The chamber floated in the nowhere-between, a place unmoored from time or geography. Its walls weren’t really walls at all, but translucent panes of something like glass, though more alive—each surface reflecting layered realities as if the entire multiverse had been etched into stained crystal. Through those panes, scenes flickered and morphed: a wagon crunching through dry brush, thunder cracking over distant cliffs, a revolver drawn in the dark. D?o energy pulsed through the air in glowing ribbons—thin veins of color that bent and wove like lazy serpents, casting faint light across the polished obsidian floor that held no dust, no age. The place felt sterile in a way that was almost sacred, like a library too perfect to house living things, save for the two figures who occupied its center.

  Abner stood near the viewing pane, long coat half buttoned and rumpled, his wide-brimmed hat pushed back just enough to show a sharp widow’s peak and furrowed brow. He leaned forward with both palms resting on the brass rail that circled their station, watching the replay shimmer into focus.

  Flynn filled the glass—his form wrapped in heat haze and gun smoke, teeth gritted as he guided the Westons' wagon across unforgiving land. The wagon rocked, the oxen lowed, and the desert wind tugged at loose canvas and ragged spirits. In another pane, gunfire flashed, casting the shape of Flynn’s wide stance in the dirt like the shadow of a god of grit. The light flared again—outlaws crumpling, monsters tumbling from the dark.

  “Well,” Abner muttered with a satisfied grunt, “he didn’t exactly move fast, but he moved true.”

  Chauncey lounged nearby in a seat that resembled a velvet throne more than a chair—legs crossed, spectacles perched too low on his nose, and his hands twirling a shimmering dial built into the armrest. His coat was sharp, his grin sharper.

  “True?” Chauncey scoffed, shaking his head like someone watching a particularly slow chess match. “He spent half the leg thinkin’ and the other half broodin’. Your boy there has got all the urgency of a porch hound on a hot day.”

  Abner raised an eyebrow, not turning from the pane. “He saved 'em. Got the wagon through bandits and skinwalkers. You expected him to sprint through it?”

  “I expected him to act like he was in a race.” Chauncey leaned forward, adjusting a view slider so Flynn’s scuffle with Bloody Bill played back in grainy black and white. “Don’t mistake me—it had a certain rustic charm. The duel in the rocks, the girl with the Henry, all that dust and blood... looked like a painting come to life. I’ll give you that.”

  A grin tugged at Abner’s lips despite himself. “It was a hell of a show.”

  “That it was,” Chauncey admitted, swirling a crystal tumbler of what looked like light itself, sipping like a man enjoying a post-theater drink. “Nice break from the spreadsheets and balancing the karmic nodes. Been a while since I’ve seen a proper standoff.”

  The chamber echoed faintly with the sound of Flynn’s revolvers, the distant clang of ricocheted lead, the heavy exhale of men dying with their boots on. Ribbons of D?o energy swirled tighter, humming around the scene as if drawn to the memory of courage.

  Abner finally turned from the rail, arms folding. “You mock the nobility, but it’s that grit—his stubborn sense of right and wrong—that might just balance this whole damned world before your city bleeds it dry.”

  Chauncey rolled his eyes, flicking the dial again. Flynn faded from view, replaced by the flashing skyline of Kuroyami City—neon veins lighting up a machine of endless movement and quiet control. “Oh, please. Your frontier knight is noble, sure, but this is a world of hunger and imbalance. He just don’t know it yet.”

  Abner’s gaze followed the new scene, his tone quieting but not soft. “He’ll learn. But you’re wrong about him. You think slow means weak, but sometimes the ones that take their time are the ones that make the deepest mark.”

  Chauncey smirked. “We’ll see, old friend. I’ve got a rabid dog loose in the city now—he don’t hesitate. He adapts.”

  Abner sighed and looked once more at the pane still glowing faintly with the ghost of Flynn’s grit and gun smoke. “We’ll see alright. But admit it—Flynn surprised you.”

  Chauncey’s smile never wavered. “He entertained me. And that’s sayin’ something.”

