Mag-log inThe meeting started an hour after Grace fell asleep.I'd put her to bed in the back room. Tucked her in. Kissed her forehead. Pretended everything was normal. Pretended my daughter hadn't just revealed herself as cosmic horror wearing toddler skin.When I returned to the main room, every enhanced individual in the club was waiting.And they were all looking at Albert."We need to talk," Reaper said. His voice was carefully neutral. Dangerously calm."About Grace," Albert said. "I know. I didn't know she was—I had no idea—""Not about Grace." Reaper crossed his arms. "About you."Silence."Me?" Albert looked confused. "What about me?""You created this," someone said from the back. A woman named Jennifer. "You got Eva pregnant. You made Grace exist. You're responsible for—for that thing in the back room.""Grace is not a thing," I said sharply. "She's a child—""She's a monster," another voice interrupted. Marcus. Real Marcus, who'd somehow been restored when Grace unfroze time. "She e
Albert raised his hand. Quantum energy gathered around his fingers, crackling with power that made reality bend.The forty-seven infected rushed forward.Then everyone froze.Not metaphorically. Literally frozen. Albert mid-motion. Parasites mid-charge. Reaper mid-breath. Everyone except me and one other person.Grace walked into the room.My three-year-old daughter. Wearing pajamas with cartoon dinosaurs. Holding her stuffed rabbit. Looking completely calm."Mommy," she said. "You're being too loud. I was trying to sleep.""Grace?" My voice cracked. "Baby, how are you—how can you move when everyone else—""Because I'm not like them." She walked past frozen bodies like they were statues in museum. "I'm not enhanced. I'm not infected. I'm not limited by rules you all think matter."Something was wrong. Grace's voice was right but her cadence was off. Her movements too precise. Her eyes too aware."You're not my daughter," I said."I am." Grace smiled. "But I'm also something else. I've
By morning, three more people had stopped existing.Rachel. Tommy. Someone whose name I couldn't remember because everyone's memories of them had been erased along with their physical presence."This is different from what happened to Marcus," I said, studying the empty spaces. "These people—it's like they never existed at all. No one remembers them except as vague absences.""I remember Rachel," Reaper insisted. But his voice was uncertain. "She was—she had—" He stopped. Confused. "Why can't I picture her face?""Because the parasites are getting smarter," Dr. Chen said. She'd been working non-stop, analyzing Sarah's contained body. "They're not just erasing people. They're erasing the connections. The memories. The quantum entanglements that prove someone existed."Albert paced near the window. "If they can do that, if they can remove people from reality and from memory—""Then we won't know who's gone," Subject Seven finished. "Won't know how many we've lost. Won't know who to mour
Dr. Chen had been with us for five days when Marcus died.Not killed. Not attacked. Just—stopped existing."He was fine yesterday," Reaper said, staring at the empty space where Marcus had been standing. "Talking. Drinking. Planning. Then this morning I come in and there's just—nothing. Like he was never here.""Not like he was never here," Subject Seven corrected quietly. She was examining the air where Marcus should have been. "Like he was erased. Removed. Deleted from reality."I felt it through the collective connection. Felt the absence where Marcus's quantum signature should have been. Felt the hole in the network that connected all enhanced individuals through me."This is different from cascade failure," I said. "When people died during that, I felt them dissolve. Felt them scatter. This is—""Surgical," Albert finished. He was running scans with portable equipment. "Something removed him specifically. Precisely. Like cutting single thread from tapestry without disturbing anyt
Three days later, we made our first move."Her name is Dr. Sarah Chen," Victoria said, pulling up photo on the laptop. "IQRD senior researcher. Specializes in quantum biology. She was part of the team monitoring Eva during the extraction."I studied the woman's face. Mid-forties. Tired eyes. The kind of exhaustion that came from believing you were doing necessary evil."She knows what they did to me," I said."She authorized it," Victoria corrected. "Signed off on the extraction protocols. Monitored your vitals while you were being drained. But—" she pulled up more files, "—she also filed three formal objections. Requested they stop the procedure. Argued there had to be better way.""They overruled her," Albert guessed."Every time. Commander Patterson had final authority. Chen was just researcher. She could object but couldn't stop anything." Victoria zoomed in on email chains. "Look at this. She kept pushing back. Kept questioning. Right up until you were rescued.""Or until Albert
Reaper cleared the main room an hour later. No civilians. No regular customers. Just enhanced individuals and core club members."Lock it down," he ordered. Two bikers moved to secure the doors. Another swept for surveillance devices. Old habits from before enhancement made them paranoid. Good habits now that reality proved them right.I sat at the head table. Albert beside me. Grace asleep in back room under guard. Subject Seven leaning against the bar looking half-dead. Victoria in chair near the pool table, still bleeding slowly through bandages."We need medical attention for Victoria," I said."Already called Doc Stevens." Reaper checked his phone. "He's enhanced now too. Heals people faster than he diagnoses them. He'll be here in twenty minutes."Victoria waved dismissively. "I'm fine. Let's focus on the real problem.""Which is?" someone asked."IQRD," I said. "They manipulated everything. Used me as battery. Used Albert as weapon. Killed forty-seven thousand people. And they'







