Chapter 52 — Guesthouse Cellar — "Tick-Skippers Wanted"
Lucas Vale smelled rust before he saw the blood. A single dot of crimson, no bigger than a raindrop, lay on the cellar's stone step like a warning badge. He knelt, touched it—dry, iron-scented, old. Probably a fisher's nick from years back, but today every stain felt like a breadcrumb the Curators might have left on purpose. He wiped his fingers on ripped denim and continued down the stairs, pale bulb flickering overhead.
The cellar beneath Casa do Mar was hardly a bunker—just a cobwebbed chamber carved into volcanic rock, stacked with fishing nets, cracked wine barrels, and the region's most reluctant washing machine. Yet Gabriela had chosen it for the morning's autopsy, because no neighbor's Wi-Fi bled this far underground and the basalt walls drank radio like thirsty ghosts. Perfect for eavesdropping on an extraterrestrial artifact.
Artifact. Lucas scoffed at his own melodrama, but the shard deserved the term. On a crate between mildew-specked barrels, the emerald sliver pulsed faintly in a nest of alligator clips and copper mesh. Gabriela huddled beside it, laptop balanced on overturned bucket, hair shoved into a frenetic bun. She looked like a rogue car mechanic tinkering with star-drive technology.
"You're late," she muttered, not glancing up.
He checked the clock on his burner phone—eight minutes past seven. "Took the scenic route. Door was jammed."
"That's because Emilia wedged a mop against it. Paranoia is the new black."
Lucas smiled despite fatigue. "Security through domestic inconvenience."
Gabriela typed a string of commands, green code scrolling. "I prefer lasers. But mops make less noise."
Behind them, Serena descended carrying three coffees and a cloth bag that clinked. She handed Lucas the strongest brew and brushed a kiss across his cheek—a gesture still so new it rebooted his chest each time. He tasted dark roast and peppermint from her lip balm, part of him tempted to freeze the moment, but he'd promised her he wouldn't squander chronal juice on sentimental snapshots. Some memories needed real time to prove they were worth keeping.
Emilia followed, balancing a battery pack, her denim jacket bearing fresh grease streaks. "Generator's stable," she reported. "I rigged an inverter so we won't fry the laptops if the mains fart."
Serena set her bag on a barrel, porcelain rattling. "I also raided the bakery—custard queijadas. Bribery for breakthroughs."
"Sugar qualifies as meta-encryption," Gabriela said, accepting a pastry without taking eyes from screen.
Lucas bit into one, custard hot enough to scald palate. Worth it. He turned to the shard, pulse barely brighter than a firefly. "Still on silent treatment?"
Gabriela adjusted a resistor. "Yes and no. Radio silent, but it's whispering through onboard LEDs in sub-millisecond blinks. Optical Morse, essentially—too fast for humans, trivial for machines. Watch."
She dimmed the bare bulb with a pull-cord, plunging the chamber into gloom. The shard's glow brightened, then stuttered in precise bursts: three quick, two long, one quick. Lucas's heart tripped. S-O-S.
Gabriela restored the light. "It's been sending variants of distress since six a.m. I fed frames into a parser. Look."
On screen, decoded text scrolled column by column:
Lucas exhaled. "So not just a log—it's a flare. The Curators are advertising."
"Or conscripting," Serena said quietly. She pulled a stool, sat, coffee forgotten. "Could be recruitment drive. Could be bounty."
"Both," Emilia offered. "You want walkers, you lure and you hunt."
Lucas ran fingers through damp hair. "We intercepted the ad by accident. Who else might answer?"
Gabriela pointed to the screen. "Scroll continues. After the slogan it cycles coordinates—encrypted, but pattern looks like one-time pad. Without the key we can't read destination."
Lucas sipped coffee, thinking. "One-time pad implies they expect the receiver already holds the key. Like a membership badge." He studied the shard's shimmer—heartbeat of a secret club. "We don't own that badge, but maybe we can spoof it."
Serena frowned. "Impersonating a Curator node is begging for trace."
"Trace is inevitable," Lucas said. "Question is on our terms or theirs."
Emilia set the battery pack near the table. "Let's worry about physics. Drone used quantum-secure channels. Spoofing means replicating its hardware entropy. That's… not trivial."
Gabriela cracked knuckles. "But we could brute-force plausibility, flip one bit at a time, see if the shard replies. Kind of handshake roulette."
"That could take weeks," Serena countered.
Lucas tapped barrel staves impatiently. "I have a cheat. The night I board-ran the Aeon Key, I brushed thoughts of a merc—briefly. He'd been debriefed about Curator protocol; I glimpsed a phrase—'Delta Theta quick-key.' Might reference handshake seed." He closed eyes, replayed memory. Freeze-frame of sweat-lined corridor, merc counting down charges, mind racing through procedure. The phrase sat like a sticky note in Lucas's cortex. He opened eyes. "DeltaTheta-four-one-nine."
Gabriela typed. "Worth a hash."
While code compiled, Serena retrieved a small notebook—her reporter's habit from pre-Curator years. "We need a risk map," she said. "If we unlock coordinates, what then? Fly there, knock on door?"
"The door may be underwater," Emilia reminded. "And guarded by walker-operatives."
Lucas drained coffee, felt caffeine jostle with adrenaline. "Then we escalate allies. Graves has a line on private ROVs. He also wants redemption arc."
"Graves wants commission," Serena corrected, but she scribbled the thought nonetheless.
The laptop pinged. Gabriela's grin flashed wolfish. "Handshake accepted. I have plain-text packet."
They crowded the screen. New message replaced repeating slogan:
HANDLER NODE: ATLAS-BLACKROOT / DELTA-THETA LINK
PRIORITY: EMERGENCY INTAKE
ACTIVE POTENTIALS: 27
INACTIVE POTENTIALS: 402
WINDOW CLOSES: T-122h
LIS → JFK → NY175.42 → SUBLEVEL-C
Silence thickened. Serena reread numbers. "Four days until window closes."
Emilia whistled. "Twenty-seven active potentials—that matches ledger list we stole."
Lucas felt skin tighten. "Meaning the Curators still track them. Maybe the others… inactive, as in pruned."
Serena shut notebook with snap. "Atlas-Blackroot is land node in Manhattan. Sublevel C—likely subterranean data center, maybe bank vault."
Gabriela leaned back. "Drone expected to deliver our data core there. We're now the courier."
Lucas pictured himself crossing JFK immigration with a shard wailing for 'handlers.' "They'll have sensors. If we walk in broadcasting, they handshake us then incinerate us."
"Unless," Serena said, "we pretend to answer the want-ad. 'Tick-Skippers reporting for induction.'"
Emilia's eyes widened. "Go willingly?"
"Under controlled cover," Serena clarified. "We let them believe we're curious recruits. Meanwhile we plant sniffers, map the nest."
Gabriela strummed laptop lid. "Walker infiltration of walker facility. I like recursion."
Lucas did not. Every heist he'd pulled involved paused seconds, hidden vantage points, exit routes. Walking through main door required trust—in Curators' hospitality, in his own restraint. The idea twanged nerves shaped during drowning. Yet the ledger's path kept funneling him toward confrontation. Time to stop skirting edges.
He inhaled. "Okay. We craft alter-ego potentials—signatures consistent with shard. I can replicate chrono-field spikes to match expected patterns." He glanced at Serena. "You'd need to mask your baseline. They may screen for latent ability."
Serena shrugged. "I'll pose as logistics support—human liaison. Curators value structure."
Emilia cleared throat. "And me?"
"The shard flagged active potentials only," Lucas said gently. "If they scan you and find nothing, you become leverage. Better you and Gabriela run command post topside, feed intel."
Gabriela lifted brow. "So we babysit the earpieces and call police if monsters eat you?"
"Something like that," Lucas conceded. "Plus scramble exfil tunnels."
Emilia opened mouth—argue, perhaps—but shut it, nodding once. Acceptance laced with worry.
