The first thing Elias did was throw up.
It wasn't fear or panic. It was sensory whiplash. His body was twenty-four, soft from cheap food and no real exercise. His mind held the muscle memory of a fifty-year-old war veteran who had survived on nutrient paste and adrenaline. The disconnect between the two was a physical sickness.
He knelt on the clean beige carpet of his pre-war apartment, emptying his stomach of the energy drink and instant noodles that were his last meal in a dead world. The acid burn in his throat was real. The trembling in his limbs was real.
This is real.
He washed his face in the bathroom sink, the water shockingly cold. He stared at the face in the mirror. No scar bisecting his left eyebrow from a Phalanx shard. No network of fine lines around his eyes from squinting into toxic sunsets. Just a young man with tired eyes and three days of stubble. A stranger wearing his skin.
Seventy-one hours and fifty-three minutes.
The clock was a drumbeat in his skull. He moved back to the laptop, his movements deliberate, forcing the old commander's discipline onto his new, untrained body.
The loan applications were submitted. He'd requested the maximum from every predatory online lender he could remember surviving the Integration. He'd used his future knowledge to bypass security, his mother's maiden name (which the System's global data-scoop would later reveal was wrong on all his records), the model of his first car (a beat-up Ford he'd never own in this timeline). It was fraud. He didn't care. Currency would be worthless in seventy-two hours. Morality was a luxury for people with a future.
While he waited for the approval emails, he started The List.
He opened a blank document. The title was simple: FOUNDATION.
Phase 1: Capital & Logistics (Hours 0-24)
1. Secure Funds. Loans -> Liquidation. (Target: $75,000+)
2. Liquidate Assets. Sell everything non-essential. Laptop, TV, gaming console. The geology textbooks he'd never open again. Do it fast, for cash, no haggling.
3. Vehicle. His rusting hatchback wouldn't survive the first week. He needed a heavy-duty diesel van. Four-wheel drive. Anonymous. Pay in cash from a private seller. No paperwork trail.
Phase 2: Acquisition (Hours 24-48)
This was the shopping list from a nightmare.
He began typing, his fingers flying. He didn't think about why he needed these things. He just remembered needing them, and not having them.
· Water Purification: Portable UV sterilizers (x4). Ceramic filter units (x10). Iodine tablets (1000 count).
· Medical: Not just bandages. Surgical kits. Staplers. IV bags and lines. Broad-spectrum antibiotics (he listed the specific, powerful ones that would become impossible to find). Ketamine. Sutures. Industrial superglue.
· Food: Calorie-dense, long-shelf-life. MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat). Giant bags of rice and beans. Multivitamins by the bucket.
· Tools: Not just a hammer. A full hydraulic jack. Bolt cutters. Angle grinder with diamond blades. Welding torch and tanks. Shovels, pickaxes.
· Weapons: This was harder. He couldn't walk into a store and buy a rifle. Not yet. But he could get tools. Machetes (x5). Estwing camping axes (x3). Heavy-duty spearheads for hafting. Rolls of barbed wire. Sheets of hardened steel—not for armor yet, but for barricades.
· The Weird Stuff: This was the core. The things only he knew would matter.
· Meteorite Fragment: He knew a niche rock shop in Boulder that had a fist-sized nickel-iron meteorite. In three days, it would resonate with ambient mana and become a powerful foci for earth-magic. He'd trade it later for the loyalty of an early Awakened [Geomancer].
· Specific Model of HAM Radio: A vintage, solid-state unit he knew could be modified to pick up early System emergency broadcasts.
· Topographic Maps of the Colorado Front Range, laminated.
· Seeds. Not for beauty. Kale. Potatoes. Beans. Fast-growing, hardy calories.
· The Genesis Seed Location: He needed to secure the site, not just know where it was. That meant paying off a foreman, or bribing a security guard at the Colfax construction site. That required cash and a story.
Phase 3: Recruitment (Hours 48-72)
He wrote three names.
1. Leo. Approach: Direct. Use knowledge of his daughter Mia's future illness as proof. Offer the solution before the problem. Require: absolute loyalty.
2. Aris. Approach: Intellectual. Show her data—her own future research—that "hypothetically" predicts the Integration's biological effects. Appeal to her curiosity and her conscience.
3. Sam. Approach: Protect. Find him, shield him from the bullies who would kill him in the first chaos. Give the isolated kid a purpose, a family.
He stared at the list. It was insane. It was a grocery list for the apocalypse, written by a madman.
A ping from his laptop. The first loan was approved. $15,000. High-interest, payable in 6 months.
A bitter laugh escaped him. In six months, the concept of 'interest' will be what you pay in blood to a monster for safe passage.
He accepted it. The money hit his account. The clock read 70 hours remaining.
Action.
He grabbed his keys and his old backpack. He didn't change his clothes, worn jeans and a faded band t-shirt were fine. He looked like any other broke graduate. That was his camouflage.
His first stop wasn't for supplies. It was for proof.
He drove his rattling hatchback across town to the Colfax Avenue construction site. The "Future Site of Avalon Heights Condos." In his past life, this had been a pit of mud and death, fought over by three gangs of early Awakened. Now, it was just a hole in the ground surrounded by a chain-link fence.
He parked a block away and walked. His heart hammered, but not from exertion. From memory. He could see the battle here. The flash of early fire-magic. The guttural roar of a [Brute] class.
