Threadbare Calculations

The spiral-bound notebook was creased at the corners, pages worn from too many nights spent thumbing through them with shaking hands. Ink bled slightly at the edges where Gotham’s damp air had worked its way into the paper, but the notes were still legible—still hers.

Sera sat cross-legged on the cold concrete, back against the storage unit’s rusted steel wall, the notebook open across her lap. The dim glow of a cheap penlight barely cut through the darkness, but she didn’t need much light. She knew these pages by heart.

She exhaled, steadying her fingers as she turned to a section of calculations written in cramped, precise script—notes she had compiled in the first few weeks after the accident, when she had still believed she could reverse it.

Quantum State Instability Model – Hypothetical Corrections

•Observed Breakdown Rate: Increasing over time, possibly accelerated by repeated phase displacement.
• Phase-Lock Threshold: Drops in correlation with stress/exertion levels. Stabilizer delays the drop but does not prevent it.
• Proposed Solutions:
1. Reinforce molecular cohesion through harmonic energy resonance (FAILED).
2. Modify stabilizer compound to bind with existing quantum frequency (PARTIAL SUCCESS—Unstable at high doses).
3. Introduce a synthetic anchor to compensate for loss of interaction with Higgs field (UNKNOWN).
4. Stop phasing entirely (IMPOSSIBLE?).

Sera’s thumb hovered over the last word, smudging the ink slightly. Impossible. She had written that months ago. Had she really accepted it so quickly?

She flipped the page too fast, and her fingers—already flickering at the edges—phased straight through the paper before she could stop it.

Her breath caught. The penlight trembled where it sat beside her, casting broken shadows as she pulled her hands back, flexing her fingers like they belonged to someone else. The tips of her fingers were fraying, disjointed, insubstantial, the heatwave shimmer flickering in and out.

Sera clenched her fists and forced them still, pressing her palms flat against her thighs. She was still here. Still solid. But the longer she went without a stabilizer, the worse it got. The harder it became to hold on.

Another deep breath. Another page turn—slower this time, deliberate. The ink here was messier, rushed, written in the middle of the night when she had first felt her feet slip halfway through the floor in her sleep.

Revised Stabilizer Composition – Working Theory
•Primary Components Needed:
•Iso-phasic energy regulator (highly restricted)
•Molecular resonance buffer (difficult to synthesize)
•Synthetic stabilizing agent (UNKNOWN SUBSTITUTE REQUIRED)
•Risks: Incomplete stabilizer may cause:
•Temporary dissonance (short-term phase lag, spatial drift).
•Neural feedback distortion (perceived time shifts, disorientation).
•PERMANENT DECOHESION (DO NOT TEST UNTIL CONFIRMED).

She dragged her pen across the page, underlining UNKNOWN SUBSTITUTE REQUIRED twice, hard enough to scratch the paper. The words blurred slightly as her vision wavered. She blinked hard, shoving the exhaustion aside.

She needed materials. She needed a functional compound. But more than that, she needed time—time she didn’t have.

The dim penlight flickered. Sera pinched the bridge of her nose and let the notebook slip closed against her thigh. She could only hold herself together for so long.

Tomorrow, she would find a way forward.

Tonight, she would survive.