I cancel the test. Or I try to. Dr Vale refuses.
“We have twelve participants already in Edinburgh.”
“I don’t care.”
“Emre—”
“I have seen that room collapse.”
Silence. Saoirse stands beside me in my flat while the call sits on speaker. Dr Vale finally says, “Explain.” So I do. For the first time since the morning I met Saoirse, I tell someone the entire dream. The explosion. The hall. Saoirse injured. A man dying under my hands. My own scream waking me at 3:27. Nobody interrupts. When I finish, Dr Vale asks, “Did you see the man’s face?”
“No.”
That is not entirely true. I saw enough to know he mattered. But every time I try to hold the face in memory, it disappears. Kareem joins the call.
“Precognitive dreams are associated with Seer designations.”
“I am not a Seer.”
“You are not anything we can classify.”
I hate how easily he says it. Saoirse sits beside me.
“Move the test.”
Dr Vale argues that the Observatory Annex is the only local site shielded enough to contain a controlled alignment.
“Then wait,” I say.
“The field may not wait.”
I end the call. For a long time, Saoirse and I say nothing. Then she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it was a dream.”
“You saw me before we met.”
“I know.”
“You knew my name.”
“I know.”
She looks shaken now. Not by the danger. By the fact that our first meeting may have begun before either of us understood it.
“I don’t want you in that building.”
She looks at me.
“Careful.”
“I know.”
Her mouth moves, almost a smile. Then she becomes serious.
“If the dream is a warning, maybe knowing it changes what happens.”
“Or maybe it is exactly how we get there.”
“That is very cheerful.”
“I’m trying.”
She leans back.
“We don’t run from it blindly. We change the plan.”
For the next six hours, we do. Routes. Loads. Emergency exits. Participant positions. Every structural detail I can control. At midnight, Saoirse is still beside me. I look at her over the plans.
“If this goes wrong—”
“No.”
“What?”
“You don’t get to say something dramatic now.”
Despite everything, I laugh. She does too. Then the laughter fades. I reach for her without thinking. This time, when I kiss her, nothing in the room shifts except us.