Serena rose, paced between barrels. "We'll need visas, cover jobs, credible flight path. Atlas-Blackroot might front as high-frequency trading hub. Graves's contacts can forge contractor invites."
Lucas chuckled. "Imagine his face when we demand help breaking the people he once defended."
"He'll manage," Serena said, smirk crooked. "Guilt is versatile currency."
Gabriela disconnected leads; the shard's glow subsided to breathing ember. "Transporting this through TSA will ping every scanner. I can build Faraday capsule wrapped in innocuous gadget, maybe a VR headset. Americans assume anything blinking is wearable tech."
Emilia rubbed arms against cellar chill. "What about me? Command post needs hardware. I can't haul servers."
"Cloud instance," Gabriela said. "Spin containers on discreet nodes. But you'll need safehouse in Brooklyn—close enough for low-latency uplink."
Lucas's brain plotted overlapping timelines: flight schedules, chronal recovery, handshake rehearsal. Four days until Curators shut the door. He needed at least half that time to rebuild reserves—no full pauses since the rescue. Body still whispered protest with each breath, but adaptation came quickly when necessity hammered.
His stomach growled. Serena heard it, tossed him another pastry. "Eat. Then pack."
He caught it mid-air. "You're bossy in daylight."
"Only because night made me soft."
They shared a glance that warmed the damp cellar. Emilia coughed theatrically, returning to battery pack. Gabriela rolled eyes at them both.
Lucas bit into pastry, thought of the slogan repeating inside that shard: Tick-Skippers Wanted. For what? Research? Indoctrination? Warfare? He had seen glimpses of the Curators' algorithms predicting futures, pruning variables like diseased limbs. Recruiting walkers could mean preventing cataclysm—or causing it. Either way, silence equaled complicity.
He wiped crumbs, voice low. "We answer, but on our terms. And if window closes before we're ready, we force it open."
Serena tapped her pen against lips. "Knife to a blast door?"
"Time is my crowbar."
She smiled, half proud, half scared. "Don't snap the handle."
By noon the guesthouse courtyard resembled a spy swap meet. Suitcases disgorged burner phones, encrypted thumbdrives, and clothing rotated through vinegar wash to purge gunpowder odor. Lucas hacked travel bookings, chaining Azores Airlines to Lisbon, then Delta to JFK, all under synthetic passports the team's black-hat friend in Vancouver had seeded two months prior. Neil Franklin became Alexis Reed, renewable-energy consultant. Serena reinvented herself as Daria Mehra, project auditor. Their backstory: subcontractors evaluating power usage of a Manhattan colocation site—an excuse to wander sublevels.
Emilia laminated badges on a borrowed printer, forging logos for "RelayGrid Solutions." Gabriela coded a spoofing app to inject false credentials into Atlas-Blackroot's visitor system the moment they breached Wi-Fi.
At two p.m., a news alert pinged Lucas's phone: Oil tanker Orion Dawn reports sabotage off Cape Verde, six injured. The photograph showed a plume of black smoke curling above Atlantic waves. Lucas tasted battery acid. Curator cleanup? Distraction? The map placed the tanker along a logical relay line from the Aeon Key's last known position. Maybe drones retrieved more than one core that night.
He shared the headline. Gabriela cursed in Italian. "They're scrubbing evidence chain."
Serena flexed her jaw. "Clock speeds up."
Lucas felt the same gears tighten. Four days had just compressed. He glimpsed his own reflection in a cracked courtyard mirror—dark circles under eyes, stubble like iron filings. The face of a man running on borrowed ticks. He straightened shoulders. No choice.
Sun dipped behind terracotta roofs when a battered Renault van rattled to gate—Graves's courier. The driver, a wiry Senegalese man named Farid, delivered two Pelican cases: one contained a compact ROV rated for thousand-meter depth; the other, a portable EMP scrambler the size of a lunchbox.
"Compliments of Mr G," Farid said, passing Lucas a coded envelope. Inside: handwritten note in Graves's tight scrawl, Use responsibly. Bill me later. –M.G.
Lucas smirked. "Responsible is a spectrum."
Serena inspected the EMP device. "Last-ditch only. Pulse indoors could brick life-support."
"Understood," Lucas said. But relief flickered; better a wild card than empty hand.
That night, Lucas stood on the guesthouse roof, ocean breeze cool against bruised ribs. Terceira's lights glittered along bay, fishermen's radios drifting up in melodic Portuguese. For the first time since drowning memory surged at Kyoto temple, he felt something close to equilibrium—purpose not just for adrenaline but for others alongside him.
Footsteps approached. Serena joined, offering a blanket this time. They wrapped in silence, watching bioluminescent plankton spark in harbour wake. She leaned into his shoulder. "Tomorrow we fly east. You sure you're recharged?"
"Eighty percent," he lied politely.
She poked ribs. "Seventy-two."
"Stop reading me."
"You leak truth in micro-shrugs." She sighed. "I can't shield you from what waits in that sublevel."
He kissed her hair. "Don't. Steel is forged under hammer."
"Poetic for a software tester."
"Retired tester," he corrected. "Professional trouble magnet."
She chuckled, quiet. After minute she asked, "If Curators offer you fellowship—answers, training, community—could you say no?"
Wind lifted his hair; he tasted salt. "Depends on their price. I won't pay in innocent lives."
"And if price is your boredom? They tempt you with endless puzzles."
He considered. "Boredom is mine to tame, not outsource."
She nodded, satisfied.
Below, a church bell tolled midnight. The shard in the cellar likely blinked in rhythm, counting down until Atlas-Blackroot's window shuttered. Lucas tightened blanket around them.
"Get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow's puzzle starts at passport control."
She rose, squeezed his hand, departed. Lucas remained, eyes on Atlantic horizon where wrecks and secrets slept. He felt chrono-field humming softly, reserves pooling like groundwater after rain. Enough for controlled bursts, not heroics. He inhaled deep night, exhaled promise.
Tick-Skippers Wanted. He would walk into their lair, not as conscript but saboteur disguised as believer. And he'd bring the world's loudest alarm clock: the truth of what the Curators had done to four hundred "inactive" potentials. No more pruning.
Stars wheeled overhead—ancient, unfazed by cabals or temporal trickery. Lucas touched wrist where watch used to be; he'd smashed it diving from the drone. Timepieces were overrated when one could feel each second's heartbeat.
He whispered to the dark, "See you on the next tick," and went downstairs to dream of New York's subterranean corridors whispering his name.
Chapter 53 — Flight 394 — Eastbound In the Dark
Lucas Vale decided airline carpets were designed to trap anxiety. The closer he inched toward the Airbus A330's boarding door, the more static crackled up his sneakers and the deeper the carpeting seemed to swallow sound. Maybe carpets were time-sinks—miniature fields where seconds stretched until every heartbeat thudded like suitcase wheels over the threshold. Or maybe he still hadn't fully rinsed the chronal grit from his blood.
He checked the queue. Twenty-seven passengers ahead, three behind. The rear-loading stairs at Lajes Airport funneled them into cattle-chute boredom: retirees in windbreakers, a honeymoon couple still tasting each other's perfume, a lone businessman whose mind spun spreadsheets faster than rotor blades. Lucas tasted every thought like background radio—low volume, but constant. He switched to the mental equivalent of noise-cancelling headphones and focused on Serena.
Two bodies ahead, she wore the persona of Daria Mehra—thick-rimmed glasses, modest blazer, the air of someone who audited water bills for sport. Nothing in her stance suggested she'd hidden an illegal Curator shard inside a VR visor now tucked beneath Lucas's arm. That fact both comforted and unnerved him. If she could mask steel that convincingly, so could their enemies.
Stop catastrophizing, he told himself. The shard's optical Morse had gone silent after Gabriela roofed it in copper mesh. The Faraday capsule—disguised as "NeuroDive X-Pro Headset" complete with garish holographic sticker—now hummed nothing more suspicious than "gadget geek."
