Time was flowing again.
Which was a problem, because now that the Drift State had ended, every law she'd broken just caught up with her.
Juno stood in the middle of a busy intersection while sirens wailed in the distance. Civilians shouted. Someone was filming. A drone zipped overhead with a red banner: Temporal Breach Imminent – Evacuate Grid 7C.
And yet, all she could do was stare at the man who claimed he'd died fifty-two times.
"Okay," she said slowly, still catching her breath. "Let's go back to the part where I don't go to prison."
Milo Kane didn't answer immediately. He checked the watch on his forearm its surface glowed with shifting symbols, not numbers. He muttered something under his breath.
"You've caused a five-minute ripple across twenty-three time zones," he finally said. "Congratulations. You just made the Division's 'Top Ten Temporal Nightmares of the Week.'"
She blinked. "That's a list?"
"Yeah. I'm usually on it."
Before she could reply, the other three Chrono Runners reappeared around them, standing still like statues. People didn't seem to notice. Juno realized—they weren't real anymore. Or not here. Time phantoms? Echoes?
"I looped them," Milo said, reading her thoughts. "Don't ask how. You wouldn't understand the math."
"I might."
"Fine. Quick quiz: What's the square root of causality?"
"…Is this multiple choice?"
He smirked and started walking.
Juno glanced around. The world had already moved on from her little chase. Typical. Time always did that forgot the people it stepped on.
She followed him.
They passed through an alley that didn't exist a moment ago just popped into being like it had always been there. Temporal warping, she guessed. At this point, she was done asking questions. For now.
Milo finally stopped in front of a metal door with no handle. Instead, he placed his watch against a rusted panel.
The door didn't open. It folded like origami made of steel.
Beyond it was a white chamber. Clean. Featureless. Not even gravity felt normal inside.
"Welcome to The Tockbox," Milo said. "Our mobile base. Outside time. Impossible to find unless you already know where it is."
Juno stepped in. Her headache began immediately.
The room expanded as she entered. Literally. The walls stretched away like elastic fabric, revealing a sleek command center with a glowing map of the world—marked in blinking red zones, each labeled with phrases like TIME FRACTURE or LOOP CASCADE.
A woman with a chrome cybernetic arm swiveled in a chair.
"Oh great," she said. "You brought the criminal."
"Technically," Juno said, raising a hand, "I'm now government property."
Milo ignored both of them. He walked to the central table and activated a hologram. Juno saw it: Year Zero, a dark sphere suspended in swirling energy, with strange glyphs orbiting it.
"That's what she accessed," Milo said. "That's what started this week's apocalypse."
"I just clicked a shard," Juno muttered.
"You clicked time's origin point." The cybernetic woman stood up. "We're talking about the very first second. The moment before the universe decided to count. No one's supposed to touch that. Not even us."
"Then maybe someone should've hidden it better."
Silence.
Milo looked at her. "Listen, Juno. The moment you touched that shard, you became part of something bigger. The fractures are spreading. Something is trying to rewrite time itself—and it wants Year Zero unlocked."
"And you think I can stop it?"
"I think you already started it."
Another silence.
Then Juno laughed, short and wild. "You people are insane."
"Yeah," Milo said, tightening the straps on his watch. "But we're the only insane people who can save the timeline."