The coil in the lab sang one note too high, and the air folded like wet paper. When it snapped flat again, Mara felt wrong. Her phone said 9:42. Her sister Ines, three feet away, looked up slowly, like a video still loading. Mara waved. Ines waved back two minutes later. Their clocks matched, but the sisters did not. Mara was ahead now, and she could feel herself sliding further forward.

Mara panicked and ran for the door. Maybe getting away from the coil would help. But the second she crossed the hallway, the gap jumped to four minutes. Distance from Ines was making it worse, not better. She froze, heart pounding, and turned back.

Out in the hallway, Mara saw the building's main breaker box. Cut the power and the coil would die. But she was four minutes ahead now, and she couldn't warn Ines in time. If the machine stopped wrong, Ines might be stuck lagging forever. Mara's hand hovered over the switch.

Mara couldn't risk freezing Ines forever, so she pulled her hand back from the breaker. She ran inside, got close, and the gap fell to two minutes again. The fix wasn't out here alone. It was beside her sister. She grabbed a pen, wrote out a slow plan, and the two of them worked the dial down together until the screen read zero.