Chapter 2 - CH 5 — Luck Versus Skill

CH 5 — Luck Versus Skill

Lucas watched Serena pinch the stem of her mocktail as if it were a pressure gauge. The Lotus Lounge's jazz trio vamped something smoky, but the real rhythm lived in the quick tick-tick of the security guards' shoes against teak. He caught their reflections—two uniforms, scanning. Not sure yet. Buying time.

Serena noticed too. She leaned conspiratorially close, her perfume a quiet sandalwood. "You've got admirers."

"A man's fortune draws a crowd." Lucas flicked his Zippo once, a nervous strobe of flame.

"Fortune?" She swirled ice. "Or physics-defying sleight of hand? Table cameras dropped half a second. Your chips teleported. I checked the feed while you cashed out."

Lucas felt the words slide under his ribs. She was fast. He deflected with a half-smile. "Maybe Lady Luck tripped over her dress."

"Luck doesn't explain disappearing frames." She tapped her nails—three deliberate clicks. "You exploit a system I write about for a living. That makes you either my headline or my source."

He tilted his head, skimming her surface thoughts. A swirl of professional thrill, a drizzle of doubt, a spike of something warmer—curiosity mixed with chemical spark. Looks younger than press badge says. No fear. Interesting. He liked the cadence of her mind; bright, agile, unsugared.

Behind them, the guards paused at the bar's threshold again, radios crackling. Lucas sensed their indecision: the lounge hosted high-value whales who screamed to management if hassled. Even a hoodie could be VIP camouflage.

Serena lifted her glass to her lips without drinking. "If I cause a distraction, do you owe me an interview?"

"Depends on scale."

She set the glass down, pivoted off the stool, and—without warning—stumbled into a passing cocktail server, sending a full tray of neon drinks skyward. A collective gasp, a liquid firework. Moraine-blue margaritas rained across marble. The server shrieked; glasses crackled underfoot; patrons swore about dry-cleaning.

The guards pivoted, instincts hijacked by spill-kit urgency. Lucas slipped from his stool before anyone saw him move. He brushed Serena's wrist as he passed—thank-you current.

"Service corridor, left of the piano," she whispered. He melted into the crowd.

A stainless-steel door swallowed him into hush. The service hall smelled of citrus cleaner and staff gossip. Lucas paced quickly, telepathy pinging for unoccupied pockets. To his right he found a linen storeroom, popped inside, and eased the latch.

Footsteps echoed past—guards checking every nook. He slowed his breathing, counted heartbeats. After a tense minute the patrol receded.

He pulled out his phone. One bar of service. Enough. He typed a quick line to an anonymous bulletin board favored by advantage players: Golden Lotus roulette wheel 3 glitch tonight, check logs—Frame-Skip returns. The post would scatter red herrings across forums and buy him narrative camouflage.

The fatigue from the earlier freeze pulsed again. He needed aspirin, sleep, and water in that order. But first—what to do about the woman who'd just saved him?

He slipped back into the hall, wove through staff elevators, and emerged in a quieter wing of the lobby. Serena was already there, fixing her coral dress with the dignity of someone who never spills but sometimes orchestrates messes. She handed the soaked server a generous note, then spotted Lucas.

"Changed your mind about that interview?"

Lucas kept his voice low. "Somewhere without cameras."

"There's a mezzanine tearoom that closes at midnight. Ghost town after. But you'll owe me the exclusive."

"You negotiate fast."

"I'm on freelance rates. Fast keeps lights on."

They rode a gilt elevator up one floor, emerging into a dim corridor perfumed by jasmine diffusers. The tearoom sat dark beyond a velvet rope. Serena stepped over, flicked a wall sconce, and revealed lacquered low tables, moon-pattern carpets, and a floor-to-ceiling window framing Macau's neon lattice.

Lucas checked overhead—no visible domes. He opened his senses: staff thoughts distant, minimal. Safe.

Serena claimed a corner table. "Start with your name. Real one."

"Lucas Vale," he said. "Australian, as the twang advertises."

"Vale." She tasted it. "And how long have you been bending probability?"

"Since uni quizzes paid for ramen."

She arched an eyebrow. "Modest origin story. But the frame skip—is that yours?"

Lucas toyed with the Zippo. Honesty tempted him, if only because lying to a brain this sharp felt temporary. "I…adjust timing. Think of it like sensing when the house blinks."

"You don't sense it," she countered. "You cause it. Cameras freeze. People freeze. The wheel doesn't."

He considered. If he fed her partial truth, it might anchor her theories away from the supernatural. "Fine. Trade secret: micro-EMP bursts. Scrambles CCD sensors, buys me half a second to move chips."

Her eyes narrowed, amused. "And how do you stop the ball mid-air? EMPs don't neutralise momentum."

She had him there. Lucas reframed. "Maybe I'm very quick."

She leaned forward. "You're impossibly quick. Which means either cutting-edge tech or something stranger." She studied his face. "And you're too relaxed for prototype hardware glitches."

Through surface thoughts Lucas tasted her deduction chain: no devices visible, no jitter from gear, hands empty, followed by an unspoken thrill—could be a story bigger than gaming.

He shifted tactics. "Why chase one gambler when your magazine covers multi-billion heists?"

"Because anomalies escalate. First a half-second skip, next a market collapse when someone wiggles the stock exchange feed." She tapped her notebook. "If you can freeze electronics, regulators will chase you harder than any casino."

Freeze electronics. She still danced near truth without touching it. He inhaled. "What if I promised no market meddling? Small-scale only, victimless fun."

"Casinos aren't victims?"

"They set unfair odds; I rebalance." It sounded noble when phrased. He almost believed himself.

She opened the notebook, revealing a dossier: grainy photos from Perth's Crown, Atlantic City, even Monte Carlo—all same hoodie silhouette. "Pattern. You hop continents after each anomaly. Until tonight."

Lucas whistled. "I photograph well."

"Security AI returned a ninety-one-percent match. People will escalate." She tapped the window glass, where beyond, Cotai's skyline burned cobalt. "You can't outrun every camera forever."

Lucas's chest tightened. He felt the truth of it. Mason Graves would land soon, armed with grainier photos and fresh jurisdiction. "Then what do you propose?"

"Tell me how you do it. I craft the narrative before someone invents their own. Give the public a Robin Hood, not a cyber-terrorist. Spin buys you sympathy. We both win."

He regarded her. Journalistic ideals glimmered in her mind—justice overlaying ambition. She wasn't after blood; she wanted facts, maybe redemption from exposing broken systems. He found himself liking her—a dangerous luxury.

"I can't explain in a way you'd print," he said, choosing each syllable. "But I can demonstrate. Tomorrow night, private table. You observe. We split the pot: forty-sixty." He grinned. "I take the sixty, effort fee."

She laughed softly. "Bold. And after I witness this 'demonstration,' what's to stop me forwarding footage to Interpol?"

"You'll see why footage won't help." He flipped the Zippo but didn't spark it. A flicker of control.

She weighed the offer, mind flashing risk matrices. Finally: "Fine. Tomorrow. But tonight you ought to vanish before security rewinds again." She uncapped a pen, scribbled a hotel-phone extension on a business card, slid it over. "Ping me at noon. Sleep is sacred; even rule-breakers need REM."

Lucas pocketed the card. He liked that she assumed he'd still be in town. Boredom didn't—yet—urge him onward; curiosity anchored him here, into this negotiation.

Outside, thunder rumbled. Macau's late-monsoon squalls stalking the coastline.

Serena stood. "I'll exit first. Two minutes, then you." She paused at the rope. "Lucas, I'm trusting you not to make me look foolish."

"You're doing the same for me." He offered a half-bow. "Consider our gamble underway."

She left, heels silent on the carpet. Lucas waited, using the calm to scan for lurking thoughts. Nothing but distant slot-machine fatigue. He exhaled.

Fatigue tugged heavier. He downed the last of Serena's abandoned water glass, then slipped out, down emergency stairs, emerging at the guest-only lift bank. No guards. Good.

Back in Room 1911, he locked the latch, tossed the envelope of patacas onto the desk, and collapsed on the bed. Neon from the skyline etched shifting koi patterns on the ceiling. He retrieved Mum's last voicemail—a simple "Hope you landed safe, love"—and let it play once, grounding him.

Jet-lag and chrono strain swirled; he swallowed aspirin, chugged bottled water, and opened the laptop. A quick check of gambling forums already showed buzzing threads: Golden Lotus freeze glitch again—new Phantom? He smiled. Let rumor distort truth a little; smoke screens were easier than invisibility.

An encrypted email pinged from an alias he hadn't used since Brazil: a darknet broker offering to buy casino footage. He ignored it. Tonight's data belonged only to him—and maybe Serena.

The thought of her sharpened. How much could he reveal without scaring her—or worse, turning her into a liability? Showing the pause would shift her entire reality. He remembered the scaffolding tradie in Perth suspended mid-fall, the hush thick enough to taste. Could Serena handle that?

He drifted into half-sleep where memories blurred with possibilities: Serena's gasp as the world froze, Graves' grin when cuffs clicked, Mum's face if headlines screamed AUSTRALIAN TIME THIEF ARRESTED.

Lightning cracked. Lucas jolted awake. Something was wrong—an intuition deeper than sixth sense. He slid from bed, padded to the peephole.

Empty hall.

Telepathy reached, sweeping. One mind nearby—calm, methodical, counting steps. Not a guest. Security.

Someone swiped a master card; the lock's LED blinked.

Lucas's heart thudded. He could time-freeze, but strain plus aspirin buzz might dull his precision. If he mis-counted and resumed too early, he'd be mid-room when agents stormed in. Alternative: distraction.

He darted to the bathroom, flipped the extractor fan switch repeatedly until wiring sparked—tripping the room's circuit breaker. Darkness cloaked everything an instant before the door opened.

He heard slow footsteps, the hiss of a radio: "Room dark, suspect may have left."

In blackness, Lucas flattened against the shower wall, breath shallow. He pushed a quiet micro-influence—room empty, search pointless. The guard's thought pattern wavered.

A second voice crackled in Portuguese: "Return to surveillance, target eyeballed in lounge earlier, female contact."

Feet retreated. Door shut. Lock clicked.

Lucas waited, counting thirty, before exhaling tremor-laced relief. He reset the breaker; lights snapped white again.

Enough. Sleep became strategic necessity. Tomorrow he'd need fresh reflexes to impress Serena—and dodge Graves.

