Chapter 3: Fractured Time

The safe house stank of mildew and regret.

Kai slumped against the concrete wall, watching Alice pace. Her boots echoed in the abandoned subway tunnel—a relic from Boston's pre-Awakening days. Flickering LEDs cast jagged shadows over graffiti warnings: "THEY WATCH" and "CORE LIES."

"So," Alice said, whirling to face him, "you're either a lunatic, a prophet, or…"

"Or what?"

She tossed him a protein bar. "Don't make me say it."

Time traveler. The words hung unspoken. Kai unwrapped the bar, his hands still trembling from the fight. Using his powers had felt like chewing glass—every neuron screaming, blood pooling beneath his fingernails.

"You're dying," Alice said bluntly. "Aren't you?"

He followed her gaze to the dark veins spiderwebbing up his wrist. Dormant no longer.

"The Core's energy is unstable," he admitted. "Human bodies aren't meant to channel it raw."

"But you're not human. Not entirely."

He froze.

"Don't play dumb," she said, kneeling beside him. "Back there, you moved the swing set like it weighed nothing. And your eyes… they glowed. Like hers."

"Her?"

Alice pulled out her phone, swiping to a news clip. A woman in a lab coat stood before the UN, her irises shimmering cobalt. *Dr. Elara Voss—*daughter of the geologist whose corpse Kai had found on Mars.

"She showed up last week," Alice said. "Claims she can cure Alzheimer's. But look at her."

Kai leaned closer. The timestamp read April 2028. Dr. Voss shouldn't exist yet—in his timeline, she'd been born after the Awakening.

"She's lying," he said coldly. "That's not a cure. It's diluted Core serum."

Alice's phone buzzed. A notification flashed: Voss Pharmaceuticals Announces Global Trials.

"They're mass-producing it," Kai whispered. "Blackthorn's not just hunting the Core—they're accelerating the timeline."

"Why?"

"To control the evolution. Whoever distributes the serum owns the gods it creates."

Alice hugged her knees. "You really believe this, don't you?"

"You saw the men in the van. You think they were after me?" He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the tattoo Blackthorn had branded him with in another life: a thorned helix. "They want the Core. And I'm the only one who's touched it."

Silence. Then—

"Prove it."

"What?"

"Prove you're from the future." Her voice wavered. "Tell me something you couldn't possibly know."

Kai closed his eyes. The memory surfaced like a bruise.

"You have a scar," he said softly. "Left hip. From when you tried to save a stray cat trapped in a junkyard. You told your mom you fell off your bike."

Alice's breath hitched.

"And your father?" Kai pressed. "He didn't 'disappear' on a business trip. Blackthorn took him. Same as they'll take you if we don't—"

Bang.

The tunnel's steel door shuddered. Dust rained from the ceiling.

"They're here," Kai hissed.

Alice palmed a switchblade from her boot. "How many?"

"Does it matter?"

He grabbed her arm, dragging her deeper into the tunnels. The walls narrowed, rusted pipes bleeding condensation. Somewhere ahead, a train horn wailed—a ghost sound from a decommissioned line.

"This way!" Alice veered into a maintenance shaft.

Kai's vision blurred. The veins on his wrist pulsed black. Not now.

"Kai!"

He stumbled. Alice caught him, her grip iron-strong.

"Stay with me," she ordered. "What's happening?"

"The Core… it's calling."

Visions flooded his mind—a labyrinth of ice on Europa, a temple buried beneath Sahara sands, and her: Dr. Voss, standing in a lab of pulsing blue light.

"You're too late," she whispered, her voice echoing across spacetime. "The Convergence has begun."

Boom.

The explosion knocked them off their feet. Kai's head slammed against concrete, and the world dissolved into static.

He stood on Mars again.

The sky burned crimson, the Divine Core floating before him—a shard of frozen lightning. But this wasn't his Mars. The dunes were littered with bodies in vintage NASA suits, their helmets cracked. 1969. A failed Apollo mission.

"You're not the first," a voice hummed—the Core's voice, melodic and alien. "Nor the last."

Kai reached for it.

"Wait."

A hand gripped his shoulder. He turned, and his blood turned to ice.

Himself.

Older. Harder. A scar bisected his doppelgänger's face, and his eyes glowed like dying stars.

"Every time you touch it," the Other Kai said, "you fracture the timeline. How many worlds have you destroyed?"

"I don't—"

"You will."

The vision shattered.

"—hear me? Kai!"

Alice's slap stung his cheek. They were crouched in a drainage pipe, the sounds of pursuit fading.

"You were gone," she said, her voice raw. "Your eyes… they turned black."

He touched his face. Blood streaked his fingertips. "How long?"

"Two minutes. Felt like two hours." She hesitated. "You kept saying 'Convergence.'"

The word ignited a memory. The Galactic Wars. Armadas clashing over a crack in reality. "The Convergence is the end," his old commander had warned. "The moment all timelines collapse."

But that was centuries from now. Unless…

The Core's accelerating everything.

"We need to find my mother," Kai said.

Alice blinked. "Your mom? She's in this?"

"She gave me a key. To my father's lab. Whatever Blackthorn wants, it's there."

"Or it's a trap."

"Then we spring it."

The Xu residence loomed in the storm, its windows dark. Kai's key clicked in the lock.

"Stay close," he whispered.

The living room reeked of jasmine and gun oil. Kai's pulse spiked. Wrong. All wrong.

"Mom?"

No answer.

A photo lay shattered on the floor—Kai, age six, building a model rocket with Liang. His father's handwriting scrawled across the back: "Project Icarus: Phase Three Complete."

"Kai…" Alice pointed to the kitchen.

Lin Xu sat at the table, her teacup still steaming. A single bullet hole marred her forehead.

No. No, no, no—

Kai collapsed beside her, clutching her lifeless hand. It was cold. So cold.

"A warning," a voice purred behind them.

Dr. Elara Voss leaned in the doorway, a pistol glinting in her hand. Her cobalt eyes gleamed.

"You shouldn't have come home, Subject Zero."