Chapter 3 - Chapter 3: Fractured Reflections

Einstein Voss's boots crunched on Earth-Alpha's cracked pavement, the dawn light casting long shadows that felt too alive. Zara Kade strode ahead, her leather jacket catching the first rays, her Containment Prism clipped to her belt like a gun. The streets were quiet, the kind of quiet that screamed trouble, and Einstein's palm still burned, the cut pulsing with faint aetheric plasma. This is insane, he thought, clutching his toolbag like it could anchor him to the life he'd left behind an hour ago. The junkyard, the Echo, the voice—Find me, or be unmade—it was all real, and now he was following a stranger who talked about worlds and monsters like it was just another Tuesday."Keep up, Voss," Zara called, not looking back. "We're exposed out here.""Exposed to what?" Einstein muttered, scanning the empty street. A bodega's neon sign flickered, a stray cat darted into an alley, but nothing screamed cosmic horror. Yet his gut churned, the plasma in his veins humming like a warning."Echoes," Zara said, her voice low. "They don't need to see you to hunt you. That cut? It's a beacon now."He glanced at his palm, the shimmer under his skin brighter than before. Great. I'm a walking target. "You said there's a safehouse. Who's there?""People who can help," Zara said, turning down a side street toward a boarded-up warehouse. "Talen Vey, our numbers guy. Kaelith, our… wildcard. They're Concord, like me.""Concord," Einstein repeated, the word heavy. "You keep saying that like I'm supposed to know what it means."Zara stopped at the warehouse door, a rusted slab with no handle. She pressed her prism against it, and symbols glowed, the metal humming as it slid open. "The Aetheric Concord keeps the Eidolon Cascade from falling apart. Echoes, rifts, the Abyssal Dissolution—we contain what shouldn't exist. You're part of it now, whether you like it or not."Einstein's jaw tightened. I didn't sign up for this. But the memory of the Echo's voice—You've woken me—pushed him through the door. The warehouse inside was no dump. It was a fortress—steel walls lined with screens, crates of tech humming with plasma, and a table covered in maps that didn't look like any Earth he knew. The air buzzed, not with electricity but with something alive, something watching.Two figures waited. One was a lanky guy, early thirties, with wild brown hair and glasses perched on his nose, scribbling equations on a tablet that glowed with fractal patterns. Talen Vey, Einstein guessed, his eyes darting like he saw things nobody else did. The other was a woman—or something like one—leaning against a crate, her form flickering like a bad signal. Kaelith. Her skin shimmered, not quite solid, her eyes a void that made Einstein's chest ache. She's not human, he thought, and the plasma in his veins flared, as if agreeing."New guy?" Talen asked, not looking up. His voice was sharp, like he was solving a puzzle and Einstein was just a piece. "You're late, Zara. Echo-13's spiking again.""Had to pick up a stray," Zara said, nodding at Einstein. "Voss, meet Talen Vey, our resident genius. And Kaelith, our… let's call her a specialist."Kaelith's lips curved, but it wasn't a smile. "You're the one who woke it," she said, her voice a whisper that echoed in his skull. "The spark burns bright."Einstein's skin prickled. She knows about the junkyard. "Woke what?" he asked, stepping closer despite himself. "That thing in my apartment?""Echo-13," Talen said, finally looking up. His glasses reflected the tablet's glow, making his eyes look like stars. "Low-level, Nonexistent Physiology. It doesn't exist in our sense—matter, concept, it's just… not. But you trapped it, which means you're not useless.""Gee, thanks," Einstein muttered, dropping his toolbag. "So, what's the plan? Lock it up and call it a day?"Zara's laugh was bitter. "If only. Echo-13's a symptom, not the disease. Something bigger's stirring—Echo Prime. It's… rewriting things.""Rewriting?" Einstein asked, his palm burning hotter. Stories, she said before. What