Before I step out of the skyscraper into the heat, I close my eyes for a second.

[84:32:41]

Plenty of time to finish the plan. I find myself wondering what Memory of Lightwaves would do here on Earth, where there are no dead and no Echo fragments. Probably nothing. Or maybe something I haven’t figured out yet.

That can wait.

I leave Azurea’s tower with my objective clear.

Alliances. Specifically the ones the Deepwarden has already broken or is about to. Cornered people make the best partners—they take the first hand offered to them and they remember.

But before politics, I need money. A lot more than five thousand GNC.

I adjust the tie. Cheap fabric, visibly used, but it still carries enough dignity at distance to say, ’Take me seriously.’

I’ve already proven I look like my father. Same face. Same jaw. Same dark hair cut without patience. The only difference is the eyes—his were amber, mine are green. My mother’s inheritance.

But eyes can be explained.

I take the bus back to District 4. Twenty minutes thinking through the next moves.

First step: Money.

I get off on the main avenue and walk into Federal Union Credit. A bank that exists for two reasons—poor people beg for loans, rich people launder money. The lobby is plain. Bad fluorescent lighting. Plastic chairs bolted to the floor. Three open windows.

The line is short. When my turn comes up, the teller is a woman in her forties. Hair pulled back. Thin-framed glasses. A face that has heard every lie that exists from the other side of that counter.

I straighten my posture. Widen my shoulders. Let my chin rise half a centimeter. It isn’t Dryden sitting in this chair.

It’s Alden Sands.

"Good afternoon. I need an emergency loan. Ten thousand GNC. My account is with this bank."

"Name?"

"Alden Sands."

She types. Stops. Looks at the screen. Looks at me.

"Mr. Sands’ account has been inactive for six months."

"I know. I was on an extended Dive mission. I came back this week."

She examines me. Her eyes drop to the suit—cheap, visibly second-hand. Climb back up to my face.

’Too young?’

Her brain is comparing the registration photo with what’s standing in front of her.

"You look... younger than the registry photo."

"Six months in submersion does that. The tank gel preserves the skin. Ask any Diver."

She doesn’t know if that’s true. But it sounds plausible enough that it isn’t worth the fight.

"And your eyes? The registry shows amber."

"Contacts." I let a half-smile through. My father used to wear that exact smile. "A gift from my wife. She says green suits my mood."

The teller doesn’t laugh. But the corner of her mouth twitches.

"I can grant an emergency loan under Law 2046, Article 12—special credit line for Divers returning from extended missions. Full verification in seventy-two hours. If anything checks out wrong, you return the money."

"Perfect."

She processes it. I sign with my father’s signature—a signature I watched him write a thousand times at the kitchen table. I know every curve of those letters.

"Ten thousand GNC approved. Funds available in fifteen minutes."

I walk out.

Second step: insulation.

Three blocks to another bank. Meridian Financial. Cleaner. More corporate. Glass doors. Cold air-conditioning.

A floor manager spots my suit and approaches me directly with the practiced courtesy reserved for people who might or might not be worth time.

"Welcome to Meridian. Looking to open something today?"

"Business account."

"Of course. This way, please."

He sets me at a desk. Hands me the tablet himself.

"Company name?"

"Sands Ventures."

"Type of activity?"

"Investment consulting."

He doesn’t even raise his eyes. Shell consulting firms are common enough in District 4 that nobody asks questions. Seven minutes later, the account is live. I transfer the ten thousand from my father’s account to the corporate one.

The money is now under a legal entity. Harder to trace. Harder to claw back if something goes sideways at Federal Union in seventy-two hours.

I shake the manager’s hand. He gives me a card I don’t keep.

Third step: multiply.

I walk into a PC café two streets down. Green ambient lighting. Smell of instant ramen and stale coffee. Rows of monitors flickering with cheap games and people too tired to look up.

"Open booth in the corner. I’ll be a while."

The clerk doesn’t look up.

I sit. Isolated desk. I pull a pen and a small notebook from my pocket and lay them next to the keyboard.

In my last life, three financial events became national news. When you live on the street, headlines about money you don’t have stick to your bones like an insult.

I write the date at the top.

April 30, 2049. What the hell can you remember, Dryden?

Nothing comes.

Ten years and a death have passed since I was eighteen the first time. The memories I need are dust under a much heavier life.

I think about my class.

In Thirstfall, Memory of Lightwaves pulled lost memory back from places it shouldn’t have been recoverable. The Flow Cartographer. Things I’d seen and forgotten. If memory is the substrate, the skill should work outside the Tide too.

I activate it.

[81:32:41] -> [79:32:41]

And every Chapter of my own life unfolds.

The room blurs at the edges. The hum of the monitors recedes. Inside my skull, a long corridor lights up backward—every room of the last decade rearranging so I can walk through them again.

Three problems from the year I turned eighteen surface and lock in.

— Hydracore Solutions. Desalination. Stock at 3 GNC. Five days, environmental fraud scandal leaks at a competitor. Hydracore rises to 19.

— TerraVolt Energy. Concentrated solar. Stock at 6 GNC. Twenty-two days, exclusive government contract for the Dive clinics. Climbs to 31.

— Nexalink Transport. Logistics. Stock at 9 GNC. Seventeen days, merger with SilkRoad Corp. Spikes to 47 before stabilizing.

I open the home broker. Excited, almost laughing. Create the account under Sands Ventures.

Four thousand into Hydracore. Four thousand into TerraVolt. Two thousand into Nexalink.

Automatic sell orders programmed at the spike points. If I’m back in Thirstfall when the events hit, the orders execute on their own.

If everything happens the way I remember, ten thousand turns into something between eighty and a hundred thousand inside thirty days.

I tear the notebook page into small pieces. Drop them into the trash bin under the desk.

When I look up, it’s already dark. The clerk has rotated out without me noticing.

I close everything. Clear the history. Pay—20 GNC—and walk out.

The street at night is different. Less heat. More people. District 4 wakes up after the sun leaves, because during the day nobody can stand the sun.

I walk home. The phone in my pocket carries the corporate account. The orders are set. The Thirstfall clock is running in the back of my head.

[73:05:49]

Tomorrow I start phase two.

Tonight I sleep in the apartment with Mom and Lili.

I want to enjoy them while I still can.

That’s enough.