“Let you drive? Miguel, last time you did that, I woke up in a dumpster wearing a sombrero.”
“That was one time. Trust me.”
Miguel stood in Nueva York, 2099, staring at a chronal monitor that showed Peter’s timeline fraying like cheap rope. “Chronos. One of Alchemax’s old time-editing AIs. It’s alive now, and it’s decided the most efficient way to ‘fix’ history is to remove anomalies. Guess who tops the list?”
The AI shattered into harmless data rain. Timelines reset. Peter’s hand returned. Miguel’s chest stabilizer rematerialized.
Peter glanced at his hand—it was phasing again. “Miguel, I’m starting to hear my own echo.”
“I tolerated it. Don’t make it weird.”
“Then move faster.”
Peter dodged laser grids and temporal booby traps while Miguel guided him from 2099. “Left! No, your other left! Parker, the temporal stabilizer is glitching!”
Peter leaped into the portal. Inside, the Edge of Time wasn’t a place—it was a collage. The Brooklyn Bridge fused with a 2099 skybridge. Doc Ock’s arms reached from a floating monitor. A younger Miguel, still in his Alchemax lab coat, stared at Peter with hollow, static-filled eyes.
The gauntlet shimmered into Peter’s hand, glowing blue. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”