The recording reached the 18:08 mark. The pilot began a steep descent. The violet displays on the dashboard began to scream with red warnings.
"The anchor is failing!" the woman shouted. "If we don't drop the payload now, the timeline won't just shift—it’ll collapse."
Elias felt a chill. The "payload" wasn't a bomb. It was a small, glowing sphere the pilot ejected from the side of the craft. As the sphere fell, it hit the ripple and shattered. The screen exploded into white light. The Aftermath
Then he found the drive. It was a rugged, salt-crusted external SSD recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Iceland. Most of the data was a wash, but one folder remained pristine. Inside was a single file: . The First Playback
