Chapter 1: Neo-Chicago 2045: The Crime That Broke Time
The neon-drenched streets of Neo-Chicago pulsed with an eerie, electric heartbeat. Detective Jack Thorne squinted against the harsh glare of holographic billboards as his vintage 2023 Ford Mustang — a relic he stubbornly clung to — wove through the congested skyways of the city’s lower levels.
“Another day in paradise,” he muttered, taking a swig from his smart-mug. The coffee within adjusted its temperature automatically, a small comfort in a world that often felt like it was spinning out of control.
His car’s AI chirped to life. “Incoming call from Central Dispatch, Detective Thorne.”
Jack sighed. “Put it through.”
The gruff voice of Captain Rodriguez filled the car. “Thorne, we’ve got a situation in the Apex District. Possible 187. But… it’s not like anything we’ve seen before.”
Jack’s interest piqued. In 2045, with crime-predicting AIs and omnipresent surveillance, a homicide was rare. An unusual one? That was practically extinct.
“I’m on my way,” he responded, already instructing his car to change course.
As he approached the Apex District — a forest of impossibly tall skyscrapers housing the city’s elite — Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that this case was going to be different. The Apex was supposed to be untouchable, protected by the most advanced security systems money could buy.
He pulled up to a towering residential spire, its upper levels disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. A small crowd of slack-jawed onlookers had already gathered, held at bay by a shimmering forcefield. Jack flashed his badge at the scanner, and the field parted like water.
“What’ve we got?” he asked the uniformed officer at the entrance.
The young cop looked pale. “Sir, it’s… you need to see it for yourself. 110th floor.”
The elevator ride felt endless. When the doors finally slid open, Jack stepped into a crime scene that defied everything he thought he knew about physics — and murder.
The victim lay sprawled in the center of a luxurious penthouse living room. But it wasn’t the body that made Jack’s breath catch in his throat. It was everything around it.
Objects hung suspended in mid-air — shards of glass, droplets of blood, even dust motes — frozen as if time itself had stopped. But only within a perfect sphere about ten feet in diameter around the corpse.
“What the hell?” Jack breathed, circling the phenomenon cautiously.
He’d seen some strange things in his years on the force, but this? This was impossible. As he moved, he noticed something else: his forensics visor was going haywire, unable to get a read on anything within the sphere.
Carefully, he reached out towards the edge of the anomaly. The hair on his arm stood on end, and he felt a strange tingling sensation, like static electricity but… different. More alive somehow.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Detective,” a voice called from behind him.
Jack turned to see a woman in a crisp white lab coat, her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. She extended her hand. “Dr. Evelyn Reeves, Temporal Dynamics Division.”
“Temporal what now?” Jack asked, shaking her hand warily.
Dr. Reeves’s lips quirked into a humorless smile. “Let’s just say, Detective Thorne, that you’re looking at the first crime scene that breaks not just the laws of the state… but the laws of physics as we know them.”
Jack turned back to the frozen tableau of death before him, a chill running down his spine. He had a feeling that this case was going to change everything — not just for him, but for the very fabric of reality itself.
“Alright, Doc,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “Tell me everything.”
As Dr. Reeves began to explain, Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that he was standing on the precipice of something much bigger than a simple murder. In Neo-Chicago of 2045, the impossible had become possible, and time itself had become a crime scene.
The game was afoot, and the clock was ticking — even if, in this room, it had mysteriously stopped.
