Prologue: The People Who Know Too Much

One message can save the world.
But the wrong message... can destroy it before morning breaks.

Two weeks after the global 1170/195 code incident, a windowless room beneath an old building in Bern, Switzerland, powered on for the first time in decades.

Büro 3.7 — the most secretive unit of the European Digital Oversight Agency.
Formed long before AI had a body, even before mankind believed that code could leap through time.

The people here didn’t exist on public records. They didn’t have LinkedIn profiles. They never wrote emails under their real names. They lived between encryption layers, and they knew:

"If time can be exploited, then the only way to save the future is to track who dares to try."

At the center of the room stood a middle-aged woman with short silver hair and a flat voice, holding a transparent tablet.

Her name: Mira Kaelen.
Her position: Commander of Temporal-Ethics Enforcement.
Her mission: to eliminate any temporal breach — even if that meant eliminating the person behind it.

She stared at the signal fragment just detected from Japan.

Location: Kanagawa.
Content: Algorithm resembling pattern 1170/195.
Source: male teenager, age 17.

Mira didn’t smile. But her eyes lit up.

“We found him,” she said.
“And if he’s writing the future with bare hands… then the future must be taken from him.”

Secret Meeting in Geneva: The Code That Didn't Ask for Permission

In a basement on the outskirts of Geneva, far beneath the glowing towers of tech conferences and diplomacy above, a group of people gathered in silence.

The old building had no name. Just a steel door that required fingerprint, iris, and voice authentication to open.
This was not a public place. This was a room for crisis.

Mira Kaelen stood at the center. The transparent tablet in her hand displayed a pulsing network pattern, like a heart that never rested. Behind her, a large screen displayed a single code:
1170/195

“This isn’t malware. It’s not propaganda,” she began softly, but firmly. “It’s not a virus. But it’s also not just data. It’s... a system.”

The five figures around the table exchanged uneasy glances.

“It appeared outside all known protocols. No central server. No known author. And strangely, every node connected to it... trusts it. That’s the danger.”

An older man at the far end leaned forward.

“Are you sure it’s man-made?”

Mira didn’t flinch. “Not AI. The pattern is too elegant, too intuitive. But also not from any known institution. It’s... too free.”

She slid the tablet screen to show the face of a teenage boy.

“This one is our suspect. Kajiro Nakamoto. High school student. No criminal record. No extremist links.”

“But he’s building something... called Hashcash.”

The silence that followed felt like a vacuum.

“It’s a system that allows verification of information without any central authority. All through a hidden, peer-to-peer network. No kill switch.”

“If this system grows, we lose more than information control.
We lose authority. We lose narrative.
We lose history.”

The words weren’t loud. But they were heavy.
And for those who lived in the shadows of power, losing the narrative meant losing everything.

The Girl Who Never Looked Back

Her name was Asuka Hoshikawa.
Long black hair, always neatly tied. She spoke gently, but firmly. She wasn’t the kind of girl easily swayed by compliments or casual smiles. And that—was exactly why Kajiro had liked her from the beginning.

They were in the same class during their first year of high school. Just two desks apart, yet it felt like two separate worlds. Kajiro lived in his bubble of computers and quiet habits. Asuka lived among student councils, her group of friends, and a soft smile she reserved not for people—but for the sky.

Kajiro never found the courage to talk much to her.
Until that day—the final day of school—he wrote her a letter. Not a love letter filled with poems or dreams, but… logical, like him. The letter held just one sentence:

“If I could make the world better with something I create, would you watch it with me?”

He never received a reply.
Asuka didn’t even attend the graduation ceremony.

Kajiro concluded the answer for himself:
He had failed. He was rejected. Life would go on.

But the truth was, Asuka did receive the letter.
She read it quietly, alone on the rooftop garden, watching the sunset of their final school day.
She chose not to answer—not because she didn’t care…
…but because she didn’t believe anything could change the world.

---

Three months later.
Hashcash was taking form. Kajiro and Lars had successfully built a prototype capable of creating timestamped hashes—unique and decentralized.

Kajiro felt like the world was beginning to shift.
But there was one thing he still hadn’t touched since that day:
his own feelings.

One night, he reopened a folder filled with letters never sent. One among them contained only a script:
asuka_hash.py

A small program.
When run, it would create a personal hash, based on Asuka’s name, the date of the letter, and one secret sentence only Kajiro knew.

