Solid gold does not yield to kinetic force; it only yields to thermodynamics.
Alex stood before the monolithic golden door at the back of the subterranean vault. The thick layer of dust he had wiped away revealed a flawless, unoxidized surface.
He couldn't punch through it.
A ten-foot-tall, solid gold barrier, three feet thick, would simply absorb the kinetic energy of a blow, deforming slightly but never shattering. It was a perfect, physical manifestation of hoarded wealth.
And gold melted at nearly two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
Alex's biological furnace was running on the fumes of the paper currency he had eaten. His core temperature was stabilizing at 102 degrees, but he needed a massive, violent spike of thermal energy to breach the vault.
He turned to Napoleon.
The General was leaning against a row of empty iron safe-deposit boxes, panting heavily. The heavy flintlock pistol hung loosely in his grip.
"General," Alex said, his voice echoing in the pitch-black cavern. "The crate of counterfeit currency. Bring it here."
Napoleon blinked, wiping a streak of freezing chemical mist and sweat from his forehead. He didn't ask questions. The trust was broken, but the chain of command remained.
Napoleon holstered his pistol. He dragged the crushed wooden shipping crate across the stone floor, the heavy wood scraping loudly.
He stopped next to Alex. The crate was still half-full of crisp, white "Y" notes. Thousands of pounds sterling.
"Shovel it into my coat pockets," Alex ordered.
Napoleon stared at the Glitch-King of France. He looked at the thick, damp grey wool of Alex's coat.
"Sire?" Napoleon asked.
"Do it," Alex growled, his golden eyes spinning rapidly. Click. Whirr. "Do not stop until the crate is empty."
Napoleon reached into the crate. He grabbed massive handfuls of the dry paper currency and shoved them into the deep, torn pockets of Alex's coat.
Alex turned back to the solid gold door.
He stepped forward. He placed both his bare, frostbitten hands flat against the cold, polished metal.
He closed his eyes.
He visualized the furnace doors in his chest opening wide. He visualized the raw cellulose of the paper currency resting against his ribs.
He demanded a catastrophic surge of thermal energy from his biology.
He pushed his metabolism far past its theoretical limits. He bypassed the safety parameters of his own flesh.
150 degrees. 200 degrees. 500 degrees.
The heat transfer was instantaneous and agonizing.
The pockets of his wool coat instantly caught fire. The paper currency inside ignited, feeding raw, combustible calories directly into his hyper-accelerated system.
The damp wool of his coat turned black, smoking violently before bursting into bright orange flames.
Alex didn't scream. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.
His muscles tore under the impossible thermal stress and instantly cauterized themselves. The Golden Ichor in his veins boiled, glowing visibly through his pale skin. His golden eyes spun so fast they blurred into solid rings of yellow light.
He was burning himself alive to liquidate the obstacle.
1000 degrees. 1500 degrees.
The solid gold door beneath his bare palms began to weep.
It didn't shatter. It didn't groan. It simply surrendered to the physics of absolute heat.
Molten gold began flowing down the ancient bedrock from the center of the door like bright, heavy yellow tears.
The sheer, blinding heat radiating from Alex forced Napoleon to stumble backward, shielding his face with his arm. The General watched in terrified awe as the King of France turned into a living sun, melting the wealth of an empire with his bare hands.
1900 degrees.
The center of the golden door softened into liquid slag. A glowing, orange crater formed where Alex's hands pressed into the metal.
Alex pulled his hands back. His palms were charred black, smoking heavily, but rapidly healing.
He raised his heavy right boot.
He kicked the weakened epicenter of the door with the force of a cannonball.
BOOM.
The liquid gold splattered inward. The monolithic door didn't open; it caved in on itself.
A massive, glowing breach opened in the center of the metal.
Alex stepped through the dripping, molten gold.
The flames on his coat died instantly as his biological furnace crashed back down to a survivable temperature, starving for fuel. He stood in the breach, his chest heaving, steam pouring from his scorched clothes.
He had successfully foreclosed the door.
"With me, General," Alex gasped, his voice a dry, rasping grind of gears.
Napoleon stepped carefully over the cooling puddle of liquid gold. He drew his pistol again, his eyes wide.
Charles followed them through the breach.
The boy stumbled.
They stepped into a short, dark stone corridor carved directly out of the bedrock.
But the air here felt wrong. It wasn't just cold. It was heavy, static, and vibrating with an unnatural energy.
Charles collapsed onto his hands and knees on the rough stone floor.
