Kade's POV - Three Years Ago
I'm watching the girl who doesn't know she's my daughter when she activates the Chronos Engine for the first time.
The surveillance feed is grainy but clear enough. Dr. Elara Chen, twenty-three years old, brilliant and naive, standing in her laboratory at two in the morning. She's bouncing on her feet with excitement. The temporal transfer works. Five minutes successfully moved from one test subject to another.
She's just changed the world.
She's just signed her death warrant.
"Sir?" My partner, Agent Hayes, leans over my shoulder. "Should we move in? She's in violation of Protocol 7—unauthorized temporal manipulation."
"Not yet," I say, keeping my voice flat. Professional. "We observe. Report. Wait for orders."
But inside, I'm screaming. Stop, Elara. Don't do this. Walk away from that machine and never look back.
She doesn't. She never does. She's her mother's daughter—brilliant, stubborn, incapable of seeing danger until it's too late.
On screen, her boyfriend Marcus arrives. Then her mentor Victor Kane. Then her friend Sienna. They celebrate. They toast champagne. They congratulate her.
And I watch, knowing exactly what's about to happen. Because I've seen it before. Twenty-six years ago. With her mother.
The Bureau doesn't let geniuses keep their discoveries. They steal them. Destroy the scientists. Use the technology for their own purposes.
I couldn't save her mother.
Maybe I can save her.
PRESENT DAY - After Erasing Director Cross
The motorcycle runs out of gas thirty miles outside the city.
We coast to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Empty highway. Dark fields on both sides. No lights anywhere.
"Everyone off," I say. "We walk from here."
Elara and Mira climb off. Both look exhausted. Terrified. Broken.
Welcome to life as a fugitive.
"Where are we going?" Mira asks. She's shaking. Shock, probably. Finding out your whole life is a lie does that to people.
"Safe house," I tell her. "Twenty miles northeast. Off-grid. Bureau doesn't know about it."
"How can you be sure?" Elara's voice is different now. Harder. Colder. Killing someone—even a monster like Cross—changes you. "They knew everything else about us."
"Because I built it myself. Fifteen years ago. When I started planning how to get you out." I start walking. They follow. "Cross thought I was loyal. Thought I'd given up on finding you after they showed me that body. He was wrong."
"You've been planning this for fifteen years?" Elara sounds incredulous. "Planning what, exactly?"
"Your escape. Your survival. Your freedom." I don't look back at her. Can't. If I see her face—see how much she looks like her mother—I'll break. "I knew eventually you'd activate your powers. Knew the Bureau would come for you. So I prepared. Weapons. Resources. Escape routes. Everything we'd need to run."
"Why?" Mira asks. "Why would you do all that for a stranger?"
Elara answers before I can. "Because he's my father."
Mira stops walking. "What?"
"Kade Ashford. Bureau Agent. Traitor. My biological father." Elara's laugh is bitter. "Surprise. Our family reunions are going to be really awkward."
"I don't understand," Mira says. "If he's your father, why didn't he—"
"Because the Bureau told him I was dead," Elara says. "They showed him my twin sister's body and let him think it was me. Classic manipulation."
We walk in silence. The only sound is our footsteps on asphalt and Mira's occasional sniffles as she processes everything.
After an hour, Elara speaks again. "I can see it, you know. The futures. All of them."
I stop. Turn to face her. "What do you mean?"
"Since I erased Cross, I can see every possible timeline. Every decision. Every outcome." Her eyes glow faintly in the darkness. "I see us dying in seventeen different ways in the next week. I see Bureau agents finding us. I see Mira getting injected with the serum. I see you taking a bullet meant for me."
"Elara—"
"I also see the one future where we win." She meets my eyes. "Want to know what it costs?"
I don't. But I ask anyway. "What?"
"Everything." Her voice breaks. "Absolutely everything we are."
Before I can respond, Mira gasps. "Someone's coming."
I hear it too. Engines. Multiple vehicles. Coming fast from the east.
"Off the road," I snap. "Now!"
We scramble into the field. Tall grass. Good cover. We drop flat just as headlights sweep across the highway.
Five vehicles. Black. Unmarked. Bureau.
They stop exactly where we were standing thirty seconds ago.
Agents pour out. Twenty at least. They spread out in perfect formation. Scanning. Searching.
One of them—a woman with lieutenant bars—speaks into her radio. "Sector Seven clear. No visual on targets. Continuing sweep pattern."
They're tracking us. But how? I disabled all their trackers. Burned every connection to—
Then I see it. On the lead vehicle's hood. A device I recognize. Temporal signature scanner. Third generation. Experimental.
It tracks Chronos powers.
