The observatory's west wing now pulsed with nervous energy. Since discovering the Ministry's involvement—and the implanted tracker inside Greaves—Amira had doubled the encryption protocols. Every door needed double clearance. Every message was scrubbed three times before transmission.
But it didn't matter.
The name written on the scorched blueprints haunted her more than anything else.
Chronostasis Engine.
She hadn't heard it since before Rayan built the time machine. Before the night she lost him.
And now, ten years later, it had returned.
Silas stood at the center of the lab, gloves stained with ink and rust from reassembled fragments.
"It's not just a theory," he muttered. "He was building a second machine."
Amira watched him lay out the components like pieces of a forbidden puzzle.
"What does it do?"
"Time isn't just movement," he said. "It's pressure. Acceleration. Collapse. This machine—if Rayan was right—it wouldn't send someone back or forward. It would stop time entirely, within a field. A moment preserved like amber."
"A prison?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "Or a vault. A way to protect something forever."
That night, Ishan didn't sleep.
He stood on the balcony, staring at the stars, fingers clenched on the railing. The sky rippled.
A shimmer.
It was faint—but it was there. A disturbance in the horizon that looked like heat rising from concrete.
Someone was watching them.
He turned to go back inside—and saw a red light blinking on his desk.
A data chip.
He hadn't left it there.
Greaves awoke screaming.
Silas and Amira rushed to the infirmary. The older man thrashed against the restraints, eyes wide with terror, mouth moving faster than language could follow.
"Clockwork—fragments—he's building it again—he remembers—you have to burn the loop—burn it!"
Amira leaned down, gripping his hand. "Greaves. Look at me."
His eyes locked on hers.
"They'll come for the boy. You have three days. If he enters the Core again, the loop reactivates. This—this whole version of the timeline collapses. Don't let him go below. Please."
He slumped, exhausted.
And whispered:
"Rayan tried to fix it. But he wasn't fast enough."
Amira sat alone in her office with the envelope—Rayan's message.
"To stop the Clockmaker, the boy must never enter the chamber again."
It was too perfect. Too complete. She knew her husband. Knew how he planned ten steps ahead.
Had he expected this?
Was this always part of his design?
In the early hours, Ishan inserted the data chip into the old terminal in the guest wing.
A file auto-loaded.
A hologram appeared.
Rayan.
Younger. Less tired. Laughing eyes. But with a shadow behind them.
"Hello, Ishan," the projection said. "If you're seeing this… I didn't make it back."
Ishan's breath caught.
Rayan continued, "I don't know how much you remember. Or if the memory blocks still hold. But you were never just a subject. You're the reason I built the machine."
He leaned closer.
"The cure is within you."
The screen flickered. "But the cost of time is never small. You must choose—preserve her… or preserve yourself."
Then it went black.
Ishan sat motionless for a long time.
The words echoed.
"The cure is within you."
Was that what the Ministry wanted? Not just to study him—but to extract something?
He rose, shaking, and walked down the silent hallway.
Straight toward the locked stairwell that led to the chamber beneath the observatory.
At 4 a.m., Amira's comm pinged.Security alert: Basement Seal Breached.
Her breath caught. She didn't grab a coat. She didn't even put on shoes. She ran.
By the time she reached the lower hall, Ishan was already inside.
The doors had slammed shut behind him.
Panic gripped her chest like iron.
Through the thick glass, she saw him staring at the machine. The original time engine. Half-buried in tarps and dust.
"Ishan!" she pounded the glass. "Get away from there!"
He didn't hear. Or maybe he didn't want to.
He stepped closer.
Then he touched it.
The chamber lit up. Lights along the machine's edges glowed with a low blue pulse. Circuits reconnected. Somewhere, deep inside, a core began to hum.
The system recognized him.
ID CONFIRMED.TEMPORAL SIGNATURE: MATCH.INITIATING CHRONOSTASIS PROTOCOL.
Amira screamed.
But no sound reached him.
Inside, Ishan stood calm.
He reached into his jacket.
Pulled out a small vial. Neon green. The cure Rayan had created.
He placed it in the machine's central cradle.
CORE SPECIMEN DETECTED.PRESERVATION MODE ACTIVE.
He turned toward the observation glass. His eyes met Amira's.
"I'm sorry," he mouthed.
Then the machine activated.
A sphere of white energy enveloped him.
Time… stopped.
The world outside continued.
The machine's outer shell folded inward, sealing the field.
A timer began to count down.
10 years.
Outside the lab, alarms wailed.
Silas arrived, breathless. "What happened?!"
Amira collapsed to her knees. "He froze himself."
"Why?"
She looked up, eyes hollow.
"To keep the cure safe. And to keep the Ministry from ever getting him."
Far away, in the Ministry's underground facility, the masked commander stared at a blank screen.
"No signal," one agent said. "The signature's gone."
The commander didn't speak.
Then, slowly, they turned.
"Prepare Phase Two."
"But the boy—he's in stasis."
"Then we wait," the commander said. "For ten years, if we must. The cycle always turns."
They walked to the tank where Rayan's severed arm floated.
Behind it, another chamber.
A figure was beginning to regenerate.
One with a familiar face.
One they called:
The Clockmaker.
To be continue...