Kaelen stared at the trigger. Five seconds to decide: fire Hard X and complete the loop, or shut it down and let the Upcoming arrive on its own—a future catastrophe with no warning, no preparation, no chance.

And somewhere, in a timeline that no longer existed, a woman who had been a monster closed her eyes and smiled, knowing she had saved her father from becoming the same.

Outside, above the ice, the sky was clear. For the first time in a decade, the clocks ran true. The Upcoming did not come.

He did not fire.

The physicists called it a "retrocausal cascade." The public called it the Upcoming. Because whatever was coming, it hadn't arrived yet—but everyone could feel it breathing down the back of their necks.

His hand trembled.