Chapter 1: Ten Seconds
Rain chewed at the city.
It came down in hard, slanting sheets that turned glass towers into blurred lines of light and the ring road into a slick, black ribbon.
Headlights smeared. Wipers fought the water and lost. Above, a giant billboard flickered, its luxury watch ad freezing and jumping.
Arin Vale stood under a crooked bus shelter, collar up, messenger bag strap cutting into his shoulder, watching the traffic crawl.
He should have gone home earlier.
He thought that, then corrected himself.
He should have been allowed to go home earlier.
The overtime email had arrived at 6:42 p.m.—marked "urgent," tagged "all hands," and sent with his team lead's name but not his team lead's effort. The kind of quiet punishment that always fell on the junior analyst who didn't complain, didn't network, didn't drink after work with the right crowd.
Horns flared down the lane. A black SUV slid across two lines, forcing a small sedan to brake hard. Tires hissed. Red lights smeared across the wet road.
Arin shifted his weight, eyes tracking the flow without thinking about it—license plates, lane positions, small rule breaks, the rough chances of who would hit whom if someone braked at the wrong moment.
He did that a lot.
Not because he was a genius.
Because his brain liked patterns and spreadsheets and the way numbers followed rules even when people didn't.
A cold gust shoved the rain sideways, soaking his jeans. He flinched back, boots scraping on wet concrete, and checked the time on his phone.
11:38 p.m.
The company shuttle was gone. The nearest metro was a ten-minute walk if he wanted to get drenched and risk his laptop dying in his bag.
He didn't move.
The ring road roared, a river of wet metal.
A low luxury coupe slid into view—sleek, silver paint catching every piece of light. It cut through the lane with lazy confidence, gliding past taxis and delivery vans without care. Arin saw it and, even without knowing the model, knew the price range.
High. Stupid high.
The kind of car no one at his level would ever drive, unless it was rented for a wedding.
It drifted a little as it passed under the next streetlamp.
Hydroplaning, Arin thought distantly.
The coupe's rear end slipped.
For one stretched second, it hung there, angle wrong, motion wrong, the whole mass of metal and money and flesh locked into a path the driver hadn't meant to take.
Then the back swung out.
Screeching metal cut through the rain.
The coupe slammed sideways into the median barrier. Glass exploded. Headlights snapped to crazy angles. The impact punched sound through Arin's chest like a physical blow.
His body moved before his mind did. He jerked forward, hand reaching out as if he could grab the car from six meters away.
The coupe bounced, nose crushed, passenger side door caved in. Steam and smoke rose from under the hood, mixing with rain into a thick, white cloud.
The city kept moving.
Some cars slowed. Some changed lanes. No one stopped right away. Everyone had somewhere to be and the quiet belief that someone else would handle it.
Arin's heart hammered.
Move.
His brain finally gave the order, and his legs obeyed.
He splashed off the curb, shoes hitting wet asphalt, eyes locked on the wreck. A taxi swerved around him, horn screaming. The driver shouted something through the closed window. Arin barely heard it.
The space between the shelter and the wreck was maybe six meters.
It felt longer.
Rain slapped his face. His bag thumped against his hip. His mind babbled—call emergency, check for fire, don't touch fuel—scraps of advice from safety posters and old videos.
Then a voice spoke.
Not outside.
Inside.
"Future Extraction Available."
The words didn't come through his ears.
They bloomed in his skull, clear and flat, like a system voice reading a line of text.
Arin stumbled mid-step.
For one stunned heartbeat, he thought someone had run up beside him and whispered in his ear. He glanced left.
No one.
Only blurred taillights and the bus shelter behind him.
His foot hit a slick mix of oil and water. He slid, arms flying out, then caught himself so hard pain shot up his knee.
"Future Extraction Available."
The voice repeated, same sound, same pace, like a notification playing on loop.
His breath hitched.
He reached the driver's side.
Glass glittered on the road, small pieces sticking to his soles. The side airbag had burst and drooped, dirty white cloth stained with blood. The windshield was cracked into a spiderweb.
The driver hung half-slumped against the airbag.
Male. Early thirties, maybe.
Expensive watch. Good shirt. Jaw loose, blood on his lips. One eye half-open, unfocused, shaking between shock and stubborn will.
Up close, the rain sounded softer.
Everything narrowed to the hiss of leaking fluid, the tick of cooling metal, and the rough pull of the man's breathing.
"Hey!" Arin shouted, voice rough. "Can you hear me?"
The man's gaze twitched—slow, late—but finally landed on him.
His lips moved.
No sound came out.
Arin grabbed his phone with one hand, the other braced on the twisted frame. His fingers were clumsy, wet and cold. The phone slipped, bounced on the door, almost fell into the gutter. He caught it at the last second.
