Once, something wrapped the world in an unseen web. Light had poured from walls, voices had traveled without breath, and machines had moved with the ease of thought. Power had been silent, weightless—an invisible river flowing through copper veins._

  _But that time was gone. At least in Suspended._

  The train heaved forward, metal grinding against the tracks like a beast dragging a broken limb. Movement was always a battle in the beginning—gears grinding, pistons slamming, steam curling thick against soot-stained walls. Nothing moved freely anymore. Nothing except the weight of hunger, of ambition.

  The world had lost its lightning. And I was no different. They took it from me. Maybe that’s why I planned to steal from Suspended.

  I tilt my head against the glass. Above me, the sky is layered with smog—a permanent veil over this part of Lagos, tinged orange from the glow of the floating metropolis that casts down its shadow.

  For a moment, I let my gaze linger.

  Once, I had gone to Suspended; something illegal. Just once. That day had split my life into a before and an after.

  ---

  ### 9:40

  "I’ve never believed that one person could rule any of the countries that made up the Expanse, especially Nigeria,” I murmur, half to myself. President Whitfield may sit in that polished office, may look down from his high towers, but he isn’t enough. Not good enough, not smart enough, not nearly dirty enough.

  I unfold the newspaper. A grainy, zoomed-out image of Suspended takes up half the page. Had to be at least **100x magnification**—it was the only way to capture the city in full.

  ANOTHER OBJECT FALLS FROM AURUM HEIGHTS. THE FOURTH IN UNDER A MONTH.

  _"Officials claim navigational errors, but rumors circulate among ground residents as to the safety of the structure and whether we below should be... concerned."_

  ---

  10:00

  The train picks up speed. Outside, the scenery shifts. Billboards flicker past, flashing neon promises of **designer clothes, premium apartments, cleaner air.**

  Here, the filth thins. The smog is still there, but it’s weaker—filtered, processed, scrubbed just enough to give the illusion of purity.

  I push my hands against the side of my watch and check the time. A **Rolex Oyster Perpetual**—once pristine, now dulled by age. The **stainless steel case** bears fine scratches, its polished sheen long gone. The **bracelet** has stretched ever so slightly, the once-snug links now looser. The clasp still holds the **engraved Rolex crown**, a symbol of a time when luxury was a quiet statement, not a desperate declaration.

  Suspended has loomed over this land for longer than any bloodline has existed. **They were still building it when electricity was more than a myth.** Entire generations have lived and died in its shadow. Some have never seen real sunlight.

  And if you do leave—if you escape the country of **New Africa** and push beyond the city’s reach—the sun won’t be a blessing. Not when you’re battling the crude.

  ---

  10:10

  Keeping something like that afloat isn’t easy. The energy it takes—the gravitational balancing, the atmospheric corrections, the sheer **mathematical precision**—it’s nothing short of a miracle.

  Tens of thousands of stabilization motors.

  Magnetic thrusters adjusting in microseconds.

  A delicate, calculated resistance against the pull of the world.

  And yet, objects keep falling.

  _"Navigation issues," they say._

  Maybe they're struggling up there as much as we are down here. But they’ll never admit it.

  ---

  10:20

  The train **slowed**, gliding to a halt.

  I pressed a small square button beside my seat. A hiss of steam, a mechanical sigh, and the door slid open.

  I stepped onto the platform. The station was a machine of flesh and metal, bodies moving like gears, the flow dictated by unseen forces.

  And looming at the edge of it all—NexBank Metropolitan HQ

  The building **jutted out of the cityscape like a knife.**

  Black glass, seamless. Pillars like obsidian ribs, holding up the sky.

  The kind of place where money didn’t just move—it breathed, it dictated, it decided.

  ---

  10:30

  I slip one hand into my pocket, shaking my wrist slightly so my watch settles against my skin. The glass flickers, catching the light. If angled just right—45 degrees from the normal eyeline, a concave lens adjusting for refraction—the blue glow would emerge, revealing the arcane pattern beneath.

  As I neared the bank’s entrance, a thin beam of light swept over my face. A moment of silence, then the glass doors parted without a sound.

