“Hey Sam, how did training go?” River asked poking their head in the door. “I didn’t want to ask while the other two were here.”
“Good and weird?” I said uncertainly as I spun my chair around to face them.
“Start with the good.” They said while coming into the room, I gestured at the bed as they did so.
“Well, Molly was showing me a whole load of moves, uh forms? I dunno what they are called but I can see how they would be useful.” River nodded as they sat on my bed, and I hesitated for a second before adding. “I’m also glad it’s not just her as an agent anymore, she was rattling around in this big office alone and it seemed like it was lonely.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, as the aftershocks dropped off the other people left over time.”
“Ah.”
“As for the weird.” I continued with a sigh. “Turns out while my math unit is really slow at general math, ballistics are its jam.”
“Ballistics?” They asked with a frown.
“Yeah, Colonel Brant had me shoot a pistol, turns out I am a really good shot...” I trailed off while watching them uncertain of what response I would get.
“They had you use a gun?” they asked shocked.
“Yeah, it’s a requirement for field agents to have one,” I answered with a shrug trying to appear nonchalant about it. “They were pretty insistent on the idea of it being a worst-case thing, Molly said she’s never needed to use it on someone.”
“I don’t like it.” River said succinctly a deep frown forming.
“Me neither, the idea that my brain is designed to be that good with one is a little bit disturbing honestly.” I admitted.
“Are you OK with continuing to work with them in spite of that?” They asked.
I thought for a moment.
“Yeah, so far as I can tell they really do walk the talk as far as trying to help people.” I started to turn back to the computer while continuing to speak. “I had actually been pulling up old news articles on them when you popped in, check it out, I found Molly in one of them.”
River stood from the bed and looked over my shoulder.
Embedded in the article was a picture of Molly in tan pants and a white dress shirt with a pistol visibly at her side, she was leaning against a white car with a partially obscured government crest and Clash Resolution Department label on the door. She seemed to be in the midst of a conversation with a man with porcupine-like quills for hair and large claws on his three-fingered hands, the guy was almost crying and it looked like Molly was probably trying to reassure him from her expression. I think I could just make out Colonel Brant In the background facing away from the camera and leaning into a cop car window. The caption just said, ‘Agent Scott talks to a suspect.’, so we didn’t have the context for whatever happened as that wasn’t the topic of the article.
“Huh, it is.” They agreed while looking at the picture. “What’s the article about?”
“Ironically complaining about the department’s use of our overall budget, apparently something like forty percent of it goes into therapy, housing, and stuff like that for people we help.” I explained, then my tone turned a bit sardonic. “According to the author, that is outside of the role of an organization expected to be an artifact cataloger with some law enforcement adjacent roles.”
River hummed appreciatively, as I turned away from the computer to talk from memory.
“Another article was complaining about how we bypass the justice system too much and let people get off scot-free, although it conceded that our rate of repeat offenders is all but nonexistent.” I gave River a wry grin. “Turns out helping people get through their issues constructively is far more successful than tossing them in prison for a million years.”
I then remembered another detail. “Oh, and there’s a good number of positive articles too, although in like ninety percent of them the department isn’t mentioned by name, just as being referred to as a law enforcement or government organization.”
“Huh, that’s pretty good to hear actually.” They said thoughtfully. “Any chance you could send me some of these to read?”
“Of course!”
----------------------------------------
“Morning!” Anna greeted us on the walk to class
“Good morning!” I answered while stopping and pulling her into a hug.
While a touch startled, she evidently approved from how quickly she returned it. As I released her, she took the initiative of giving me a kiss, an all too brief but wonderful experience.
“Come on we’ll be late if you spend all morning like that.” Mike called jokingly and we rushed to catch up.
As we sat down, I noticed there seemed to be an excited chatter amongst the group at the level below us, nothing that unusual I guess, so I wasn’t really paying attention them.
“Yeah, but it’s a real-world Stargate, how cool is that!” one of them said, causing me to jerk my head up from my bag.
“It’s not like you are going to get to go through it John, that’s gonna like astronaut tier shit I bet.” One of the others responded.
“I don’t know about that; I mean they seized it from someone right? Maybe they aren’t actually that hard to do.” John countered.
“What’s this about a Stargate?” I asked leaning forward over my desk, worried about what I’d hear.
John jumped at my voice but turned to look at me, his eyes widening as he did.
“Uh, look at CBC it’s the front page, there’s some Stargate the police seized in Germany.” He said his eyes roaming but mostly meeting my gaze.
