We met at 5:00 a.m. sharp in my apartment.
No one was late.
Good.
I drew three columns on a legal pad:
1. What we can carry
2. What we can defend
3. What we can replace
“Everything else is noise,” I said.
Chris leaned back. “What about friends?”
“Case by case.”
Maya frowned. “That sounds cold.”
“Cold is how you stay alive.”
Training started in the parking garage.
I taught stop-bleed basics first.
How to pack a wound.
How to apply pressure.
How to use a tourniquet one-handed.
Maya nearly threw up the first time she saw fake blood gel.
Chris watched quietly and copied every step until it was muscle memory.
By noon they were exhausted.
By evening they were better than most EMT volunteers I knew in the old timeline.
At dinner, Maya finally asked the question she'd been avoiding.
“Do we tell Mom’s old friends?”
I stared at my plate.
In timeline one, I told twelve people.
Eight ignored me.
Three spread rumors.
One robbed us.
“No,” I said.
She slammed her fork down. “So we just let people die?”
“We give general advice publicly. We do not reveal our planning.”
Chris rubbed his jaw. “Compromise.”
Maya looked between us, furious, then nodded once.
“Fine. But I hate it.”
That night we ran prediction #3.
Cambridge advisory at 9:14 p.m.
At 9:13 the city account posted “investigating irregular test results.”
At 9:14 came the advisory.
Boil water.
Temporary.
No cause for alarm.
The wording was almost identical to timeline one.
Almost.
At the bottom was a new line:
Preliminary contamination source unknown.
Unknown was new.
I printed it and added it to the divergence wall in storage unit B.
Red marker for changes.
Black marker for constants.
Chris stared at the wall for a long time.
“So your memory is right, but not perfect.”
“No,” I said. “My memory is right. Reality is moving.”
Maya crossed her arms. “Then your predictions can fail.”
“Yes.”
She exhaled. “Great.”
I pointed at the wall.
“That is why we build buffers.”
At 1:22 a.m. someone tried the lock on unit B.
Once.
Twice.
I was already there, sleeping in my truck between stacks.
I killed the cabin light and watched through a crack in the roll-up door.
Two silhouettes.
Hoodies.
Bolt cutter.
Not random.
I took a photo through thermal scope and sent it to Chris with one message:
Phase 2 begins now.
I dialed 911 from a burner and reported suspicious activity with calm, polite detail.
Then I started the truck and pulled into the alley, headlights off.
The two men ran before patrol arrived.
When I checked the lock, there was a fresh scratch where they had tested the shackle.
Maya showed up twenty minutes later, hair tied back, go-bag on.
“Who are they?” she whispered.
I looked at the scratch mark, then at her.
“Not the last.”
On the wall behind us, I wrote a new rule:
Assume we are already on someone’s list.