Chapter 9: The Timeline Fracture
POV: Marcus
If blue meth existed before Walter White, then Marcus's knowledge wasn't perfect. Which meant every assumption he'd made about the future could be catastrophically wrong.
The northeast heights sprawled across Albuquerque's foothills like a fever dream of suburban aspiration, tract homes and strip malls connected by streets that led nowhere important. Marcus parked his Honda behind a closed mattress store and prepared to terrorize drug dealers with impossible questions.
The first door opened into an alley where two men were conducting business under a broken streetlight. Marcus stepped through the portal and watched them freeze, their transaction forgotten in the face of someone who'd just walked through a solid wall.
"Evening," Marcus said, his voice carrying the calm authority of someone who clearly wasn't bound by normal rules. "I need information about blue meth."
The dealer—a kid who couldn't be older than nineteen—dropped his plastic baggie and stumbled backward. "What the fuck, man? How did you—"
"Blue meth," Marcus repeated. "96% pure. Where does it come from?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Marcus created another door in the brick wall behind the kid, the blue outline glowing like neon in the darkness. "I can make you disappear. Permanently. Or you can answer my questions."
The customer had already fled, leaving his money scattered on the asphalt. The dealer stared at the impossible door, his young face cycling through confusion, terror, and desperate calculation.
"Okay, okay! There was some blue shit, but it's gone now. Disappeared as fast as it showed up."
"When?"
"Three weeks ago, maybe four. Just appeared in my stash house overnight. I swear I don't know how it got there." The kid's voice cracked with genuine fear. "One day there's nothing, next day there's two ounces of the purest shit I've ever seen. Blue like window cleaner."
"Who brought it?"
"Nobody brought it! That's what I'm trying to tell you—it just appeared. Like magic."
Magic. The word hit Marcus like a physical blow. The kid was describing exactly what Marcus's door ability could accomplish—product appearing without transportation, without suppliers, without explanation.
"Where is it now?"
"Gone. Sold it all in two days. People were paying stupid money for that quality." The dealer wiped his nose with a shaking hand. "Look, I don't know who you are or how you do that door thing, but I'm just small-time. I don't ask questions about where product comes from."
Marcus stepped back through his door and let it close, leaving the dealer alone in the alley with questions he'd never be able to answer. Three more dealers, three more impossible encounters, three more confirmation of the same story: blue meth had appeared without explanation, circulated briefly, then vanished.
Someone with abilities similar to his own was operating in Albuquerque. Someone who could move product without leaving traces, who could bypass every form of surveillance and security the DEA possessed.
The possibilities terrified him. Another transmigrator from the future, armed with knowledge of Breaking Bad's timeline and powers that complemented or exceeded his own. A native of this world who'd somehow acquired supernatural abilities. Or worst of all—a divergence so fundamental that this reality contained elements that had never existed in the television show he'd watched.
Jesse Pinkman's operation was exactly as Marcus remembered from the show: amateurish, inefficient, producing low-grade product in a converted RV. Marcus used his doors to survey the setup without revealing himself, documenting equipment that belonged in a high school chemistry lab rather than a professional drug operation.
The meth Jesse was cooking was standard yellow crystal, maybe 70% pure on a good day. Definitely not the blue product that had briefly flooded Albuquerque's streets. Whatever source was responsible for the high-grade material, it wasn't Jesse.
Tuco's supply came directly from cartel sources in Mexico—brown glass, adequate quality, nothing that could be confused with the blue meth Hank had described. Marcus confirmed this through careful surveillance of a distribution meeting, watching Tuco's men handle product that looked like every other cartel shipment.
Other known cooks from the show—Emilio, Krazy-8, various minor players—were all producing standard product using standard methods. None had the knowledge or equipment necessary to synthesize 96% pure methamphetamine, let alone the distinctive blue coloration that would eventually become Walter White's signature.
