Jane pauses at the top of the underground steps long enough to let the morning rush slide around her.

  People move past with the quiet urgency of commuters who have already decided the day will be inconvenient. Someone bumps her shoulder, mutters a quick apology, and disappears down the stairs without breaking stride.

  Jane reaches into her bag and takes the tablet out.

  The screen wakes immediately.

  The number takes a moment to register.

  She reads it again, slower.

  “Leo.”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have I been awake.”

  “About four hours.”

  Jane tilts the tablet slightly as if the angle might change the answer.

  “I’ve lost eleven.”

  Leo doesn’t answer straight away.

  The pause is long enough that a man behind her clears his throat impatiently before squeezing past on the stairs.

  “That sounds about right,” Leo says finally.

  Jane looks up from the screen and watches the people moving toward the barriers below.

  “All I’ve done is smooth small problems,” she says.

  “That’s what resets are for.”

  “Apparently they’re also for time travel with terrible interest rates.”

  Leo laughs quietly in her ear.

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  “That’s a good description.”

  Jane studies the number again.

  The countdown sits there calmly, bright and indifferent.

  “What did I think was going to happen,” she says.

  “You had seventy-seven hours.”

  “I thought that meant seventy-seven hours.”

  Leo lets the silence sit for a moment before answering.

  “It means seventy-seven hours if you never use the feature that makes the device useful.”

  Jane slips the tablet back into her bag and starts walking down the stairs.

  “That feels like a design flaw.”

  “It’s more like a behavioural experiment.”

  She reaches the barrier line where commuters are tapping through in quick mechanical rhythms.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Jane slows slightly, letting a group of office workers pass ahead of her.

  “Let me ask you something,” she says.

  “Go on.”

  “If I stop resetting entirely, does the drift stop.”

  “Mostly.”

  Jane pulls her Oyster card from her coat pocket.

  “And if I don’t.”

  Leo exhales.

  “Reality keeps correcting around you.”

  “That sounds expensive.”

  “It’s very expensive.”

  Jane taps through the barrier.

  The gate opens normally.

  For a moment she almost feels relieved.

  On the other side she stops walking again.

  “So I have two choices.”

  “Yes.”

  “I spend hours fixing problems.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or I live in a version of the world that slowly stops matching my memory.”

  Leo considers that.

  “That’s the trade.”

  Jane watches the crowd moving toward the platforms below.

  Someone is arguing about train delays. Someone else is eating a pastry that is shedding flakes across the station floor.

  “Comfort versus time,” she says.

  “More or less.”

  Jane starts walking again.

  “You know what the annoying part is.”

  “What.”

  “The problems aren’t big.”

  “That’s the trap.”

  She descends the final staircase to the platform level where the air grows warmer and the noise thickens into the familiar underground echo.

  Jane leans briefly against a tiled pillar and pulls the tablet out again.

  The number hasn’t changed much.

  But now she can’t stop seeing it.

  “I was using resets to make conversations smoother,” she says.

  “That’s common.”

  “I rewound a meeting because someone said something awkward.”

  “That also sounds common.”

  Jane stares at the screen.

  “That cost me two hours.”

  Leo pauses.

  “Yes.”

  Jane lets out a quiet breath.

  “I’ve been paying hours to avoid mild inconvenience.”

  “That’s how optimisation works.”

  Jane slips the tablet back into her bag again.

  The train roars into the station a moment later, brakes screaming briefly before settling into the platform.

  The doors open.

  People surge forward.

  Jane steps inside with the rest of them.

  She finds a place near the door and grips the overhead rail as the carriage fills around her.

  After a moment she says quietly,

  “I can feel the clock now.”

  Leo’s voice softens slightly.

  “That’s usually when people start making different choices.”

  Jane watches the tunnel slide past through the dark window.

  “What kind of choices.”

  “The ones they were avoiding earlier.”

  Jane nods slowly.

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s practical.”

  The train rattles forward into the tunnel.

  Jane closes her eyes for a moment, listening to the sound of the carriage settling into its rhythm.

  Then she opens them again.

  “Leo.”

  “Yes.”

  “How many hours do you think people usually waste before they realise time matters.”

  Leo thinks for a moment.

  “Most of them,” he says.

  Jane looks down the length of the carriage at the strangers swaying gently with the motion of the train.

  “Good,” she says.

  “Why.”

  “Because that means I’m statistically normal.”

  Leo laughs again.

  The train continues deeper into the tunnel.

  ---

  REFRAME

  The timer had always been running.

  Jane had only just started looking at it.