Crossing the Line, II

Lucien's private lab was entombed—buried deep beneath the edge of a vast desert, its silence absolute.

No one knew it existed. Not even those closest to him.

The hallway leading in was narrow and sharply angled, lined with sterile paneling and threaded conduits pulsing gently—green—like veins. Every door passed through was sealed behind him automatically, locking with a hiss, as though the facility itself feared what might follow in his wake.

The final chamber—oval, cathedral-like—opened around him.

The room was impossibly still, lit by faint green thread-light that pulsed from beneath the floor, tracing along curved walls into the machine at its center.

The machine didn't look mechanical. It looked sacred.

A monolith of smooth, polished alloy fused with layered thread-light—symmetrical, yet in a way that evaded geometry, with strands of glowing thread-light pulling into the reinforced foundation and spreading out beneath Lucien's feet.

Lucien circled the machine slowly.

He moved like a priest before an altar. Every step deliberate. Every movement clean. He examined each coil, each anchor, with hands that hadn't known rest in weeks.

He looked older.

His beard had grown wild, his skin pale under the sterile lights. His eyes were sunken, surrounded by fatigue. Not weakness—but cost. Time had pressed its hands against him, and he had not moved.

His clothing was simple—tactical-black, thin, sleeveless. His pants were loose but reinforced. Fabric meant to work, not be seen.

The lab was filled with scattered papers—pages of designs, equations, alternates and previous models. Notes were scribbled across the walls, schematics engraved into the floor. The space was more like a shrine than a laboratory.

Lucien paused. Stood still.

Then he knelt. At the base of the machine, he extended his hand—thread-light from his palm reaching out instinctively, like it remembered the path before he did. It connected, clicked, then fused.

The lights shifted. The machine hummed.

Not loud—but deep. A tonal drop. Gravity around it thickened.

Lucien stood again. Thread-light followed his movements now.

He stepped to a raised platform, placed conveniently in front of the machine. It held the key to activate it.

Lucien reached over the key to turn it. Thread-light connecting between the key and his hand like an electric current.

His breath stilled.

There was no ceremony. No spoken words. No mental flourish.

Just one quiet, decisive moment.

And as he started turning the key.

The door behind him slammed open.

***

Four figures rushed into the chamber, the air rippling around them with pressure that hadn't existed moments before. The green glow of the machine pulsed as if aware of their presence.

Julian entered first, breath ragged, his clothes a mess. His voice cracked as he called out.

"DAD!"

Lucien didn't turn.

Julian stepped forward. "We've been searching for weeks!"

Isabelle was behind him, jaw set, shoulders tense—her gaze locked on him.

"Why did you vanish?" She added, her heels clicking against the cold floor. "Magnus said he couldn't stop you. What are you doing? What is all this?"

Lucien remained still.

Max followed—advancing rapidly, eyes scanning the room.

"Lucien, what is this thing? You've locked down half the world's resources for this. What are you doing?" He asked, voice sharp.

Kieran entered last. Calmest of them all, but his hands were clenched into fists.

"You about to start something you can't control, Lucien." he said urgently. "If you activate that machine—"

Lucien turned his head slightly, just enough to look Kieran in the eyes.

"What will happen?" He asked.

Kieran hesitated—his eyes glancing between the others. "We don't know. That's the point. It's an unstable theory—untested, volatile—"

"Then it's time for you to leave," Lucien said. His voice was calm. Cold.

Julian took a step forward. "No! We're not leaving. Not without you."

"You don't understand," Isabelle said. "You're not thinking clearly."

Lucien turned fully, his gaze steady on her. His eyes glowing green now.

"I'm thinking clearer than I ever have."

Max stepped between them. "Then you know how insane this is!"

Lucien's expression didn't change.

"I'm done holding back."

Max reached out, placing a hand on Lucien's arm. "You need to—"

The moment the contact registered, Lucien reacted.

A flash of green rippled in the air. Max was launched backward like a ragdoll, slamming into the far wall. He groaned—stunned and disoriented.

"LUCIEN!" Isabelle shouted.

Kieran stepped forward quickly, voice low and sharp. "Don't make me stop you."

Lucien raised a hand.

Thread-light erupted from his palm, spiraling into the air like strands of fireflies. In an instant, Kieran was lifted off the ground—ensnared in a net of light and locked mid-stride, eyes wide in disbelief.

Julian staggered back. Isabelle gasped. "W-what the hell did you just do?"

In a blink. Lucien was standing behind them.

The same threads coiled up from the floor and wrapped around their bodies—gentle, almost caring. They didn't fight. They just froze.

Julian's voice was barely a whisper. "Dad…"

Lucien said nothing.

Max sat against the wall, blood at the corner of his mouth. "What the hell is your problem…" he growled. "We're your FAMILY!"

Lucien returned to the platform.

"You brought yourselves here." he said softly.

"Don't blame me for what might happen to you." he added.