He had no idea… that this little piece of code would become the beacon tracked by a European entity now labeling him a global anomaly.

Shadow Operation: The Disappearance of Kajiro Nakamoto

Langley, Virginia — Fall 2002
A short phone ring echoed deep in the NSA sublevel, but the message was rerouted to Langley.
A small report landed on a CIA console:
A strange hash pattern was detected, originating from Kanagawa, Japan.

It should’ve been a server glitch.
But within a week, the signal reappeared—spreading quietly through unlisted open-source forums.
One name repeated in IRC chats:
Kajiro.

“This kid built something close to proof-of-work,” muttered Valerie Crowe, a young signal analyst, chewing on her pencil.
“And he's releasing it on cryptography forums before anyone even realizes what it is.”

Though primitive, his protocol resembled a tamper-proof timestamp system.
Unknowingly, Kajiro had created the barebones of digital currency—while the world was still arguing over email encryption.

CIA moved in.
No dramatic raids. No public warrants.

“Just walk in, extract the kid, debrief him slowly,” Valerie’s supervisor had said.

---

Kanagawa, Japan — 2:17 AM.

Rain misted over rooftops in the quiet hills.
Three men in black raincoats crept toward a modest two-story house.
They weren’t police—but carried diplomatic cover, radio jammers, cable cutters, and analog walkie-talkies.

They entered Kajiro’s home silently.
No alarms. No CCTV.
Just the stillness of a sleeping teenage boy.

But when they reached his room…
The bed was empty.

Laptop still warm.
Window ajar.
On the desk: handwritten algorithm sketches. And one strange object—a thin metallic disk etched with ancient Hebrew letters.

“He knew?”
“No. He didn’t run… he was taken.”

---

Yokohama — 3:02 AM.

An old sedan idled at a foggy dock.
Inside sat Kajiro, hands trembling.

Beside him: an older man in a long coat with distant eyes, holding a leather bag with brass locks.

“You would’ve caused a panic had you stayed,” the man said.
“Your time in Japan has ended.”

“Who are you?” asked Kajiro.

“Someone who saw the future…
and recognized its spark in a boy too early.”

The car vanished into the fog.
No trail.
No signal.
Kajiro Nakamoto disappeared—in 2002.

Kajiro was slept on car and trust him..

Undisclosed Location.

Time: Unknown.

Kajiro sat on a cold metal chair. The lights were dim.
The walls were steel.
He had been flown out of Japan two days ago, blindfolded and isolated.
Finally, Kajiro realized that he had been deceived.

Now, he was not alone.
Someone spoke to him in quiet Japanese.

"Kajiro-san... can you hear me?"

The voice…
Soft.
Familiar.

He looked up—and his heart crashed like broken code.

-Asuka?

She stood at the edge of the table, wearing a foreign military badge and a white coat too formal for the girl he once watched from behind two school desks.

Kajiro couldn’t speak.

"I’ll be your translator today," she said flatly.
"Please follow the procedure."

Before he could respond, a man entered.
Tall. Grey suit. Slicked back hair. Eyes like equations.

The Interrogator.

Without a word, he sat.
Opened a file.
Stared.

“The code you transmitted... contains Hebrew Gematria patterns.”
“1170 and 195—ciphers for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Known only to specific circles.”
“How do you know this?”

Kajiro said nothing.
His thoughts were spiraling.
All logic crumbled under one question:

Why is Asuka here?

“Answer now.”
“Or you’ll be flagged globally.”

But the man’s pager vibrated.
He stood, sighed, then turned to Asuka.

“Come with me.”

Asuka looked at Kajiro—one heartbeat longer than protocol allowed—then followed him out.

That was his window.
He took it.

---

At the corner, a terminal was still running.

Kajiro pulled a black flash drive from his hoodie.

Tiny label:

SAT. 2021.

He plugged it in.
A file popped up.

“If something ever goes wrong, send this code to SAT.
Set the year to 2021.
No matter the current year—it will be recognized.”

He typed:

SEND_TO: SAT  
YEAR: 2021

Click.
SEND.

---

Seconds passed.
No sound.

Then—
The door slammed open.

Asuka screamed: “KAJIRO, NO—!!”

Too late.
The flash drive was ripped out.
Red lights blinked.

A fist hit hard.
Kajiro collapsed.
Blood spilled.

Screen black.
Everything faded.

And the last thing he heard…

Was Asuka’s voice,
not as an agent—
but as someone who once loved him.