He pushed the memories down. He was a ghost here. A tourist.
He followed the fence line to the northwest corner. There, half-buried in the piled dirt from the excavation, was a chunk of concrete foundation from an older, demolished building. Unremarkable.
But six feet below that concrete, in a pocket of clay untouched since the last ice age, was the Genesis Seed. A smooth, ovoid stone that would, on Integration, unlock the [Unique Item: Founding Citadel Core].
Satisfied, he turned away. He had the location. Now he needed the means to claim it the second the System went live.
His phone buzzed. Another loan. $10,000.
He got back in his car. The next stop was "Manny's Auto & Truck." The bay doors were open, the sound of air tools and classic rock spilling into the afternoon heat.
And there he was.
Leo. Not the Iron-Saint. Not the man who could punch through a Phalanx carapace. Just a big man in oil-stained coveralls, his head under the hood of a pickup truck, humming along to the radio. He had a kind face, already lined from smiling. He had no idea what was coming for his little girl.
Elias's breath caught. This was the first ghost he had to resurrect. The first thread of his new army.
He walked into the bay. The smell of oil and gasoline was familiar, comforting in a way nothing else in this peaceful world was.
"Help you?" Leo asked, pulling his head out and wiping his hands on a rag. He had a strong, open face.
"I need a vehicle," Elias said, forcing his voice to stay calm. "Something heavy. Diesel. Four-wheel drive. Cash purchase. Today."
Leo raised an eyebrow. "That's specific. And fast. You in some kind of trouble, kid?"
You have no idea. "Let's call it… a long camping trip. With a lot of gear."
Leo studied him for a moment, then shrugged. "Cash talks. I've got an old FedEx-style van in the back. Ex-fleet. Diesel's noisy but it'll run forever. Needs some TLC. Seven grand."
"I'll give you eight if you can have it fully serviced, fluids changed, tires checked, and a full tank of diesel by 5 PM." Elias met his gaze, letting a sliver of the Commander's intensity show. "And I need discretion."
The easygoing humor faded from Leo's eyes. He saw something in Elias's face that didn't match the kid's clothes. A hardness. An urgency.
"Eight grand is a lot for discretion," Leo said slowly. "What are you really hauling?"
Elias stepped closer, his voice dropping. "I'm not hauling anything yet, Leo. I'm preparing. And in three days, everyone who isn't prepared is going to be in a world of hurt." He paused, then went for the heart. "How's Mia?"
Leo's face went still. "My daughter? She's fine. Why?"
"She's going to get sick," Elias said, the words blunt and cruel in their necessity. "Fatigue first. Bruises. Nosebleeds. The doctors will call it a rare, aggressive leukemia. The treatments available now won't work."
The color drained from Leo's face. Fear, then anger flashed in his eyes. He grabbed the front of Elias's t-shirt, his mechanic's grip like iron. "Who the hell are you? You threatening my family?"
"I'm the only one who can save her," Elias said, not struggling. He kept his voice level, a rock in the storm of Leo's panic. "The medicine she needs doesn't exist yet. But it will. In three days, the world changes. New rules. New… possibilities. I know how to get the thing that will cure her. But I need help. I need a man I can trust at my side when everything goes to hell."
Leo searched his face, looking for the lie, the scam. He found only a terrifying, absolute certainty.
"You're crazy," Leo whispered, but his grip loosened.
"Maybe," Elias conceded. "But I'm also right. Service the van. Keep the change. Be here, with it, at 5 PM. When you see the news start to break about… strange things happening… you'll know. And you'll have a choice. Stay here and watch Mia get sick with no cure, or come with me and get the one thing that can save her."
He pried Leo's hand from his shirt. He took out a wad of cash from the first loan—two thousand dollars—and placed it on the workbench. "Down payment. For the van. And for your trust."
He turned and walked out, leaving the big man standing in his garage, surrounded by the mundane sounds of a dying world, holding a brick of cash and a prophecy of horror.
Elias didn't look back. His chest was tight. It was a brutal play. Manipulative. He'd used a man's love for his child as a lever.
It's for the greater good, the ghost of the Commander whispered.
The 24-year-old kid he was now felt sick again.
He got in his car. The clock on the dashboard read 68 hours remaining.
Two down. One recruit, one vehicle in motion.
His phone buzzed. A third loan. $12,000.
He scrolled to his contacts. Found the number for the CU Denver Biochemistry Department. He needed to speak to a graduate researcher named Aris Thorne. He needed to sound like a legitimate, if eccentric, potential donor for her research.
He took a deep breath, smoothing the roughness from his voice. The Commander could manipulate councils and armies. He could manipulate one idealistic scientist.
He pressed call.
As it rang, he watched a school bus drive by, full of laughing children. Their world had seventy hours left.
He closed his eyes, just for a second, and saw the Null-Chronicler' gaze, un-writing existence.
He opened them.
The phone was answered. "CU Denver Biochemistry, Aris Thorne speaking."
Her voice. Young. Clear. Unbroken by loss. A fresh, sharp pain lanced through him.
"Hello, Dr. Thorne," Elias said, his voice perfectly calm, a lie wrapped in professionalism. "My name is Elias Vane. I've read your paper on anomalous protein folding. I think your work is about to become very, very important. I'd like to fund it. And I need to speak with you. Today."