Ray had never seen so much time in one place.
The vault was the size of a large room, its walls lined with shelves that held thousands of capsules. Each capsule was cylindrical, made of clear material that revealed the glowing numbers within—compressed time, stored in physical form. Some capsules held days, others months, some entire years. They were organized by denomination, labeled precisely, rows upon rows of stolen life.
Ray's hands trembled as he stepped inside. This was what wealth really meant. Not the houses or cars or clothes, but this: time hoarded while people died in the streets.
"Focus," Martha said sharply, snapping him back to the present. "We have twenty minutes before Philippe's meeting ends. Maybe less if security connects the dots and realizes the Milltown robbery is a distraction."
Sylvia was already moving to a terminal in the vault's corner. "I need to access the inventory system, figure out which capsules we can take without immediately triggering alerts."
"What do you mean?" Ray asked.
"My father tracks everything. Every capsule has a unique identifier. If we take the wrong ones—the ones he checks frequently or has flagged for specific purposes—the system will alert him immediately." Her fingers flew across the keyboard. "I'm looking for capsules that are old inventory, rarely accessed, the ones he's basically forgotten about."
Martha pulled out the modified scanner. "I'll copy the database while you work. Even if we don't take everything, having their records will prove the scarcity is manufactured."
Ray stood in the center of the vault, feeling useless. "What should I do?"
"Start loading capsules into your jacket pockets," Martha said without looking up. "The hidden ones we built in. Each pocket can hold twenty capsules if you pack them carefully. Sylvia will tell you which ones to take."
Ray moved to the shelves, reading the labels. One capsule caught his eye: 3:127:45:22. Three years. More time than most people in Dayton would see in a lifetime, sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
"These three rows," Sylvia called out, pointing. "Everything marked with yellow tags. They're old reserve stock, acquired over a decade ago, never touched. My father probably doesn't even remember they exist."
Ray began pulling capsules from the shelves, handling them with careful precision despite his shaking hands. Each one was surprisingly light, no heavier than a smartphone, but the weight of what they represented was crushing. He packed them into his jacket pockets, feeling the bulk against his sides, the physical evidence of what they were stealing.
"How much are we taking?" Ray asked.
"Currently? About fifteen years total." Sylvia kept working the terminal. "If we clean out these three rows completely, we'll have twenty-three years, four months."
Twenty-three years. It sounded like so much. But in a vault that held thousands of years, it was a drop in the bucket. Philippe Weis would barely notice it was gone.
Unless the Timekeepers caught them. Then the amount wouldn't matter.
Ray worked methodically, packing capsules, trying not to think about the countdown in his head. How many minutes had passed? How much time did they have left? His earpiece was silent—Greta's team hadn't checked in, which could mean everything was fine or everything had gone wrong.
Martha's scanner beeped. "Got it. Complete database copy. This proves everything—the reserves, the artificial scarcity, the calculations they use to determine how much time each zone receives. With this data, we can show the world exactly how the system is manipulated."
"Will anyone care?" Ray asked, still loading capsules.
"They will when they see the numbers. When they realize how much time is being hoarded while they die." Martha disconnected her scanner and pocketed it. "How are we doing, Sylvia?"
"Almost done. Ray, take the last row there, the one marked with blue tags. That'll put us at exactly twenty-five years."
Ray moved to the indicated shelf, pulling capsules as quickly as he dared. His jacket was getting heavy, bulging with stolen time. He could feel each capsule pressing against his body, a physical reminder of what would happen if they were caught.
"Done," Ray announced, taking the last capsule. "I can't fit any more without it being obvious."
"Good. That's enough anyway." Sylvia stood from the terminal. "Now we—"
Her phone rang.
They all froze.
Sylvia looked at the screen, and her face went pale. "It's my father."
"Don't answer it," Martha said immediately.
"If I don't, he'll know something's wrong. He only calls me during meetings if it's urgent." Sylvia's finger hovered over the accept button. "I have to."
She answered, putting it on speaker so they could all hear.
"Sylvia." Philippe Weis's voice was tight with controlled anger. "Where are you?"
"In the building, Father. Archives level. Why?"
"Because there's been a robbery at our Milltown branch, and security is reporting that you entered the building with an unidentified guest shortly before the attack. That seems like quite a coincidence."
Sylvia's eyes met Ray's. They'd been made. Somehow, security had connected the dots faster than expected.
"I'm showing a potential business partner around," Sylvia said, her voice remarkably steady. "A man named Ray Turner from the East district. Is there a problem?"
A pause on the other end. Then: "Security has no record of a Ray Turner in the East district. In fact, the biometric scan of the man with you matches someone very interesting. Someone we've been looking for."
Ray's blood turned to ice.
"I need you to bring your guest to my office immediately," Philippe continued. "Along with whatever you're carrying. And Sylvia? If you've done what I think you've done, no amount of family loyalty will protect you."
The line went dead.
For a moment, no one moved. Then Martha broke the silence: "We need to leave. Now."
"We can't." Sylvia's voice was shaking. "He'll have locked down the building. Blast doors, gas suppressors, the works. We're trapped."
