Blue Tape Morning

Marker Doe hovered beside the west marker tower, boots humming, and looked down at Super Wood City’s morning traffic. Her phone buzzed inside her glove.

“Garage. Now,” texted Dr. Pine Quill.

She zipped to the fortress garage, where four towers rose outside like giant pens in a cup. A humanoid deer in a lab coat stood by a workbench, tapping a tablet with one hoof.

“You’re late,” Dr. Pine Quill said. His glasses slid down his snout.

Marker Doe landed with a soft thud. “Your texts never say please.”

He held up a shiny blue ring no bigger than a donut. “Copy Cap. It snaps onto your marker tip. Quick duplicates. Snacks, spare parts, basic tools.”

“A copy machine on my marker?” she asked.

“Controlled,” he said, but his tablet screen kept flashing LOW STABILITY.

Marker Doe lifted her giant glowing blue marker. “One wrapper,” she said.

She fired a tiny blue dot at an empty chip wrapper.

Pop.

Two wrappers lay there.

Then the Copy Cap’s meter clicked and jumped again—

Double Tap

Pop.

The two chip wrappers became four.

The Copy Cap on the marker tip clicked like a tiny bug.

Dr. Pine Quill, the older deer in a lab coat, leaned over his tablet. “Stop. Do not fire again.”

Marker Doe’s ears twitched under her blue mask. “I didn’t!”

A second garage door blinked into existence beside the first one. It looked normal—except it had no handle.

“That one is copying the shape of air,” Dr. Pine Quill said, snatching up his phone. A map app showed red dots piling near MD Fortress.

Marker Doe grabbed the real door handle to yank it open.

The handle copied.

Then the whole door copied.

Three doors stacked tight like giant playing cards and shoved outward.

“Out! Out!” Dr. Pine Quill said, stumbling as the door-stack forced them onto the street.

A human girl jogger skidded to a stop. “Hey!” She hugged a small mail box to her chest, then tripped.

The box hit the road.

Two boxes.

Four.

They slid downhill, bumping and multiplying, as Marker Doe lifted off and chased the growing cardboard wave