08:00 a.m. - At Bench, Dawnspire.
Snowball — the pale Moose the city folks called Snowball — nosed his shoulder and licked his face until the cold made the breath in Ryan's head sound loud. He opened one eye to cream light and a slate sky and the slow fall of last night's snow.
(I'm warm. Safe from cold works.) (26/12/2025. After the pyre. I survived the burn. The Domain did its job.)
He slid a hand into his pocket and fumbled for his phone. The screen lit: the calendar read 26/12/2025. The numbers were small and exact. He let the memory of the brazier come and go like a brief flare. The thought did not force his teeth to chatter. He wore a simple medieval shirt, sleeves rolled, and his laptop bag was slung over one shoulder like a foreign habit.
(Good. Cold doesn't touch me. Now find the factory. Find the people. Find the books.)
Snowball snorted and stood, great pale antlers cutting the light. People turned as the Moose moved down the lane with the slow dignity of a beast used to city ways. Ryan pushed to his feet, zipped the laptop bag, and walked. The streets smelled of coal and bread. Children skated on the frozen gutter, one little brother slid and laughed, clapping his hands. The city moved with its usual small cruelties — a stew-woman shoving a lad away from a pot, a hawker shouting coin names. Ryan felt like a ghost that held a purpose.
At the iron gate of Technologia, a guard with a fur-edged coat lifted a hand. He had a face used to checking lists and faces.
Guard (blunt): "State your business, stranger."
Ryan reached for the stamped brass seal he kept when things were honest. He placed it into the guard's palm with a steady click. The laptop bag bumped his hip, Snowball watched the trade like a judge.
Ryan (calm): "I'm Ryan Mercer. I own Technologia. I need access."
The guard turned the brass over. He tilted his head like a man reading a new word.
Guard (puzzled): "This... this name isn't on the books. Owner now is Master Aidan Thorne."
(That can't be right.) The thought landed like a dropped tool. It made no heat under the skin, only a cold ledger closing in the chest.
Ryan pushed a step forward, hoping proof could shove the world back into place. The visitor log sat on a table. Where his name should have been there was either a blank or another hand's neat script: "Aidan Thorne."
Ryan (trying to keep his voice steady): "Where's the ledger? Show me the registry."
The guard shrugged and pointed. A thin clerk with ink on his fingers slipped from behind a curtain and peered at Ryan as if at a man asking for work.
Clerk (apologetic): "Owner's order says no access without Master Aidan's sign."
Boots crunched on snow. Aidan Thorne walked up the path with the exact look of someone who runs lines and keeps time: hands clean, eyes quick. He studied Ryan like one studies a new shipment.
Aidan (measured): "We don't let people onto the floor without the day slip. Who are you?"
Ryan reached out by reflex, the habit of greeting the man who ran the Dawnspire floor. His voice foamed with hope.
Ryan (hopeful): "Master Aidan. It's me — Ryan. We—"
Aidan's face did not change the way a friend's face does. Instead, it read the shape of a stranger. He stepped back as if handed a folder with the wrong stamp.
Aidan (flat): "You are not on the books. Owner signs are Master Aidan Thorne. Who gave you permission?"
The word landed like a hammer. He had made Aidan co‑CEO. He had trusted him with shifts, keys, and lists. He had given him the brass pencil. Now Aidan treated him like a stranger and used the word that cut: owner.
Ryan (exclaimed): "What the ——"
(They don't know me. Safe from spotlight did this.) The thought was a clean, sharp fact. Nights in the Space House came back: the mail form and the cursor blinking like a small eye. He had chosen Safe from Fire and Safe from Spotlight. He had wanted to avoid the Temple's spectacle. He had not wanted to be erased.
(Okay. Not the end. Not yet. Think.)
Ryan slid his laptop bag down and unzipped it with fingers that did not tremble. Inside sat the notebook that the Space House let cross worlds. He opened it. Pages from the Domain lay there: receipts, contracts, signatures in his own hand — "Technologia — owner Ryan Mercer," payroll lists, apprenticeship names, stamped orders. The Silent Witness rule had kept a record.
(Proof. The Domain's notebook travels. Paper records follow me. I can show them I owned this place. I can fix this without a stage.)
He looked up. A little sister pressed her mitten to the factory window, rubbing frost to see inside. She was small and quick with neat fingers — an apprentice he had taught. She watched the workers without space in her mind for strangers. Her face was plain as coin.
(That little sister — she depends on this shop. We can't let the Temple or the market take it because my name is blank.)
Aidan watched him with steadiness, not cruelty, the way someone who holds a ledger watches a shipment. He spoke like a man signing for things, not like a man who knew a friend.
Aidan (firm): "If you are a friend of the house, bring papers to the floor office. Or come back with Master Aidan's sign."
