For one heart-stopping moment, Ray hung in empty air, sixty stories of nothing beneath him. The harness jerked tight around his chest and thighs, and then the cable engaged, lowering him in controlled descent down the face of the Weis Building.
Wind buffeted him as he dropped, making him spin slowly. The city spread out below in a carpet of lights, beautiful and terrifying. Ray focused on the cable, on keeping his hands steady on the control mechanism, on not looking down at the ground that seemed impossibly far away.
Above, he heard shouting. Leon's voice, commanding. Then Sylvia appeared over the edge, her own descent beginning. She looked pale in the building's reflected light, but her jaw was set with determination.
The cable lowered Ray floor by floor. Fifty-six. Fifty-five. Fifty-four. Each floor took seconds that felt like minutes. His jacket, heavy with stolen time capsules, pulled at him awkwardly, threatening to unbalance him.
Something whistled past Ray's head. A pulse of energy that left a scorch mark on the building's facade.
They were shooting at him.
"Faster!" Martha's voice crackled in his earpiece from above. "They're trying to cut the cables!"
Ray released the brake on his descent mechanism, dropping faster now, the wind screaming in his ears. The building face blurred past him. Forty floors. Thirty-five. Thirty.
Another energy pulse, closer this time. Ray felt the heat of it against his cheek.
Twenty-five floors.
The cable jerked. Ray looked up and saw, with horror, that the upper section was beginning to fray. They'd hit it with something—not enough to cut it completely, but enough to weaken it. If it snapped before he reached the ground...
Twenty floors. Fifteen.
The cable jerked again, and Ray dropped suddenly—five feet in a split second—before the safety mechanisms caught. His harness dug painfully into his ribs. Above him, Sylvia screamed.
Ten floors. Five.
Ray hit the ground hard, his legs buckling, the impact driving the air from his lungs. For a moment he just lay there, stunned, surrounded by capsules that had fallen from his pockets. Then survival instinct kicked in.
He gathered the capsules with shaking hands, shoving them back into his jacket. Looked up to see Sylvia descending, coming down fast, too fast.
"Brake!" Ray shouted. "Use the brake!"
Sylvia fumbled with the mechanism, slowing her descent at the last moment. She hit the ground ten feet from Ray, stumbled, but stayed upright.
"Martha!" Sylvia called up into the darkness.
Martha was still descending, but slower—she'd had less time to get away before security reached the cables. And now Ray could see figures leaning over the edge of the building far above, weapons aimed down.
"She's not going to make it," Ray said, horror dawning.
But Martha was already unclipping from the harness. At the fortieth floor, still dozens of meters up, she released the cable and jumped.
Ray's heart stopped.
Martha fell toward a neighboring building, arms and legs spread to control her descent. She hit an awning on the building's twentieth floor, the fabric tearing but slowing her fall. Then she rolled off the awning onto a balcony, crashed through glass doors, and disappeared inside.
"Did she just—" Sylvia stared in disbelief.
"Former special forces," came Martha's voice in their earpieces, strained but alive. "Thirty years ago. Some skills you don't forget. Get moving—Leon will have ground teams here any second."
Ray and Sylvia ran.
They tore through the streets of New Greenwich, away from the Weis Building, away from the Timekeepers who would be flooding the area. Ray's body protested every step—the climb, the rappel, the impact had taken their toll. But adrenaline drove him forward.
Behind them, sirens wailed.
"This way," Sylvia gasped, pulling Ray into an alley. "Service tunnels. Maintenance access for the underground systems. My father doesn't know I know about them."
They found a grate in the alley floor, pried it open, and descended into darkness. The tunnel below was cramped, lit only by occasional maintenance lights, filled with pipes and cables. But it was a way out, a route underground where security vehicles couldn't follow.
They ran through the tunnel, splashing through puddles of standing water, ducking under low-hanging obstacles. Behind them, Ray could hear pursuit—footsteps echoing, voices shouting. The Timekeepers had found the tunnel entrance.
