Chapter 101 My Future?

“And what does it have to do with me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her.

Her expression didn’t waver, not even a flicker of hesitation. Through my Empathy, I could feel the weight of her confidence. It was steady and absolute, so sure of her chances and schemes.

“Why me?”

“You’re quick to catch on,” she said, tone calm, almost teasing.

That didn’t help. Of all the people in the Nth Contract, she could’ve chosen; she picked me. Missive could’ve just asked to be let go. Mrs. Mind didn’t seem like the kind who’d keep someone against their will, unless there was something more to it.

But Missive was a precog. She must’ve known things I didn’t. If she thought I could help her, then maybe she’d seen something, some sliver of possibility where she didn’t end up dead. Still… how far could her precognition reach? Was this calculation or recklessness? Her confidence was one thing, but it bordered on suicidal arrogance.

“It has to be you,” she said finally, her blue hair brushing across her face as the wind picked up. “Because you’re the only one who won’t get me killed.”

Bunnyblade’s voice crackled, dry and unimpressed. “That’s just suspicious.”

I crossed my arms. “Elaborate.”

“I’ve been with the Nth Contract for five years now,” Missive said. “I’ve seen faces come and go. People who thought they could leave. I reached a point where I had enough wealth to start over somewhere new. I told Mrs. Mind about it, and she allowed me to go.” Her gaze hardened, voice flattening into something emotionless. “Only for me to end up dead the next day. Ning’s doing.”

The silence that followed was heavier than anything the desert wind could carry.

From the corner of my mind, Onyx spoke, her tone dripping with bitter amusement. “Guess the Nth Contract isn’t as cool as it seemed, huh?”

No, it wasn’t. Not at all.

“What about the others?” I asked. “What happens when you turn to them for help?”

Missive’s eyes drifted to the horizon. Her tone stayed calm, but the edges were brittle, like glass about to splinter. “Dullahan tried to help me. She only got killed… me too, either by Ning or Paleman. I even tried confronting Ning about it, only for Mrs. Mind to kill me herself by melting my brain.” Her voice tightened, but she didn’t stop. “I tried to get help from the other members, but they just got killed alongside me.”

I stared at her. The way she spoke didn’t sound like paranoia. Instead, it sounded like a confession.

She went on. “The Nth Contract has undergone a series of operations over the years, each one… aggravating, pulling more attention from parties you don’t want watching you. We’re a strike team for a higher power, Eclipse. We answer to someone, and we do their bidding without our knowledge.” Her lips thinned. “Except probably Mrs. Mind. The only reason I know any of this is because of my precognition. Because of that knowledge, Mrs. Mind can’t let me go.”

I studied her carefully. The longer she talked, the more I felt something in her voice, her posture. It wasn’t just desperation. It was resignation. And there was something else, her precognition. It was more exotic than I’d realized. Not just glimpses of possible futures but… something stranger.

“Your power,” I said slowly. “How exactly does it work? And how do I even know these things you’re telling me are true?”

“You don’t,” she said simply. “But you will trust my words, because I speak only the truth.”

Silver’s voice echoed in my head, quiet but firm. “She’s not lying, Nick. I can feel it through your empathic powers.”

Missive exhaled, as if she’d been waiting for that. “As for my powers,” she said, “they revolve around some strange time-loop mechanic with the present as an unobservable state. We may be existing in the past right now, or the future. When I die, I rematerialize randomly near where I died. If I let the future me truly die in reality, then I would die. Permanently.” She met my eyes. “I can’t let that happen, so I’ve been investigating with my precognition. And I decided the only way for me to get out is to… actually die. Or at least fake it in a way they’d have no choice but to let me go.”

Her stare pinned me. “This is where you come in, Eclipse. I need your help to kill me.”

My mouth went dry. “How,” I asked, voice low, “can I kill you when you’re virtually immortal?”

In reality, the mechanics of her powers were less “precognition” and more time travel. The way she described it, she wasn’t just glimpsing possible futures; she was literally sliding along a seam of timelines, pulling another version of herself into the present when she died. If she were truly that “immortal,” then I couldn’t understand how she’d even been killed like she claimed. It didn’t add up.

“Your plan is filled with flaws. Why do you even think they would believe me if I said I killed you, for no reason at all? Your story is full of holes. If they really wanted you dead, they would’ve done it in a way that actually worked, not let it reach this point.”

Her hands clenched. “I worked hard to hide my thoughts of leaving. I’ve hidden the knowledge that they scare me. You don’t know how much I’ve endured…” Her voice cracked, but she steadied it. “Do you even know how old I am?”

I frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m fucking ten years old! You gotta be more understanding of me!”

My mind stalled. She had to be lying. Or she was so deep in her own delusion that she believed it herself.

She kept going. “I was born in a place more lawless than the land between city-states. I’ve died young, regenerated from the temporal seams of time over and over again. Every time, I had to choose, bring my past self to the present, or my future self. I always picked the future me, so I’d grow older sooner. So I’d become an adult who could be part of society. So I’d finally be free.” Her tone softened. “I owe Mrs. Mind a lot. She gave me things I’d never have had otherwise. But I’m done with her.”

I stayed silent, watching her as she bared her history like a blade.

“The reason I’m not dead is that they have no way to truly kill me. The memories from my precognition are warnings, reminders to behave. Now, for once, I have a chance to misbehave, and I’m going to take it.” She looked forward again, voice hardening. “The nature of your powers should be able to make it believable. With your empathy binding the present version of me with the past and future, you can use your intangibility to ‘kill’ me at once. That should be enough to fool them. I’ve already consulted with Dr. Sequence about the science behind it. I’m confident it would work.”

