XCEL

“Tegata. Where actually is this facility?”

Time had gone by so fast lately, that the question had entirely slipped Rin’s mind. Now he thought about it, the matter seemed ridiculous. He knew Chiba’s urban sprawl would likely provide ample cover for a whole host of shady dealings, but those were usually white-collar conspiracies, victimless crimes against faceless corporations: money-laundering, tax evasion and such, not morbid occult experimentation on kidnapped children. He’d ask Kinuka, but the shrug she gave him after they shared a look told him all he needed to know.

Tegata didn’t respond immediately. The three of them moved through the city’s afternoon bustle. The hum of traffic on their way out of the financial district left a persistent drone in Rin’s ear that he’d rather be rid of. He’d always had a sensitivity to noise; it made living in the city just that much more of a pain. Unlike this morning, however, they were moving with the tide rather than against it. It could be that the boy hadn’t heard him. Rin reached forward and tapped Tegata on the shoulder.

“Where—”

“I heard you the first time. The facility, it’s… complicated.” Tegata looked strangely forlorn.

A voice in Rin’s head then reminded him how touchy of a subject the facility must be. Rin shut his mouth for the time being. The voice sounded strangely like Kinuka’s.

“I’ll explain everything once we’re there, I promise,” Tegata continued, excusing his way through a gaggle of girls huddled outside a corner store. They turned to look at him and started to giggle, a couple pointing at his unusual hair colour. Tegata paid them no mind. The three of them turned down a side-street leading towards the train station.

This street, at least, was a little quieter. There were a few cars parked here and there. Rinkaku Harigane then had a brilliant idea.

“What are you doing?” Kinuka asked. Having noticed Rin was no longer walking alongside her, she’d back to see him standing next to one of the parked cars.

“Saving you both a lot of bother,” Rin answered, not looking at her. “You can thank me later.”

Rin had made a cuboidal frame between his hands, and had expanded it to surround the car. Standard size and black, the car itself was about as special as the asphalt it was parked on.

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to steal that car.” Kinuka said, exasperated. She cast a glance around to see if anyone else was there to watch this crime be committed in broad daylight. Tegata, a few paces ahead, sighed into his hands.

“I said, you can thank me later.” Rin was generally of the mind the law didn’t apply to him. Plenty of other people got away with far worse, was his rationale. Besides, he was already on the run, so what was another nonexistent crime to add to the list?

“Don’t see you suggesting how we’re going to get there,” he said. Capturing the frame, he shrunk the car down to the size of his thumb and shoved it into his pocket. “I bet it’s not in the city, and I don’t fancy walking all that way.”

“Do you even know how to drive?” Kinuka asked.

“Of course I do,” Rin lied. That was a problem for future Rin to worry about.

“Hey, Tegata!” Rin called. Tegata stood a few metres away, arms crossed. “I’ve got us some transport,” he continued. “Now can you finally tell us where we’re going?”

“You can forget that.” Tegata said. He pointed behind him to the entrance to the subway a few yards further down the street. “We’re taking the train. Put the car back, Rin.”

Rin glared.

“So, it’s in the city after all?” Kinuka asked.

“No. This really won’t make any sense, but where we’re going isn’t exactly in reality.”

Rin and Kinuka exchanged a look. Tegata sighed.

“Just don’t think about it too hard and you’ll be fine,” he said. Turning on a heel, he continued down the street, Rin and Kinuka following, perplexed, not far behind.

They could not have chosen a worse time to travel. The three of them stood sandwiched in amongst the indistinguishable mass of commuters on the station platform. Rin could almost taste the stagnant subway air, felt the weight of everyone’s breath pressing in on him. He hated it. Kinuka looked similarly uncomfortable, and had since resorted to playing with the folds of her coat.

Moments later, a dulcet chime rang through the speakers overhead, followed by a dull female voice. Tegata motioned to listen carefully.

“The next train will not be stopping at this station. Please step back from the platform edge.”

The announcement then repeated itself again. A little odd for it to be said twice, Rin thought, but nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly, no-one around them was making a fuss. What was Tegata on about? Rin thought it was over, but to his surprise the announcement kept going.

“The next train will not be stopping— The next train will not be stopping— The next train will not be stopping— The next train will—”

The speaker then abruptly cut to a jarring, eerie tone, sending chills rippling over his skin. Rin felt the world around him suddenly tilt a few degrees, as the station, the commuters, and everything around him was bathed in an aurora of colour. No-one else besides the three of them seemed to notice anything.