He jammed the chair under the doorknob for good measure, then lay down fully clothed, Zippo clutched like a talisman. Dreams arrived fast, kaleidoscopes of red-black roulette pockets, Serena's eyes, and clocks melting between ticks.

Sunlight speared the curtains far too soon. He groaned, checked his phone: 11:42. Twelve minutes to the promised call. Headache dull but present; chrono hangover duration matching sixty-second pause math. Water, aspirin, black coffee sachet—repeat.

He dialed Serena's extension. She answered on second ring. "Thought you'd oversleep."

"Never miss an appointment with fortune," he rasped.

"Noon, Lotus rooftop pool. Bring swimwear and answers."

"Pool?"

"Cameras minimal up there," she said. "Plus I'd enjoy seeing how a probability bender handles chlorine."

Lucas chuckled. "See you soon, Miss Kaur."

He hung up, gaze drifting to the envelope of winnings. Enough cash to fund months of wander if he wanted. Yet for the first time, he wasn't thinking about the next city—he was thinking about the next conversation.

He packed swim shorts, sunglasses, room key—and an unused chip from last night's wheel, a souvenir. He slipped it beside the Zippo; two lucky charms felt redundant, but redundancy could be fortune's safety net.

Before leaving, he glanced once more into the corridor—clear. He stepped out, heart steady, wondering whether Serena's rooftop plan was really about privacy or about testing how deep his rabbit hole went.

Either way, he was ready to jump.

Down in the surveillance suite, night-shift analysts handed off to day crew. A bleary operator replayed the frame-skip clip for the fresh supervisor.

"This the Phantom again?" the supervisor asked.

"Looks that way." He pointed at timestamp. "And we just got word: an independent security expert named Graves is landing within the hour to consult."

The supervisor squinted at Lucas's grinning freeze-frame. "Poor bastard doesn't know what's coming."

Lucas pushed through the glass doors to the rooftop pool, sunlight blasting off turquoise water. Serena sat on a lounger in a wide-brim hat, clicking through a DSLR filled with last night's shots. She looked up, raised an eyebrow like a dealer inviting his bet.

Lucas breathed deep. The air smelled of chlorine, citrus sunscreen, and impending negotiations. The kind of scent that told him today's spins wouldn't involve just a wheel—they'd involve trust.

He walked toward her, already scripting how to bend reality just enough to keep her close, but not so much she'd bolt for Interpol.

Behind him, wind rattled a deck umbrella; for a split second it sounded like applause.

Mason Graves's flight touched down.

CH 6 — Eyes in the Glass

Mason Graves disliked Macau even before he smelled it. The humid air on the jet bridge clung like wet gauze; the terminal's riot of slot jingles rasped his overstimulated ears. But the city paid. And if tonight's alert was real—if the "Frame-Skip Phantom" had finally touched down—Macau would pay handsomely for Graves's particular obsession.

He bypassed immigration queues with a consultant's badge and a pre-cleared biometric scan, his black carry-on grazing his knee like a loyal hound. The bag held a change of shirts, licorice breath mints, and four terabytes of casino-surveillance footage annotated over six continents. He slept little, traveled light, and carried grudges as currency.

A chauffeured Lexus whisked him across the Ponte de Flor de Lótus. Cotai's skyline bloomed ahead: casinos shaped like dragons, peacocks, blossoms—gaudy cathedrals to probability. Graves's destination, the Golden Lotus, pulsed gold against night cloud, each LED petal strobing victory to the sky. Somewhere inside, a man in a hoodie shaped fortune to his will. Graves intended to shape that man.

Security escorted him straight to the eleventh-floor surveillance nerve center. The corridor outside was paneled in teak so dark it reflected nothing, as if even light feared secrecy here. A retinal scan unlocked the final door; chilled air and blue monitors greeted him like old colleagues.

Shift supervisor Lin Xia greeted him with a brisk nod. "Mr Graves, table footage ready. We isolated the anomaly."

Anomaly. He'd heard the word soften every criminal miracle the Phantom produced. Graves rolled up his sleeves—white cuffs against corded forearms—and leaned over Lin's shoulder.

"Show me timestamp."

Lin keyed 21-18-20. A roulette wheel filled the screen, its circular blur comforting in its predictability. Patrons lounged around it—tourists, honeymoon gamblers, high-rollers marinated in free Belvedere. Graves's eyes found his quarry instantly: gray hoodie, hands casual in pockets, posture bored and dangerous. He looked younger tonight than in the Perth footage—less stubble, maybe. The Phantom aged backwards, or perhaps adrenaline preserved him.

"Frame by frame," Graves said.

Lin tapped. Click. Click. Movement advanced in photographic stutters. At 21-18-37 the footage jumped: Lucas stood still but the chip stack on Black 11 multiplied like bacteria. The crowd hadn't noticed yet, but cameras never lied—unless, evidently, they did at his command.

Lin cleared her throat. "No packet loss in adjacent feeds. Integrity checks passed. Only this stream dropped half a second."

"What about the timecode in the metadata?" Graves asked.

"Consistent. It's as if the universe skipped, not the recorder."

Graves felt a flare of satisfaction and dread. He'd prayed for a glitch that fit physics; this was worse: a glitch that mocked it. "Angle two," he said.

Another feed, higher viewpoint. Same skip, same vanishing beats. Lucas's smile looked almost intimate, as if he recognized the lens. Graves paused, zoomed until pixels block-printed a grin.

"Playback Perth, March twenty-second." Lin opened a file: the Crown casino dive. Same hoodie, same smirk, same 0.48-second lacuna. Then Atlantic City, Monaco, Manila—each a breadcrumb on Graves's mind-map of humiliation.

Lin swallowed. "That's… impressive."

"It's theft," Graves corrected, ice-cool. "And he's getting arrogant. Note the extra chip placement pulled from another player's stack—he's baiting us."

He straightened, joints popping. A thin scar along his jaw tugged when he clenched his teeth, a souvenir from a riot outside SunCity decades ago. "Build me a full behavioral profile. Every angle, audio, cash-out stall, attendant badge numbers, bathroom visits."

"Already tracing," Lin said.

"Good. Now give me raw network logs from every roulette sensor. Maybe he injects code."

Lin's eyebrows rose. "Alone?"

"I'll chew noise while you compile." He smiled without light. "We'll meet it in the middle."

She left him with a workstation. Graves slipped a wireless earpiece in and opened his own drive. Dozens of stills tiled across two monitors—Lucas before now. Perth scaffolding collapse freeze. Brisbane poker room lights flicker. A Glasgow pub trivia host staring open-mouthed as a zero-to-hero player aced the final round—Lucas again, younger still, lamp-lighted by mischief.

Mason scrubbed through audio transcripts: croupier remarks, coffee-break chatter, breath patterns. He'd learned to hunt anomalies in silences: half-second gaps where people exhaled wrong, ridged by a freeze better equipment never caught. He marked tonight's freeze: 0.523 seconds—longer than prior events. Growing confidence breeds longer interventions. Useful.

He replayed cashier-cage footage next. Lucas leaning lazy at the window, envelope exchanged, then a subtle glow haloing the clerk's expression. Graves slowed it—frame perfect record of micro-influence: pupils dilated, shoulders slack. Not a drug, not language. Something else. If the hoodie boy spilled pheromones, they worked across laminated glass.

The elevator lobby feed showed Lucas slipping into the Lotus Lounge; a second layer of footage revealed the female journalist's engineered collision with a drinks tray. Graves zoomed on her press badge: Serena Kaur, Asia Gaming Weekly. He cross-referenced her byline: exposés on VIP loan-shark rings, data-leaked slot algorithms. Independent, hungry. Perhaps collateral; perhaps collaborator.

He logged her photo to the watchlist.

Lin returned with a caffeine tray. "I pulled guest registry. Lucas Vale, Australian passport A1229. Checked in yesterday."

"Send it to immigration and local PD," Graves said. "But keep detainment flags silent until I say. We can't spook him into disappearing."

Lin hesitated. "If he can glitch cameras, walls aren't much."

Graves's smile sharpened. "Walls slow hearts more than cameras. And hearts still pump adrenaline we can track."

He sipped black coffee. It tasted like scorched opportunities. "Where is he now?"

Lin brought up rooftop-pool cameras. Lucas—hoodie now traded for swim shorts—leaned on a lounger beside Serena. They were laughing, shoulders brushing. Graves magnified and ran a heatmap: pulse elevated but stable, posture easy. Not yet flight mode.

"I want audio," he muttered.

"Parabolic mics can target the deck," Lin said, already toggling array. Static hissed, then conversation drifted through: Serena teasing about chlorine; Lucas countering with statistics on shark attacks in hotel pools. Nothing incriminating, but code under the jokes—a negotiation of trust.

Graves set the coffee down. "He's grooming a witness. We intercept tonight."

Lin swallowed. "Arrest?"

"Not yet. Let him run again. Bigger stretch means bigger freeze; bigger freeze means more evidence. We seed a private high-roller table, controlled environment." He pointed at screen. "Wheel 3 is compromised in his eyes. We program a decoy wheel in a side salon, rig the sensors. If he freezes, redundant lasers will detect the ball's absolute halt. Physics will betray him."

Lin raised a skeptical brow. "Unless physics also skips."

"Nothing escapes photons," Graves growled, but the doubt gnawed him. "Redundant measure: position trackers on chair legs, floor vibrations, even air-flow vectors. If time stops, momentum dies. Instruments will see vacuum."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we escalate to personnel containment."

He slid a file across: a capture team manifest from Hong Kong—AVA Security Special Projects. Non-lethal, high tolerance for NDAs, and ruthless. Names blurred behind clearance tags.

Lin scanned it, quiet. "What if he's dangerous?"

"Everyone is dangerous when cornered. Our job is to ensure corner."

He rubbed scar tissue on his jaw—a nervous habit that mapped old pain to new resolve. He remembered Monte Carlo's disaster: Phantom slipping through a power outage, watchers fooled by a second skip. Graves found security corpses later, trampled in the evacuation. He vowed another skip wouldn't outpace preparedness.

"Mr Graves," Lin said softly, "why this one? Casinos write millions off to card counters daily. Insurance covers it."

"A thief who bends rules bends them for more than money," Graves said. "He'll escalate. They always do."

He did not add: because I did once, and I know the slope.

Lin nodded, bravery steadied by hierarchy. "I'll book the salon for twenty-three hundred hours, high-roller only, under maintenance pretext. Vale has a taste for exclusivity; we can courier an invitation through Serena."

