The floor of the executive office at 26 Broadway was buried in white paper.
It looked like a snowstorm had hit the room. Thousands of feet of ticker tape lay coiled in piles, draped over chairs, and tangled around the legs of the heavy oak table.
The machine on the desk had finally stopped screaming.
John D. Rockefeller Sr. stood in the center of the mess. He held a long strip of tape in his hands, reading the numbers for the tenth time.
"Fifty-eight," Senior whispered.
He looked up. His face, usually a mask of grim discipline, was twisted into a terrifying grin. It was the smile of a wolf that had just eaten the shepherd.
"Standard of New Jersey closed at fifty-eight," Senior said. "Standard of California at forty-two. Indiana at sixty."
He dropped the tape. It fluttered down to join the rest of the debris.
"The Department of Justice wanted to break us," Senior rasped, his voice shaking with glee. "They wanted to punish us. And instead... they just tripled our net worth."
He laughed. It was a dry, rusty sound.
Jason stood by the window, looking out at the harbor. He didn't laugh. He felt a cold, metallic hollowness in his chest.
He had done it. He had orchestrated the greatest financial maneuver in history. He had taken a monopoly apart and reassembled it into a machine that printed money.
He was rich. He was powerful. He was untouchable.
And he was bored.
"It is a miracle," Junior said from the corner.
Jason turned. John D. Rockefeller Jr. sat in a leather armchair, looking like he was attending a funeral. His face was pale.
In his hand, Junior still held the five-million-dollar check Jason had given him. He was staring at it with a mixture of greed and nausea.
"God has blessed us," Junior muttered, trying to convince himself. "It is divine providence."
"It isn't providence, you fool," Senior snapped. He walked over to Jason and slammed a heavy hand on his shoulder.
The old man's grip was like iron.
"It is competence," Senior said, staring at his son with undisguised disappointment. Then he looked at Jason. The predator in his eyes recognized the predator in Jason's.
"You have the instinct, Ezra," Senior said softly. "You see the blood in the water before the shark does. You are the son I never had."
The silence in the room shattered.
Junior flinched as if he had been slapped. He crumpled the check in his fist, his knuckles turning white. The resentment radiating off him was hot enough to burn the oxygen in the room.
Jason didn't smile. He didn't care about Senior's praise or Junior's pain. To him, they were just variables in an equation he had already solved.
"The market is closed, sir," Jason said, checking his pocket watch. "The initial volatility is over. The Seven Sisters are stable."
"Yes," Senior said, stepping back. "We celebrate tonight. A dinner. The whole family."
"I have one loose end to tie up," Jason lied smoothly. "I'll meet you at the house."
He didn't wait for permission. He grabbed his coat and walked out.
He needed to get out of that room. The smell of money was suffocating.
The air outside on Broadway was cold and tasted of coal smoke.
Jason ignored his private driver. He hailed a public hackney carriage. He needed anonymity.
"Western Union hub," Jason told the driver. "The main branch on Dey Street. And hurry."
The driver cracked the whip. The carriage lurched forward into the chaotic traffic of lower Manhattan.
Jason leaned back against the stiff leather seat. He closed his eyes.
The breakup of Standard Oil was the past. He was already thinking about the future.
Project T.
Henry Ford was currently in Detroit, struggling to secure financing for a new assembly line. The man was brilliant, stubborn, and perpetually short on cash.
Jason had been secretly buying Ford shares through proxies for months. But today, with the influx of capital from the Standard Oil breakup, he was going to buy the throat of the automotive industry.
He couldn't use the office lines. Junior's spies were everywhere at 26 Broadway. If they saw him wiring millions to a car mechanic in Detroit, they would ask questions.
The carriage stopped.
"Dey Street, sir," the driver yelled.
Jason stepped out. The Western Union building loomed above him, a fortress of red brick and telegraph wires.
It was the nerve center of the American economy. Every stock trade, every frantic message, every declaration of war passed through this building.
Jason adjusted his silk hat and walked in.
The noise hit him like a physical blow.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
Hundreds of telegraph keys hammered away at once. It sounded like a swarm of metallic locusts.
The air inside was hot and thick. It smelled of ozone, stale tobacco, and the sweat of three hundred bodies packed into a single room.
Dozens of runners sprinted between desks, carrying slips of yellow paper. Supervisors shouted orders over the din.
Jason walked straight to the International Desk. He moved with the arrogance of a man who owned the pavement he walked on.
A floor manager, a sweating man with rolled-up sleeves and a cigar clenched in his teeth, looked up. He saw Jason's suit—English wool, tailored perfectly—and the pearl stickpin in his tie.
The cigar almost fell out of his mouth.
"Sir," the manager stammered. He wiped his greasy hands on his pants. "We didn't expect... do you need a private line?"
"No," Jason said, his voice cutting through the noise. "I need a direct cipher to Detroit. Priority One. I will dictate."
"Of course. Immediately."
The manager kicked a chair toward Jason. He snapped his fingers at a row of typists sitting hunched over their machines nearby.
"You! Girl! Get over here! Bring the punch cards!"
Jason didn't look at the girl. He was already formulating the code in his head. He pulled a notebook from his pocket.
"Ready?" Jason asked.
"Yes, sir," the manager said, hovering over the telegraph key himself.
"Cipher key Alpha-Nine," Jason recited fast. "Purchase order. Ford Motor Company. Common stock. Authorization limit..."
