My head still throbbed, but the messages kept coming every couple minutes like clockwork. Dana did mention something about being cold for 34 hours or so. Given the circumstances, it had to be Lira. The room felt empty without Mylo's usual judgmental stare from his corner perch, but that cat came and went as he pleased.

  I peeled myself off the bed, muscles protesting. My old clothes reeked of workshop grease and sweat. In the cramped closet, I found my backup outfit, reinforced cargo pants with half the pockets still intact, and a faded grey thermal shirt that had seen better decades. The boots were solid though, steel-toed and ready for anything. Good enough.

  The morning air hit my face as I climbed the workshop steps. Chen's stall appeared through the haze, his silhouette already bent over steaming pots.

  "Need something quick today, Chen." I approached the counter, checking my phone again. Five new messages since I'd gotten dressed.

  He nodded, not looking up as he packed fresh dumplings into a paper box. Steam curled from the holes as he passed it over.

  "Thanks." I grabbed the box, swiped my card and headed toward the city center, weaving through the early crowd. The dumplings warmed my hand through the thin paper as I walked, their smell making my stomach growl.

  'Ding'

  Another message. I checked my phone; twenty more since I'd started walking. This wasn't Lira's style, at least not the Lira I remembered from stories. Night Brokers worked in whispers and shadows, not desperate text spam.

  Finch's store loomed ahead, a fever dream of mismatched architecture. Gold leaf peeled from carved wooden panels while neon signs buzzed and flickered against ancient stone. The whole building seemed to lean forward, like it was trying to grab passersby and drag them inside.

  I pushed through the heavy front door, bells jangling overhead. The familiar smell of incense hit me like a wall; sandalwood and something else, something that made my nose itch.

  The back door stood open, unusual for this time of morning. I slipped through and climbed the stairs to the holodeck. The room hummed with power as stars blazed overhead, but not the familiar Ember Chain configuration. This projection showed the Nexus Void, that vast empty region where ships and entire colonies had vanished without trace. The stars seemed to shift and dance, forming patterns that made my eyes hurt.

  The holodeck's projection cast eerie shadows across Finch's face as he slouched by his antique bar, crystal tumbler dangling from his stubby fingers. His usual flamboyant silks seemed dulled, weighted down by whatever troubled his mind. The incense smoke curled around him like a protective shroud, but couldn't mask the tension in his shoulders.

  In the center of the room, Lira commanded attention like a flame in darkness. Her red dress was all sharp angles and dangerous curves, cut to intimidate rather than seduce. The fabric seemed to absorb the starlight above, making her look like she was carved from living ruby. Her blonde hair was pulled back so tight it had to hurt, but her face betrayed nothing but controlled fury.

  "Hey there, Moonpie," I said, stepping close enough to catch the scent of her expensive perfume. "Have you been good?"

  Lira's eyes snapped to mine, then darted to Finch in his corner. Something passed between them, silent but heavy with meaning. She took her time studying me, like she was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.

  Her hand landed on my shoulder, grip just shy of painful. "Say, Miss Mellody..." Her voice was low, steady, dangerous. Another glance at Finch, who gave a slight nod. She drew in a deep breath, and I watched something crack behind her eyes.

  Anger flooded her features as she spat out, "What the hell did you have me sell?"

  "Huh?" I blinked at Lira's outburst. The classified data I'd found wasn't anything earth-shattering, just standard Union observations of the Void. Hell, I'd lived through all of it.

  "Those chips," I said, keeping my voice steady. "They're just corrupted Union research data. Nothing special."

  I ticked off the timeline on my fingers. "Year 192, first contact with what they called the Silent Sea. Some genius thought it was just weird space weather until a research vessel got pulled in. Year after that, the Union sent the Horizon's Edge to investigate. Half the ship ended up near the Carina Nebula, other half... well, nobody knows. That's when they renamed it to 'The Void.'"

  Lira's grip tightened on my shoulder. I ignored it.

