Elena's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Stay calm. Don't make sudden movements. Let me do the talking."
The Timekeeper vehicle's siren wailed once, then fell silent—an order to pull over. Elena guided the van to the curb, parking smoothly. In the back, Ray, Sylvia, and Martha remained perfectly still, barely breathing.
"Papers," Elena muttered, pulling documents from the glove compartment. "Work orders, transport authorization, all legitimate. They shouldn't have reason to search the cargo."
"Unless someone reported the distributions," Sylvia whispered.
"Fifteen minutes ago? Too fast. This is probably random." But Elena didn't sound convinced.
Ray watched through the van's rear window as two Timekeepers exited their vehicle. Both wore the grey uniforms he'd come to associate with danger. Both had weapons holstered at their sides. Both moved with the casual confidence of people who held power over life and death.
One approached Elena's window. The other circled the van, examining it from different angles.
"License and transport authorization," the first Timekeeper said, his voice bored with routine.
Elena handed over the documents. Ray could see her face in the side mirror—perfectly composed, showing no fear. Whatever else she was, Elena was a professional.
The Timekeeper scanned the documents with a handheld device. Seconds ticked by. In the back of the van, Ray felt sweat trickling down his spine despite the cool morning air. His disguise was good, but would it hold up under direct scrutiny?
"Purpose of transport?" the Timekeeper asked.
"Industrial supplies. Delivering to Fringe district warehouses." Elena's voice was steady. "All documented in the work orders."
"Open the cargo area."
Ray's heart stopped. Behind him, he could feel Sylvia and Martha tensing. If the Timekeepers searched thoroughly, if they scanned their clocks, if they looked closely at their faces—
"It's just supplies," Elena said calmly. "Pipe fittings, electrical components, nothing interesting."
"Then you won't mind me confirming that."
The Timekeeper moved toward the rear of the van. Ray heard footsteps, heard the handle being tested. The door would open in seconds. They'd be exposed, caught, everything would end right here on a Dayton street corner.
"Sir!" The second Timekeeper called out urgently. "We've got a priority dispatch. Active pursuit in Sector Seven, all units respond."
The first Timekeeper paused, his hand on the van's rear door handle. Ray could hear him through the thin metal, could almost feel the man's frustration at being interrupted.
"Confirmed?" he called back to his partner.
"Confirmed. Suspect matching Ray Shivers description, heading toward the eastern checkpoints. They want everyone."
A moment of hesitation. Then the Timekeeper released the door handle. "Next time have your cargo manifest more detailed," he said to Elena, already moving back to his vehicle. "Makes everyone's job easier."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
The Timekeepers climbed into their vehicle and pulled away, sirens wailing, racing toward whatever false alarm or actual crisis was happening in Sector Seven.
Elena waited a full minute before speaking. "That was too close."
"Someone's pulling them away deliberately," Martha said quietly. "That call about Ray Shivers in Sector Seven—we're nowhere near Sector Seven."
"A diversion?" Sylvia asked.
"Or the resistance helping without us knowing." Martha's expression was thoughtful. "Caron has contacts in the Timekeeper infrastructure. People who sympathize but can't openly rebel. Maybe one of them is watching out for us."
"Or maybe we just got lucky," Elena said, pulling back into traffic. "Either way, we need to get you three back to the safe house. That was one distribution. If every extraction is going to be this risky, you won't survive a week."
They rode in silence for several minutes, each processing how close they'd come to capture. Ray's hands were still shaking slightly, adrenaline coursing through his system with nowhere to go.
"We saved five people today," Ray said finally. "Five people who would have died got another year of life. That has to count for something."
"It does," Martha agreed. "But Elena's right. We need better protocols. Better timing. Better intelligence about Timekeeper movements."
"We also need more distribution points," Sylvia added. "If we hit the same area repeatedly, they'll be waiting for us. We need to spread out, be unpredictable."
"Which requires more people," Martha said. "We can't do this alone, the three of us. We need teams, trained and equipped, operating independently but coordinated."
"Sounds like you're describing an organization," Elena observed. "I thought the whole point was to avoid organizational structures that could be compromised."
"There's a difference between a rigid hierarchy and a distributed network," Martha replied. "We need cells that can operate independently, that don't know about each other, that can't betray the whole even if one is captured. But we need enough of them that we can maintain sustained operations."
Ray listened to them planning, his mind still circling back to the moment the Timekeeper had reached for the van's door. So close. Another second and everything would have ended.
But it hadn't ended. They'd survived. They'd distributed fifteen years. They'd started something.
"How long until we can do another distribution?" Ray asked.
"You want to go again?" Elena sounded incredulous. "After that?"
"Especially after that. We can't let one close call scare us into hiding. People are dying every day. We have the time—literally—to save some of them. We just need to be smarter about it."
Martha studied him for a moment. "You're right. But not today. We need to analyze what went wrong, what went right, what we can improve. Tomorrow or the day after, we try again. Different location, different approach."