Seat A10 (Part 2)

Despite feeling a sense of relief and calm washing over him, the young man remained slightly unnerved by what continued to pass by overhead, outside of the hatch. Inside of the train car, it felt like all of the distortion and pressure had dissipated, almost as though the train was floating in place rather than moving at an incredible rate of speed. Yet the open square above him framed the same phenomenon the windows of the train had earlier. Streaks of unimaginable colour whipped by the opening every few seconds, like lasers being shot from a spaceship in literally every science fiction movie he had ever seen.

After having watched the emergency hatch ripped from its hinges, the young man could only imagine the speed and force that awaited him, or anyone who dared to venture outside of the train. He paused for a moment, lingering on the foot keeping him perched on the backrest of his plastic seat, and looked around the train car. The distortion of the walls had almost entirely disappeared, and the faceless beings had all started to develop some features. Features that suggested they were, in fact, other people.

The young man lowered himself back down into his seat, feeling both accomplished, and relieved that he had opened the hatch. He was certain the train would begin to brake any minute.

"It must already be slowing down" he thought to himself. "That's why the distortion is letting up. That's why I can finally make out who these other people are."

He started to feel a small sense of pride for his actions as well. After all, he had saved not only his own life, but the lives of the others on the train, and, come to think of it, anyone who may have been in the area at the ‘end’ of the track. They would have certainly been in mortal danger if the train crashed, or exploded….. or caused some other kind of disaster depending on whatever the situation was at the 'end of the track.'

“I am special. My mother was right” he thought to himself, smiling subtly at the dated reference.

However, as he sat replaying what a bizarre experience this had been in his mind, and still wondering on some level whether or not he was engaged in something that was saving real lives, or some kind of game, he glanced back up towards the emergency hatch. It struck him that although he felt much more comfortable in the train car now, the streaks tearing by outside of the train had not become any less….. streaky. They remained so stretched, blurry and distorted, that it was still impossible to tell what exactly they were.

“Maybe that’s just part of the game. If this really is some kind of game..…”

He began trying to reason with himself about what exactly ‘existed’ outside of the train, or whether any of this existed at all.

"It must be. It’s giving the game some kind of boundary. That’s all. I’m not going to bother with it, I’ve already done what I needed to do. This will have to end soon.”

So, the young man waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He glanced around the train car every so often at the other passengers who had, by now, become fully detailed beings. He noticed that they had not shifted from the activity or position they had occupied with while they had been a ‘faceless creature.' He thought that this was slightly peculiar and 'video game-like' as well.

“Any time now…..” The young man whispered aloud.

He peered up through the emergency hatch ‘skylight’ once more. The streaks were still whipping by.

“Alright. If this is a game, I guess I’m NOT done. Aghhh…. Getting out through the emergency hatch must really be the next step. But…. what if this is not a game………. somehow.”

The young man began to have a conversation with himself, ignoring the existence of the other passengers in the same way that they seemed to be ignoring him.

“I mean, the distortion was….. impossible? I don’t think something like that could happen on Earth without destroying every living thing and structure at the same time. But this….. feels real.”

The young man started to look around frantically for any indication that he was, in fact, either in a game, or on some kind of real train.

“What rail line is this? And how did I even get on it? What could possibly travel this far, this fast, in a….. tunnel? Is that what we are in? It must be. It’s completely dark outside other than those streaks.”

Strangely, there were no maps of the train system posted anywhere that he could see. There were no advertisements on any of the overhead panels. Even the seats on the train had fuzzy, obscured designations. Except for the one above his seat. He could see his own designation.

— ‘A10’

“Okay. This can’t be real. There’s nothing here that a real train would have. That means I can just sit here and wait for someone to pull me out of the game. Whether I’ve won or not, whoever is running the simulation will have to end it sooner or later.”

So the young man sat in his seat and stubbornly waited out whoever he believed to be controlling the game he was now certain that he was stuck inside of. Eventually, he noticed that, along with the anxiety about his situation dwindling, his body was starting to feel more relaxed. His head became heavier, and he started to drift off a little thanks to the gentle rocking of the train car. His hand slipped from his lap and hit his seat, which was no longer made of rigid plastic, but instead, was a puffy, billowing chair. It wrapped around him and cushioned him like it was some kind of thick duvet cover.

“Wh—How could this?” he mumbled out loud.

He was unsettled by the change, and the fact that he found it difficult to move himself from his relaxed position. It was as though the chair itself was holding him in place. He had become locked into a blissful, soft, protective cocoon of fluff and warmth.

Though his body was telling him it felt wonderful, something about the feeling terrified him, and he instinctively struggled against its pull. The young man began writhing back and forth, trying to free an arm, a leg, anything to give him some kind of leverage, or the ability to pull himself out of the seat. The more he struggled, the more the billowing chair puffed up and wrapped around him.

