T.K. arrived like a storm front, his crew materializing behind him with the synchronized precision of a dance troupe. The studio's dimensions seemed to shrink around their presence, though I remembered—or would remember—this same space holding twice as many people during the sessions that would define 2010's sound. His eyes caught the new equipment, and I watched the calculations run behind them: Rico's connections, Devon's talent, my inexplicable insights.
"That's the hardware they're testing in Atlanta," he said, fingers tracing the edge of the MIDI controller. "Prototype stuff. Not even supposed to exist yet."
Rico shot me a look sharp enough to splice tracks. I kept my expression neutral, though inside my chest, anxiety drummed a syncopated beat. We were pushing too far, too fast—the timeline stretching like tape about to snap.
"Marcus has friends," Rico said carefully, testing the waters of a story we hadn't fully constructed.
"Marcus has something," T.K. agreed, but his attention had already shifted to the monitors where Devon's first take sprawled across the screen in familiar waveforms. He cocked his head, listening with the focused intensity that would make him legendary. "Play it."
I triggered the playback, watching T.K.'s face as the studio filled with sound. Devon's voice rode the beat like mercury, flowing through spaces that shouldn't be visible to anyone but me. Then came the bridge—the part I'd reconstructed from a future collaboration that would never happen now.
T.K.'s eyes closed, his head nodding to a rhythm that wasn't supposed to exist for another half-decade. When they opened, they fixed on me with laser focus. "You produced this? Last night?"
"This morning," I corrected, the partial truth feeling safer than a direct lie. "After the cipher."
He turned to Devon, who hadn't moved from his perch by the sound boards. "And you wrote this when?"
"It wrote itself," Devon said, with the simple confidence that had drawn me to his talent in both timelines. "Marcus just knew how to catch it."
T.K. laughed—that rich, genuine sound I'd only heard in private sessions years from now. "Knew how to catch it," he repeated, shaking his head. "Like catching lightning in a bottle." He turned back to the equipment, hands hovering over the controls. "Mind if I...?"
"Studio's yours," Rico said, but his eyes were on me.
What happened next was pure alchemy. T.K. dove into the track like a surgeon, isolating frequencies, highlighting patterns that even I, with my borrowed future knowledge, hadn't fully mapped. His crew crowded the booth, laying down harmonies that felt both ancient and unborn. Devon wove between their voices like smoke through wire, finding spaces in the music that bridged decades.
Mother's key pressed against my thigh through father's jacket pocket, a constant reminder of futures I was dismantling and rebuilding with each passing moment. My phone buzzed with her uncanny timing: "Everything still possible?"
More than she knew. The track taking shape in the studio wasn't just music—it was temporal archaeology, layers of influence and innovation compressed into a single moment. T.K.'s additions would inspire the very sounds they were built upon, creating a loop of creativity that defied linear time.
"You're doing it again," Rico murmured, close enough that only I could hear. "That thing where you look like you're seeing ghosts in the speakers."
"Not ghosts," I said, watching Devon and T.K. trade ideas that would reshape the industry's landscape years ahead of schedule. "Echoes."
Through the glass, T.K. signaled for another take. His crew adjusted their headphones, Devon closed his eyes, and the beat dropped again—familiar yet revolutionary, a future being born from its own aftermath.
My phone lit up again, this time with a name that sent electricity through my nervous system: a number I recognized from countless Billboard charts and industry panels, years before they should have noticed us.
"They're watching," Rico said, reading my expression. "Aren't they?"
I nodded, unable to find words that wouldn't reveal too much. In my first life, it had taken years to get this kind of attention. Now the timeline was compressing like a master track, events bleeding into each other with dangerous potential.
"Good," Rico said, adjusting his cap to business-forward. "Because after this session, we're all catching a flight to Atlanta. T.K.'s label wants to hear what we're building."
The key in my pocket seemed to burn. Atlanta. Where, in my first life, everything had started to unravel. Where, this time, everything might finally come together—if I could keep the threads of time from tangling beyond recognition.
Devon emerged from the booth, his young face alight with future-bright possibility. "We're making history, aren't we?"
I met his eyes through the studio haze, remembering headlines that would never be written, awards that would now go to different songs, lives that would take entirely new paths.
"No," I said, feeling timelines shift like tectonic plates beneath my feet. "We're making tomorrow."
Behind us, T.K.'s voice filled the studio, painting pictures of a future only I had seen—until now. The track built like a prophecy fulfilling itself, each layer a step further into territory that was simultaneously uncharted and hauntingly familiar.
Time to book a flight to Atlanta. Time to rewrite another chapter. Time to make sure this version of tomorrow stuck.