The amount of 'indefinite borrowing' I've done in the past few weeks alone is genuinely outrageous.
Ender sat like a statue on the jagged edge of Table Mountain, overlooking the glittering sprawl of the city as the last minutes of 2017 ticked away. The wind teased the hem of his coat, the kind tailored for men with deep pockets and darker secrets. City lights below shimmered like a sea of fireflies. Fireworks popped in the distance, the faint echo of celebration reaching even this high.
If anyone ever caught him—if the world still had time left for law, order, and all those outdated notions—he'd be buried in a cell so deep no light would ever touch his skin again. Life without parole would be a mercy.
But that wasn't going to happen. Not because he was lucky. Because, in less than five minutes, none of it would matter.
He adjusted the matte-black MRAD MK22 slung across his back, its weight familiar now, comforting even. On his hip, a Glock 17 rested in its holster—purely for habit. If things went south tonight, sidearms wouldn't make a difference.
The heists started small—Costco warehouses, fifteen in total, scattered up and down the West Coast. Then came the bigger scores: diesel tankers, generators, pallets of medical supplies, seed vaults, luxury cars, libraries.
He didn't even spare churches if they had backup water filtration systems. He'd hit everything from national archives to black-market arms dealers to liquor cellars stocked with vintages older than the countries that bottled them.
It helped when you didn't need to carry the weight, and you moved faster that any human being could, and were as silent as a feather. The goods were all stacked, sorted, and safely locked away inside the pearls.
That was Ender's secret. Pearls he created—tiny, smooth spheres no bigger than a marble—each one housing up to 20,000 square meters of storage in compressed, accelerated time. One second outside was roughly four minutes inside.
It didn't sound like much until you realized he could age dry-aged beef, ferment grapes, or solar-charge a fleet of Teslas faster than anyone could blink. He had pearls for food, fuel, livestock, tools, tech, textiles, and treasures. Some were legally acquired. 99% weren't.
He even had one pearl—his masterpiece—designed exclusively for living animals. A single stable inside held over 300 farm animals: cows, pigs, goats, chickens. That one had almost killed him. He could store animals, sure, but only just.
Organic complexity came at a price. He tried once—just once—to store a human. He woke up twenty-four hours later with blood leaking from his eyes and ears. That experiment ended there.
But horses? Somehow, those went in clean. Stallions. No issue. Hell, even an elephant went in fine.
Go figure.
He exhaled, breath misting in the air, and glanced at the custom titanium watch wrapped around his left wrist. The minute hand was almost at the top.
"Should've looted more libraries," he muttered to himself. "Or maybe a museum or two."
But the truth was, any more and it would've been redundant. Civilization had run out of time. And he wasn't planning to rebuild it with gold bars or social contracts.
Down below, millions of people were crammed shoulder to shoulder in streets, squares, clubs, and rooftop lounges, counting down to midnight. They cheered, danced, kissed, and filmed it all, none of them realizing they were documenting their final moments as inhabitants of the old world.
Ender stood, his frame casting a long shadow against the starlit rock. He was massive now—8 feet 3 inches tall, shoulders wide as doorframes, arms thick with muscle like coiled steel. Four months ago, he'd barely scraped 6 feet. Four months ago, he was still normal.
Now, he was something else entirely.
He closed his eyes as the countdown roared to life below.
Ten…
Nine…
Eight…
The MRAD shifted slightly against his back.
Seven…
Six…
His muscles tensed, an instinct rising in his gut like storm surge.
Five…
Four…
His fingers curled into fists.
Three…
Two…
One.
Midnight.
The hour hand clicked into place.
The world broke.
It wasn't an explosion. Not an earthquake, either. It was deeper—older. The planet groaned like a living thing waking from a thousand-year coma. The ground beneath him lurched. Buildings below shimmered like mirages before snapping into entirely new shapes. Roads split. The coastline twisted. Whole sections of the city cracked open like eggshells, and from them, jagged landmasses erupted—massive islands, black stone veined with glowing light, rising impossibly fast from the sea.