"Perfect." Graves watched Lucas dive into the pool, water foaming silver. "And call house medical. I want adrenaline injectors on standby. If we catch him mid-freeze, we may need resuscitation."

Lin paused. "You think he risks cardiac arrest?"

"He gambles seconds like chips. Odds catch up."

Night thickened. Graves stayed planted, skipping dinner, feeding on data morsels. He mapped every corridor from Lucas's floor to salon suite. He memorized elevator lag times, vent diameters, emergency-stair pinch points. He requested thermal drones on the roof—the Lotus kept them for VIP rescue. Tonight they'd track heat fades if his quarry walked between ticks.

At 20-00 hours, he watched Lucas stroll from the pool in hotel robe, Serena beside him in a sundress, bodies glowing with low-grade flirty electricity. In the elevator her hand brushed Lucas's; both pulses jumped. Graves recorded emotional telemetry like forensic porn.

By 20-14 the pair sat at a candle-lit ramen bar on the promenade. Graves had audio: tempura banter masking strategic feelers. Serena probed about Lucas's "lucky streaks." Lucas deflected with mythology—rabbit's foot, pot of gold, Lady Luck on speed dial. Graves smiled; lies were breadcrumbs.

Mid-meal, Lucas's gaze flicked to a TV over the bar. Graves zoomed. News ticker: "Security expert Mason Graves arrives in Macau for high-stakes symposium." Someone in PR had leaked his presence. Graves cursed. He'd requested low profile.

Lucas's brow furrowed—just a ripple. Surface worry? Hard to tell, but the line of his shoulders shifted. Awareness.

Graves toggled comm to Lin. "Scramble mention of my arrival on internal channels. Too late for public feed but we limit further leaks."

Lucas leaned to Serena, whispered; she laughed, but her laugh rang brittle. Graves scanned their body language: slight inward orientation, conspiratorial. They left ramen bowls half-finished, paid cash, and walked into arcade shadows.

Lin patched into street cameras. Graves tracked them weaving through tourists toward a jewelry arcade—not an expected route for a gambler prepping a second heist. He hissed, "Where the hell—"

Then Lucas grabbed Serena's hand and yanked her sideways into a maintenance corridor. Camera coverage lost them.

Graves jolted up. "Thermals! I want roof feeds."

Lin pinged drone telemetry. Two red infrared silhouettes popped on schematic, sprinting service stairs toward guest floors. Graves greenlit intercept squads to cut routes, but in the next thermal frame one silhouette vanished.

Vanished.

Graves stared. The drone sensors were military-grade, thirty frames per second. One frame: heat trace; next frame: corridor empty. Serena's remained.

Lin's voice cracked. "Sir, we lost target."

Impossible, Graves's mind whispered.

Unless the universe skipped again.

He slammed fist on desk, rattling keyboards. "Pull last frame into isolation. Enhance adjacency."

Lin obeyed, but the result showed only after-image heat fading like footfalls on snow. No trace forward or back.

His quarry had just time-ghosted fifteen floors above ground.

Serena's thermal icon stood frozen—shock? Graves locked onto her. "Send plain-clothes to extract the journalist, gently. She's now our most valuable witness."

Lin dispatched the order.

Graves rubbed his scar, mind racing. Lucas had sensed his media arrival—spooked—and test-ran an escape path. A bigger freeze than the salon would induce. Perhaps that was good: adrenaline drives error.

But Graves tasted humiliation again. Each skip widened the chasm between man and miracle.

He composed himself, voice even. "Re-evaluate salon plan. Increase redundancy—infrared lidar inside wheel head, independent battery. And prep tranquilizer darts tuned for adrenaline surges."

Lin typed.

Graves gazed at still-frame of corridor where Lucas disappeared. He whispered to it, a prayer and a promise:

"You can outrun cameras, but not me."

Lucas Vale materialized on the roof ten seconds post-freeze, lungs raw. He'd misjudged fatigue; the temporal drag felt like sprinting underwater. But the news crawl about Graves triggered instinct: vanish. He hid Serena in an electrical alcove first, whispered apology, then stepped between ticks alone. Safety instinct overrode chivalry.

Now the city's drone buzz hummed overhead. Lucas ducked behind a vent, pulse hammering. Monitors, heat sensors—Graves must have them. Lucas needed new plays.

He peered down: neon boulevards stretched like circuitry, thousands of strangers living slow. Somewhere in that maze, boredom might yet die—but only if he outraced the man who hunted miracles with spreadsheets.

Lucas wiped sweat, grinned despite nausea. "Game on, Scarface," he muttered.

Behind him, a drone whirred closer, searchlight blooming.

Lucas stepped into the pause again—

—and the world obeyed.

Chapter 7 – Neon Scramble

Lucas let the world breathe again.

The drone's spotlight surged across the rooftop parapet a heartbeat too late, washing sterile white over empty concrete where, half a tick earlier, he had stood grinning at the night. His lungs burned from the double-freeze—first to abandon Serena safely in the corridor, second to sidestep that predatory eye-in-the-sky—and every rib hummed with the warning throb that followed long pauses. The power ledger in his head tallied sixty-odd seconds of freeze in the casino, another ten here, plus assorted psychic static; any further indulgence risked a migraine that would drop him in open view.

He limped to a locked maintenance ladder, flicked the padlock with a telekinetic nudge, and began the descent. Humid air rose from the Cotai streets like a bathhouse. Halfway down he shrugged out of the hoodie—signature gray now a liability—and stuffed it through a vent. By the time his sneakers hit pavement, he wore only swim shorts, flip-flops stolen from an unattended deckchair, and a towel knotted like a tourist scarf. Sweat made the disguise plausible. Fatigue made it necessary.

A narrow service alley funnelled him toward the night-market spine of Rua da Felicidade. Neon kanji, Portuguese street lamps, red lanterns—each colour a syllable in Macau's restless grammar. Lucas merged with the tide of browsers and bargain-hunters, inhaling pepper beef, mango steam, and engine oil. Every stranger's surface thought brushed his skull: currency conversions, late-night cravings, gambler regrets. He eased his telepathy to a low murmur; full volume would drown him.

First priority: water and sugar. He queued at a bubble-tea cart, eavesdropping on the vendor's internal arithmetic—charge tourists twenty, locals ten. Lucas smiled, folded micro-influence around the man like warm cashmere, just a six-second nudge of generosity. Price dropped to eight. The influence rebounded as queasiness—a friendly punch from his own gut. He sipped taro pearls, wincing, and promised himself moderation.

Ahead, a trio of teenage pickpockets worked the edges of the crowd: ratty messenger bags, darting eyes, mental chatter of practiced distraction. Lucas tracked them a moment, curiosity flicking. One focused on a Korean tourist's handbag zipper. Lucas breathed out a subtle command—an emotional tug of sudden guilt. The teen's hand froze, then withdrew empty; she shook her head as if clearing fog. Side-effect for Lucas: a cold surge of vertigo that bent the street slats. He steadied on a lamp post. Fifteen seconds of influence—idiot. The power was reliable, but his body increasingly less so.

He turned a corner and found a knock-off-sportswear stall. For fifty patacas—assisted by pocket-read telepathy—he acquired black track pants and a cheap Macau Dragons baseball cap. Changing behind a hanging tarp, he let the towel drop and the new persona click into place: post-gym gambler grabbing late snacks, not international phantom.

Still, the Golden Lotus's security grid would be combing city cameras. Graves would guess he'd ditch the hoodie, maybe even predict a market hiding spot. Lucas needed fresh technology unnoticed by hotel systems. A second alley opened onto a row of electronics vendors. He drifted between stalls, sampling minds for someone eager to unload stock no questions asked. A wiry mainlander—the mental tag need rent by Monday—offered second-hand burner phones. Lucas picked a model with dual-SIM slots, bartered via micro-influence down to half price, and paid cash. He transferred an encrypted crypto wallet seed phrase into its notes app, then powered it off. Battery indicator flashed 17 percent—still cursed by low-power motifs; he pocketed a cable.

Fatigue knocked again, harder. He ducked into the shadows between two herbal-medicine shops and downed painkillers dry. The tablet stuck in his throat like guilt. He forced it down. A minute of stillness let the nausea ebb to background vibration.

Through lattice brickwork he caught movement across the boulevard: Serena. Two plain-clothes guards—body-builder frames, earpieces—guided her toward a staff-only door beneath the Lotus logo. She walked upright, chin high, but her pulse throbbed in her temples; Lucas felt its echo in his own blood. Regret pricked him—he'd abandoned her without warning. Yet charging across the street now would pit him against capture squad and drones. He needed precision, not heroics.

He flicked a telepathic feeler. Serena's surface thoughts were a roil: Stay calm, ask for lawyer, remember badge number, Lucas you better be alive. Relief kindled—she believed he could still help. Good. He would, after surviving himself.

A sudden tug on his new pants yanked him back. The pickpocket trio's smallest member—a boy of maybe twelve—had slipped fingers into his pocket. Lucas grabbed the wrist gently. The boy's mind flashed panic, then an image of an older brother waiting with dinner money quota. Lucas exhaled, released the arm, and palmed two hundred patacas into the kid's grubby hand. "Wrong mark, mate. Buy noodles and knock off early." He added a three-second trust pulse. The kid's fear melted into astonishment; he vanished into crowd without another attempt. Lucas staggered as the nausea spiked. Ten-second cooldown, he ordered himself. Feed throttle or feed porcelain.

He found a bench beneath a flickering lantern and sat, breathing slow. Between foot traffic he saw the pickpocket trio regroup; the older siblings scolded, but the younger flashed the bills. For a heartbeat, Lucas's inner critic hushed; the night felt lighter.

Then a billboard truck rolled past—digital panels trumpeting Private High-Roller Salon Re-Opens Tonight! Exclusive Invitation Only – 23:00. Lucas's stomach flipped, and not from side-effects. That smells like a trap. Graves would know he savored exclusivity. Sensor-laced wheel, capture team, tranquilizers—Lucas could visualize the schematics because that's how he'd design it.

He tapped his burner, scrolling airline schedules. Red-eye flights departed Macau International hourly: Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore. Blueprint in his head whispered #8—Macau–Singapore flight, quiet reflection, chance to regroup. Singapore embraced anonymity and hawker food. He fingered Singapore Airlines 01:15 a.m., seat availability green. Cash at the desk would avoid card trace. He booked the ticket in the name Shane Doyle—Irish passport cover.

