The coin lands heads.

  I flip it again. Tails.

  Again. Heads.

  I'm not looking for patterns in the randomness - I'm looking for consistency in the branches. Each flip shows me two futures, split at the moment the coin lands. In one branch I continue studying, finish the chapter on international metahuman law, maybe make coffee. In the other I close the laptop, check my phone, see if Sam needs anything.

  Both branches look stable. Nothing urgent in either direction. I choose heads: keep studying.

  The apartment is quiet except for my laptop's fan and the radiator clicking. It's late - past eleven - but I've got a paper due Tuesday and DVD shift work doesn't care about academic deadlines. The textbook is dense, technical, discussing jurisdictional complications when powered individuals cross national borders. Dry material, but relevant. I'll probably encounter these scenarios eventually.

  I flip the coin again without thinking about it. Habit more than necessity. Tails this time.

  The branches reorganize.

  That's not right. Thirty seconds ago both futures looked the same past the next few minutes. Now they're diverging hard. In one branch I'm still sitting here reading. In the other--

  I focus, pushing the perception forward. The reading-branch cuts off abruptly at forty-seven seconds. Just... ends. Like film running out. The other branch shows me standing, moving, but it's fuzzy past the first few actions. Too many variables I can't see yet.

  When branches cut off like that, it means something removes me from the decision space. Unconsciousness, death, or--

  The door. Not death. Death would jolt me.

  I see it now, tracing back through the diverging possibilities. In the branch where I stay sitting, someone comes through my apartment door in forty-three seconds. I don't see who. The branch just stops.

  In the branch where I stand and move toward the kitchen, I survive at least the next two minutes. Still fuzzy, still dangerous, but continuous.

  Decision time: six seconds.

  I stand up. The textbook stays open on my desk. Coffee mug still half-full. I'm wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt - not tactical gear, not ready for anything except studying and sleep.

  I move toward the kitchen. My hands are empty except for the coin, still in my left palm from the last flip. I have thirty-eight seconds before—

  The lock clicks.

  Not picked. Not broken. Just... opened. She has a key, or something that works like one. Professional entry. No forced door, no alarm, just smooth mechanical sound of deadbolt sliding back.

  I'm already moving, putting the kitchen counter between me and the doorway. Grabbing for what? Knife block on the counter - no. Too lethal. I'm not killing anyone tonight, even someone breaking into my apartment. That's the line I won't cross, even when--

  She comes through the door.

  Tall. Tan, like me, probably also Hispanic, or someone who goes to the beach a lot. No, look at her eyes. Maroon pantsuit, maroon hair pulled back. Dyed. Super straight - straightened? Gun already drawn, suppressor attached. Her face is blank, professional, like she's here to fix my plumbing or deliver a package.

  I see the branches: she fires in two seconds. All paths lead through gunfire. No negotiation branch exists, no talking timeline, no "what are you doing here" conversation. Just trigger pull.

  I could overclock. See the next three seconds in real-time, position optimally. But that costs stamina I might need later, and the branches show I can dodge the first shot without it if I move now.

  I move.

  The gun cracks - suppressed but still loud in the enclosed space, nothing like the movies make it seem. My ears are already ringing before I can register the sound. I'm already diving left, behind the counter. The bullet takes a chunk out of the cabinet where my head was.

  She's adjusting, coming around the counter. I can see the branches: she fires again in a second and a half, adjusted for my dodge pattern. If I go left again she leads the shot. If I stay still she's got me. If I go right,

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I go right. The branch shows her leading left. I'm faster than the prediction window. "Left or right" is binary enough. But left, right, or still fuzzes it. That's three choices. Suboptimal.

  Wrong.

  She compensated for my compensation. The bullet clips my hip, burning line across the skin. Not deep but painful, immediate. Blood welling hot against my sweatpants.

  I catalog it: graze wound, right hip, nothing life threatening if treated. Still functional.

  She's already firing again. I see the branch - she's predicting my prediction now, second-order game theory. I try to break the pattern, move unpredictably, but unpredictable means suboptimal and--

  The bullet hits my shoulder. Left side, through the meat of my deltoid. Not a graze this time. Burning becomes wrongness, sharp and deep and spreading. Goes through. A furrow, not a hole. A deeper cut than last time.

  Functional drops to... bad. Arms still work but the pain is interfering with my fine motor control.

  I'm out of dodging room. The kitchen is small, she's got angles covered. The branches show: if I don't close distance now, she's got my pattern. Next shot is lethal. Head or heart, I don't live past it in any timeline.

  Three seconds to decide.

  I close.

