Chapter 2: The Blackmail Photograph
Marcus Reid's hands shook as he signed the credit card receipt. The camera store clerk—a kid with enthusiastic acne and a Breaking Bad t-shirt that made Elijah's stomach lurch—handed over the telephoto lens with the reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts.
"This baby can shoot clear portraits from a quarter mile," the kid said. "You doing wildlife photography?"
"Something like that." Elijah's voice sounded wrong in Marcus Reid's throat, lower and rougher than his original had been. He pocketed the receipt and walked out into the harsh Albuquerque morning, already planning the drive that would either save his life or end it.
The used Toyota Corolla he'd bought an hour earlier sat baking in the parking lot. Desert heat shimmered off the asphalt even though it was barely nine AM. Elijah slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled out his burner phone.
He thought of Jesse Pinkman's name and felt the now-familiar shift behind his eyes.
The coordinates materialized with clinical precision: Latitude 35.0014, Longitude -106.7664. A location thirty miles northeast of the city. Rural. Isolated. Perfect for cooking methamphetamine without nosy neighbors calling the police.
Cost: $600.
Elijah's mental bank account dropped to $48,600. At this rate, he'd be broke before he could establish contact with either timeline. The Entity had designed the perfect trap: powers that cost money, money that required staying alive to earn, and staying alive that required using the powers.
He drove east through suburbs that thinned into scrubland, following GPS coordinates toward a confrontation with fictional characters who were now his only lifeline. The camera sat on the passenger seat, a tangible weight that represented his single advantage: foreknowledge of what was coming.
The irony wasn't lost on him. He was about to blackmail Walter White and Jesse Pinkman into accepting him as a partner, using photographs of crimes they hadn't technically committed yet from the perspective of canon. In any sane universe, this would be elaborate suicide.
But sanity had died with Elijah Chen on a frozen Oregon highway.
The RV squatted in the desert like a beige metal tumor, heat shimmers dancing around its edges. Elijah parked his Corolla behind a ridge a quarter-mile away and belly-crawled to the crest with his camera. Through the telephoto lens, he could see them clearly.
Walter White, wearing a yellow hazmat suit that made him look like a radioactive scarecrow, stirred something in a glass beaker with the focused intensity of a monk at prayer. Jesse Pinkman, similarly dressed, fed pseudoephedrine tablets into a coffee grinder while complaining about something Elijah couldn't hear.
It was surreal, watching fictional characters move through space with the weight and substance of real people. Walter's careful precision, Jesse's manic energy, the casual intimacy of their partnership—it all felt like watching a movie through the wrong end of a telescope.
Elijah started shooting.
Forty-seven photographs. Walt's face clear in seventeen of them. Jesse identifiable in twenty-three. The RV's license plate visible in six. GPS coordinates embedded in the metadata of every image.
Enough evidence to destroy both their lives. Enough leverage to force his way into their story.
His heart hammered against his ribs as he slithered back down the ridge. The Entity had been right about one thing: this reality was dangerous. These weren't characters anymore; they were real people who would kill to protect themselves. And he was about to threaten everything they'd built.
The motel clerk's name was Danny Rourke, and he had tired eyes and the soft gut of a man who'd given up on most of his dreams. Elijah needed those photos developed, and he needed it done with no questions and no records.
"I need these printed," Elijah said, sliding a memory card across the reception desk. "Standard 4x6s. And I need them tonight."
Danny barely looked up from his crossword puzzle. "Photo shop's across town. They do one-hour service."
"I'd prefer to handle it privately." Elijah paused, letting the weight of that word settle. "Worth a hundred-dollar tip for discretion."
Now Danny looked up. His eyes were calculating, measuring the stranger against the money being offered. Elijah focused on the man's face and activated his second power.
Leverage Finder scanning...
The secret hit him like a slap: Danny had been skimming twenty dollars a night from the register for three months, building a small nest egg to leave his wife and start over in Phoenix. Pathetic and human and perfectly useful.
Cost: $80.
"Make it two hundred," Elijah said quietly, "and I'll forget what I know about your Phoenix plans and the missing register money."
Danny's face went pale, then red, then carefully neutral. "Two hundred. Cash. And the photos never existed."
"Exactly."
While Danny worked in the motel's back office with a printer that wheezed like an asthmatic chain smoker, Elijah sat on his bed and ran probability calculations.
"What are my odds of successfully approaching Jesse Pinkman at his house?"
Calculating... 62% success rate. Variables: Pinkman's desperation for legitimate business connections, minimal security at residence, opportunity for private conversation.
Cost: $450.
"What are my odds of approaching Walter White at his school?"
Calculating... 12% success rate. Variables: High security environment, potential presence of DEA agent Hank Schrader, White's professional paranoia in public settings.
Cost: $380.
"What if I mail the photos anonymously first?"
Calculating... 34% success rate. Variables: Subjects likely to flee rather than negotiate, loss of personal leverage through direct contact, police involvement probability increases to 23%.
Cost: $310.
Jesse's house, then. Sixty-two percent odds were the best he was going to get.
Elijah's phone buzzed. A text from a number he didn't recognize: Tick tock.
His vision blurred for three seconds, peripheral shadows creeping in like smoke. The fading. It had started.
He lunged for his laptop and booked a flight to Miami for the following week. One timeline anchored him; he'd need both to survive. The ticket cost eight hundred dollars he couldn't afford to spend and couldn't afford not to spend.
When Danny knocked two hours later, Elijah's hands were steady again. The photos were crisp and clear, forty-seven pieces of evidence that would either save his life or get him killed.
"Pleasure doing business," Danny said, pocketing the cash with practiced efficiency.
Elijah spread the photos across his bed and began to plan. Tomorrow, he would drive to Jesse Pinkman's house and offer a partnership built on mutual destruction. The kid would either accept or reach for a gun.
Sixty-two percent said he'd choose correctly.
Thirty-eight percent said Marcus Reid would join Elijah Chen in whatever came after life.
Outside his window, Albuquerque settled into desert night, and somewhere in the darkness, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman had no idea that their perfectly balanced world was about to gain a third variable.
A dead man with nothing left to lose and everything to prove.
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