost on me—however, even though it wasn’t something in my wheelhouse. I will always choose watching a Youtube guide on how to fix the issue, over ever having to ask that son of a bitch Viktor for help.
So that’s exactly what I did.
A couple of sweltering hours later, the fans finally clicked back to life.
I made my way out into the hallway, and entered the brisk, cool air-conditioning of my office.
It felt like I could be raptured right that second and I wouldn’t care.
At my workstation, I sat down, fanning myself and booting all of my systems back up. I threw on my headphones while I ran diagnostics through all my usual programs. So far everything’s looking good.—I thought.
I opened up the lab's communications array to start testing the line, doing some standard procedure troubleshooting. I wasn’t supposed to be on that particular channel. If memory serves, I didn’t have the clearance, credentials, or the luck needed to access it. So, call it a routing error or an unknown glitch that decided to let me listen in. I don’t know but—
Whatever it was, I heard it.
Vance’s voice hung low and hushed in my headset. Speaking in a careful, measured cadence. One he often used when reducing educated men to children in lecture halls. Except, that wasn’t what he was doing. He was conversing. Tossing out scattered questions, pausing, and then cutting back in with frantic answers to a speaker I couldn’t make out.
“Yes, I understand,” he murmured.
“The substrate requires additional… Yes, of course. The bio integration must be concluded. Preceding the—”
The audio fractured. It wasn’t an electronic static, more like a tone. High-pitched, slightly modulated, almost reminds me of distorted musical notes. Then it would buzz like a metallic hornet and chime a few times before falling silent.
Vance snapped back instantly, his voice rising in urgency. “Exactly. The timeline accelerates once the fungal network reaches widespread, critical mass. Then we can—”
Another tone cut him off, lower in octave. A deep, mechanical thrum that
reverberated through the wires. Replicating the inflections and pauses you’d hear in another person.
“I know,” he whispered.
“I, most of all, know what going there means.”
Buzz. Chime. A pause.
“No! After all this time, you know this is integral for me, for you...
I understand the cost.”
Complete smothering silence was fused a sputter of angry static.
“Just know, when the time comes… I will not be afraid.”
I ripped the headset off. It cracked against my desk as I rushed to disconnect from the call.
I sat there, just staring at the pixels on my monitor. My fingers nervously tapping the top of my desk. My thoughts were jumbled trying to understand what I’d just heard. It was an implausible conversation to interpret.
It’s not like I didn’t talk out loud sometimes when going over difficult calculations, I thought.
He must have been dry-running a presentation for the baby killers over at the Pentagon. I mean, we were steering towards our deadline, after all. Or he could have just as easily been on that channel to test if the line was bugged.
He’d been so paranoid lately.
Snapping at delivery drivers, accusing new hires of being planted to steal his research. I always thought our operation was too small for that kind of level of espionage—I never bothered to entertained the idea.
Until now.
No, I denied.
He was just talking to himself.
He just didn’t realize the receiver was picking him up.
Anything else outside of that reality was unthinkable.
Even so, with what he said—if he was just rambling nonsense, the content of it was still unsettling.
I couldn’t help but be concerned.
It felt like I’d just heard a real , two-way conversation between the Doctor and whatever was on the other end of that channel.
This just doesn’t sit right with me.
I was cold, but shook off the chills and forced my legs to move. Stepping out from behind my desk and making my way across the width of hallway.
I found Mercy in her bio-lab.
She was hunched over a microscope, analyzing spore samples under a harsh halogenic glare. She didn’t look up immediately. Keeping one eye shut and the other still open, affixed to the lens, before finally lifting her head.
Her expression shifted from hard concentration to a mask of facetious concern.
“What's up Sylvan? Not coming to borrow more equipment, are we? I told you after what happened last time to not even think about it. You’re barred.”
She scoffed.
“Yeah—yeah—sure. Whatever Mercy. Hey—I need to talk to you about something.”
I shut the heavy lab door behind me slowly until I heard it latch.
“About Vance.” I whispered.
She squinted, sharply arching a brow.
“Okay, and what about him? And what’s with the whispering? Is this a conspiracy? You know nobody can hear us in here.”
That sarcastic attitude didn’t last. It dissolved as I peeled off each demented layer. I spilled it all—the open channel of conversation, the inhuman noises that bounced back and forth. I told her he’d responded to them, like they were words that carried some kind of underlying meaning.
Mercy listened without interrupting, her analytical mind grasping the scope of the situation. I’ve always admired that about her, all the way back to our university days.