He paused. He looked around the chaotic room. He felt like a god standing in an ant farm.
"...Authorization limit: five million dollars. Execute immediately."
The manager's eyes bulged. Five million. It was an unimaginable fortune. He started hammering the key, his fingers blurring.
"Make sure the confirmation comes back within the hour," Jason commanded. "I want the certificates held in the blind trust."
"Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir."
Jason turned to leave. He was done. The seed was planted. In ten years, that five million would be worth five hundred million.
He took a step back, buttoning his coat.
A figure crashed into him.
It was a small, violent collision. A stack of heavy punch cards slammed into Jason's chest and scattered across the dirty floor.
Jason stumbled back a step. He brushed his lapel, annoyed.
"You clumsy cow!" the manager roared.
The manager leaped up from his desk. His face was purple. The girl who had dropped the cards was scrambling on her knees, trying to gather them up.
She was small. She wore a shapeless grey wool dress that was frayed at the hems. Her hair was tucked under a cheap, stained cap.
"I'm sorry!" she gasped. Her voice was raspy, exhausted. "I tripped... the floor is uneven..."
"You're fired!" the manager screamed. He raised his hand, ready to backhand her across the face. "Get out of here before I—"
Jason's hand shot out.
He caught the manager's wrist in mid-air.
He didn't do it out of kindness. He did it because the noise was annoying him. He squeezed the man's wrist, digging his thumb into the tendon.
"Control yourself," Jason said coldly. "I don't like scenes."
The manager froze. He looked at Jason's cold eyes and wilted. "S-sorry, sir. She's useless. Always dropping things. I'll throw her out."
Jason let go of the man's arm. He looked down at the girl.
She was still on her knees. She was frantically stacking the cards, her head bowed low to hide her face.
Jason watched her hands.
They were red, chapped raw from cold water and cheap soap. Ink stained her fingertips.
But it wasn't the ink that stopped Jason's heart.
It was the movement.
She bit her lower lip. And then, with her left hand, she tapped her thumb against her ring finger.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
A four-beat rhythm. Fast. Nervous.
Jason stopped breathing.
The sounds of the telegraph office—the shouting, the clacking, the ringing phones—faded into a dull roar.
He knew that rhythm.
He had seen it a thousand times. In a coffee shop in Manhattan. In a shared apartment in Brooklyn. Under the harsh lights of a hospital waiting room.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was the tic she had whenever she was terrified. Whenever the anxiety became too much to handle.
"Look at me," Jason whispered.
It wasn't a request. It was a command forced out of a throat that suddenly felt like it was filled with glass.
The girl froze.
Slowly, she lifted her head.
Her face was gaunt. Her cheekbones stuck out sharply, casting shadows on her pale skin. There were dark circles under her eyes, bruises of exhaustion that spoke of 14-hour shifts and skipped meals.
But the eyes.
They weren't the eyes of a 1908 factory girl. They didn't have the dull, bovine resignation of the era.
They were sharp. They were terrified. And they were looking at him with a recognition that defied the laws of physics.
She stared at his face. At the weak chin of Ezra Prentice. At the expensive suit.
Then she looked into his eyes.
Her mouth opened slightly. Her lip quivered.
"Glitch?" she whispered.
The word hit Jason like a bullet.
It was a slang term. A piece of jargon they used to joke about when the trading algorithms went haywire. An inside joke from a life that had ended in a leap from a window.
No one in 1908 knew that word. No one.
The world tilted on its axis. The heat in the room seemed to spike.
Jason stared at her. He saw the woman he had loved. The woman he had pushed away because he was a failure. The woman whose photo he had burned before he died.
She was here. In the hell of the early 20th century. Starving.
"Sarah?" Jason mouthed the name. No sound came out.
The manager stepped forward, mistaking Jason's silence for anger.
"I am so sorry, sir!" the manager yelled, grabbing the girl by the shoulder. "Get up! Get out! You're finished here!"
The girl flinched violently. She looked at Jason, her eyes pleading, desperate. She was waiting for him to save her. To acknowledge her.
But Jason saw the other clerks watching. He saw the manager watching.
If he showed familiarity... if he showed weakness...
The questions would start. Junior would hear about it. Alta would hear about it.
Who is the girl? Why does the millionaire know the gutter rat?
His cover would be blown. His empire would crumble.
The cold logic of Jason Underwood slammed down like a guillotine, severing the emotions of the man he used to be.
He stepped back. He adjusted his cufflink. His face went completely blank.
"She is clumsy," Jason said, his voice devoid of humanity.
Sarah's face crumpled. The hope in her eyes died, replaced by a shock of betrayal that was more painful than any physical blow.
Jason reached into his pocket. He pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. A year's wages for a girl like her.
He didn't hand it to her. He tossed it onto the dirty floor in front of her.
"But I don't like to see women starve," Jason said to the manager. "Keep her employed. Put her in the back room. Somewhere I don't have to see her face again."
The manager scrambled to pick up the money. "Yes! Yes, of course, sir! You are too generous!"
Jason turned on his heel.
He walked toward the door. He walked fast.
He didn't look back.
He burst out onto Dey Street, into the cold air. He nearly collided with a passerby.
He walked until he turned the corner, out of sight of the building.
He leaned against a brick wall. His breath was coming in short, ragged gasps. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He looked at his hands. They were shaking uncontrollably.
He wasn't alone.
The ghost had followed him across time. And she had just seen him sell his soul.