They're not following us. They're following Elara's temporal energy.
I lean close to her ear. Whisper: "Your power. Can you shut it off? Hide it?"
"I don't know how—"
"Try. They're tracking your energy signature."
Elara closes her eyes. Concentrates. The glow fades slightly. But not enough.
The lieutenant suddenly turns. Looks directly at our hiding spot.
"Contact," she says calmly. "Field. Northwest quadrant. Engaging."
Gunfire erupts. Not regular bullets. Temporal disruptors. Each hit ages or de-ages whatever it touches.
The grass around us withers and dies in seconds.
"RUN!" I shout.
We sprint through the field. Bullets chase us. The ground explodes where we were just standing.
Mira trips. Falls.
I grab her, haul her up. "Keep moving!"
"I can't—I can't breathe—"
"Yes you can!" I half-carry, half-drag her. Behind us, the agents are closing in.
Elara stops running. Turns to face them.
"Elara, NO!" I yell.
But she's not listening. Her eyes are blazing now. Pure white light.
"I'm tired of running," she says.
Temporal energy explodes from her body. A shockwave that hits the agents like a wall.
Half of them age into dust instantly. The other half are thrown backward, crashing into their vehicles.
The lieutenant survives. Barely. She raises her weapon.
Elara looks at her. Just looks.
The lieutenant starts aging backward. Teenager. Child. Baby.
"Stop," I tell Elara. "Don't kill her. You're not a murderer."
"I already killed Cross," Elara says. Her voice sounds strange. Distant. "What's one more?"
"It matters. Trust me, it matters."
For a moment, I think she won't listen. Then the lieutenant stops aging. Frozen at about ten years old. Crying. Confused.
"She'll remember this," Elara says. "Every moment. Being turned into a child. That's its own kind of torture."
She's right. But at least the lieutenant's alive.
The remaining agents retreat. Regroup. Call for backup.
"We have maybe five minutes," I say. "Come on."
We run. Cross three fields. Find an old barn. Hide inside.
Mira collapses immediately. "I can't do this. I can't run anymore. I'm not like you two. I'm not special. I'm just—"
"You're alive," I interrupt. "And you're family. That's enough."
"I'm not even real family," Mira sobs. "I'm just some kid Elara's mom adopted. I don't belong here. I don't—"
Elara kneels beside her. "Stop. You're my sister. Blood doesn't matter. You've been with me through everything. You're the only real thing in my life."
"But I'm slowing you down—"
"I don't care." Elara grabs her hands. "We stay together. All three of us. I don't care how many timelines I have to break. We survive this as a family or not at all."
Mira cries harder. But she nods.
I check my watch. Three minutes since the attack. Bureau reinforcements will arrive soon.
"The safe house is still ten miles away," I tell them. "We need to move faster. Elara, can you teleport us?"
"With two people? I've never tried—"
"Try now."
Elara stands. Takes Mira's hand. Takes mine. Closes her eyes.
"Think about the safe house," I tell her. "The location I described earlier. The old farmhouse with the red door."
Elara concentrates. Her power flares. The barn around us starts to ripple.
Then she screams.
Her hand releases ours. She falls to her knees, clutching her head.
"What's wrong?" I crouch beside her.
"Too many," she gasps. "Too many timelines. I can see all of them. Every possible jump. Every destination. I can't focus. There's too much—"
"Elara, breathe. Focus on one timeline. This one. Right here."
"I can't! They're all real! They're all happening! I'm in a thousand places at once and I can't—"
She's having a breakdown. Temporal overload. Seeing too much. Experiencing too many realities simultaneously.
This is what the Bureau wanted. What Cross warned about. Omega-level temporal control isn't a gift. It's a curse. The human mind can't process that much information.
Elara is going insane from her own power.
"Mira," I say quickly. "Talk to her. Ground her. Remind her who she is."
Mira crawls over. Holds Elara's face. "Hey. Look at me. Just me. Focus on my voice."
"I can see you dying," Elara whispers. "In seventeen timelines. I watch you die over and over and I can't stop it—"
"But I'm alive right now," Mira says firmly. "Right here. In this timeline. Feel my hands. Hear my voice. This is real. This moment is real."
Slowly, gradually, Elara's breathing steadies. The glow in her eyes dims.
"That's it," Mira encourages. "Stay here. With me. With us."
Elara blinks. Focuses. "I'm okay. I'm okay."
She's not okay. But we don't have time to deal with it.
Sirens in the distance. Helicopters. They're coming.
"We walk," I decide. "No teleporting. Too risky. We move fast and quiet."
We exit the barn. The night is darker now. Storm clouds rolling in.
