CHAPTER 18: RESOURCE SPRINT
Three missions in three days.
The first was Medieval France—a jousting tournament disrupted by an anachronistic armor set that predicted attacks before they happened. The team handled the social infiltration while I worked the edges, absorbing displaced temporal energy from every piece of out-of-time equipment I could find.
The absorption felt different now. Sharper. More controlled. The Processing Boost stacks from the Leviathan debris had upgraded my mental efficiency, and that improvement extended to how I processed chronal energy. What used to feel like drinking through a straw now felt like breathing—natural, automatic, barely requiring conscious effort.
[ABSORPTION COMPLETE — MEDIEVAL FRANCE]
[+45 ⧖ TEMPORAL CREDITS]
[+20 ✧ CHRONO-ESSENCE]
[RUNNING TOTAL: 120 ⧖, 68 ✧]
Forty-five credits from a single mission. Better than my average by a significant margin. The armor had been heavily saturated with displaced energy—future tech that didn't belong in the 1400s, leaking chronal residue like a punctured fuel tank.
Sara noticed my intensity. "You've been thorough today," she said as we returned to the Waverider. "More thorough than usual."
"Pattern recognition works better with more data."
"Uh-huh." Her tone suggested she wasn't buying it, but she didn't push. We'd reached an understanding since the D.C. mission—she suspected I had secrets, but she also recognized that my secrets weren't actively harming the team. That bought me latitude.
Latitude I need to keep.
The second mission was 1980s Japan—a tech company whose founder had received knowledge from the future, creating products decades ahead of their time. The corrupted data streams were gold mines for absorption, digital information saturated with temporal displacement.
I worked through the night while the team slept, extracting every trace of chronal residue from the contaminated systems. The process was tedious—each data packet required individual processing, and the yields were small—but the cumulative effect was substantial.
[ABSORPTION COMPLETE — 1980s JAPAN]
[+50 ⧖ TEMPORAL CREDITS]
[+15 ✧ CHRONO-ESSENCE]
[RUNNING TOTAL: 170 ⧖, 83 ✧]
One hundred seventy credits. Thirty short of the threshold. One more mission.
My hands shook slightly as I dismissed the interface. Fatigue, probably—I'd been pushing harder than ever, absorbing more than my usual rate, and the physical toll was starting to show. The system's warnings about overload risk weren't theoretical anymore.
[ABSORPTION STRAIN DETECTED]
[CURRENT EFFICIENCY: -5% FROM BASELINE]
[RECOMMENDATION: REST PERIOD BEFORE CONTINUED ACQUISITION]
I ignored the warning. One more mission. That was all I needed.
The third mission came faster than expected—2020s Star City, a vigilante timeline disruption that threatened to unravel Oliver Queen's entire legacy. The team deployed immediately, no time for rest, no time for recovery.
Perfect.
The disruption was centered on a warehouse district—fitting, given how much of my life seemed to involve warehouses now. The temporal damage was extensive, timeline fragments scattered across multiple city blocks, each one a potential absorption target.
I worked methodically, moving from fragment to fragment while the team dealt with the primary threat. The process was faster now, almost routine—reach out, connect, pull the energy in, process, store. Repeat.
[+15 ⧖]
[+20 ⧖]
[+10 ⧖]
The numbers climbed. One seventy. One eighty. One ninety.
[ABSORPTION WARNING: APPROACHING OVERLOAD THRESHOLD]
[CURRENT INTAKE: 65 ⧖ IN 18 HOURS]
[THRESHOLD: 80 ⧖/24 HOURS]
[RECOMMENDATION: CEASE ABSORPTION — RISK OF REJECTION]
Fifteen more credits. Just fifteen more.
I found a larger fragment—a piece of timeline that had sheared off completely, orphaned from its original context. The energy signature was intense, almost painful to perceive. More than I'd absorbed from any single source before.
This will do it.
I reached out. Connected. Pulled.
The energy hit like a physical blow. My vision whited out for half a second, and when it cleared, my hands were shaking harder than before. Sweat ran down my forehead despite the cool night air.
