Elias had expected the officer to raise his weapon. Instead, the man placed it on the floor."My name is Captain Len Arcos," he said. "If you stay here, another squad will take over. They won't ask for a badge scan, and there won't be an appeal."Rafi stared at the weapon. "How do we know you’re not buying time for them?" The captain had held a gun on them minutes earlier. Trusting him now felt like trusting the lock because it had opened once."You don't. That's what makes this choice unpleasant."Arcos reached into his jacket and produced a battered paper route card. It mapped the hospital's retired supply tram, a narrow rail service running beneath the north freight exchange. "The System doesn't manage its switches. Dispatch used it before the implants were mandatory. The tram still works if someone can power the first relay."Mara examined the card. "The hospital uses that line to move backup oxygen cartridges. The control key is mechanical.""And the gate?" Elias asked."Guarded.

The tram's metal wheels screamed through a tunnel built for cargo, not fugitives.Elias braced his shoulder against the security chair while the restrained impostor tried to twist free. Beside him, Hollen stared at the bounty on his daughter as though looking could slow its numbers. Twenty-seven minutes remained. Twenty-four hours had been offered to anyone who delivered Lina to an unnamed collection point."Give us her location," Elias said."If I open her home address, every hunter will see the query," Hollen answered. "They track who searches a marked subject."Valeen hung from the tram's exterior platform, checking the black service map on her wrist. "Don't use a public lookup. I know where she was placed. East Transfer School, emergency dormitory, near Switchyard Six.""Why would she be at a school?" Mara asked."Children of registered couriers get protective housing when a parent's employment record is disputed. It looks kind on the public screens." Valeen pulled herself inside.

The youngest child had four minutes and nineteen seconds to live.Elias counted the clocks again, hoping he had misread one. The others ranged from eleven minutes to an hour. In the van's rear compartment, the children sat shoulder to shoulder beside Lina, trying not to stare at the glowing numbers only adults were supposed to carry. Their school had kept them uncounted under a dependent exemption. The moment Elias removed them, the System replaced protection with an individual balance."They can't enforce adult countdowns on minors," Tessa said."They just did," Mara answered. "Their implants were issued for medical registration. Continuity has converted them to enforcement mode."Hollen knelt beside Lina. "Mine says forty-eight minutes. Take it. Give all of it to her."Mara checked the transfer interface. "They aren't allowing family gifts. Every child has a custody dispute. The receiving account has to pass identity review."Rafi looked toward Elias. "Can we complete missions for t

Mara Venn was standing beside her brother when the city accused her of filing a complaint against him.Elias read the paper twice. The charge named him as the thief of protected human time. The complainant field named Mara, and the signature timestamp was three minutes in the future."You didn't sign this," he said."I know." Mara took the notice from his hand. "That's why the timestamp matters. Someone scheduled my consent before asking for it."Tessa leaned over the treatment-room terminal. "The arbitration annex queues electronic complaints ahead of certification. If we expose the future timestamp before the queue closes, the case should be rejected.""Should?" Rafi asked."The word is doing work," Tessa said.Behind them, Oren slept beneath a thermal blanket. The nurse had renewed the children's medical hold, but the protection had to be certified every thirty minutes. Each renewal required an actual diagnostic reading, not a copied value. Mara had taught the nurse the sequence an

Mara did not cry when the restraint strap locked around her wrist. She looked at the small plastic buckle and asked the officer for its serial number."Why?" he said."Because you'll eventually have to explain whose authority fastened it."Elias almost smiled. Almost. The System had returned his hearing deposit, but his balance was still shorter than when he entered. The appeal receipt promised a human reviewer without saying when that person would arrive."You can challenge the detention," Tessa said quietly. "Not from inside this room. The authority stamp lives in the certification desk upstairs."Valeen appeared at the corridor entrance wearing a borrowed clerk's coat over her combat vest. "The upper desk is closed for a systems audit. It reopened just long enough to process a courier headed to Trial District.""Then we follow the courier," Elias said."You'd leave your sister here?"Mara answered before he could. "You won't help me by getting arrested beside me."She slipped the e