He clutched his small stomach. His pale face was slick with cold sweat. He wasn't just shivering from the ambient temperature; he was convulsing.
He was suffering from severe chemical withdrawal.
The massive, localized thermal purge Alex had forced into him had burned the toxic Blue Drop out of his system, but the boy's fragile biology was crashing violently from the high.
Charles vomited violently onto the stone floor.
It wasn't food. It was a thin, clear fluid mixed with trace amounts of glowing blue residue.
Napoleon stopped, looking down at the boy. The General's grip on his pistol loosened slightly. He didn't see a monster that could freeze a man's blood. He saw a sick, terrified twelve-year-old child dry-heaving in the dirt.
Charles looked up at Alex, tears streaming down his pale, dirty face.
The manic, predatory glow in his golden eyes was entirely gone. He looked incredibly small.
"Am I broken, Father?" Charles whispered, his voice trembling. "I was so hungry... I couldn't stop."
Alex stopped walking.
He looked down at his son. His golden eyes spun slowly. Click. Whirr. He analyzed the boy's pupil dilation, his erratic heartbeat, and the violent tremors shaking his small frame.
Alex knelt on the cold stone floor.
He didn't offer a warm, human hug. His coat was scorched, his hands still blistering from the molten gold. He framed his paternal love in the only language his post-human mind understood.
"You are an over-leveraged asset, Charles," Alex said softly.
He reached out and gently wiped a streak of glowing blue vomit from the boy's chin with his thumb.
"You consumed a highly volatile variable," Alex continued, his voice devoid of anger, just cold, steady logic. "Your biology is currently reconciling the debt. It is a painful audit."
Charles sniffled, staring up at the terrifying, glowing eyes of his father.
"But you are mine," Alex said, his voice dropping to a low, absolute rumble. "And I do not abandon my investments. You will recover, Charles. That is a projection, not a hope."
Charles nodded weakly. He grabbed the hem of Alex's scorched coat and pulled himself up onto his shaking legs.
Napoleon watched the exchange in silence.
The General's jaw tightened. He saw the terrifying glitch-king acting like a protective father. The moral black-and-white of Napoleon's impending treason turned a murky, confusing gray. Alex was a monster who ate raw paper and melted gold, but he loved the boy.
"We are close," Alex said, standing up.
He turned away from Charles and continued down the dark stone corridor.
They reached the end of the tunnel.
There was no door. Just a wide, arched opening leading into a massive subterranean chamber.
They stepped into Rothschild's true vault.
It was not a bank. There were no ledgers, no desks, no stacks of silver coins.
It was a temporal server room.
The chamber was massive, lit entirely by an unnatural, sickly green light.
In the center of the room sat a massive Victorian Babbage Engine. It was a terrifying fusion of 19th-century mechanical engineering and impossible future technology.
Thousands of solid brass gears, ticking cogs, and heavy iron pistons were entangled in thick, translucent cables that pulsed with bright green Drifter radiation.
Clack-clack-clack.
The mechanical computer whirred rhythmically, feeding punch cards into a glowing, radioactive core encased in reinforced glass.
Alex's golden eyes spun rapidly.
He realized instantly. Rothschild hadn't just been calculating the market with mathematics. He had hooked a primitive mechanical computer directly to a crashed Drifter's temporal drive.
This machine was the perfect ledger. It was what allowed Rothschild to predict global events, build his empire, and rule Britain from the shadows.
It was a machine that printed the future.
Sitting at a pristine mahogany desk directly in front of the glowing, radioactive core was a man.
He didn't look like a mastermind. He didn't look like a kingmaker.
He looked like a man dying of Timeline Rejection.
James Rothschild sat rigidly in a high-backed leather chair. He was gaunt, his skin a pale, sickly grey. His fine wool suit hung loosely on his emaciated frame.
Thick, black blood was steadily dripping from his left nostril onto the pristine white cuffs of his shirt.
He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't flinch at the sight of Alex's smoking coat or glowing eyes.
He simply raised his left wrist.
He checked a cheap, black plastic Casio digital watch strapped to his arm. It was identical to the one Alex had taken from Alice the Drifter.
The digital numbers on Rothschild's watch were flashing rapidly.
01:00:00.
Rothschild casually pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. He dabbed the black blood from his nose with slow, deliberate precision.
He looked up at Alex. His eyes were bloodshot and exhausted.
"You are exactly on time for the board meeting, Mr. Miller," Rothschild said smoothly.
He gestured to an empty chair opposite the desk.
"Please, take a seat. We have a timeline to foreclose."