Barkley stood in front of an old train station, the cold wind whistled by with dust, rolling up the broken paper scraps on the ground. He looked up at the rusty clock on the platform and found that it had stopped for a long time, making the place seem more and more dead.
He came to Ostra, a forgotten city. It used to be a frontier city of science and technology, and his parents' research was also carried out here. But since his parents disappeared, the Shadow Council took over most of the facilities, and the whole city seemed to have fallen into a strange silence. Today's Ostra is like a body with a soul emptied, with only broken buildings and occasional wanderers passing by.
Barkley was not sure where to start looking. He knew that the ruins of Ostra hid the secrets left by his parents, but the city was too big, and looking for clues was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
He carried his travel bag tighter and walked towards the main road leading to the city center. The sound of footsteps echoed in the empty streets, and Barkley's mood became heavier. He felt an invisible oppression, as if the shadow of the entire city was approaching him.
"Maybe they have already turned this place into a trap." Barkley thought to himself. He kept thinking about what Sean told him, about his parents' research, about his genes being the key to opening the cracks in time and space. Although he still found everything unbelievable, there was no way back. Every step meant that he was one step closer to the truth and one step closer to his parents' secret.
After walking for about half an hour, Barkley came to the center of the city, in front of a once glorious scientific research building. The door of the building was dilapidated and almost completely weathered, and the outer wall was covered with vines and moss, as if the building had already become a part of nature.
"Is this... the last research base of my parents?" Barkley stared at the building in front of him, with mixed feelings in his heart. Once, this was a place where countless top scientists explored the unknown world together, but now it has become a lifeless ruin.
He walked up the steps, pushed open the heavy iron door, and entered the interior of the building. In front of him was a dark corridor, with dilapidated signs on the walls on both sides, which seemed to be the numbers of the former laboratories and the distribution map of the research areas. Barkley silently memorized this information in his heart and continued to walk in.
At the end of the corridor, a heavy steel door closed the passage to the underground laboratory. Buckley reached out to touch the control panel on the door and found that the circuit on the panel still had a weak energy supply. He was a little surprised, which meant that some systems in the building were still running.
He gently placed his hand on the control panel and tried to enter the password his parents had left. Every time he entered, the control panel would emit a short prompt tone to remind him that the password was wrong. After several unsuccessful attempts, Buckley was about to give up when he suddenly found a line of text on the panel:
Buckley frowned and held his breath. He looked at the line of text and had a vague sense of uneasiness in his heart. He hesitated for a moment and finally entered his name on the panel: **Buckley Bolton**.
The control panel did not respond immediately. After a while, it displayed another line of text: **"Welcome back."**
The steel door made a dull click and slowly slid open to both sides. Buckley walked into the door and a cold air hit him. He walked into a staircase leading to the underground, which was darker than the corridor just now. There was almost no light source on the wall, only the emergency light flashing occasionally in the corner.
Barkley couldn't help but speed up his pace, and his inner tension became stronger and stronger. He didn't know if there was any danger hidden deep in this abandoned building, but he had to find the answer.
He walked to the end of the stairs, and the scene in front of him suddenly became clear. A huge underground laboratory appeared in front of him. There was a huge device in the center of the laboratory, and the core of the device emitted a faint blue light.
Barkley was instantly attracted by this scene. The device was the time-space rift generator that his parents had studied back then. He had seen the design principle of it in his parents' notes, but the device in front of him had obviously surpassed the original concept.
He slowly approached the device, with mixed feelings in his heart. This device may be the key to another dimension. The disappearance of his parents and the pursuit of the Shadow Council are all closely related to this device. And the genes in his body are the key to starting this device.
Barkley reached out and touched the metal on the surface of the device. The familiar resonance came again, and he felt the energy in his body begin to stir restlessly, as if it had some kind of connection with the device.
"Do they really want me to open this thing?" Barkley muttered to himself, with countless questions flashing through his mind. He knew that once he activated the device, he might face unknown dangers, and he might never be able to return to the real world.
However, he also realized that this was his only chance to find his parents.
Just as he was about to take a deep breath and concentrate on thinking about the next move, a strange ripple suddenly came from the air behind him. He turned around suddenly, and saw a space-time rift quietly appearing in the corner of the laboratory, and a figure gradually appeared in the ripples.
Barkley's whole body was tense, and his hand had unconsciously touched the weapon at his waist.
The figure gradually became clear, and Barkley saw a woman walking out of the rift. She was slender, her eyes were firm, and her face was full of traces of fatigue and dust, but at the same time, her eyes were filled with unshakable determination.
"Lena?" Barkley blurted out, his face full of disbelief.
Lena smiled and walked slowly to him. "It's great that you still remember me." There was a little ease in her tone, as if it was just a common thing for her to cross the time and space rift just now.
"You...how come you are here?" Barkley was still shocked. He never thought that Lena would appear through the time and space rift.
Lena looked at Barkley with complicated eyes. "I said that I would find you at the critical moment. You have gone far enough now and are close enough to the truth."
Barkley took a deep breath and calmed himself. "So, tell me, what should I do next?"
Lena was silent for a moment, and finally said: "You have to make a choice. This device can take you to another dimension, find your parents, and solve all the puzzles. But at the same time, it may also make you fall into endless darkness and never return to the real world."
"I know." Barkley nodded, his eyes firm. "But I must find them. This is my only chance."
Lena walked forward and patted his shoulder gently, with a trace of reluctance in her eyes. "You made your choice, so I'll help you."
She walked to the device and began to debug the control panel on it. As she operated, the blue light of the device gradually intensified, and a low hum began to echo throughout the laboratory. The air was filled with tense energy, and Barkley felt that the resonance between his genes and the device was getting stronger and stronger, as if it was about to explode.
"Are you ready?" Lena asked back.
Barkley took a deep breath and nodded. "Ready."
Lena pressed the last button, and the device began to vibrate violently, and a blue energy beam shot up into the sky, and the entire laboratory seemed to be shaken. With the appearance of the beam, the crack was opened again, and a bright space-time channel appeared in front of Barkley.
"Let's go." Lena said softly, with a hint of determination in her voice.
Barkley walked towards the crack step by step,
with countless emotions surging in his heart. Just as he was about to step into the crack, Lena suddenly said, "Remember, no matter what you see, believe in yourself."
Barkley looked back at her, nodded heavily, and then stepped into the crack without hesitation.
The light of the crack instantly swallowed his figure, and the whole laboratory fell into silence.