Chapter 330: The Clock Had Taken Two Years Without Him

The six-minute window opened at the height of Jiang’s breast.

That was useful until the copper plate tried to rotate toward a human face that was no longer there.

Jiang planted his wider emperor foot across the lower hinge. His forward claws caught two grooves while his tail braced on the dry stone. Aylin turned the outer ring with a wooden pin, and he kept the center from lifting with his breast keel.

No hand-shaped correction entered the mechanism.

[SIGNATURE1 OBSERVATION WINDOW]

[Maximum interval06:00]

[Claim effects0]

[Living passage0]

[Matter passage0]

[Closure control:both sides]

[Current body:penguin]

[Human presentation required0]

The copper plate cleared completely.

Light arrived without warmth. It formed a narrow view of a conservation table, a white wall, and a square black clock held close enough that every segment could be counted.

[CLOCK 09:41:26]

Beneath the numbers, a printed label read UTC. A second display showed the date in four fields separated by hyphens.

[DATE 2028-03-03]

Aylin put her wax copy from the thirty-second response beside the plate. The six retained digits read 094126 in the same order.

[TIMESTAMP FORMAT VERIFIED]

[Prior digits:09:41:26]

[Visible device1]

[Format:HH:MM:SS]

[Timezone:UTC]

[Current date evidence1]

[Observation remaining05:31]

The woman holding the clock had more silver in her dark curls than the woman in the Vatican footage. She still used two pencils to keep those curls above her neck. Neither pencil proved anything. The old archive knew about them.

She placed the clock on the table and held up both empty hands.

"I am Sofia Conti," she said. "That is a claim. Tell me what you require."

Her voice crossed as sound and altered nothing on Jiang’s side.

Aylin had prepared three requests after the window opened. She selected one without showing the other two.

"Display the sealed copy without opening it. Then choose whether to connect it to your network."

Conti moved the camera instead of the drive. A black storage device rested inside a clear evidence sleeve. Two paper seals crossed its opening. One bore a faded `S.CONTI`; the other bore an inventory-office mark and two handwritten custody numbers.

Beside it waited an unplugged cable.

Conti picked up the cable, coiled it once, and placed it in a drawer.

"No network," she said. "Not for your convenience, and not for mine."

[EARTH PARTICIPANT ONE]

[Historical record match:sealed footage custody]

[Fresh request received1]

[Independent current choice1]

[Visual person continuity:supported]

[Current participant match:Sofia Conti]

[Soul identity tested0]

[Custody transferred0]

Jiang released the hinge only after the person-match field held. His foot had gone numb at the outer claw, but the plate remained level.

"Show the incident timestamp," he said.

Conti slid a printed evidence card beneath the clock. Its machine record named the lower inventory corridor, the original camera unit, and the final confirmed image of Jiang before the Gate Nail crossing.

2025-08-20 10:03:08 UTC

She put the current clock beside it. Both records remained physically on Earth. The route read their visible fields without moving ink, paper, clock, cable, or light source through the boundary.

[PHYSICAL RECORD COMPARISON]

[Last confirmed Earth presence:2025-08-20 10:03:08 UTC]

[Current Earth observation:2028-03-03 09:41:26 UTC]

[Earth-relative elapsed:925d23:38:18]

[Calendar expression:2y6m11d23:38:18]

[Route inference0]

[Magic chronology substitution0]

Two years, six months, eleven days, twenty-three hours, thirty-eight minutes, and eighteen seconds had passed on Earth since Conti’s camera recorded him leaving.

Jiang checked the subtraction again because numbers sometimes improved when insulted by repetition.

They refused to improve.

His brothers had lost more than two years after a call in which he had promised to return. The system had counted his meals, wounds, molts, and every fraction of pressure. It had never volunteered the clock attached to that promise.

"Do you know whether my brothers are alive?" he asked.

Conti’s fingers stopped beside the evidence card.

"I have no current record that proves either answer," she said. "I will not spend your first contact manufacturing one."

The refusal hurt more cleanly than comfort would have.

[Family status:unverified]

[Historical promise retained]

[Current contact established0]

[Observation remaining03:42]

A man entered the image carrying a shallow metal tray. Paolo had become thinner. A pair of glasses hung from his collar, and the key chain Jiang remembered no longer sat against his chest.