Ryan closed the notebook and slid it back into his bag. Snowball nosed his knee as if to ask a simple question. The world had lost the public face of his company. He had not lost the lists, the people, or the slow work that made a place honest. That had to be enough to begin.
(Plan. Quiet plan. No public parade. Use the notebook. Gather witnesses who will write. Force paper to speak where memory won't.)
08:10 a.m. - At Gate, Dawnspire.
Ryan sat back on the bench and let Snowball the moose chew at a patch of frost like it was sugar. He watched the city move and thought for a long slow breath.
(What should I do next?)
He closed his eyes and let the list roll through his head like a machine checking itself. Employees. Books. Proof. The Temple. The market knives. The loud square where they had burned him. He tried to order the priorities into neat boxes, the way he used to do in his head.
(Keep people fed. Keep the tools safe. Make the story stop being a weapon.)
Then he laughed. It started as a small sound and grew until the moose jerked and looked at him with mild surprise.
(Why do I have to be the boss?) he thought, and the idea felt like a small light.
He remembered a TV show from another life — a stupid, warm thing where a rich CEO dressed down and worked as a low-level clerk in his own company. The point was to learn how his own people lived and to see problems he would never see from an office. He grinned at the memory, absurd and bright.
(If I can be forgotten, maybe I can use that. I can work under a name and learn the small cracks the big papers miss.)
The irony bit at him. If the city no longer kept his name, Aidan might now carry the weight of Technologia's debts and fights. That thought made him laugh and then tense.
(I feel bad for Aidan. He gets my headaches for free.)
He imagined Aidan in the long run of mornings, handling guild letters and angry merchants and the clean, terrible math of wages. Aidan had been a good man on the shop floor, Ryan could see the ledger folds in his hands. The idea that someone he trusted might be stuck with the company's problems made his chest tighten.
(If Aidan's the public owner now, maybe I can help him better as a worker than a man who leaves and expects the world to remember his name.)
He stood, zipped his laptop bag, and walked back to the gate. Snowball matched him step for step, antlers low, breath like steam.
At the iron door, Aidan stood talking to the guard. He looked up when Ryan came near, the look of a man who signs things and moves on. Ryan slowed and tried a gentle plan.
(Stay small. Use the quiet. Get inside. Find witnesses. Make the proof live.)
He moved forward with a steady step and changed his face from owner to applicant. The practice felt strange on his tongue. He set his phone and notebook deeper into the bag so nothing would shout his real life.
Ryan (steps forward, calm): "My name is Elric Mercer. I'm looking for a job as a chief researcher."
Aidan blinked. He took Ryan in like a shipment — quick eyes, neat judgment.
Aidan (measured): "Chief researcher? We don't hire chiefs off the street. Who sent you?"
Ryan held the false name like a shield. He kept his voice steady and his smile small.
Ryan (friendly): "No one. I want to help. I can run tests, write procedures, sort inventory. I used to run things — I just want to get my hands on work again."
The guard watched with the careful rudeness of someone paid to notice trouble. The clerk at the door peered over a stack of papers and swallowed a yawn.
Clerk (dry): "We have no opening for chief researcher. We take apprentices and journeymen. Tests run Monday."
Ryan nodded like a man who had expected the refusal.
Ryan (soft): "Then take me as a journeyman. I learn fast."
Aidan's eyes moved to the window where the little sister (it is a little sister) had stood, wiping frost. She saw them and looked away, fingers busy with a cracked mug. The sight gave Ryan a small, hot pain.
(If I get inside, I can touch the books. I can ask the apprentices to sign witness lines. Paper remembers. The Domain notebook follows me.)
Aidan folded his arms and considered him like a man measuring a box.
Aidan (practical): "We need hands who can keep a press clean and a kiln safe. If you want a trial, you get the morning shift. You show you can follow orders and keep records. No fancy talk. We test with ink and metal."
Ryan felt a small rush of relief. The plan had a door now.
Ryan (quiet): "I'll take the shift. Thank you."
He paused, then added, low and quick:
Ryan (aside, honest): "I can start right now."
Aidan gave him a look that was part suspicion and part calculation. The world had not given Ryan the right to demand anything, but it had given him the chance to be useful.
Aidan (nodding once): "Fine. Come to the floor office. You fill the day slip and start with stamping. We keep records. If you want proof, you help make records."
Ryan breathed deep as Snowball pressed his cold head against his knee. The moose's warm damp breath made a small clean sound.
(First step done. Small and slow. Make witnesses. Make ink. Make truth stick.)
He followed Aidan through the gate, the city moving around them like a river. The plan felt simple and honest. It would be a long work to fix the ledger of a life. But in the quiet, with Snowball at his side and a false name on his tongue, Ryan felt that he had a place to begin.