“URrgghgh nooooo. You can’t. YOU CAN’T!”

The young man cursed the chair as it started to consume him. It had covered his entire lower body and was wrapping its way around his torso. Soon only his head was left protruding from the top, as though he were becoming a living version of the ‘Stay-puft Marshmallow Man.’

As it reached his neck, all he could do was hold his head up like a stranded swimmer trying to keep their head above water. He stared up at the emergency hatch. He had no other choice. His head had become pinned in a position that forced him to at this point. Then, after a final weak, defeated wiggle, he relaxed. He knew he couldn’t escape the seat. Something inside of him wished he had at least tried to go out through the emergency hatch before he had become trapped.

One small tear fell out of each watering eye and ran down the sides of his face.

He lamented the fact that he’d lost the chance to really see what this all was….. and that was the last thought he had before the chair overwhelmed him, swallowing him whole.

———————————————

*Hfffffff*

The young man’s eyes shot open.

He found himself off-balance, standing on one foot on the backrest of his plastic seat and gripping on to the support pole.

“Oh my god! HOW! WHAT!?!” he shouted.

As usual, there was no response from the other passengers in the car.

In disbelief, the young man looked around and found himself in the train as it was shortly after he had opened the hatch. It was moving along at a comfortable, smooth pace, rocking back and forth gently. The passengers had come back into focus, just as they had before, and were still fixated on their own activities, just like they had been.

He immediately darted his eyes upwards to the hatch above his head, staring at the streaks outside of it.

He remembered seeing the door to the hatch torn from the train by the force of its movement…. Or perhaps, by whatever one of those streaks actually was.

Then he looked down at his seat, also remembering the hopelessness and regret he had felt as the lush, soft cushion had consumed him.

It wasn’t even a decision.

He crouched a little on his planted leg, steadying himself with the support pole, and launched himself off of the seat’s backrest, reaching up towards the hatch with both hands. To his surprise, he just kind of floated up to the hatch, grabbing onto it with ease. It was as though, once he had detached himself from anything connected to the base of the train, gravity ceased to pull him back down towards the floor. He hung from the emergency hatch as if he weighed almost nothing, and began to pull himself up to exit the train car.

*QQQWWwwwwweeeewwwweeeeeeesshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

As soon as his head approached the hatch, a squeal unlike any he had ever heard before hit his ears. It was like the train was moving so fast that the air and space outside of it were creating an entirely new type of sound. It was akin to listening to complete static, but the young man swore he could hear some kind of howl or scream buried deep down inside of it. Cautiously, he began to pull his head closer to the hatch, which only made the screeching grow louder.

It was an indescribable sensation. Not really ear-piercing, more like, mind-piercing. The young man could feel the noise inside of his head. It made him feel as though his ears were going to explode like geysers, and that his eyes were going to pop out of his head. The pressure inside of his skull felt like someone had placed his brain in a vaccuum-sealer and turned it on.

He glanced back down at the seat in the train car, and began to reconsider his choice.

Suddenly, a noise that reminded him of striking a cable under tension rang from above him.

*Byaaaaowwwwwwww*

It startled him, but when he looked up into the blackness above the train, nothing was there.

Upon tilting his head back down towards his seat, it rang again.

*Byaaaaowwwwwwww*

This time he was determined to see it. So he stared, directly into the black, waiting, when ——

—— *Byaaaaowwwwwwww*

He flinched at the streak that had whizzed right through the blackness in front of his eyes.

“What was that?” He waited again, anticipating another.

—— *Byaaaaowwwwwwww*

“THERE!” He shouted. “Was that….. a letter?” He couldn’t be sure, having flinched almost as much at the second streak as the first, but he thought he had seen something inside of the streak. He waited patiently for another.

As the third streak fired, the young man tried his very best to maintain his focus on the blackness. He had to push himself in order to avoid being startled to the point that he would miss the information he thought might be hidden in the streak. After several more attempts, he had finally held his nerve enough to make out what it was that was shooting over top of him.

“That was an A!”

He had seen it clearly, but wasn’t sure that it was the only letter he had seen, so he continued to watch for more of the streaks. Each time one zoomed overhead, he was clearly picking out an ‘A,’ but there was also something following it.

“What is that….. it’s too FAST. THIS ISN’T FAIR!” He shouted into the blackness, at nobody, frustrated by the difficulty of gathering such a small amount of information.

Streak twenty passed.

Streak thirty passed.

He still couldn’t manage to see the second character. And to make matters worse, now he thought he had seen a third one too.

“AAGHGHG! There has to be a way to slow this down! There has to be a way to see this.”

Infuriated and feeling out of options, the young man resolved to lift himself up out of the train, hoping that standing in the same space as the streaks might give him a different perspective on them, or at least let him see if there was anywhere else to go.

