The van drove for three hours before finally stopping. Ray had lost track of the turns, the checkpoints they'd passed through with held breath, the gradual transition from New Greenwich's pristine streets to rougher roads that spoke of zones where maintenance was an afterthought.
When the rear doors finally opened, dawn was breaking. Grey light filtered into the cargo area, revealing their exhausted faces—Ray, Sylvia, and Martha, all of them marked by the night's violence.
"Out," Elena said, her voice gruff. "Quickly. We're exposed here."
They climbed from the van into what looked like an abandoned industrial park. Rusted equipment lay scattered across overgrown lots. Buildings with shattered windows loomed like hollow skulls. This wasn't New Greenwich or even Milltown—this was somewhere beyond, a place the wealthy had forgotten existed.
"Where are we?" Sylvia asked, looking around at the desolation.
"The Fringe," Elena replied, already moving toward one of the more intact buildings. "Not officially part of any time zone. The people here exist in the cracks of the system—too poor for Dayton, too dangerous for the authorities to bother with. It's lawless, but that makes it safe for people like you."
She led them through a building's broken entrance, down stairs into a basement, then through what appeared to be a storage room. At the back, she moved aside a shelf to reveal a hidden door.
"Martha set this up years ago," Elena explained. "Before things got as bad as they are now. Said she might need a bolt-hole someday where even the resistance couldn't find her."
The door opened into a surprisingly well-maintained space. It had been a maintenance supervisor's office once—Ray could see the remnants of that purpose in the pipes running along the ceiling, the electrical panels on the walls. But someone had converted it into a livable space. Cots, a small kitchen area, storage lockers, even a bathroom with running water.
"It's not much," Martha said, "but it's secure. Soundproofed, shielded from electronic surveillance, only three people knew it existed."
"Four now," Elena corrected. She set down the bag she'd been carrying—supplies, Ray realized. Food, water, medical equipment. "I'll come back in three days with more provisions. After that, you're on your own. I've got my own people to protect."
"Understood," Martha said. "Thank you, Elena. I won't forget this."
Elena's hard expression softened slightly. "Just don't get caught. I'm too old to start running from Timekeepers." She turned to leave, then paused. "The distraction team. Any word?"
Martha shook her head. "Nothing since their last transmission."
"Then assume they're gone. Grieve later. Survive now." Elena disappeared back through the hidden door, pulling it shut behind her.
The three of them stood in the safe house, the reality of their situation finally settling over them like a weight. They'd escaped, yes. Had the stolen time and the data. But at what cost?
Ray's legs suddenly gave out. He collapsed onto one of the cots, his body finally acknowledging the abuse it had endured. The climb through the Weis Building, the rappel down sixty stories, the run through tunnels, the hours in the van—it all caught up at once.
"We need to check for injuries," Sylvia said, her voice taking on a clinical tone that Ray suspected was her way of avoiding thinking about what they'd just been through. "Ray, your hands are bleeding again."
She was right. The bandages Martha had applied days ago were soaked with blood, torn from the rappelling cables. Ray hadn't even noticed during the escape.
Sylvia retrieved the medical kit Elena had left and began cleaning Ray's hands with practiced efficiency. Her own hands trembled slightly, but her movements were sure.
"Where did you learn first aid?" Ray asked, wincing as antiseptic burned.
"Private school. My father insisted I learn practical skills, even though I'd never need them in his world. Ironic that he was right, just not in the way he expected."
Martha had moved to the communication equipment in the corner—old but functional. She was trying to raise the warehouse, to make contact with anyone from the resistance who might have survived.
Static. Nothing but static on every frequency.
"They're jamming communications across the city," Martha said finally, shutting off the equipment. "Or the warehouse has been raided. Either way, we're cut off."
"What about secure channels?" Sylvia asked. "The resistance had emergency protocols."
"Which the Timekeepers now know about if they captured anyone alive." Martha's voice was flat, emotionless. She was compartmentalizing, Ray realized. Dealing with the mission first, the grief later. "We have to assume every protocol is compromised. Every safe house known. Every contact burned."
"Then what do we do?" Ray asked.
Martha was quiet for a long moment, staring at the wall. When she spoke, her voice was tired. "We rest. We heal. And then we figure out what the hell three fugitives with stolen time can possibly accomplish against an entire system."
She moved to another cot and lay down without another word, turning her face to the wall.
Ray looked at Sylvia, who had finished bandaging his hands. She looked exhausted, her makeup smeared, her expensive clothes torn and dirty. But her eyes were still alert, still processing.
"We should sleep," she said quietly. "God knows when we'll get another chance."
Ray nodded. But as Sylvia moved to the third cot, he found himself pulling the stolen time capsules from his jacket pockets, setting them carefully on the floor beside him. Twenty-five years. Lives measured in glowing containers, each one representing thousands of hours someone had worked, suffered, died for.
And now they were here, in a hidden room in the Fringe, with no plan and no backup.
"Ray?" Sylvia's voice from across the room. "Do you think they made it? The distraction team?"