does that mean?Kaelith drifted closer, her form flickering. "The Eidolon Cascade is a web," she said, her voice like wind through broken glass. "Worlds—Earth-Noir, Earth-Aether, Earth-Void—tied by threads. Echo Prime cuts them, weaves new ones. It wants the Nullpoint, the source."Einstein's head spun. "Slow down. Cascade? Nullpoint?"Talen sighed, tossing his tablet onto the table. "The Cascade's everything—universes, realities, stacked like fractals. Fractal Lattice, where we are. Noetic Shroud, where beliefs make gods. Aetheric Resonance, where thoughts are real. Higher, it gets weirder—Chronovoid Nexus, Archetypal Crucible. The Nullpoint's the top, or maybe the bottom. Nobody's sure, but it's where she is.""She?" Einstein asked, though he already knew. The voice—Find me, or be unmade—flashed in his mind, cold and sharp."Izarael," Kaelith said, her eyes locking onto his. "The weaver. She speaks to you, doesn't she?"Before Einstein could answer, a klaxon blared, red lights flashing across the safehouse. Zara's prism hummed, projecting a hologram—a map of Earth-Alpha, a red blip pulsing downtown. "Echo-13's loose," she said, grabbing a second prism from a crate. "It's in the subway. Talen, get me a lock.""On it," Talen said, his fingers flying over the tablet. "It's spiking—NEP Type 1, but it's pulling something else. NEP Type 2, maybe. This isn't random."Einstein's palm burned, the plasma surging. It's after me. "What's Type 2?" he asked, dreading the answer."Type 1's bad," Zara said, checking her prism. "No physical form. Type 2's worse—no conceptual form either. It's a hole in reality, and it's hungry."Kaelith's form flickered, her voice a hiss: "It smells the spark."The safehouse shook, a low tremor that rattled Einstein's bones. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the screens flickered, showing static—then faces, not human, not anything, staring back. Aetheric wraiths, ghosts of plasma overload, their whispers a chorus of pain. "The threads fray," they hissed, and Einstein's cut flared, plasma sparking wildly."Move!" Zara shouted, shoving Einstein toward a door at the back. "Subway's ten minutes out. We contain it, or it spreads."Einstein grabbed his toolbag, adrenaline spiking. I'm not ready for this. But his hands glowed, the plasma alive, and he followed Zara, Talen, and Kaelith into a van parked behind the warehouse. The engine roared, and they peeled out, Earth-Alpha's streets blurring past—neon signs, early commuters, a world oblivious to the horror beneath.The subway station was a ghost town, its entrance cordoned off with police tape. Zara flashed a badge—fake, probably—and they slipped inside, the air thick with damp and decay. The lights flickered, and Einstein's palm burned, guiding them to a platform where the air shimmered. Echo-13 was there, a writhing knot of non-existence, but bigger now, its edges bleeding into reality, forming claws, eyes, voids. A second shape flickered beside it—Echo-17, Talen's tablet confirmed, NEP Type 2, a deeper absence that made Einstein's stomach lurch."It's evolving," Talen said, his voice tight. "Echo Prime's pulling strings."Zara raised her prism, a cage of light forming, but Echo-17 lashed out, the light shattering. Einstein's plasma surged, and he wove without thinking, threads snapping into a barrier. The effort hit like a sledgehammer—his vision swam, his breath burned, and he tasted blood. It's killing me, he thought, but he held the weave, the Echoes thrashing inside.Kaelith moved, her form dissolving into mist, wrapping around Echo-13. "Dreams bind," she whispered, and the Echo shrank, trapped in her essence. Zara sealed Echo-17 with a new prism, but the platform cracked, aetheric ichor oozing from the ground, crimson and alive."We're not done," Zara said, panting. "Echo Prime's close."Einstein's knees buckled, but he stood, the plasma fading. Izarael's voice echoed: "Weave, or break." He didn't know what was coming, but he knew it was bigger than this station, bigger than Earth-Alpha. The Cascade was awake, and he was its spark.