The car was a grey sedan. Not silver, not charcoal. Just grey. It reminded one of a rainy Tuesday in November. The interior had a scent of new upholstery and neutral ambiance.
Special Agent Thorne sat in the passenger seat, gazing out at the I-90 skyline. He appeared like someone who had been photocopied too many times. His edges were blurry, his suit was bland, and his eyes resembled stagnant water.
"Traffic is slowing," Agent Sonder said from the driver's seat. Sonder was younger and sharper, gripping the steering wheel at ten and two with perfect precision. "Estimated arrival at the target zone is forty minutes."
"It's the grid," Thorne sighed, tapping a folder on his lap. "The whole city is humming. Can't you feel it? It feels like standing under a high-tension wire."
Sonder glanced at the dashboard. A small, strange device was mounted where the GPS usually was. It resembled a Geiger counter combined with a compass. The needle vibrated nervously in the red zone.
"Ontological variance is at 14%," Sonder read. "That's... high, sir. Usually, a gas leak or a bridge collapse only registers a 2% change in local reality."
"That's because it wasn't a gas leak," Thorne said. He opened the folder. Inside was a blurred satellite photo of the Wells Street Bridge from two nights ago. It didn't show a monster—the resolution wasn't clear enough—but it revealed the heat signature.
It looked like a supernova drowning in a bathtub.
"We have reports of mass hallucinations," Thorne stated. "Commuters claiming their train turned to gold. People seeing a trash heap walk. A sudden drop in local deaths in the Old Town district."
"Mass hysteria?" Sonder suggested.
"Mass violation," Thorne corrected. "Physics is federal law, Sonder. Gravity, thermodynamics, entropy—these aren't suggestions. They are laws. And someone in Chicago is breaking them."
The Chicago Riverwalk, Lower Wacker Drive
The city had done a decent job cleaning up the mess. The crushed cars had been towed. The mountain of river sludge had been washed back into the channel. To the average pedestrian, it looked like a construction site.
But the Bureau of Normalcy did not see with normal eyes.
Thorne and Sonder stepped out of the grey sedan, wearing matching beige trench coats. They moved with a synchronized, predatory boredom typical of tax auditors.
"This is the epicenter," Sonder said, holding up a handheld scanner. It began to click rapidly, sounding like a cicada in overdrive. "The residue is thick. I'm reading three distinct signatures."
Thorne crouched by a cracked pylon. He ran a gloved finger over the concrete. It wasn't just cracked; it was decayed, as if the stone had aged a thousand years in an instant.
"Entropy," Thorne murmured. "Accelerated decay. That's Signature One."
He stood up and observed the scorch marks on the bridge overhead. "Signature Two is thermal. High-yield transmutation. Someone turned the air into plasma."
"And Signature Three?" Sonder asked, aiming the scanner at the L tracks above.
The scanner shrieked.
"Kinetic," Sonder winced. "The tracks are magnetized. The friction coefficient is zero. Sir, these rails... they're almost frictionless. That train shouldn't have been able to stop. It should have launched into the sky."
Thorne took a deep breath. The air tasted metallic. "Three distinct violations. Three different methods. But look at the layering."
He pointed to where the scorch mark met the decayed stone. The burns stopped exactly where the decay began.
"They didn't fight each other," Thorne said, narrowing his eyes. "They cooperated. This wasn't a random event. This was a joint operation."
Sonder lowered the scanner. "An organized deviation? In a population center this large?"
"It's a syndicate," Thorne said, pulling a notebook from his coat. He clicked a ballpoint pen. "We aren't dealing with a lone wizard in a basement. We're dealing with a governing body."
Sonder looked at the city—the towering skyscrapers, the busy streets, the thousands of people moving through a world that was fundamentally broken. "What is the protocol for a Level 5 infestation?"
Thorne paused writing. He stared at the dark, churning river.
"Sanitization," Thorne replied. "We identify the sources. We isolate them. And then we correct the math."
"And the population?"
"Collateral," Thorne shrugged. "If reality is infected, you don't save the host. You sterilize the wound."
Thorne turned back to the car. "Get the equipment, Sonder. I want listening posts in the subway, the cemeteries, and the factories. If this city wants to play with magic, we're going to show them the cost of doing business."
Sonder nodded and opened the trunk. Inside, nestled in foam, were rows of heavy, matte-black devices. They weren't guns. They were Nullifiers. Reality anchors designed to strip the magic from anything they touched—violently.
"Welcome to Chicago," Thorne whispered.