Rill put her travel token into the station gate seven minutes before the bell. The gate accepted it, which was the first thing that went wrong.
It was supposed to refuse early tokens. She had been testing whether it would, because her sister was waiting on the other side of town and Rill had promised not to be late again.
The gate sent her token into its tray on the departure side. She stepped through, collected it, and put it in her pocket. Beyond the gate, the departure clock showed noon. The clock in the room she had left showed eleven fifty-three.
Then the bell began to strike without stopping.
A red shutter fell across the entrance. On the wall a notice lit up: PHASE FAULT. OUTSIDE TIME HELD. CLEAR STATION BEFORE INTERNAL TIMER EXPIRES. Beneath it, a small dial began counting seven minutes backward.
Rill pulled at the gate. It would not reverse, even when she tried her token again. Through the shutter’s inspection slit she could see the porter with one hand raised. He did not move.
Someone behind her said, “You’ve put us ahead.”
Another courier sat on the floor beside a dented case. Rill knew Em by sight: she worked the long routes and never lent anyone a token. One ankle was swelling above her shoe.
“The shutter knocked me off the step,” Em said. “Don’t touch it again.”
Rill went to the wall map. The station offered a departure gate and three emergency passages. Those passages were narrow loops through neighbouring times, built for clearing travellers after a fault. Each returned to this room, changing the traveller’s time offset by a fixed amount. A person who reached offset zero could leave by the porter’s door. Until everyone did, outside time would remain held.
If the internal timer expired first, the passages would seal. An engineer would have to open them from a different station. The notice said that might take a week. Rill had one packet of biscuits. Em had a vase in her case, and did not consider it nourishment.
“What offset are we at?” Rill asked.
“Seven minutes ahead. Look at the clocks.”
The passages were marked A: MINUS THREE, B: PLUS TWO, and C: MINUS FOUR. A traveller could use each passage only once during a fault; their token was stamped as they went through. The stamps prevented another loop from building on itself indefinitely. Returned travellers could move through the held entrance hall, but its other occupants would remain still until the station was clear.
“A, then C,” Rill said. “Seven minus three minus four.”
Em pushed herself upright against the wall. “Good. Find my token.”
It had fallen when the shutter hit her. Neither could see it on the floor. Rill knelt and looked beneath the gate. There was a slit where things could roll into the mechanism. The token was round, brass, and no larger than a coin.
The timer showed five minutes forty.
Rill took a spoon out of her bag. Em asked why she had a spoon. Rill said she did not trust station spoons. She slid it under the gate and scraped backward. Dust came out, then a bent pin. No token.
“Go,” Em said. “Tell the porter where I am.”
“He can’t move until you’re out.”
“Then tell the engineer.”
Rill kept scraping. She had made Em fall. That thought was useful for about ten seconds, after which it only made her hands clumsy.
She looked through the inspection slit again. The porter remained fixed beyond the shutter. Something bright lay behind his raised heel, outside the fault zone.
“It’s there.”
Em came over on one foot and looked. Her token had rolled through before the shutter sealed.
“You can get it when you’re at zero,” she said.
“Then bring it back.”
Em shook her head. “Your stamped token won’t let you do the loops again.”
Rill read the map once more. A and C both had the same restriction. B had it too. She would use minus three and minus four, leave, then use the still-unused plus two to return—but two minutes ahead was not seven. That would not reach Em.
She needed a token with no stamps. Em’s lay outside.
“I take yours,” she said slowly. “When I get to zero. I put it through the departure gate at eleven fifty-three, just as I did mine. It puts me seven ahead again. Then you take it through A and C.”
“And you?”
“I keep mine at zero. I don’t put it through the gate.”
Em stared at her.
“I don’t go back,” Rill said. “I send the token through. You wait at this side and catch it.”
It was small enough to fit the gate’s token slot. The machine sent admitted tokens into a tray on the departure side before issuing them back to their holders. Rill had collected hers automatically, then dropped it into her pocket. She had forgotten that small physical action while worrying about the clocks.
Em moved to the tray. She could reach it from the floor. The timer showed three minutes ten.
“Can you manage the passages?” Rill asked.
“There are handrails. Take the case. I’ll use both hands.”
Rill took the case and entered passage A. It was a curved stair, brightly lit, twenty steps down and twenty up. She ran down one half and up the other, emerging into the same room. Its clock now showed eleven fifty-seven. Em was not there: Em remained in the noon version of the room.
Rill’s token had one black stamp. She went through C, another stair like the first. The room clock showed eleven fifty-three. Through the porter’s door she could see his raised hand, still fixed. The bell sounded far away, coming from the noon room. Her timer, which had kept counting while the room clocks changed, showed two minutes six.
She pushed open the porter’s door and set down the case. Em’s token lay behind his heel, where she had seen it through the slit. She knelt, took it without touching him, and put it into the faulty gate.
She stayed on the entrance side. This time she wanted only the token to travel.
The tray beyond the shutter rattled.
For a long moment nothing happened. Rill watched the timer reach one minute. Through the inspection slit she could see an empty room; Em was already in the passages. At twenty seconds she heard a shoe scraping, then a hand striking the door frame. Em came through the porter’s door, leaning against the wall. Her token bore two black stamps. She had followed A and C back to zero.
The red notice went dark. The porter lowered his hand. The bell stopped.
The clock advanced. Beyond the station window, a pigeon dropped from the roof and spread its wings.
Em sat on a bench. Rill offered to carry the case.
“I’d prefer a cab,” Em said. “On your account.”
Rill booked it from the porter’s desk. Then she rang her sister, who had experienced none of their seven minutes and asked whether Rill would arrive early for once.
“No,” Rill said. “I’m going to be late. I can tell you exactly why.”
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