But leaving Serena to Graves's interrogation gnawed. He had hours; flight boarding midnight. Rescue and getaway? Ambitious, but boredom had long since mutated into challenge addiction. The idea sparked adrenaline fresher than bubble-tea sugar.

He stood, head clearer after pills. First, wipe digital tail. He powered the burner, enabled Wi-Fi, and uploaded a heavy decoy file—looped surveillance of his own face from Perth—to half a dozen gambling-rumor forums under aliases. The flood would dilate security search grids; too many Lucas signatures at once.

Crowd parted briefly, revealing two Lotus security guards entering the market, scanning stalls. Facial-rec algorithms on phone screens guided them. Lucas pulled the Dragons cap low and wove deeper into lantern maze. He let telepathy tag any mind that recognized his eyes—none so far, but tension thrummed.

At the southern edge the market bled into an underpass tiled with fading love-lock graffiti. Tourist groups avoided it after dark, making it perfect for a testing ground. Lucas wanted to gauge power reserves before confronting Graves's gauntlet.

He chose a moment when foot traffic thinned to two scooter couriers and a dozing street cat. He inhaled, pressed palm to the graffiti wall, and stepped between ticks.

Silence froze the underpass—lamplight shards paused mid-mote. Duration: five seconds, he promised himself. He jogged thirty metres, touched every third lock in childlike rhythm, then exhaled. World resumed. The cat startled, hissing at ghosts. Lucas's vision pin-wheeled but held. Nausea: manageable. Migraine: simmering. He'd spend the rest of the night on painkillers if he kept stunting, but Serena's freedom and Graves's bruised ego were worth a pharmacy bill.

At the end of the tunnel a metro kiosk advertised air-con shuttles to the airport. Lucas bought a stored-value card—again dipping telepathy to dodge ID questions—and checked his watch: 21:37. Capture trap at 23:00. Window of chaos: eighty-three minutes.

Plan crystallized: sneak into hotel back corridors, liberate Serena before they escorted her to surveillance HQ, plant breadcrumbs to implicate a fictional hacking ring, then ghost onto the airport shuttle. Simple, if he ignored Graves's drones, lidar webs, and a body already ringing alarm bells.

He ascended stone steps to Nam Van Lake promenade, moon reflected in black water like a cracked coin. On a bench, two backpackers shared dumplings while livestreaming; their phone camera faced away, but caution made Lucas tug the cap brim again. Across the lake the Lotus's golden petals blinked, seductive and dangerous.

He dialed Serena's number from the business card she'd slipped him; voicemail. He texted instead: I'm coming. Stay calm. If they move you, stall 30 mins. Trust the magician. He attached a rabbit emoji for cheek.

Three dots indicated typing, then: Hurry. Broom closet near ballroom level 5. Not joking.

A phantom tug of relief; she was still inside, buying him time.

He jogged west, skirting tourist promenades, letting smaller chrono-hops vault him across CCTV blind spots—never more than three seconds, conserving fuel. Each hop boot-kicked his head, but the pounding felt honest. At a deserted taxi loop he leaned against a pillar, catching breath. That's when he saw it: spray-painted on the concrete base, a symbol like an hourglass split by a diagonal slash. He froze.

He'd first seen the emblem in a rumor thread titled "Curators" months ago—supposed watchers of temporal anomalies. Seeing it here, steps from his improvised rescue, pricked something deeper than adrenaline. Was Graves a pawn? Or were larger players already mapping him?

The migraine pulsed bright. No time for conspiracy rabbit holes. But he snapped a picture on the burner anyway, filed under Proof Martians Exist. Then he slipped into the service driveway, heartbeat syncing with casino exhaust fans.

Inside, he'd need flawless timing, limited power, and luck brave enough to outrun fortune's accountant. Outside, the night-market music faded, replaced by the hush of backstage corridors smelling of detergent and secrets.

Lucas grinned despite the pain. Games were only fun when the house believed it was ready.

He stepped forward, ready to prove it wasn't.

Chapter 8 – Exit Wounds

The service corridor tasted of bleach and compressor heat, and Lucas's ribs drummed protest at every stride. Sensors or not, Graves's gauntlet would wake soon; Lucas needed Serena unshackled and both of them gone before 23:00. According to the ballroom–level directory, broom-closet storage sat past three banquet prep kitchens and an L-shaped linen tunnel—exactly the sort of back maze casinos built to keep VIPs from raw dishwater views.

He pulled the Dragons cap low and slid a chef's delivery crate in front of him, adopting the hunched plod of overtime staff. Telepathy surfed ahead, sampling clumps of thought for danger tags—escort Serena to interview room pinged faintly from a pair of guards rounding the opposite junction. Lucas veered left, spine singing with fatigue but mind still sparking.

At the linen tunnel he ditched the crate, palmed a housekeeping keycard filched earlier, and cracked the broom-closet door. Inside, Serena sat on an up-turned bucket, ankles zip-tied; her wrists looped with nylon cord to a pipe. Two security men argued over procedure—one wanted to deliver her upstairs at once; the other insisted on waiting for Graves's personal sign-off.

Lucas exhaled, counting migraine pulses. No long freezes left tonight; he'd black out mid-pause. Precision, then. He extended micro-influence, brushing both guards with a five-second emotional gust—boredom so thick it felt like dead air. Their shoulders sagged, argument fading into apathy. Side-effect gut-twist flared behind Lucas's ribs; he ignored it, flicked the Zippo. Flame danced once—mental marker for timing—then he stepped forward.

"Graves wants her upstairs," he said in perfect Mandarin, sliding the Zippo back. The first guard blinked. "He pinged me; he's furious this took so long."

Minimal telepathy tug confirmed the hammer of authority landed. They nodded, one producing a cutter to slice Serena's zip-tie. Lucas smothered a relieved breath—less force, lower footprint. But the second guard frowned at Lucas's cap. "I've seen you—weren't you by the koi escalator?"

Lucas clicked his tongue, forced a casual laugh, and let a three-second influence impulse drift: wrong face, ordinary staff. Nausea rip-tidal. The frown evaporated.

Serena rose, rubbing wrists. Her eyes met Lucas's—a silent storm of questions—and he shook his head minutely: later. He guided her out, leaving the guards behind wrestling with sudden sluggishness.

They navigated banquet corridors littered with silver trays and half-drunk champagne flutes. Serena hissed, "You disappeared—then text me rescue? That trick isn't journalism friendly, Vale."

"Chalk it up to magic-show secrecy." He steered her into a laundry lift. "Full debrief on the way to boarding gate."

"Boarding gate?"

He punched sub-basement loading dock. The doors sealed. "Singapore flight, hour and change. Graves set a trap at 23:00; we leave before it springs."

The lift juddered downward. Serena pressed a palm to her temple. "Graves? The security celebrity? He grilled me for thirty minutes about you."

"Flattered." Lucas checked burner phone—battery 11 percent. Clock read 22:07. "We've forty-eight minutes to customs."

Lift opened onto a warren of fluorescent gloom where carts groaned beneath mountains of sheets. The scent of detergent burned his sinuses. They slipped behind pallets until Lucas spotted a side exit marked Waste Removal. Outside, humid air and diesel reek welcomed them; a lone cargo truck idled, driver scrolling WeChat.

Lucas skimmed the driver's thoughts—two more runs, then mah-jong—and slid into the passenger seat without invitation. Serena climbed in behind him. The driver gaped. Lucas showed a folded banknote, layered it with a six-second calm pulse. "Urgent delivery to Terminal C," he said in Cantonese. "Double tip if wheels roll now."

The driver shrugged, threw the truck into gear. Lucas's stomach flipped—another influence dose, another brick on the migraine wall. Black specks flitted at vision edges.

Serena leaned forward. "You keep… nudging people. Chemical hypnosis?"

"Something like gravity for feelings." He wiped sweat from his brow. "Short pulls only. My head's a centrifuge already."

She studied him. "That broom closet—those guards, they practically sleep-walked."

Lucas winced at the memory. "Ten-second limit before I redecorate the asphalt with stomach contents."

"Side-effects. Good to know." She produced her notebook, pen racing despite the dim cab light. "We'll talk ethics later."

The truck joined airport road traffic. On the horizon, runway lights glittered. Lucas allowed himself a shallow victory inhale.

Then blue strobes flashed behind—the casino's security SUV. Lucas cursed. Driver's mind spiked with fear. Lucas leaned out window, fired a telekinetic flick the size of a fist at the SUV's left headlight. Plastic exploded; high-beam died; the security driver swerved.

Lucas slapped the dashboard. "Floor it!"

The cargo truck wailed past eighty kph, suspension squealing. Lucas felt every vibration as a mallet to his skull, but the gap widened. Airport perimeter loomed; checkpoint gate ahead.

"Credentials?" the driver croaked.

Lucas glanced at a clipboard on dash, printed delivery manifest. Quick read, quick lie. He palmed two more banknotes, fused with a weary three-second influence. "Late linen run—they know. Gate guard's cousin in cot at our depot." Fabricated memory slid into the driver's brain; he nodded, words ready.

At the gate, Lucas let telepathy skim the guard's consciousness—thinking about soccer scores. Harmless. The driver delivered the lie, banknotes changed hands, the gate lifted. SUV sirens faded behind as they rattled into service lanes hugging the terminal.

Lucas's muscles unraveled; migraine thudded but crisis eased. He offered handshake money; driver declined, muttering about lucky omens. Influence residue, Lucas mused.

Serena jumped down with him, landing lightly on asphalt. "You weaponised exactly zero seconds of freeze this time."

"Reserve tank," he said. "Saving for departures queue."

"Which airline?"

"Singapore. 01:15. Name on ticket: Shane Doyle." He winked. "I'll need a journalist plus-one."

"I'm not packed."

"We'll buy you a toothbrush in Changi."

Terminal C's public concourse glared with LED brightness. Lucas draped an arm across Serena's shoulders, step-syncing like long-term partners—face-rec algos looked for lone runners. He glimpsed a news screen: still from breakfast interview showing Graves descending ramp. Beneath, ticker: Casinos adopt new high-tech gambit sensors. Lucas's stomach soured.

They joined business-class check-in. Lucas scanned lines—no security tails yet. At counter, he produced Irish passport, sliding pataca bills under boarding pass printout. "My partner needs a seat, emergency work summit." The clerk's thoughts fluttered—upgrade quota half empty. Lucas barely nudged; the seat appeared. Serena's passport scanned; printer chirped. Boarding group A.