Once again, as he pulled his head towards the opening, that terrible static-scream became louder and more forceful. He continued to pull himself up using the sides of the hatch, slowly raising the top of his head towards the opening and feeling the pressure build inside of his skull. Every millimetre compounded the throbbing in his eyes, ears and skull tenfold. He pushed on, forcing himself through what now felt like the same waves of pressure he had experienced when approaching the doors in the train car. As his eyes approached the lip of the opening, he slammed them shut, fighting against the immense pressure threatening to implode his brain. He desperately hoped that if he clamped his eyelids shut tightly enough, his eyes wouldn’t come flying out of his head once they had passed the opening.

*shhhhhhhhhoooooooooooooooooop*

Silence.

The young man was standing on top of the train. He could feel it under his feet.

No pressure in his skull.

Eyes magically still in their sockets.

Blood still in his body, not gushing from his ears like Vesuvius.

No….. wind. No force of movement. Nothing.

The young man opened his eyes to blackness.

Everything was black. There were no streaks left.

The emergency hatch, which he assumed would be open and shedding some faint light from behind him, was gone.

In the distance, he saw the faintest dot of greyish-white. It was almost imperceptible at this distance. Looking back and forth, and all around, he decided that the only thing worth moving towards was the dot. There was nothing else in existence, and no assurance as to how wide or long the train even was.

Out of fear and desperation, the young man dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled slowly towards the grey-ish white dot. He paused every few feet to reach forward and out to the sides with his hands, running them over the cold, beveled, steel edges of the roof of the train. He couldn’t see or sense anything in this utter void, and he needed to ensure that, at the very least, he wasn’t going to fall off the edge of the train.

The greyish-white dot was beginning to become brighter and larger, but the strangest part about his journey towards it was that he never seemed to come to a point where one train car ended and another began. He could not figure out how this was possible, but continued to crawl towards the dot anyways. At his current distance, the dot had begun to transition from just being a simple dot, to a glowing object of some kind. However it was still too far away for him to make out what exactly it could be.

After what seemed like hours, the young man could finally make out enough detail about the greyish-white dot to determine that it was not necessarily an object, but a glowing message. Keeping his eyes focused intently on the light source as he crawled slowly forward, he stopped dead as soon as he recognized the message in the light.

A10

The designation was floating there, in mid-air, casting light in his direction.

He took it as a piece of encouragement. A ‘you’re on the right track’ kind of moment.

He stood up, so that he could begin walking towards it. He was confident after traveling so far along the train’s roof, and after finally deciphering the image that was calling to him like a beacon, that this part of the journey was not intended to make him fall or destroy him.

He was on the right path. He had to be.

After taking only a few steps, he felt something inside urging him to run. So the young man began charging towards the image of the ‘A10.’ It seemed to grow larger and brighter with each step he took. He felt as though he were beginning to move faster than he had ever managed to run in his life.

Was he that determined to reach the beacon?

Was the train somehow helping him?

He felt as though he could outrun a rocket, imagining his speed carving a wake through space time.

As he approached the ‘A10’ it also seemed to approach him, stretching itself from its origin point towards him.

“I’m moving so fast that I am turning light points into….. STREAKS! Like ships going to light speed in Star Wars!”

The thought excited him and spurred him on, and the darkness around him seemed to get a little brighter. It was only when he glanced over his shoulder to gauge whether or not the faint glow would allow him to see any of his surroundings that he noticed he was actually creating streaks. He really was leaving a wake in the space around him.

“INCREDIBLE!” He exclaimed as he pushed himself to sprint even harder.

Nearing the ‘A10,’ he was stunned at just how massive the projection was. He also realized that it was not projecting towards him, but was actually the result of light emanating from another open hatch. Without even thinking, or considering alternative options, the young man raced towards the ‘A10’ floating above the opening and dove towards it with all of his energy.

———————————————

*Hfffffff*

The young man’s eyes shot open. But he was not prepared for this.

He found himself standing in a completely empty train car. White walls, white floor, white ceiling, and a dark strip like a path cutting through the center of the floor from where he stood to the far end. No seats, no passengers, no doors, windows, or hatches anywhere….. except one.

A black door at the far end of the dark strip.

Above the door, a small neon sign reading ‘Controls’ glowed in a faint green light.

In front of the door…. a cyborg. If not for its completely exposed titanium skull and absurd height, it would have been perfectly human-looking. It stood towering at almost the height of the train car itself, holding a bladed finger to the engineer’s throat.

“IDENTIFY” the cyborg shouted in a deep, mechanical voice.

The young man stood staring at the thing, utterly dumbfounded.

“IDENTIFY”

The young man took a step forward, an action which caused the cyborg to press the bladed finger up against the jugular of the engineer.

