He saw it glinting beneath a pile of calcified newspapers. As he reached out, the watch’s hum turned into a frantic chirp.

"Warning," Bob said. "Proximity to localized paradox. E61B battery at 3%. If the anchor fails, you will become part of the background radiation."

Elias ignored the advice. He was here for the locket—a silver trinket lost during the Great Shift. To the rest of the world, the locket didn't exist anymore. To the , it was a "high-density memory object" that could serve as a tether to pull Elias back.

The watch face didn't have hands. Instead, a holographic needle flickered over a circular scale. It was hovering dangerously close to the red zone marked Desync .

When Elias opened his eyes, he was lying on the sterile floor of the Research Wing. The air tasted of ozone and floor wax. He looked at his wrist. The was silent, its screen cracked and dark, the steel now a dull, lifeless grey. It had burned itself out to bridge the gap.

"Sequence initiated," the watch responded. The steel grew searingly hot against his wrist. "It has been an honor, Elias." There was a sound like a heavy door slamming in a vacuum.

The "Watch bob-E61B" isn't a known product or a common pop-culture reference, which makes it the perfect centerpiece for a piece of .

He opened his hand. The locket was there. He had brought a piece of a lost world back to the real one, but he’d lost the only friend who knew the way.