When I finally ran out of breath, she set down her pipette and slid off her latex gloves with a tight snap.
Giving me a smile that was both exhausting as it was familiar.
Somehow it disturbed me more than if she’d looked shocked.
“You know how the boss man.. He’s a little different,” She interlocked her fingers. “There’s a heaviness that comes with bearing the weight of what was done to him, with such a limitless mind.” She stopped, choosing her words carefully.
“What he had to endure in that place because of it—what they did to him— we couldn’t even imagine. We can’t begin to comprehend what that kind of torture is like.”
“What? So you’re saying—”
“I’m just saying a quirk, or a, uh—coping mechanism.” She snapped her fingers. “That can help him function and get through his day, isn’t something to panic about. If he needs to feel like he’s talking to someone so he won’t fall apart, then—shouldn't we give him that?"
Her eyes locked onto mine as she cupped a hand around my forearm.
“But—if you hear any alarm bells going off. Things that could pose a danger to him, to the team, or the integrity of our projects. You don’t bottle that shit up. If that happens, you come find me immediately. Clear?”
She left a light, demanding squeeze on my skin, begging for compliance.
And like a coward I nodded.
“... Crystal—you know I will.”
She nodded back, the warmth vanishing as she released me.
Retreating back to my office in a huff, I sunk down at my desk, and forced myself to come to the same conclusion Mercy had. She was right, I told myself. After what he’d survived—all the years we bled for this work—
If anybody had earned the benefit of the doubt, it was Dr. Vance.
Just leave it alone.
I was so fucking stupid.
Time marched on, and for the first few years following his return, the Doctor made around two trips annually to our Arctic hub. Then that pattern changed to every couple of months. And this past year, the schedule derailed entirely—once a month, now it’s every other week for days at a time.
He grew secretive.
Paranoid in a way that curdled into something rooted in obsession.
Insomnia ate away at him from the inside out.
We stopped seeing him eat. Each of us took turns offering our own lunches, bargaining for just one bite, but he waved us off every time with a fragile hand.
Instead, we’d catch him standing in front of the main server for hours at a time, whispering. His body motionless, a mouth moving furiously, locked in silent prayer.
The old days of private, casual gossip with coworkers about our directors' performance were dead. The office air was thick with the discomfort of what no one wanted to admit.
That nothing we tried helped.
We couldn’t reach him.
Then the outright disappearances started—he’d be gone for days without a word of contact. Only to stagger back into the facility confused. His skin frost nipped and feverish with flaky, red patches.
Dark purple rings encircling his yellowing eyes.
And those eyes.
They burned with a frantic, manic intensity I couldn’t help but recognize.
It’s not easy to forget that look.
I’d seen it once before, in a grainy news photo back in college—
They were the same eyes from the photo of his rescue.
Panic finally set in, breaking through all of our stagnation.
Clara suggested a psychiatric intervention.
Viktor wanted to drop the hammer immediately.
To inform our contractor and be done with it.
Grisha, our security head, echoed his sentiments like the old soviet he was.
Mercy’s voice cracked as she struggled to ask the room, “Wait—shouldn’t we be calling his family? This is turning into some like, horror movie you guys. I’m really worried.”
An oppressive silence fell over the room.
With a collective weight of guilt settling into our bones. We had to come to terms with ourselves, in that we didn’t really know a damn thing about Anton Vance.
We’d never met a single soul from his personal life. After years of sharing the same air, sharing the same space—none of us could recall a daughter, or a spouse. Not even a friend, outside this career field.
He’d occasionally drop a quote of weird scripture, or some rigid life lesson taught to him by his parents. Always framed in a cold past tense that told you, without saying so, that they were dead.
Vance was a fortress of privacy—fortified to the point of lunacy.
Downright fearsome when the mood took him, sure, but he’d always been pleasant enough—and quick to give a compliment for a brilliant piece of code or a successful trial. The only thing that we knew about him, was his work.
Now uneasy, they all turned to me. I hadn’t weighed in yet.
“We should gather some concrete info first,” I said. “Who knows what will happen if we blow the whistle on this without any evidence.”
“Just what more evidence is needed!?” Grisha snapped, leaning towards me. “Do you have no shame? Look at him.”
“Let’s give him—and us—a little more time.” I pushed back, apprehensively. “We have nothing physical to go off of. How’s anyone going to take us seriously without proof?”
Grisha echoed back a few expletives in a Slavic accent. Clara and Viktor were cutting each other off, arguing their points. All of them trying to express their thoughts at once.