Still, Lucas felt the phantom pulse of the shard against his ribs the way sailors feel weather in old scars. Thirty-seven hours until the Atlas-Blackroot intake window closed. Time enough if everything behaved. Time never behaved.
Serena glanced back, squeezed two fingers against her hip—signal: breathing? He flashed the mirror response: exhale. Their private semaphore helped him monitor panic before it brewed. At the top of the jet stairs she paused, letting a trio of excitable surfers shove past, then stepped over the threshold and out of Portuguese jurisdiction.
Lucas followed. Aircraft air smelled of citrus disinfectant over engine oil, a scent that always reminded him of departures from jobs, lovers, continents. He stowed the VR case in overhead and settled into 12A. Serena took 12B. Gabriela and Emilia were ten rows aft, flanking the Pelican case labeled Subsea Cable Diagnostic Kit—the ROV in costume.
Seatbelt signs chimed. Lucas's seatmate looked like a man who collected frequent-flyer miles the way some people collected grudges. To Lucas's probe, the man's surface thoughts were a rinse-repeat of gate upgrades and brandy preferences—safe. Lucas leaned back, eyes halfway shut, and monitored his own pulse. Seventy-eight BPM, steady but buzzing. No freeze yet; not until they cleared European airspace.
Lisbon transfer was a blur of jetways and duty-free cologne. Serena handled immigration with languid charm; their forged consultancy letters bore convincing watermarks. Lucas had prepaid for PriorityPass lounge access because boredom was deadlier than bullets, but free espresso and Wi-Fi came second to reconnaissance. He scoped cameras, scanned guards' thoughts for anomalies—background hum only: shift complaints, football wagers. Nothing about Curators, shards, or tick-skippers.
Takeoff from Lisbon at 22:45 felt smoother—larger plane, upgraded carpet. Lucas used a micro-pause mid-aisle to snag the last blanket before a grumpy tourist could. A petty theft of seconds, and his inner ear squealed in protest. Serena shot him a look over paperback pages: Really? He shrugged; her smirk thawed the reprimand.
Dinner trays rattled away; cabin lights dimmed. Atlantic darkness flattened time into infinite now. Lucas rested his head against the window and let mild exhaustion draft an internal checklist:
Power reserves — greenish.
Shard handshake — authorized.
Graves contact — await rendezvous code.
Exit routes in NYC — plan A subway, plan B sewer on ice.
He dozed.
Dreams spiraled: the emerald shard grown to drone size, hovering over Manhattan, pulsing TICK-SKIPPERS in neon across Times Square while pedestrians froze like mannequins. Serena walked through them, umbrella of light shielding her from the pause, calling his name. He tried to answer but his throat filled with sand.
A jolt snapped him awake. Not turbulence—something subtler. The feel of the cabin had changed. Air pressure? No; chrono-pressure. Lucas's gut tightened. Someone had skimmed a second off reality, just enough for him to notice.
He slid eyes sideways. Passengers slumbered in dim blue light, ambient television glow dancing across dozing faces. Serena slept too, mouth parted, droplet of hair plastered to cheek. Her dream thoughts fluttered: don't fall, Lucas, don't fall. Heart tug.
Lucas unclipped belt, stood. Walked aisle slow, casual. He extended telepathic tendrils like antennae. Thoughts buzzed: need restroom… cold feet… pilot said tailwind… Then—silence. Seat 19C, port side. A void, as if consciousness there were shielded.
Lucas pretended to stretch above bin, sneaking glance. The passenger wore hooded sweatshirt, noise-cancelling cans, head bowed. Could be asleep. But minds rarely vanish entirely; even dreams emit static. He felt nothing.
He drifted aft to lavatory, closed door, and triggered a five-second pause. World froze mid-engine-rumble. He stepped out, heart surging with the electric thrill he both craved and feared, and moved down aisle syrup-fast. Beside 19C he bent. Hood slipped revealing not a face but a silicone half-mask—blank, like mannequins he'd just dreamed. In paused time the figure's chest did not rise. Yet an EM signature pricked Lucas's scalp—similar to his own field, but inverted, cooler.
Five seconds waned; he ducked into galley as reality snapped back. Hostess exhaled behind him, continuing a sentence she'd never paused. Lucas's pulse hammered.
Back in lav, he splashed water. Another walker? Possibly a Curator operative sleeping in chrono-pocket? He lacked juice to freeze again and risk deeper probe. Instead he re-entered aisle, leaning near Gabriela. She lifted eyebrow. He scribbled on airsickness bag: Row 19 void. She blinked once—acknowledged—and began tapping phone.
Lucas returned to seat. Serena stirred. "You okay?"
"Left my faith in airplane bathrooms," he muttered.
"What's wrong?"
"Think we have company." He briefed her via thumb-taps on armrest. She digested, lips thinning. "Don't engage," she whispered. "Curators might expect test."
"If they're here, they already flagged us."
"Or protecting route," she countered. "Maybe we're the test."
A chime: seatbelt sign on. Captain announced mild chop ahead of jet stream change. Lucas considered the odds that turbulence would jar open mutual secrets. He closed eyes, counted breaths.
At 03:12 Zulu the overture began. Thunderous lurch pitched cabin; oxygen masks dropped like jellyfish. Passengers shrieked awake. Lucas sensed no structural threat—the plane felt healthy—but adrenaline flooded anyway.
Next, lights blacked out. Not normal for turbulence. Emergency fluorescents flickered but didn't fully engage. A power cut? Or orchestrated? Lucas unlatched belt.
Serena grabbed his arm. "No heroics. Assess."
"I'm assessing nearer the cockpit."
He slid into darkness, using telepathy like sonar. Crew thoughts by galley: reset breaker… check auxiliary… calm pax. Routine panic. He pushed further forward, gleaned pilot mental chatter: instrumentation glitch—standby. Also routine. So blackout triggered by internal fault, not hijack.
Except row 19 was still silent. Lucas reached mental tendril and hit vacuum. He advanced two rows. A hand shot out from behind seat, seizing his wrist. Before he reacted, mind-voice—smooth, low, female—filled him.
"Skipper. Sit."
Lucas froze. The grip wasn't strong, but the authority in the telepathy felt ancient. He obeyed and slid into adjacent aisle seat, separated by armrest from hooded stranger. In dark he glimpsed black gloves, faint sheen of polymer fibers.
"Curator intake protocol," she pulsed. No mouth movement—pure thought. "Observe. Prove discretion."
Lucas pictured Serena's worried face and swallowed. You staged this?
"Opportunity. Cabin power cycle camouflages chrono-signature handshake. Do not interfere."
He weighed options: freeze time, unmask her, risk exposure; or play along. His reserves pulsed amber. He played.
"What next?" he asked.
She tilted head; mask eyeholes posed blank shrug. "When lights return, you forget." A joke? Hard to parse.
Crew restored power; cabin lights stuttered back. Oxygen masks retracted. Passengers moaned relief. Lucas blinked, adjusting.
Seat 19C occupant now upright, hood removed. He saw just enough: short braid, mocha skin, eyes like polished obsidian studying him above mask half-pulled to chin. Not Curator mannequin—human, breathing, but leaking that inverted chrono-field.
She smiled faint. "Jet lag, right?" she said aloud, accent London with hint Ghana.
Before he could answer, she closed eyes, feigned sleep. The void returned—mind silent.
Lucas returned to seat, stomach flipping more than clear-air pockets. Serena scanned his face. He tapped shorthand on her knee: Walker. Warned. Testing. She inhaled through nose, processing.
Dawn streaked across horizon five hours later. Plane descended into pale peach haze over Long Island. Lucas never slept. The hooded walker remained inert; when landing gear thumped, she rose, retrieved small backpack, and nodded once toward Lucas—a cryptic salute—before vanishing into throng. Telepathy still silent; she'd shuttered the channel.
Immigration hall at JFK smelled of floor wax and coffee burnt beyond recognition. Lines snaked. Serena shot Lucas a "normal people breathe" reminder. He forced haggard smile, clutching VR case.
