The atmosphere in the bank shifted from high-tension drama to a surreal, quiet interrogation. With the lobby cleared of Shannon’s immediate screeching, Sabrina Thorne gestured for Rumani to join her in a glass-walled conference room.

  Rumani followed, his shoulders slightly hunched, his fingers nervously adjusting the knot of his modest tie. He played the part of the "unremarkable witness" to perfection. Sabrina sat across from him, her digital tablet open, but her eyes weren't on him—they were on the chaotic data feeds coming from the Aether-Marrow ruins.

  "Mr. Vikaria," Sabrina began, her voice professional but laced with a fatigue that even her Registry training couldn't hide. "I’ve reviewed the footage from the vault. You were the only one in that sector when the 'pylons' engaged. I need your perspective. Not as an engineer, but as a bystander. Did you see any manual override? Any... unusual light frequencies?"

  "I... I mostly saw the floor, Agent Thorne," Rumani stammered, his "antsy" persona projecting a convincing level of trauma-induced fog. "Everything was shaking so hard. There was this deep, mechanical humming—like a giant heart beating in the ground. I just assumed it was the building’s emergency systems. I’m just a teller; I don't know much about 30x scale hydraulics."

  Sabrina leaned in, her eyes searching his for a spark of something—not heroism, but perhaps a clue to the fraud she suspected Valerie Simmons was perpetrating. "The timing was perfect. Too perfect. It’s as if the machines knew exactly when the singularity would—"

  A sudden, sharp series of barks and high-pitched shouting erupted from the street outside. Sabrina’s comm-unit chirped with a frantic tone. Through the bank’s reinforced windows, the flashing blue-and-red lights of Providenc PD units began to reflect off the marble pillars.

  "Agent Thorne," a voice crackled through her earpiece. "You need to get out here. Your sister is... she’s detaining civilians."

  Sabrina closed her eyes for a long, pained second. "Excuse me, Mr. Vikaria. Do not move. We are not finished."

  Rumani watched through the glass as Sabrina stepped onto the sidewalk. The scene was pure Thorne-family chaos. Shannon was standing in the center of the walkway, her expensive umbrella leveled like a sword at a terrified young woman with a trendy, asymmetrical bob. Two police officers stood nearby, looking completely paralyzed.

  "It is a violation of the Public Aesthetics Act!" Shannon screamed, her voice echoing off the 30x scale skyscrapers. "That haircut is an unapproved architectural hazard! It’s an eyesore that devalues the district! Officer, arrest her! My father will have your badge if you don't process this... this follicle criminal immediately!"

  "Ma'am," one of the officers tried to intervene, his hand hovering over his holster but his face pale with the fear of the Thorne name. "There is no law against—"

  "I am a Thorne!" Shannon shrieked, turning her umbrella on the officer. "I decide what is legal on this sidewalk! I am filing a class-action lawsuit against every stylist in this zip code! And you! You’re getting life in a Registry work camp for insubordination!"

  Sabrina reached her sister, her hand gripping Shannon’s arm with enough force to finally lower the umbrella. "Shannon! Stop this! You are creating a public disturbance! The police are not your personal hair-stylist enforcement squad!"

  "They’re letting her walk around looking like that, Sabrina!" Shannon wailed, pointing at the bystander who was currently being shielded by a growing crowd of confused citizens. "It’s a mockery of our family’s standards! Tell them! Tell them to arrest everyone with a fade!"

  Inside the bank, Mrs. Gable stood by the window, her facial expression a mask of frozen disapproval. She looked at Rumani, who had stood up to "peer" nervously at the window like a curious clerk.

  "It seems, Mr. Vikaria," Mrs. Gable said, her voice dripping with icy sarcasm, "that the Thorne family’s reach extends even to the barber’s chair. Perhaps we should be thankful she hasn't noticed your hairstyle yet."

  Rumani adjusted his glasses, a small, internal part of him marveling at how a woman as brilliant as Sabrina could be tethered to such a whirlwind of absurdity. "I’ll... I'll try to keep my hat on when I leave, Mrs. Gable."

  Sabrina Thorne re-entered the conference room, her shoulders slumped with the weight of managing Shannon’s public meltdown. Outside, the sirens were finally fading as the police ushered her sister into a secure transport.

  "I apologize, Mr. Vikaria," Sabrina said, dropping into her chair. She slid a grainy, high-resolution photograph across the table. "This was captured by a traffic drone during the singularity event. It’s... anomalous."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Rumani leaned in, his glasses slipping down his nose. His superhuman photographic memory instantly engaged. He didn't just see the image; he cross-referenced it against every second of his own life.

  He knew instantly this wasn't him. He remembered his own movements during the building's anchoring with millisecond precision. Furthermore, the figure’s posture reminded him of a teller he’d met at a regional meeting in Boston five months prior—a man who had scowled with that exact, rigid tension. Seeing that familiar, unpleasant body language on a "superhero" in a photo was jarring.

  He focused on the background. Through the digital grain, he recognized the ornate terracotta and the iconic marquee shadows.

  "This... this looks like Weybosset Street," Rumani stammered, pointing a shaky finger at the blurred architecture. "The Providenc Performing Arts Center. I take my son Collin past there to the toy store. I recognize the moldings on the theater."