"Lucien," Isabelle tried, softer now. "Please…"

The lights in the room pulsed once.

"I've accepted the consequences."

***

The key turned.

Lights deepened. The green glow that filled the chamber darkened, then brightened again, like a slow breath being drawn from the core.

The machine responded immediately.

It's hum rose—not mechanical. It was a tone that existed, a vibration that shuddered in the bones. Low at first. Then higher. Then impossibly still.

Green thread-light burst outward from the base, spiraling upward in concentric rings. The air distorted in layers—slow at first, then rippling in pulses. As if time were folding in on itself. The walls bowed. The ceiling shuddered. The center of the room became a tunnel with no bottom.

Thread-light spiked, webbing across the air like veins across glass.

Lucien stepped back onto the platform, his eyes wide—not with fear, but in awe.

He had succeeded.

Reality bent.

The space around the machine began to flex, then ripple—like the surface of water disturbed from beneath. Beyond it, faint glimmers of other structures appeared. Shapes. Moments. Possibilities. Not visions—realities. Entire worlds blinked into view, frames without grounding, like windows into other lives.

For a moment, Lucien was a god.

He could feel it. The pulses of infinite echoes, just beyond reach. The weight of all the possibilities, stretched before him like thread waiting to be pulled.

He took a breath.

Then—

The machine died. Instantly.

The rings of light collapsed inward. The hum snapped to silence. All motion stopped.

No spark. No burn. No warning.

Just absence.

Like the machine was never on to begin with.

Lucien didn't move.

Behind him, the others were silent.

And in that breathless pause, something far worse began to build.

***

For one second, there was silence.

The kind of silence that shouldn't exist.

Even the restrained companions—held in bands green—felt it, a full-bodied absence like the world itself had held its breath.

Then it detonated.

Inward at first.

Light folded, collapsing into a single point at the core of the machine, compressing space into itself.

Then—

It ruptured outward. A radial burst of thread-light so bright it rendered color meaningless.

The room shattered.

Lucien didn't think. He reacted.

His threads responded before his body. Green light flared from his spine, crawling across his limbs like wildfire, wrapping his arms, chest, and legs in plates of fluid armor. The pieces formed mid-motion—chest, shoulders, gauntlets, greaves—until he stood encased in the divine armor of his thread-light.

He turned sharply and threw his hand wide.

Thread-light surged from his palms, weaving a barrier between his companions and the collapsing space. A shield that bent outward, absorbing the force as the lab peeled away from the explosion point. Steel beams twisted. Concrete fractured like dried skin.

The ceiling came apart in pieces. Glass domes embedded in the walls exploded inward. Consoles shorted in waves, one after another, a chain of violet.

The machine was gone. Obliterated.

ALl that remained was its echo—an expanding, shredding vortex of air, pulling at the edges. Gravity spasmed. Floor panels ripped themselves like nerves being pulled.

Lucien planted his feet, his armor blazing.

He absorbed the pressure.

He held his shields.

The explosion rolled over him—past him—outward.

When the dust began to fall again, the destruction was absolute.

The lab was gone.

Only a fractured skeleton remained.

And yet—Lucien stood still.

And his companions—unharmed—stared at him like they had never seen him before.

***

As the dust had barely begun to settle.

Walls groaned in protest. The reinforced structure of the underground lab—fractured by the explosion—began to fold inward. The ceiling creaked, then dropped in sheets of debris, massive plates of steel and concrete sliding like tectonic shifts.

Lucien moved.

Each movement was a blur of green thread-light, streaking through the crumbling void like weaving through time.

In a single blink, he appeared beside Julian and Isabelle, scooping them into his arms. With another blink he picked-up Max, then Kieran.

He brought them to the center, placed them down, and shielded them with one arm, then looked up.

The collapsing chamber roared around him.

His other hand opened. Aimed upward.

Thread-light spiraled from his palm, then narrowed, condensed, sharpened.

It fired.

A single concentrated beam of thread-light—pure green, impossible focused, lashed upward.

It burned through the rock and earth overhead—vaporizing it.

A hole appeared, carved straight through the earth, the sky visible through the other end.

Lucien quickly grabbed a hold of his companions again. In a blink, they were outside, in the desert, falling through the sky.

Where they landed, a ragged crater was made from the impact. Dust bleeding into the wind.

None of them were harmed.

Lucien stood—armored, eyes glowing, breath ragged.

Behind him, one by one, his companions emerged—blinking, coughing.

They stared at the sky.

For a few long seconds, the world was silent.

Then—

A buzz. Then another. And another.

Isabelle's phone vibrated. Then Kieran's. Then Max.

Lucien unraveled his armor, reaching into his pocket.

His phone was blasting an Amber Alert.

"!!! Unidentified objects sighted in the sky, please stay inside !!!"

The air itself seemed to tighten.

Lucien looked up.

Above him, the sky was the same.

He exhaled slowly.

"She's made her move," he whispered.

"Finally."