“DO NOT APPROACH. IDENTIFY.”

The engineer, dressed in a sharp, white suit, like the admiral of a ship, had white hair to match tied back into a tight pony tail. She shot the young man a distressed warning through her glowing, multi-coloured eyes.

“Those same eyes…..” the young man thought.

“IDENT—“

“ALRIGHT! Fine. I’m……. I……………” the young man stumbled over his own name.

“This is impossible. How do not know who I am?”

“UNIDENTIFIED. ADVERSARY. HOSTILITIES COMMENCE.”

The cyborg punctured the engineer’s throat and hurled her to the ground, stomping forward towards the young man menacingly.

“NOOOO!!!” He shouted in both fury and agony.

“Alright wait… WAIT!”

The cyborg continued to press forward. It was only a few steps away.

“I am…. I am……..”

It swung down with a violent strike towards the young man and ——

———————————————

*Hfffffff*

The young man’s eyes shot open.

He charged the cyborg.

“IDENT — ADVERSARY. HOSTILITIES COMMENCE” the cyborg declared.

Before the young man could make it within ten feet of the pair, the cyborg had already punctured the jugular of the engineer once again. It caught the young man by the neck, mid-stride, as he reached its proximity, and thrusted its bladed hand directly through the young man’s sternum.

———————————————

*Hfffffff*

The young man’s eyes shot open.

The train car was slightly scrambled this time, and a red line flashed through his field of vision.

— FINAL OPPORTUNITY —

This was followed by a bright flash, and the train car was just as it had been when he first entered.

He began frantically calling out attempts at identification.

“MAN!”

“IDENTIFY.”

“PASSENGER!”

“IDENTIFY.”

“PLAYE——”

“ADVERSARY. HOSTILITIES COMMENCE.”

“NO WAIT!!!! I’M……. I’M A10!”

“IDENTITY ACCEPTED” the cyborg said, dropping the lifeless engineer to the floor after having punctured her throat for the final time.

“GAAHHHHHH you IDIOT! I IDENTIFIED MYSELF WHAT THE HELL!!!!”

The cyborg just stood at the far end of the train car staring at the young man.

He walked forward and approached the giant, and the expired engineer laying in front of it.

The young man kneeled down to examine the engineer. Her bright eyes had gone pitch black, just like the world outside of the train and the door that waited behind the cyborg. He closed them and then stood to face the machine.

“Alright fine then. Let me through here so I can try to figure out how to stop this thing.... Which now I’ve got to do by myself thanks to your UTTERLY RIDICULOUS PROGRAMMING.”

“Programming is constant. It provides certainty. Beings against programming register as adversary.”

“You IDIOTIC machine. Certainty isn’t even possible. There are a million variables that can change a situation. If you weren’t so rigid she would be alive to help me figure this out.”

“Variables do not concern this platform. It has programming.”

“Well what if your programming is contradicted? What if I give you information that proves your programming needs to change?”

“This platform does not need to change. It has programming. It has certainty.”

“Ughhh no no nooo STUPID HUNK OF METAL YOU’RE NOT GETTING IT!”

The young man sighed and resigned himself to the fact that the cyborg would not be able to see things in any way other than the way its programming had determined.

“Look…. Just let me through the door okay. I’ll figure it out.”

“Door is only accessible to allies.”

“Wait what? You just acknowledged I wasn’t an adversary.”

“Non-adversary does not equate ally.”

“Ohhh gaaaaaahd help us….. What do I need to do to become an ally?”

“Allies accept and agree with programming.”

“No. That’s ridiculous. I do not agree with your programming. It made this more difficult. It means you can’t even have a real conversation with me.”

“A10 disagrees with programming. Which segments of code?”

“What? ALL OF IT….. I guess? The fact that you have to have rigid programming and protocols means you can’t ACTUALLY engage with me. You’re not an intelligence, you’re just script.”

“A10 disagrees with all programming. ADVERSARY. HOSTILITIES COMMENCE.”

“Wait what?”

The cyborg reached for the young man.

He stumbled backwards purely due to reflex, and began scrambling towards the far end of the train car.

“Hang on okay…. Just……… Just wait a second. NO HOSTILITIES!” he called as he backed away from the cyborg.

Once he had made it to the far end, he pinned himself up against the wall and glared back at the giant machine hulking towards him one thundering step at a time.

“Okay hang on. I get it, I get it! Programming is necessary!”

The machine lumbered forward a few more steps.

“Programming is helpful! Programming makes you work….. I……… I……………… Programming……”

The machine reached the young man and lifted him into the air by his neck, releasing the blades from its free hand and positioning them for a killing strike.

The young man desperately struggled to call out through a muffled, choked voice, “PROGRAMMING IS THE CORRECT CHOICE!”