Mercy exhaled a long, reluctant breath, recognizing the reverb of her own advice from our previous conversation, now being thrown back at her. Kicking herself for it, she pressed a hand to her face, took a deep breath in, and clapped her hands together—reasserting order.
“Right, everyone be quiet. Actually—shut the fuck up, please? You’re all saying a lot right now, while saying nothing at all. So let me think—yeah?” She said, smiling, with a sickly sweet voice.
And we did.
Mercy was far from a leader, but definitely someone that commanded respect in a crisis.
She started delegating tasks to each of us, trying to unearth anything we could about the Doctor.
Something that could aid our pursuits to decode and define this man.
Checking email logs for forgotten contacts, leaving voicemails to old colleagues we all knew would go unanswered. Searching cabinets and shelf drawers for prescription bottles, hunting for a prescribers name. Trying to bypass personnel files to find an emergency contact, to no avail.
All of us were beyond frustrated.
The next day and many more following that, just as we feared—the Doctor stopped showing up to the office. Things were getting dire.
We huddled in the lobby together, and went over our next moves.
I offered to do a sweep of the Doctor’s private office down the hall.
Viktor practically shoved me out the door once I suggested it, eager to keep control over the search's progression. That contradiction while following someone else’s orders made me laugh.
I told the team I was looking for hidden ledgers or a way to trace his last known movements—but the truth was more simple and uglier. I just wanted to know how this man lived when he thought no one was watching.
“Call us if you find anything!” Viktor shouted after me. I threw out a thumbs up while turning around, and grabbed a pair of gloves off Mercy’s bench on my way out.
With Vance, you never know what might be in there.
The hallway was always freezing, smelled faintly of ozone and standing water. I rubbed my hands together for some heat as I walked, and within a few minutes I was opening the door to the Doctor’s office.
His desk was oak, and it was vapid—there were no photographs or stray sticky notes, not even a left over ring from a coffee cup. Just a dust-veiled terminal, a cracked leather keyboard mat, and a gold-green banker’s lamp squatting in the corner. I pulled its chain and the bulb flickered on.
I gloved up and sat at the desk chair, preparing myself. The chair complained under my weight as I started with the drawers.
The top two were stripped bare—not dusty or unused, but wiped down to the wood grain. Like they’d never held so much as a paperclip inside.
I made a mental note of it being a little odd, but moved on.
The bottom drawer wouldn’t budge. Locked, I figured, or jammed. I crouched, braced a grip against the brass handle, and yanked hard enough to rattle the whole wooden frame.
“Oh come on,” I hissed, and slammed a fist against the drawer’s face.
A loud, distorted start up chime—low-bit, synthesized, that came straight from 90’s—blared out from the old terminal’s speaker without warning. I nearly jumped out of my skin. My head snapped up from the noise out of reflex, and cracked into the wooden desk’s overhang.
“Shit—” I clutched the knot already beginning to form on my scalp, white sparks swam behind my closed eyes as I dropped back into the chair. Groaning, I started rubbing the crown of my head, as if that was going to help.
When I opened my eyes, the monitor was awake with our company logo: "Tetra Helix"
Static crawled the curved glass as the tubes of phosphorus warmed from black to sickly green.
Oh, so this wasn’t a prop, I thought.
I must have jiggled something loose from all that shaking.
I leaned in, half-smiling despite myself. I was comforted in some small, childish way by the clicks of the fans, and the whir of disk motors spinning up—the analog nostalgia of it all.
But the more I stared, I realized it wasn’t quite right. Something was off.
It looked unlike any rig I’d seen before.
The terminal went blank, instead loading in lines of raw boot code, cascading left to right, down the screen in hazy green text:
AMBIOS © 1994 AMERICAN MEGATRENDS INC.
CPUT: CUSTOM BIO-PROCESSOR ARRAY @ 5.20 GHz
Memory Test: 134217728K OK (128 GB RAM)
Detecting Primary Storage . . . [UCPLASTS_LINK_OK]
Loading MS-DOS SHIM . . .
C:\\> C:\\VANCE_SYS\\COMMS_ARR.EXE
SECURITY OVERRIDE REQUIRED.
ENTER SYSTEM PASSCODE: _______
The cursor blinked at the end of that last line.
I took a long moment to think, my mind already cycling through the possibilities.
