Chapter 33: The Anchor and the Abyss
Arthur tried to grip his staff, but his fingers passed through the metal as if it were made of smoke. The freezing Siberian air didn't feel cold anymore; it didn't feel like anything. To Arthur, the world was beginning to look like a low-resolution photograph—static-filled and distant.
The Fading Record
"Arthur! Your hand!" Bucky yelled, reaching out to grab him. His hand passed straight through Arthur's shoulder, sending a ripple of blue distortion through the air.
"I've overextended," Arthur's voice sounded like it was coming from a radio a mile away. "By rewriting the Fixed Point... by saving both Dugans... I've become an anomaly that the timeline can't render. I'm being 'deleted' from the physical layer."
[ SYSTEM CRITICAL ]
Core Integrity: 22% (DEGRADATION ACCELERATING).
Condition: Temporal Displacement.
Warning: If Sync hits 60% while Integrity is below 25%, the Archivist will become a Non-Physical Entity.
The Human Anchor
Steve Rogers stepped forward, his face set in a grim expression of defiance. He didn't try to grab Arthur's hand; he grabbed the Tesseract Shard at the head of the staff, which was still grounded in the physical world.
"You told me once that I was a 'Fixed Point' of hope, Arthur," Steve said, his voice booming in the small vault. "Well, I'm fixing you right here. You aren't going anywhere."
Steve funneled his own indomitable will into the connection. It wasn't magic, but in the presence of the Tesseract, the "Spirit" of a hero acted as a beacon.
[ UNIQUE EVENT: THE HERO'S WITNESS ]
Steve Rogers is acting as a [Moral Anchor].
Bucky Barnes is providing [Tactical Grounding].
Effect: Degradation paused.
The Price of Stability
Arthur saw the prompt in his vision. He had a choice. He could use his massive DP Balance to force himself back into reality, but it would require a "sacrifice" of data.
[ EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: DATA-WEIGHT ]
Option: Convert 15,000 DP into 'Physical Mass'.
Trade-off: You will lose the [Siberian Data-Core] and your S+ Intelligence will temporarily drop to A.
Result: Physical form stabilized at 50% Integrity.
"Do it," Arthur wheezed. "Drop the data. Save the man."
[ TRANSACTION COMPLETE ]
15,000 DP Consumed.
Intelligence Downranked to A (Temporary).
Integrity Restored to 50%.
With a violent crack of spatial thunder, Arthur slammed back into the stone floor, solid and heavy. The translucent blur vanished, replaced by the weight of exhaustion and the sting of the cold. He was back, but he felt "dimmer"—the hyper-calculative speed of his mind had slowed to a human pace.
The Awakening of the Asset
While Arthur recovered, the "Other" Dugan—the Winter-Dugan—gasped and sat up. His bionic arm sparked once, then settled into a low hum. He looked at Steve, then at the "Real" Dugan, who was holding a flask of coffee for him.
"I remember... the train," Winter-Dugan whispered, his voice a gravelly echo. "I remember the fall. But then... there were two of me. One was in the dark, and the other was laughing with you boys in London. I saw it all through Arthur's eyes."
The two Dugans looked at each other. It was an impossible sight—the jolly, bowler-hatted Commando and the scarred, metal-armed assassin.
"Well," the Real Dugan said, handing the flask to his double. "I always said I was twice the man of any Hydra grunt. Now I've got the proof."
The Strategic Shift
The mission was a victory, but the cost was high. Arthur was weakened, the Winter Soldier program was disrupted but not destroyed, and they now had a "Temporal Duplicate" in their ranks.
"We can't hide him," Steve said, looking at the Winter-Dugan. "And we can't send him home. If the world sees two Dum Dum Dugans, the Divergence will hit one hundred percent in a week."
Arthur looked at the bionic arm, then at his staff. "He doesn't need to be Dugan. He's a record of a future that failed. We're going to give him a new name. A new mask."
Current Status:
DP Balance: 200.
Core Integrity: 50%.
Intelligence: A (Recovering in 2 chapters).
New Ally: [The Asset] (Level 35 Combatant).