  Abner’s fingers moved over the obsidian control panel with the familiarity of a man who’d done this too many times to count, yet still found a sliver of reverence in the ritual. He twisted a dial etched with glowing runes—each one flickering through different world-keys—and with a soft hum, the viewing pane shimmered and pulled back. The close-up of Flynn’s dusty trail receded into a wide, living map—no mere topography, but a pulsing soulscape.

  The planet sprawled out between them in impossible detail, suspended in the middle of the chamber like a great glass sphere cracked with veins of color. Streams of D?o energy coursed through it, some rivers thick and golden, others thin, red, and brittle. Certain regions glowed with abundance, vibrant and alive, while others looked starved, dimming like dying embers. One section—marked with the sharp angles of city geometry—shone with a harsh, unnatural light: Kuroyami City, radiant and ravenous.

  Abner frowned and crossed his arms, the cuff of his long coat brushing the edge of the console. “There it is. Like a heart pumping too much blood in one direction. The balance is off.”

  Chauncey didn’t even bother to stand. He leaned back in his velvet seat, a teacup now dangling lazily in his fingers, steam curling upward in strange, slow motion. “Balance,” he echoed, like the word had too many syllables to be taken seriously. “Every system has flux. A little give here, a little take there. Natural selection of a sort.”

  “Don’t start sermonizin’ at me about nature,” Abner grunted, waving a hand toward the glowing image. “This ain’t nature. This is theft dressed up as ingenuity. That siphon the technomagacrats built... it’s bleeding half the planet dry.”

  Chauncey tilted his head, watching the swirling channels of energy as if he were admiring brush strokes on a masterpiece. “You mean it’s fueling the engine of progress. Civilization needs juice, Abner. What’s a little leeching if it lights up a city? Powers the spells. Keeps the railways and ritual clocks ticking.”

  Abner jabbed a finger toward the map, where entire frontier regions had dimmed to a sullen red. “That’s not leeching. That’s strip mining the soul of the world. These outer lands are choking—Flynn’s out there bustin’ his back to protect people who don’t even know they’re being drained.”

  Chauncey gave a dismissive wave. “Oh come now. This world chose the D?o system. We didn’t impose it. Mana, Ether, Qi, Divine Sparks—whatever you call it—it all boils down to the same stew. D?o just happens to be more... honest about what it demands.”

  Abner turned back to the planetary display, his eyes scanning the flickering outlines of ley-lines and fracture points, tiny ruptures forming like pressure cracks in glass. “It’s not about honesty. It’s about harmony. The D?o was never meant to be hoarded, Chauncey. It flows, it breathes. You trap it like this, twist it for convenience, and you rupture the spiritual integrity of the world. I’ve seen it happen before—different systems, same damn mistake.”

  Chauncey sipped his tea, unbothered, one eyebrow cocked in mild amusement. “And yet... watching a world unravel is the only time I’m not bored out of my skull. Half of these backwater spheres barely move the needle. But when they push themselves to the edge? That’s when they get interesting.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “You’re gambling with lives.”

  “I’m babysitting cosmic sandboxes. Forgive me if I like to give the ants a magnifying glass once in a while.”

  Abner exhaled hard through his nose, like a man barely keeping patience. “Flynn’s next leg will show whether the D?o still has a foothold out there, or if this whole damned world’s already gone too far.”

  Chauncey’s smirk sharpened. “Oh, he’ll run it. And if he dies trying?” He shrugged. “One less system to watch. And I have others to test.”

  The light from the planetary projection dimmed, and for a brief moment, the chamber seemed colder, lonelier. Abner stared a little longer, then reached up to trace one of the dying zones with his fingertip—his motion sending a ripple of faint light through the display, like a prayer for balance.

  “He won’t die,” Abner muttered.

  Chauncey tilted his head, amused. “You believe in these little champions. It is just entertainment. It is part of the game.”

  “For you, maybe. I believe in grit. And he’s got it.” Abner turned toward his console. “Let’s see if he’s got enough to carry others with him.”

