The first week after the heist was the worst. Hugo kept expecting to find shimmer corps at this door. They had set up an elaborate trap with a mana core. It was ridiculous to think that they couldn’t find out who had taken something with that value. The earthquake had disrupted things, but he found it hard to believe that they could let something like that slip from their grasp.

He spent his birthday inside his apartment, he didn’t even leave the room once. He was eighteen now, finally an adult in the eyes of society. They could legally put him to death if they caught him.

At first he assumed that the rest of the crew had been taken and he hadn’t been caught yet because he was living in a new apartment and none of his neighbors knew him. No shimmer corps ever came. But a few days later, a fox gang runner came with a message. He was being summoned to meet the boss.

...

“Hugo, my boy. My favored son among all my kits. The one that turns the impossible into possible. Come, sit,” the masked boss said and poured out both of them a glass of vodka.

Although he was still wary of drinking too much, Hugo was just relieved that the boss was happy. He took a sip from his glass and relaxed in his seat. He did his best not to cough as it burned down his throat.

“You probably already heard, but the sale went through. Deva got their mana core, and we got our payment,” the boss said and slid a small bag over.

Hugo almost scoffed at how small the bag was. He had handed over a whole freaking mana core, and his cut was a single bag of coins. He opened the drawstring on the bag and looked inside.

Platinums.

It was a bag full of platinums. He couldn’t be happier. He wanted to pour it out and count it right now, but he felt like that would be a bit insulting to the boss. He could guess how many coins were in there by weight. It was a lot. He could pay off his debt to the school and still have enough left over to buy a house.

“I made sure to give you your fair share,” the boss said, “I always give my foxes their due. You did the hard work, avoiding the electrocution traps, cutting out the cage, bringing the warded mana core to a separate location so our headquarters wouldn’t be raided. I couldn’t be happier.”

That was news to Hugo. He hadn’t known that the runes would kill him if he set them off, he figured they were alarms. And he hadn’t known the mana core was warded, he had just been paranoid. He had been more lucky than good.

The boss continued, “You did a fine job. You are going to be the guest of honor at the New Year’s party next week.”

“Thanks. Truly. Thank you,” Hugo said, still off kilter from the bag in his hands.

“Word of warning to ya. That much money, it makes some people go a bit nuts. I don’t think you are the kind to go off the deep end and spend it all at once, but I thought I would warn you anyway. The corps are going to keep their ear out for any big spenders. Make sure their light mages don’t catch wind of you, ok? We can talk more about your future at the party. Until then, go home. Relax,” said the boss.

Hugo thanked him again and went back to his apartment. As soon as he was inside, he took out the bag and counted it all. Sixteen platinum coins were in that bag. Each one glowed in his Mana Sight, showing that they were the real deal, impossible to counterfeit. He had sixteen works of art here, each one created by a combination of the alchemy, formation, rune, and ritual domains. He wanted to keep at least one to admire after he spent the rest.

He was still surprised that the boss had actually paid him this much. Regardless of how much he sold the mana core for, sixteen platinums was a lot of money. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the boss was probably going to send him on more heists. Hugo was a proven success, and the boss just wanted to invest in him. Hugo would probably have to invest several platinum in the high end tools he would need to do the jobs the boss was going to send him on. He shook his head. That was a problem to worry about later.

The next day he took a single platinum and had it exchanged for smaller coins at the bank. His next stop was a high end clothing shop. He wanted to look the part so he wouldn't look suspicious just walking around the nice parts of town.

They refused to serve him.

Apparently they didn’t want to deal with his type even after he showed them the money. Frustrated, he headed a few blocks downhill and got an outfit from a less discerning tailor. His new duds looked great, but it irked him that they weren’t as nice as the first shop. Then he walked back up towards the nicer parts of town. Now as he walked from shop to shop, he didn’t have the clerks watching his every move.

The warning from the fox boss was forefront in his mind, so he decided to just window shop for now. Now that he considered it, even this outfit he was wearing was a bit of a risk. After some anxiety ridden shopping, Hugo walked back downhill, changing back as he got closer to the narrows.