“What’s happening?” Kinuka cried out. She grasped at the sleeve of Rin’s coat.

Rin couldn’t answer. He stared around, hearing the thundering of a train coming from the other end of the tunnel.

“That’s our cue,” Tegata said, weaving his way past the line of passengers standing motionless in front of them. “Come on, you two.”

Both hurried after him, but stopped once they reached the platform edge.

“What are you doing, Tegata?” Kinuka yelled. “Are you insane?”

Tegata had jumped down from the platform, and now waited on the tracks.

“Hurry!” He yelled up at them. “The train’s going to be here soon!”

“And you’ll be turned to paste!” Rin cried. “What the hell is going on?!”

“Just trust me!” Tegata looked between them and the dark tunnel, where the noise of the train only grew louder. “You’re going to have to jump!”

He pointed to the other end of the tunnel, where the train was headed. Just then, the space in the mouth of the tunnel splintered like glass, jagged cracks spanning outwards from the centre like a mirror hit by a stone.

“Come on!” Tegata yelled. “Just jump!”

Yellow floodlights burst from the other end, and their legs acted before either of them could decide otherwise. The pair leapt from the platform. For the next few moments, Rin felt time slow down around them. Then, the full force of the train’s front end hit. All three of them catapulted forward, hit the cracked pane and broke through. The noise of shattering glass was deafening.

One second, all was still.

The next, Rin and Kinuka found themselves sprawled across the floor of a train carriage, practically on top of one another. Tegata sat calmly in a seat nearby.

“I thought neither of you were going to make it in time.” He sighed in relief. “Would’ve been lonely by myself on this train.”

It took both of them a moment to realise they weren’t actually dead. Once they did, both were up on their feet, wide-eyed and staring. Kinuka was too busy hyperventilating to say anything. Rin, however, was not.

“What the hell just—”

Tegata shushed him, and yanked the pair—still shellshocked—into vacant seats on either side. “Not so loud,” he warned Rin. “They don’t like it when others are too noisy.”

“They?”

Only then did he see the smooth, flat, porcelain faces of the other passengers staring wordlessly right at him. Some looked male. Others, not. They were all dressed exactly the same: black suits, white shirts, black ties, just like the commuters at the station. None of them had hair; they were like mannequins. Rin clamped his mouth shut and backed into his seat, and nearly started when he caught sight of the man sitting right next to him. Kinuka let out a little yelp and shuffled towards the other two.

“Who are they?” She asked. “Why are they staring at us?”

“They’re nobodies,” Tegata stated. He seemed rather at-ease. “They’re not dangerous. Just quieten down and they’ll leave you alone.”

A few tense seconds passed, as Rin and Kinuka both held their breath. The nobodies continued to stare, before they simultaneously turned back to stare ahead at one another, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, doing nothing. An eerie silence descended on the carriage, broken only by Tegata a few moments later.

“Sorry to put you both through that.” He spoke at a normal volume, which fortunately elicited no response from the nobodies. “I was afraid that if I told you what you’d have to do beforehand, neither of you would even step foot on the platform.”

Rin buried his face in his hands and groaned. Kinuka screwed her eyes shut and tried to slow her breathing.

“Are you two okay?” Tegata asked.

“I’ve just been hit by a train,” Kinuka mumbled to herself, as though recalling a dream. “I’ve just been hit by a train…”

Rin, still with one hand over his face, eventually gave Tegata a thumbs-up.

He looked relieved. “You’re both alive, and this isn’t a dream,” he reassured them. “It’s a fairly common cognition among the public that getting hit by a train or some other heavy vehicle transports you to another world, as it happens.”

“Yeah, to the damn afterlife…” Rin said, slouching forward in his seat.

Kinuka stared out of the window opposite. It felt like they were moving, but she couldn’t see anything beyond. It might’ve been the harsh fluorescence of lighting overhead, but Kinuka could only see their reflections in the glass. The nobodies had none. “Mind telling us what we just lived through?” She asked.

“Gladly.” Tegata made a sign with both hands and projected a shadow onto the floor. One soft howl later, and one of his dogs was nuzzling at Kinuka’s hand, whimpering for her attention. The girl recognised the Watchdog and giggled, stroking it behind the ears.

“That cracked area of space we just hit?” Tegata explained. “That’s called a rift.”

“As in, to another dimension, or something?” Rin asked.