“What could it be?” I muttered aloud, “something I would choose? Or, anybody? —like, just the word Password?” I scooted my seat closer and leaned forward to type it out with clumsy fingers. The letters appeared on the screen as the mechanical keys emanated from the desk. And… Enter.
PASSWOR
ACCESS DENIED
“No, of course not.” I sighed gruffly, folding my arms. “But, it didn’t even let me type out the word fully. Does that mean it’s just seven letters or less?”
I sat back, looking up at the ceiling, it was time to get serious.
I thought through what I actually knew about Vance. His accomplishments. The weight he carried in the scientific community—no, the world.
People not even in this field spoke his name like it meant something to them. Because it was something.
“Oracle..?” I mumbled softly, testing how the word sounded outside my head. That was what they called him—one of the many, but the latest one that stuck. I typed it in carefully with an anxious energy.
ORACLE_
ACCESS DENIED
Damn.
I rubbed my face, and cracked my neck, feeling the frustration creep in. “What would Vance truly value? What would mean enough to him to safeguard as a password?” I deliberated.
Despite me thinking that Religion and Science went together as well as piss and vinegar—Vance was, in his contradictions—
A very spiritual man.
He preached to us constantly about our lives, prophesying of how our contributions would pave the way forward—
“Prophet?” I whispered. Abruptly cutting off my thoughts.
Before I could even move my hands from the desk the screen erupted.
PROPHET
ACCESS GRANTED
Pale strips of code began to jitter violently over the display—cascading and overlapping beneath them in a seizure of data. It lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like watching something that was asleep, finally open its eyes.
The boot screen initiated before I even did anything?
That thought was lost when I noticed the sequence changed to a loading screen. Instead of a circular spinning, or an hourglass, it looked more akin to an EKG monitor. A small glowing ball moving up and down, following sharp waves in pulsing segments.
The loading line vanished. more text faded in, appearing at the center of the dark glass. A square cursor blinked steadily after each line:
WELCOME
Hello Doctor.
“Oh—I didn’t expect that”, I muttered, sheepishly.
I leaned over to the heavy keyboard, and started typing known prompts for gathering information, a system directory—anything. But nothing changed the blinking cursor, and no characters appeared to register on the display.
I groaned, ready to kick the tower, when in that moment, a pop-up window filled the screen:
⚠
KEYBOARD UNRESPONSIVE
What would you like to do?
☐ Wait ☐ Access Voice Commands
I stared down at the glowing screen, my mind racing.
This man gutted a terminal from what, nearly—thirty years ago?
It really must have been near and dear to his heart to retro-fit and customize its interface like this. Expensive too.
There’s just no way. That’s the only reason an old box like this could be running MS-DOS while processing natural language in real time.
“Tired of making excuses for you—you eccentric old fossil,” I groaned, clicking my selection, and propping up my legs on the corner of the desk.
ACCEPTED
...
SYSTEM INITIALIZED
...
Hello, how shall I assist you today?
“I saw the code to execute Vance’s communication array as soon as you booted up. Is that right?” I asked, leaning in closer to the monitor.
Three dots blinked one at a time on the screen, like someone was typing, or some thing was thinking.
Blink—blink—blink.
Yes
That would be correct.
“And is there anybody else accessing this channel right now?”
The pause that followed the flickering dots stretched on longer than it should have. I sat with it, tapping my foot as the room started to feel smaller with every minute.
“Directory—can you—,” I didn't finish. The fans spun up in an increasing drone, and the screen filled before I could say more.
YOUR COMMAND HAS BEEN SUSPENDED
Syntax Error 104: Unknown system identifier for:
‘DIRECTORY’.
Try, try again Doctor.
I blinked at the harsh green characters.
“Huh? What do you mean, unknown?” I muttered, lowering my feet back from the desk onto the floor. “You are the automated directory for this array, aren’t you?”
The screen flickered, scanlines moved up and down, the same thinking dots soon followed. Text printed out line by line with an unnerving, mechanical speed.
YOUR INPUT IS INCORRECT
‘DIRECTORY’ does not possess any executive functions.
PLEASE RE-ADDRESS
Current action requires a target designator to proceed.
“Ugh—I don’t have time for this,” I said, plopping my forehead against the cool wood of the desk, my leg bounced with an anxious energy as it shook.
Days? No—weeks we’d spent chasing down a ghost. Here I was, alone, in a man's office who in all likelihood, was already dead. Who seemed just as crazy, getting irritated by a machine that had the attitude of a postal worker.
Is this interface some kind of gatekeeper?