The source was unknown. Completely unknown. Someone not mentioned in Breaking Bad, operating with capabilities that defied explanation.
Marcus sat in his car outside a convenience store, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Every plan he'd made was built on the assumption that his knowledge of the timeline was accurate. If that knowledge was incomplete—if this world contained variables he couldn't predict—then he was operating blind in a reality that might explode at any moment.
"Either someone else has transmigrated here," he thought, watching traffic flow past his windshield, "or this world has divergences I can't predict. Both options are terrifying."
Another transmigrator would mean competition for timeline influence, someone with their own agenda and their own knowledge of future events. They might be ally or enemy, but they'd certainly be unpredictable.
Divergences from the television timeline would mean his foreknowledge was unreliable, his plans built on false assumptions. Events he expected might never occur. People he planned to save might die anyway. Threats he'd prepared for might be replaced by worse dangers he couldn't anticipate.
"You said my soul smells different," Marcus said to the empty apartment. "Are there others like me here?"
Ryuk materialized gradually, like a photograph developing in reverse, his yellow eyes reflecting the kitchen's fluorescent lighting with what might have been amusement.
"Maybe," the death god said, crunching an apple that definitely hadn't been in the fruit bowl moments before. "Maybe not."
"That's not an answer."
"No, it's not. But it's all you're getting from me."
Marcus leaned against the counter, studying the creature who'd become his constant companion and philosophical tormentor. "The Shinigami King must know if there are other Death Notes in circulation. Other people with supernatural abilities."
"The Shinigami King doesn't tell me everything. We're not exactly chatty as a species." Ryuk's grin stretched wider than human anatomy should allow. "But I will say this: you're not the only interesting thing happening in this world right now."
"Someone else has a Death Note?"
"Didn't say that."
"Someone else has transmigrated from the future?"
"Didn't say that either."
"Then what are you saying?"
Ryuk finished his apple and tossed the core through the wall, where it vanished like smoke. "I'm saying this world contains mysteries you haven't solved yet. Variables you haven't accounted for. Powers you don't understand."
Marcus felt ice water spreading through his veins. "How many variables?"
"That would be telling. And telling ruins the fun."
"This isn't a game, Ryuk."
"Everything is a game. The only question is whether you're a player or a piece." The death god's form began to fade, becoming translucent around the edges. "Sleep well, Marcus. Tomorrow brings new mysteries."
Ryuk disappeared entirely, leaving Marcus alone with questions that multiplied like cancer cells in the darkness of his apartment. Someone was manufacturing blue meth with impossible purity. Someone had access to abilities that rivaled his own. Someone was operating in Albuquerque with knowledge and capabilities that didn't match anything from the Breaking Bad timeline.
Marcus opened his laptop and began researching, diving into police reports, news articles, anything that might reveal patterns he'd missed. Crime statistics showed anomalies dating back months—drugs appearing without transportation trails, dealers found dead under impossible circumstances, witnesses reporting events that made no sense.
The blue meth was just the most recent manifestation of something larger. Something that had been building while Marcus focused on mapping the criminal landscape and preparing for Walter White's transformation.
He'd thought he understood the game board. Now he realized he might not even know all the pieces, let alone the rules they played by.
Outside his window, Albuquerque slept under a canopy of stars that looked exactly the same as they had in his original timeline but somehow felt fundamentally different. Somewhere in that maze of streets, someone with impossible abilities was pursuing their own agenda with methods Marcus couldn't predict and goals he couldn't fathom.
The timeline was fracturing. His knowledge was incomplete. And he was no longer the only impossible thing in a world that was supposed to follow normal rules.
Marcus closed his laptop and lay down on his bed fully clothed, staring at the ceiling while his mind raced through possibilities that grew more terrifying with each iteration. Tomorrow he'd continue investigating, searching for clues that might reveal the identity and intentions of his unknown counterpart.
Tonight, he'd try to sleep despite the growing certainty that everything he thought he knew was wrong.
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