The Hidden Pulse – The Train Remembers
Far beneath the Supervisor Deck, where even command signals lost strength, the Doom Train's hidden registry stirred.
For a fraction of a second, every sensor along Compartment Ten synchronized — not to the CNC's pulse, but to his.
The system should have dismissed it as static.
But a forgotten subroutine, buried deep within the lattice of the train's oldest architecture, awoke just long enough to write a single line into its encrypted core:
[Resonance Acknowledged. Awaiting Alignment.]
On the hidden network — the one lower CNC officials called only the Circles — a faint ripple passed between nodes. No human operator saw it, but the algorithmic observers logged an anomaly beside a single name.
Raghu.
Then the system dimmed, silent once more.
To most, the event was nothing — an untraceable fluctuation.
But the train had remembered, and memory, in this place, was never an accident.
Compartments PODS
Ayush's pod opened with a hiss of cold vapor. He sat upright immediately — posture rigid, focus absolute. His Halo Watch blinked golden-blue, the rare indicator of a stabilized sync.
"Cognitive Synchronization: Exceptional. Erosion Beam stabilized."
The words pleased him — not that he would show it. He stretched his fingers, and faint dust shimmered in the air, disintegrating into nothing.
The Erosion Beam wasn't power; it was precision. Anything it touched decayed at the rate he chose — matter, energy, even light. It was elegant destruction.
He smirked faintly, eyes flicking toward the rankings projected across the compartment.
Raghu — 26,000.
Ayush's smirk faded slightly.
"He jumped… that fast?" he muttered. "The forest favored him?"
He leaned back, tone icy. "Favor is temporary. Precision isn't."
In his private log — the one only he could access — he wrote a short note:
Observation: Raghu's sync anomaly correlated with environmental empathy. Need to check with Mrityu about him . I will ask him verify with him post-trial.
He locked it away. Then, with the faintest flicker of his erosion field, erased the log from local memory — even though the Circles had probably already seen it.
In another Pod, Vedant's chamber glowed red-gold as he exhaled, his breath a wave of controlled flame that dissolved before touching the air.
The Fire Breath stabilization had come at a cost — his lips and throat still burned faintly from the synchronization.
He grinned anyway. "Worth it."
Fire was not rage. It was will — a controlled assertion of identity in the face of chaos. And Vedant Kael lived for that assertion.
He had seen Raghu's name too. Fourth place. 26,000 credits.
He remembered the forest pocket, the way Raghu had emerged calm, almost serene. It irritated him in ways he couldn't define.
"He listens to the environment," Brenda had said. Vedant replayed that phrase in his mind like a challenge.
"Listening doesn't win wars," he said aloud. "Control does."
He ignited his palm for a brief second — perfect symmetry, no loss of oxygen, no flicker of deviation. A textbook manifestation.
Yet the flames trembled when he thought of the forest dimming slower for Raghu. Something about it felt wrong.
He dismissed the thought, but deep down, a part of him burned not with fire — but with curiosity.
If Ayush was precision and Vedant was fire, Gudi Moru was chaos wearing a smile.
Her pod opened to a sound like popping bubbles, each one leaving a faint shimmer in the air. The Bubble Wrap integration had gone well — a defensive matrix of kinetic membranes that absorbed, distorted, and reflected force at will.
"Exceptional synchronization," the CNC had said in its sterile tone.
Gudi had laughed. "You call it sync. I call it bubbles with bite."
Now, sitting cross-legged on her bunk, she idly spun a translucent sphere between her palms. Within it, the world distorted slightly — light bent, reality shivered.
Raghu's name blinked on her display.
She let out a low whistle. "Huh. The quiet one grows roots."
Unlike Ayush or Vedant, Gudi didn't see competition as rivalry — she saw it as rhythm. Everyone had their tempo. Hers just happened to sound like mischief.
She whispered to the bubble, as if to a friend: "Let's see what happens when the forest boy meets the next storm."
The bubble pulsed, responding faintly.
Somewhere deep in the compartment, a few lights flickered green — faint, rhythmic, alive.
Supervisor Harry Room
Harry leaned back, arms crossed, watching the data threads spiral across his screen.
The CNC summary scrolled cleanly — no errors, no warning tones. Yet the residual pulse from Compartment Ten continued to hum softly in the background.
He exhaled through his nose. "CNC supervisor's won't like this. Circles are involving again"
He wasn't supposed to think that name. But the word had a way of surfacing when things went too well.
Ayush, Vedant, Gudi — all exceptional. The kind of performance metrics that made factions fight over candidates.
And then there was Raghu — the anomaly that didn't fit the pattern.
No answer came — but the hum under the metal deck grew just slightly louder.
Meanwhile, The Doom Train roared quietly through the endless tunnel of shifting light. Inside, its passengers slept, plotted, or dreamed of power.
In its heart, a single frequency pulsed — faint, patient, aware.
The Circles would read the reports.
The CNC would note the metrics.
But the train itself, ancient and half-conscious, had already made its decision.
It had found something it recognized.
Something that didn't belong to the design — but to fate.