Ezra's fingers twitched nervously against the edge of the cracked terminal. The last video clip Mia showed him—the figure in the tank, the murmured word "Omega"—had burrowed into his mind like a parasite. He could still hear the static-coated voice repeating those last lines: "Timer sync failure… anomaly expanding." What did it mean to be an anomaly? And what exactly was expanding?
He didn't sleep the night after. Not even the simulation pods could lull him into a neural rest cycle. Too many variables. Too many questions. And one relentless truth: He was marked.
Mia had said it casually before. "If your timer is gone, you've been marked." But now it felt heavier—like being hunted. Like being cursed.
By morning, Ezra had a plan. Not a good one, but it was something. Mia met him outside the academic hall, her hood drawn low and her eyes puffy with lack of sleep. They walked in silence until they reached the tram station. They didn't need to say where they were going—the map from Veda's log had already drawn a line in their minds.
The tram that took them to the outer zone was mostly empty, save for a few factory workers asleep in their seats and a twitchy android courier clutching a briefcase. As they passed beneath the outer barrier arches, Ezra glanced back at the skyline. The central towers of Nion Future shimmered in the haze—monoliths of progress and paranoia.
The tram screeched to a halt at a derelict station surrounded by rusting barriers. Ezra and Mia stepped off into silence. No security. No drones. Just wind and dust.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Ezra asked, checking the coordinates on his band.
"No," Mia replied. "But this is where Veda's signal died."
They moved toward a building that once might've been a logistics hub. Now, it looked more like a tombstone—slumped under the weight of time and secrecy. The front doors were sealed with vines and layers of grime, but Ezra found a side grate partially torn open. They slipped inside.
The interior was worse—hallways lined with flickering lights and old advertisements for synthetic nerve upgrades. The air smelled of mold and copper.
"What is this place?" Ezra whispered.
"A nerve relay facility," Mia answered. "Back before centralized timer tech, these places handled regional bio-feedback syncing. It was abandoned once the ChronoNet stabilized."
Ezra nodded but wasn't sure he understood. All he knew was that Veda had come here. And she'd never left.
They navigated through broken labs and twisted staircases until they found a door marked: "Bio-Sync Lab 03."
Mia paused. "You ready?"
Ezra answered by pushing the door open.
Inside, the room pulsed with a faint blue glow. Unlike the rest of the facility, this room had power. The walls were lined with glass tanks. Most were shattered. One remained intact—filled with that same dark liquid from the video.
And inside, a figure floated.
It wasn't human. Or at least, not entirely. Its limbs were elongated, fingers tapering into fine points. Its face was smooth, eyes closed, with no mouth. Lines of light ran down its spine like veins.
Mia stepped forward. "This isn't a clone," she said softly.
Ezra's voice cracked. "Then what is it?"
"I think it's what happens when the timer breaks. Or… when it's removed."
The tank hissed. Ezra pulled Mia back. The liquid inside rippled, and for a second, the figure's eyes snapped open. Glowing white. Then everything shut down—the lights, the hum, even the emergency indicators. Silence.
Ezra's heart pounded in his ears. "We need to leave. Now."
They turned—but it was too late. A low hum returned, deeper this time. Then a new sound: booted footsteps echoing down the hallway.
Ezra dragged Mia into the corner and activated a sonic dampener. Through a crack in the door, they saw them—two figures in matte-black armor with glowing visors. Not drones. Humans. But not just any humans. These were Nion Future's field enforcers—the Reclaimers.
"Veda's logs weren't just hidden," Mia whispered. "They were bait."
Ezra gritted his teeth. "Then why are they here?"
"Because we tripped the bait."
The Reclaimers swept the room with scanners. One paused by the tank, raising a palm to the glass. The figure inside moved.
"Subject Omega remains stable," one of them said. "Containment integrity holding."
The other spoke. "Initiate purge. No witnesses."
Ezra didn't wait. He burst through the side entrance, yanking Mia along. Alarms screamed as they sprinted through the collapsing halls.
Bullets—non-lethal shock rounds—pinged past their heads. Ezra took a corner too hard and skidded on the damp floor, slamming into a rusted wall. Mia hauled him up.
"This way!" she shouted, diving through a maintenance duct.
They crawled, scraped, and emerged coughing into a storm drain that emptied into the lower basin of the city's edge.
They didn't speak until the echo of gunfire had faded.
"Veda's gone," Mia said. "But she wasn't crazy. The Origin Node is real."
Ezra leaned against the wall, breath shallow. "And it's protected by more than drones."
Mia looked up. "They're hiding something. Something huge. And we just painted a target on our backs."
Ezra wiped grime from his face. "Then let's stop running. Let's find out what they're hiding. And tear it down."
Mia didn't answer at first. But then she nodded.
The storm drain led them back into the city, but everything had changed. Ezra could feel it. His timer was gone. His identity fractured. But his purpose—whatever it was—was beginning to take shape.
He opened his private terminal and updated the Veda Project log.
Entered Old Nerve Facility
Encountered Subject Omega
Confirmed Reclaimer Presence
Mia and I are now marked fugitives
Next Objective: Infiltrate Nion Archive Servers. Find the original ChronoNet schematics. Find the Origin Node.
He paused.
And stop whatever the hell they're hiding.
Outside, rain began to fall. Light refracted through the droplets like broken glass. Ezra stared at the sky, a single thought burning in his mind:
If time was a prison, then he had just escaped. And he wasn't going back.