Michael's POV – The Burden of Genius
The warehouse smelled of solder, coffee gone stale, and ink. Glass panels lined the walls, covered edge-to-edge with equations scrawled in black marker. Circuits blinked from half-assembled devices, and in the center, the skeletal prototype of the Helios Core glowed faintly, humming with unstable promise.
Michael sat hunched over his desk, his hair damp with sweat, his shirt clinging to his back. The pocket watch lay beside him, silver dulled, its tick-tick-tick louder than any machine in the room. Each click stabbed at him like a reminder: Six months. Maybe less.
His pen scratched furiously, equations unraveling into diagrams, diagrams into possibilities. He knew what this meant: if Helios worked, energy chains would collapse. Oil, coal, even nuclear could be replaced. The world could leap into the stars.
And yet every solution felt like it came with its own ghost. Protests against him, whispers of fraud, headlines painting him as both savior and danger — he saw them on the muted TV in the corner. One anchor's voice, though silent, he could almost lip-read: "Michael Rivers: Messiah or Madman?"
He muttered under his breath.
"Messiah? Madman? Try a man on borrowed time."
The ticking watch seemed to agree.
---
Arthur's POV – The Warning
Arthur Caldwell sat across the room, spectacles perched on his nose, watching Michael with the weary patience of a father who had raised too many stubborn sons.
The boy reminded him of himself at that age: restless, hungry, convinced that knowledge was a ladder to salvation. But Arthur knew better now. Knowledge wasn't a ladder. It was a knife — and it cut both wielder and enemy alike.
"Michael," he said softly, breaking the hum of machines. "You're burning at both ends."
Michael didn't look up. "I don't have time to pace myself."
Arthur leaned back, the chair creaking beneath him. "You think time is the enemy. But obsession is faster. You're not just climbing — you're leaning over the abyss."
Michael chuckled dryly. "Then I'll just learn to fly."
Arthur studied him, sorrow creasing his face. He knew humor was Michael's shield. And he knew shields cracked under enough pressure.
---
Claire's POV – The Anchor
Claire arrived quietly, setting down a paper bag of food on the counter. She looked around the warehouse, the glow of machines reflecting in her sharp green eyes. Michael barely noticed her at first. He was a shadow hunched over scribbles.
"Michael," she said, her tone halfway between gentle and firm. "You need to eat."
He looked up, blinking as though surfacing from deep water. He gave her a weak smile. "Later. I'm close."
Claire frowned. She had seen soldiers with that same look in Afghanistan — men so focused on surviving the moment they forgot they were alive at all.
She sat beside him, brushing dust off a stool. "You're not the machine. You're the man running it."
Michael stared at her, something fragile flickering in his eyes. For a second, the ticking stopped. Her presence muted it. But when he looked back at the equations, the watch clicked again, louder than before.
---
Claire's Memory – Her Mother
That night, Claire dreamed of her mother. Margaret Bellamy, graceful even in illness, had wasted away from cancer when Claire was only thirteen. Richard Bellamy had stood at the funeral like a statue, unyielding, as if grief was weakness.
Claire remembered clutching the edges of her dress, waiting for a father's embrace that never came. That was the day she vowed to find strength in her own light, to carry warmth where her father carried steel.
Now, watching Michael, she felt that same vow rising. She would not let him collapse into darkness without a fight.
---
Jason's POV – The Cracks
Jason Rivers sat in a dim London bar, a half-empty glass of whiskey sweating against his palm. Laughter buzzed around him, but none of it touched him.
He remembered nights when it was him, Michael, and Vanessa — laughter filling apartments, plans made over cheap beer. Back then, Michael had been just another friend, not this… messiah with a ticking clock.
Jason's jaw tightened. "Why him?" he muttered into his drink.
The booth creaked. A man slid in across from him. Jason didn't see his face clearly — shadows swallowed it. Only the glint of a ring and the smoothness of his voice remained.
"The Serpent coils," the stranger said. "Even pawns can bite."
Jason froze, glass halfway to his lips. The words slithered into his ears, poisonous and tempting.
The man left as silently as he came. Jason sat alone, heart hammering, the seed of betrayal planted deep.
---
World POV – The Ripples
CNN Broadcast: "Michael Rivers — visionary, fraud, or dangerous radical?"
Twitter Thread: "#FreeTheSun — Rivers is proof we don't need oil." / "He's a scam, wake up."
CIA Dossier (Redacted): Subject: RIVERS, MICHAEL. Potential destabilizing figure. Monitored.
Street Graffiti in Warsaw: A serpent coiling around a lightbulb, words scrawled: "The Viper strikes soon."
---
Michael collapsed into his chair, exhaustion pulling at every bone. Claire reached out, her hand resting on his shoulder. For a heartbeat, the ticking stopped.
Arthur watched them both, sadness shadowing his face. He whispered to himself, words Michael couldn't hear:
"The boy doesn't hear it yet. But the world is already counting down."
The pocket watch clicked once more. Louder. Final.
Jonas' POV – The Ghost of the Boardroom
Jonas Merrow rode the late train home, the dossier no longer in his hands but still burning in his mind. He couldn't forget the serpent's seal, the second envelope, or the phrase inside: "A king falls when a pawn forgets he is one."
He stared at the rain blurring the window. Commuters around him scrolled their phones, read the news, laughed at memes. Michael Rivers' name flashed across a teenager's screen — hashtags flying, arguments raging. Savior. Fraud. Messiah. Madman.
Jonas wanted to lean over and say, You don't understand. None of you do. It's not Rivers you should fear. It's the shadow behind him. But he kept silent. Pawns survived by silence.
The memory of Catherine Haldane's glance chilled him. Her eyes hadn't looked at him; they had looked through him. He felt as though he was already written into the Serpent's ledger, his end date penciled in.
When he stepped off the train, he thought of his daughter's drawing on the fridge. The bright colors, the innocence. He wondered if he should take it down — so it wouldn't hurt as much when it became the only thing left of him.
---
The World's Blindness
The next morning, news anchors laughed about Michael Rivers' "garage science." Politicians dismissed him as a distraction. Investors muttered that the stock market would recover.
But Jonas knew. He had seen the fear in Whitcombe's eyes, the tremor in Maggie's fingers. He knew Michael wasn't the danger — the Serpent was.
And Jonas realized something cruel: pawns didn't just die in games of kings. Pawns died to remind kings they weren't immortal.
He walked into the Erevos tower again, his hands shaking. And in the back of his mind, a single thought coiled like a whisper: The Serpent already knows my name.