The Five Evolution

『"Gotta run like hell."』

Hiro narrowed his eyes and rewound again. This time he wasn’t watching the shelf or the guards. He was watching everything else.

The archives looked normal. Empty and quiet. Then at 02:37:17, he saw it. Hiro leaned closer until his nose was practically touching the screen.

There, sitting on the edge of a nearby security console, near the R-Series filing section, was a glass coffee cup, balancing precariously on the edge.

It had been there for days according to earlier footage—someone had left it and never retrieved it. One of those tiny rule violations that happened in every workplace.

Frame 847,392: Cup intact on console edge. Time: 02:37:17.847

Frame 847,393: Cup shattered on floor. Time: 02:37:17.848

Hiro stopped the playback, rewound, and zoomed in on the shattered remains. There was no radial scatter pattern from an impact, nor any velocity blur from a fall.

There were also no fragments near the console edge where the cup should have fallen from. The pieces were scattered across the floor, but there was no arc, no blur, no pattern consistent with physics.

He zoomed in closer to the feed. Each fragment seemed to defy motion. The cup hadn’t fallen. It had... appeared on the floor.

His fingers flew across the console, pulling up frame-by-frame analysis of the archive cameras, and everything appeared normal.

There were no timestamp gaps, missing frames, or anomalies in the data. The cup was whole. Then it was shattered. No transition. No movement. Just effect without cause.

"...you were here." Hiro whispered it to the empty control room.

A tingling feeling crawled up his spine. Somebody had been inside the archive. Yet, there wasn’t a single frame showing them. Only one ability came to mind but he had to confirm.

"In that case..." Hiro accessed the clock of the Institute’s satellite and cross-referenced it with the internal archive sensors. If he was right, there would be a contradiction.

The internal archive sensors read: 02:37:17.847 → 02:37:17.848 (0.001 second elapsed). No surprise there. Everything looked normal.

But when he checked the external satellite atomic clock during that moment, the numbers told a different story.

External satellite atomic-clock: 02:47:33.847 → 02:47:43.851 (10.004 seconds elapsed)

Ten seconds.

Ten seconds in Tokyo.

Ten seconds in the archives.

"The Collector." Hiro rubbed his eyes, yawning. That explained why there was no measurable "missing time." Just an impossible rearrangement of matter between two instants.

The Collector’s stopwatch was capable of creating a localized temporal bubble that halted time for anyone caught within its range.

If time was frozen inside the Institute, then the archive clocks wouldn’t notice. But anything outside the affected area would continue normally.

The Collector was in this room. Had frozen time using that pocket watch. Had ten seconds to move through the archives, locate the file, and steal it without triggering any alarms.

But he must have brushed past the cup while moving. And when time resumed, gravity instantly took over.

The perfect crime, almost. Except, Hiro was the kind of person who was paranoid enough to check a satellite clock.

"Son of a bitch," Hiro whispered to the empty control room. "You time-stopping bastard."

He started pulling data, copying everything to his tablet. Security footage, timestamp logs, satellite records. All the evidence he needed to prove the Apostles had stolen something during the lockdown.

He was so focused on gathering evidence that he almost missed the sound.

Footsteps. Coming down the corridor outside the control room.

Hiro’s head snapped up, his heart rate spiking. He checked the time: 03:54 AM. Security patrol? Routine check? Or had someone noticed his intrusion?

The footsteps grew closer.

Hiro frantically closed windows on the console, not bothering to erase any trace of his presence. There was no point, he was already on camera. What mattered now was the evidence.

But the data transfer was still running—thirty seconds until complete. He needed those files, needed the evidence. Otherwise, everything here would have been for nothing.

If he had something to show for it, perhaps he could parley his way to lesser punishment.

Twenty seconds.

The footsteps stopped right outside the door.

Fifteen seconds.

A keycard beeped, and the door’s magnetic lock disengaged with a soft click.

Ten seconds.

The door started opening.

Five seconds.

Three.

Download complete.

Hiro grabbed his tablet and vibrated, his body flickering into phase-state just as the door swung fully open and a security guard stepped inside.

The guard looked around the empty control room, frowning. "Sensors detected activity in here," he muttered into his comm. "But it’s clear. Running diagnostics."

Hiro stood two feet away, his vibrating form invisible to normal perception, while he held his breath even though breathing wasn’t technically necessary while phased.

The guard moved to the console, checked the logs, and frowned. Hiro’s heart hammered, watching the man’s eyes narrow as he scanned the screen, looking for any sign of intrusion.

"Nothing on the logs," the guard reported, then whispered something inaudible into his comms. "Must’ve been a glitch. I’ll file a maintenance request," he said afterwards.

"Copy that. Return to patrol."

The guard left, and Hiro waited another thirty seconds before resolidifying. His whole body was shaking now, part adrenaline crash, part terror at how close that had been.

"That was close," he whispered, clutching his tablet. "Okay. Got what I came for. Time to get the hell out of here before—"

The alarm started blaring.

Red lights flooded Sub-Level 7, bathing everything in crimson emergency illumination. A synthesized voice echoed through speakers:

"UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. SUB-LEVEL 7 LOCKDOWN INITIATED. ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."

"Oh shit," Hiro took out his inhaler and pulled. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit—"

Heavy doors slammed shut at both ends of the corridor and automated defense systems activated. Somewhere in the distance, Hiro heard the distinctive sound of combat drones powering up.

Maybe his phasing had triggered quantum sensors. Maybe the data transfer left a signature. Maybe the guard had noticed something after all.

Didn’t matter why.

What mattered was: he was trapped in a restricted section, alarms were screaming, and very soon a lot of very angry security personnel were going to converge on his location.

Hiro looked at the sealed doors, at the combat drones beginning to patrol the corridors, at the multiple security systems between him and the exit.

At that moment, he looked down at his boots, at the burning glow of his Ascendant Sigil, at the power he’d only just begun to understand.

"Okay," he said again, bouncing on his toes. "This is fine. This is completely fine."

He vibrated into a phased-state and ran straight at the sealed blast door. His body flickered through solid steel like it was made of mist. Behind him, the alarms kept screaming.