Their CBP officer glanced at documents, stamped passports. No secondary screening. Outside baggage claim, New York humidity slapped like wet towel. Gabriela rolled ROV case onto curb; Emilia summoned rideshare.
Lucas scanned crowd. No sign of braid-walker. But a man in charcoal suit leaned against pillar scrolling phone: Mason Graves. Scar above eyebrow still raw from catacomb clash. He looked up, met Lucas's eyes, mouthed, You owe big. Then tossed a black duffel toward them and disappeared into taxi line.
Inside duffel: three RFID visitor badges, Atlas-Blackroot logo, Monday date; plus a note: Sublevel-C orientation 1800 hrs. Wear smiles. Burn this.
Serena exhaled. "Invitation delivered."
Lucas should have felt triumph. Instead a shiver: They'd barely touched tarmac and already two separate parties ushered them deeper. Chessboard was set; he wasn't sure which color pieces they were.
Rideshare arrived. As doors shut, Serena clasped his hand. "Still exhaling?"
"Barely," he said. "But we're here."
"Next stop, financial nexus," Gabriela chimed.
Emilia gripped seatbelt white-knuckled. "I liked the Azores better."
Lucas watched skyline rise—jagged data line against morning glare. The shard in luggage tingled, alive again inside its cage, as if humming welcome home.
He wondered which door would open first: the one Graves prepared, or the one the hooded walker kept ajar in the shadows. Either way, the clock between ticks was about to ring.
Chapter 54 — Liberty Trust Rotunda — Echoes on Marble
A thousand bulbs glittered beneath the stained-glass dome of Liberty Trust's rotunda, throwing gold across marble like coins flipped into a fountain. The bank-turned-events-hall had once stored the gold reserves that kept Wall Street breathing; tonight it held something rarer—unregistered influence, served on crystal stems. Lucas Vale loitered at the base of a replica Greco column, sipping club soda that tasted of anxiety and limes, and considered the paradox of camouflage: the louder the tuxedos, the safer the secrets.
On the gala's invitation—hand-pressed cotton, embossed with eagle and olive—tonight was the Hudson Futures Endowment Dinner, proceeds earmarked for "disruptive philanthropic innovation." In practice, Serena had decoded, it was a laundering funnel where venture capitalists courted regulators, and old-money dynasties sniffed the wind for tech prophets. A perfect habitat for Curator proxies to graze unnoticed. Graves's duffel had contained three black-tie passes and the date-stamped Atlas-Blackroot badges now clipped beneath Lucas's lapel, hidden under silk pocket square. Sublevel-C orientation was set for exactly two hours after dessert service. The gala, then, was both warm-up and minefield.
He scanned the crowd. Butter-yellow gowns, midnight suits, diamond cufflinks bright as supernovae. A string quartet teased Vivaldi above the hush of predatory networking. On the mezzanine, waiters ferried canapés that looked like molecular sculptures; each toothpick became a stock ticker if you squinted. Lucas felt a headache bloom behind eyes—a side-effect of stretching telepathy across dozens of giddy egos.
Eleven-percent IRR if we close Series C…
—ask him about Cayman vehicle—
She can't prove the valuation was inflated—
He dialed the mental radio down, focusing instead on Serena gliding between clusters like a Trojan diplomat. Her copper satin dress draped in precise angles, catching chandelier glare, and the thick-rim glasses of "Daria Mehra" now felt like part of her bones. She'd pinned her hair in a loose knot that disguised the comm bead at her ear; every seven minutes she whispered an update for Gabriela, who rode a surveillance van three blocks away. Emilia manned the console, decoding Bluetooth chatter, forging building-security pings, and (if necessary) prepping the EMP lunchbox stashed beneath the van's seat.
Lucas checked his watch: 7:07 p.m. Ninety-three minutes to orientation. He circled the rotunda's perimeter, cataloguing exits and cameras. Original vault doors—three-meter discs of steel—had been frozen open for aesthetic flair, revealing lounge spaces filled with velvet sofas and soft insomnia lighting. Good choke points. The service corridor behind kitchen smelled of saffron and chrome; staff badges used RFID, frequency standard corporate. He could clone one with a micro-pause and a borrowed phone if things collapsed.
A soft British voice tickled his inner ear. "Eyes left, by the Rothko. Braid Walker."
Lucas disguised the startle by adjusting cuff. The voice belonged to Graves, patched through Gabriela's relay. Gaze sliding, Lucas found her—the woman from Flight 394, braid coiled like a python down spine, now wearing a charcoal jumpsuit masquerading as couture. She conversed with a man whose pocket square matched Curator green too perfectly to be coincidence. She laughed, touched the man's arm, eyes never smiling. Lucas shivered; her chronal field registered faintly on his skin, like barometer pressure.
Serena drifted up beside him. "See our frequent-flyer friend?"
"Noticed. She's dressed as staff, no visible badge."
"Probably a plus-one inserted last minute. How's your throttle?"
Lucas flexed fingers. "Eighty-five percent." Truth: closer to seventy, but adrenaline biased up.
"Try not to spend tomorrow's seconds solving tonight's ego contests," she murmured, then vanished down staircase to the balcony bar where donors lined up for aged Scotch and younger influencers.
Lucas followed braid-walker at distance, weaving through conversation pods. She and green-square suit approached a display: a silent auction of historical stock certificates, each glass-cased like saints' bones. Lucas paused near a 1917 US Steel share, eavesdropping both analog and psychic. Suit spoke: "…data-center cooling overruns; we need your miracle windows." Braid-walker answered, voice velvet with Ghanaian lilt. "My miracle windows cut thermals twenty-percent. But supply chain runs through Guangzhou. Tariffs bite. We should discuss preferred routing." Suit nodded, scribbled number onto ivory card.
Lucas reached; her thoughts formed masked shapes, like letters painted on smoke. He caught only single phrase pulsing steady: Delta-Theta-link. Atlas handshake codename. She was definitely on assignment.
He edged closer, ready to risk a micro-pause and pickpocket phone for later cloning, when an MC's microphone crackled. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Endowment thanks you for your generosity. Please direct attention to mezzanine for a brief address by tonight's keynote sponsor—Dr. Elias Harrow."
Harrow. The name slammed into Lucas like sudden altitude loss. Harrow funded three biotech labs flagged in ledger footnotes: facilities specializing in "chrono-adaptive hematology." He'd also donated to think tanks arguing for "pre-emptive genomic stewardship" — coded language for culling. Perfect Curator front.
Spotlights bloomed. Harrow emerged, white hair combed into thunderbolt, tuxedo crisp, smile humble in way only billionaires rehearse. Applause rolled like soft thunder. Lucas glanced at Serena, two tiers above now; she made a circle with thumb and forefinger—target acquired.
Harrow cleared throat. "Tonight we gather not merely to celebrate innovation, but to ignite it," he began. His baritone coated marble in confidence syrup. "Innovation demands vision beyond horizon; it demands bold stewardship—willingness to prune the withered branch so the tree may flourish."
Lucas stiffened. Did audience hear the sinister undercurrent or file it under philanthropic metaphor? Most nodded sagely.
Serena's voice hissed faint in comms, "Braid Walker moving behind stage." Lucas scanned; indeed she slipped through side door marked STAFF ONLY. He set drink on plinth and followed.
Door swung to backstage labyrinth: concrete corridors painted battleship grey, thick with cable coils. The quartet's music muffled to throb. Fluorescent buzz replaced violin.
Lucas probed with telepathy; minds scarce—sound tech worrying about feedback loop, catering runner rehearsing exit. Braid-walker ahead, steps purposeful. Lucas accelerated, keeping five meters. At fork she turned into archival elevator bay where retired vault lifts served sub-basement archives. She swiped wrist chip over pad; elevator chimed.
Lucas winced—no chip. He darted into janitorial closet, triggered ten-second pause. Air vitrified. He slid to elevator just as doors finished opening, slipped inside before they fully parted from corridor. World unpaused; doors closed behind him silent. The cab smelled of ozone and new paint—refurbished.
