Seconds To Zero

CHAPTER 8

Evan ran. His boots slapped against the wet metal of the walkway. His breath came in short, painful gasps. 

It felt like breathing through a straw. He did not look back. He knew they were there. 

He could hear their heavy footsteps. They were calm. They were not running. They did not need to run.

Evan turned a corner and slipped. His shoulder hit a brick wall. Pain shot down his arm, but he pushed off and kept moving. He looked at his left wrist. The bio-screen embedded in his skin was glowing with a harsh red light.

Current Balance: 2 Minutes.

Future Projection: 0.00.

Zero.

The number made his stomach turn. In this city, time was not just money. It was life. If the projection hit zero, the system marked you as "Expired."

"End of the line, Evan," a voice boomed.

Evan stopped. He was in a dead-end alley. A high fence blocked his path. It was covered in razor wire. He spun around.

Two men stood at the entrance of the alley. They wore matte-black armor. They had no badges, only the symbol of the Time Bank on their chests—an hourglass with a skull inside. These were not police. They were Enforcers. They were the janitors of the timeline. They cleaned up the mess.

The man on the left was huge, wide as a door. The man on the right was tall and thin, holding a shock-baton that buzzed like an angry wasp.

"Please," Evan said. He held up his hands. His hands were shaking. "I was tricked. My time was swapped at the exchange. I just need a loan. One day. Give me twenty-four hours. I can fix this."

The Tall Man stepped forward. He checked a small tablet in his hand. The light from the screen made his face look pale and ghostly.

"Request denied," the Tall Man said. His voice was flat. It sounded like a machine. "Evan Kennedy. You have three defaults. Your credit score is negative. You are a waste of resources."

"I can work!" Evan shouted. He backed up until his back hit the cold fence. "I can sell...I can sell memories!"

"We don't want memories," the Wide Man grunted. "We want the space you are taking up."

The Tall Man nodded. "Proceed with collection."

They moved fast.

Evan tried to fight. He threw a clumsy punch at the Wide Man. It was like hitting a wall of stone. The Wide Man didn't even blink. He grabbed Evan’s arm and twisted it.

Crack.

Evan screamed. The sound tore out of his throat. He fell to his knees in the dirty puddle. The pain was white and hot.

"Asset is resistant," the Wide Man said, bored.

The Tall Man swung the shock-baton. It hit Evan in the ribs.

The world went white. Evan’s muscles locked up. He fell onto his side, twitching. The electricity cooked his nerves. He could smell singed hair and ozone.

Then came the kicks. One to the stomach. Evan gagged. One to the back. Evan curled into a ball. One to the face. Evan tasted copper blood.

He tried to crawl, dragging his broken body through the mud. He looked at his wrist again.

Current Balance: 12 Seconds.

He was going to die here. In the mud. Alone.

"He is done," the Tall Man said. He tapped his earpiece. "Clean up on Aisle 4. We have a default."

The Wide Man grabbed Evan by the collar of his jacket. He lifted Evan up as if he weighed nothing. Evan’s legs dangled uselessly.

"Where do we put it?" the Wide Man asked.

"The transit tunnel," the Tall Man pointed to a rusted grate in the floor. "Nobody goes down there. Let the rats have the rest of his time."

They dragged him to the grate. The Wide Man kicked the metal cover open. Below, there was only blackness and the sound of rushing water.

"Goodbye, Evan," the Tall Man said.

They threw him.

Evan fell. He hit the side of the tunnel, tumbled, and crashed onto a pile of wet trash. The impact knocked the last bit of air from his lungs. He lay there, unable to move.

It was dark. So dark he couldn't see his own hands. The smell was terrible—rot, old oil, and dead things.

He tried to open his eyes, but one was swollen shut. With his good eye, he stared up at the circle of faint light far above. It looked like a distant moon. Then, the strangeness started.

Evan tried to blink. He felt his eyelid move, but the image of the tunnel didn't change for three seconds.

He tried to groan. He opened his mouth, but the sound didn't come out until after he had closed his mouth.

Lag.

His brain was disconnecting from reality. It was a side effect of hitting zero. The universe was deleting him.

He lifted his hand. Or he thought he did. He saw his hand rise in front of his face, leaving a trail of light behind it, like a blurry photograph. The colors were wrong. The grey tunnel walls turned purple, then neon green.

Thump-thump.

His heart beat. But the sound echoed. Thump... thump... thump...

"Is this death?" Evan thought. The words floated in his mind like smoke.

The sensory distortion got worse. The sound of dripping water sounded like screaming. The smell of rot turned into the smell of burning sugar. His body felt heavy, then weightless, then heavy again.

He checked his wrist one last time. The screen was cracked.

0.00.

It was over. The Enforcers had won. The debt was paid. Evan closed his single working eye. He let the darkness take him. He waited for the end.

Bzzt.

A noise. Not from the tunnel. Inside his head.

Bzzt. Click.

Evan opened his eye.

The darkness was not empty anymore. A blue light flickered. It was not coming from a lamp. It was floating in the air, right in front of his face. It was a transparent overlay, like a computer screen, but it was projected directly onto his retina.

The blue light pulsed. It pushed back the dark. It pushed back the pain.

Letters began to type themselves across his vision. They were crisp and sharp.

SYSTEM ERROR.

SUBJECT DISCONNECTED.

Evan tried to focus. Was he hallucinating?

The text scrolled up.

SEARCHING FOR BACKUP...

BACKUP NOT FOUND.

INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL 9.

Evan’s heart hammered against his ribs. The time lag vanished. The colors snapped back to grey. The pain in his arm returned, sharp and real.

The blue text blinked three times, faster and faster.

TEMPORAL ASSET MANAGER — RECOVERY MODE

STATUS: ONLINE.

RELOADING SAVE FILE? [Y/N]

Evan stared at the floating words. He did not know what they meant. But he knew one thing.

He was not dead yet.