"How far?" Ray asked between gasps.
"Half a mile. Exits in the warehouse district." Sylvia's breathing was labored. "If we can reach it—"
The tunnel ahead exploded with light.
Ray skidded to a halt. Timekeepers blocked their path, weapons raised, at least five of them. Behind, more were closing in. They were boxed in, trapped in a tunnel with nowhere to go.
And stepping forward from the group ahead, his expression calm and patient, was Leon.
"End of the line, Ray Shivers," Leon said. "You've led us on quite a chase. But it's over now."
Ray's hand instinctively went to his clock: 105:13:58:17. Still so much time. Time he was about to lose.
"Hands where we can see them," Leon commanded. "Both of you. And Ray, whatever you're carrying in that jacket, place it on the ground slowly."
Ray looked at Sylvia. She looked back, her expression defeated. They'd come so close. Had the data, had the time, had nearly escaped. But nearly wasn't enough.
"The jacket," Leon repeated, his weapon charging with a distinctive whine. "Now."
Ray started to unbutton his jacket, his mind racing through options that didn't exist. They were trapped. Outgunned. The tunnel had no side passages, no escape routes. This was it.
Then Martha's voice crackled in his earpiece: "Ray, Sylvia—drop. Now."
Ray didn't hesitate. He threw himself to the ground, pulling Sylvia with him.
The tunnel filled with smoke.
Canisters, thrown from somewhere behind the Timekeeper line, exploded in clouds of thick grey fog. Ray heard shouting, confusion, the sound of Timekeepers stumbling in the sudden blindness.
"Move!" Martha's voice, closer now. "Back the way you came! Different route!"
Ray grabbed Sylvia's hand and ran blind through the smoke, guided by Martha's voice in his ear. Hands found them in the fog—Martha, appearing like a ghost, blood on her face from the building entry but very much alive.
She pulled them to the tunnel wall, to a maintenance panel Ray hadn't noticed before. Martha kicked it open, revealing a narrower passage.
"Service crawlspace," she explained, shoving them inside. "Connects to the water management system. They won't expect it."
They crawled through the cramped space, pipes pressing against their backs, water dripping on them from above. Behind, Ray could hear Leon shouting orders, organizing a search. But the smoke was buying them precious seconds.
The crawlspace opened into a larger tunnel—different from the first, older, with brick walls and the smell of ancient water. Martha led them at a run, taking turns without hesitation, navigating from memory or instinct.
"Where are we going?" Sylvia gasped.
"Anywhere but here. Keep moving."
They ran until Ray's lungs burned, until his legs felt like lead, until the sounds of pursuit faded into the distance. Finally, Martha allowed them to stop, in a junction where four tunnels met, deep enough underground that the sounds of the surface world were just a distant rumble.
They collapsed against the walls, all three of them breathing hard.
"Is everyone okay?" Martha asked, checking them both. "Sylvia? Ray?"
"I'm fine," Sylvia managed. "Terrified, but fine."
"Ray?"
Ray checked himself. Bruised, scraped, exhausted—but intact. And more importantly, his jacket was still full of capsules. Despite everything, they still had the stolen time.
"I'm good. How did you find us?"
"Tracked your earpiece signals. Got into the tunnels ahead of you and doubled back with smoke grenades." Martha checked her own injuries—cuts from the glass, bruises from the fall, but nothing critical. "We need to keep moving. They'll search these tunnels eventually."
"What about Greta and the others?" Ray asked, dreading the answer.
Martha's expression darkened. "I don't know. After their last transmission... I haven't been able to raise them."
The silence that followed was heavy with unspoken fear. Greta, Marcus, Vin—they'd gone into danger knowing the risks, but that didn't make losing them easier.
"We have to get back to the warehouse," Sylvia said. "Warn the others, figure out our next move."
"No." Martha shook her head firmly. "The warehouse is compromised. Leon will have tracked our movements, our associates. Every resistance safe house in New Greenwich is burned now. We can't go back."
"Then where do we go?"
