Hard X Upcoming -

"You built Hard X to stop the Upcoming. But the pulse itself—the one you're about to fire—it's the cause. You're not answering a question. You're asking one. And the answer is a loop. Let go, Daddy. Let the bad sky come. It's kinder than what you'll make."

He wasn't trying to observe the Upcoming. He was trying to answer it.

"Confirmed," Kaelen said. "No evacuation. Initiate sequence." hard x upcoming

He did not fire.

"Activating temporal compensators," Kaelen murmured. "Compensators offline. Manual override confirmed." "You built Hard X to stop the Upcoming

Or a prayer.

He thought of the equations. The certainty that he was right. You're asking one

The Upcoming wasn't a thing. It was a when . And Kaelen had run the equations a million times. Hard X was the only lever long enough to move that when.