Braid-walker pressed B3. She glanced sideways, registering him, no surprise. "So you can creep between ticks," she said softly.
Lucas feigned ignorance. "Pardon?"
"Your heartbeat stuttered just now," she replied, tapping temple. "Chronal echolocation." She offered hand. "Ayo Mensah." The name held weight—Lucas recalled dossier footnote of a Ghanaian quantum engineer rumored to vanish from security footage.
He shook. "Alexis Reed."
"Sure," she smiled. "Fake names wear thin quickly in our circle."
Cab lurched downward. Ayo studied him. "You carry a shard."
Lucas's pulse jumped. "Hypothetically."
"Good. Atlas intake prefers recruits bring trophies. Proof of field proficiency." She tilted head. "Our handler sponsors tonight's soiree. You may meet him sooner than orientation."
Harrow? Lucas played dumb. "Handler?"
Elevator dinged; doors opened onto corridor lined with brushed-steel doors, each embossed with numbers. B3-07 glowed green. Ayo gestured. "Showtime."
Lucas hesitated. Serena didn't know his location; comm signal faint here. Risk calculus: follow further and gather intel, or bail? Ayo read thought lines. "Your partner's safe," she said. "Atlas doesn't harm prospects without evaluation." She stepped through door; Lucas followed.
Room resembled micro-auditorium: stadium seats of carbon composite facing transparent cube at center. Inside cube: pedestal holding sphere of liquid glass swirling with faint emerald light—larger cousin of their shard. Two other attendees already seated: a middle-aged East Asian man radiating monk calm and a teenage girl whose nervous foot-tap sent chrono ripples Lucas could feel. Walkers.
Lucas slid into back-row seat. Ayo sat beside him. The cube lights dimmed; hologram bloom formed above sphere, projecting stylized hourglass.
A disembodied voice—so crisp it bypassed ears—filled room. "Welcome, candidates. You have answered the Δ-Θ beacon. Your aptitude in chronal manipulation marks you among the twenty-seven actives."
Lucas's throat dried. The voice continued: "The Curators steward timeline integrity. Free radicals—those wielding time without discipline—risk cascade failure. We offer guidance, purpose, immortality of action. In return, you submit to protocol and occasional pruning mandate."
The teenage girl's foot stopped, dread saturating air. Monk-man closed eyes, whispering prayer. Lucas clenched fists. Pruning—he knew meaning: elimination of potentials to stabilise models. Murder.
Voice droned on. "First exchange: deliver your trophies." A beam lanced to ceiling; ports opened by each seat, awaiting deposits. Ayo produced small glass vial, blood swirling—chronocyte sample. Monk laid metallic chip. Girl trembled but offered nothing. Lucas's VR visor case weighed heavy under tux jacket. Ayo eyed him. "If you came unprepared, they'll still test you," she whispered.
Lucas made decision. He stood. "Question." Voice paused. All eyes—even sphere's swirling luminescence—seemed to tilt. "What is protocol if candidate dissents?"
"Dissent is inefficiency," voice answered. "Correction follows."
Cube lights flickered; floor panels vibrated, maybe locking doors. Lucas felt chrono-battery spike, reserves urging flight or freeze. He glanced at Ayo; unreadable. Girl's breathing quickened.
Lucas exhaled — slow. "I like efficient. But pruning implies collateral. Show me casualty ledger." He needed stall, intel.
Silence. Then: "Access contingent on compliance." Sphere brightened hostile green.
Ayo murmured, "They respect leverage. Offer partial." Lucas removed VR case, unclipped clamshell, revealing Faraday-shrouded shard. He placed it onto port; scanner beam danced. Holograms erupted—maps of Aeon Key, drone logs, dirty node warnings. The room heartbeat quickened.
Voice grew sharper. "Node SH-Δ compromised. Source… you." Lights surged; energy crackled within cube. A siren subtle as dog-whistle sang—Lucas's teeth rattled. Ayo stepped back, eyes wide. Monk vanished—literally blinked in freeze? No, he'd time-skipped micro-jump to doorway, trying to escape. Door sealed; he slammed into it, groaned.
Lucas's instincts roared. He triggered full pause, longest yet since Azores. Air diamond-hard. Sphere frozen mid-flare. Ayo, in pause, moved too—she could ride his field. Their eyes met, startled. She hadn't expected amplitude.
Lucas sprinted to cube, phasing through maintenance gap, grabbed sphere—heavier than bowling ball—and yanked. Pain lanced ribs. He hurled it at security cam; glass spider-webbed, circuitry inert. He seized teen girl's wrist, teleported with micro-hops to door panel, pried manual override. His pause limit trembled—vision tunneled. He released time.
Chaos detonated. Alarm klaxons blared; red strobes splashed. Monk regained composure, elbow-smashed lock. Door popped; they spilled into corridor. Ayo grabbed cube fragments, stuffed into satchel. "You just declared war," she shouted over alarms.
"Already fighting," Lucas gasped, hauling girl whose name still unknown.
Above, he sensed Serena's panic ping over comms—"Lucas, what the hell!? Security flooding mezzanine." Gabriela's voice: "Electrical anomalies spotted basement. Exfil route delta sealed."
Lucas scanned directions. Sign indicated Vault Access → Service Ramp. He led sprint, time-tipping seconds to blur team ahead of responders. Yet each pause carved flesh; nausea clawed.
They burst into old loading dock retooled for valet parking. Black SUVs idled. Lucas froze world, grabbed keys off guard's belt, stuffed trio into nearest Escalade. Unpause, engine roared. Gate ahead descended; Monk threw TK shove, bending metal. Vehicle scraped under, sparks spitting.
Street exploded around them—siren slurry, gala guests evacuated. Escalade fishtailed onto Broad St., tires screaming. Lucas handed wheel to Monk—"Drive." He collapsed back, chest stitching electric.
Ayo ripped mask off, breath ragged. "That stunt roasted half their sensors. They'll quarantine Atlas now. Window's maybe twelve hours."
Lucas wiped blood from nose. "Then we hit them before sunrise."
Teen girl coughed, voice tiny. "Who are you people?"
Lucas managed a grin. "Tick-skippers. And apparently, very rude party crashers."
SUV sped toward Brooklyn Bridge, city lights strobing like accelerated stars. Behind, Liberty Trust's dome dimmed, power grid segmented to contain breach. But inside Lucas's pocket, the shard pulsed bold—no longer a whisper but a beacon screaming futures rewritten.
He thumbed comm. "Serena, rendezvous point Echo. Bring Graves if he's still willing to be owed." Her reply came steel-edged: "Already en route. And Lucas? You'd better have left them a tip."
He laughed, a raw sound. Gala had served its purpose: identities exposed, alliances blurred, timetable narrowed to knife-edge. Act IV's endgame rushed closer with each kilometer, and boredom? Boredom lay trampled on that gala's carpet, choking on spilled champagne.
Chapter 55 — Kings County Skyline — Fault Lines in Sunrise
The Escalade lurched up the ramp of an abandoned parking deck in Downtown Brooklyn, tires spitting gravel as though the vehicle itself wanted to swear off galas forever. Lucas Vale's head throbbed in sync with each jounce; every chronal overreach zinged across bruised ribs like a plucked harp string. Behind the wheel, the still-nameless monk gripped so hard the steering column squeaked. Ayo Mensah knelt over the teenage girl in the backseat—Mei, she'd finally whispered—checking pupils with the beam of her phone flashlight. Emerald reflections danced inside Mei's iris, echoing the shard now pulsing in Ayo's satchel.
The SUV fishtailed to a stop beneath the top-deck parapet. Above them, a Jersey-light dawn smeared pink over the East River. The J-train clattered in the distance, rhythmic clank a reminder New York cared little for secret wars. Lucas shove-opened the passenger door and half-stumbled out onto cracked concrete that still radiated last evening's city heat. Brooklyn Bridge cables etched silver silhouettes against a paling sky. On any other day he would have frozen time just to walk their length above unmoving traffic; today his internal battery twitched red.