"Emergency services," he muttered to himself, thumb hovering, brain trying to cut through the fog.
Then the air changed.
Light blinked.
Not outside.
In front of his eyes.
A see-through screen appeared between him and the driver's face, as real as the broken glass and as impossible as the voice in his head.
It hung in the air—clean edges, soft glow, rain passing through it like it wasn't there.
Words rolled across it in sharp, neat letters.
[Subject: Elias Korrin]
[Age: 32]
[Status: Critical – Death Imminent]
Arin's hand tightened on the car door.
"What," he whispered.
He hadn't meant to speak. The word dropped out of his mouth on its own
New lines slid over the old ones with smooth, machine-like movement.
[Future Extraction Available]
[Time Window: 10 seconds]
At the bottom, choices appeared, each on its own line:
– [Extra 3 Years Lifespan]
– [Guaranteed Career Promotion Within 1 Year]
– [Peak Strategic Insight]
His chest forgot how to pull in air.
Beside the words, a number started to tick down.
Rain hammered the wreck, ran down his cheeks, soaked his collar. Somewhere, a car horn blared, long and angry. A bike engine screamed past.
Arin didn't move.
His thumb hovered over his phone, the emergency number half-typed and suddenly meaningless in front of the glowing screen.
"Hallucination," he told himself. The word sounded weak.
He hadn't eaten properly.
He was tired.
This had to be stress. A break. His brain finally snapping after too many twelve-hour days staring at endless spreadsheets.
The driver made a wet, choking sound.
His hand twitched, fingers scraping uselessly against the dead airbag.
The screen didn't flicker.
It didn't blur.
The lines stayed razor-sharp. The countdown kept dropping, steady and uncaring.
"Future Extraction," the flat voice in his head said again. "Confirm selection."
Arin swallowed.
His heart thudded hard.
He could feel his pulse in his throat, his wrists, his fingertips.
This is crazy.
Call the ambulance.
Move.
He tried to look away from the choices.
He couldn't.
Extra 3 Years Lifespan.
He could see what that meant. More time. A longer line on his own life.
Guaranteed Career Promotion Within 1 Year.
He could imagine that, too—someone finally noticing, finally pulling him up, finally giving him power.
Peak Strategic Insight.
The words felt heavier. Bigger. A different kind of promise. To see what the driver saw. To think the way a top player thought. To read people and moves and chances like numbers on a screen.
His brain did what it always did.
It started to calculate.
How long would an ambulance take in this rain, at this hour, on this road?
How much blood could a person lose in that time?
What were the real odds that anything he did in the next ten seconds would change this man's fate?
He was six meters from where he'd stood under the bus shelter, invisible as always, life squeezed into cells and charts and other people's decisions.
Now a glowing screen was asking him what part of a dying man's future he wanted.
"If I don't choose," he whispered, "does he live?"
No answer.
The man's breathing grew shorter.
His eye rolled, then locked on Arin with sudden, sharp fear. For one heartbeat, there was no rain, no road, no countdown—only that look, glassy and desperate, holding onto the nearest living body.
Help me, it said without a sound.
Arin's throat burned.
His thumb hovered over the emergency call.
His other hand gripped the door frame until his knuckles went white.
"You didn't cause this," his own mind told him, voice low and cold. "You were just standing there."
If he walked away now, he knew what waited.
The same life.
Still overlooked.
Still almost-promotions and passed-over projects, managers using his work for their slides and their bonuses.
The screen waited.
No threat. No comfort. No explanation.
Just a choice, in simple words and clean lines, without emotion.
"Confirm selection," the voice said again.
Something inside him tilted.
Arin's hand moved.
His fingers didn't tap his phone.
They pushed through the glowing screen, pressing the last option like it was the most natural thing in the world.
[Peak Strategic Insight]
The screen flared.
For a split second, the world went white.
Not outside.
Inside.
Something huge and cold and ordered slammed into his mind. Not memories. Not scenes. Structures. Paths. Branching choices. Decision trees snapping into place. The way a man like Elias Korrin must have seen deals, markets, rivals, and people—as lines, angles, pressure points, likely results.
Arin's breath tore out of him. His knees almost buckled.
The invisible timer hit zero.
The screen shattered without sound, breaking into light that melted into the rain.
The driver's chest rose once. Twice.
Stopped.
His eye went flat, staring past Arin at nothing.
Silence settled inside the wreck.
Then the rest of the world rushed in.
Horns. Rain. A faint siren somewhere far away.
Arin stood there, hand still frozen in the air where the screen had been, heart pounding in a new, strange rhythm.
The voice spoke again, calm and final.
"Fragment acquired."
Another line pressed into his skull like a stamp.
[Peak Strategic Insight integrated.]