Ray thought about Marcus. About the last time they'd spoken, Marcus saying it was worth it. Better to die fighting than to die counting seconds.
"I don't know," Ray said. "But if they didn't... we have to make sure their sacrifice meant something."
"How? We're three people. The resistance is scattered or captured. What can we possibly do?"
Ray looked at his clock: 105:13:42:15. Then at the capsules on the floor, adding another twenty-five years to that total if he claimed them.
"Hamilton gave me a century and told me not to waste it," Ray said slowly. "Martha died making sure we got out with this time and this data. Marcus and the others... if they're gone, they died believing it mattered. So we figure out how to make it matter. How to use what we have—the time, the data, our knowledge of the system—to hurt them. Really hurt them."
"Three people against an empire," Sylvia said softly.
"Every revolution starts with three people," Martha's voice came from her cot. Ray had thought she was asleep, but apparently she'd been listening. "Or two. Or even one. The question isn't how many people you have. It's whether you're willing to do what needs to be done."
She fell silent again, and this time Ray heard the quiet sounds of exhaustion pulling her under.
Ray lay back on his cot, staring at the ceiling. His body ached. His hands throbbed despite the fresh bandages. His mind kept circling back to the distraction team, to Leon's patient pursuit, to Philippe Weis probably right now marshaling every resource to hunt them down.
But underneath the fear and exhaustion, Ray felt something else. Determination. Anger. Purpose.
Hamilton had given him time. Martha had given him knowledge. The resistance had given him a cause.
Now he needed to figure out what to do with it all.
Ray's eyes finally closed, and he slept.
---
He woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of voices. For a disoriented moment, Ray didn't remember where he was. Then it all came rushing back—the heist, the escape, the safe house.
Ray sat up, his body protesting every movement. His internal clock said it was late afternoon—he'd slept nearly eight hours. Across the room, Martha and Sylvia were awake, sitting at a small table with cups of instant coffee and papers spread between them.
"He lives," Martha observed as Ray stood, groaning. "How do you feel?"
"Like I fell off a building."
"You did fall off a building. Well, rappelled in a controlled fashion. Close enough." Martha gestured to the coffee pot. "Help yourself. Then join us. We're taking inventory."
Ray poured coffee—black, bitter, perfect—and moved to the table. The papers were lists, written in Martha's precise handwriting.
"Assets," Martha explained. "What we have, what we need, what we can do."
Ray scanned the lists:
**ASSETS:**
- 25 years in physical capsules
- Ray's 105+ years personal time
- Sylvia's 40+ years personal time
- Martha's 1.5 years personal time
- Complete database from Weis vault proving manufactured scarcity
- Knowledge of system's internal workings
- Elena's support (limited)
- This safe house
**LIABILITIES:**
- Wanted by every Timekeeper in the city
- Resistance compromised or destroyed
- No way to communicate with allies
- Philippe Weis has unlimited resources
- Public opinion likely turned against us after the bombing (from radical faction)
- Physically exhausted and injured
**IMMEDIATE NEEDS:**
- Confirm fate of distraction team
- Assess resistance status
- Secure additional safe locations
- Find way to distribute vault data without getting caught
- Recruit new allies
- Long-term plan for actually changing the system
Ray looked up from the lists. "This is... comprehensive."
"Martha doesn't do half-measures," Sylvia said. There was respect in her voice, maybe even a little awe. "While we slept, she's been planning."
"Planning is all I can do right now." Martha tapped the paper. "The question is: what's our priority? We can't do everything at once. We're three people with limited resources and every authority hunting us. We need to choose our first move carefully."
"We need to know about the distraction team," Ray said immediately. "If they're alive, if they're captured, we need to know."
"Agreed. But how? We can't exactly call the Timekeeper detention center and ask." Martha looked at Sylvia. "Unless you still have access to your family's information networks?"
Sylvia shook her head. "My father will have locked me out of everything the moment he realized I betrayed him. My accounts, my access codes, all of it. I'm nobody now."
"Not nobody," Ray said. "You're someone who knows how the system works from the inside. That's valuable."
"It's knowledge, not power. Knowledge without resources is just trivia." Sylvia's frustration was evident. "I can tell you how my father thinks, how his security works, where his weak points might be. But I can't actually do anything about it."
"Yes, you can," Martha said firmly. "You can help us think like he does. Anticipate his moves. That's worth more than weapons or money."
She pulled out another paper—a rough sketch of New Greenwich's layout, with the Weis Building at the center.
"Philippe knows we're out here somewhere," Martha continued. "He knows we have his time and his data. So what's his next move?"
Sylvia studied the map, her brow furrowed. When she spoke, her voice took on a different tone—colder, more calculating. "He'll want to control the narrative. Make us look like terrorists, criminals, threats to public safety. He'll use the vault robbery as proof that the resistance is dangerous, that giving power to the poor would lead to chaos."
"He's probably already doing that," Ray said.
"Yes, but he'll escalate. Public trials of captured resistance members. Increased security in all zones. Maybe even a show of force—crackdowns on anyone suspected of sympathizing with us." Sylvia traced lines on the map. "And he'll hunt us specifically. Not just because we stole from him, but because I'm his daughter. I'm the ultimate betrayal. He'll want me back, whether to punish me or to 'save' me, I'm not sure even he knows."
