Rifts were quite the thing. They played havoc with your perception, since no matter which direction you looked at them from, they looked the same. It was almost like they were rotating to face you, except everyone saw the same thing. The interior held this unnatural blackness that seemed to absorb all light. Thin and tall in shape, the edges formed a ragged perimeter over which hopped little arcs of electricity, so thin you’d almost miss them.
I hadn’t touched one before, but they looked kind of like the type of static you could torture your siblings with on a dry day. Not that I’d ever do that.
Some other equipment was still the truck, and I helped unload those with new guy.
“How’s that treating you?” I said, after the third time I saw him rub his head.
“Not the best, stings like mad… But that’s on me.” he replied, tacking on the last bit after a few seconds while holding his hands up. He was probably worried I was going to judge him.
“It’ll feel better once it stops hurting.” I deadpanned, watching his face go through a couple of emotions before I laughed. “It’s something my gran likes to say. She’s not wrong you know!”
He brightened up a bit. “I suppose she’s not.”
“Hand me the anchors, please.” He looked around a few moments before handing over an expensive looking hard case. It was smaller than you’d expect if you had seen them set up. I hoisted it onto my shoulder and walked towards the rift. Bossman was standing in front of it, the perpetual look of annoyance on his face as always as he peered into the depths. Occasionally one of the static sparks would jump off of it and hit him, making him jump a little.
“That’s about far enough,” he said without taking his eyes off the rift. Not sure if it was the sound of my steps or something more esoteric that let him know how far away I was. “Set those there and retreat, I’m going to set them up now.”
I did as he ordered, plopping the case on the ground, with maybe too much “plop”. I saw him wince a little at the noise but he didn’t say anything about it, staying concentrated on the work in front of him. I retreated away quickly, deciding that the busier and elsewhere-ier I could get, the less likely he was to follow up.
There were some tables set up farther away. A man with an apparatus sporting far too many lenses on his head sat at one of them, looking around with some trepidation. He was the appraiser - out with us this time. He hadn’t been on the truck or in the cab, so I was surprised to see him there and a little confused before I spotted an expensive looking black car parked nearby. It placed as far away from anything else as he could get it while not being too inconvenient. Probably was worried it’d get scratched if it was over by us plebs.
I mean, he wasn’t wrong, it probably would. The way my coordination worked some days I couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t be me to do it either.
“Hi István,” I said, waving. “What brings you out here?”
“Oh Charley!” he said, brightening up. “Always good to see you!” He shifted himself on the chair a bit, looking at the rift. “Viktor said this rift was going to be special - so I’d decided to come out and see it for myself.”
It took me a few seconds longer than I’d like to admit to remember that the Boss had a real name. I was always just calling him ‘Sir’ to him directly and a plethora of less respectful names in my head so the association wasn’t there. Honestly, I should probably stop the name calling before I accidentally say one to his face and get punched directly into unemployment.
I turned and looked at the rift. It seemed pretty normal to me, but I knew next to nothing about them. Maybe it had more sibling electrification potential than normal? I looked back at him. “So is it?”
He looked confused for a second. “Oh, special? It seems like it should be.” He held up a small box in front of him with a pair of wide set prongs sticking out of the top. “The charge gradient in the air is higher than we usually see.” He turned the meter side-on to the rift, so one prong was farther from the other and the meter readout jumped up, the little needle twitching. “See?”
So yeah, more zap. Score one for me.
I heard a loud tearing sound. Both of us turned to look at the rift. Viktor had the anchors out of the case and was trying to attach the first one. By “attaching”, I mean he just kind of pawed at the edge of the rift with larger end of the anchor like an awkward teenager on their first date.
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“He didn’t even bring chocolates.” I muttered under my breath as another peal of static sounded as he missed again. Looking around, though, he’d brought equipment worth enough for me to live comfortably for a few years. Just as I was thinking that, the anchor caught. Who doesn’t like being spoiled?
With a motion of his giant arms, Viktor threw the other end of the anchor at the ground, where it embedded itself disturbingly deep given the effort it the throw had behind it. It was like someone had fired it into place with a spear gun.
An arc crackled down the length of the thin wire attaching to the two points, trailing a shower of tiny sparks, and the rift bobbed. He moved to the other side, and after a few minutes he had the other one hooked. The bobbing stopped.
