Rick Sanchez had built a portal gun that could reach an unmapped dimension, and it was dying in his hands. The device blinked green, then red, then went dark. His lab filled the shell of an old car front, its stainless steel body cracked open and stuffed with wires. He'd wanted this jump his whole life. No scientist had charted the place he aimed for. But the portal gun needed more power than his whole makeshift rig could give, and every test fizzled before the hole finished opening. "Morty!" Rick shouted. "Get in here." Morty stumbled through the door, sleeves pushed up, hands already black with grease. He was Rick's grandson, and he'd been fixing Rick's messes since he was old enough to hold a wrench. "I already told you," Morty said. "The battery bank can't take it. You keep frying the cells." "Then we stop using batteries." Rick grabbed a cable and yanked it loose. "We need a real source. Something that doesn't blink out halfway through a jump." Morty crossed his arms. "And where do we get that?" Rick pointed at the ceiling. A thick power line ran overhead, feeding the whole block. "Up there. We tap the grid. Direct." "That'll blow out half the town," Morty said. "Probably." Rick was already climbing. They worked for an hour. Morty held the ladder while Rick clamped a stolen coupler onto the main line. Sparks stung his hands. He fed the raw current straight into a capacitor the size of a trash can, then ran the output to the portal gun. The whole car front hummed. Lights across the room surged bright. "Charge it," Rick said. Morty flipped the switch. The capacitor whined. The portal gun's screen jumped from red to a steady, hard green. It had never held green before. "It's charging," Morty whispered. "Rick, it's actually charging." Rick watched the meter climb. Ten percent. Forty. Eighty. The portal gun grew warm, then hot, but it held. At last the screen showed full. A stable power source, locked in. The one thing that had beaten him for months was solved. Then the lights outside went dark. Every window on the block dropped black at once. The hum in the lab turned into a low, angry buzz. "You pulled too much," Morty said. "You blacked out the whole grid." A heavy knock hit the lab door. Not a neighbor's knock. Slow. Deliberate. Rick and Morty froze. The door swung open. A short figure stood in the dark hall, wrapped in a black cape and a pointed cowl, a yellow belt strapped at the waist. Bruce Bones. The man who watched over this district and answered every strange thing that happened in it. "You killed the power to four blocks," Bruce said, voice flat. "Hospitals included." Rick held up the glowing portal gun. It was charged. It was ready. And now the one person he couldn't outrun was standing in his only doorway.

Bruce Bones stood in the doorway, cape hanging still. The portal gun glowed full in Rick's hand. But charged wasn't the same as safe. Rick knew the truth he'd hidden from Morty. The dimension he wanted was uncharted. Its air might dissolve a man the second he stepped through. The gun had no shield. Step through raw, and there might be nothing left of him. "Move," Bruce said. "You're coming with me." Rick didn't move. His eyes swept the lab and stopped on a figure in the corner. He'd bought it years ago as a joke. A life-sized model of a caped hero, half its face rotted to bare skull, its blue suit torn, one gloved hand ending in bone. Dead weight. But it was man-shaped. And Rick needed a test. "Morty," Rick said. "Help me lift it." "Rick, he's right there!" Morty hissed. "Then work fast." They dragged the rotted figure to the middle of the floor. Bruce stepped in, boots loud on steel. "Whatever you're doing, stop." Rick raised the portal gun and fired. A green hole tore open in the air, wide enough for a body. Wind screamed out of it, sour and cold. The lab lights flickered. "Now," Rick said. Together they shoved the figure through. For one second it stood on the far side, half in shadow. Then its torn cape blackened. Its plastic skin bubbled and ran. The whole thing sagged, folded, and came apart into gray smoke. In three seconds nothing was left but a stain on the ground beyond the portal. Morty stumbled back. "That would've been you." "Yeah." Rick's voice was flat. He shut the portal. The green hole snapped closed. "The air eats flesh. No shield, no jump." Bruce grabbed Rick's shoulder and spun him around. "You just opened a hole to somewhere that kills. In my district." Rick looked at the hand on his shoulder, then at Bruce's cowl. "You saw it dissolve. You want that leaking into your streets? Because a full charge with no shield is exactly how that happens by accident." Bruce's grip loosened. Just a little. "I need one more part," Rick said. "A shield lining. Then the door stays closed until it's safe. Or you can drag me off and leave a live portal gun in an evidence locker downtown." Bruce stared at him for a long moment. Then he let go. "You've got until I come back. And I will come back." He turned and walked out. The door swung shut. Morty let out a breath. "He's gonna arrest you." "Later." Rick stared at the stain past where the portal had been. He had power now. He'd proven the air was lethal. What he lacked was a shield. And the only alloy that could hold that dimension's air wasn't for sale anywhere legal. "Get your coat," Rick said. "We need to steal something."

The stain from the dissolved figure still marked the far side of the closed portal. Rick pulled on his coat and grabbed the portal gun. He needed the alloy that could shield it. The seller kept a crate of it, but a guarded checkpoint stood between Rick and the door. Empty-handed, he couldn't lift the crate past the guard. And empty-handed, his portal gun stayed a killing machine. He needed a way in. "We can't just walk up there," Morty said. He wrung his hands by the workbench. "They check everyone going through." Rick stared at the corner where the rotted hero figure had once stood. It was gone now, smoke and stain. But the idea it gave him wasn't. "They check people," Rick said. "They don't check bodies." He left the lab and came back an hour later behind the wheel of a battered sedan he'd hotwired two streets over. In the trunk lay a second thing he'd dragged from a props dump: a life-sized model of a caped man in a torn blue suit, one hand ending in bare bone, half its face rotted to skull. Man-shaped. Heavy. Perfect. "You're gonna hide the alloy inside it," Morty guessed. "Smart, Morty." Rick split the figure's chest open along a seam. Hollow. "We drive up. I tell them we're hauling a busted display to the scrap line past the checkpoint. Nobody searches a corpse-shaped hunk of plastic." They parked near the seller's lot. Rick paid a runner for the crate and loaded the alloy sheets into the hollow figure. Then he propped it upright in the passenger seat like a slumped drunk. He drove toward the guard. The guard leaned into the window. His eyes moved to the figure. "What's that?" "Broken prop. Taking it to scrap." Rick kept his voice flat. The guard reached in and rapped the figure's chest. It thumped, solid, not hollow-sounding. He waved them through. Rick drove past the checkpoint, turned a corner, and let out a breath. "Got it." But the sedan's mirror showed a shape stepping into the lot behind them. A small figure in a dark cape and pointed cowl, moving fast. Bruce Bones, the district's enforcer, the one who'd sworn to return and arrest Rick. He'd tracked the stolen car. "Rick," Morty whispered. "He followed us." Rick gunned the engine. The sedan roared away with the alloy hidden in the chest of the rotted hero. He had the shield now. He'd beaten the checkpoint. But Bruce had seen the car, seen the theft, and knew exactly where the lab was. "He's not waiting anymore," Rick said. His knuckles went white on the wheel. "He's coming now." Behind them, Bruce climbed into a low, dark car and pulled out. The chase had started, and Rick had a stolen crate and a killer portal to finish.