  Chauncey stood now, finally pulled from his seat as Abner adjusted another dial. The projection flared again to life—this time, a narrow band of landscape glowing in soft tones, stretching out like a ribbon of dust and bone from the crumbling edges of Paradise Valley into the cracked, colorless vastness of the badlands. The chamber dimmed around them, the light from the viewing array painting deep shadows across their faces.

  Abner leaned forward, voice low and steady, like a man laying out cards for a long game. “There it is,” he said, pointing to a caravan of flickering ghost-figures slowly beginning to emerge from the valley’s edge. “The next leg.”

  Chauncey’s eyes narrowed as he took in the details—blurred figures, burdened wagons, children riding tired oxen, and firelight barely holding back the dark. “Huh. Thought there’d be more of ‘em,” he murmured, a curl to his lip. “Guess that plague hit harder than I thought.”

  “It ain’t the numbers that matter,” Abner replied. “It’s what’s waiting for them out there.” He swept his hand across the map again, and the view shifted—dark wind curling like smoke across the terrain, bending trees in unnatural directions, carrying with it a resonance not of this world. The D?o in that region sparked and sputtered—wild, unpredictable, twisted. In places, it pooled in stagnant wells or stretched thin like torn silk. Life and death danced too close together. Things moved where they shouldn’t. And some of them didn’t move alone.

  Chauncey chuckled, and it echoed through the crystal walls like a glass chime cracked off key. “That’s the real charm of your frontier types, Abner. They keep thinking the worst thing out there is the dust. Never suspect that the dust’s watching them back.”

  Abner didn’t smile. “They think they’re heading toward salvation. Some of them are whispering about Kuroyami City. Word’s gotten out—a city of light, a place where the D?o still shines. Hope’s a funny thing. Can make a man walk straight into hell if you paint the gates just right.”

  Chauncey gave a theatrical sigh, hands clasped behind his back as he began to pace. “Kuroyami… Now that’s a name heavy with irony, isn’t it? If they think that place is salvation, they’re in for a hard lesson. A city lit by stolen breath ain’t salvation—it’s a slow suffocation with music in the background.”

  “But they don’t know that yet,” Abner said. “And Flynn sure as hell don’t know what he’s walking into.”

  The projection zoomed tighter now, following the ghostly trail of what would soon be real wagons and real people—some limping, others armed, all looking for something that probably doesn’t exist. The road ahead turned jagged—twisting ravines, scorched plains where nothing grew, abandoned rail lines half-swallowed by dust. There were darker places too—spots where the D?o itself seemed to go quiet, like the spirit of the land was holding its breath.

  Abner’s voice dropped. “This leg won’t be about bullets. Least not only. He’s gonna have to lead now. Make choices. Keep hope alive in others long after his own’s burned out. It’ll test who he is more than what he can do.”

  “Lovely,” Chauncey muttered, still watching the display. “Another leg of trials for the slow-burning hero. All this soul-searching’s going to wear the shine off his boots. You sure you didn’t want to give him a talking horse or a magic compass?”

  “I gave him a conscience,” Abner shot back. “Might not be as flashy, but it’ll last longer.”

  They stood in silence then, the chamber heavy with the low hum of the planet’s pulse beating against the glass. Outside the projection, the universe spun on, oblivious.

  Chauncey broke the quiet with a sly grin. “You do realize this might break him?”

  Abner answered without hesitation. “Or forge him.”

  Chauncey raised his teacup in mock salute. “Here’s to broken men and forged heroes. I’m betting on both.”

  And with that, the view began to shift again—drawing them closer to the point of departure. A lone figure in a wide-brimmed hat, standing under the rising sun with a group behind him and more than just sand ahead.

  Chauncey’s grin split his face like a razor slipped from its sheath. He flicked a copper dial with far too much glee, and the display in the center of the observation chamber shifted. Flynn’s dusty trail across the badlands faded, replaced by something colder, hungrier—a silhouette half-draped in shadow, hunched beside a neon-drenched diner window in the belly of Kuroyami City.

