The cafe clock reads 2:14. Vesna has lived this same hour four times. Across the room, a man stirs cold coffee and smiles at her. His name is Calder, and he comes from a future that erases hers. He was sent back to cut one second out of history. She was sent to do the same to him. They both know it. Neither one moves. Whoever acts first, in the right second, wins. The loser's whole world just stops.

Vesna stops waiting. Under the table she thumbs the small device in her coat, the one that crushes a single second flat. She locks onto Calder's timeline and the air around him starts to ripple. But Calder was watching her eyes. Half a breath later, he triggers his own device.

Calder's device misfires. Vesna's lands clean. His timeline folds shut and he flickers like a bad signal. But just before he vanishes, he leans in and whispers a string of numbers into her ear. Coordinates. A gift or a trap, and she can't yet tell which.

Vesna ignores the numbers, sure they're a last trick from a dying enemy. She steps out of the cafe into her own saved future. But the streets are wrong, half-built and flickering. Calder's coordinates were the only thing holding her timeline steady. Without them, her whole world is coming apart at the seams.