The gold-leaf elevators of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel glided upward with a silent, pressurized hiss that made Elias Thorne's ears pop. He stood between his mother and his sister, clutching a single duffel bag that felt heavier than a lead casket. Outside the reinforced glass of the lobby, the Seattle rain had turned into a slushy, grey sleet, and the temperature had plummeted to 2°C.
"Elias, this is insane," Sarah whispered, her voice tight with a mixture of awe and burgeoning anger. She looked at the polished brass and the hushed, velvet-lined hallway of the penthouse floor. "A thousand dollars a night? We don't have this kind of money. We have a mortgage and your tuition and—"
"We have thirty-three thousand dollars in a liquid account as of ten minutes ago, Mom," Elias interrupted, his voice flat. He didn't look at her. He was staring at the reflection in the elevator door, watching the floor numbers climb. 10... 11... 12.
"Thirty-three thousand? From what? That computer game you were playing?"
"It wasn't a game. It was an investment. I remembered... I mean, I had a feeling about Chiron Corp."
The elevator doors slid open. Elias stepped out, his boots clicking on the expensive carpet. He felt the familiar, dull throb behind his eyes—the precursor to a Memory Migraine. He fought it back, forcing himself to focus on the "Now." In 2006, he didn't know about high-end encryption or private military contractors. He was just a guy who knew a monster was coming and had just enough cash to buy a bigger door to hide behind.
He swiped the key card for Suite 1204. The room was massive, smelling of beeswax and old money.
"Stay here," Elias commanded, turning to face them. "Don't call anyone. Don't check your email. If the hotel phone rings, don't answer it. I'm going to go talk to the head of security downstairs."
"Elias, you're scaring me," Mia said, her voice small. She was clutching her backpack, looking at the sprawling city view through the window. "You're acting like... like someone is trying to kill us."
Elias paused, his hand on the door handle. He looked at his thirteen-year-old sister, her face still round with childhood, and the memory of her funeral in 2007 slammed into his mind like a physical blow. The pain was instantaneous—a white-hot flash that forced him to grip the doorframe to keep from collapsing.
"I just want you to be safe," he rasped, his vision swimming. "Please. Just stay in the room."
Six floors below, parked in a loading zone with his hazard lights blinking, Julian Vane sat in his rented Ford. He tapped a rhythmic pattern on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the hotel entrance.
He was perplexed. In his memory of the 2006 files, the Thorne family lived in that Queen Anne house until the day of the "incident." They were middle-class, unremarkable, and financially stagnant. But here they were, checking into the most expensive hotel in the city.
Did he win the lottery? Julian wondered. Or did I miscalculate the timeline?
The thought of being wrong triggered a Memory Migraine of his own. He groaned, leaning his head against the cold glass of the window. He saw a flash of the Pacific Ocean, the taste of salt, and the feeling of Elias's thumbs pressing into his windpipe. He vomited into a plastic fast-food bag, his body wracked with the 40.5°C tremors that still haunted his nerves.
"Focus," Julian hissed to himself, wiping his mouth.
He wasn't a master of electronic surveillance yet; it was 2006. He didn't have a drone or a high-tech hacking rig. He had a pair of binoculars and a burner phone. He was oblivious to the fact that Elias was currently in the hotel's security office, clumsily trying to bribe a retired cop to stand outside Suite 1204 with a sidearm.
Julian looked at his own bank balance on his Razr phone. He had millions in his trust, but he didn't know how to move it without leaving a trail that the "Future Thorne" would have spotted in a heartbeat. He was playing it safe, using cash and aliases, acting like the "normal" person he pretended to be.
"If he's in a hotel, he's cornered," Julian murmured. "One way in. One way out."
He checked the 9mm pistol he had bought from a contact in the South End—a heavy, oily Beretta. He didn't know that the "law student" upstairs was currently staring at a CCTV monitor, looking for a man in a rented Ford.
The two intellectuals were fumbling in the dark, both hindered by their fragile, post-fever bodies and their lack of professional resources. They were using the US dollar as a clumsy shield and a blunt sword, neither realizing that the real war was only just beginning.