“Gotta run!” I said to István and took off at a jog towards a stacked pile of tray-looking things called ‘CUs’, short for containment units. They were black, squared off, and had raised edges and a depression in the middle full of what looked like little needles. On the side was an eight-segment display and a button. I pushed the button and the display lit up, displaying [9]
I walked towards the rift, where Viktor stood, a few beads of sweat on his brow, a rare sight indeed. He was putting a heavy-weight cloak of sorts that covered his hands, arms, and the front of his body. A face shield and hood covered the top of his head. The back was open, probably for ventilation.
I set down the CU and stepped forward, helping buckle of the back of the gear so it’d stay put. Not sure how this fit into my immature metaphor. Was I the side chick? “Good to go!” I said, in a half-shout. While the anchors prevented the rift from moving - and from closing one assumed - it also made the static noises they emitted even louder. No gentle fantasy portal thrum here. All violence, all the time.
Viktor turned back to the rift and reached out a hand carefully. A bolt of static snapped loudly as it jumped to his finger, reminding me of something I’d forgot. I fished out some earplugs and quickly put them in, facepalming my stupidity for forgetting to have done so earlier. I’d been to too many of these to forget such things, even if it had been a while since I was last on CU duty. The world got much quieter and I sighed a little. So much better. Picked the CU back up, using the handles on both sides this time.
He took few deep breaths and plunged his hand in. The rim where forearm met the portal hissed, a ring of white current blasting out a shower of embers, like a child banging two burning sticks together while their parents plead with them to ‘put that down right this second young lady!’
*Cough*
The air had this metallic tang to it that got stuck in the nose and irritated the throat. Viktor made a grunt, then pulled his arm back towards him, making slow progress of it. I held my CU up. It was humming.
Finally I saw fingers, grasping ball of light burning so bright one could not even look at it directly. He set it on the CU. The humming from it grew louder, but the brightness of the ball dipped noticeably. I hurried away. The ball of light dimmed as I went. It was already a yellow color and easier to look at. I tilted my head to look at the side of the device.
[7]
So still good. I did my best to balance speed and keeping the tray steady as I walked over to another long table the other people had set up. At this a few people I knew sat, holding some different implements that were designed to extract the artifacts from the still bright lump that sat on my tray. I set the tray down in front of the first one.
“Seven!” He called out. Keeping tabs on the energy in the trays was important. The artifacts did not like being exposed to air fresh out of the rift. It was like it made them even hotter. The technology in the tray was designed to isolate them until they “cooled” off enough to work on. This table and the one next to it was a production line to process them and get the artifacts out.
At the far end sat more of the CUs. I picked another one up and joined the back of the line behind Viktor as he continued to pull the future artifacts out of the rift. I wound up behind new guy somehow. I could see a little crusted blood on the back of his head. No wonder it was still hurting.
“Fancy seeing you again.” I said, almost making him drop his CU.
“You startled me!” He replied.
“I noticed. You all up to speed on how all this goes?” I asked, trying to sound more reliable than I had confidence in being.
“Yes, some of the other guys brought me up to speed.” I nodded. Good good. At least there were some actually dependable people around. He seemed conflicted for a bit, then looked at me again. “How many times have you done this?”
That made me think - it had been quite a few, but how many exactly? They all seemed to blend together. This one was special because I didn’t normally get to see the rift stabilizing process up close. Usually there was a team lead helping the boss get strapped in and handling the anchors, et cetera. Lately, I’d be back at the table where the appraiser was now. I liked that better anyway.
“Probably about three or four dozen times, if I had to guess. I will admit I stopped paying attention after the first few.”
“Fair enough. Probably pretty routine once you’ve already done all this,” he said, gesturing at the rift with his CU.
“It is. You’ll be fine,” I reiterated. He nodded, but didn’t say anything else. Before long we were at the front of the line. Viktor was damp with perspiration at this point, his shirt sticking to his back. I did not envy his work one bit.
New guy raised up his CU, and the bossman dropped the artifact ball onto it. This one seemed even larger than normal. Looks like we were going to get a good haul this time. Newbie let the weight rest onto his shoulders and then turned to walk back to the table. I watched him walk past, looking at the artifact, which was still very bright, making me squint, even though it should have been a little dimmer by now. I glanced at the display on the side of his CU.
The display had a [2][1]