Eira's boots pounded against the fractured glasscrete as he cut across a narrow alley toward the sync terminal. Red glyphs blinked in the corner of his augmented HUD—low charge, desync alert, and a faint ripple he couldn't name. It was like the overlay itself was... uncertain.
The Verge always had bad reception, but this was different. His delivery route had just updated—again. Third time in under ten minutes. The system had rerouted him through Sector D-9, a place the couriers called the Rustline, one of the oldest parts of ChronoCity, now condemned, half-collapsed, and supposedly haunted with leftover resonance from the First Sync War.
"Great," Eira muttered, thumbing his wrist console. "Confirmed again?"
The system buzzed back with a green tick.
Delivery route override: confirmed. Urgent reroute requested by client. Compensation doubled.
Doubled. That meant an extra hour—maybe more if the client tipped well. Enough to get him out of the negative and buy two nights of sleep without risking time seizure. But still, D-9?
He checked the time bar etched into his left wrist through the implanted glass—a blinking gold strip of code, counting down:
00:42:17
Less than forty-three minutes left in his balance. Plenty to make the trip if nothing went wrong. But this was ChronoCity—something always went wrong.
Still, the system verified the drop and guaranteed pay. And with zero cushion left, Eira couldn't afford to question it. That metal taste of desperation had become his natural state.
He shifted his courier satchel on his back, tugged the straps tighter, and took the next right into the ruins.
The Rustline didn't welcome visitors. Not even desperate ones.
Towering husks of forgotten skyscrapers loomed like broken bones, their steel frames exposed to the night air. The neon veins of ChronoCity ended just blocks before; here, only the ghost glow of old advertisement drones flickered weakly from half-charged solar cores. Dust devils kicked up crumbled tiles and old time-ration vouchers, faded and worthless.
Eira stepped lightly, his boots brushing over grime-covered concrete riddled with graffiti warnings.
Tickers sleep here. Do not sync.
Time Hunters Own This Zone.
Trust no signal.
His HUD trembled again. The signal pulsed once—then flatlined for two full seconds. Cold sweat broke down his neck.
He wasn't synced anymore.
Out here, without constant server contact, his time bar still ticked—but it wasn't updating to the city's registry. That meant any death out here wouldn't register until the next sync, and if someone took his time, no one would ever know.
Eira swore under his breath. He considered turning around.
But then he saw it. The drop point.
It was an old relay node buried beneath a shattered train terminal archway. The marker on his wrist pulsed red now, no longer gold.
Drop point reached. Awaiting client confirmation...
No one in sight. Just dead air and a bitter metallic smell on the breeze. Eira squatted behind the cover of a broken column, keeping low, scanning the area.
"Client ID 73-046," he said, activating his vocoder, "you have two minutes to confirm receipt."
No answer. He waited. Another thirty seconds.
Just as he was about to call it and scrub the job, something slid into the clearing: a drone, old model, rust-flecked, flying low and uneven. Its left rotor jerked with a stuttering rhythm.
It landed five meters from him, dropped a dull grey metal case, and buzzed twice before powering down.
No ID tag. No sync key. Just a box.
Eira approached slowly, eyeing the corners for any sign of trap glyphs or spatial distortions. He ran a scan—clean. No explosives, no known toxins. But it was sealed magnetically and required biometric access.
His, apparently.
The HUD chimed again:
Client unreachable. Do you wish to complete the delivery and retain the package under standard courier salvage rights?
Eira stared at the case. Protocol said to walk away. If the drop failed, so did the pay. But the system was offering him salvage—meaning no one else was registered to it.
That shouldn't be possible.
He glanced at his countdown.
00:38:22
Still enough time. He crouched beside the case, checked for residual tags, and slid his palm over the top panel. The moment his skin made contact, the lock disengaged with a soft chime, and the latches snapped open with a hiss.
Inside was a thin carbon-fiber folder. No tech. No drive. Just—paper?
No, not paper. Something denser. Archival composite, like what they used in black-site briefings. And on the top of the file was a seal he hadn't seen in years:
TIME INTEGRITY BUREAU – LEVEL ZERO ACCESS
Eira's breath caught.
TIB Level Zero was a ghost classification. Rumors said it didn't exist. Even the TIB agents never talked about it. Files marked with that seal meant off-record operations—things that never happened.
He looked over his shoulder. Still no sign of anyone.
He should leave it.
He should run.
Instead, Eira pulled the folder from the case, slid it into his satchel, and sealed it tight.
The trip back from the Rustline felt longer. Every sound behind him made him clench. Twice he stopped, convinced someone was following, only to find shadows and broken glass mocking him.
He reached the sync zone with ten minutes left and nearly wept when the HUD reconnected.
Sync restored. Time balance: 00:10:02
Then, like a slap to the face, a new alert triggered.
Security ping detected. Subject Eira Solene flagged for abnormal activity.
A red pulse raced across the overlay. Someone—some thing—was tracking his reentry.
He ducked behind an auto-kiosk and wiped his signal manually, corrupting the last ping. He'd have to do a cold sync later—at the black-market node in the underlines—but for now, he was invisible.
Mostly.
Heart hammering, Eira pulled the folder back out.
He opened it.
Inside were printouts of names. Timestamps. Official death records. The first few pages listed unfamiliar people—dozens per page. Each name stamped with a date and time.
He flipped through faster, heart racing with every turn.
Page seventy-three.
There it was.
Solene, Eira – Deceased. Time of Death: 13:45:02 | May 4, 2520
Five years ago.
He staggered back, knees buckling. The folder slipped from his hands.
I died.
It wasn't just a glitch. This was a federal death record.
And he recognized others. Tarin's name was there. Kael's cousin. Even one of the delivery officers he passed every few cycles.
Some were still alive. Some had vanished. Some were confirmed dead long after the dates listed here.
But the fact that he was listed, marked, documented—meant someone had overridden the system and brought him back without authorization.
Or worse—never told the system he was still alive.
Which meant he wasn't.
Not officially.
Not legally.
He was a walking corpse.
He shoved the pages back in, sealed the folder, and forced himself upright. No sirens yet. No enforcers. He had time. Just not much.
"Who did this?" he whispered to the wind.
The city didn't answer. But behind him, a drone lifted silently from the shadows, its lens narrowing, recording every move.
Somewhere in ChronoCity, someone saw Eira's reaction—and smiled.
To be continued…