Chapter Two:

"Processing"

The rain fell with impossible precision across Raleigh's broken skyline, each drop charged with purpose that John recognized all too well. This wasn't natural weather—it was her rain, her storm. The same rain that had fallen that night at Harbor Pointe, when she had appeared between the droplets with her offer of salvation and damnation wrapped in one.

Through sheets of purple-tinged rain, the converted convention center rose like a temple of glass and light. Holographic displays painted the storm clouds with Gameweaver's face—hundreds of identical projections, each one smiling down at the crowds with that particular warmth that John now knew masked something far colder.

The transport bus shuddered to a stop, its ancient electric motors whining beneath the storm's symphony. As John stepped down onto cracked pavement, he felt the rain change—each drop now falling with deliberate rhythm, as if keeping time with some vast cosmic heartbeat. Around him, others emerged from similar vehicles, their expressions showing none of the recognition he felt. To them, this was just rain. They hadn't seen her step between the droplets, hadn't felt the weight of her actual attention.

"Welcome, brave volunteers!" Gameweaver's voice rolled like thunder across the gathering masses, each syllable perfectly synchronized across a thousand speakers. "Today marks humanity's greatest journey—The Ultimate Dive!"

Lightning split the sky, but not the jagged bolts of natural storms. These strikes painted themselves across the clouds in precise geometric patterns, each flash a different color—purple, emerald, crimson. The rain responded, its rhythm shifting to match this impossible light show.

"Look at that," someone whispered nearby. A woman in a worn medical uniform stood transfixed, her face upturned to the display. "I've never seen lightning do that before."

"It's the new projection systems," a man responded confidently, though John could hear the uncertainty in his voice. "Has to be. They're going all out for this launch."

John said nothing, his hand finding the Gamepass in his pocket. Its edges felt unnaturally smooth against his callused fingers, perfect in a way that denied natural law. Through the curtain of colored rain, he caught sight of Mike about thirty yards ahead. Their eyes met briefly—just long enough for silent recognition to pass between them. They'd both seen her true face in Harbor Pointe's storm. This theatrical display was just gift wrapping on a coffin.

The crowd moved like a tide toward the convention center's transformed entrance, where white medical architecture merged with temple aesthetics in ways that hurt the eyes. The rain fell harder now, but somehow didn't seem to be actually wetting anyone. Each drop touched skin or clothing and simply... ceased to be, as if it had delivered some hidden message and dissolved.

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"Initial processing begins in thirty minutes!" Gameweaver's voice carried notes of childlike delight that sent chills down John's spine. The storm above responded, its colors intensifying. "And oh, what a glorious process it will be! Though statistically speaking, most of you won't survive long enough to appreciate the artistry I've put into it!"

Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd at what they assumed was dark humor. John didn't laugh. He'd heard her real laugh that night at Harbor Pointe—a sound that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with the joy a scientist might feel watching bacteria evolve under perfect laboratory conditions.

The rain's rhythm changed again as they neared the entrance, its pattern becoming almost musical. Above, the holographic faces shifted in subtle ways—still smiling, still warm, but now carrying hints of something else. Anticipation. Hunger. The same expression he'd seen in those impossible moments between droplets, when she'd made her offer and changed everything.

The processing center's lobby swallowed them in sterile white light that somehow failed to banish the storm's strange colors. Purple and emerald reflections danced across polished floors despite the complete lack of windows. The rain's rhythm still pulsed through the space, though they were now indoors—a bass note that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves.

"Please proceed to your designated stations," Gameweaver's voice purred through hidden speakers, each word carrying that artificial warmth that made John's skin crawl. "The sooner we begin, the sooner you can all embrace your glorious purpose!"

The lobby had been transformed into a maze of processing stations, each one a perfect mirror of the next. White-clad technicians moved between them with eerie synchronization, their faces blank as fresh paper. John watched one of them help an elderly man into a preliminary scanning chair. The tech's movements were precise, efficient, yet somehow wrong—as if they were performing actions they'd memorized rather than learned.

Lightning flashed outside, its colors bleeding through solid walls to paint strange shadows across the scene. For just a moment, John caught a glimpse of Mike being processed three stations over. Their eyes met again, and this time John saw his own recognition mirrored there—the understanding that something was very wrong with how reality itself seemed to be bending around them.

"Next!" A technician appeared before John, clipboard materializing in their hands as if conjured from the strange light. "Name and registration number?"

The rain's rhythm shifted subtly as John stepped forward. He could have sworn he heard laughter hidden in its pattern—her laughter, not the artificial cheer still pouring from the speakers, but that genuine delight he remembered from the night she'd appeared.

"Processing station seven is ready for you," the technician said, though John hadn't yet given them his information. Their smile was perfect, practiced, empty. "Gameweaver has been expecting you."

The storm outside crescendoed, its colors bleeding through the walls more intensely now. As John moved toward station seven, he felt the weight of attention pressing down—not from the technicians or other participants, but from something vast and hungry that watched through every drop of impossible rain.

The processing station was a masterwork of white and chrome, its surfaces almost painful to look at directly. The chair at its center seemed to pulse with inner light, neural connectors coiled at its base like sleeping serpents. The rain's rhythm remained constant—that same deliberate pattern that had started when John first stepped off the bus.

"Please, sit," the technician gestured with mechanical precision. The neural connectors stirred as John lowered himself into the chair, each one finding its mark along his spine with practiced efficiency. Ice-cold shivers raced through his nerves at every contact point.

The screens surrounding the station cascaded with medical data and neural readings. Through their reflection, John watched the storm's colors paint impossible patterns across the white walls. Purple lightning and emerald rain moved with deliberate purpose, the entire processing center pulsing with an energy that made his skin crawl.

As consciousness began to fade, John focused on the rain's rhythm merging with the thunder above—a symphony that carried meanings he wasn't ready to face. Then darkness took him, and the digital void waited to swallow what remained of his world.