Brilliant chapter. I think Coil will get a nasty surprise if he tries to recruit Lisa by gunpoint in this story. Of course that's if Calvert still became Coil, since there's already been major changes/ripples for the canon timeline.

I thought Worm was a video game?

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Which is the point.

"Rubber Science" is what you get when a settings physics is presumed to be similar to realities except when it suits the action or plot. If the secondary effects, and their impact on history, are accounted for, then you have an alternate reality.

For example, in a relativistic universe, it does not matter how something moves from one point to another; if it completes the trip faster than light would make the trip, it moves backwards in time. If that does not happen in a setting - regardless of what reason is offered - then it is a non-relativistic setting. There is nothing inherently wrong with such a setting, but if the author then mentions things that rely on relativistic effects, then he or she is using rubber science.

Can mass-energy respond to an additional force, whether or not we call it "magic"? Then subatomic particles have an additional set of properties to allow that interaction, giving them additional decay modes, additional types, and much more. Subatomic physics becomes wildly different.

All conservation laws are linked. If you can violate one, you can violate them all - which makes worrying about the heat death of the universe quite meaningless since energy is no longer conserved.

You can still tell a good story with rubber science - most of the major "science fiction" franchises have told some good stories (along with a few clunkers), and so have superhero stories - but the best way to avoid subtle self-contradictions in so doing (presuming that you do not greatly enjoy coming up with hypothetical physics and examining its implications) is to avoid giving too many details.