I wake to blinding white light. My eyes sting. The air is cold and still. I lie flat on metal, hands bound by straps. A faint hum fills the silence. Beeping monitors blink. I cannot speak yet. Fear pools in my chest but I swallow it down.
I force my eyes open. The ceiling is a grid of lights. Dust motes float. The room is bare. Stainless steel. Something crackles in the corner. I try to move. Stiff limbs. My right leg feels heavy.
I hear a soft hiss. Glass jars on a table leak vapor into the air. Wires snake from my left arm to a machine. A screen reads "2025". The year hits me like a wall. My suit is pressed into a chair. Black suit, pressed like a uniform. But no insignia. Leather gloves on my hands. A metal clasp on my wrist bears a symbol I do not recognize.
Slowly, I sit up. The straps unsnap. My head swirls. I touch the scar near my eye. Feels real. Familiar. The leather on the gloves is cool. I run a hand down my sleeve. The cotton is worn at the elbow.
I stand unsteadily. The monitors flicker. One shows my vital signs. Heart rate steady. Another shows code scrolling. I step to a console. My reflection glows on a dark monitor. I look young. Younger than I remember. My hair is short and dark. Eyes gray. I wear glasses with thin frames. I run a finger across the glass, clearing a smear.
A beep interrupts my thoughts. A message appears on the screen. It reads: "Connections ready. Stand by for retrieval" My pulse stutters. Retrieval? From where? Or by whom?
I grip the edge of the console. The room feels like it's spinning. Outside the lab, rain taps on the roof. I can hear a steady drip. My fingers trace the edge of a silver coin in my pocket. I pull it out and spin it between my fingers. Heads up, tails down. It's a worn coin from 2020. I remember carrying it since I was a boy.
The coin spins for a moment and clatters into my hand. I catch it, leaning against the console.
A monitor blinks. Text scrolls: "Initiating post-transfer diagnostics" The machine whirs. A flicker of light. Then a face. A blue-white image: a woman in a tech lab coat. She smiles thinly. "Welcome back, Silas," she says. Her voice is calm, clipped.
I freeze. "You know me," I whisper. Not a question.
"Of course," she says. "Dr. Frost insisted. He said you'd understand" She taps the glass of the monitor. "Find the FreeCode network. Dr. Frost stored something important there. We've prepared a meeting point. Vesper White will meet you. Her signal is strong"
Her tone doesn't change. I feel the temperature drop. Vesper White. The name rings a bell. Black market hacker from what I recall reading. Strange hair. Silver circuits tattoo. She helped dig into forbidden archives.
"Thank you," I say, voice rasping. The figure smiles and fades as the screen goes blank. I realize I'm speaking out loud. The word echoes in the silence: "Thank you" This voice, to befriend Dr. Lucien Frost? This must be a familiar face, maybe someone from FreeCode.
My mind races. I recall my mission objective: find the truth of 2020 to leverage for power and freedom. My hands clench. No room for fear.
I key in commands. A door slides open with a hiss. Fresh air hits me. Outside is a night sky, thick clouds, a cool breeze. I step out. Pavement slick with rain. A flicker of neon from a distant sign bathes the street in red.
I move through empty blocks. The city sleeps under a blanket of digital silence. No news drones overhead tonight. My footsteps echo off the walls. I check the corner shop windows. Nothing valuable, no coins, no gold bars, nothing. The Central Algorithm must still be quiet.
I walk with purpose. A map glows from a pocket screen. A point of light marks my destination: an old code warehouse, now a safehouse for FreeCode. My suit's fabric shifts as I move. I keep the coin in my palm, feeling the ridges between my fingers.
In the distance, a door slides open to a warehouse covered in wires and graffiti. The place smells of oil and must. I approach. A hologram flickers: a name. "Vesper White" The image fades. Then a voice, rough and laced with static: "Silas Mercer?"
"Answering," I say. My voice steady. She appears on a screen by the door. Silver hair, stern dark eyes. She taps at a keyboard beside her. "Room's secure," she says. "You can come in. What's your status?"
"I'm intact," I report. "Physically. Mentally hazy. You said you can decode 2020 archives? I need everything we have"
She laughs softly. "Quench your thirst slowly, Merc. I'll show you what I have. But first, tell me this: Do you believe what they'll tell you out there?"
"Explain," I reply, stepping inside. The door closes behind me.
She leads me to a dim table cluttered with chips, drives, and cables. "Fresh meat," she jokes. "We'll stitch you into the fight" Her grin is fleeting. Her eyes sharp. "First, the network. You'll connect to FreeCode's ghost nodes. The Central Algorithm has zero data on 2020, but we gathered bits from old archives" She taps at a keyboard. Data floods the screen.
I lean closer. Lines of code, old articles, hidden logs. I recognize references: Aegis-Quantum, protocols, and then a firewall tag: "CENSORED"
"This is what they stole," Vesper says quietly. "Dr. Frost hid it here, in plain sight. Pockets of data. We'll pull it out piece by piece"
I nod, eyes scanning. "Traces of quantum collapse," I murmur. "We must be careful. The Trader of Time is waiting"
She looks up, intrigued. "Did you hear him, then? The static whispers?"
Before I can answer, an alert bleeps from her console. She curses. "We've been spotted" Her eyes dart to the camera feed. Red circles on a map blink.
Something clicks in my head. "I saw my own footprints... but they weren't mine"