“Something like that. Not sure why, but in certain places the boundary between the physical and cognitive worlds is especially weak. At certain times, cracks can open up. You saw that sudden shift in colour everywhere, right?”

Both nodded.

“That period of time there was a ‘distortion’. All we needed to do to break through onto the other side was strike that weak point before the distortion passed.”

“And so your solution was to get us hit by a train?” Despite his incredulity, Rin kept his voice to a near whisper. Rin didn’t fancy attracting the ire of those creepy nobodies.

“Didn’t have much of a choice. We needed speed. Without enough force at the moment of collision, we would’ve just passed right by the rift.”

“I… still don’t get it,” Kinuka said. “How on earth did you know about this in the first place?”

“I didn’t at first.” Tegata shrugged. “Then again, once you’ve done things the first time, it suddenly becomes a lot less scary.”

“You’re insane…” Kinuka stared at him, her face contorted in a mixture of awe and terror.

“It was a risk, definitely,” he said. “But one I’d taken before.”

“So, hang on—” Rin had just about joined the dots. “Is that where you went this morning? Whilst we both went home?”

Tegata nodded, and then leaned out to look further down the carriage. “We’ll be nearly there soon. Get ready to leave, you two.”

“Where does this train go?” Kinuka asked. She had looked up, but couldn’t see any trace of a map anywhere on the train’s spotless cream interior.

“Wherever you want, really.” Tegata briefly scanned the carriage. They hadn’t caused too much of a disturbance. Good. Angering the nobodies would’ve only made things more difficult. “We’re in the cognitive world,” he reminded them. “Thought holds significant power here.”

“So, the same as the Further Plane?” Rin asked, remembering the labyrinth of tall towers that he’d seen during his last meeting with Architect.

“Exactly. I don’t know where you’d end up if you stayed on this train, but that doesn’t matter. This is our stop.”

A chime rang overhead. Rin faintly recognised it as the one they’d heard at the station, only this time it was heavily distorted. With no sound of any brakes, the train steadily slowed down to a crawl. All three made their silent way past the motionless rows of nobodies on either side. Once they reached the exit, both doors parted silently. Minding the gap—which was a lot wider than Rin could ever remember—he touched down on ordinary concrete paving. He was grateful at least for a little bit of stability.

Rin turned and looked back at the train, or at least part of it. The only bit of the train that was even rendered into view was the compartment they had just been in. The entire structure was surrounded in a thin, neon purple outline, which extended on either side but quickly faded away. He glared back into the train, and the blacked out windows glared back at him. The doors then shut, and the train silently moved off into the tunnel. Rin followed it to the platform edge, but it was soon swallowed by darkness.

“Where are we now?” Rin asked, looking around the vacant station platform. Besides the three of them, there wasn’t a soul—the opposite of what it had been to start with. Rin wasn’t sure which hell he preferred.

“Right where we need to be,” Tegata said from behind him. He stood at an ATM set into the wall.

“Can you stop being so cryptic for once?” Rin walked past the other two and towards the ticket barriers at the other side. He considered taking out his card, but saw there was no rail to stop him. So, he kept going, only to walk right into an invisible wall. Rin yelped and stumbled back.

“What the hell?”

“You’re a special kind of idiot, aren’t you?”

Kinuka was looking at him as though he had three heads. She tilted her one to the side and shook it, before passing right through the barrier next to him without the slightest bit of problem. Tegata then did the same.

“What?!” Rin cried after them. “How did you—”

Kinuka pointed to the strange ATM Tegata had been standing at. “Didn’t you buy a ticket?” She asked.

“I didn’t— There wasn’t—” He stammered, before noticing the paper tickets both of them were holding up, and the slot to insert them on the barrier. “That wasn’t there before!” He pointed.

Tegata didn’t care. “Hurry up,” he said, “or we’ll find the facility without you.”

Rin looked at Kinuka for sympathy, but only saw the back of her head. The last thing he wanted was to be left behind. Rushing over to the machine, Rin started tapping impatiently on the panel.

“A payment is required.”

Payment? What payment? Rin fished around in his pockets for his student railcard. That worked on all the trains back in the real world, he reasoned. He fed it into the machine, only for the machine to spit it right back at him. Rude.