"Then we fight our way out," Ray said, adrenaline overriding his fear.
"With what? We're not armed. We're three people against an entire security force." Sylvia slumped against the terminal. "It's over. We failed."
"We didn't fail." Martha grabbed Sylvia's shoulders, forcing her to look up. "We got the time. We got the data. We're still alive. That means we still have options."
"What options?" Sylvia demanded. "My father knows where we are. He knows what we took. How do we possibly get out of this?"
Ray's mind raced. The vault, the building, the security—they'd planned for a lot of contingencies, but not this. Not being made before they even left the vault.
Then he had an idea. A terrible, reckless idea.
"We go up," Ray said.
Both women stared at him.
"Up?" Martha repeated. "Toward security? Toward Philippe's office?"
"Think about it. Right now, they expect us to try escaping. To head for exits, to run. So they'll concentrate security on the lower levels, the exits, the places fugitives normally go." Ray pulled out his phone, bringing up the building plans he'd memorized. "But if we go up—if we head toward the upper floors—we might slip past them while they're all looking down."
"That's insane," Sylvia said.
"So was robbing your father's vault. How's that working out?"
Sylvia opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. "Okay. Say we go up. Then what? We're still trapped in the building."
"There are external maintenance platforms on the upper floors," Ray said, pointing to the plans. "For window cleaning and facade work. If we can reach one, we can rappel down the outside of the building."
"Rappel. Down sixty stories. In the dark. Without equipment."
"I said it was a terrible idea, not a good one." Ray looked at both of them. "But it's better than sitting here waiting for Timekeepers to arrest us. And if we're caught anyway, at least we tried."
Martha studied the plans, her expression calculating. "It could work. The external platforms have safety harnesses and cables. We'd need to move fast, and we'd need luck, but..."
"I'm tired of needing luck," Sylvia said bitterly. But she straightened, some of her earlier determination returning. "Alright. We go up. Better to die trying than to spend the next century in a cell."
They moved back to the vault door, Martha sealing it behind them—no point making it obvious they'd been there if they could avoid it. The antechamber was still empty, the corridor beyond quiet.
Too quiet.
Ray's earpiece crackled to life: "Vault team, this is distraction. We're in trouble. Timekeepers arrived early. We're pinned down. Can't extract. Repeat, cannot extract."
Greta's voice was strained, punctuated by sounds Ray didn't want to identify. Gunfire. Shouting. Chaos.
"Greta, get out of there," Martha whispered urgently into her microphone.
"Negative. They've got the exits covered. We're—" Static. Then nothing.
The earpiece went dead.
Ray felt his chest constrict. Marcus. Greta. Vin. They'd gone into danger to give the vault team their window, and now they were trapped, possibly dying.
"We keep moving," Martha said, her voice hard. "If we're caught, their sacrifice means nothing. We have to get this data out. Have to prove what we found."
They reached the maintenance stairs and began climbing. Up through sub-level three, then two, then ground level. Every floor, Ray expected to hear alarms, to see security flooding the stairwell, to feel time-draining weapons aimed at his back.
But the stairs remained empty. All security was focused on the distraction, on sealing the exits, on searching the lower levels where criminals would logically try to escape.
They climbed past the main lobby level, past the executive floors, higher and higher until Ray's legs burned and his breath came in gasps. The jacket full of capsules felt impossibly heavy now, each year weighing more than it should.
Forty-fifth floor. Fifty. Fifty-five.
Martha checked her watch. "Philippe's meeting ended two minutes ago. He'll be mobilizing security personally now. We're out of time."
"Almost there," Ray gasped. "Fifty-seventh floor has maintenance access."
They burst through the stairwell door onto the fifty-seventh floor—a level that was half-finished, still under construction, exposed to the night air through gaps in the facade. Wind whipped through the space, carrying the sounds of the city far below.
And there, mounted to the exterior, was a maintenance platform with safety harnesses and rappelling cables.
"You have got to be kidding me," Sylvia said, looking at the platform suspended in empty air.
"No time for fear," Martha said, already moving to the platform. "Help me with these harnesses."
They worked quickly, strapping into the safety equipment, checking the cables that would lower them down the outside of the building. Ray's hands shook as he secured his harness, very aware of the sixty-story drop below.
"We go one at a time," Martha instructed. "Cable can only handle one person's weight safely. Ray, you first—you're carrying the most critical cargo. Sylvia second. I'll follow and try to sabotage the platform so they can't easily follow."
Ray moved to the edge, looking down at the dizzying expanse of glass and steel falling away into darkness. Somewhere down there was the street, safety, escape. He just had to trust a cable and a harness and gravity not to kill him.
"Ray!"
The shout came from behind them. Ray turned to see security flooding onto the fifty-seventh floor, weapons drawn. And leading them, moving with that same patient determination, was Timekeeper Leon.
"Stop right there," Leon commanded. "Step away from the platform."
Ray looked at Leon, then at the platform, then at the cable that represented their only escape.
"Don't waste my time," he whispered—Hamilton's last words, now his own mantra.
And Ray stepped off the edge of the building.
---