This wasn’t a normal remix tool. Its interface shimmered in impossibly deep gradients and the avatars—five little silhouette producers called Riff, Pulse, Hush, Bolt, and Bloom—moved with a life that felt borrowed from dreams. But the real difference was the center dial: Xrun. When Mara nudged it, the room’s sound bent. Time folded in microseconds, and each beat she placed echoed not just forward but sideways: into possible pasts and parallel takes.