  Sabrina snapped the folder shut. "The Performing Arts Center? That's blocks away from the bank. Why would a 'hero' be there? Thank you, Mr. Vikaria. You've been more helpful than you know."

  Saturday, 10:30 AM

  Weybosset Street

  The Saturday sun was bright, reflecting off the 30x scale skyscrapers. Rumani walked hand-in-hand with Barbara, playing the part of the devoted husband on a weekend stroll. To anyone watching, they were just admiring the architecture of the Providenc Performing Arts Center (PPAC).

  "It really is beautiful, Rumani," Barbara said, leaning her head on his shoulder. "But you’ve been staring at that stage door for a while. Everything okay?"

  "Just admiring the masonry, honey," Rumani lied smoothly.

  While Barbara looked at the marquee, Rumani’s Oversight Senses stripped away the present. He scanned the brickwork for microscopic traces of energy. He found it—a faint, lingering resonance of Aetheric Displacement.

  He noticed a small, charred indentation near the stage door. It wasn't an explosion; it was a footprint, burned into the stone by a sudden discharge of heat.

  Someone was here, Rumani thought. Someone who looks like the man from the Boston meeting, but with the power of a god.

  He felt a cold drip of realization. He hadn't just found a clue; he had found a trail.

  The marquee of the Providenc Performing Arts Center (PPAC) glowed with a warm, amber hum that felt like a relic of a smaller world. Rumani and Barbara stepped into the lobby, where gold leaf and velvet carpets absorbed the frantic noise of the 30x scale city outside.

  As they approached the ticket booth, a man in a tuxedo—the theater’s head of guest relations—snapped to attention. He looked at Rumani’s modest but impeccably neat attire and Barbara’s natural elegance, then looked at a digital manifest on his podium.

  "Ah! You must be the relatives the Chairman mentioned," the man gushed, his voice dropping into a reverent whisper. "We were told to expect the family from the upstate branch today. Please, don't worry about the tickets. The entire house is yours to explore. Feel free to head backstage; the private lounge is stocked and ready."

  Rumani opened his mouth to correct the mistaken identity, but the man had already pressed a master-key card into his hand and turned to assist a large group of tourists.

  "Did he say we’re meeting the owner?" Barbara asked, her eyes lighting up. She had only caught the tail end of the sentence over the swell of the lobby’s orchestral background music. "Rumani, that’s so thoughtful! I didn't realize you’d arranged a private meet-and-greet."

  "I... well, I wanted it to be a surprise," Rumani lied, his "antsy" persona kicking in as he realized they now had high-level access to the very areas he needed to investigate.

  As they moved toward the heavy velvet curtains leading backstage, the crowd thinned. Coming from the opposite direction was a man who looked distinctly out of place in the New England theater. He was of Mumbai descent, dressed in a simple but high-quality linen tunic. What caught Rumani’s Oversight Senses wasn't his clothes, but his teal-colored eyes—a striking, unnatural shade—and the heavy Kada (iron bangle) on his right wrist that seemed to hum with a faint, localized magnetic field.

  The man offered a polite, silent nod as he passed, his gaze lingering on Rumani for a fraction of a second longer than a stranger should. Rumani felt a flicker of a multi-frequency ping, but the man continued walking toward the exit, disappearing into the lobby crowd as a mere background detail in the day's events.

  "This way, honey!" Barbara urged, pulling Rumani toward the stage-left wings. "We don't want to keep the owner waiting."

  Unbeknownst to them, the brass-and-glass doors of the theater had just hissed open again. Shannon Thorne stepped inside, her face twisted in a mask of vengeful focus. She had evaded her Registry detail and was now following the "boring bank teller" and his wife. She wasn't looking for a hero; she was looking for a violation. She clutched her phone like a weapon, her thumb hovering over the "Report Infraction" button, hoping to catch a passerby—or better yet, the Vikarias—stepping on a "Historical Preservation" carpet with unpolished shoes.

  Behind the stage, the air grew cooler and smelled of old wood and theatrical dust. Rumani’s eyes darted to the floorboards. He wasn't looking for the owner. His Oversight was scanning for the source of the thermal footprint he’d seen outside.

  He found it near the orchestra pit. Beneath the conductor’s podium, hidden behind a false panel of acoustic foam, was a cluster of high-intensity Registry monitoring equipment. It wasn't just recording audio; it was a Temporal Resonance Array, designed to track objects that moved between multiverses.

  "Rumani, look at this view!" Barbara called out from the center of the stage, looking up at the towering 30x scale rigging.

  Rumani stood at the edge of the pit, his heart sinking. The Registry had been watching this theater for months. They weren't looking for the "Smiling Anchor"—they were waiting for the man from the Boston meeting.

  Just as he reached out to scan the Registry’s data logs, a floorboard creaked behind him. It wasn't the owner. It was the sharp, rhythmic clack of Shannon Thorne’s designer heels.

  "I knew it," Shannon’s voice hissed from the shadows of the wings. "Unauthorized entry into a restricted theatrical zone. That’s a Class-C felony under the Heritage Act. You’re going to look so much more modest in a jumpsuit, Mr. Vikaria."