A battered rooftop access door banged open. Serena strode out, copper gown replaced by black cargo pants and a charcoal windbreaker that swallowed the last of gala glamour. Graves followed, scar's crimson line bisecting his brow. He still wore tuxedo pants but the jacket had vanished, replaced by ballistic vest. In one hand he carried a duffel; in the other, a takeout tray with three coffees balanced like fragile ordnance.
"You said bring caffeine," he called, voice raspy from sprinted stairs. "I compromise with burnt diner sludge—the city never sleeps but it sure burns beans."
Lucas found a grin. "You kept your promise. I've lived to see miracles."
"Miracle isn't free," Graves shot back, eyes flicking to Ayo's satchel. "Payment's ticking."
Serena reached Lucas in two strides, fingers brushing his jaw, scanning for new wounds. Her relief warmed like sunrise hitting chilled skin. "You're bleeding again," she murmured.
"Just cosmetic." He gestured to Graves. "He delivered orientation passes—didn't mention orientation came with indoctrination video."
Graves snorted. "And you smashed their projector? I should invoice you for property damage."
Lucas turned serious. "They would have drafted that girl. Maybe worse."
Mei slid from SUV, wobbling. Serena guided her to a low wall. Monk emerged, nodding silent greeting, palms pressed in prayer of thanks—or apology. Ayo pulled the Escalade's keys, pocketed them, then placed her satchel carefully on the concrete. The shard inside glowed through canvas seams.
Graves's gaze tracked the radiance. "That new?"
"Fragment of their master sphere," Ayo said. "Your prodigy here detonated the rest."
Graves whistled. "Bold even for him."
Ayo lifted chin. "Saved our lives. And crippled local command."
Serena folded arms. "Which is why we need to move before they reroute. Atlas-Blackroot's mesh will spin up quarantine protocols within hours. Closing window predicted at noon, not midnight."
"Eleven-forty-two," Gabriela corrected over comms from the van idling two floors below. "I've sniffed their fail-over pings—they're trouser-down frantic."
Lucas lifted eyebrow. "So the gala stunt bought us time?"
"Or lost it, depending how you frame cause-and-effect," Emilia added, tone dry.
Graves set coffee tray down, unzipped duffel. He produced topographic schematics of the Financial District—rolled prints taped with red-ink notes. "While you were dancing, I secured floorplans. Atlas-Blackroot anchors under an old sub-basement of the Stock Exchange annex, accessed via freight elevators disguised as HVAC shafts. Security escalated last year—triple biometric, microwave motion nets. And, rumor: one anti-chrono lattice they call the Relic."
Lucas winced. Anti-chrono tech—like the Tuscan estate field that nullified his pauses. "Specs?"
"Prototype tungsten-scandium loop," Graves said. "Emits stochastic time-phase noise. Short bursts so staff wear shielding. Engineers brag on covert boards."
Ayo clicked tongue. "They hide glitch bursts in innocuous HVAC vibrations—why some employees complain of chills."
Serena spread plans over hood. "We still need physical entrance, data extraction, and exfil. If Relic pulses fry Lucas mid-freeze, our ace becomes charred card."
Graves retrieved a cigarette, twirled without lighting. "Alliance solves that. You bring chrono, I bring hardware and plausible deniability. Interpol task-force wants Curator heads on pikes. Evidence from their own vault? Priceless."
Lucas squinted at him. "You mean you want the credit."
Graves blew imaginary smoke. "Justice cares little whose résumé tops the PDF. You get your crusade. I get my redemption. Win-win."
Serena eyed him. "Or you burn us once you have data."
"Could," Graves admitted. "But I'd lose future intel sources. I know ROI, Kaur."
Ayo stepped forward. "I stand outside your grudges. But you need me." From satchel she lifted a curved device—silver band studded with chips. "Access circlet. Admin-level handshake pulled from orientation cube before meltdown. Without it, your stolen shard is a flashlight. With it, Trojan horse."
Lucas felt hope stir. "How sure?"
"Eighty percent skeleton key. Twenty percent kill-switch." Her shoulders rolled. "I'm betting my skin too."
Mei hugged herself. "I—I just want home." Her voice cracked.
Lucas crouched. "We'll get you there. First we make sure home stays safe." Mei nodded, trusting by inertia.
Serena poured coffee into paper cups. "Then let's draft path." She tapped plan: "Three teams. Alpha: Lucas, Ayo, Graves—penetrate sub-basement, neutralize Relic, extract coordinate ledger. Bravo: Gabriela and Monk—van hub running spoof loops, hacking door controllers. Charlie: Emilia and Mei—rooftop lookout on adjacent building, EMP trigger if extraction compromised."
Emilia protested. "I can code loops."
Serena met her gaze. "Your steady aim is better insurance than mine." Emilia's blush conceded.
Lucas sipped coffee—scalding—and studied sky. Clouds tinted gold. He felt chrono-reserves tighten like bowstring. "We attack at 10:30. Shift change noise, but before lunchtime complacency fades."
Graves clapped hands. "I'll source climbing gear and build a story for port-authority if things explode."
"Already exploding," Gabriela chirped. "NYPD scanner lit with false fire drill near Exchange. I can piggyback to reboot street cams."
Ayo clasped circlet around wrist. LEDs winked teal. "Sphere shard syncs in passive mode. Once deep, I activate handshake—thirty-second window before Relic queries anomalies."
Lucas inhaled—every plan felt brittle, but momentum replaced fear. "Questions?" None.
He slipped aside to dawn-shadow cast by corroded vent stack. Serena followed. She traced line of dried blood near his ear. "Your capillaries protest time tricks."
"I'll mediate after apocalypse." He smiled but took her hand. "If field scrambles me—"
She pressed fingers to lips. "Don't write tragedy before act." Then softer: "I love you, Lucas. Present tense. Remember that if seconds fall silent."
For a beat the city hushed around them. He kissed her forehead—blessing and promise. "I will bring the seconds back."
They rejoined team. Graves sealed duffel, offered handshake. Lucas gripped; tension years old cracked but didn't shatter. "We settle tabs later," Graves said.
"Add interest," Lucas replied.
9:42 a.m. — Lower Manhattan.
Alpha team slipped through a maintenance alley behind Broad Street. Graves' credentials distracted a lone guard—Graves muttered about seismic sensor calibration. Lucas grazed the man's thoughts—mundane annoyance—nudged a micro-influence so he'd remember false directive from central office. Guard waved them onward.
They reached freight shaft: a vertical coffin of grease-polished steel. Graves hot-wired panel; gates yawned. Shaft descended six levels. Lucas counted cable whine; at B-4 they halted. Doors opened onto corridor humming with server fans.
Ayo consulted tablet overlay. "Relic room twenty meters. Pulses every forty-five seconds. We time entry between bursts."
Lucas felt first pulse—air warped, subtle tinnitus. He flinched; time-sense flickered. "Not friendly," he hissed.
Graves cracked glow stick, sprayed lens filters across helmet he'd donned. "Go."
They dashed. Second pulse hit midway—Lucas staggered, sense of forward stretched. Ayo steadied him. Her field seemed buffered; circlet glowed brighter. They reached vault door: titanium petals shuttered like orchid. Ayo pressed circlet; petals unfurled.
Inside, Relic resembled gyroscope of shattered mirrors spinning around super-cooling ring. Lucas tasted copper at tongue's edge—chrono bleed. Graves unpacked thermite rods; Lucas shook head. "Quiet breach." He extended TK tendrils—each mirror slat weighed kilos, but combined they exceeded limit. Ayo joined hands; her TK overlapped, interference patterns humming. Together they slowed gyroscope, mirrors drifting like petals. Graves slid to core, planted jamming fork—modified EMP coil shaped by Gabriela to emit focused null field. He triggered.
Static punched gut. The ring's blue coolant lights sputtered, died. Relic slumped inert.
Lucas's time-sense returned crisp. "Window open."
