The past smelled different.
Alex noticed it first, not new, not old, just unfinished. Fresh concrete.
Wet soil.
Possibilities.
Sam crouched and pressed his palm to the ground.
"Yep. This is real dirt.
I hate that."
Jordan was already scanning everything, eyes darting between scaffolding, workers, timelines only he could see.
"We're not observing," he said quietly. "We're logically analysing."
Lena swallowed. "Say that in human."
"It means," Riley said, "we can break things."
Maya stared at the half-built structure, the building that would one day disappear. "Or save them."
---------
They stayed back, watching.
Younger Harris argued with a woman in a hard hat...sharp gestures, clipped words. She pointed at a blueprint.
He shook his head.
Even from here, Alex could tell Harris still believed in rules.
In procedures. In the idea that if you followed steps in the right order, outcomes behaved.
"That's before he learned fear," Sam said softly.
Maya flinched. "We can't talk to him."
Jordan nodded. "Contact paradox risk.
Memory contamination."
Sam blinked. "You just made that up."
Jordan shrugged. "It fits."
---
The building hummed.
Not buried.
Not hidden.
Just… present.
Maya took a step toward it.
Alex caught her wrist. "Maya..."
"I know," she said.
"Just listening."
Her breath hitched.
"It's not afraid yet."
Riley frowned. "Yet?"
"It hasn't learned what ends feel like," she whispered.
"It thinks it's being built to belong."
Alex's chest tightened.
"What changed that?"
Maya looked at the workers.
At Harris. At the blueprints that would become walls.
"Us," she said. "Or the people who came before us."
---
They found the line by accident.
A strip of temporary fencing marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
When Alex stepped near it, the air thickened. When Maya stepped near it, the air thinned.
Jordan tested it with a stick.
It snapped...clean, like time had decided it was done being patient.
"Okay," Sam said.
"So the past has boundaries."
"And Maya's a key," Lena added.
Maya shook her head.
"A mirror. It sees what it wants in me."
Alex felt the pull again...the strange calming effect he had on the hum.
He stepped forward.
The hum steadied.
Jordan's eyes widened.
"You're dampening it."
Sam stared. "He's a noise-canceling headphone, absolute goat man."
Alex ignored them.
"If we're variables," he said, "then we choose how."
---
They hid until dusk.
Construction slowed.
Lights came on.
Harris walked the perimeter alone, rubbing his temples like someone already learning how to carry guilt.
"This is the moment," Riley said.
"Before the first incident."
Jordan nodded.
"Before the agreement."
Maya's voice trembled.
"Before the forgetting."
Alex looked at them.
"We don't warn him."
Lena stiffened. "What?"
"We don't explain," Alex said. "We change conditions."
Sam frowned. "By doing what?"
Alex looked at the building.
At the exposed core, the place that would later be sealed and lied about.
"By giving it another option," he said.
"One that doesn't require erasure."
Jordan's jaw dropped.
"You're talking about redesigning the anchor."
Maya's eyes shone. "A shared one."
Riley nodded slowly. "Distributed continuity."
Sam raised a hand.
"Still hate the words. Love the idea."
---
They moved together.
Closer to the structure, the hum grew curious.
Not alarmed.
Curious like a child noticing its reflection for the first time.
Maya spoke, not out loud, not in words.
You don't have to be alone.
Alex felt it respond, aligning, steadying.
Jordan scribbled equations on his arm with a marker.
Lena kept watch.
Riley mapped exits that didn't exist yet.
Sam whispered, "If this works, what happens to us?"
Alex didn't look away.
"We become the reason the future is different."
The lights flickered.
Somewhere deep within the unfinished building, something rewrote a line it had always believed was permanent.
Not containment.
Connection.
Behind them, Harris paused, frowning like he'd just missed hearing something important.
And in the space between moments, Marrow's past bent.
Just enough.
Because for the first time, the future wasn't correcting the past.
The past was being offered a choice.