The rain on Mars-Colony Vega didn't fall naturally—it was synthesized. Programmed. But even artificial storms couldn't wash away Elias Thorne's gut feeling that something was wrong.
He arrived at exactly 19:00 hours at Bellamy Temporal Mechanics, a forgotten tech shop wedged between cyber-bars and drone repair joints in Sector 9. The door slid open with a hiss—unlocked.
Strange.
The place was dark, save for the cold blue glow of countless timepieces—old analog clocks, digital relics, and experimental chrono-devices ticking and blinking along the walls. All of them kept time. All except one.
The ChronoCore, Bellamy's masterpiece, sat dormant. Silent.
"Bellamy?" Elias called out.
No answer.
The back room was cluttered with schematics, gears, and temporal regulators. And slumped over his anti-grav workbench was the old man himself—Dr. Aldus Bellamy. Eyes wide open. Still.
Dead.
Elias spotted the note resting beside a humming neural chronometer, its words burning into his brain:
"Time didn't kill me. I let it in."
But the oddest part wasn't the note—it was a small cube-shaped device still ticking beside Bellamy's hand. A clock, of sorts… running backward.
Just then, the door whooshed open behind Elias.
"You're not supposed to be here."
He turned.
She stood framed in the doorway—tall, sharp, unmistakably human but enhanced. Her crimson nano-fiber coat shimmered slightly under the storm light. Eyes like obsidian glass. And a voice that didn't ask questions—it issued warnings.
"I'm looking for Bellamy," she said. "Or whatever he left behind."
"And you are?"
"Celeste. Chrono-archivist. And if that device is active…" she stepped inside, her presence magnetic, commanding, "...then time just became your enemy."
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