Through security, Lucas surrendered Zippo—the guard bagged it in cabin-safe envelope; return at destination. Minor inconvenience but felt like surrendering a lucky bone. Serena clocked his frown. "Attachment issues?"

"Fire breaks stasis," he muttered. Not ready to unpack that metaphor.

They cleared customs. Time: 23:02. Somewhere inside Lotus, Graves's sensors were waking to an empty rig. Lucas pictured the man's scar tightening.

In duty-free, Serena yanked him aside between lacquered whiskey displays. "You look like a migraine wearing sneakers," she said. "Sit before you fall."

They sank onto a faux-leather bench facing departure screens. Lucas pinched bridge of nose. Every freeze tonight had left splinters; his skull felt over-pressurised. He swallowed water; painkillers declined—they'd blur reflexes. Serena peeled open a chilled green-tea can, pushed it into his hands. "Hydrate. Now we talk."

Passengers drifted past, shards of languages: Tagalog, Hokkien, English. Lucas sipped, let caffeine sting.

Serena began: "Time skipped in that corridor. I saw fluorescent bulbs flicker wrong. One frame you were beside me, next frame—gone. Describe what I missed."

Lucas weighed honesty. Trust her too little, she'd spiral; too much, she'd freeze in existential dread. He chose midpoint. "I can step outside the tick of the second. The world pauses. Five minutes tops before biology punishes me."

Her pen stilled; she exhaled slow. "Freezing time isn't a magician's patter, Lucas. It's—physics riot."

"I riot quietly." He traced condensation on can. "I thought I was alone until camera glitches whispered other possibilities."

Serena's eyes widened. "Others. Like you."

"Maybe. That symbol I saw tonight—hourglass with slash—could be breadcrumb." He described the graffiti. She jotted, frown deepening.

Boarding announcement chimed. Group A to gate 18. Lucas stood; dizziness almost toppled him. Serena steadied his elbow. "You can't freeze mid-air if something goes wrong?"

"Can, but passengers wouldn't appreciate." He forced a grin. "I'll rely on engines this round."

They scanned passes, descended jetway into cabin perfume of recycled air and nervous anticipation. Business class offered pod seats; Lucas collapsed into 4A, Serena into 4B.

Before doors closed, Lucas powered phone: 7 percent battery—enough. He texted Mum a selfie in seat, thumbs-up over blurred city lights. Landed safe in new timezone. Love you. Call soon. Send. Promise partially kept.

Safety demo droned. Lucas watched runway lamps slide by. Vibrations signalled take-off roll. He closed eyes; fatigue poured like sand. But behind lids, a soft mental echo pulsed—foreign, tentative, brushing his telepathic range from somewhere on the plane, almost like another radio station seeking frequency.

He snapped eyes open. Cabin lights dimmed. Serena adjusted blanket, oblivious. Lucas tuned inward, scanning rows. Background chatter, sleepiness, fear of flying—then again, a sharper ping: …anyone else hearing this? Whisper-thin, not his inner voice. Like sonar from a distant swimmer.

His pulse spiked. Another walker? Or stressed telepath waking by accident? The signal faded.

Jet engines roared take-off. The 777 angled upward, Macau lights cascading away. Lucas pressed temple to window, migraine thumping, mind chasing that echo in dark sky.

Whoever lurked inside his frequency hadn't answered yet, but the question was clear: Are you alone? He whispered to reflection, "Not for much longer." Serena stirred, half-asleep. He squeezed her hand—silent pledge to explain everything.

Outside, monsoon clouds swallowed the plane—an ocean of ink for secrets to swim in.

Chapter 9 – Fireworks Dividend

Lucas's ears popped as the 777 kissed Changi's runway at 04:03, wheels whisper-screeching beneath the cabin. He'd spent half the descent scanning for the mystery mind that had pinged him over the South China Sea, but the echo dissolved among the collective relief of landing. Either the sender masked themselves, or fatigue had hallucinated a fellow walker. For now, migraine drums had louder opinions.

Singapore's air wrapped him in equatorial velvet the moment the jet bridge yawned. Serena matched his pace through the gleaming concourse, notebook tucked like a talisman to her ribs. Ahead, a customs queue coiled beneath orchids and duty-free neon. Lucas felt every fluorescent tube as a knife behind his eyes; five hours of sleep on a future calendar might mend it, but not tonight.

"Breathe Singapore, exhale Macau," Serena murmured. He caught the tremor she tried to hide—part exhaustion, part lingering broom-closet trauma.

"My skull's staging a rave," he replied. "Let's clear immigration before it drops the bass."

They approached an e-gate kiosk. Lucas presented Irish passport; Serena flashed Malaysian. The officer's surface thought fizzled random couple, zero flags. They coasted through, reclaiming bags and—miracle—his sealed Zippo. The attendant returned it with a smile; Lucas thumbed the metal, grounding himself.

A wall screen blared an advert for that night's Marina Bay rehearsal fireworks—National Day preview, fireworks at 21:00. Lucas's plan, half-formed during turbulence, crystallised: a low-risk Robin-Hood score from the crowd-thick vantage of the Marina. And a test—could he use powers for something that actually helped people?

He eyed Serena. "Singapore's skyline puts on a show tonight. Want front-row seats?"

"Translation: you've scouted a target."

"Less target, more opportunity. Guy named Tan Wei Loong—shipping magnate, owns the super-yacht Eden's Wake. Docked at Marina South Pier for the fireworks. Multiple labour-rights violations, tax evasion charges hushed." He tapped temple. "Security chatter on flight—his executive assistant bragging about cash bonuses stashed onboard."

Serena's brow arched. "You lifted that from a stranger's brain at thirty-eight thousand feet?"

"Being a polite eavesdropper." He shrugged. "Thought we might lighten the yacht's load—redirect to a union fund."

Her pen clicked twice—code for wary acceptance. "Fine. But no casualties, and if you black out, I'm dragging you to a hospital before we debate ethics."

"Deal."

By late afternoon they'd napped at a budget capsule hotel in Lavender—coffin-sized pods, stellar blackout curtains. The sleep dulled Lucas's migraine to background static. They emerged into golden humidity dressed tourist-casual: Lucas in linen shirt and borrowed aviators; Serena in navy jumpsuit, camera slung at hip.

They took the MRT to Bayfront, mingling with families staking picnic tarps on the promenade. The Marina Basin mirrored skyscraper teeth and cloud wisps; vendor carts hawked satay and chilli crab bao. Lucas's telepathy skimmed the crowd—mostly excitement, mild heat complaints, a few pickpockets plotting. No Graves-flavoured obsession. Good.

Ahead, Eden's Wake gleamed white and arrogant at berth B7, polished rails catching sunset like blades. Two private-security heavies patrolled gangway, earpieces murmuring. Lucas tasted their thoughts: triple-overtime pay and boss bringing VIPs aboard twenty-hundred. The hold, he learned, contained a "cash-gift trunk" for certain officials—Tan's grease strategy.

Lucas led Serena to a hawker stall overlooking the pier. While she ordered lime juice, he mapped cues: fireworks at nine would dim pier lights for safety, drown cameras in strobe overexposure. Perfect cloak for a sixty-second freeze. His fatigue ledger read: chrono-pause credit available but interest high; he'd gamble on a thirty-second micro-heist.

Serena returned, handed him a sweating cup. "Entry plan?"

"Influence a guard to check noise complaints on opposite deck. Pause time, cart trunk to quay. Break freeze under cover of fireworks. You film Tan's bribe chest rolling free into the hands of waiting union reps."

"And if security reviews footage?"

"They'll see a light flicker, followed by an empty space where a trunk once sat. Glitch déjà vu."

She sipped juice. "Lucas, we're courting an international arrest warrant."

He twirled the Zippo. "Arrested criminals have day jobs. Boredom is life imprisonment."

Serena smirked despite herself. "Let's parole some workers, then."

20:45—sky bruise-purple, anticipation crackling. Lucas sauntered toward Eden's Wake's gangway, Serena trailing with telephoto lens. The lead guard—clipboard, shark tattoo peeking from sleeve—blocked passage.

"VIP only."

Lucas flashed a counterfeit lanyard produced earlier at a Little India print-shop. Quiet influence push—five seconds, safe buffer. "Sound engineer. Fireworks decibels could rattle your boss's stemware."

Guard's skepticism melted to procedural boredom. He radioed aft deck: "Sound tech heading to bow." Access granted. Influence backlash hit Lucas like sea-spray vertigo, but he rode it.

On deck he inhaled diesel-salt air, senses sharpening. Spotlights dappled water; guests mingled inside glass salon. Through porthole Lucas glimpsed Tan—slick suit, martini. Telepathy skimmed his shark-fin surface: Tomorrow's tender sealed. Opportunist.

Aft corridor. Second guard, bulkier. Lucas feigned earphone malfunction, leaned close as if to hear instructions, slipped a three-second calm pulse: "Bow speaker check, need storage access code." Guard recited digits. Lucas's stomach clenched—micro-influence tolerance nearly tapped.

Below-deck staircase spiralled to cargo hold. He padded down, soft-soled shoes silent. The hold smelled of lacquer and engine heat. Centre stage: an aluminium trunk stamped with Tan Logistics crest, padlocked. Lucas tested weight with TK flick—approx fifty kilos currency bulk. Manageable with adrenaline.

Fireworks first volley whoomped topside—brilliant chrysanthemum of red spears. Deck lights dimmed automatically. His internal chronometer started.

Freeze.

Silence collapsed; sparklers halted mid-burst like painted stars. Lucas's headache screamed but time obeyed. He hoisted trunk, shoulders barking, and jogged up stairs. In stilled world his footfalls rang only in memory. Thirty seconds, he warned himself.

On deck frozen guests raised champagne to an arrested sky of colour shards. Lucas eased trunk across gangway rollers onto pier. A waiting electric buggy—hired earlier by Serena under pretext of film equipment—sat driverless. He lashed trunk to cargo bed. Migraine thump escalated; vision vignetted. Twenty-five seconds.

He sprinted back aboard, returned to guard's post, adopting original stance. Exhaled—world resumed. Fireworks erupted living sound, crowd cheers masking trunk's vanished weight.

Guard frowned at ringing radio: a dockworker yelling about "loose trolley." Lucas feigned earplug focus, slipped down gangway. Serena intercepted buggy, camera dangling. They zipped along promenade service lane toward an NGO booth run by Maritime Workers' Alliance—Lucas had contacted the rep via encrypted message, promising "evidence drop."