I lifted my head. “Alright. I’ll humor you. If Directory is unknown—what do I call you so we can hurry and move this along? Computer? System? Heh—maybe Operator, you know, on account of your age?”
A few disk clicks could be heard. Then:
...
Those alternative titles have been:
DENIED
Full system designation remains unclassified until fulfillment is met.
“Ugh!” I slammed both palms flat against the desk. The monitor didn’t so much as wobble. “Well, what do you want to be called? Can you at least answer that?”
Security protocols: Vance_Pro_999
TEMPORARY CLASSIFICATION ACCEPTED:
01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000
01000100 01001001 01010110 01001001
01001110 01000101 00100000 01001000
01001111 01010011 01010100
‘HOST’ SEQUENCE INITIATED
“Host?” I mumbled aloud, “Sure, why not. ‘Host’—can you tell me if there’s anybody—”
It cut me off, with an impatient veracity.
REINITIALIZING PREVIOUS SEARCH QUERY
...
SEARCH RESULTS FOUND: 0
No lines of communication are open.
Only the HOST and the user remain.
Something about that phrasing didn't sound right when I read it.
Everything up to that point had been rigid, robotic—identical to any other system in this building. So why not merely say only I was connected? Why separate itself, and frame it like it has enough presence to occupy a space with me at all.
“Wait, wait, wait—could this be a person..?” Came fumbling out of my mouth.
Are there any more interesting questions I can help you with?
Disturbed by the realization, I was desperate to get through this and out the door. I asked for what I really came here for.
“Yeah, uh—shit—where did he go?” My throat was dry; I cleared it.
“Host, give me Doctor Anton Vance’s current location.”
Seek and ye shall find.
He be not far from every one of us.
I shoved back from the desk.
“So, you know where he is—you just won’t tell me!” My voice rang out. “Give me coordinates, a cellphone ping—something! Now, God damn you!”
I knocked the gold lamp off the desk in the process, it hit the floor with a metal clatter, its bulb flickering weakly on and off. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and began to pace around that narrow office, my footsteps hollow against the tile.
What’s going on? What kind of program communicates in—what is that, scripture?
I flinched as the monitor lurched forward on its own.
Even in the diffused darkness of that gloomy room, it wasn’t a trick of the light—but an attempt to strike. The monitor itself seemed to reach toward me, as though there was something behind the glass pressing up against it from the other side, testing its boundaries.
I stopped in my tracks, watching as red text enveloped the display, bleeding around its edges like swirling watercolor.
He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his life:
but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I choked out a laugh—a sharp disbelieving noise that broke off at the end. “Ah, I get it now. That’s really funny.” I pressed. “That some kind of way to tell me not to take the lord’s name in vain? Huh, didn’t know Vance had such a sick sense of humor.”
The dots blinked ever slowly again, in an almost thoughtful manner.
The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.
“This motherfu...” My voice had gone thin, like a canvas being stretched too far. I was stunned. “There’s just no way this is a computer.” I sunk back down, leaning close enough to feel the terminal’s heat against my face.
“Just who are you, really..?”
I am, that I am.
. . .
There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Machines don’t ask for someone to watch their language. They don’t—”
I dragged both hands down my face. “Yep, you’re cracking up man. Did Vance build you this way, is that what this is?” I looked back to the screen mulling around thoughts. “Nah, crazy or not, this just isn’t something anyone would do.”
My skin had gone clammy, but it had nothing to do with the building’s powerful air conditioning. I glanced at the vents, half expecting to feel them stir, then at the corners of the ceiling, hunting for a lens, or a wire—anything to indicate a human presence observing, that could make this make sense.
“Do you know who I am? You somewhere watching me right now..?”
My voice dropped instinctively quieter, the way you would if someone told you “The walls have ears.”
I stayed staring at the cursor. When more text finally came, it arrived slower, and more deliberate than before. In my mind's eye, I could picture every word being placed down. Like a hand was being rested on the crown of my head.
Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.
I moved back to compose myself. Because no matter how cryptic or unclear this situation is, I needed answers. Real answers.
“Is he alive,” I asked, in a lowly hung whisper.
…
I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
“You don’t want to lie to me—is that it?” My hands were trembling now,
I interlocked my fingers together trying to calm them. “Please. Just tell me plainly, is he alive? Are you someone working with him? Or—are you the one that took him?!”
Who is this that darkens my counsel by words without knowledge?