“Neat, I’ll take a look. Thanks.” I said while going back to pull my laptop out.
A quick glance while it left sleep mode showed Jake was giving me a worried look from my left, Anna was looking between us with a curious look while pulling her own laptop out. Mike and River seemed to be jumping ahead to getting the article open themselves having already set up.
Once I got on the CBC site, I found that I recognized the machine pictured in the article as being a one-to-one match to the one I had seen previously. There was also a blurry body camera shot of the open portal into a town embedded in a jungle, the distinct absence of anything in the gap between the portal and the arch. The article admitted they barely knew anything about it besides it going to another world and that it had been seized from a shell company without a legitimate business operation or clear owner.
No mention of what must have been happening to the person on the dais, you could see in the body cam shot either.
Fuck.
Who gave this to the press?
Checking my department email revealed a meeting notification listing it as at 430PM, an email confirming the accuracy of the information from Wilson, and one reminding us that our portal and the action which resulted in us having should still be kept confidential from Summers. Closing the small window I had been reading my emails in to prevent anyone else from seeing them, I wasn’t able to resist a sigh causing Anna to look away from the article open on her screen to me.
“What’s wrong? Isn’t this just rad! Imagine getting to visit other dimensions!” She said bouncing in her seat. “That was a town of lizard people!”
“We would get to meet, if not outer space aliens, but legitimate other people’s different from our own! This is incredible!” She continued. “The possibilities that having access to other technologies and cultures to learn from alone is awesome! Although it did say the person on the dais there didn’t consent to be involved.”
Shit, do I tell her about the fact it was killing them?
“I can’t talk about why it’s not great.“ I said instead.
She frowned initially, then her eyes widened.
“is it to do with the ki-“ She covered her mouth realizing what she was saying.
“I can’t say.” I said attempting to keep a neutral tone, but my mouth quirked up in a smile anyway.
“Ok, ok, ok. Fuck. Right.” She said leaning forward and staring at the picture of the active portal, evidently piecing together what I meant. “Is the person on the machine being killed by it?”
“I can’t say.”
“Right.” She said leaning back into the seat wide-eyed.
I don’t think any of us paid as much attention to the lecture as we intended to.
----------------------------------------
“What a fucking shit show,” Molly said face contorted in anger as she flopped into the seat beside me. Be glad you didn’t get invited to this morning’s meeting.”
She started pulling her math notebook out of her bag, being a bit rougher on it than strictly needed. “It was just a call with those idiots in Germany absolving themselves of responsibility for images the police released.”
I glanced around, incredulous she was talking about it here.
“Refuge in audacity Sam, if you aren’t looking like you’re hiding something most people won’t care what we are talking about.” She said then gave me a grin, evidently Kat and her would agree on that idea at least. “Besides they will probably still be distracted by you if they turn and look.”
“Wow. Thanks.” I responded accompanied by an eye roll.
“I’m not the one with shiny purple hair, Sam!” She said with a chuckle. “Anyway, I’ll give you a ride over if that works for you.”
“Thanks, yeah.”
Then Bagshaw started talking, so I tried my best to pay attention.
----------------------------------------
We arrived for the meeting a bit early, so I got to see the same faces from last week’s meeting pile in, with the addition of Alica.
“I don’t intend this stretch out, but I would like to get everyone on the same page, then I will be getting updates from a few of you.” Summers began. “As I am sure you are all aware from it being plastered over the news, portals have entered public awareness. In addition, we have further confirmation of whoever is ultimately behind the attacks has transcontinental presence and we do believe it is the same organization in both cases.”
“The construction of this portal is almost identical to the one we have in our possession, and from what we have been informed the mercenaries involved were recruited and instructed in similar ways.” Summers continued, before passing the baton. “Wilson, I believe you also had some opinions.”
“Ah, yeah,” He said a bit startled. “We have been looking into the previous victims so far, they have all been associated with dimension clashes which resulted in notable artifacts of one kind or another. For example, the first person to die in California was associated with the same clash that resulted in a water purifier artifact that contained a truly impressive power source.”
He hesitated for just a moment. “The most recent death yesterday was associated to the last clash, and the importance of that is, well, Samantha.” He was looking at me as he said that, drawing other people’s gaze to me at the same time. “She is a demonstration of a world capable of creating synthetic life along with advanced mechanical systems.”
I felt uncomfortable suddenly being the center of attention, Summers coughed when the following silence stretched a bit too long and Wilson continued jumping a bit and looking guilty.