Behind them security sirens bloomed; Eden's Wake's spotlight swept quay, but trunk already slid into union volunteers' hands. Serena snapped stills of lock insignia, timestamp overlay against golden fireflowers overhead.

They ducked between vendor tents as spectators gasped at a finale volley. Lucas's knees buckled; he braced against railing. Serena caught him. "Freeze backlash?"

"Thirty… maybe thirty-five seconds." He swallowed bile. "Worth every cranial sledgehammer."

Union rep—a stout woman in orange vest—saluted with two-finger tap to temple. "Whoever you angels are, these bribe crates save court fees."

Lucas managed a grin. "Just fireworks technicians."

By 23:00 they limped into a riverside kopi-tiam away from crowds. Ceiling fans spun lazy halos. Lucas downed iced kopi-o, sugar spiking senses. Serena transferred photos to laptop, drafted anonymous leak to Straits Times: "Shipping Tycoon Launders Cash via National Day Yacht Party." Evidence folder uploaded to secure drive.

Lucas watched her fingers dance keys, admiration blooming beside fatigue. She looked up. "That feel better than roulette?"

"It felt… louder in my chest," he admitted. "Like the scaffold rescue back home, but chosen, not accidental."

"Power plus purpose." She closed lid. "Addictive combination."

His phone vibrated—battery flickering red. A message from unknown number, Singapore prefix: You're not alone. Dock 13, midnight. Come if you dare.

The psychic echo on the plane? His pulse spiked. Serena read screen, eyes widening.

"Could be ambush," she warned.

"Or first breadcrumb to others."

He weighed migraine residue, drained reserves. Midnight lay forty minutes away. Their Changi capsule awaited, safe and air-conditioned. But boredom already scratched.

He stood. "Dock 13's ten minutes by tuk-tuk."

Serena sighed, shouldered camera. "Fine. But one step at a time—if your brain leaks, we bail."

Dock 13 sat silent, lit by single sodium lamp. Water slapped pilings like slow applause. Lucas's telepathy probed—one mind nearby, calm, expectant.

A hooded silhouette emerged from shadow. Female voice, lilting: "Vale." No surprise, no question.

Lucas flexed aching fingers. "You dialled the wrong superhero hotline."

She lifted hand—between her fingers, time rippled; raindrops stilled mid-air for half a heartbeat before falling again.

Lucas's breath hitched. Not ambush. Revelation.

"Name's Mei." She smiled softly. "Welcome to the deep end."

Behind Lucas, Serena whispered "Oh my God," camera forgotten.

Lucas stepped forward, migraine forgotten under new electricity. "Show me how far the pool goes."

Mei offered her palm. Fireworks smoke still drifted above Marina Bay, but here, possibility burned brighter.

Chapter 10 – Raindrop Lesson

Lucas felt the raindrop quiver against his fingertip—a perfect glass bead, motionless in midnight air—then slide away when Mei released her micro-pause. The dock light above them hummed back to life, and the sea resumed its slow slap against the pilings. His headache pulsed in time with the waves, but adrenaline still out-shouted pain. Whatever trick he'd just witnessed, it was clean, confident, and impossibly precise. She hadn't even flinched.

"Five-second still," Mei said, wiping rain from her eyelashes. "Enough for a hello."

Lucas tried to mask the awe crawling up his throat. "You pinged me on the flight?"

She nodded. "First time I've felt someone else on the channel." Her English carried the clipped cadence of Penang streets. "I had to be certain you were more than rumor."

Serena stepped beside Lucas, camera forgotten at her hip. "Any more surprises coming, or do we switch to tea?"

Mei's smile softened. "There's a kopitiam two blocks inland—open all night. You both look a sneeze from collapse."

Lucas almost objected—migraines made him defensive—but dizziness reminded him he'd bled more chrono seconds in twenty-four hours than in the previous month. Rest sounded like strategy.

The café smelled of condensed-milk coffee and floor cleaner. Ceiling fans wobbled overhead; half the tables were occupied by taxi drivers nursing kaya toast. Mei chose a back booth where the CCTV dome hung dead, bulb long blown.

"Static field," she whispered, tapping the camera. "I prefer blind spots."

Lucas sank opposite her, Serena beside him. The seat's plastic creaked under exhaustion. Mei ordered kopi and iced Milo without waiting for consensus—as if she'd read their veins.

"Ground rule," she began. "No mind-dipping without consent."

Lucas raised both hands. "Agreed. My head's full of cymbals anyway."

Mei turned to Serena. "You're baseline?"

"Baseline reporter," Serena confirmed, sliding her notebook out. "Off record until we decide otherwise."

A quick telepathic skim told Lucas Mei accepted the terms; her surface thoughts flickered with schematics of trust. He felt, for once, the sensation of someone closing their mental door—a gentle but unmistakable click.

"First lesson," Mei said, unfolding a battered pocket watch onto the table. The bronze face ticked at double speed, a custom job Lucas instantly coveted. "Chrono-pause isn't sprinting through a frozen frame. It's slipping into a faster current beneath the seconds. Push too hard, you break water and drown."

Lucas rubbed the scar that wasn't there—the memory of seawater lungs at fifteen. "I've tasted that undertow."

"Your limit?"

"Five minutes if I'm stupid," he admitted. "Nausea, headaches like ice picks afterwards."

Mei whistled. "You're already flirting with the redline. The Curators will notice."

Serena leaned in. "Who are the Curators?"

"Caretakers, jailers, recruiters—depends who you ask." Mei flicked the watch open; the second hand blurred. "They track anomalies—camera glitches, air-flow dips, stories about a man who nudges roulette balls." She eyed Lucas. "You're a siren on their radar."

Lucas's stomach tightened. The hourglass-slash graffiti in Macau flashed across memory. "So they're real."

"Very." Mei traced the symbol in condensation on her glass. "They ghost in after we overexpose. Then they offer choices—join, vanish, or be dissected. I said no three years ago. Been skating shadows since."

"Graves isn't with them?" Lucas asked.

Mei shook her head. "Independent crusader. Useful distraction for the Curators, actually. But he's closing fast, and they'll move once he proves you exist."

The kopi arrived—thick, sweet, restorative. Lucas gulped, feeling caffeine lace veins. The migraine retreated a centimetre.

"Why contact me?" he asked.

"Because your theft tonight wasn't greed," Mei said. "A walker who redistributes wealth is rare. Purpose buys allies."

Serena allowed herself a triumphant half-smile; Lucas squeezed her knee under the table.

Mei produced a folded map of Southeast Asia, set it between cups. Three locations circled: Penang, Ho Chi Minh, Darwin. "Walkers I trust. Each gifted, each hiding. I'm building a network before Curators pick us off singly."

Lucas traced the Darwin circle. "Australian outback?"

"Her name's Cleo. She slows entropy—keeps things fresh. Perfect for logistics. But she won't commit without proof walkers can cooperate."

Serena tapped the map. "So we stage a joint act?"

Mei's eyes glittered. "A demonstration that tick-skippers aren't lone myths."

Lucas felt adrenaline reinflate. "What's the play?"

"Tonight? Nothing risky. Tomorrow we practice controlled micro-pauses—sub-second choreography." Mei slid the pocket watch to him. "Train with this. Audible 120-bpm tick. Keep the world moving but ride half steps in between; reduces migraine load."

Lucas weighed the watch. Holding it, he sensed the thin hum of slowed reality, an invitation. "And after rehearsal?"

"Then we liberate something louder than a cash trunk." Mei's grin turned predatory. "Tan Wei Loong's corporate accounts. Digital Robin Hood."

Serena's pen flew. "Lucas hacks thoughts, not firewalls."

"I do," Mei said, "and Cleo can freeze server decay for thirty seconds. Combine skills, wipe debts, transfer wages owed. No guns, no hostages—pure timecraft."

Lucas's pulse thumped. The concept stretched far beyond roulette cheats, into a realm where his boredom might finally asphyxiate.

But caution prodded. "Graves follows my digital footprints. He'll pivot from Macau to Singapore once he traces the bribe leak."

"I'll ghost his trackers," Mei promised. "And you'll learn to close your ripples."

Lucas studied her—dark hair tucked in rain-slick bun, eyes older than her twenty-something skin. Trusting her felt like betting double zero, but the board paid astronomical odds.

He extended the pocket watch back. "Keep it. I'll work blind; muscle memory's truer."

Mei accepted, respect flickering across her thoughts. "Then lesson starts now."

She lifted her palm. "Slow your heartbeat to mine."

Lucas mirrored her breathing. The café's clatter lengthened into syrup. Raindrops on the tin roof above separated into single percussive ticks. Between those ticks he sensed the world's sub-current—a space not frozen but widened, like lung capacity. Mei's presence steadied the flow; she guided rather than dominated.

Serena gasped softly; a sugar packet hung mid-fall between her fingers. Lucas realised they'd slipped a half-step—not full freeze, but everything else lagged a fraction. The migraine didn't flare; instead, a euphoric calm spread. He grinned.

Mei eased them back; the packet thumped onto the saucer, unnoticed by nearby patrons. Fifteen micro-seconds, no pain.

"See?" she whispered. "Dance, don't sprint."

Lucas exhaled, exhilarated. "Teach me the waltz."

They left at 02:30. The city slept, except for port cranes blinking like metronomes. Mei declined their capsule invitation; she preferred "fluid lodging." Before parting, she pressed a SIM card into Serena's palm. "Encrypted mesh. Ping if Graves surfaces."

When she vanished into alley shadow, Lucas felt an unexpected pang—hope sharpened by uncertainty. He pocketed the card, then followed Serena toward Lavender.

Inside their pod cubicle Serena finally spoke: "You realise I've gone from neutral observer to accomplice in forty-eight hours."

Lucas collapsed onto the capsule mattress. "Look at it this way: you've upgraded beats per minute."

She snorted, sliding the capsule door. "Try not to snore between ticks."

Morning punched through the curtain at 09:00. Lucas's phone—battery resurrected via borrowed charger—buzzed with news alerts: "Casino Phantom Hits Singapore," "Shipping Tycoon's Missing Millions," and, ominously, "Interpol Linked Consultant Mason Graves Arrives in City." His stomach flipped.

He padded to the shared lounge where Serena hunched over her laptop, mosaic of CCTV clips and flight logs on screen.

"Graves landed two hours ago," she said. "Checked into Fullerton, requested pier security footage."

