Dawn did not come gently. It seeped into the storage unit as a dull, gray light through the small, dirty windows near the ceiling. The sirens had not stopped. They were the new background noise of the world.
Elias's eyes felt like they were full of sand. He hadn't slept. The pressure in his head was a constant companion, a dull toothache behind his eyes. The blue box still glowed in his vision.
[System Synchronization: 99.99%]
[Integration Imminent: 8 Hrs, 02 Min, 33 Sec]
[Anomalous Temporal Signature: 500 Meters and Closing.]
Five hundred meters. Something was out there, and it was getting closer. It wasn't human panic. The System was tracking it.
"Wake up," he said, his voice raspy. "We move. Now."
Lena jerked awake, disoriented. Sam was already up, folding his map with precise movements. He'd slept maybe two hours, but he looked more alert than Elias felt.
"What's the plan?" Lena asked, her voice thick with sleep and fear. The crying was gone, burned away by exhaustion. A numb acceptance had taken its place.
"We load the van with the priority supplies," Elias said, sliding off the crates. His body screamed in protest. "Water, medical, tools, weapons, the radio. We leave the bulk food and construction materials. We can come back for them if the area is secure. If not, we lose them."
He went to the door, listening. The lot outside was quiet. Too quiet. He slowly rolled the door up just enough to peer out.
The morning was hazy with smoke from the distant fires. The storage lot was empty, but there were signs of the night's chaos, a shattered bottle, a discarded shoe, a dark stain on the asphalt that could have been oil or something else.
"Clear. For now." He rolled the door all the way up. "Sam, you and Lena start loading. I'll pull the van around."
He jogged to where the van was parked in the trees. As he approached, he saw the driver's side window was smashed. Glass glittered on the seat.
His heart hammered. He drew his pistol and approached slowly, scanning the area. No one was inside. The ignition was ripped apart, wires hanging out. Someone had tried to hotwire it and failed.
"Idiots," he muttered. They'd ruined the ignition but probably didn't know about the kill-switch he'd installed, a hidden toggle under the dash. A trick from the old timeline.
He checked the cargo area. Unopened. His supplies were safe. He brushed the glass off the seat, reached under the dash, and flipped the switch. He touched the exposed wires together. The diesel engine roared to life, a loud, beautiful sound.
He backed it up to the open storage unit. Lena and Sam were already forming a line, passing boxes. They worked in silence for twenty minutes, a desperate, efficient machine. The van's rear was three-quarters full.
As Sam handed Elias a crate of medical kits, the boy's eyes went wide. He pointed past Elias's shoulder, into the misty lot.
Elias turned.
A figure stood at the edge of the lot, maybe fifty yards away. It wasn't moving. It was a man, or had been. He wore the tattered remains of a business suit. His posture was wrong, slumped, head tilted at an unnatural angle. One arm hung limp. The other held something long and metallic, glinting dully.
But it was the face that was wrong. It was blurred, like a smudged photograph. No clear eyes, no mouth. Just a swirl of muted color.
[ALERT: Anomalous Temporal Signature at 50 Meters.]
[Designation: Memory Echo – Type: Degraded.]
A Memory Echo. Not a full paradox entity like the Null-Chronicler. This was a fragment. A piece of a person or event from the lost timeline, made flesh by the unstable energies converging on him. It was weak, confused. But it was still a piece of a dead world, and it was here.
"Get in the van. Now," Elias said, his voice low and hard.
Lena hadn't seen it yet. "What? We're not finished—"
"NOW!"
His tone brooked no argument. Sam grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the van's passenger side. They scrambled in.
The Echo began to walk toward them. It didn't hurry. Its steps were shuffling, uneven. The metal thing in its hand resolved into a broken piece of rebar, rusted and sharp.
Elias didn't shoot. Gunfire would attract more attention than he wanted. And bullets might not work on something that wasn't fully real.
He climbed into the driver's seat, slammed the door. The Echo was thirty yards away, closing.
"What is that?" Lena whispered, staring through the windshield. "His face… what's wrong with his face?"
"It's a ghost," Elias said, throwing the van into reverse. "A ghost of a tomorrow that isn't going to happen."
He sped backward, then whipped the wheel around, pointing them toward the exit. The Echo changed direction, cutting to intercept them. It moved faster now, its blurry face seeming to fix on the van.
"It's following us!" Lena cried.
"I know." Elias stomped on the gas. The van surged forward, tires squealing. He aimed right for the Echo.
At the last second, it didn't dodge. It raised the rebar like a spear.
THUD-CRUNCH.
The van hit it. There was no sound of breaking bones. It was like hitting a sack of wet sand. The blurry figure crumpled under the front bumper, then was gone. No body. No blood on the grill. Just gone.
Elias didn't stop. He sped out of the lot and onto the empty service road.
