The air in ChronoCity's Lower Verge district always smelled faintly of hot metal and desperation. The vents overhead hissed like mechanical serpents, exhaling recycled ozone and vapor from the upper tiers where real air still existed. Down here, it was all filtration masks, modified lungs, and the heavy stink of sweat worn by people with fewer hours left than dollars in their pockets.
Eira ducked into a narrow alley between two crumbling buildings, their walls caked in flickering advertisements that only the wealthy could afford to mute. His boots splashed through a shallow gutter of murky water tainted with expired nanogel and blood. Neon signs buzzed above, some half-broken, others flickering with desperation: "WE BUY MINUTES – NO QUESTIONS", "SELL AN HOUR, FEED YOUR KID", "CRIMSON LUNG PATCHES: 20 MINS OFF LIFE, 10X MORE AIR".
His implant buzzed softly at the base of his skull. 00:04:33 left.
He exhaled through clenched teeth. The last delivery had bought him four more minutes. Four. Not even enough time to ride the tube back home if he had one. His heart thudded unevenly—not just from the constant physical stress, but from the itch behind his eyes, the sense that something was wrong.
The alley opened into a market courtyard lit by strips of greenish-blue LED ribbon slung between cracked metal pillars. Black-market vendors leaned over makeshift counters fashioned from salvaged drone parts and broken kiosks. They barked offers, showed off wares, and occasionally traded blows when customers disputed seconds sold short.
The kiosk Eira was looking for had no name, just a rusted yellow canopy with a single glyph sprayed across it: a broken hourglass pouring sand upward. A man with translucent skin and a lazy implant-eye lounged behind the counter. His gaze flicked to Eira's exposed wrist—the timer glowed red now, counting down.
"You're late," the man said, tone as flat as the synth-pads playing behind him.
"I'm dying," Eira replied, equally dry.
The man snorted and gestured to the sync pad. Eira slapped his wrist down, feeling the cold burn as the kiosk's tech interfaced with his under-skin port. A faint click—then a slight relief as the world briefly brightened, like breathing with less weight on his ribs.
00:09:31.
"Bought you five," the man said, taking his cut from Eira's delivery bonus without asking.
"That all I earned?"
"You got caught in a slow zone. Your client docked two minutes for late delivery. Maybe run faster next time, Courier."
Eira didn't answer. He slid his arm back, the small silver implant near his wrist now pulsing faint blue instead of red. Temporary safety. Borrowed breath.
He turned to leave—and paused.
A glint in the mirror behind the vendor. A man, standing across the courtyard, half in shadow. Coat too clean, posture too upright for the Verge. He was watching.
Eira didn't move. Blinked. The man was gone.
Not paranoia. Instinct.
He moved casually now, melting back into the crowd with the grace of someone who'd survived too long in places that didn't want him alive. He ducked into another alley, then cut down a stairwell, dropping two levels into the dripping underbelly of Verge Sector 3.
Here, the real city showed itself. Pipes burst steam against walls soaked in time-oil. Rats scurried past men huddled around stolen heaters, each with their wrists exposed like gamblers at a table, counting down to zero. Some were already there. Eira didn't stop. He couldn't. If someone was following him, this wasn't the place to make a stand. He needed light. Witnesses. Escape routes.
He surfaced again near the scrapyard spires, where drone husks were piled into towers and the air smelled of scorched circuits and battery acid. A familiar clang echoed from within one heap—an old sound, one he hadn't heard in years.
It pulled something in him—sharp and sudden.
He stopped beneath a rusted sign: "TANNEN'S SPARE WORKS." The "T" was half-missing. Eira hadn't seen this place since he was twelve. His mother used to bring him here when she salvaged parts to trade for time credits. She'd promised they'd leave the Verge one day. That he wouldn't have to sell seconds to eat. That was before she sold three years of her life to buy him another six months during his first lung collapse.
She never recovered the balance.
He stood still for a moment. Then moved on. Past pain wasn't a luxury he could afford.
Back in the more trafficked sectors, he dipped into a side-room behind an old vending shack, locking the door with a DNA-tagged bolt. The room was a safehouse of sorts—a concrete closet with only a dusty chair, a sleeping mat, and a cracked mirror. Here, finally, Eira sat.
He opened the pack on his side, reached inside—and pulled out the corrupted drive he'd grabbed during the failed delivery.
A black cube, no markings, humming faintly. It wasn't part of the job. It had dropped from the courier drone's guts after it got fried mid-flight. Should've been useless.
But it wasn't.
He tapped his palm implant to activate his internal link, syncing with the cube. A shiver ran down his spine as unfamiliar code streamed into his HUD—encrypted, but broken in places, like a file that had bled out mid-upload. Then, words:
DEATH REGISTRY: TIB CLASSIFIED. 1,248 ENTRIES.
He froze.
The Time Integrity Bureau didn't just log deaths. They approved them. Certified them. You didn't die in ChronoCity unless the TIB said you did—unless your time ran out officially. Even murders got timestamped.
Why would a list like this exist?
He began to scroll. Names, timers, dates. All expired. All red-marked. Some he recognized—an old mentor, a street vendor he hadn't seen in years. Others were random. Except...
Then he saw it.
Name: Eira, Male. Died: 5 Years Ago. Cause: System Expiration. Status: CLOSED.
His blood ran cold.
No mistake. It was him. His ID. His implant code.
According to this file, he was dead. Had been for five years.
But someone had bought him more time. Secretly. Illegally. Without notifying the TIB. And now… that secret was leaking.
The sinking feeling returned. He wasn't paranoid earlier. He was being followed.
Whoever gave him those extra years must want them back.
To be continued…