Ender dropped to one knee, not in reverence, but to stabilize himself as the mountain itself began to shift. It wasn't just the city—it was the Earth. The crust bent, split, widened. The city doubled in size in real time. The skyline broke and rebuilt itself over and over again in a matter of minutes.
And down below, people screamed.
The sounds of chaos in the distance woke him from his stupor, the city below buried in it, overgrowth from the expansion, people dying, car crashes, fires, explosions, you name it.
For Ender on the other hand, he felt something rather strange within his body, he felt nearly twice as strong than he did before this chaos began. His muscles were brimming with strength and he could feel all of it, not to mention the surreal feeling he felt spreading though his body, like raw energy, powerful at that too.
He scoped down the mountain, bringing out a journal to record what he could see throughout the course of the night; population, blocked roads, clear roads, toppled buildings, whatever he could see that might help him by the time day breaks, before scouting it out, and looking for where to go from there.
And as much as he wanted to help, there was nothing he could do at the moment, the energy in his body had heightened his senses, allowing him to see thing in much better clarity than he could before now.
The increase in his vision's range and clarity was nearly 10x, and he already had perfect vision to begin with, making every detail of the city beneath him as clear as if he were walking the streets himself.
From his vantage point, Ender tracked the movement of a group of people near what was once a bustling shopping district. He could see the panic in their eyes, the shaking hands, the exhausted movements of those trying to drag bodies under cover.
Two of them already bit the dust, both men, one lay motionless near a shattered storefront, the other being dragged back by a man in a security guard's uniform, that soon started bleeding out himself before dying. He could see the reflective strip on his jacket peeled halfway off, fluttering with each movement.
'Oh my goodness...'
He zoomed in on a collapsed overpass near the city center, counting six creatures dragging something—or someone, behind them.
They moved fast, low to the ground, with limbs too long and joints too many. Their skin looked wet, glistening even under minimal light, and from their backs grew fleshy stalks that swayed like antennae. He couldn't tell if they were sniffing the air or simply reacting to vibrations.
Enderr sketched them down in his journal roughly for now, planning on doing touch-up later, noting the details down. "Quadruped, Elongated Limbs, Nocturnal Sensory Appendages. Aggression Level: High. Travel Speed: ~40-50 km/h. Pack Hunters."
He glanced away from the scope and let out a breath, switching to view another location. His mind raced, formulating potential courses of action. His preparations had been extensive, but the reality of the situation was proving to be more complex than anticipated. The emergence of these creatures was an unforeseen variable, one that could somewhat derail sections of his plans.
He considered his immediate options. Descending into the city to assist survivors was a noble notion, but the risks were considerable. His current vantage point provided safety and the advantage of observation, but offered little in terms of actionable intervention.
As he deliberated, a sudden movement caught his attention. Near the remnants of a collapsed overpass, a group of civilians had become trapped, cornered by a pack of smaller, canine-like creatures with elongated limbs and razor-sharp teeth. The people's expressions were a mix of terror and resignation, their avenues of escape cut off.
Ender exhaled slowly, steadying his breathing. He adjusted the sniper rifle on its bipod, aligning the crosshairs with the lead creature. With a calculated squeeze of the trigger, the sniper rifle discharged, the shot barely audible over the cacophony below. The creature's head snapped back, its body collapsing instantly. The others hesitated, snarling and glancing around, momentarily disoriented.
Seizing the opportunity, Ender continued firing, each shot finding its mark. The remaining creatures either fell or scattered, allowing the civilians a chance to flee. They didn't waste it, sprinting towards a nearby building that appeared structurally sound.
He knew this was but a minor victory in the grand scheme. The city was vast, and countless others were in peril. His solitary efforts, while impactful on a small scale, couldn't stem the tide of destruction engulfing City.