PART 13
The following morning,
the entire town of Blackwood Harbor experienced a massive power failure.
Every digital clock stopped at exactly twelve seconds past four,
and the television screens in the local diner displayed nothing but static.
But it wasn't normal static.
If you stared closely at the gray and white pixels,
you could see the outlines of old houses,
faces of people who had passed away decades ago,
and forgotten streetscapes.
Daniel and I walked through the misty streets,
noticing how the townspeople moved in slow motion,
their eyes glazed over as if they were trapped in a collective daydream.
"They are slipping,"
I whispered,
watching the local baker try to light an oven that wasn't there anymore.
"The balance is holding the structure,
but it's pulling too much processing power from the surroundings."
"Processing power?"
Daniel asked,
pulling his jacket tighter against the unnatural chill that had settled over the harbor.
"You are talking about human minds as if they are microchips,
Amelia."
"In the eyes of the system,
they are,"
I answered,
stopping in front of the old town hall where the shadow of the clock tower was pointing toward the sea.
The sun was directly overhead,
meaning there should have been no long shadows at all,
yet a deep,
dark silhouette stretched across the cobblestones,
ending right at my feet.
I stepped into the shadow,
and immediately,
the ambient sound of the seagulls and the crashing waves vanished.
In its place was a low,
rhythmic humming,
the same sound from the underground facility,
but amplified a thousand times.
Inside the shadow,
the air was thick and tasted like old iron,
and when I looked down,
my boots were resting on smooth,
polished stone instead of the cobblestone street.
"Amelia,
get out of there!"
Daniel's voice sounded incredibly distant,
as if he were shouting from the bottom of a deep well.
I tried to take a step back,
but the shadow seemed to have weight,
holding my ankles like heavy bands of cold iron.
Through the misty air of the distorted square,
a figure approached us from the direction of the docks.
He wore a long,
dark coat that didn't move with the wind,
and his footsteps made no sound against the ground.
As he drew closer,
I realized his face was constantly shifting,
blurring like a photograph taken with a shaky camera.
One second he looked like a young man,
the next he looked like Harold,
and then he looked like a stranger entirely.
He stopped just outside the perimeter of the strange shadow,
looking down at me with eyes that were completely devoid of light.
"You must be Amelia,"
he said,
and his voice was a composite of multiple people speaking in perfect unison.
"The new architect of this beautiful,
broken machine."
Daniel stepped between us,
drawing a small pocket knife from his pocket,
his arms trembling but his eyes fierce with determination.
"Stay away from her,"
Daniel warned,
his voice cracking under the immense atmospheric pressure of the space.
The stranger didn't look at Daniel,
treating him as if he were nothing more than a minor glitch in the program.
"I am not here to fight,"
the stranger said,
his shifting face settling into the features of a severe,
middle-aged man.
May you like
"I am here to audit the accounts,
and to see if the new administrator is strong enough to pay the debt."