  I take a step—

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  —and the world detonates.

  A deep, resonant boom tears through the air.

  For a fraction of a second, the station is frozen. The only sound is the whisper of the train doors sealing shut behind me. A perfect, unnatural silence.

  Then—chaos.

  A metal door rips past me, slamming into the NexBank pillars. People scream. The air is thick with dust, the shockwave slamming against my chest.

  I don’t run—not yet. Running too fast means guilt. It means suspicion. Instead, I move just fast enough to blend into the crowd, the chaos swallowing me whole.

  And then, I see it.

  A distortion between the lens of my glasses. A flicker, a shape that shouldn’t be there. A gap in the movement of bodies, a presence bending the air itself.

  For the first time, I felt something I didn’t expect. Not fear. Not anger.

  Recognition.

  I was supposed to catch the thief.

  But now—

  Now, I’d recruit them.

  I was 90% sure.

  ---

  Alternate Scenario

  9:40

  10:00

  10:10

  10:20

  I pressed the square button beside my seat. A hiss of steam, a mechanical sigh, and the door slid open.

  I stepped onto the platform.

  10:30

  The boom didn’t go off this time.

  The line moved slowly, each visitor stepping into place, their faces bathed in the scanner’s cold blue glow.

  Verifying…

  I held still as the system **mapped my iris, analyzed my microexpressions, and ran a sweat-density check.** This wasn’t just facial recognition—it was behavior analysis. Too much blinking? Red flag. Slight fluctuations in heart rate? Secondary screening

  Beyond the gate, terahertz waves swept through my suit, analyzing the density of every object beneath my clothing. Hidden in the far wall, a secondary scanner probed deeper—far enough to catch subdermal implants.** A false retina or disguised neural interface would light up the system in an instant.

  Still, I stepped through clean.

  NexBank’s layout wasn’t just a building. It was a maze. Twisting halls. Deliberate dead ends. The kind of place designed to disorient you, to make you feel small in the presence of wealth.

  Various divisions: Analytics, Portfolios, Securities. My division—Assets. The one I worked in.

  Everywhere, analysts pored over figures that steered the global economy. And somewhere among them, someone had already placed the bomb.

  I adjusted the cuff of my navy suit, strands of hair covering my left eye, then walked down the polished hallway, nodding to colleagues who looked up as I passed.

  Some things turned more heads than words ever could—power.

  _"You heard what happened at WestBridge?"_

  At the coffee stall, two employees spoke in hushed tones.

  _"Another bank hit?"_

  _"WestBridge, PrimeOne, and a smaller one in Sector 3. That’s three in a week."_

  A woman shook her head. **"Security doesn’t even react properly on the first day. You know how it goes—they always come in half-force first, just to ‘assess.’”**

  "Yeah, and if an enhanced is involved, what do we do? Run?"

  There was a pause.

  Then, someone said it.

  _"I got a guy. Pills. Good stuff. Reaction-time boost, muscle strength. You won’t stand a chance without something."_

  _"Side effects?"_

  _"Less than dying."_

  No one argued. **If an enhanced decided to kill you, nothing would stop them.**

  ---

  I approached the polished door to my division.

  I used my left foot to play with the laces of my shoe, unwinding them.

  The cranks started turning, gears at work—

  chains running through. Vapor puffed into the air. Then, with a rattle, the door staggered open.

  I took the stairs down, moving toward the angle where the explosion had come from... I might be wrong, but the left wing.

  If I were a thief, I could use **more detonators,** but that would make it bulkier. The chances of getting caught would be higher. But if you opted for a smaller option and still wanted to level the whole building and kill, well, everybody... structurally, the left wing was the best choice.

  It had to be spell-tech. People didn’t have the patience anymore to play with the laws of physics. They loved the arcane.

  I glanced at the stark display of ‘fine art’ placed everywhere—a lure for richer clientele, appealing to their ‘refined palettes.’**

  I bent down, tightening my shoelace.

  _"Hey, how far, Aiden?"_ A fat man greeted me as he passed by.

  My eyes scanned the room.

  An ancient and terrible picture of the **Mona Lisa.** I’d heard the painter never finished it.

