That was more than enough. Though he'd originally planned a second round of transfers, he sensed the tide turning. Quitting while ahead was the wise move.
Of the seventy stolen years, he kept twenty for himself and funneled the rest into an underground bank, converting them into a small fortune. The money would let them live comfortably abroad and pay for better medical care for his mother.
The plan had struck even Anton himself as audacious at the outset. Yet from the moment he'd put it into motion, everything had gone astonishingly smoothly.
Because no one before him had ever thought to steal other people's time, no one had bothered to develop safeguards against it. So many vulnerabilities, so many blind spots—during his entire year of operations, no one had suspected him. In fact, no one had even suspected that disappearing seconds were worth suspecting.
Today's man, of course, was the exception.
He could adjust the program to exclude terminal patients as well. Those in the death countdown were bound to be obsessed with—or rather, paranoid about—every passing moment. As this thought crossed his mind, Anton finished clearing the last of his program from the machine.
He checked the time: 3:30 PM, more or less on schedule. He packed his tools into the canvas bag, said goodbye to Little Wen, and left the station.
He got home shortly before four. He changed out of his work clothes, applied a fake beard according to the photo on his new passport, and put on a cap. He gave Laura a simple disguise too, then carried her to the car, loaded the wheelchair and the luggage he'd prepared in advance. It took less than half an hour.
He took one last look at the house, then started the engine and drove toward the airport on the outskirts of the city.
7
Trevor Cruz drove at high speed, but he had no direction, no destination. He drove simply to keep moving, terrified of stopping. The sun was setting, and he had less than an hour left.
After his outburst at the bank, he'd gone to the city's main branch. He couldn't understand why pulling his own records was so complicated—form after form, endless waiting. Did they not see he was a man running out of time? Couldn't they read the color of his bracelet?
Eventually the records came through. A clerk reviewed them with him: every year, there was indeed a one-second deduction. But this year, that deduction had appeared twice. He had, without question, been overcharged by one second.
The bank acknowledged the error—likely a system glitch—and promised to return the second within two working days.
That was what pushed Trevor over the edge. Were they mocking him? Could they not see he was going to die today? Two days? Were they planning to refund his ghost?
His outburst escalated—from the clerk to the lobby manager to the customer relations supervisor, each one trying to placate him but offering no workable solution for someone in his situation. The standoff dragged on.
Maybe they were just waiting—waiting for him to die, so they wouldn't have to deal with it at all.
Trevor saw the wall clock reach 4:38. He remembered: he was going to die at 5:38. It was time to stop. He stood up abruptly, ignoring the trailing bank staff, and walked out. He didn't want to argue anymore. He didn't want to fight.
He'd enjoyed what he could today, endured the fear, tried every futile struggle he could think of. Now, with less than an hour left, even if it was unbearable, he should keep it for himself.
He drove aimlessly through the streets with the windows down, letting the frigid wind flood the car, hoping the cold would numb him, would chase away some of the terror of death.
He thought about driving through a bridge railing into the freezing river. Or plowing into a wall at full speed. Just moments ago, he'd realized that with one more press of the accelerator, he could run down the young man crossing the street. But he didn't. Aside from running a few red lights, he seemed almost calm.
Then what? Where to? For how long? The wind stiffened his hands on the wheel. Farther from downtown, traffic and pedestrians thinned. The road had been cleared of snow, but a thin sheet of ice had formed. After a few minor skids, Trevor finally braked carefully to avoid losing control.
He considered going back to the presidential suite he'd rented, but calculated there probably wasn't enough time. What about that basement? He could make it there. The thought came out of nowhere—perhaps that was where he should die. Miserable and alone. That was his fate, the epitaph of his short life.
Fine—there, then. Trevor made his decision and stomped on the brake to turn around, but the ice sent his car sliding. He regained control, but not before colliding with a vehicle coming from behind—its front end crumpled against his rear.
His fault—or the weather's fault, really. The moment the car stopped, Trevor considered just driving off without dealing with the other driver. But he stayed. He wasn't injured, yet something inside him had cracked open. Something only the approach of death could awaken.
He'd long since abandoned faith, but wasn't this—everything happening now—possibly part of God's plan? God had spared him from dying in squalor and solitude, granting him one last chance at redemption.
So instead of fleeing, he walked toward the other driver. A scruffy middle-aged man. The collision wasn't serious—some dents on both cars. Trevor glanced at the back seat: an elderly person, seemingly uninjured. He breathed a sigh of relief and addressed the man.
"I'm so sorry—my car slid on the ice. Is everyone okay? Don't worry, this is completely my fault. Let me call my insurance company right now—they'll send someone to handle it."
"No need." The man stopped him from making the call. "It's not that bad. We're in a hurry—you don't need to pay for anything."
"I can't just leave you hanging!" Trevor was even more insistent now that the man wasn't demanding anything. But delaying someone's time was wrong too. "How about I photograph the scene and wait here for the adjuster? You give me your number, and when they determine the payout, they'll contact you directly. Sound good?"
The man didn't respond, which Trevor took as agreement. Before snapping photos, he even tried to give the man a friendly smile—but it had been so long since he'd smiled that it came out stiff. It didn't matter. He felt good, almost like the early days of running his company, when he'd treated every stranger and every situation with genuine kindness.
He photographed the other car, then moved to photograph his own. Then it hit him—he could wait for the insurance adjuster, but he wouldn't be around for any follow-up claims. Lost in this melancholy, he didn't notice the movement behind him until a blinding pain exploded at the back of his skull. Before he could react, darkness swallowed him whole.