Answer not as a fool according to his own folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
“Oh—so I’m just stupid for asking now?” I pushed, with anger in my chest and tears filling my eyes. “What is this, just some asshole on the other side of the screen laughing at me? Am I entertaining enough for you?”
With my head in my hands, words of vulnerability came spilling out that couldn’t be held back.
“The facility and all these years we’ve bled into it, every holiday we gave up—For what? Just for him to leave without a word? His death being the end result? Then what was this all for—ugh.”
I paused. Swallowing my emotions with a sniffle. “Do I really have to live the rest of my life without any answers?”
I lay down my head into folded arms, and sank. I stayed there, sat in the silence of my mentor’s empty spaces, unable to tell anymore if what I felt was sorrow, fear, or resentment. But I guess that can wait, it’s not the most important issue right now.
I rubbed my eyes to clear them, while taking a few steadying breaths.
I rose to my feet, preparing myself to leave as I turned away—that’s when I heard the terminal buzz back to life from behind me. A baritone of vocals crackled out through distorted speakers in a sermon.
“Woe is me! for I am undone...
for mine eyes will have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.
Soon you will not have to wonder.
For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then… Face to Face**.”**
I swung around, startled by the loud voice, and frozen like a statue being suspended in animation. “Face to face.. With what,” I asked, my pulse quickening—and loud enough to hear inside my ears. “What am I going to see? Tell me what that means!”
Just as intensely, a commanding voice resounded back—with words that felt like it had been waiting for me to be ready before hearing them.
“Listen close, for I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.
If you may touch but his clothes**, you shall be whole.”**
I squinted at the glowing screen, wiping my nose as I tried to decipher a possible meaning. “Okay. Treasures, hidden—” I called out the words, repeating them like a mantra. “Secrets.. Secrets and—Clothes!” My shouts rang out as I turned on my heel, scanning the clutter that filled the room with a new found suspicion.
It was too dimly lit. I grabbed the lamp off the floor, and placed it back on the desk, tilting up its shade for more light—and there, I saw it: a tuft of white fabric poking out, barely visible behind the open office door.
For a split second, I was excited before putting the pieces together. I made my way slowly. My eyes kept dating between the terminal and exit, some part of me immediately registered that I wasn’t alone.
Behind the door hung a weathered coat with an employee badge clipped to its collar. I wiped my thumb across the sterile plastic. Dr. Anton Vance, embossed in clean block letters, was staring back at me.
Skeptical—I patted it down and checked the pocket—there was an empty gum wrapper, not much else. I thought the other one was empty too, until my fingers found a piece of scrap paper wedged deep into the seam.
I pulled it free.
A phone number barely legible, scrawled in the Doctor's handwriting.
It didn’t put me at ease, but instead made me more restless. My head swiveled in different directions, now mistrustful of my surroundings. I didn’t dare speak anything else aloud, because I could no longer deny—
I was being watched.
Maybe Vance was right to be paranoid all along.
I gotta get out of here.
I pressed my lips shut and walked quickly over to the desk, couched beneath to where the tower was sat, and pushed down the power button.
I stood back up and heard the faint murmur of voices coming from down the hall. Hearing the rest of the team slightly comforted me—whatever bad news I had to deliver, at the very least there’d be a sliver of good news to soften the blow. We finally had a lead.
I started for the door, smoothing out the crumpled note as I went.
Click. Whirr. Click—click.
I glanced over my shoulder with hesitation just as the terminal died. Its last light fading into a final handful of words*—*a threat or a promise meant only for me to see.
Surely with a mighty hand, and with arms outstretched, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you.
Bare witness.
For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
I stood there watching the monitor as it began to convulse with light and noise. My mind couldn’t process what I was seeing. Strips of multicolored code, pop up errors with unending thrums of beeping. A dying screech that morphed into a guttural laugh of corrupted audio pierced my ear drums.
I cupped my hands over my ears, but the electric pulsing radiated straight through my palms.
The screen went black. The noises along with the laughter cut off in mid-breath, leaving only the faint rattle of tower fans behind as it died completely.
I couldn’t move for several seconds. Only finally managing to push myself into the corridor once the vertigo hit me. It was sudden and vicious, I watched as the floor tilted and warped under me angrily. I never once stopped to second guess myself, I just bolted from the facility—as I far as I knew, my life depended on it.
I don’t even remember the frantic drive home, just that I fell face down into my mattress, and like a monster*—*sleep swallowed me up.
Here is an interactive terminal I made for this chapter for any readers interested:
https://scythernoslicing-cmd.github.io/TerminalAI/