I exhaled slowly. My instincts told me this was the kind of mess that never cleaned off your hands. “And what’s in it for me?” I asked. “Because honestly, I’m only shooting myself in the foot if I agree to this.”

“Information,” she said simply.

“If it’s information about the rest of the Ten, then I’d love to pass—”

“About your future,” she interrupted, coolly.

That pulled me up short. “What?”

“It’s harder to look further into the future with my power,” she admitted, her eyes never leaving me. “I suffer power fatigue in degrees you can’t imagine. But I looked at yours. And here’s a spoiler—” she gave me a crooked smile “—you’re going to kill them all. Well… not all, I think? But that’s pretty much the outcome. You’re a destroyer, Eclipse. You know it. As for me?” She hesitated, then added, “I’m certain of it. Of course, these things aren’t absolute. I don’t know exactly the depths of my precognition, only that it’s more unstable than the higher-rated precogs. But I most often than not, I am quite an accurate seer myself.”

The words hit heavier than they should have, like stones in my chest. Me. Killing them all. Did it matter that it wasn’t absolute, that she “thought” it but didn’t know? Somehow, it still felt inevitable.

“This is my proposal,” she went on. “Help me escape, and I’ll tell you about your future. All of it. I know you want to know whether you get a happy ending or not.”

For a long time, I said nothing. I thought about it, truly thought, my own kind of soul-searching, if such a thing even existed for someone like me.

Finally, I said, “I accept.”

She smiled. “I knew you would accept. After all, in your heart of hearts, you enjoy the violence.”

Onyx’s laughter rang in my mind like silver bells. “Hell yeah, Nick! This is more interesting than playing house!”

“How do you want to do this?” I asked. “Surely, you have a plan in mind to make this daring escape?”

“We return to the Tenfold Keep,” she said at last. “That’s where it has to happen. The man known as John Wolfe chasing after you will move then.”

I frowned. “Wolfe? He’s SRC, Missive. He’s not some merc who shows up just because the wind blows.”

“They will find a way to reach the Keep,” she said evenly. “Through you. The chaos will give me what I need.”

I pushed off the truck, circling so I could face her directly. The wind tugged at her blue hair, made her look older for half a second, and then she was just a too-small body with a precog’s eyes again. “The Keep’s hidden. I barely remember its exact entrance now that I think about it. How the hell—”

“They’ll trace you,” she interrupted. “They’ll trace me. In the chaos, I’ll be caught. The files I’ve been sitting on will leak to the world, exposing the true nature of the Nth Contract. I’ll be revealed as a traitor.”

“And then?” My throat felt like gravel.

“You will kill me,” she said. “Of course, don’t do it for real, just phase me underground and I will do the rest.”

“How about my future?”

I asked her how she would inform me of my future, the one I had willingly decided was worth more than the new friends I’d made, the one I couldn’t stop gnawing at like an old wound. She didn’t hesitate.

“You’ll receive it in full,” Missive said, her voice steady, eyes fixed on the bike. “Through Bunnyblade.”

There was no contract, no binding oath, nothing to anchor her promise but words. I hated how naked that made me feel. This whole deal left me at a disadvantage, my hand forced by my own curiosity. But I wanted to know. Even if my future was shattered, I needed to see the shards to know where they cut deepest. If it was intact, I wanted to know how to keep it that way.

When we finally left the airstrip, the afternoon had bled into a dim, restless evening. Missive sat behind me, knees pressed together, silent as stone. The truck rolled after us like a patient predator, Bunnyblade at the helm of its hacked systems, guiding it with invisible hands.

The drive passed quickly than I expected. We chewed through the distance between the base and the Tenfold Keep in just over a day. No diversions this time, no side quests. The scenery changed from empty airstrips to desolate highways to the familiar architecture of our fortress.

Thirdhand was waiting when we arrived. Even from a distance, he was impossible to mistake, a head shaped like a grotesque, oversized hand, fingers curling and twitching as if they had minds of their own. His telekinesis caught our cargo before it even touched the ground, crates floating off the truck like a magician’s trick.

“About time,” he muttered, though it came out more like an afterthought than a reprimand.

Ning joined him without a word, the two of them working in silent rhythm to unload the goods. Missive slipped past us, disappearing into the elevator. She didn’t look back.

I rode the elevator alone up to the tenth floor. The doors opened to the muted hum of Mrs. Mind’s office, a place that always smelled faintly of ozone and polished metal. She was waiting, hands clasped behind her back, expression as unreadable as always.

I reported everything, every stop, every crate, every trivial detail of the journey from my little side quests to the robot that handed the cargo to us. Everything, except Missive’s clearly treasonous plans waiting to erupt. That I kept folded inside me like a secret letter.

When I was done, I hesitated at the threshold. The words were out before I realized I’d spoken them. “If I asked to be let go,” I said quietly, “would you let me?”

Mrs. Mind’s eyes flicked toward mine. “Yes.”

The single syllable hung in the air like a blade.

My empathy reached for her, testing the currents beneath her voice. She wasn’t lying. But with a telepath as powerful as her, I could never be sure. Truth could be a shape she sculpted, a mask worn over an abyss.

I nodded once and left her office, but the echo of that answer stayed with me long after the door shut behind me.