Marcus stared at the security feed, his exhausted mind struggling to process what he was seeing. Daniel Vale. His older brother. The one who'd supposedly died during Marcus's exile, killed in the dimensional accident that had triggered the whole nightmare."That's impossible," Catherine breathed. "I saw his body. We held a funeral."Richard's face had gone white. "The Fracture Engine. I dismantled it. Destroyed every component.""You destroyed a copy," Daniel said through the feed. "Did you really think I wouldn't make backups? I knew you'd try to stop me." He held up the device—a crystalline sphere crackling with dimensional energy. "I've been split across realities for five years, Marcus. Living every possible version of your exile simultaneously. And I've learned things about our family that you can't even imagine."Elena's grip tightened on Marcus's arm. "What does it do? The Fracture Engine?""It splits consciousness," Marcus said, dread building. "Creates copies across parallel

Margaret Vale stood in the center of fifteen simultaneous dimensional rifts, her presence bending reality like gravity wells. She looked sixty but moved like someone who'd forgotten what age meant."Grandmother?" Catherine breathed. "You died before I was born. Dad said—""Your father says a lot of things," Margaret interrupted. "Most of them lies. Richard, darling, did you really think a simple dimensional accident could kill me? I taught you everything you know about bridge-building."Richard's face had gone ashen. "You were the first. Project Genesis wasn't my creation—it was yours.""Finally, some honesty. Yes, I was the first successful hybrid. Created myself forty years ago using technology I stole from the Old Ones. Every experiment you've run, every hybrid you've created, it all started with me." Margaret's smile was sharp. "And now I'm here to collect my royalties."Through the bridge network, Marcus felt his grandmother's power. She wasn't just connected to dimensions—she'd

The thing wearing Raven's face descended from the First Ones' vessel, and Marcus felt reality itself recoil. It looked exactly like Raven Blackthorne, down to the scar on her left eyebrow from a childhood accident. But its eyes held eons."Hello, Marcus," it said in Raven's voice. "I suppose introductions are in order. You may call me the Template. I am the form the First Ones chose to communicate with your species.""Why Raven?" Elena demanded."Because she was easiest. Her consciousness was already unstable from attempting dimensional manipulation. We simply borrowed the pattern." The Template smiled, and it was Raven's predatory grin. "Also, we found her ambition amusing. So human."Through the bridge network, Marcus felt humanity's terror. The First Ones' vessel was generating gravitational anomalies. Space-time bent around it like water around a stone. If they decided to attack, Earth would be crushed like an insect."You said we disturbed your rest," Marcus said, trying to keep

Inside Margaret's consciousness, reality followed dream logic. Hallways stretched into impossible distances. Rooms contained memories that played out like films. Time flowed backward and sideways and not at all.Marcus felt Elena's presence beside him, a warm anchor in the chaos. "Where do we even start?""Center," Marcus said. "She's hiding in her core memory. The place she feels safest."They walked through Margaret's past. A laboratory where she'd first injected herself with Old One DNA, young and brilliant and terrified. A hospital room where she'd given birth to Richard, holding him and wondering what kind of world she was bringing him into. A moment watching sunset on a beach, before she'd decided to fragment herself, knowing it would be her last normal day."These are all before the split," Elena observed. "She's regressed to when she was still one person."They went deeper. The memories grew darker. Margaret discovering the Swarm's interest in Earth. Margaret realizing no gov

Marcus stared at Timeline Null, watching eight billion ghosts trapped in dimensional echo, unable to die completely but unable to live. Their suffering radiated through the rift like heat from a furnace."How long have they been like that?" he asked."Seventeen years," the Witness said. "Since the Swarm consumed their reality. They exist in the moment of their deaths, experiencing it perpetually. Time has no meaning for them. Only pain."Through the bridge network, Marcus felt humanity processing this. Some wanted to help immediately. Others questioned the cost. A few pointed out that these weren't really people anymore—just echoes, consciousness without bodies."They're sentient," Elena said firmly. "That makes them people. We have to help.""Even if it puts our own timeline at risk?" Timeline Epsilon-Twelve countered. "Reaching into a dead reality to extract eight billion consciousnesses? The dimensional stress alone could destabilize us.""She's right," the Pale King said. "This i