"So we're priority targets," Martha said. "Which means we can't move freely in any zone. They'll be watching for us."
"What about the outer zones?" Ray suggested. "The Fringe, places like this. He can't have surveillance everywhere."
"He doesn't need to. He just needs to watch the places we'd need to go—communication hubs, resistance contacts, anywhere we might try to distribute the data or recruit allies." Martha's expression was grim. "He's going to try to isolate us. Make us irrelevant. Three people with stolen time and inconvenient information, stuck in a hole, unable to act."
The room fell silent as they all contemplated that reality.
"Then we don't play his game," Ray said finally. "We don't try to go through the channels he's watching. We find a different way."
"What different way?" Sylvia asked.
Ray thought about Dayton, about the people there who lived and died outside the system's attention. About Marcus and Greta and Vin, who'd risked everything not because they had resources but because they had nothing left to lose.
"We go to the people he's not watching," Ray said. "The ones so far below his notice that he forgets they exist. The people in places like Dayton, like the Fringe, who hate the system but don't have the means to fight it. We give them the means."
Martha's eyes lit up with understanding. "Distribute the time directly. Not through resistance channels, but personally. Build a network from the ground up, outside the existing structures."
"And the data?" Sylvia asked. "How do we spread that?"
"Same way. Not through official media he controls, but person to person. Paper copies, word of mouth, making it impossible to suppress because it's everywhere and nowhere." Ray felt momentum building as the idea took shape. "He's expecting us to act like an organization. Structured, predictable. Instead, we become a rumor. A story. The people who stole from Weis and gave to the poor."
"The Robin Hood approach," Martha said with a slight smile. "It's romantic. It might even work, if we're very careful and very lucky."
"Or it gets us killed," Sylvia pointed out.
"That was always a possibility," Ray replied.
They looked at each other—three exhausted fugitives in a basement safe house, planning to take on the most powerful man in the world with nothing but stolen time and audacity.
"We need to start small," Martha said, always the pragmatist. "One community at a time. Build trust, prove we're real, create something Philippe can't simply crush with security forces."
"And we need to know about the distraction team," Ray insisted. "If there's any chance they're alive—"
A sound from outside cut him off. Footsteps. Multiple people, moving with purpose.
All three of them froze.
The footsteps stopped right outside their hidden door.
Ray's hand went to his clock: 105:13:35:44. He looked at the capsules on the floor, at Martha and Sylvia, at the door that was their only way out.
A knock. Three times, pause, twice, pause, once.
The resistance signal.
Martha moved cautiously to the door, hand on the latch but not opening it. "Who's there?"
"Someone who shouldn't be alive," came a familiar voice from the other side. "But keeps refusing to die properly."
Martha threw open the door.
Greta stood there, battered and bloody, supported by two people Ray didn't recognize. Her face was a mess of bruises, one eye swollen shut, but she was alive. Impossibly, miraculously alive.
"Surprised?" Greta said with a pained smile. "You should see the Timekeepers. They look worse."
She collapsed forward, and Ray barely caught her before she hit the ground.
Behind her, one of the strangers—a young woman with short dark hair and a mechanic's coveralls—spoke urgently: "We need to get her inside. They're still looking for her. And we've got news about the others."
"Marcus?" Ray asked immediately, helping carry Greta to a cot.
The woman's expression answered before her words did. "I'm sorry. Marcus didn't make it."
Ray felt something crack inside his chest.
"But Vin survived," the woman continued quickly. "He's injured, hiding in Milltown. And there's something else. Something big." She looked around at all of them. "The warehouse wasn't raided. It's still standing. Caron got everyone out before the Timekeepers arrived. The resistance isn't dead. It's scattered, but it's not dead."
Martha grabbed the woman's shoulders. "Caron's alive? The warehouse is secure?"
"For now. But he sent us to find you. Said you three are the key to everything." The woman pulled out a folded paper from her pocket. "He sent a message."
Martha unfolded it, her eyes scanning the handwritten words. Her expression shifted from hope to determination.
"What does it say?" Sylvia asked.
Martha looked up, a fierce smile on her face. "It says we're not alone. It says the resistance is regrouping. And it says—" she held up the paper, "—that our robbery worked better than we thought. The stolen time, the data, the fact that we got away with it... people are talking. The story is spreading. Philippe Weis is scared."
"How scared?" Ray asked.
"Scared enough to make mistakes," Martha said. "And when powerful people make mistakes, that's when revolutions succeed."
Greta, conscious but weak on the cot, laughed painfully. "Did I mention I got to punch a Timekeeper in the face before they caught me? Worth it. Totally worth it."
Ray looked around the safe house—at his injured friends, at the stolen time, at the new allies who'd risked everything to bring news. They were battered, hunted, barely surviving.
But they were alive. And they were fighting.
His clock read: 105:13:33:27.
Still so much time.
And now, maybe, a real chance to use it.
---