Chapter 2: Fractures
Malcolm Kane's hands wouldn't stop shaking, and that terrified him more than the voices.
The voices had started three days ago—not auditory hallucinations, nothing so dramatic. These were memories
speaking with the wrong mouths. His mother's voice coming from his landlord. His daughter's laugh from a
stranger on the subway. Marcus Trent's last words, over and over, from everyone and no one.
"Malcolm, I can't hold it. I can't—"
He sat in what his lease generously called a "studio apartment" and what reality accurately described as a
converted storage closet with a hot plate and a toilet that barely flushed.
Malcolm stared at the prescription bottles scattered across his kitchen table like little white tombstones.
Dissonance suppressants. Memory stabilizers. Mood regulators. Anti-psychotics. A pharmacological arsenal
designed to keep what was left of his mind from leaking out his ears.
He'd stopped taking them seventy-two hours ago.
The Dissonance was getting worse.
The density manipulation was bleeding through. He'd touched the kitchen counter this morning and left
finger-shaped dents in the laminate, his cellular structure briefly hardening to near-crystalline form without
conscious thought.
By afternoon, he'd crushed his phone just by answering it.
By evening, he'd looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and couldn't remember his own face.
His new phone buzzed against the table. Text message. Sienna.
Sienna. It was Sienna. Twenty-two years old, dark hair like her mother, studying to be a doctor until she'd
dropped out last semester. He knew this. He'd known this his entire life.
But for three seconds, staring at her contact information, Malcolm had drawn a complete blank.
Before he could type anything, the phone buzzed again. Different number. One he hadn't seen in three years but
still knew by heart.
Victoria.
"Malcolm. I need to see you. Something's happening with the dampeners. Mine failed today." Malcolm stared at the message.
Victoria's dampener had failed.
His hand spasmed, and the phone cracked further in his grip.
What did he have left to lose?
He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
The subway ride took forty-five minutes and three transfers, and Malcolm lost time twice.
The first time, he was standing on the platform. Then he was sitting on a train with no memory of how he'd
gotten there.
Had he hurt someone?
He couldn't remember.
Victoria stood in the doorway, and for a moment Malcolm forgot how to breathe.
She looked terrible. Exhausted. Blood crusted at her hairline. But underneath the exhaustion was something he
hadn't seen in years.
Fear.
"Malcolm," she said, and her voice cracked just slightly.
"Vic," he managed.
"You look like hell," Victoria said.
Malcolm laughed—sharp, bitter. "You're one to talk. There's blood in your hair."
"My dampener shattered."
The apartment was exactly as he remembered. Victoria moved to the kitchen, started making coffee.
"Sienna's coming," Victoria said. "Marcus too. And Lucia."
Malcolm's heart clenched. "All of them?"
"Their dampeners are failing too. All of them. Simultaneously."
So she told him. About Danny Marsh. About Director Chen's call. About the pattern of failures. Before Malcolm could respond, the apartment door opened.
Sienna stood in the doorway, still in her scrubs. Behind her, Marcus and Lucia.
Their family. Broken and trying to hold together.
"Mom," Sienna said. "Dad. We need to talk about what's happening."
They gathered in Victoria's small living room—five people who used to be a family.
"My dampener started malfunctioning this morning," Sienna said, showing them the flickering device.
"Same here," Marcus said. "My technopathy's been bleeding through for months."
Lucia's eyes filled with tears. "Kayla and her friends cornered me in the bathroom. They were holding my head
in the toilet, and I couldn't breathe, and then—"
Her dampener flickered purple.
"Then I fell through the world," she finished.
"I know that voice," Malcolm said. His hands were shaking.
Marcus's laptop screen flickered. Went black.
Then filled with a message:
STOP DIGGING OR WATCH YOUR FAMILY BURN
A video feed appeared. A teenage girl cascading. Live.
They watched her die.
Another message:
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T LISTEN. YOUR DAUGHTER IS NEXT.
Malcolm's density spiked hard.
Victoria's phone rang. Unknown number. She answered on speaker.
"Hello, Victoria." The voice was male, modulated. "You're wondering why the dampeners are failing. I can
answer both questions."
"Who is this?" "Someone who knew Marcus Trent very well. Someone who was there when he cascaded."
Malcolm's blood ran cold.
"The Cascade wasn't an accident. It was a test. And it's about to happen again."
"Your youngest daughter is currently somewhere between dimensions. In approximately six hours, Manhattan
will be gone."
"You're lying," Victoria said.
"You have sixty seconds to decide. Get in the car outside, or watch her rift destabilize."
Victoria looked at Malcolm.
"We go," Malcolm said. "We get in the car."
They walked to the window. A black sedan idled at the curb.
"Together," Victoria said.
The Vanguard, reunited.
Whether they wanted to be or not.