8
Murphy's Law: if something can go wrong, no matter how unlikely, it will.
Right now, the unconscious Trevor Cruz lay in the back seat of his own car, while a grim-faced Anton Tong stood beside it, debating whether to kill him outright.
When Trevor had first gotten out of his car, Anton had only thought the man looked familiar. But when he spotted the blue bracelet on his wrist, everything clicked—this was the same man he'd encountered at the bank earlier.
Why was he here? Little Wen had mentioned he threatened to go to the main branch. Had he gone? Had he pulled all his records? Had he discovered something?
Too many questions flooded Anton's mind at once, but the most puzzling was why this man—after getting out of his car—hadn't cursed or blamed him at all, but had instead taken full responsibility and acted friendly.
What game was he playing? Anton watched him suspiciously. The moment the man mentioned calling his insurance company, Anton moved to stop him—not only because a claim process might make him miss his flight, but because his identity documents now belonged to someone else. He couldn't take that risk. He just wanted to leave.
But the man didn't seem willing to let him go. He offered to stay and wait for the adjuster himself, but he wanted to photograph the scene and exchange contact information.
These abnormal behaviors forced Anton to consider the worst-case scenario: this man had been to the main branch, pulled all his records, and discovered the anomalies. The bank had contacted the police, who were now investigating—and they might already have found some trail leading to him. A citywide manhunt could be underway.
But was that possible? How long had it been since the man left the bank for the main branch? Even if they'd found anomalies, they couldn't have suspected him this quickly. Anton tried to control his fear while scanning the surroundings—not a police car in sight, barely any traffic at all. Didn't look like anyone was coming for him.
Maybe he was just paranoid. It was all a coincidence. A man who'd discovered an account anomaly happened to rear-end his car, then undergone a personality transplant and tried to photograph and document everything. Just a coincidence? After seeing that eerie smile on the man's face, Anton decided he could no longer lie to himself.
Maybe the man wasn't calling an insurance company at all, but the bank—or the police. But none of that mattered now, because Anton had already made his decision. Even the slightest chance of things going wrong had to be eliminated. Without hesitation, as the man turned to make his call, Anton pulled an adjustable wrench from his bag and brought it down hard.
No blood, no death. Anton moved both cars to the side of the road. A few vehicles sped past during the process, but none noticed what was happening. Now, though, he had to think fast—what to do with the unconscious man.
Killing him wasn't out of the question, but once someone died, the police received an instant location alert and would arrive quickly. A murdered terminal patient—what priority would that be? Would they launch an immediate investigation? How fast could they identify the killer?
He knew nothing about police protocols or response times.
He could make it look like suicide—terminal patients killed themselves often enough. Would that slow the investigation? But staging a suicide was complicated. Anton was only effective in the digital world. Handling real-world messes was not his strength.
He had to decide fast! He checked the time: 5:13 PM. Less than four hours until his flight. Maybe he could gamble—the police were good, but could they really solve a case in four hours? No—no way. He'd come too far to gamble his and his mother's futures on that.
Or he could not kill him—just leave him in the car. If he didn't wake up within four hours, problem solved. But that was a gamble too, and the man could wake up at any moment, go to the police, and Anton would never leave this city.
Nothing worked. Anton grew increasingly agitated and kicked the car hard, but it didn't help him think any clearer.
"Beep—" A whistle cut through his frenzy—the electronic whistle on his mother's bracelet. He rushed back to his car and took Laura's hand. "Don't worry, I'll sort this out soon."
He still didn't know how, but he had to calm his mother first.
"Beep—" Laura pressed the whistle again, and Anton finally looked at the only two fingers she could still move. Her right index finger lifted from the button, trembling in the air, pointing forward.
Anton followed her gesture to the front seat of the car, where a small Lifespan display unit sat. This was his work device—normally not part of his luggage.
He looked at the display, then turned to meet Laura's eyes. He understood what she meant—but was it possible? The perfect solution would be if Trevor Cruz died of natural causes before their flight took off, because the police didn't investigate natural deaths.
But even a terminal patient had twenty-four hours left, and there were only a little over three hours until the flight—plus driving, security, and check-in. The wait time was too short. Could the man's remaining time really be that little?
When he picked up the display unit and walked toward the other car, he felt like he was about to do something more thrilling than any lottery on Earth. He took a deep breath, braced himself for any number, then connected the device to Trevor's bracelet. A number flashed on the screen: 22.
Twenty-two hours—too long. Hope evaporated, and Anton slumped in the car seat. He punched the seat in frustration, unable to understand why things had to go wrong at the very last moment.
But wait—when they'd crossed paths that afternoon, he remembered this man's bracelet had already turned blue. More than two hours had passed since then. How could he still have twenty-two hours?
He looked at the display again, more carefully this time. The time unit at the end wasn't hours—it was minutes.
Twenty-two minutes! A thousand times better than he'd hoped! Anton shot up in elation, cracking his head against the roof and nearly knocking himself out. He confirmed the man showed no signs of waking, tidied up the car, deleted the messages on his phone, and carried the device back to his own vehicle.
"You're incredible!" He kissed Laura on the cheek. His mother always knew how to help, how to put him at ease. No more worrying—everything seemed resolved. Fate had finally smiled on them. Now all they had to do was sit quietly in the car and wait twenty-two minutes.
Time would take the man's life—and with it, any remaining threat. Then he and Laura could drive away, toward their bright new future.