  She fires as I'm moving. I see it - the branch shows the bullet path - and I twist. It hits my shoulder again, same side, but this time it stays. Lodges. I feel it grind against bone and the tactical assessment cracks, becomes just pain: wrong wrong wrong, foreign object in my body where nothing should be.

  But I'm inside her range now. Hand on the gun, forcing it up and away. Her trigger finger, my grip, physics and leverage. I wrench hard and something in her hand breaks - fingers, maybe two or three. Fair trade for a bullet in my shoulder.

  The gun clatters to my apartment floor.

  She doesn't react to the broken fingers. No sound, no wince, no change in her expression. No, that's not true - she twitches. Her other hand is moving in a way that seems entirely automatic, grabbing a butterfly knife from her pocket. No tricks - it's just out and about, ready and willing.

  I should have expected that.

  The knife is fast. Butterfly knife work, practiced and economical. I need to dip into the other side. Two seconds is too far. But I need half a second, skimming the surface. I feel the tug in my nerves, like I'm getting marionetted by my future self. My mouth immediately fills with saliva.

  Cut across my left ribs. Shallow, probably won't scar.

  Defensive wound on my right forearm when I block too slow.

  Deeper cut on my left thigh when I misjudge her reach. She's targeting mobility, trying to slow me down.

  I need to create distance but the apartment is too small. Living room, kitchen, narrow hallway to the bathroom. No room to maneuver. She's herding me back toward the wall.

  I could grab a weapon. Kitchen knives are right there. I grab one, flip it upside down in my hand, into a reverse grip, and parry her once, twice, before she twists it in a way that flicks the knife out. Okay, cool. Time for hands.

  Sam Small. Channel Sam Small.

  My fist comes out as the knife whooshes above my hair, almost knicking a braid off. Right in the shoulder. My knee comes up into her groin and she stumbles backwards before I can hit it. When I aim for a palm strike, she lurches forward and scrapes through my forearm with the blade. It'd be a perfect cross counter if not for the fact that I have my fists and she has a knife.

  Two minutes into the fight and I'm accumulating damage faster than I can process it. The gunshot wound is grinding pain every time I move my left arm. The stab wounds are burning cold, blood soaking through my shirt. My hip is screaming where the first bullet grazed.

  I don't need the coin, I just need precommitment. Phone, or defense? Phone, or defense?

  My phone. In my sweatpants pocket. Sam needs to know - not just that I'm compromised but that the whole operation is blown. Kingdom knows I'm helping her. They sent an assassin to my apartment. If they know about me, they know about the trap.

  In my eyes, I'm seeing coin flips inside coin flips. Lefts and rights inside lefts and rights. I can barely get a word out of her.

  Left or right?

  "Just know. This is because of Sam Small," and then black.

  I pull out my phone anyway. Best of a bad option. Her expression doesn't change, but her intensity does. Something a little less professional. She's swinging with her elbow now, trying to carve me up like a turkey. Sloppy.

  I'm dodging, texting with my thumb. Left hand trying to parry her at the wrist, right hand typing. This is stupid. This is going to get me killed.

  I do it anyway.

  Copy address from tab, miss twice, go again, thumb across screen - duck under knife swipe - tap twice in the upper left, macro menu, text, ALERTA + clipboarded text - block with forearm, feel the cut open - send.

  Her face changes. First emotion I've seen from her: anger. Cold and professional, but present. In the branch where she speaks, she asks "Are you mocking me?"

  She doesn't say it out loud here.

  Three minutes in and I need an edge. She's better than me technically - assassin versus college student, professional versus part-timer. I've got precog and training but she's got experience. She's done this before. Probably done it dozens of times.

  I reach into my pocket. I roll a quarter up into my fingers.

  I flip it.

  See the future: the coin arcing through air, catching dim apartment light. She reaches for her gun off the floor, and in one smooth motion, brings it up, burns bullet #4 on shooting it out of the air. Bullet lodges in the wall, doesn't pass through. Low velocity? That explains how I can still move with a round in my shoulder.

  Wastes a bullet on something that's not me.

  I flip it anyway.

  The coin spins up. She draws, aims, fires. The coin explodes mid-arc, metal fragments scattering across my apartment floor.

  But she's committed to the shot. Half-second window where her weight is wrong, her knife hand out of position, her focus divided.

  I go for her liver.

  The strike lands solid. Fist driven hard into her right side, just below the ribs. One of the most painful non-lethal hits available. Drops people hard, causes intense pain, but they recover. She makes a sound. Smallest grunt, barely audible. First sound she's made since entering my apartment.

  I put my phone down on the countertop, and before I can even think to do anything about it, it's gone. Another cloud of shrapnel, black plastic and glass. The bullet ricochets off shitty linoleum. Bullet #5.

  She aims back at me again, ready for #6.