Chapter 15: The Krazy-8 Solution
POV: Marcus
Marcus dragged unconscious Krazy-8 through three connected doors, ending in the desert forty miles from Albuquerque. The sun hung low on the horizon like a bleeding wound, painting the landscape in shades of orange and crimson that made the world look apocalyptic.
No witnesses for miles. Perfect for the kind of conversation that required absolute privacy.
Marcus had chosen this location carefully—remote enough to ensure isolation, close enough to civilization that Krazy-8 could find his way back if he made the right choices. The desert stretched endlessly in all directions, broken only by scattered sage brush and the occasional cactus that had learned to thrive in conditions that killed everything else.
He secured Krazy-8 to a boulder with zip ties, positioning the unconscious dealer so he'd face west when he woke up. A water bottle sat within reach—mercy disguised as pragmatism. Marcus needed Krazy-8 alive and coherent, not dead from dehydration.
The scarf around Marcus's face would prevent identification, while the voice modulator clipped to his throat would render him unrecognizable even to someone who'd heard him speak. He'd learned these techniques from television shows about witness protection and spy craft, information that proved surprisingly applicable to supernatural intimidation.
Krazy-8's eyes opened gradually, confusion giving way to awareness, awareness giving way to the kind of primal fear that came from waking up in an impossible situation. He tested his restraints immediately—smart—then surveyed his surroundings with the calculating gaze of someone who'd survived in dangerous environments by staying alert.
"You're alive because I chose mercy," Marcus said, his modulated voice carrying an electronic flatness that stripped away any hint of humanity. "You stay alive by leaving New Mexico tonight."
Krazy-8's eyes darted around the desert, looking for escape routes that didn't exist, backup that wouldn't come, advantages that had been deliberately eliminated. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"You talk to anyone—DEA, cartel, your own mother—I'll know. And I'll open a door into your bedroom while you sleep."
To demonstrate the threat, Marcus created a door in the air beside Krazy-8's head. The portal opened to reveal the dealer's own apartment, complete with unmade bed and scattered clothes. Intimate details that proved Marcus could reach him anywhere, anytime, regardless of locks or security or distance.
"What the fuck—how did you—"
"The variable you didn't account for."
Marcus stepped through the door and closed it behind him, leaving Krazy-8 alone in the desert with questions that had no answers and instructions that couldn't be ignored. The message was clear: run, hide, never return, never speak of what had happened.
Or face consequences that defied human understanding.
Brief POV shift: Krazy-8
Domingo Molina—Krazy-8 to the streets, but his grandmother had called him Domingo—sat tied to a rock in the middle of nowhere, trying to process an experience that challenged everything he thought he knew about the world.
He'd seen the man walk through doors that appeared in solid air. Had watched reality bend like cheap plastic around someone who clearly operated by different rules than everyone else. The voice modulator made identification impossible, but the threat was crystal clear: leave or die.
"What kind of person can do that?" Domingo thought, testing his restraints again. "Government? Cartel? Something else entirely?"
The zip ties were quality—the kind law enforcement used, not the cheap hardware store variety. Professional restraints applied by someone who knew what they were doing. But the real message wasn't in the ties; it was in the demonstration of power that made conventional escape planning irrelevant.
If this person could open doors anywhere, could reach him anywhere, then running was the only option that made sense. Mexico first, then maybe further south. Somewhere the man with impossible abilities couldn't or wouldn't follow.
Domingo had survived in the drug trade by knowing when to fight and when to retreat. This was definitely a retreat situation.
Back to Marcus POV
Marcus used his doors to follow Krazy-8 over the next twenty-four hours, tracking the dealer's movements with the patience of someone who needed to ensure the intimidation had worked completely.
The zip ties took Krazy-8 an hour to escape—Marcus had deliberately used ones that could be broken with sufficient effort. The dealer stumbled through the desert for three hours before reaching a highway, where he flagged down a truck driver who took pity on someone clearly having the worst day of his life.
Instead of returning to Albuquerque, Krazy-8 asked to be taken to the border. No phone calls to associates, no attempts to contact law enforcement, no stops at safe houses or stash locations. Just pure, focused flight from someone who'd learned that certain threats were beyond conventional response.
Marcus watched from various vantage points as Krazy-8 crossed into Mexico, caught a bus heading south, and disappeared into the kind of anonymity that people chose when staying visible meant staying dead. The dealer never looked back, never hesitated, never gave any indication that he planned to return.
"You're getting good at the scary thing," Ryuk observed, materializing in the passenger seat of Marcus's Honda as they returned to Albuquerque.
"I'm learning that sometimes mercy requires convincing people that alternatives are worse."
"Light Yagami would have just killed him."
"Light Yagami was an amateur who confused power with wisdom. I prefer surgical solutions to crude ones."
Marcus felt satisfaction settling in his chest like warm liquor. He'd saved Krazy-8's life while simultaneously protecting Walter and Jesse from having to become murderers. Clean, efficient, effective—the kind of intervention that solved problems without creating worse ones.
At least, he hoped so.
The timeline was shifting in ways that Marcus couldn't fully predict. Krazy-8's survival meant no DEA informant subplot, no early investigation into Jesse's operation, no immediate pressure that would force Walt and Jesse into increasingly desperate decisions.
But it also meant deviation from the established pattern, movement into territory where Marcus's foreknowledge became less reliable with each passing hour.
He checked his memory of Breaking Bad, trying to recall specific details about Krazy-8's role in the larger narrative. Some scenes remained crystal clear—the basement conversation where Walt struggled with the decision to kill him, the moment when pragmatism overcame moral restraint.
Other details were fading, becoming uncertain, like trying to remember a dream after waking. The timeline was becoming fluid, responsive to changes that rippled outward from every intervention Marcus made.
"I'm flying blind now," Marcus muttered, watching Albuquerque's lights spread across the valley below. "Every choice I make takes us further from the script I memorized."
"Scared?" Ryuk asked, crunching an apple with his eternal grin.
"Cautious. There's a difference."
"Is there? Or are you just telling yourself that to avoid admitting you're improvising with cosmic forces you don't understand?"
Marcus didn't answer, but the question lingered like smoke in the car's interior. He'd stepped off the established timeline, committed to active intervention in events that would reshape multiple lives. The consequences were impossible to calculate, the risks beyond conventional assessment.
But Walter White and Jesse Pinkman now had their first product, a mysterious partner who could teleport, and no murder on their conscience. The partnership had begun on Marcus's terms, not the timeline's.
Whether that would prove to be salvation or disaster remained to be seen.
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