The fire crackled and spat embers into the darkness, illuminating the crumbling facades of what had once been Manhattan's threatre district. Gage ran an oiled cloth along his rifle's barrel, methodical as a prayer, while Thag dozed nearby—all four tons of armored reptile breathing slow and steady. The stegosaurus's plates caught the firelight, casting jagged shadows against a building that might've been important once. Now it was just another hollow tooth in a broken jaw of a skyline.

Gage had stopped trying to make sense of it years ago. The eggheads at CERN had been so damn proud of themselves, smashing particles together like children with rocks, never considering that maybe—just maybe—you shouldn't punch holes in the fabric of reality. Now time was a shuffled deck, and Gage was just another card that had landed face-up in the wrong hand. A cowboy born in 1885, aged to forty in a world that couldn't decide if it was past, present, or future.

He squinted at his rifle, blue eyes—his mother's eyes—checking for imperfections his calloused fingers might've missed. The beard itched. It always itched in this humidity, this wrong-season warmth that New York wore like a fever.

Then the air tore open.

Not a sound, exactly. More like silence ripping. A gash of impossible light split the space across the fire, writhing with colors that had no business existing. Gage's hand went to his pistol by instinct, but he didn't draw. He'd seen enough portals to know bullets were about as useful as spitting at a tornado.

A figure tumbled through and landed hard on the rubble-strewn asphalt. The portal sealed itself with a wet snap, leaving only smoke and the acrid smell of ozone.

Gage didn't move. Just watched, rifle cloth still in hand, as the stranger stirred.

"Well," he muttered, his voice graveled with cantankerous resignation, "ain't this just perfect."

Thag opened one eye, unimpressed, then went back to sleep.