He placed an inventory ledger on the table. Its latest page carried the current date, a fresh access-card imprint, and an empty custody line.

"Monsignor Paolo is also a claim," he said. "What is the request?"

Jiang looked at the two old key numbers on Conti’s sealed sleeve. Then he looked at the empty line.

"Choose whether you keep your current key while this window is open. Do not tell us what Conti expects."

Paolo set a brass key in the tray. He wrote `temporarily surrendered by holder` in the empty line, signed beneath it, and pushed the tray beyond his own reach.

Conti frowned at him. "I expected you to keep it."

"That is why he asked me," Paolo said.

[EARTH PARTICIPANT TWO]

[Historical record match:separate key office]

[Fresh request received1]

[Independent current choice1]

[Current access record1]

[Current participant match:Monsignor Paolo]

[Archive opened0]

[Custody transferred0]

Paolo’s surrender did not unlock the drive or close the observation. It removed his half of any two-key archive action until he reclaimed it under Earth procedure.

A third person rolled into view before the next request.

Cardinal Martelli had refused a wheelchair when Jiang knew him. The chair beneath him now looked expensive enough to have survived several arguments. One side of his shirt collar sat higher over the scar left by the surgery that had begun after the lower-vault fight.

Old injury was still old evidence.

Martelli laid a current clinic appointment sheet on the table. His name, photograph, patient number, and the present date were visible. He covered the diagnosis with two fingers.

"You may verify the person without purchasing the illness," he said.

That sounded like him. It was still not enough.

Aylin selected her second hidden request.

"Choose whether this contact enters Vatican custody. Write the answer where we can see it."

Martelli borrowed Conti’s pen. His hand shook badly enough that the first `N` tore the paper.

NO INSTITUTIONAL CUSTODY CLAIM.

He added a second line.

AFFECTED PERSONS RETAIN STOP.

"My office may object after the window," Martelli said. "My office does not answer before you do."

[EARTH PARTICIPANT THREE]

[Historical record match:post-surgery patient]

[Current medical identity record1]

[Fresh request received1]

[Independent current choice1]

[Current participant match:Cardinal Martelli]

[Institutional custody0]

[Affected-person stop1]

[Soul identity tested0]

The route accepted three current participant matches. It granted none of them ownership, command, spiritual identity authority, or permission to widen the path.

[Observation remaining01:44]

"Close from your side," Jiang told Paolo.

Paolo reached toward a red switch mounted beside the conservation table. Before he touched it, Conti caught his sleeve.

"Wait. They need to see the earlier arrival."

She moved a second screen into view. Its archive log showed an access request received eleven minutes before the six-digit response. The request had carried no body, voice, living signature, or recognized credential.

It had carried a self-entered subject line.

ARCHIVE SUBJECT: JIANG RETURNED

Below it, four checks against its three pre-copy memory sources had passed the archive’s historical controls. Three post-copy questions had received no continuous answer.

[EARLIER ARCHIVE CONTACT]

[Arrival lead00:11]

[Self-claim:JIANG RETURNED]

[Pre-copy checks4/4 | memory sources3/3]

[Post-copy continuity0/3]

[Living body evidence0]

[Current location0]

[Identity accepted0]

Jiang pressed his emperor foot across the hinge again. He could close now. He could also spend the remaining window asking a false version of himself what it had told Earth.

"Did it request my family records?" he asked.

Conti turned the screen far enough for one final line to become readable.

FAMILY CONTACT: ACCESS ATTEMPTED.

[Observation remaining00:09]

Paolo struck the red switch.

The Earth view closed with nine seconds unused. Light, voices, and records vanished without pulling the copper plate after them.

[OBSERVATION CLOSED]

[Manual closure:Earth side]

[Maximum exceeded0]

[Claim effects0]

[Living passage0]

[Matter passage0]

[Earth participants matched3/3]

[Institutional custody0]

[Active Abyss Pressure uses0]

[Protocol retained1]

[Next interval requires fresh mutual challenge1]

Food stood1:09. Fuel remained0. Jiang remained Pressure60, Cold12/47, mobility12%, wound1.1cm, bleeding0, native hands0, Abyss Pressure uses0, and EP0. Current touch remained0.

The alternate witness had reached Earth first.

It had gone looking for his brothers.