The Debt Of Time Novels & Stories

“Not at all, sir. What can I do for you, sir? The debt has been settled.” “I saw your kids in my son’s house. Is there anything I am not aware of?” He asked slowly. His son had not told him. “I…” "When I sent my son to collect what you owed me," Lazarus continued, his tone deceptively light, "I expected him to return with my money, not with plans." “Your son was very generous, sir," I said carefully. "He cleared the debt on my behalf.” “With his own money," Lazarus interrupted. "Yes, I'm aware. What I'm not aware of is why my son suddenly decides that your family problems were worth five million dollars of his personal money."

It was the kind of document a high-level CEO would give a private doctor. I looked for the catch. I looked for the word Mafia. I looked for the word Debt. I found none of them. "Six months," I clarified, my pen hovering over the signature line. "And then Leo is free? Truly free?" "His debt is erased from my books and the streets. You have my word." Dante leaned back, his golden eyes tracking the slight tremor in my hand. "You're tired, Clara. You've been fighting for everyone else for a long time. Sign the papers. Let me take the weight for a while."

“Yeah.” He studied me another second. “You worked something like this before?” “A diner,” I answered truthfully. He shook his head. “That’s not the same thing.” “No,” I admitted. “Probably not.” One corner of his mouth twitched again. “So why here?” Because rent is due. Because my car can barely run. Because tuition doesn’t magically disappear because life gets expensive. I tipped my chin defensively. “I need the money,” Something unreadable moved through his expression. “You in school?”

I watched my brother sit across from the woman who had been in his family since before he was born and hold something that was complicated and painful and true and decide what he was going to do with it. "The foundation," he said. "Margaret's name on it. The open research. The secondary application that helps the communities it was always meant to help." He paused. "Is that enough. As a direction. Is that what paying the debt looks like." Vera looked at him. "I think it is a beginning," she said. "Debts like this do not have endings. They have directions." He looked at the desk. "A direction," he said. "Alright." Hazel came and sat beside me.

It didn't speak; it simply emitted a low-frequency hum that made the ship’s very atoms feel heavy. ​"The Debt is Eternal," the machine’s voice vibrated through the hull, sounding like the grinding of tectonic plates. "Time is the Ultimate Collateral. You cannot pay back what has already been spent." ​The Sentinel raised a massive, clockwork hand, and the "Chronos-Dust" around the Vane’s Legacy II began to solidify into chains of frozen light. ​"Julian, the engines are locking!" Sophia cried. "The 'Aether' is turning to ice!"

"We evolve the very concept of debt until it becomes something else." Forty-three minutes remained. Forty-three minutes to redefine fundamental concepts of obligation and payment. The chain pulsed around me, showing infinite ways this could end. In most of them, I disappeared into the Void forever. But in a few, just a few, something unprecedented happened. Time to make those few possibilities real.

" Rachel's voice trembled, choking with emotion. "Winnie, you know I would never lie to you. If you don't believe me, come here and look at the donation agreement he signed himself. "Also, the money I lent you back then… It was Andy who secretly gave it to me. I'm just a doctor. How could I possibly have that much money?" Six long years later, every hidden truth was finally laid bare. My love had made me choose to pave the way for her future. Winnie's love, in return, had destroyed my entire family.

I smiled mockingly and said softly, "Go ahead. Your children need you." Alex didn't even look back at me once. He fled in panic, the wind from his movement brushing across my face. I sat alone in the darkness, neither turning on the lights nor crying. I knew Alex might never marry Brooke. But he would be called away by her again and again, because of those children. I had blended over a thousand fragrances. Top notes, middle notes, base notes, each layer distinct yet harmoniously unified. But my life had been forcibly invaded by a discordant, cheap odor.

I closed the last inch between us until the tip of my nose brushed his. “And you honestly believe putting Darius in the ground erases that?” I whispered. “You think I’m still the girl who’d open a vein for a balanced ledger? I quit being your convenient little shadow the day I realized the darkness pays shit wages.” “You don’t get to quit.” The device buzzed. “Debts don’t expire.” I laughed again—colder this time, edged with glass.

Annabel whispered. "How?" I whispered; And again I was shocked when he decided to answer my question instead of listening to his daughter’s rantings. "I asked for a loan from him when I lost that my old lab to a fire, I thought I'd be able to get the money back if I could invent the Time Machine and get investors, or even get the government to buy it... But the Time Machine never worked, it keeps experiencing a shortage of power and no power source has been able to keep it running for 15 seconds at it's most- and now I'm in huge debt!" He rushed out.