Lucas rubbed temples. "That was fast."

"I cross-referenced incident reports from Perth, Macau, Monte Carlo—your frame-skip signature." She dragged thumbnails into a folder labelled Tick-Skipper Pattern. "If I can trace you, Graves already has."

Lucas swallowed. "Any chance Mei's network can mask the digital residue?"

"Maybe," Serena said, shutting the lid. "But first you call your mother. Headlines are crossing Australian feeds."

The reminder struck deeper than migraines. He borrowed her phone—burner dead again—and dialled Mandurah. His mother answered on second ring, voice thin from worry. The conversation was short, full of half-truths, but the relief in her goodbye weighted his chest heavier than any trunk of cash.

As he hung up, Serena's SIM-mesh phone vibrated. Unknown sender: Curators detected Marina anomaly. Track 2: Penang.

Lucas felt blood chill. Mei's warning blossomed into urgency.

Serena met his gaze. "Field trip sooner than planned?"

Lucas adjusted the recovered Zippo in his pocket, flicked it once—flame dancing like a pledge. "Boredom's dead. We move."

Chapter 11 – Penang — Clockmaker's Dossier

A single-prop puddle-jumper banked low over the Straits of Malacca, and Lucas Vale tasted salt through the hair-line crack in the cabin window. The island lights of Penang spread beneath like constellations fallen into the sea—beautiful, precarious, and, if Mei's warning proved true, crawling with the shadow collectors she called Curators. He rubbed the bruise of yesterday's migraine, then the Zippo in his pocket, and reminded himself boredom was dead; this was something fiercer.

Customs at Bayan Lepas Airport should have been routine—a sleepy pre-dawn queue of backpackers and aunties in headscarves. But the immigration officer's computer pinged yellow the instant it scanned Lucas's Irish passport. Lucas caught the man's surface thought—secondary screening flag: algorithm mismatch—and felt his pulse pick up. Serena, two booths away, shot him a silent question; Mei, already through with her Malaysian ID, drifted toward the baggage carousel, apparently unconcerned.

Lucas inhaled, slipped into the half-tick Mei had drilled into him in the kopitiam: a micro-step too slender to freeze the world, just enough to bend it. Time thickened, sounds dopplered into molasses, and the yellow alert icon on the officer's monitor flickered slower than a dying firefly. Lucas guided a whisper of influence across the gap—routine glitch, dismiss flag—then eased out of the current.

Reality snapped to normal tempo. The officer blinked, frowned at his own screen as if it had burped, and waved Lucas on. Pain registered behind Lucas's eyes—a pinprick, nothing like the jackhammer of full freezes. Progress.

Minutes later the trio spilled into warm darkness outside Arrivals. A Grab driver Mei had summoned via encrypted mesh idled at the curb. The Toyota's dash carried a bobble-head cheetah; Lucas took that as an omen for speed.

As they pulled into the expressway—mangrove silhouettes racing by—Serena broke the silence. "That flag was Graves?"

"Maybe," Lucas said. "Or the Curators." His tongue tasted metal at the thought.

Mei shook her head. "If Graves seeded customs, they'd have hauled you. More likely the Curators' pattern-recognition net. It watches for impossible coincidences—like a man whose documents ping across three casinos the night they glitch."

Lucas slumped into the seat. "Great. I'm a statistical firework."

"Then let's change the pattern," Mei said. "Tonight we acquire insurance."

Insurance came, she explained, in the shape of a dossier—compiled by an underworld archivist nicknamed the Clockmaker—containing three decades of Curator operations in Southeast Asia. Mei had traded favors to locate him, but only Lucas's telepathy could verify the goods in real time.

"And why will he talk to us?" Serena asked.

"He values memory more than money," Mei replied. "We'll pay in recollection."

Serena blinked. "That's poetic and alarming."

Lucas rubbed his temple. "We find him where?"

"Lebuh Armenian," Mei said. "Old Georgetown lanes, ten p.m." She eyed Lucas. "Rest first. Micro-steps cost less, but debt accrues."

They checked into adjoining rooms at a heritage guesthouse—teak floors, shuttered windows, ceiling fans with a colonial sigh. While Serena napped, Lucas sat cross-legged on the balcony with Mei, practicing half-steps to the rhythm of trishaw bells below. He'd surf the sub-second current for three heartbeats, then release, each cycle smoothing the inner static. By the tenth repetition the world glowed sharper; migraine threat retreated behind the horizon.

Mei watched, inscrutable. "You learn fast."

"I break fast. Survival skill." He opened his palm; a house gecko frozen mid-scuttle seemed to wink before continuity resumed. The creature skittered away, unbothered.

"Remember," Mei said, "Curators possess sensors Graves can't dream of—gravimetric ripples, photon overshoot, you name it. Micro-steps burrow beneath that floor."

Lucas flexed aching fingers. "So why hornet-nest poke for Clockmaker's file? Won't that paint brighter targets?"

"Because knowledge outruns nets," Mei answered. "With that dossier we'll know how Curators hunt—and how to blind them."

Night draped George­town in monsoon humidity and the aroma of char kway teow. The trio walked narrow lanes where lanterns drooled red light onto cracked tiles. Lucas's nerves hummed; every alley shadow looked like Graves's scarred profile.

They found the Clockmaker's shop tucked between a Clan jetty warehouse and a artisan café—no sign, just a brass pendulum mounted above a green door. Inside, clocks of every era ticked and tocked in anarchic symphony: grandfather hulks, carriage tickers, Soviet cosmonaut chronometers. A smell of machine oil and durian cookies filled the air.

Behind the counter stood an old Chinese man in linen vest, fingers stained with grease. He examined them, eyes like wine-dark quartz. "Miss Mei returns with thunder."

Mei bowed. "And friends."

Lucas felt the old man's surface thoughts: Step-slipper, mind-listener—dangerous tools. Respect mingled with caution. Good sign.

Clockmaker produced a silver chronograph, placed it on velvet. "Payment first. A minute of memory, untouched."

Mei looked to Lucas. He nodded, swallowed. He extracted the memory of his first solo time-freeze—the thrill of dodging a cricket ball in midair, the hush of suspended dust motes—and pushed it across the synaptic bridge they'd established. Clockmaker inhaled sharply, eyelids fluttering as if tasting vintage wine.

"True chronon nectar," the old man whispered. He tucked the memory—how, Lucas couldn't guess—into whatever vault served him. Then he slid a thin leather folio across. "Curators, volume twelve."

Lucas opened it. Inside, onion-skin pages held microfilm photographs, maps dotted with hourglass glyphs, and lists of seized artifacts: pocket watches with missing seconds, paintings that warped when nobody looked. At the end, a scanned letter: Directive Polaris—acquire potential recruits, neutralize untethered anomalies.

His chest tightened. "This is real."

A doorbell chimed outside—the café maybe. But Mei's head snapped up. "Time to leave."

Before Lucas could protest, three silhouettes pressed against frosted glass of the storefront—silencers affixed to pistols. Their minds radiated disciplined focus; Curator retrieval squad, or Graves's hired guns? Lucas couldn't risk a full freeze in a shop stuffed with priceless gear and pendulums.

"Micro-step chain," Mei hissed. "Follow."

Time flexed. Lucas felt world's drag increase but not stop. Mei moved first—an elegant blur—ducking under the counter gap. Lucas mirrored, heart firing double. Serena dropped instinctively, camera bag shielding dossier. Bullets shattered the door glass, edges flickering slower than sound.

They reached the back hallway in three linked half-steps: move, breath, slip; move, breath, slip. Pain pricked but stayed manageable. At the rear exit, Mei kicked a bolt; humidity poured in.

Alley. Motorcycle engines. Two more gunmen blocked their path. Lucas flicked TK—enough kinetic shove to ram the nearer assailant against rubbish bins. Mei pirouetted, snatched the other's wrist mid-shot, and twisted; the bullet scudded into asphalt with a lazy spark.

Sirens wailed distant—perhaps local police alerted by stray shots. Mei signalled left. They sprinted, micro-stepping only to blur round tight corners, conserving energy. Lucas clutched dossier under his shirt; its thin pages felt like live wires.

They burst onto Lebuh Cannon, tourist-lit by mural spotlights. Crowds gaped at the trio racing past. Public exposure would stall pursuit; assassins preferred shadows.

Inside a noodle shop Mei barged through kitchen to rear courtyard opening onto another lane. There she finally stopped, chest heaving. Lucas's migraine knocked but door remained shut—for now. Serena leaned against a rain barrel, wide-eyed.

"That," she said, "was your subtle operation?"

Mei wiped sweat. "We succeeded. Dossier intact."

Lucas cracked a laugh, half-hysteria. "And spent maybe thirty real seconds."

"Twenty-eight," Mei corrected. "Micro-steps work."

Lucas's phone buzzed. A mesh alert: Graves triangulates Penang. Flights booked dawn.

He showed them. Mei grimaced. "We sail tonight. Jettys have slow-freighter south to Port Klang; Cleo meets there."

Serena checked camera—unbroken. "And the gunmen?"

"Curator retrieval, Level One," Mei said. "They probe before invitation. We just declined."

Lucas opened the dossier's final page again. Under Directive Polaris lay a fresh addendum dated last month: Target L-V: confirm teleportative chronon manipulation. Capture priority elevated.

His initials. His stomach iced.

He snapped the Zippo lid open, flame steady despite trembling hand. "Then let's put distance between us and priorities."

Mei nodded, eyes fierce. "Next tick belongs to us."

They slipped into the night, dossier against Lucas's heart, Curators now fully awake—and moving.

Chapter 12 – Strait Run

Lucas crouched behind a stack of pungent durian crates on Penang's Butterworth wharf and watched dawn paint the Malacca Strait a bruised nickel grey. Fifty metres ahead, the Samudra Pelangi—an ageing Indonesian feeder-freighter—burped diesel as deckhands winched the final pallets of cooking oil aboard. She was only two hundred metres long and so rust-streaked she looked more sculpture than seaworthy, yet her captain had accepted Mei's encrypted wire transfer without questions. That alone made the ship their best shot at outrunning both the Curators' algorithms and Graves's jet-lagged fury.

The bruise under Lucas's collarbone throbbed where a Curator round had grazed him in the Clockmaker shop. A little reminder that capture priority "L-V" wasn't theoretical anymore. He rotated his shoulder, let the ache settle, and tested a micro-step: half a heartbeat into the sub-current, enough to make the dangling crane cable ahead smear like wet ink before he slipped back. Pain: minimal. Confidence: rising.