We make it maybe half a mile before I hear it.
A single set of footsteps. Behind us. Matching our pace exactly.
I signal the girls to stop. Turn slowly.
A figure stands on the road. Tall. Silhouetted against distant lightning.
"Agent Ashford," the figure says. Male voice. Young. Familiar somehow. "I've been looking for you."
He steps into moonlight.
My blood freezes.
It's me. Twenty years younger. Wearing the same Bureau uniform I wore when I first met Elara's mother.
"Hello, old man," Young-Me says, smiling. "The Bureau sent me to kill you. Well, technically, they sent me to replace you. But first, I have to make sure you never existed in the first place."
Elara stares. "What—"
"Temporal duplicate," I say, keeping my voice steady. "The Bureau cloned me from my past. Sent my younger self to hunt my current self."
"Not just hunt," Young-Me corrects. "Erase. See, if I kill you now, then you never protect Elara for fifteen years. Never build the safe house. Never betray the Bureau. The timeline corrects itself and she's been in custody since birth. Easy."
"That's not how temporal mechanics work—"
"It is with the new technology. Cross's final project before your daughter killed him." Young-Me pulls out a weapon I don't recognize. "Causality Eraser. I shoot you, you get deleted backward through time. Everything you did—undone. Everyone you saved—unsaved."
He aims at my chest.
"No!" Elara steps between us. "I won't let you—"
"Move, Chen-04-B," Young-Me orders. "This doesn't concern you. Not yet, anyway. Once he's gone, I'll be bringing you in personally."
"You're me," I tell him. "You know this is wrong."
"I'm you before you went soft. Before you fell in love with a Chronos and betrayed everything we stand for." Young-Me's finger moves to the trigger. "I'm you when you still believed the mission mattered more than feelings."
"Then you'll fail exactly like I failed," I say quietly. "Because I've seen what the Bureau does. I've watched them torture children. Murder innocents. Collapse timelines. And you will too, eventually. Then you'll stand exactly where I'm standing, protecting a daughter you love more than your own life."
"I don't have a daughter."
"Not yet," I say. "But you will. In three years. And when they tell you she's dead, when they show you a tiny body and watch you break—you'll spend the next twenty-three years living in hell. Until you find out she's alive. That's when you'll understand why I'm doing this."
Young-Me hesitates. "You're lying."
"I'm you. I can't lie to myself." I step forward. "Her name is Elara. She's brilliant. Stubborn. Brave. She has her mother's eyes and your terrible sense of humor. And she's standing right behind me, wondering if her father is about to die protecting her."
Young-Me looks at Elara. Really looks at her.
She stares back. "He's telling the truth. I can see it. In the timelines. You become him. You make every choice he made. You end up exactly here. No matter what."
"That's impossible—"
"No," Elara says softly. "It's inevitable. You're not here to kill him. You're here to become him."
Young-Me lowers his weapon slightly. "If I let you live—if I let you all escape—the Bureau will kill me. Or worse."
"Then come with us," I say. "You're me. You know where the safe house is. You know all the same secrets. Come with us and we'll figure this out together."
"I can't—"
"You can," Elara says. "I've seen that timeline. The one where we all survive. It requires two Kade Ashfords working together. Past and present. Father and... himself." She smiles slightly. "I know it's weird. But it works."
Young-Me looks at his weapon. At us. At the approaching helicopters.
Then he makes his choice.
"The safe house is eight miles northeast," he says. "And it's about to be compromised. The Bureau knows about it. They're waiting there."
My stomach drops. "How—"
"Because I told them. Three hours ago. Before I knew—" He stops. "Before I understood."
"So we can't go there," Mira says. "Where do we go?"
Young-Me and I answer simultaneously: "Plan B. The lighthouse."
We look at each other. Young-Me almost smiles. "You really are me."
"Unfortunately," I mutter.
"The lighthouse is fifteen miles south," Young-Me continues. "Harder to reach. But safer. No one knows about it except—"
"—except us," I finish. "Because we built it after we stopped trusting the Bureau completely."
Elara looks between us. "This is the weirdest family reunion ever."
"Just wait until you meet yourself from an alternate timeline," Young-Me says. "That's when things get really confusing."
Before anyone can respond, the helicopters arrive. Spotlights sweep across the fields.
"Run," both Kades say together.
We run.
Two versions of the same man, leading his daughter and adopted daughter toward a lighthouse that might be their only hope.
Behind us, the Bureau closes in.
Above us, Elara sees every possible future collapsing into fewer and fewer options.
And somewhere ahead, at the lighthouse, something is waiting.
Something neither version of Kade remembers putting there.
Something that shouldn't exist.
But does.