  "By 195, the tear they'd been studying just vanished. Radio silence for years after that. Then in 202, the Herald of Serenity crew reported the first void entity; just this massive floating eye. Scared the piss out of everyone, but it never did anything except watch. Still does, far as I know."

  I shrugged off Lira's hand. "Last I heard, the Union dumped fifty trillion credits into some big expedition. Year 204. But those chips? They're ancient history now. The Union's got way more data than-"

  "How?" Lira cut me off. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. "How do you know all this?"

  I froze.

  Right. Fifteen-year-old me shouldn't know any of this.

  "That's not important," I said, waving my hand dismissively. Finch caught my eye from his corner, giving me the slightest nod. He knew enough about my situation, but clearly hadn't shared details with Lira.

  "I disagree," Lira's voice cut through the air. "Because you and the Union might be aware of those events, but the rest of the galaxy knows nothing of it." She pulled up a holographic display. "Take a look at this."

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Numbers and data flooded the air between us; market trends, transaction logs, organization names both familiar and foreign. Black market trading stats. My eyes glazed over trying to make sense of it all. Give me a broken mining rig any day over this financial mess.

  "Sorry, I see nothing wrong." I tried to step back, but Lira's presence held me in place.

  "Oh really?" Her fingers danced across her pad. Red patterns lit up across the graphs. "I really thought you had me sell some garbage, you know. So I placed a batch of 10 on the market for half a million."

  Half a million for 10 chips? That was way more than I'd expected. If they even sold.

  "They did sell," she continued, as if reading my thoughts. "After 17 hours, give or take." She highlighted a sharp spike in her portfolio. "A few hours later I dropped another batch. Care to read how long it took for those to be gone?"

  I squinted at the tiny numbers. "They were gone in 0.63 milliseconds."

  "So I'll repeat." Her hand landed back on my shoulder. "Do you even realize what you just sold me into?" Her voice rose sharply. "Half the sector has been probing into my credentials for the past 20 hours." The mix of fury and anxiety in her tone was unmistakable. "And you were out, doing god knows what."

  I winced at Lira's intensity. Damn it. Elias had always mocked my trading skills, calling me a "financial black hole." Now I'd managed to create chaos without even trying. The corrupted data wasn't supposed to be worth that much; just enough to cover my debts.

  "Look, I didn't..." My voice trailed off. What could I even say? 'Sorry I accidentally destabilized your entire operation with some old Union files?' Yeah, that would go over well.

  A soft 'hah' broke through the tension. Finch swirled his drink, amber liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim.

  "I knew you'd be trouble, girl." He waddled over, glass wobbling with each step. "Leave this to me."

  Lira's perfect eyebrows shot up. I couldn't blame her; Finch solving people problems was like using a sledgehammer for brain surgery. The man collected conspiracy theories like others collected stamps.

  "Now hush hush." He shooed us with his free hand. "I got work to do."

  Lira's heels clicked against the floor like angry punctuation marks as she stormed toward the door. Her shoulders were rigid, spine straight as a ruler, the kind of posture that screamed 'this isn't over.' The heavy door slammed behind her hard enough to rattle Finch's wall of oddities.

  I followed her out, shoulders slumped. The morning crowd parted around me like water around stones as we descended the stairs. My stomach growled, reminding me of the now-cold dumplings in my pocket. Somehow, I didn't think Chen's cooking could fix this mess.

  *****************************

  I slumped onto my bed, the springs creaking under my weight. The holographic display from my phone cast a blue glow across the dingy walls of my room. Nine hundred thousand credits. The numbers didn't seem real. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, checked again. Still there.

  Lira had routed it through some ancient lottery system that hadn't seen activity since before I was born, either time. Smart. Union auditors wouldn't touch those accounts with a ten-foot pole, too much paperwork.

  My finger hovered over the transfer confirmation. One tap and I'd have enough to buy my way out of this mess with Dana, set myself up proper. Maybe even...