It irked him that he had all this money and he couldn’t spend it. It wasn’t enough that he had the money, he needed respectability too.

He was tempted to try and convince the boss to let him go back to school. He had more than enough to pay four years of tuition. Blue Lion Academy probably wouldn’t want him back anyway.

He finally had the money he had always wanted, but now he couldn’t spend it the way he wanted. He could afford to live the life of luxury he always wanted, but the boss wouldn’t let him. The fox boss would probably want him to spend it on girls and booze so Hugo would need to work for them again.

His whole life he had thought that money was the source of freedom. He finally had more money than he knew what to do with, and he still wasn’t free.

He passed a row of stores, with a few of the proprietors happily chatting with each other as they closed up shop. He found himself envious of them. They had respect in the community and could do whatever they wanted with their profit. He probably had more money than they did, but they had more freedom.

Maybe he could copy them? Maybe he could open his own shop. The boss was a businessman. What did he care if the money was ill-gotten or not? He just wanted coins. If Hugo could create a successful business, he could pay a portion of the profits to the fox gang every month. It would be like protection money.

He would have to create a very profitable business idea for him to have enough margin for himself and the gang. As he had seen a few weeks ago, housewares was right out. He couldn’t create the volume needed for that industry. He needed an enterprise concept that would take advantage of his skills. He never did get a contact with the mana cart industry. That was probably too high end for him anyway. He needed to focus on something between the two extremes.

Something like what Oskar’s family did. Typewriters were complex and expensive, but not too expensive. He needed a product idea like that. Only something that was a little more popular. No one besides government officials used typewriters.

Goosebumps went all over his body when he had the perfect idea. Crossbows. He could set up a weapon shop that sold bows and crossbows. He could have a section for standard bows and ammunition, and a separate one for crossbows. Once mages and harvesters saw what his magnesium bombs could do, they would beat down his door.

This was a great idea. He could stage demonstrations for the harvester convention just after the heartbeat. It would jumpstart his business in just one day. He would have steady repeat customers since they would need to buy ammunition. He would only need to buy bow strings and fire runes. This was a great idea. He just needed to convince the boss to agree to let Hugo do his own thing.

...

The decorations for heartbeat parties were typically colorful. The ones in the fox gang restaurant were garish to the extreme. Bright yellow streamers, countless paper cutouts reading “Happy New Year” and “3465”. They had taken over all three levels of the restaurant, with musicians playing throughout. As he walked up the stairs to the roof, three different people tried to give him a drink. Normally this would have bothered him, but Hugo found that he didn’t care. He was focused on his pitch, and he didn’t want to be distracted until the boss heard him out.

He found him sitting on the top floor, a girl on either side. When Hugo walked up and asked for an audience, the boss immediately gave him his attention. He sent the girls away and got a new bottle of vodka.

Hugo rubbed his hands on his pants and said, “I have an idea on how I want to spend my money. I think you will like it. I want to buy a small weapon shop. While I was at the academy I learned how to create an amazing crossbow. Kill a monster with one shot type of crossbow. And I can make plenty of them with minimal raw materials. It’s the benefit of being a formation mage, you know?”

“Ah, my kit,” the boss said and pulled him in with a one armed hug. “I knew you were one of the smart ones. You want to invest your money, not just blow it all on toys and women. I am proud of you for thinking ahead.”

The boss took a big swig of vodka, “Of course you can open up a shop. I have been needing another place to launder money for a while. You can run the place and report our profits as your income. As long as they get their taxes, the government is happy to have us. I would still need you for the occasional job, but I see no problem with you running your own store. Talk to our accountant in a few days. He will set up the property sale for you.”

Hugo grabbed the bottle and took a big swig. He had gotten exactly what he wanted, but it didn’t do him any good. He was still going to be under the fox gang’s thumb, and he would still have to steal things for them. Money didn’t equal freedom.

