The Hit Factory stood on West 54th Street like a temple to temporal possibility—a building where past and future had always danced together in eight-bar phrases. In my original timeline, I'd first walked through these doors in 2010. Now, on a crisp September morning in 2005, I stood before them again, the flash drive in my pocket feeling like a philosopher's stone of sound.
Rico fidgeted beside me, his usual confidence rippling with nervous energy. "Remember," he said, straightening my collar for the third time, "you're not just some kid from the Bronx anymore. After the Roosevelt, after that remix—"
"I know who I am," I interrupted softly, the words carrying weight he couldn't understand. In my pocket, next to the flash drive, my mother's discovery of the timeline notes burned like a reminder of worlds colliding.
The studio's interior hit me with the force of sense memory—the particular smell of soundproofing and ambition, the hushed conversations carrying down hallways where history had been recorded. But it was different now, five years before my original first visit. Analog equipment still dominated where digital would soon reign, and the photographs on the walls showed younger versions of legends I'd once known.
Matthew Knowles waited in Studio A, his presence commanding the space like a perfectly placed bass note. Behind him, through the control room window, I could see Beyoncé in the recording booth, headphones on, lost in some private rhythm. The sight sent a shiver through me—how many times had I watched her work like this in our original future, learning the particular way she moved when catching a melody?
"Marcus," Matthew's handshake was measured, testing. "Your reputation's growing by the day. That remix has people talking."
"Good morning, Mr. Knowles." I kept my voice steady, young. "Thank you for the opportunity."
In the booth, Beyoncé looked up, catching my eye through the glass. A flash of recognition passed between us—not of what had been, but of what could be. She removed her headphones and emerged into the control room, carrying with her that particular gravity that bent light and time.
"I've been listening to your tracks," she said, nodding toward the flash drive I'd sent ahead. "Especially 'Crystalline.' The way you layer frequencies..." She paused, searching for words. "It's like you're pulling sound from somewhere else. Somewhere it hasn't been yet."
If she only knew.
I moved to the console—a Solid State Logic that was state-of-the-art for 2005, though my fingers remembered its successor models. The familiar faders and knobs felt like reading a younger edition of a favorite book, the story the same but the pages less worn.
"I thought we could start with something new," I said, pulling the flash drive from my pocket. "A piece I wrote... recently." The word caught slightly. I'd actually written it three years from now, in a different studio, in a different timeline. But its bones would work here, now, rebuilt with current technology.
*Time is dancing on the edge
Of memories we haven't made
Every note we've yet to play
Echoes forward anyway*
The opening bars filled the room, and I watched Beyoncé's expression shift. The track walked the delicate line I'd perfected—innovative enough to excite, familiar enough to feel possible. Matthew leaned forward in his chair, his producer's ear catching the commercial potential beneath the artistry.
"The bridge needs a specific voice," I said, watching Beyoncé already moving to the rhythm. "Someone who can bend notes like time itself."
She smiled—that same smile that would grace album covers and arena stages, but younger, hungrier. "Let me try something," she said, and moved toward the booth with a purpose I remembered from countless future sessions.
As she settled behind the microphone, I caught Rico's expression in the studio glass—pride and confusion warring on his features. He was watching his protégé command a room that should have overwhelmed any seventeen-year-old producer. But there was something else in his look too, a growing awareness that some rhythms couldn't be explained by talent alone.
I adjusted the levels, letting muscle memory guide my hands across equipment that felt simultaneously ancient and fresh. Through the glass, Beyoncé waited for her cue, and for a moment—just a moment—I saw overlapping images: her now, her then, her in between, all existing in the same space like tracks in a complex mix.
The future hung in the air like suspended reverb, waiting to be caught and shaped into something new. I pressed play, and time itself began to sing.