Chapter 6 · Reset Protocol - Chapter 6: The Train Has No Stop

"You're lying." Mark grabbed Lucas by the collar and shoved him against the tunnel wall. "There is no train. The entire district's locked down."

Lucas didn't fight back. He just stared past Mark's shoulder at the red light pulsing deeper in the tunnel. "I've seen it. Three times. Maybe four."

"Maybe?"

"I don't know anymore, alright?" Lucas shoved Mark's hands off. "Every time you die, I wake up earlier. But it's not clean. Pieces don't come back."

Erin stepped between them. "He's telling the truth. The core isn't stationary. It moves on a loop through the district's old subway network. The train runs whether the protocol wants passengers or not."

"How convenient." Mark turned on her. "You show up, drop a bunch of cryptic warnings, and now there's a magic train nobody can see?"

"It's not magic. It's automated." Erin pulled a folded map from her jacket and spread it against the tunnel wall. The paper was covered in hand-drawn lines and timestamps. "The protocol repurposed the abandoned Line 7 extension. Sixteen stations. The core cycles through every six hours. If we miss the window, we wait or we die trying."

Mark studied the map.