"Did you… kill it?" Lena asked, her voice trembling.
"You can't kill an echo," Elias said, his knuckles white on the wheel. "You just scatter it for a while. It'll reform somewhere else. Probably closer."
"What does it want?"
"Me," he said simply. "It's drawn to the paradox. To the memories I carry. It's a piece of the old world, and it wants to go home. The only home it knows is… me."
Sam was watching him from the back, his expression unreadable. You bring the ghosts with you, he signed.
Elias saw the signs in the rearview. "Yeah," he said aloud for Lena's benefit. "I do. And there will be more."
They drove in silence after that, navigating toward the foothills. The roads were not empty now. They saw abandoned cars. A few people wandering, looking lost or terrified. Once, they saw a group of men with baseball bats standing around a smashed storefront. They eyed the van hungrily, but Elias didn't slow down.
His phone buzzed. Leo.
"Elias. We're at the garage. Where are you?"
"On our way. Thirty minutes. Status?"
"City's falling apart. News says the National Guard is being mobilized. Power's flickering. My sister called… she's begging for help now. Says her husband saw a… a giant lizard in their backyard. She thinks she's going crazy."
Elias closed his eyes for a second. A Gate had opened near them. It was starting.
"Tell her to get in her car, drive north, and hide. It's all you can do. We stick to the plan, Leo. We can't save everyone today."
A long, pained sigh. "Yeah. I know. See you soon."
Next, he called Aris. It rang five times before she answered. Her voice was breathless, scared, but buzzing with a strange energy.
"Elias? The samples… they're alive. The proteins are restructuring on their own, drawing energy from the air! It's impossible! The equipment is glitching, but the data…"
"Aris," he cut in. "Is your mobile lab packed? Can you move?"
"Yes, but the campus is… there were soldiers. They told everyone to shelter in place. I think they've sealed the gates."
"Get to the west gate. The service entrance near the power plant. I'll be there in forty-five minutes. Be ready to run. Leave everything else."
"I have all the data on a hard drive. I'll be there."
He hung up. The clock was ticking. The van was a slow, heavy beast. He needed to be in three places at once: get Leo, get Aris, get to Site Bravo before 3:07 PM. And now he had ghosts hunting him.
He looked at Lena. "When we get to the garage, you stay in the van with Sam. No matter what you see or hear. Understand?"
She nodded, her face pale but set. The shock was wearing off, replaced by a grim survival instinct. Good.
They reached Manny's Auto. The bay doors were closed. Leo's personal truck and the family sedan were parked out front, packed to the roof.
As they pulled up, the side door burst open. Leo stepped out, a huge figure holding a hunting rifle. His wife, Sarah, hovered behind him, her arm around a young girl—Mia. They all looked terrified.
Elias rolled down his window. "Leo. Load your gear into the van. We're a convoy now. You lead in your truck. Follow me."
Leo didn't waste time with questions. He and Sarah started transferring duffel bags and crates from their cars to the already-crowded van. Mia, a small girl of about eight with big eyes, stared at Elias through the windshield.
"Who's in the van?" Leo asked, as he shoved a case of canned food inside.
"My sister, Lena. And Sam, a recruit. They stay in there."
Leo nodded, his eyes taking in the smashed window, the determined look on Elias's face. "Rough night?"
"You have no idea," Elias said. "Is the garage secure? Anything you need from inside?"
"Just one thing." Leo ducked back inside and emerged a moment later carrying a heavy, long object wrapped in an old blanket. He placed it carefully in the van. Elias knew what it was without asking.
Leo's pride and joy, the thing he'd worked on for years in the old timeline: a custom-forged, System-reactive breaching hammer. The weapon that would make him the Iron-Saint.
"Alright," Leo said, slamming the van doors. "We're set. Where to?"
"CU Denver campus. We're picking up our doctor."
They formed up, Leo's truck in front, Elias's van behind. As they pulled onto the main road, Elias saw the first undeniable proof of the new world.
On the roof of a low apartment building, a swirling, shimmering tear hung in the air. It was about the size of a car door. The air around it wavered like a heat haze. It was silent. Beautiful. Deadly.
A Gate.
And crawling out of it, onto the roof, were three small, hunched creatures with glittering black carapaces and too many legs. Ash Rats.
Leo saw it too. He slowed down. "Elias… what in God's name is that?"
"That's the future," Elias said into his phone, which was on speaker for Leo. "Don't stop. Don't stare. Just drive."
They drove past. In the rearview mirror, Elias saw one of the rats look down at the street, its eyes glowing like embers. It shrieked, a sound like grinding glass.
The race was on. The ghosts were behind them. The monsters were above them. And the clock in his vision counted down with a steady, terrible beat.
[Integration Imminent: 6 Hrs, 18 Min, 11 Sec]