  A **real** laptop—some couple centuries old. A vase. More paintings. Velvet rugs made from lion’s hair. Elaborate light systems—mechanical, but undeniably beautiful.

  My gaze circled back to the vase.

  _"Hey,"_ I greeted another passing colleague.

  These thieves were getting better—robbing bank branches with increasing efficiency.

  The moment my body grazed the vase, I felt it—the COZ.

  I looped the rope, tightening the knot. A useless action. Just an excuse to linger.

  I had one chance. If I was wrong, I’d die in a very public, very messy way. Mastering the depths of what an Effector could do, when there was a tight leash on every spell, was… it was.

  My fingers twitched.

  I activated the effect.

  Time itself slowed—just around the object.

  The second hand of my watch ticked.

  Zeno’s Decay Algorithm

  A theoretical field effect. Time doesn’t stop—but it slows in exponentially smaller increments, forever approaching zero.

  Meaning, if I activated it here…

  The bomb’s detonation sequence would be caught in the effect. Frozen, forever decaying.

  I let my hand brush the surface. Activated it.

  The world around me stretched. Milliseconds turned into seconds. Seconds into minutes.

  The bomb **was still there—but its countdown, its energy, everything about it was trapped in a never-ending approach to detonation.**

  I stepped back.

  A chuckle escaped my lips.

  _"Nice try."_

  I couldn’t take it. The people who planted it would have eyes circling back to it, wondering why it didn’t go off.

  Up the stairs, through the corner—

  Coffee Stall

  The name was engraved into the silver plate.

  _"Hello, Mama Carl."_

  _"How are you doing?"_

  _"Good as the last time you found me."_

  _"What about you? Have you found a girlfriend, Aiden? Don’t let this corporate life get to you."_

  _"This is all you do—go out, do something crazy. Being too proper all the time takes all the fun away."_

  I scratched my head—like there was some piece of gum that wouldn’t come off.

  _"I will, Aunty."_

  _"How many times have we talked about this?"_

  _"I want coffee for my division."_ I adjusted the bridge of my glasses.

  The old woman moved slowly, scooping the grounds—like she had done it a thousand times before. Steam curled around her round face, settling into the deep lines of her cheeks. With a flick of her wrist, she poured the dark liquid into the various cups.

  _"I’m studying an Effector I saw on the news."_

  _"Give it a rest, kid."_

  _"Why?"_

  I laughed. We rarely saw them here.** Maybe there were a lot in Suspended, but not here.

  _"I think what he did to that metal was chemical distortion. Collapsing... something."_

  I flashed a smile. I had two types—the real one and the fake one.

  _You see, the thing about being inconspicuous... It’s in masking things._

  She handed me the coffees on a tray.

  _"I’m off."_

  "As I adjust my cuff, dark particles slip into the coffee, dissolving instantly."

  My legs shifted suddenly, for a moment—an extra shake to mix it all up.

  _"Careful, you clumsy ass!"_ The woman laughed.

  I step back, steadying the tray.

  This was the 32nd shot for Lucas. It's a pity that he needed to die.

  _"Sorry."_ A chuckle escaped my mouth.

  These conversations were always a chore. Ten coffees. Ten people.

  I dropped the last one—**Lucas’s—**with a smile and headed to my seat.

  _"Thanks, four-eyes. If I were an Effector, I’d turn everything you wanted into gold for you."_

  I slipped into my chair, pulling myself closer to my device. My flight analyzer, built from scraps. Picking up **patterns in Gryphon flight movements.** I’d heard parts of Suspended used holographics, though I’d never actually been there.

  Opening the screen, I scanned the list of names and figures—each one linked to the bank’s high-stakes accounts. A few familiar clients popped up—names that regularly graced financial news, some whose money accidentally spilled into my pocket.

  Inventions didn’t build themselves, after all.

  A small group of analysts gathered nearby.

  _"A client from Suspended is partnering with NexBank for the DICE festival. Can you imagine the scale of his assets?"_

  I didn’t show it, but I was excited for the DICE festival too. I’d find some of my team there—to make this robbery good.