They advanced to next chamber—Atlas-Blackroot mainframe: racks stretching like cathedral organ pipes, each pipe a server humming predictive futures. Shard in Lucas's pocket pulsed frantic, as if meeting kin. Ayo laced circlet into control port. Hologram blossomed overhead: web of nodes, coordinates spinning. Lucas recognized glyphs from ledger—global branches.
He began high-speed copy. Graves inserted quantum drive, progress bar spiraling. Behind, doors hissed; two security tacticals strode in, rifles raised. Lucas froze them mid-step with micro-pause, but blood erupted from nose; cooldown approaching. Graves disarmed them swift, cracked helmets together. Ayo typed, brows knitting. "Checksum waves won't finish by 10:56."
Lucas scanned—escape route behind coolant trench. He keyed comm. "Bravo, we're in extraction. Extract path Delta?"
Gabriela's voice tight: "Negative. Street-level cams just rebooted. More guards incoming east corridor."
Monk interjected: "I can create diversion—gas leak alarm—thirty seconds."
"Do it." Lucas wiped nose. Progress bar hit 79. Ayo cursed. "Fast mode corrupts data."
"Better partial than none," Graves said.
At 88 percent, red lights strobed: facility lockdown. Overhead intercom thundered: "Chronal breach detected. All staff shelter. Purge sequence T-240."
Ayo's face drained. "They'll plasma-flush sub-level."
Lucas yanked drive at 91 percent. "Enough." He pocketed shard, drive, then paused world full—fifteen-second burst. Pain seared temples. He grabbed Ayo's arm, Graves' vest, sprinted through still corridors. Visuals blurred; time syrup thick. They reached freight shaft; paused time shattered, world jolting. Alarms louder.
Elevator offline. Graves cursed, kicked latch to maintenance ladder. They climbed. At B-2, door jammed. Lucas TK-ripped hinge; adrenaline surged. They burst onto loading dock where two vans idled—one their own. Emilia waved from rooftop overhead, rifle covering retreat. Mei crouched behind vent.
Gabriela popped van door. "Drive, drive!" Monk floored engine.
They piled in as plasma-flush flare glowed stairwell behind. Van squealed into sunlight traffic. Steam roiled from service grates, pursuit sirens echoed.
Lucas collapsed against crates, vision tunnel. Ayo pressed gauze to his nostrils. "Hold it together, skipper."
Graves peered over seat, smile fierce. "We got ledger—most of it." He produced drive.
Serena knelt, brushed Lucas's sweat-damp hair. "Clock says 11:04. Atlas node offline across network. You did it."
Lucas tried reply; words tangled. He closed eyes, heart drumming arrhythmic but alive.
Ayo's whisper reached ear. "War's turning."
Lucas nodded faint. Yet he sensed silhouette lurking—Curators wouldn't cede board. And there remained moral question: ally with Graves, whose redemption may camouflage ambition. But seconds would decide later. For now, Brooklyn wind through shattered window cooled his fever, and the city sped by—a reel of futures still unpruned.
Chapter 56 — Brooklyn Tunnels — Plans Written in Rust
The third rail still hummed in Lucas Vale's bones even though the juice had been cut to this abandoned spur decades ago. Maybe it was phantom vibration, or maybe his own chronal field reacting to the subway's iron arteries—but every time he breathed, the stale air tasted faintly of ozone and history.
The hideout was Graves's idea: an out-of-service maintenance chamber buried two stories below the Nevins Street station, reached by a hatch disguised as broken conduit near Track 4. A single corrugated door divided them from living trains; on the far side, Monday commuters hurtled through the morning rush, oblivious to a war one concrete wall away.
Lucas rolled his shoulder, wincing at the knot of bruises left by last night's sprint through Atlas-Blackroot. The warehouse-sized node might have been purged, but its memory lingered in every twinge. He perched on an overturned milk crate, counting the seconds it took breath to echo along the tunnel—two-and-a-half on the inhale, three on the exhale. A metronome that wasn't his to manipulate. Not yet.
"Focus, wanderer." Serena Kaur's voice nudged him back. She knelt beside a banker's box brimming with network switches scavenged from Graves's van, her cargo pants dusted gray from crawling access shafts. "If we're going to rob the ghosts, we need bandwidth, not daydreams."
Lucas offered a sheepish half-grin. "Calibrating." He lifted the battered MacBook she'd shoved into his hands and cracked the lid. Passwordless SSH terminals bloomed across the screen—Gabriela's doing; she was upstairs in a coffee shop spoofing Wi-Fi nodes, feeding them a back door into the Curators' secondary ledger.
Across the chamber, Graves paced, cellphone glued to ear. Every eighth step he'd rap knuckles on a rusted signal box, the metallic clack punctuating terse phrases—diversion routes, unmarked vans, a favor owed. The scar over his brow looked angrier under fluorescents that flickered like dying fireflies.
Ayo Mensah sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling electronics from her satchel one slow blink at a time: the emerald shard, now encased in a Faraday sleeve; the silver circlet that had fooled Atlas security; a fresh spool of fiber; a soldering iron that sprouted an improvised converter borrowed from an e-cigarette charger. Her practiced calm irritated Lucas—how could she be so steady with his pulse skipping like a scratched record? But then, her chronal signature pulsed cool and regular, the yin to his caffeine-and-lightning yang.
On a stack of railroad ties, Mei hugged her knees and watched it all as if she might vanish if acknowledged. Emilia Galli hovered nearby, offering water and whispered jokes in Italian that drew fleeting smiles. The monk—whose real name turned out to be Tenzin—stood sentinel by the hatch with an MP5 nearly as tall as Mei.
"Team check," Gabriela's voice crackled over Lucas's earbuds. "Van's parked, latte acquired. Network scan shows Curator fallback nodes rerouting citywide. You have a three-hour window before they finish burning their logs."
Serena's eyes met Lucas's. "Three hours is generous. We go in one."
Graves pocketed his phone. "Diversion package will detonate in forty-five. Chemical smoke, zero shrapnel. NYPD will gridlock FiDi for blocks."
"Lovely," Serena said. "Lucas?"
He exhaled, letting the muffled rumble of a distant A-train ground him. "We patch the shard into their still-warming disaster cluster, piggyback on their own flood of audit traffic. Ayo's circlet handshakes our credentials. Then we siphon everything: account ledgers, donor rolodex, predictive trade models—enough proof to fry their proxy network."
"And move money," Graves added.
Serena stiffened. "The objective is exposure, not theft."
Graves shrugged out of his vest, revealing sweat-stained tux shirt. "Exposure doesn't pay for whistleblower dead drops or attorney fees. Diverting a slice of Curator liquidity into escrow hurts them and helps us."
Ayo clicked her soldering iron off. "I concur. Financial pain forces adaptation; adaptation reveals new weaknesses."
Lucas pushed fingers through hair gritty with tunnel dust. "I'm allergic to mission creep. We steal only as leverage—no Robin Hood spree."
Serena's expression softened, a silent thank-you.
Graves raised palms. "One escrow account, locked with joint keys—mine and Serena's. Money only releases if tribunal deems operation legitimate. Happy now?"
Serena eyed him. "Marginally."
Ayo slid the newly welded cable toward Lucas. "Plug this into port two. Circlet will generate quantum garble that looks like post-crash handshake noise. They won't see the parasitic tunnel until we're gone."
Lucas obeyed, fingers steady despite adrenaline. Terminal windows spooled hexadecimal like static-laced rainfall.
Tenzin cleared his throat—soft but commanding. "Strategy clear. But karma heavy. We strike, we wound. Curators retaliate."
"Let them," Graves said.
Lucas glanced at Mei; her shoulders drew tighter. He walked over, crouched. "Hey. You okay?"
She chewed her sleeve, then whispered, "I heard them say purging dissent keeps time from shattering. What if they're right?"
Lucas swallowed the flinch. "Power tells stories to excuse itself. They prune because it's tidy, not moral. We'll show another path."
Mei's gaze searched his, finding maybe enough conviction to borrow. She nodded once.
