The Sanctum's library didn't exist in a single physical dimension.
Peter had realized this on Wednesday, when he'd watched Strange walk into a shadow between two bookshelves and simply... not come out for three hours. When he'd followed, he found himself in a space where the air tasted like ozone and parchment, and the shelves stretched upward until they blurred into a grey fog that hummed with the vibration of a billion stored words.
Strange was currently lost in that fog.
Peter sat at the main table in the study, surrounded by the hardware he'd scavenged. He was stripping the casing off a high-density lithium-ion battery pack with a precision that would have made a bomb squad nervous.
Seven days.
The number was a physical weight now. A phantom pressure behind his eyes. He'd spent the morning making a list of everything he'd need to survive a pre-industrial world with "wild" magic and no Best Buy.
*1. Water purification (UV filters? Chemical tablets?)*
*2. Antibiotics (Broad-spectrum. How much can I carry?)*
*3. Multi-tool (Titanium. Non-corrosive.)*
*4. Web-fluid (The big one. Synthesis is impossible there. I need a massive stockpile.)*
He looked at the small pile of canisters on the table. Each one was a life-line. Once they were empty, Spider-Man was just a guy who could jump high and stick to walls. No more swinging. No more long-range restraint. No more safety net.
"You're over-thinking the mechanics and under-thinking the biology."
Strange's voice came from the doorway. He looked worse than he had at 6 AM. His hair was disheveled, his Levitation Cloak was dragging its hem like a tired dog, and he was carrying a single, slender volume bound in what looked like dark, preserved skin.
"I have to think about mechanics," Peter said, not looking up from the battery. "If I'm going to a world with no electricity, I need a way to keep my sensors powered. Kinetic chargers in my boots? Solar film on the suit?"
"You won't have the luxury of maintenance, Peter." Strange walked to the table and set the book down. It didn't thud. It landed with a wet, heavy *slap* that made the hair on Peter's neck stand up. "If a component breaks, it stays broken. If a seal leaks, it stays leaked. You are looking for a technological solution to a systemic environmental shift."
"It's what I do, Stephen. I fix things."
"You fix machines. You are being sent to fix a reality."
Strange opened the book. The pages weren't paper. They were vellum, translucent and oily, covered in a script that seemed to squirm if you looked at it too long.
"I went deep into the Atlas archives," Strange said, his voice dropping into a register that Peter had only heard him use when discussing the Dark Dimension. "Beyond the standard histories. Into the *Recollections.*"
Peter stopped stripping the wire. "And?"
"The Atlas system has done this before. Many times." Strange turned a page. The vellum crinkled with a sound like breaking bone. "When a node reaches a critical failure threshold - usually below fifteen percent - the local node initiates a 'Recovery Protocol.' It scans the nearest stable reality for a biological match. A 'Repair Agent.'"
Peter stared at the squirming script. "Repair Agent. That's a nice way of saying 'janitor with a death wish.'"
"It's a functional designation," Strange said flatly. "I found records of forty-two documented cases of Atlas-driven displacement over the last ten thousand years."
Peter felt a cold spike of hope. "Forty-two? That's... that's a lot. Did they come back? Did they fix the nodes?"
Strange didn't answer immediately. He traced a line of text with a scarred finger. The ink glowed a sickly, pale green where he touched it.
"In twenty-six of those cases, the node was stabilized," Strange said. "The reality survived. The structural cascade was halted."
"And the agents?"
Strange's finger stopped. "Four returned. All of them within a window of forty-eight hours after stabilization. The rest..."
"Stayed?"
"Or died. The records are clinical. They track the node's health, not the agent's pulse."
Strange looked up, and for the first time, Peter saw a flicker of genuine pity in the sorcerer's eyes. "The Atlas system isn't a benevolent entity, Peter. It's an automated maintenance program. It doesn't care if the 'wrench' it uses to tighten a bolt gets stripped in the process. It only cares that the bolt is tight."
Peter looked back at his battery pack. His hands were steady, but his heart was doing a frantic, uneven dance.
"Twenty-six survived," Peter whispered. "Twenty-six worlds. That's... billions of people. It's worth it."
Strange closed the book. The *slap* was louder this time.
"There's a note," Strange said, his voice unusually quiet. "In the margins of the Sumerian text. A warning from a former Sorcerer Supreme, written three hundred years ago."
"What's the warning?"
Strange hesitated. He thought about the line he'd read in the dark of the library: *The system selects for compatibility. It does not select for survival.*
He looked at Peter - twenty years old, wearing a buffalo-check flannel shirt, trying to build a solar-powered sensor for a world that ate technology for breakfast. A kid who had just spent his last 'normal' night eating lentils with his aunt because he couldn't bear to break her heart.
"It says the stabilization process is... taxing," Strange lied. "That you'll need to rely on your instincts more than your equipment. That the world you're going to will be 'heavy' in a way you aren't prepared for."
Peter nodded slowly. "Heavy. I can do heavy. I've caught buses, Stephen."
"Not physical weight, Peter. *Metaphysical* weight. A world where every choice has the mass of a mountain."
Strange stood and picked up the book. He couldn't tell him the truth. Not yet. If Peter knew he was being sent into a meat-grinder by a machine that viewed him as a disposable component, his resolve might falter. And if his resolve faltered, the node would fail. And if the node failed...
Strange looked at the window. The rain had turned to sleet, rattling against the glass like tiny teeth.
"Go back to your apartment," Strange said. "Pack what you think you need. I'll spend the next twenty-four hours attempting to find a gateway out. If I can't stop the device from sending you, I might be able to create a tether. A way to pull you back once the work is done."
"A tether?" Peter's eyes lit up. "Like a bungee cord for reality?"
"In extremely oversimplified terms, yes. But it requires a precise anchor. I need something from you. Something that ties you to *this* world. Deeply."
Peter thought for a moment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He rifled through the old receipts and subway cards until he found it.
A photo.
It was crumpled at the edges. Him, May, and Ben at a Coney Island hot dog stand. He was ten. He had mustard on his chin. Ben was laughing so hard his eyes were closed. May was looking at both of them like they were the only two things in the universe.
"Will this work?" Peter asked, holding it out.
Strange took the photo. His fingers brushed the image of Ben Parker. He felt the emotional resonance vibrating off the paper - a thick, golden cord of grief and love and belonging.
"Yes," Strange said, his voice thick. "This will work perfectly."
"I'll be back tomorrow morning," Peter said, standing up. "I'm going to... I'm going to go for a walk. See the city. One last time. Just in case."
"Parker."
Peter stopped at the door.
"Don't get any mustard on your suit," Strange said.
It was a joke. A terrible, clunky, Doctor Strange-style joke.
Peter smiled. It didn't reach his eyes, but it was there. "I'll try my best. See you tomorrow, Stephen."
As the door clicked shut, Strange looked down at the photo in his hand. He looked at the boy with the mustard on his chin.
Then he looked at the dark book on the table.
*The system does not select for survival.*
Strange gripped the photo tight. "Then I'll just have to cheat the system."
[END - CHAPTER SIX]