As the hour hand first pierced Luna's cervix, the vault of the Time Bank was melting. The minute hand was a cold probe, the second hand a barbed nerve extractor—they churned within her quantum womb, converting contractions into time currency.
"Debtor No. 48 is 71 hours overdue! The Bank President wove Luna's fallopian tubes into an abacus, "Immediately collect 4.8 liters of patricide memory fluid or equivalent pain interest!"
New Divine Code, Article 42: All existence must be mortgaged to the Time Bank. Its walls are frozen moments of death, each expression of agony crystallized in temporal amber. VIP clients chewed time bonds with infant gums, their retinas displaying Luna's life countdown—71:00:00, the remaining duration before her womb was forged into a time crucible.
"I redeem the dusk of September 18, 2003." She ripped open her abdomen, exposing a pulsing time core. "Pledged against all future dawns and dusks."
The bank president's mechanical fingers suddenly pierced the time core, shattering the holographic projection: fourteen-year-old Luna bound to a convenience store clock tower, the CEO injecting her first menstrual blood into the gears of the World Clock. At the edge of the frame, her mother held a metronome, her badge engraved with "Chief Time Tamer." Data watermarks revealed this moment had been pawned 48,000 times.
"Article 43 of the Code applies!" The Governor's skull snapped open, revealing the President's cryogenically preserved pineal gland. "Primordial time shall incur a 900% existence tax."
A riot erupted within the temporal paradox.
When the first client severed their own timeline, spewing temporal particles coalesced in midair into a Declaration of Freedom. Other pawnbrokers began synchronously aging and then reversing their growth, their chaotic temporal waves causing the banking system to overflow with memory debris. Luna's quantum womb suddenly became transparent, revealing the struggling time fetus within—an embryo of Chronos (God of Time) bearing the CEO's face, etching civilization's countdown onto the amniotic sac with its umbilical cord.
"Article 44!" She fashioned the bank manager's spine into a time spear. "When existence becomes debt, turn the bank into a graveyard!"
An EMP storm swept through the bank, all time vaults erupting in blue flames. Clients' timelines flowed backward like rivers, etching god-slaying code into the marble floor. Luna charged toward the vault over the carcasses of time streams, discovering the bank was supported by a frozen infant heart—her own excised time pump, engraved with "Civilization Metronome 1.0."
"Dear time debtor..." Jax's holographic projection rose from a pool of blood, "...with every heartbeat..." his genitals ejected miniature bank models, "...you pay headquarters 0.48 seconds of existence rent."
Luna sliced open the infant heart's cryogenic chamber, tearing out the umbilical cord coiled with time worms. As the swarm burrowed into her womb, she tasted ultimate truth—all resistance was pre-scripted in time's cycle, even free will a loophole in the lease agreement.
When the bank collapsed, she seized the drifting time contract. Ultraviolet light revealed her father's handwritten annotation: "When time yield reaches 48%, initiate Civilization Existence Reset Protocol."
Amidst the ruins, a new holographic bank was reassembling. Clones in time-fiber uniforms chanted as neon slogans flickered through the radiation cloud:
"Time Bank 2.0 is open for business! Pledge your matricide moment for a 30% discount, plus a free cosmic heat death mortgage package!"