Anti-fun guy's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Anti-fun guy spread his maps across the observation shed's floor. Each disruption site was marked with a red pin. He'd been staring at them for hours, trying to see what he'd missed. The sites weren't random. They couldn't be. Travis's dimension-hopping left patterns—bioelectric signatures, mycorrhizal decay radiating outward in predictable arcs. He pulled out a cloth banner and began marking the fifteen disruption sites with embroidered thread, connecting each one with geometric lines. The pattern emerged as he worked—triangles within triangles, all pointing inward. Anti-fun guy's hands trembled as he tied off the final thread. The convergence point sat directly beneath a jagged obsidian stone formation three kilometers north. Of course Travis would tear reality there next. The location had the highest dimensional instability in the entire forest. Anti-fun guy grabbed his calculating device and fed in the coordinates from each site. The brass gears clicked and whirred as the glass face displayed the trajectory. The next rupture would happen within forty-eight hours. He could prove it now—not just document the damage after, but predict where Travis would strike next. He rolled up the banner and gathered his equipment. This was different than collapsed watchtowers or failed networks. This was prevention. But as he locked the shed door, reality settled over him like cold water. Travis had ignored fifteen sites of catastrophic damage. Why would a prediction change anything? Anti-fun guy looked down at the banner in his hands. The pattern was perfect, undeniable. He finally understood what he'd been missing—proving Travis wrong had never been the problem. The problem was that Travis didn't care about being wrong. Anti-fun guy turned toward the obsidian formation. He couldn't make Travis listen. But he could be there when the next tear happened, ready to document it the moment reality split open.