Metal groaned overhead—a live train rumbling past, shaking rivets. Dust sifted down like gritty snow. Serena rose, dusting hands. "Okay, novelists. Outline time. Graves plants diversion. Ayo and I escort Lucas through service corridors to the Curator bank's cold aisle. Gabriela monitors network, injects fake failover tickets. Tenzin and Emilia stay with Mei as lookout. If comms die, initiate EMP and vanish."
"EMP fries our drive," Graves warned.
"Last resort," Serena replied. "Ready positions at forty-minute mark."
Forty-seven minutes later the FiDi air tasted of acrid smoke and rubber. Two blocks north, Graves's diversion canister belched non-toxic plumes the color of sunsets gone wrong. Sirens chorused, traffic knotted like spilled cables. Pedestrians streamed to sidewalks filming content for tomorrow's clickbait.
Lucas, Serena, and Ayo moved through the chaos dressed as Con-Edison techs, high-vis vests hiding the black of tactical gear beneath. They dipped into a delivery alley where a freight lift ribbed with pigeon droppings descended toward the Curator bank's sub-basement. Ayo's circlet rested like silver thorns against her temple; the shard dangled inside a Faraday sling under Lucas's vest, its pulse syncing to his heartbeat until he couldn't tell which rhythm was which.
"Power spike in ninety seconds," Gabriela whispered over bone-conduction earpieces. "I'm ghost-routing the elevator logs."
Doors slid open onto a corridor bright as refracted ice. Fluorescents buzzed; floor wax gleamed. On the wall a brushed-steel plaque read VERNALIS DATA SOLUTIONS – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Atlas-Blackroot had shed its skin overnight.
Ayo pressed her wrist to a glass plate. Circlet LEDs strobed; lock clicked. They stepped inside. Rows of server racks marched into gloom, each draped in amber LEDs blinking Morse about fiduciary flows. Cold air smelled of tin and secrets.
Lucas's chronal sense prickled—somewhere overhead, a short-range Relic emitter ticked, smaller cousin to the disabled guardian. Every forty-five seconds, as Graves predicted, a pulse sprayed white noise through the timeline. His stomach lurched with each wash, like flying through patchy turbulence. He timed steps between pulses, sliding deeper.
A workstation stood beneath a sterile halo lamp. Serena unplugged its Ethernet cable, jacked in Ayo's fiber. Lucas placed the shard against a magnetic bracket. Circlet hummed; shard answered with emerald flicker.
"Handshake accepted," Ayo murmured. "We are root."
On-screen directories unfurled—shell accounts feeding shell companies, each dripping micro-transactions across continents faster than gossip. Serena's eyes widened. "They're moving billions under radius-trigger algorithms. Each time a 'potential' is pruned, their projection contracts risk exposure, and they short the resulting futures."
"So murder for market arbitrage," Lucas muttered. "Nice."
Graves keyed code: a smart-contract template Gabriela crafted overnight. Funds began siphoning—one percent fractions redirected to a blind Ethereum wallet requiring two signatures. Another script zipped the ledgers into an encrypted file.
"Download at fifty percent," Ayo said. "Relic pulse deviance creeping. They'll notice phantom entropy."
Lucas flexed shoulders. Pause battery maybe forty seconds total before blackout. Not enough for corridor firefight. He pressed copy progress: sixty-three.
Sirens ceased topside—emergency crews rerouted? He keyed comm. "Status?"
Tenzin's calm baritone: "NYPD lifting barricades sooner. You have five minutes."
Graves swore. "Copy's at seventy-two. We bail at eighty."
Server fans pitched higher, like bees sensing threat. Lucas's telepathy brushed awareness: two security guards approaching, chatting about evac drill. "Company," he warned.
Serena unplugged shard, tucking it secure. Lucas stepped into aisle, counting pulse intervals—three seconds until next wash. Guards rounded corner, flashlights spearing dark.
Lucas triggered micro-influence, projecting the smell of smoldering wires. One guard sniffed, eyes widening. "Electrical short," Lucas suggested aloud in firm technician cadence. "Area sealed for recalibration. Supervisor wants fresh-air vent."
Guard's surface thought flickered: Hate double shifts… if it fries gear, I'm overtime. He nodded, motioning partner away. They retreated, muttering. Lucas exhaled; adrenaline tasted copper.
"Eighty-four percent," Ayo called.
"Abort long tail," Serena ordered. "Take partial."
Graves yanked drive. "Let's blow."
They hustled back toward lift. Pulse noise spiked—unexpected timing. Lucas staggered, vision ghosting. Above, circuit panels flickered red. A monotone voice filled the vault: "Chronal anomaly detected. Lockdown in ten seconds."
Elevator doors began to slide but stuck half-open. Lucas cursed. "Manual override jammed."
Ayo pressed hand to frame; circlet flared. Mechanism hissed. Door opened another inch but halted—mag-latch engaged by central.
Lucas's nose bled again. He had maybe one good pause left. He met Serena's eyes. She shook her head—don't.
He smiled anyway. "Be right back."
He stepped into the freeze. World gelled; siren wails became organ chords stretched to eternity. Pain flared but he ignored it, wrenching at latch. Too heavy. TK Flick? Not enough. He climbed through gap, body compressing ribs. Once outside, he yanked emergency lever; nothing. Pulse noise rippled even in pause, destabilizing his field. Head spun.
Time threatened to unfreeze; he dove back through gap, landing hard. He grabbed Serena's wrist as reality snapped.
Nothing. Lock held.
Graves hammered panel with gun butt. Sparks. Ayo tapped circlet. "I can bolt-load relay across coil. Opens door but fries control—no return."
"Do it," Selena said.
Ayo jammed wires; a pop, smell of burnt plastic, and doors screamed open. Rockets of adrenaline propelled them inside. Lift ascended amidst blinking fault lights.
Halfway up, power cut entirely. Car shuddered, stopped.
Lucas's chest tightened. "Emergency ladder?"
Hatch overhead rusted shut. Graves inserted pry bar. Metal groaned but welds held. Serena checked phone—no signal.
Lucas laughed, manic. "Chrono boy stuck in minute-by-minute elevator. Irony thick?"
Serena swatted his shoulder. "Focus."
Ayo tapped walls. "Old express shaft adjacent. Access panel behind ad board." She peeled metal signage, revealing drywall. Graves smashed through with bar. Beyond, brick and shadow. A maintenance ladder ascended into gloom.
Lucas's body protested but he climbed. Pulse noise bled through shaft like distant thunder; his power flickered, unreliable. He climbed anyway, rung by rung, hearing Serena's breaths behind, Graves's muffled curses, Ayo's steady exhale.
At last a grate. Lucas kicked—it flew, clanging onto active track. They emerged onto a narrow service walkway, fluorescent hum of normal subway life echoing down the tunnel.
Serena radioed Tenzin. "We're topside track. Exfil route Delta pivoting."
Tenzin's reply crackled: "Charlie group moving to station egress."
Lucas wiped fresh blood from lip, tasting iron and triumph. "We lost full archive."
Graves dangled drive. "Ninety percent beats zero. And escrow's funded."
Ayo retrieved shard, checking its glow—steady. "Curators crypto-sealed nodes citywide. They'll pivot global control to Zurich or Dubai."
"Then we follow," Serena said. Her eyes met Lucas's—unspoken promise that she'd chase him across any zone lines now.
Behind them, alarms faded into distance, like a heart finally admitting defeat.
Lucas inhaled rail-heavy air. "Next time we pick a heist without vertical cardio."
"I'll note," Serena said, squeezing his hand.
Far ahead, a train blared and wind rushed to meet them, scattering tunnel dust into swirling constellations. Lucas felt, for the first time since waking powers as a teen, that he wasn't navigating an empty freeze alone. The universe might still threaten boredom, but he'd armed himself with allies—and with purpose measured in stolen seconds and rescued futures.
They hurried into the dark, every footfall echoing the rhythm of a plan still unwritten, but finally shared.