Martha pulled out a phone—not her regular one, but a disposable device she'd kept for emergencies. She dialed a number from memory.
"Who are you calling?" Ray asked.
"Someone who owes me a favor. Someone with resources and no love for Philippe Weis." Martha waited as the call connected. "We need extraction. Three people, hot pursuit, carrying sensitive cargo. Can you help?"
A pause as she listened. Then: "Understood. Twenty minutes. We'll be there."
She hung up and looked at Ray and Sylvia. "We're leaving New Greenwich. Tonight. There's a safe house in the outer zones, past even Milltown. We'll lie low there while we figure out what to do with what we've stolen."
"We can't just run," Ray protested. "What about the resistance? What about finishing what we started?"
"What we started," Martha said bluntly, "got at least three people captured or killed. Maybe more. The operation was compromised. We barely escaped with our lives. Running isn't cowardice—it's survival. We live to fight another day."
She was right, Ray knew. But it felt like failure. They'd robbed the vault, yes. Had the data, had the time. But at what cost? And with the resistance scattered, what were they going to do with it?
"Come on," Martha said, already moving down one of the tunnels. "Twenty minutes to the extraction point. And we need to ditch these earpieces—they can be tracked."
They removed their communication devices, crushing them under their heels. Then they followed Martha through the underground, putting distance between themselves and their pursuers, leaving behind the resistance and the life they'd known.
Ray's clock read: 105:13:52:43.
Still almost a century. Still so much time.
But every second felt borrowed now. Every moment was survival stolen from a system that wanted him dead.
They emerged from the tunnels in an industrial area on New Greenwich's eastern edge, near the boundary with Milltown. A nondescript van waited in the shadows, engine running. The driver's window rolled down, revealing a woman Ray had never seen before—older, hard-faced, with the look of someone who'd seen too much.
"Martha," the woman said. "It's been a while."
"Too long, Elena. Thanks for this."
"Don't thank me yet. Whole city's looking for these three. I'm taking a hell of a risk."
"Add it to my tab."
Elena gestured to the back of the van. "Get in. Keep your heads down. We've got checkpoints to pass."
They climbed into the van's cargo area. No seats, just empty space and a few blankets. The door closed, plunging them into darkness.
The van began to move.
Ray sat in the darkness, feeling the stolen time capsules pressing against his sides, listening to the engine's rumble. They'd done it. They'd robbed Philippe Weis, exposed the system's secrets, survived Timekeeper pursuit.
But the cost was still being tallied. The distraction team's fate was unknown. The resistance was scattered. And they were fugitives now—not just Ray, but all three of them.
"Ray?" Sylvia's voice in the darkness. "Do you think Marcus made it?"
Ray thought about his friend, about the ten hours he'd given Marcus that had started this whole chain of events. About Marcus volunteering for the distraction team, knowing it was the most dangerous assignment.
"I don't know," Ray said honestly. "But Marcus was smart. If anyone could have gotten out..."
He left the thought unfinished. Because in his heart, Ray suspected the truth. The distraction team had sacrificed themselves to give the vault team their window. Had known from the start that extraction might not be possible.
Had gone anyway, because the cause mattered more than individual survival.
"Hamilton told you not to waste his time," Martha said from across the van. "We haven't. We got the data. Got the time. Survived when they expected us to fail. Now we figure out how to use what we've stolen to actually change things."
"How?" Ray asked. "The resistance is broken. We're on the run. What can three people do against an entire system?"
"What can one person with a century do?" Martha countered. "You've been asking that question since Hamilton died. Maybe now you'll find out."
The van rumbled on through the night, carrying them away from New Greenwich, away from everything Ray had known for the past week. Away from the resistance, the warehouse, the city where he'd become a fugitive.
But toward what?
Ray didn't know. Didn't have answers. Just questions and a jacket full of stolen time and Hamilton's last words echoing in his mind.
"Don't waste my time."
Ray checked his clock one more time: 105:13:47:22.
The countdown continued.
The revolution had just begun.
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