Archive of the Stolen Future
By Maryanne Njoki Ndirangu – May 2025
The rain fell in thin silver threads over the glass towers of New Carthage, tapping softly against the fogged windowpane of Arielle's apartment. Her breath left faint ghosts on the glass as she stared out into the neon-lit mist. The city never truly slept—only shifted shades from day to night, from drone hum to hoverbus buzz, from endless work to endless worry.
But tonight, the city faded into the background. The only thing Arielle could see was the cracked leather case resting on her dining table.
It hadn't been there yesterday.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she approached it again. The clasp was tarnished, rust worn thin around the edges, and the handle was wrapped in faded fabric—a patch of navy silk. It was unmistakably her mother's. She remembered it clearly from her childhood, tucked away in the upper shelves of their old house, guarded like something sacred.
But her mother had died three weeks ago.
And this case had been buried with her.
Arielle hesitated before undoing the clasp. It popped open with a click that echoed too loud in the quiet room. Inside, resting on a bed of blue velvet, was a small mechanical device—no bigger than her palm.
A clock. Or something like it.
The face was circular, smooth, but cracked—webbed like a spider's glass. Its hands had stopped at 11:11, and tiny gears beneath the surface ticked sporadically, starting and stopping with uneven rhythm. A faint glow pulsed at its center, a warm blue light that seemed to respond to her presence.
Arielle reached out and touched the surface.
The moment her skin met the cold metal, her vision blurred.
She gasped as a wave of vertigo crashed through her, and for a split second, the room dissolved into something else entirely—a dusty corridor, voices shouting in a language she didn't recognize, fire licking the edges of metal walls, and someone calling her name.
Not Arielle.
But Aria.
Then it was gone.
She stumbled back, knocking over the chair behind her. The relic—whatever it was—fell from her hand and skidded across the floor, ticking violently now, the glow pulsing brighter.
"What the hell...?"
Her pulse thundered. She knelt, heart racing, and carefully retrieved the object. The ticking slowed as her fingers closed around it again. Faintly, a whisper echoed in her ears:
"Find the Archive."
---
By morning, the city was alive again, unbothered by the mysteries that had shaken Arielle through the night. The relic was tucked safely into her jacket pocket, and she wore her mother's pendant for comfort—an old brass key that had no known lock.
Arielle called in sick to work. She didn't have many sick days left, but after last night, she needed answers more than she needed her job at the records bureau.
Her first stop was the House of Quiet Machines, an old antique shop nestled between modern towers in the Old Quarter. It was run by a woman named Mara, one of her mother's few remaining friends—someone who had once whispered of timelines and alternate selves like bedtime stories.
Mara looked up as the bell chimed, her dark eyes sharp despite her years.
"Arielle," she said, not surprised. "You found it, didn't you?"
Arielle blinked. "You knew about it?"
Mara stepped out from behind the counter and locked the front door. "Your mother told me if you ever came looking, I was to tell you one thing."
She took Arielle's hand, placed something cold into it—a faded coin with the symbol of a spiral clockface etched into its surface.
"She said: If the clock breaks, follow the echoes."
---
Back at home, Arielle examined the coin under magnification. There were coordinates etched along the rim—barely visible, but there. She fed them into her holo-table, and a map materialized.
Her stomach tightened.
The coordinates led to the Lower Sectors, deep beneath the city where forgotten tech, outlawed machines, and the remnants of past ages were buried. A place her mother had sworn never to let her enter. A place where time, rumor had it, didn't always flow correctly.
It was already nightfall by the time she reached the outer rim of Sector 12. Drones zipped above her head, scanning ID tags, but she stayed to the shadows, cloaked beneath the faulty signal jammer sewn into her coat—another relic her mother had once handed her with no explanation.
Graffiti covered the tunnel walls: symbols of resistance, warnings in code, and the symbol of a broken hourglass. The further she walked, the more her head ached. The relic pulsed softly in her pocket, in sync with her heartbeat.
Arielle turned a corner and stopped short.
A figure stood at the end of the alley. Hooded, tall, unmoving.
He said nothing at first. Then, as if reciting something long forgotten, he spoke.
"You've brought the key. The clock breathes again."
Arielle stepped back. "Who are you?"
He removed his hood. His face was pale, angular, with a thin scar across his jaw. His eyes glowed faintly—not artificially, but unnaturally. As though he had seen something no one else had.
"I'm Kael," he said. "A timekeeper. Or I was."
Her mind reeled. Timekeeper. A term from bedtime stories and restricted books—those sworn to guard time, once protectors, now hunted by the organization called the Vanguard.
"I saw you," she said slowly. "In the vision."
Kael's expression tightened. "Then it's started."
"What is it?"
"The unraveling."
Behind them, the shadows stirred.
Kael looked past her. "They've found us."
Arielle turned—and for a heartbeat, she saw them. Figures in silver-gray suits, their faces covered by mirrored masks. Their weapons hummed, energy pulsing along their edges.
Kael grabbed her arm. "Run!"
---
They darted through the collapsing market stalls, dodging bursts of plasma and the sharp cry of sirens. Arielle clutched the relic to her chest as the alleyways blurred into one another. She didn't know why she trusted Kael—but somehow, it felt like she always had.
They slipped into a hidden lift behind a false wall, dropping into blackness. When they stopped, it was into silence.
A room lit by old, flickering bulbs. Shelves of ancient technology, shattered clocks, rusted gears. And on the far wall, etched into the stone in glowing paint, were words that chilled her to the bone:
"The Archive Remembers All."
Kael spoke quietly. "Your mother left you more than a relic. She left you a path."
Arielle stood still, breath catching in her throat.
Somewhere deep within, she felt it: a tug, like gravity pulling her toward something forgotten. Something lost. Or stolen.
---