Once a discrete camp was made, Ngoi asked for the weapons. Neke laid them out on the ground. There were three assault rifles, but one was clearly not useable. Ngoi examined them all and set one assault rifle aside. There is only one useable assault rifle. He pointed to the pistols. “The Canadians make a version of those, which makes ammo easier to get.” He paused a long while. “You are sure? If you get caught with illegal weapons, then that is entirely on you.”

“I am sure,” I replied.

Ngoi glanced at Rich and said, “Bullets aren’t as definitive a solution as they used to be.” He came to a decision, “Obviously, the Assault rifles will go to the spooks for evidence, but I didn’t see anything else.”

“The rifles were all I collected off the bodies, Sarge. My apologies for not being thorough.” Neke said.

Carla gathered up the pistols, shotgun and ammo as I collected the knives.

“Remind us to buy you a drink when we find a pub,” I said.

“Always,” Kai said quickly.

We put the guns away for now. There is no use wasting our ammo when we have military-supplied weapons. Actually, I suppose all our weapons are military-supplied, just not the same military.

Ngoi had his leg grazed by a bullet, and another was caught in his armoured vest. Carla had a bullet deflect off the scales on her arm, and it left a groove. I was feeding her essence for healing. We got out of that very lightly. These are very good soldiers, probably the best NZ has. They are definitely the best now they are enhanced.

“We going after the runners, sarge?” Kai asked.

Ngoi thought, then said, “No, there are only six days until destruction. We have to be out of here in five. The Anomaly is our mission. I have already let Command know they are here, and Neke is sending the photos now. The rest of the army can earn their keep. It is Aussie territory. I am sure command will pass it to them, and the Americans are here in force. The biggest question is going to be why you, Bob?”

I shrugged, “My great personality?”

“If it came down to your personality, I would have handed you over and walked away.”

“He hides it well, but he has a pretty impressive brain knocking around in there,” Soph said. “The locals haven’t figured it out, so I'm not sure how the Koreans have.”

“Amanda, probably. She is giving too much credit to him.” Carla said.

“So they might target her as well,” Ngoi said, nodding at Neke to pass that along. “Today, we rest. Tomorrow, we go in and see the bastard, get our samples, and then extract.”

After a while, I pulled Carla and Soph away for a quiet chat. This bloody super hearing on Ngoi’s is a pain. “Do you think it is me they are after? You two have a higher profile.”

“I'm not sure we will know. They might just be looking for mutants from other anomalies, and we are the target of opportunity. There are not many of us from the Waiheke Anomaly and less now,” Soph said, thinking of Jeong.

“They must have been here a while to acclimatise this deep,” I mused. “You want to tell us about this teleport, Soph? It seems to break several laws of physics. Is it instant disappearance? It is superfast travel between two points without disturbing the air. Actually, instant disappearance would leave a hole in the air that would be noticeable when it filled. What is it?”

“See?” Carla said, “Big brain, not just big dick.”

“I am sure dick size denotes brain size,” I said.

“It is usually the inverse in my experience. The bigger the dick, the smaller the brain,” Carla said.

“It is all part of my clever plan to hide then,” I said. “Soph?”

“I don’t have that much experience with dicks, the physical kind, I mean. Personality-wise, I have too much experience with.”

“Teleport,” I reminded her.

“It is not actually a teleport. It is like a gate opens, and you step through. It seems like a teleport when Eliza does it because she is flying and is already moving fast.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“So you could open this gate without stepping through? How long is it open for?”

“Less than a second. I have this innate sense of when to move.”

“Could you open it and not move through?”

“Yes.”

“What happens if you open it and get stuck halfway?”

“The gate fails. That is why I can’t wear a big backpack or carry long things. I have to keep the assault rifle against my body.”

“Could you open it and throw something else through?” I ask.

“Or shoot through,” Carla asks.

“I think so? I'm not sure. The timing would have to be very exact. It always appears right in front of me, and I can’t seem to change that.”

“If you open it with your arm stretched out, where does it appear, by you or at the end of your arm? Can we see?”

Soph looks around, sees nobody, and stretches out her arm. The air seems to shimmer for a second, and then it stops. It was right at my fingertips.”

“So you couldn’t hold a pistol,” Carla said,

“But she could open it at the tip of her left hand, holding the pistol in her right hand,” I said. “Where does the other gate open? You know we are just going to call them portals eventually, not gates.”

“We should just call them gates,” Carla said, “in case we are overheard. Gates are less interesting than portals.”

I nodded, acknowledging the point.

“It is always opens the way I am facing. I can’t seem to change that.”

“So fast movement forward, not a change of direction. Where your body is facing or where you head is facing?”

“Body.”

“I am wondering if some physical organ is doing this, or is it purely essence? It must be pure essence if you can use it through the mental bond. Or is it a mental skill? Why can't we learn it if it is pure essence or mental?” I wondered.

“It is Eliza’s mutation, isn’t it?” Carla asked.

“Yes, as far as I can determine, it is her only mutation.”

Eliza appeared suddenly and landed on Soph’s shoulder.

“That is one way to surprise someone with enhanced senses,” I said, being surprised.

“Yes,” Soph said, “although Rich senses the essence use, so he can tell.”

“Could you open a port… gate for Rich to jump through?” I asked.

“I think so, although the timing would have to be exact.”

“What would happen if it closes if he is halfway through?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to risk chopping him in half.”

“Fair enough, but we can test it with other objects partly through. You said the portal fails when you don’t make it through, so it will probably just fail for him as well. If you are part way through and it fails, are you here or there?”

“Here. If it fails, it fails.”

Suddenly, I heard Neke at the camp say, “Sarge, Kai, something happened! It is like a gate opened, and I feel flooded with power. Oooh, this is cool.”

I smiled, “come on, let's go help her with her new essence power and see if we work out how to get the others there.”

We spent some time working with Neke on enhancing her powers and what we had discovered about healing and boosting. She would discover boosting herself soon enough. She can work out the super boost herself.

“You said it was like a gate opened?” I asked.

“Yeah, but that was just the energy flooding me. Essence, I suppose it was,” Neke responded.

“What were you doing before that?”

“I was playing around with your idea of linking the essence to the veins and stuff, but it didn’t feel right. I felt I should be letting it grow through me like an invasive water weed, and yeah, it invaded.”

“A weed, huh?” Ngoi said.

“An edible water weed, like watercress?” Kai asked.

“Whatever works for you, mate,” Neke responded.

An hour and a half later, I heard Ngoi say, “Yeah, that's the good stuff.” His skin would would heal fast now.

It wasn’t until the morning that Kai came in from the last watch with a big grin. “My range has expanded to twenty-five meters, more with a boost he said.

I had the feeling these three would now have no trouble with the power of the essence at the centre by the anomaly.

The three of us would have to resist it. I wasn’t sure about Rich or Eliza. Eliza is a native, so hopefully, she may also get flooded with essence. Soph can sense the essence in Eliza. That is a helpful skill of Rich’s. Eliza is not flooded yet.

Rich is a hybrid, and I had no idea what that means. He and Buck showed incredible resistance to the dark turquoise when they were pure fluorescent blue. Now I don’t know. Soph can sense his essence. The colours have not mixed as such. They are both there together, all mixed up but still separate, if that makes sense. I told Soph it didn’t.

Looking at us and the soldiers, she can see what a flooded Essence looks like, and neither Eliza nor Rich is flooded.