After several tireless days and night I completed it. My first work since my eyes have been opened to new possibilities. "Mission From Beyond" was received surprisingly well by my fan base and is spreading more than I expected. This is all certainly enlightening and I can only fathom what I have yet to learn. I sunk a fair bit of expenses into printing even after crowdsourcing. I'll have to eat on the lighter side for a couple weeks, but I just know this is gonna pay dividends! I can feel it in my very soul that this is the start of something big. Something huge that I won't be able to contain to just my writing. It scares and excites me in equal measure. The one thing I know for certain is that I must keep the actual events I have witnessed and experienced close to me and hidden from public eyes. It is apparent that few people are in the know and there must be a good reason. Simon did say that these "Harbingers" only recruited people with talent. I don't know enough to make judgements. But perhaps one day I will be afforded a more incongruous look into these higher beings for what they really are.

I decided to make the most of my week vacation in Japan and hit the sites hard. I hadn't been here in several years and I was excited to see how the culture in Tokyo had changed. It was exciting trying all the foreign food dishes and going into the outskirts to visit the varies shrines and temples. But it made me realize something. I had done 2 contracts so far and both of them presented a significant problem. Language Barriers. I needed to try and mitigate this for the future because Simon could very well put us anywhere in the world. So I figured I aught to be prepared some of the time at least. I buckled down and tried to surround myself with the language. Spending hours a day learning and practicing. I told Luna that I was learning Japanese and she offered to be a conversation partner for me which really helped. After a month, I was nailing the language and my accent was improving too. After a few months, I was speaking fluent Japanese and could read and write it too. I wonder if this is a by-product of being a contractor. I've begun to notice that I can do even more than I thought I could....

All I wanted was to help a friend out. I ended up going on one hell of a journey.

First off, I took some snapshots of those old map in the underway that Charlie took down. So I figured I would be a pal and try to find someone who could digitally recreate them as new so she could hang them up and preserve the old ones. So I hop on my own subreddit and ask around. Some user pings me and asks if I took the screenshots in NEO-Genis. Immediately I hop into DMs with this dude and I tell him that sometimes I draw inspiration from NEO-Genis. His username is "Guardian Aegis" and he is on board to help me restore the maps. Fast forward a week and he's done a really solid job tbh! They look great! I ask him if he knows anything about the underground and he says he's done his own research into it and hasn't found out a whole lot besides the fact that it wasn't even complete before the devs scraped it for fast travel and buried it. I guess nothing ever really stays buried in NEO-Genis.... So now I'm curious and I start pokin' around old post on the forum and independent subreddits. I find a couple of entries dating back 5 years when it was first being talked about and notice people talk about some old shops.

I hop into the player hub and start scrolling through all the shops in those fields. I must have been at it for literal hours before I got to the bottom of the list and noticed Gizmo's Gadgets which had a single review from a few days ago from "The Deadline". Well shit if that ain't Charlie idk what is. I track down this store in the back alley of a couple other buildings (I never would have seen this thing if I wasn't looking for it.) and walk on in. Gizmo is...an interesting fellow. Lots of arms...smart...old.... To be completely honest he was pretty enlightening in his talks about NEO-Genis back in those days. He couldn't tell me much about the conductor or the underground, but there was something he said that stuck with me. "Everyone wants to have their story told". That got me thinking, the conductor doesn't really want to kill anyone. He's just protecting his domain. Maybe he's just upset his story ended before it was told. After that, I knew that I had to go to the source. I will talk to the conductor myself!!!

After messaging Charlie I headed into the underway, but she wasn't there. So I stuck my head into the staff room and left her the maps I got with a note. It's not like she asked me to do this, but it wasn't that heavy a lift. I hope they help her. After that, I really didn't know where to go. So I just said fuck it and hopped down into the a tunnel and started walking. These tunnels just don't add up. Something is definitely screwy with the layout down here. I thought I had some idea of how the tracks function, but that went out the window when I saw an e line h line split....

The mongooses found me! They are a little scary looking. I imagine they are here to keep players out of the tunnel. I didn't notice them until my leg got bit, but it wasn't bad and it looked like I could outrun them. Eventually I saw a d line split and practically dove into it, following it down until I hit subway platform 11. This platform was brightly lit with no exit and the mongooses seemed to not want to enter it. So I caught my breath and simple waited for the train to come. Several minutes passed before I heard a train whistle in the distance. The tunnels shifted and the exit opened up. But I saw the lines. a line and delta line. I knew it.... He's giving me an out. He wants me to leave. He'd rather I just leave than actually confront me. I'm afraid I can no longer give him the satisfaction. My body was already moving down the delta line before my mind was made up. The lights immediately went out, but at least there were no more mongooses. I continued on and the train tracks actually descended downwards and then the tracks got older and older until they just stopped.... The tunnel continued on but the air got thinner and thinner. It became real hard to breathe. I could tell I was getting close but something was holding me back. That's when I felt the eye on me. A singular eye from both nowhere and everywhere at once. He's watching me.... So I just sat there. Calling out into the darkness. Wanting to know his story. Trying to get him to interact with me at all while trying not to pass out from lack of air. Eventually he relented and the air returned. I got up and again, heard the train whistle in the distance. This time coupled with a growing light. Not wanting to become splattered, I got onto the maintenance side track and watched as a glowing monster of a train passed by me. Before I could hop on I was knocked out from behind.

I awoke. Sitting up I noticed I was in a cage much like in the video post. A simple matter for myself. As I exited the cage I was alone in a familiar glowing train car. I am so close now. The door proved to be more tricky though. It actively seemed to be fighting me when opening it. So I resigned myself to wait and had a look around. A few boxes with unopened train tickets, an old photo of the player hub back in the day (a snapshot for later), a blank name tag. Several books scattered around. One being a log book which was completely blank and another being an operator's manual on train conduction. I started flipping through it and noticed that after a while it started talking about the specifics of the NEO-Genis railway system. Before I could get too far though, the conductor opened the door and came gliding in. I made no pretense to hide myself or shy away from his presence (I actively sought him out after all). He pointed a gun at me and I put his book down on the table. I tired to convince him that he wasn't the forgotten relic that he assumed he was and that the players are not the devs, nor do they have any input into what the devs do. I did my best to convince him that his story was worth telling.... But in the end...he defaulted to violence. A tragedy unfolding. I didn't make it easy for him. But he still riddled me with bullets. So I did the only thing I could. I lunged for the books and tucked them into my inventory before I was gunned down. I remember him screaming out "NNOOOOOOOO" as I felt darkness take me before waking up in the player hub. Just know that I only ever wanted to talk. I showed him 10 times the courtesy that he showed me as a passenger on his train. I'll figure out this mystery myself if I have to. And next time...I won't be nearly as nice.

I took off the headset!!!!! WHy am I still in pain!!!!!!!!! Oh god what is happening?!?!?!?!! Everything hurts so much!!!!!Fuck, I think I need an ambulance....