Daniel stepped through the narrow steel door of the bar like a man entering sacred ground. The place smelled like every bad decision ever made—stale beer, cigarette ash, and the lingering odor of ambition gone wrong. He could almost taste the dust of the future here, long before the world collapsed into the clean sterility of arcologies and corporate obedience.
"Smells like greed and liver damage," Claude commented dryly.
Daniel smirked. "Smells like home."
The poker table in the back wasn't much—scarred green felt, flickering overhead bulb, players with more ego than bankroll. But it was exactly where he needed to be. Not because he belonged there, but because no one would expect a predator among the pigeons.
He slid into the seat without fanfare, tossed two hundred dollars on the table, and let Claude begin her silent background processing.
Rick—the silver wolf. Calm, measured. He watched more than he spoke. Eyes like scalpels.
Mickey—the brute. Loud laughter, loud shirt, the kind of man who thought size substituted for strategy.
Lena—the tactician. Conservative bets. Calculated moves. Tapped her nail exactly twice when considering.
Tommy—the kid. Nervous, twitchy, way out of his depth. Trying to bluff with a face made of glass.
Daniel scanned them without blinking. Every breath, every glance, every unconscious twitch was filed and cross-referenced by Claude.
"These aren't opponents," Claude whispered, "they're a data stream."
Daniel didn't answer. Not aloud. Inside, he agreed. And it made him feel sick.
They were children. All of them.
Not by age. But by mind.
He was a hundred and eleven years old. They were toddlers with cards. And he was here to take their milk money.
Mercy was a luxury the future hadn't taught him.
The first few hands were standard operations. Observe, bait, bleed.
He let them win early. Let them feel bold. Let them believe they were dancing with a teenage lucky streak.
Then he broke them. Slowly. Elegantly.
He called when they flinched. Raised when they blinked. Folded just before they stumbled into their own traps.
Claude fed him data with surgical detachment:
"Rick's heart rate elevated. Bluffed the turn. Fold him by river."
"Tommy's got a micro-twitch in his left eye. He's lying. Again."
Daniel obeyed like a machine.
By midnight, his stack had grown tenfold.
The Final Hand
A♠ and K♠. His fingers caressed the cards like old friends.
The flop: 10♠, J♠, 3♦. A perfect storm.
Rick raised.
Daniel raised back. Mickey folded.
The turn: Q♠.
Royal flush. NUTS.
Claude's voice was calm, but reverent. "It doesn't get better than this. Probability of this happening is 0.000154%"
Daniel inhaled slowly. His fingers hovered over his chips, then pressed them forward.
"All-in."
The room seemed to hold its breath.
The overhead light buzzed faintly. A bead of sweat rolled down Tommy's temple and splashed onto the felt.
Rick's fingers stopped drumming. His jaw tensed. He stared into Daniel's eyes—not just to read the hand, but to understand the being across from him.
And Daniel met his gaze without flinching. Like a mirror. Like something ancient wearing skin.
Rick folded.
Daniel turned over his cards. Silence. Then awe.
Taxi Ride Home
The money was heavy in his pocket. Over twelve thousand dollars in cash. It felt like a beginning.
He hailed a taxi. No more walking like a schoolboy.
The ride home was quiet, save for the distant hum of the tires and the occasional streetlight flickering past.
"We did it," Claude said softly. Silence fell like a curtain. Then—murmurs of disbelief, awe hanging thick in the air. He'd just stripped the table bare—twelve grand smoother. Cool as ever, he stacked his chips, slid a crisp bill toward the dealer.
'Here's your tip. Have a great night.'
Daniel didn't answer.
He was watching a couple on the sidewalk—young, laughing, fingers intertwined. And for a moment, he envied them. Not their youth. Not their love. Their ignorance.
"They don't know what's coming," he whispered.
Claude replied, "They never do. That's why we exist."
He looked out the window. The buildings here would still stand for decades. But he'd seen the maps. The charts. By 2041, this entire district would be flooded in a containment effort. Martial law. Food riots. Plague outbreaks.
"This city becomes a war zone in forty years," he murmured.
Claude didn't respond immediately. Then:
"And you plan to stop it?"
"No," Daniel said. "I plan to outlive it. To build something that survives it."
There was silence again.
Then Daniel asked a question that had been festering in the back of his mind:
"Claude, if I change the future... do I erase the people I knew?"
Claude's voice was gentler than usual. "You already have. The moment you stepped back. The moment you made your first move. That timeline is gone."
He closed his eyes.
"Then I carry their memory. That's the price."
"And your family?" Claude asked. "You have them back now. But you didn't before."
Daniel's throat tightened.
"I don't get to be their son again. I'm their guardian now. Their protector. Even if they never know."
"So you're not here to live a better life," Claude said. "You're here to make sure they do."
"Exactly."
Another silence.
Then Claude's tone shifted, a whisper of irony.
"You know what this makes you, right?"
Daniel looked at his reflection in the window. Sharp eyes. Young skin. But behind them, the mind of a man who had watched empires fall.
"A god?" he offered.
Claude chuckled. "A father."
The cab rolled to a stop. Daniel stepped out, paid the driver in crisp twenties, and turned toward the quiet suburban home that had once been his sanctuary.
Inside, his parents slept. Peacefully. Warm.
And behind them, the world slowly began to shift.
Daniel closed the front door behind him and slipped off his shoes in silence. The hallway smelled faintly of cinnamon and laundry detergent—small domestic comforts that felt like museum artifacts to someone who'd survived the end of the world.
But as he stepped into his bedroom, a sigh escaped him. The place was a disaster. Piles of clothes, snack wrappers, and old high school detritus scattered like the remnants of a forgotten life. He hated it. Too messy. Too loud. He needed control.
Without a word, he grabbed a trash can from the hallway and started clearing the clutter. A stack of ancient, half-glued-together Playboy magazines went first.
"Disgusting," Claude muttered. "You need better role models."
Daniel smirked but said nothing. He stripped the bed, made it with militant precision, wiped the desk clean, and vacuumed until the room looked like it belonged to someone else entirely.
Only then, as the house fell into the deep silence of the suburbs, did Daniel lie down, arms behind his head, eyes tracing the ceiling he once knew like a sky.
It felt strange. Like he had reclaimed a battlefield instead of a bedroom.
But sleep came quickly. And for now, that was enough.