What else did it want? Rin didn’t have any cash on him. Dubious, he pressed a glowing button on the smooth interface that read “make payment,” then yelped when a red laser zapped him right in his third eye. The yelp was from surprise only; the laser barely tickled. Rin saw a stream of purple psychic energy leave his eye and flow into the machine. He stumbled a little, a sudden wave of fatigue washing over him. Was that the payment? The machine gave an odd series of mechanical hisses and clicks, before it finally spat out a ticket.

Rin rushed back to the ticket barrier and fed the paper through the slot. He pressed his hand up against where he’d previously collided, and found it pass right through. Rin stepped carefully through the gate, and soon broke into a run out of this empty station.

Once outside, the first place Rin looked was up. The sky wasn’t blue anymore; a piercing magenta hue stung at his retina. Inverted clouds, black with white outlines, hung motionless in front of a sun that didn’t exist. There was no wind, no motion. Rin barely felt the air in his lungs. The acoustics, too, were all wrong. Every step he took on the concrete reverberated around the empty street. Just like the station, aside from the three of them there wasn’t a soul in sight. The kenopsia made Rin shiver. He looked around, and squinted. Everything was as it should be, almost. When he looked too closely at the street signs—looked too closely at anything, really—it suddenly went out of focus. It felt as though he were seeing everything through his peripheral vision.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Tegata asked. He and Kinuka had been watching Rin gaze around blindly; a mole’s first emergence into the light of day.

“Not sure what I expected,” Rin murmured. “Definitely not this, though. So creepy.”

“Let’s get going.” Tegata beckoned. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

* * *

Their destination wasn’t hard to miss. After what seemed like an eternity of walking, a giant industrial complex, an abomination of steel and concrete with walls stretching twenty feet above them, loomed at the end of the empty street. Directly ahead was a cavernous doorway, a maw of the predator that lay in wait, ready to swallow them whole.

“I don’t like this at all,” Tegata said.

“What’s wrong?” Kinuka asked.

“This entrance wasn’t here when I came this morning.” He looked to either side, expecting an ambush of some kind. “They know we’re here. They’re taunting us.”

Rin grit his teeth. “Cocky bastards.”

“We can’t turn back now, right?” Kinuka asked.

Tegata shook his head. “Change of plans, you two.”

“What?”

“Travelling in a group makes it that much easier for them to get rid of us in one fell swoop,” Tegata explained. “The Glass Eyes will be lying in wait, no doubt, not to mention the Rejected crawling the corridors. This is JPRO’s domain, don’t forget. We’ll each take different routes, all ending up at the subject containment facility”

Rin had to admit that made much more sense. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s get moving before they spring something on us.”

Kinuka nodded her approval.

“One moment,” Tegata said. He crouched down to the floor. Contorting his hands, he said, “Signal.” Out of the shadow his hands made on the pavement, three little parrots, barely the size of Rin’s hand, fluttered out, one settling on each of their shoulders.

“Even if we had phones, they wouldn’t work in this world,” Tegata explained, holding up his parrot, which took off and started flying around his head. “We’ll use these parrots to communicate, like a radio. If any of us get in trouble, then the rest of us will know.”

Kinuka cooed at her parrot and began stroking it with the back of one finger.

Rin saw, and tried to do the same. His parrot bit him.

“You two go and find another way in,” Tegata ordered. “Go.”

They both nodded and took off running in opposite directions. Tegata watched them go, before bolting ahead into the darkness.

* * *

“Looks like our surprise guests have arrived,” drawled Hideyori Hakana, setting the orb he held down on the table of the Glass Eyes’ boardroom. “Boss wants the blade fragment from Harigane at whatever cost. Kill them if you must, but he’d prefer them alive. More agents would never hurt, I suppose.” He gazed around the table. Ten faces, illuminated ghostly white by the orb’s glow, stared back at him. “Any volunteers?”

“I’ll handle the girl.” The man called Yoshine said. He was a deal older than the rest, a wispy grey combover was all that covered a face lined with age and discontent. He stood, tapping the man next to him on the shoulder. He was younger, black hair parted cleanly down the middle in shaped bangs that eclipsed his face.

“'Kane, let’s go. You take care of the shadow boy,” Yoshine said.

The man nodded and rose to join the first.

“No objections, Hakana?” Asked the elder.

“None. I’m expecting great things, you two.” Hideyori rested his chin on splayed fingers. The two of them soon vanished into the darkness.

“And that just leaves Harigane.” He trailed off into silence, before casting a glance to the boy on his left. “Why don’t we pay your little friend a visit, Bango?”

The boy’s face was tilted down, hidden in shadow. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“Gladly.”