  "Meow."

  The sound drew my attention to the floor where Mylo materialized, his black fur seeming to absorb the phone's glow. Something was off about him, the usual regal posture replaced by a slouch, his attention anywhere but on me.

  "Hey there, big guy." I reached down. "Where've you been?"

  Nothing. No acknowledgment, no penetrating stare, just vacant disinterest. That wasn't like him at all.

  I heaved him up into my arms, surprised by the effort it took. Mylo had never weighed more than a thought before, but now he felt dense, solid. He smelled like ozone and wet metal, like a storm that forgot where it belonged.

  "What happened?" His eyes slid away from mine, focusing on some distant point through the wall. The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken things.

  "Whatever it might be, we will deal with it." I shifted him onto my shoulder, where his form seemed to melt and flow around me like liquid shadow. "Hear that, big guy?"

  The quiet that followed felt deliberate, loaded with meaning I couldn't grasp. Something had changed during his absence.

  "Another disaster for another day," I muttered, watching Mylo curl around my neck. The radio crackled to life automatically at 8 PM, right on schedule.

  "Good evening, star chasers!" JC's voice filled the room with its usual warmth. "Tonight we've got something special cooking. A mysterious guest who's about to shake things up across the sector. They've asked to remain anonymous, but trust me folks, you won't want to miss this."

  I groaned. Just what I needed; probably Sebastian Voss making another grand speech about Union superiority. The perfect end to this mess of a day.

  The kettle whistled as I shuffled to the kitchen, measuring loose tea leaves into my battered metal strainer. Mom's old recipe: three parts black tea, one part dried mint, steep for exactly four minutes.

  "And speaking of shaking things up," JC continued in the background, "anyone notice the market going absolutely bonkers today? Private corps buying up data like it's going out of style, while the Union's been oddly quiet. Almost like they know something we don't..."

  I nearly dropped my cup when the next voice came through. That accent, that particular way of stretching vowels, it was Finch. My jaw hit the floor. Sure, he was staying anonymous, but this was like using a plasma cannon to kill a mosquito.

  "Found something interesting in my collection," Finch's voice bounced with barely contained excitement. "Been in this business thirty years, never seen anything like it. Had this feeling in my gut, you know? Like when you find that one perfect piece that changes everything. Figured the whole sector deserved to know."

  JC chuckled. "And from what we're seeing, the sector is definitely interested."

  "Oh, they should be!" Finch practically squealed. "This isn't just some dusty old tech we're talking about. This is history being rewritten!"

  I slumped deeper into my chair, the metal cold against my back. Finch's voice crackled through the radio, each word hammering another nail into whatever remained of the timeline I knew.

  "We're talking about a whole series here," Finch continued, his excitement palpable. "And I'm keeping the price fixed. Knowledge like this belongs to everyone, not just the highest bidder."

  JC's smooth voice cut in. "That's quite generous, considering the current market value."

  "Money?" Finch scoffed. "This is bigger than credits. This is about truth."

  The word made my skin crawl. Truth, when misused, could start wars.

  I clicked the radio off, unable to listen anymore. The tea steamed in front of me, mom's recipe now tasting like ash in my mouth. Everything felt wrong, shifted just enough to make my skin crawl.

  Mylo lay curled in the corner, his usual watchful presence replaced by something... distant. Whatever happened during his absence had changed him. Changed us both.

  "Well, this is properly screwed," I muttered into my cup. The corrupted data was supposed to be my ticket out, not a sector-wide revelation. Now the Union would be looking, asking questions. Questions I couldn't answer without sounding insane.

  My fingers traced the rim of the cup. Fifteen years old again, stuck in a workshop, with a cat that wasn't a cat and memories of a future that might never happen. And now I'd managed to rewrite history before breakfast.

  The chair creaked as I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow would come whether I wanted it or not. Another day of pretending to be someone I wasn't anymore, in a time that shouldn't be mine.

  I was tired. So damn tired.