Elias Thorne woke to the sound of silence—a cold, heavy weight that felt more oppressive than the roar of the helicopter. The methyl chloride gas had cleared, replaced by the biting, -10°C air of the Seven Sisters. He was still on the floor, his cheek pressed against the rough cedar planks, but the paralysis had retreated to a dull, pins-and-needles numbness in his extremities.
He groaned, pushing himself up. The 40.5°C fever was still there, a low-frequency hum in his blood, but it was overshadowed by a hollow, aching void in his chest. He looked at the empty cots.
"Mom... Mia..."
His voice was a dry rasp, lost in the vastness of the empty ranger station. He crawled to the door, his fingers scraping against the frost. Outside, the logging pad was a sea of churned snow and gravel. There was no sign of the truck, no sign of the "Extraction Team," and no sign of Julian Vane.
A sharp, electric thrum started behind Elias's left ear. The Memory Migraine hit him with the force of a physical blow. He saw a flash of a news report from 2007—a missing persons case that had never been solved.
"They're gone, Elias," the future-Elias whispered in his mind. "He took the Anchor. You bought the world, but he took the reason for owning it."
Elias stumbled back to the crate where his laptop sat. The screen was still glowing, a beacon of digital light in the grey dawn. He looked at the account balance.
Account Balance: $5,822,090.42
The gold futures had peaked. He was a millionaire five times over, and he was completely, utterly alone. He didn't have a plan. He didn't have a badge. He had a checkbook that could buy a city, but he couldn't buy his way back to yesterday.
"Witt!" Elias roared, the effort triggering a violent bout of vomiting.
Bryan Witt stepped through the doorway, his face a mask of shame and fury. He was holding his arm, a makeshift bandage soaked in blood. "They're gone, Mr. Thorne. The fog... it was a paralytic. By the time Air One could clear the magnesium flare, the ravine was empty. He's a ghost."
Elias looked at Witt, his eyes bloodshot and burning. "I don't care about the fog. I don't care about the ravine. I want them back."
"We don't even know where he's going," Witt said, his voice flat. "The logging truck was found two kilometers down the road. Empty. He switched vehicles. He's in the timber, Elias. In 2006, that's ten thousand square miles of nothing."
Elias turned back to the laptop. His fingers, still trembling, began to fly across the keys. He wasn't a detective anymore; he was a Scavenger.
"He needs food," Elias murmured, his mind a cold, calculating machine. "He needs medicine for his leg. He needs a house that doesn't have a digital footprint. In 2006, you buy those things with cash. And cash leaves a paper trail."
Elias began to move the $5.8 million. He didn't put it in a bank. He put it into a series of "Private Rewards." He hacked into the local law enforcement bulletin—a primitive, insecure system—and posted a bounty.
"$500,000 for any information leading to the location of a black Ford Ford with a specific tire tread. No questions asked. Cash paid on delivery."
He was using the US dollar to turn every citizen of British Columbia into a private eye. He was turning the "Normal World" into a hive of mercenaries.
"We're going to Vancouver," Elias said, standing up, his back straight despite the fever. "I'm going to buy every private investigator, every off-duty cop, and every satellite in the northern hemisphere. I'm going to turn this province into a mirror, and I'm going to keep looking until I see his reflection."
He looked at the empty cots one last time. The "Millionaire's Pursuit" had begun. He was a man with a fortune and a grudge, and he was about to prove to Julian Vane that even a circle can be broken if you have enough money to buy the compass.