PROLOGUE - FRACTURED CONNECTION

Taylor Hebert sat on the edge of the rooftop, knees pulled up to her chest as the chill of Gotham’s night crept through her jacket. The city stretched out like a living organism: flashing neon lights, distant sirens, the low hum of voices and echoing engines blending into a constant buzz. It was chaotic and broken. Alive, but in the same way Brockton Bay had been alive—rotting from the inside.

She reached out, tentative, the same way someone might test an injured limb. The insects were there—Gotham had no shortage of them. Cockroaches scurried in the cracks of old, broken sidewalks. Flies darted between dumpsters in the alleys. Ants marched along gutters. But their movements felt… slippery.

Taylor inhaled sharply and tried again, focusing. On Earth Bet, her power had been an extension of her will, precise and absolute. But here, stripped from her shard’s network, her control was fractured, erratic. A fly buzzed toward her, then spiralled away as she lost her grip over it. A cockroach followed her mental tug, only to jitter to a stop, its movements clumsy and reluctant.

For a long time, she hadn’t wanted to use it. After Khepri, after everything she had done, the thought of wielding that power again had terrified her. She’d been the hammer of a god, a force of nature unleashed on the world. The things she’d done, the people she’d controlled… it still kept her up at night. 

But Gotham didn’t care about her past. Gotham didn’t care about anything but survival. 

There was progress, though. Slow and agonizing, but still progress. A month ago, when she first arrived on this Earth, her power had been barely functional—a distant echo of what it once was. Now she could manage clusters of insects for short bursts, though they still slipped from her grasp like water through her fingers.

She’d only been here a week or two, drifting in after a long bus ride that had taken her across half the country. She hadn’t intended to stay, but the moment she saw this city—its broken streets, its desperate people—she knew she couldn’t leave. She couldn’t help herself. The same part of her that had refused to stand by in Brockton Bay was screaming at her now.

The city demanded action, whether or not she felt ready.

Then, suddenly, the world shifted, yanking her from her thoughts. 

The building across the street—an old brick structure with boarded-up windows—exploded in a violent eruption of flame and debris. The shockwave rattled the rooftop beneath her, forcing her to grab hold of the ledge for balance. Windows shattered, glass cascading to the street below as a plume of black smoke spiralled into the sky.

People screamed, scattering like startled birds as pandemonium erupted. Cars screeched to a halt as drivers fumbled to reverse out of danger. For a long moment, Taylor stayed frozen, her heart pounding in her chest.

Then her instincts kicked in.

Scrambling to her feet, she surveyed the destruction. Flames licked hungrily at the ruined building, while chunks of concrete and steel littered the street. A cluster of people stood in the chaos, some bleeding or dead, most dazed and disoriented, and others already pulling out their phones, recording instead of helping.

“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath.

She didn’t have time to think. Pulling her hood up, she climbed down the fire escape, her boots silent against the rusted metal. As she hit the street, she reached out again, forcing her shaky control over the nearest cluster of insects. Flies. They fluttered toward her command in an unsteady swarm, darting into the smoke to scout for movement.

Her power buckled, her grip faltering, but she gritted her teeth and pushed harder. Slowly, agonizingly, her swarm began to sweep the wreckage, probing for signs of life.

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Beneath a fallen section of a wall, someone was pinned: a man in his mid-thirties, his legs trapped. Without thinking, she rushed over, crouching beside him. 

“Hey!” she called, her voice sharp to cut through his panicked breathing. “I’m going to get you out of here. Just hold on.”

The man nodded, his face pale and slick with blood and soot. Taylor assessed the situation quickly—the section of wall wasn’t too heavy, but it would take leverage. She glanced around, searching for anything she could use, as her insects crawled over the area—shaky but manageable—helping her spot a length of steel pipe nearby. 

Grabbing it, she jammed it under the edge of the rubble and leaned her weight onto it. The concrete shifted slightly, enough for the man to pull his legs free. He groaned in pain as she dragged him clear of the wreckage, his breathing ragged.

“Can you walk?” she asked, helping him sit up.

“I—yeah, I think so,” he said, though he winced as he put weight on his feet.

“Good. Get as far from here as you can.”

As he limped away toward the cluster of bystanders now gathering at a safe distance, Taylor turned her attention back to the wreckage. The fire was spreading, eating through what little structure remained. Sirens wailed in the distance, the sound growing louder, but she knew it would still take time for emergency responders to reach the scene.

Another sound caught her attention—a faint, high-pitched, desperate cry. Her heart twisted. She reached out to her swarm again, but the connection faltered, insects scattering without direction. She cursed under her breath, forcing herself to move.

Picking her way carefully through the debris, she found the source of the cries: a girl, no older than eight, huddled beneath a collapsed doorway. Her face was streaked with soot, eyes wide with terror.

“It’s okay,” Taylor said, crouching down. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

The girl whimpered, too terrified to respond, but didn’t move. Taylor extended a hand, keeping her voice calm.

“Come on,” she urged. “I’ve got you.”

The girl hesitated, then reached out and grabbed Taylor’s hand.

A low rumble made Taylor’s stomach drop. She looked up, her breath catching as another section of the wall teetered dangerously above them.

“Hold on!” she shouted, scooping the girl into her arms and sprinting toward safety.

They barely made it clear before the wall came crashing down, sending up a cloud of dust and ash. Taylor stumbled, coughing, her eyes and throat stinging, but kept moving until she was sure they were out of danger.

She set the girl down on a patch of pavement, her knees shaky. “Are you hurt?”

The girl shook her head, tears cutting clean lines through the grime. Before Taylor could say anything else, a woman—likely the girl’s mother—rushed over, wrapping the child in a tight embrace.

“Thank you,” the woman said, her voice thick with emotion.

Taylor nodded, stepping back as the sirens grew deafening. Red and blue lights flashed, reflecting off the rain-slick street. Firefighters and paramedics flooded the scene, taking over where she had left off.

She didn’t wait for gratitude or questions. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a deep, familiar exhaustion, so she pulled her hood tighter and slipped away, blending into the crowd. For now, though, she needed to disappear. Back to the anonymity of her small, crumbling apartment, back to the life she was trying to piece together.