His head hurt from the frustration. He had exactly what he wanted. He had spent the last year doing everything he could to get money. Sacrificing, working hard at the school and for the gang. He had platinums now, more than he ever could have wanted. But it didn’t make him happy.

He wanted the freedom to do whatever he wanted, but it seemed like no amount of money was going to give him that. Maybe he just needed to run away. He wanted to start over, far away from the cities on the wheel. That was a dumb idea, he didn’t want to always be looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t think of a better solution for now, so he took a big swig of his drink. And then another.

For the rest of the night he did his best to get drunk. He kept the vodka bottle in his hand and only switched out when a girl in a fox mask handed him a mixed drink instead. She flirted with him for a bit, but he just wasn’t into it.

Despite his best efforts, he was still upright by the time the heartbeat came. The party had moved to the rooftop so they could see it happen. A bright shimmering light appeared in the distance, racing towards the city. The shimmer vein ran underneath the city, but tonight it glowed. Then the bright light raced up towards the mountain. If he squinted, he could probably see the lights from the other veins heading towards the mountain at the same time. But he didn’t bother.

Hugo felt slightly woozy from the sudden lack of mana in the air. He gained his equilibrium quickly. He had made sure his mana pool was topped off for this exact moment. The land would slowly gain back its mana over the next few weeks. Until then, Hugo’s mana regeneration would be greatly slowed.

Cries of “Happy New Year” rang out around him. Hugo didn’t join in. He kept staring out at shimmer mountain. He remembered his soulmarking and how he expected everything to turn out differently. Minutes later, he was still staring at the mountain and it got brighter. Something weird was going on over there and it was getting closer.

A series of explosions were traveling this way, bright flashes of shimmer spewing up into the sky. It was traveling so fast that as soon as Hugo understood what he was seeing, it was already upon him. The shimmer vein was exploding.

The world flashed white, and Hugo felt himself falling. He was falling, falling, being drawn forward endlessly. Then he knew nothing.

...

...

...

Hugo groaned and stood up. He didn’t remember how he got here. Had he gotten black out drunk again? He was never drinking again.

His hands went to his head, but he actually felt fine. He wasn’t hungover at all. He looked around, he was outside somewhere. It was still dark out. Other people were getting up in a circle. What was going on here?

The last thing he remembered was standing on the rooftop at the new year’s party. There was some sort of explosion and then he was here. He felt like he had died, but this certainly wasn’t the afterlife. He looked around to try and figure out where he was. Shapes resolved themselves out of the darkness.

The shock of recognition made him almost stumble. He knew where he was. He was on top of shimmer mountain, standing on the secondary circle that the hack ritualist created. The first and last time he had been here before was exactly a year ago. What was he doing here now?

He stood there in confusion and looked around.

There were a bunch of teenagers with their parents, they stood around the edges of the circle. To his left lay a nox motionless on the ground. Two adults cried over her body. The nox parents on the other side of the circle repeatedly slapped a motionless nox boy. Two nobles furiously argued with the ritualist, and shouted that they had been cheated. The ritualist slowly retreated in the face of their fury.

He knew these people. These were the people that had been here a year ago. What were they all doing here again? Was this some sort of hallucination? It felt so real though, and his mind seemed clear. He focused on the details of the world around him. It was all just as he remembered it.

Then a ridiculous idea occurred to him. Maybe he had traveled back in time. Maybe he really was here on the mountain top for the first time, at the beginning of year 3464. It all fit. That dead riese was Lina. They had burnt her body, it shouldn’t be here now. Florian’s parents were the ones arguing with Alexandru. The body over there was his friend Marion. He felt weak, like he was a rank zero again.

The idea was ridiculous, but it was starting to seem more solid as the seconds ticked by. He was in the past, just after the second ritual that granted him his soulmarked status. This was really happening.

Then he realized something even more shocking than the idea that he had time traveled. A body lay next to Marion’s. One that looked a lot like his. That was his body. He looked down at his hands. These weren’t his hands.

This wasn’t his body.