[ABSORPTION COMPLETE — EMERGENCY CUTOFF TRIGGERED]
[+35 ⧖ TEMPORAL CREDITS]
[OVERLOAD THRESHOLD EXCEEDED — 100 ⧖ IN 18 HOURS]
[EFFICIENCY PENALTY APPLIED: -10% FOR 24 HOURS]
[TOTAL RESOURCES:]
[— TEMPORAL CREDITS: 205 ⧖]
[— CHRONO-ESSENCE: 90 ✧]
Two hundred five credits. Threshold reached.
I leaned against the warehouse wall, breathing hard. The penalty would hurt—ten percent efficiency meant slower absorption on the next mission, reduced yields, longer recovery time. But the number was green. The math finally worked.
[TIER 2 CONTRACT: AFFORDABLE]
[REQUIREMENTS: 200 ⧖ + 50 ✧]
[CURRENT: 205 ⧖ + 90 ✧]
[SURPLUS: 5 ⧖ + 40 ✧]
Five credits of margin. Barely anything. But enough.
"Bennett!" Sara's voice, sharp through the comm. "Status?"
"Fine." I pushed off from the wall, forcing my legs to support me. "Just finishing reconnaissance."
"Reconnaissance of what? The primary threat is neutralized. We're extracting in five."
"On my way."
The walk back to the extraction point felt longer than it should have. Each step required conscious effort, and my vision kept trying to blur at the edges. The overload penalty wasn't just a number on an interface—it was a physical reality, my body protesting the abuse I'd put it through.
Worth it, I told myself. The price of progress.
Ray met me at the Waverider ramp, concern evident in his expression. "You look terrible."
"Long mission."
"Long three missions." He fell into step beside me, conscience mode activated. "You've been pushing yourself. I've noticed. Sara's noticed. Even Rip noticed, and he's been distracted by Savage."
"The work requires pushing."
"The work requires you being functional." Ray's hand caught my arm, stopping me at the ramp's base. "Whatever you're building toward—whatever goal is driving this—it won't matter if you burn out before you get there."
He's right, the rational part of my brain acknowledged. You're running hot. One more sprint like that and you'll hit a wall.
But the contract resources were secured. The Snart plan was viable. Everything else could wait.
"I'll rest," I said. "After this mission, I'll take a break."
Ray didn't look convinced, but he let go of my arm. "I'm holding you to that."
The Waverider's medbay confirmed what I already knew—elevated stress hormones, minor neural fatigue, the biological markers of someone who'd been pushing too hard for too long. Gideon recommended forty-eight hours of reduced activity. I agreed to twenty-four.
That night, I sat in my quarters and stared at my reflection in the darkened viewport. Dark circles under my eyes. Pallor that hadn't been there a week ago. The physical cost of three days of aggressive resource acquisition.
[SYSTEM STATUS:]
[LEVEL: 3 — TEMPORAL SURVEYOR]
[XP: 350/2,500 TO LEVEL 4]
[TEMPORAL CREDITS: 205 ⧖]
[CHRONO-ESSENCE: 90 ✧]
[EFFICIENCY: 50% (PENALTY ACTIVE — 23:47 REMAINING)]
[PROCESSING BOOST: 3/10 STACKS]
[CHECKPOINTS: 2/3]
The numbers were good. Better than good—they represented real progress, tangible advancement toward goals that had seemed impossibly distant just weeks ago. Level 3. Contract-ready resources. A plan that could actually work.
The Vanishing Point is coming, I thought. And when it does, I'll be ready.
Gideon's voice interrupted my contemplation: "All crew members, Captain Hunter requests your presence on the bridge. Coordinates have been calculated for our next mission."
I stood, joints protesting, and headed for the door.
"Mr. Bennett," Gideon added, "the coordinates correspond to a location designated as the Vanishing Point. Captain Hunter indicates this will be our final assault on the Time Masters."
The Vanishing Point. The Oculus. Snart's sacrifice.
Sooner than expected. But I'm ready.
The exhaustion faded, replaced by focus. The contract was affordable. The plan was solid. All that remained was execution.
I walked toward the bridge, toward the endgame, toward the moment that would determine whether Leonard Snart died a hero or lived as my first agent.
The numbers were finally right.
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