Mei's voice crackled in his earbud. "Pier patrol two minutes out. Customs vest, but thought pattern says Curator contract."

Lucas peeked around the crate stack. A pair of officers in crisp khaki strode the quay, dogs in tow, scanning manifests with handhelds. Through their thoughts he felt the rigid pulse of mission protocol—verify cargo, detain anomalies—overlaying superficial small talk about breakfast roti.

Serena's whisper followed. "I'm at gangway base with our 'press liaison' badge. If they board, we need the manifest doctored."

"On it." Lucas slid into a three-second micro-step. The world thickened; gull cries slowed to whale song. He crossed open concrete—one, two, three strides—ducked into the stevedore's cabin. A manifest tablet lay charging. Telepathy skimmed the last user password from residual brain-echo on the chair; his fingers typed before curiosity could protest. He replaced their names on the crew list with three Bangladeshis who'd disembarked in Chennai last month, then injected a line item: "LIVE RESEARCH SPONGES – DO NOT OPEN." Mei claimed customs avoided anything described as 'research'.

Lucas exhaled, world resumed. A flash of vertigo rippled his vision, but he caught it on a breath. He exited just as the patrol passed, dogs snuffling durian but ignoring him. Micro-steps really were a gentler dance.

At the gangway Serena greeted the officers with a bored journalist half-smile, badge flashing. Lucas joined, hefting a pelican case that actually held nothing but Mei's circlet of mesh routers and the precious dossier. One officer eyed the case.

"Samples," Serena lied, tapping her camera. "Piece on food-grade palm exports."

The man's mind tried the story on for size, found it plausible. They waved them up the gangway. Behind, Lucas felt Mei's brief touch on his consciousness, a quiet "told you."

The Samudra's bridge smelled of instant coffee and engine heat. Captain Arif—broad face, bullet scar across scalp—signed their false paperwork with shrugging indifference. "We sail on the tide. Stay out the crew's poker, they play rough."

Belowdecks Lucas secured the pelican in a lockable bunk cabin. Mei unfolded the dossier on the tiny desk, photographing each page to encrypted cloud. Serena set up mesh relays that piggy-backed on passing tanker AIS signatures, muddying their digital silhouette.

"Graves landed half an hour ago," she reported, eyes on laptop. "He's booked a fast response cutter out of Langkawi. If he guesses freighter, he can still overtake."

Mei sipped sweet tea. "Cutter or not, Curator drones outrange him. We need scramblers."

Lucas clicked the Zippo open, flame blooming like focus. "Ship's comms room has an analog distress beacon—old-school spark gap. We can repurpose coil interference." He snapped the lid shut; plan ignited.

By mid-morning the Samudra cleared harbour. Rainclouds marched the horizon, wind smelling of tin and storm. Lucas and Mei dismantled the beacon, rewiring copper coils into a broad-spectrum jammer keyed to the frequency band flagged in Volume 12 as Curator drone telemetry. Sparks danced; Lucas's TK steadied a live wire while Mei soldered without frying them both.

First test: the bridge radar bloomed snow for half a second, then stabilised as the jammer found its harmonic niche. Arif cursed in Bahasa, but Mei bribed him with promises of double payment.

Serena perched on a gangway ladder above, photographing the makeshift Faraday cage for her private chronicle. "You realise I can't print any of this without looking insane."

Lucas wiped sweat. "Sanity overrated, Miss Kaur."

She rolled her eyes—affectionately, he hoped—and pointed sea-ward. "Speaking of sanity, we've got company."

A white wake arrowed across the choppy water, maybe four kilometres astern: a sleek grey cutter knifing toward them, hull numbers masked by spray. Lucas's chest tightened.

"Graves," Mei said flatly. "His style—loud pursuit, silent proof."

Lucas closed eyes, skimmed distant minds. The cutter crew thoughts were a murky swarm, but one voice thrummed like a diesel engine: Mason Graves, rehearsing breach commands in clipped phrases. No Curator doctrine there—just stubborn vendetta.

"Time to innovate," Lucas muttered.

Storm clouds cracked open, sleeting warm rain. Deck became skating rink. Mei produced three vacuum-sealed pouches from her sling bag—metallic powder.

"Entropy putty," she explained. "Borrowed from Cleo. When activated in a micro-step, it 'slows' oxidation—basically freezes rust so hull seams act new for a minute."

Lucas blinked. "We're making the ship faster?"

"More buoyant," Mei corrected. "Trim drag, maybe gain knots, but mostly keep plates from shearing under stress manoeuvre."

"This freighter doesn't stress manoeuvre," Serena pointed out.

"It will." Mei grinned.

They coated critical welds along starboard, Lucas timing micro-steps so the putty cured in the sub-current. Each activation tugged mild fatigue, but together the effort felt rehearsed, almost elegant. Rainwater beaded on fresh seams like mercury.

Bridge speakers crackled—Graves hailing on VHF, voice iron-steady. "Cargo vessel Samudra Pelangi, cut engines and prepare for boarding. International Maritime Security Section."

Captain Arif looked like he might faint. Lucas grabbed the mic. "Negative, Security Section. We're carrying bio-research sponges. Quarantine—approach at own risk."

Graves paused. Lucas felt the man's irritation spike across water even without telepathy. "You have sixty seconds before we disable propulsion."

Mei leaned close. "He'll try an engine shot. We need smoke."

Lucas scanned deck supplies—saw a pallet of fertiliser sacks under tarpaulin. Ammonium phosphate plus diesel equals ugly.

"Cover me." He sprinted aft, micro-stepping through sleet and spray, yanked two fuel hoses loose, dunked sacks. He TK-shoved a loose drum into Graves's imagined path—floating debris. Then he flicked the Zippo, flame sputtering in rain.

"Lucas!" Serena's warning, but too late—he'd already micro-stepped, shielding face as he tossed the lit rag into the slurry.

Explosion wasn't cinematic; more a belch of black smoke and roaring orange that rolled across stern. The freighter lurched. Lucas stumbled back into real-time coughing but grinning. Thick plume expanded downwind—straight into the cutter's line of sight.

On the bridge radar, Graves's blip slowed, weaving to avoid debris. Rain mixed with smoke, painting a curtain. Mei hit the jammer to full power; Serena triggered a pre-written emergency beacon toward Malaysian Coast Guard citing engine fire.

For fifteen tense minutes, cutter wake veered, then receded. When the smoke cleared, only sea birds circled their charred stern. Lucas allowed himself to breathe.

Mei clasped his forearm. "Never met a man who'd torch a ship to save it."

"Boredom's dead, remember?" He tried to smile, then winced—the bruise flared from recoil.

Serena checked camera—ash smeared lens but still functional. "Graves won't quit. He'll circle to Langkawi and radio ahead."

Lucas opened the dossier again on the bridge chart table, flipping to a map labelled Retrieval Corridors – Malacca. Hourglass glyphs marked waypoints; one sat ominously close to Port Klang's pilot channel. "Curators predict walker routes," he said. "This corridor."

Mei's eyes narrowed. "Then we divert before pilot boarding. Klang has mangrove back-channels—shallow, but the Samudra drafts light now that we burned half a drum."

Captain Arif overheard, objected, then stared at Lucas's Zippo and relented. Grease the man enough, Lucas mused, and even physics got haggled.

Dusk found the freighter nudging through shadowed tributaries where mangroves arched like cathedral ribs over silent water. The engine idled; men used poles to guide hull between roots. Fireflies winked in humid air. Serena whispered, "Feels like we sailed off the edge of GPS." She wasn't wrong—mesh pings went dark; jammer shut to avoid revealing EM bloom. Only Lucas's unquiet mind mapped threats now.

Mei led them to fo'c'sle, away from crew rumors. "Cleo's last ping: abandoned tin-ore pier ahead. She'll meet us there with a refrigerated courier van."

"Entropy gift," Lucas said. "Keeping dossiers fresh?"

"And us." Mei smiled—but tension crinkled her eyes.

Thunder grumbled distantly. Lucas rubbed eyelids, exhaustion seeping in as adrenaline bled out. Hours without true rest, memory extracted as currency, combustion theatrics—debt came due. Serena noticed; she slipped fingers through his. Warm reassurance pulsed along skin, stronger than any micro-influence he could cast.

The Samudra nudged timber pylons with a dull thunk. Lanterns revealed a rotting pier, corrugated sheds half-collapsed. And next to an overgrown loading bay idled a white panel van, refrigeration unit humming in the steamy dark. A woman leaned against hood—Afro curls tied back, jumpsuit smeared with red dust—smiling as if meeting friends for tapas, not fugitives at war with time.

"Cleo," Mei announced, relief softening her posture.

Lucas scanned Cleo's mind; surface thoughts unfurled calm waves, but objects around her subtly vibrated with borrowed freshness—the pier's rust halos stilled, a banana peel on ground looked newly peeled. Entropy slowing, in action.

"Cargo icy as promised," Cleo said, patting van. "And I brought dessert—liquid nitrogen coffee."

Serena laughed, half-delirious.

Before introductions deepened, Mei's mesh phone buzzed—silent flash. She checked, face draining.

"Coast Guard channel intercepted," she whispered. "Curators used Graves's cutter transponder to fake mayday. They convinced marine police to board any freighter matching Samudra's profile."

Lucas's shoulders sagged. "So the ship's burnt but still compromised."

Cleo opened van's rear—rows of foam crates and a stainless-steel cryobox. "We leave by road. Captain Arif sails on; Curators chase ghost hull."

Mei turned to Lucas. "You ready for overland sprint?"

Lucas glanced at the dossier, at Serena's soot- streaked grin, at Cleo's impossible coffee steaming cold. Exhaustion roared, but boredom lay dead; purpose stood waving keys.

"Point me at the horizon," he said. "I'll find the sub-current."

They loaded crates—dossier sealed inside cryobox for entropy insurance—then eased into the van. Cleo gunned the engine, tires crunching gravel as mangrove shadows swallowed the pier.

Behind them, Samudra's horn boomed farewell—an elderly beast steaming back into the main channel, carrying false names, false cargo, and a trail for Graves and the Curators to chase. Ahead, jungle highway unfurled like a dark ribbon toward Kuala Lumpur and whatever traps waited in Track 3.

Lucas closed his eyes, surfed a three-second slip, and whispered to the ticking silence between beats: Keep up, hunters.