  The light in the observatory dimmed on instinct, reacting to the new focus. The constellations of D?o energy that had glowed golden for Flynn’s leg now crackled violet and grey, pulsing with colder rhythms. The chamber felt suddenly tighter, like the walls had pulled inward to watch more closely.

  “I can’t wait,” Chauncey whispered, his voice practically gleeful as he clasped his hands behind his back and stared at Malik’s faint outline. “You feel it, don’t you? The tension in the threads? Like the strings of fate are plucked just wrong enough to be interesting.”

  Abner didn’t reply right away. He stood still, arms folded across his chest, watching Malik move through a blurred stretch of alleyway, his coat flaring, eyes scanning every shadow like they owed him something. The kid was quick—quicker than Flynn, quicker than most—and he didn’t hesitate. That alone made Abner uneasy.

  “He’s a blade with no hilt,” Abner finally said, his voice low, almost thoughtful. “No memory. No ties. No reason to stand for anything except his own survival. He cuts clean, but he cuts everything.”

  Chauncey gave a careless shrug, turning on his heel to face him, his grin never faltering. “Sometimes the only way to cut through rot is with something sharp and messy. You want grit and grace, I get it. But sometimes a man with blood on his boots gets the job done faster.”

  “Faster’s not always better,” Abner muttered, eyes still fixed on the screen. Malik, even in grainy silhouette, radiated potential like a live wire. The D?o bent around him differently—twisting like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to flow through him or flee from him.

  “He’s dangerous,” Abner added, quieter this time. “And not just to the enemy. That kind of soul, set loose in a world this broken… it doesn’t end clean.”

  Chauncey leaned in close to the display, fingers drumming lightly on the crystalline surface of the control console. “Maybe. But it’ll be fun to watch. Flynn and Malik… you can’t write a better contrast. One man carrying a whole town on his back, the other trying to remember if he’s ever cared about anyone at all. That meeting? That’s poetry.”

  Abner didn’t argue the point. He turned back to the larger planetary map, expanding the view until the whole world spread out before them again. The land writhed with imbalance. Pockets of stillness sat like bruises on the skin. The great siphon in Kuroyami throbbed, drawing in energy like a wound that refused to close. Frontier towns dimmed, choked of breath. The D?o spiraled and twisted, warped by greed, misused purpose, and desperation.

  “Do you ever think it’s too far gone?” Abner asked, not looking at Chauncey now. “This world. This system. Maybe the balance can’t be restored. Maybe all we’re watching is the slow collapse of something that don’t know it’s dying.”

  Chauncey scoffed, reaching for his cooling teacup. “Oh, it’s definitely dying. But I don’t mind watching the final act. Makes the rest of this job tolerable.”

  Abner gave a dry chuckle, then shook his head. “You don’t care.”

  “I care,” Chauncey said, sipping the tea. “I just care differently.”

  The silence lingered after that. Heavy, but not uncomfortable. They were used to this kind of stillness—the quiet between storms, when nothing could be done except watch.

  Abner stepped away from the display and spoke again, almost to himself. “Flynn’s not the fastest. Or the strongest. But men like him… they endure. They pull others with ‘em. He ain’t gonna be flashy, but if this world’s gonna be saved at all, it’ll be because of men like him.”

  Chauncey smirked, setting his cup back down with a soft clink. “And if it isn’t?”

  “Then at least he’ll go down swingin’,” Abner said, his eyes bright beneath the pale blue glow.

  Chauncey turned back to the swirling image of Malik, watching him vanish down another alley, trench coat whipping behind him like a curtain closing on a scene.

  “We’ll see soon enough,” he said, smiling like the devil at a poker table. “Whether this world belongs to the ones who protect it… or the ones who reshape it.”

  And above them, far beyond the chamber’s crystal dome, the great constellations of D?o shifted and shimmered—ever changing, ever watching.

  Flynn’s second leg of the race race was about to begin again.