“This is still speculation on my part, but I believe the current intent of the organization, Org A as my team has started to refer to it, is to collect ‘fuel’-“ His face twisted while saying that. “For accessing dimensions which they can harvest valuables from at later points in time.”
“We know now for certain they had at least two portals and almost certainly more, the one captured here, the one in Germany, and I believe it highly unlikely that the death yesterday in Texas was from the German portal.” He paused for a drink then continued. “Now for what we are doing in response.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Our attempts to track parts from our portal have been inconclusive so far, but we are still looking. We are also trying to build a list of potential targets they might have, frankly there are too many people to have any sort of active protection going on even if you were to just narrow it to Ontario or our region.” He said with a frown. “Nor do we know how they prioritize their targets yet.”
“Finally, we’ve narrowed down where they got some of the documentation used in their local attempt, but we aren’t confident enough to point fingers yet. That’s my update for the moment, we have some other initiatives in progress but like the documentation investigation they mostly involve other government agencies doing the work.” He finished.
“Thank you.” Summers said, then turned towards Alica and Peter.
“I believe our engineering team has updates on our captured portal.” They both nodded, and Peter indicated for Alicia to go ahead.
“I won’t claim we actually understand the screamgate, but we believe that we could repair ours if desired. The fact there is a more intact version in Germany will help to a degree but without direct access to it there will be a game of telephone going on.” She gestured at Peter to take over.
“As for working on understanding it, we are looking into bringing on some candidates to help us on the physics side, but we are making good progress on analysis of the software and hardware we are in possession of.” He hesitated for a second then continued a bit uncertainly. “Honestly we are increasingly believing this technology is not from our dimension, and at the very least whoever built it does not have a great understanding of what they were doing.”
“I won’t get into specifics, but we keep on encountering inefficient or ineffective choices that become evident with even as little knowledge as we do have.” He explained. “The dais is of course an exception to this; it seems far better developed.”
“Oh yeah, Sam!” Alicia piped up as Peter finished. “We actually are making really good progress on spares for you, we had a few functional fingers earlier today I want to show you when you have time.”
“That’s fast!” I said incredulously, to which she gave a shrug back.
“Technically speaking it isn’t that hard with the help of CNC machines since we have exact shapes of everything, plus your limbs are almost purely mechanical. I will admit we haven’t even started trying to replicate anything from your torso yet.” Then a quick grin crossed her face. “We also found more of the magic crystals in your guts, so we assume that’s involved in your digestion in some way.”
“Sorry, I’m done interrupting now.” She said while ducking her head in a guilty bob.
“It’s quite alright, it ties into our next subject anyway,” Summers said waving it off. “We were going to turn to Molly for an update from our field agents on readiness.”
He turned to look at Molly.
“Er, yeah I’ve been spending some time, along with Mary, getting started with on-boarding and training Sam.” She gave me a quick glance and then continued. “I would say she could probably help on an observational role in the next few weeks, possibly faster if she has some spare time.”
She leaned forward and looked around the table. “Otherwise, I’m reluctant to say I’m comfortable getting in an engagement with Org A without significant backup from the military or police.”
“To be frank, it’s a bit of a different problem dealing with a potentially large-scale organized and experienced force than a handful of wannabe gangsters with crappy pistols and some abilities.” She finished before sitting back, I guess she was referring to the incident Peter talked about last week.
“Thank you,” Summers said with a nod. “Mary maybe you can speak to that?”
“I lit a fire under my contacts to keep a LAV and some people at least somewhat prepared, but beyond that there’s not much I can do right now.” She said with a frown. “Frankly without a specific objective, it's going to be an operational security risk as someone is going to notice and soldiers will chat.”
“I’m aware, but we need a faster response time for the next incident.” Summers insisted.
“I agree Martin, but we have to keep it in mind.” She rebutted, then her frown deepened. “Not to mention it’s not like they are going to be sitting in the LAVs waiting, it will still take them time to get ready when we call, and we might not be so lucky with the base being as close to their destination.”
“I’ve put out some suggestions into law enforcement in Ontario.” Jung-Hoon stepped in after she finished. “But I couldn’t give anything concrete and having the police worried can result in… incidents.” He finished with a grimace.
“Thank you both.” Summers acknowledged. “Any luck from the states Joncas?”
“Not a thing, as usual, the FBI and EDB are squabbling about responsibility, they’ll get back to us eventually.” I had a vague awareness of EDB referring to the Extradimensional Developments Bureau in the states from random bits of news over the last few years.
“Figures,” Summers said with a sigh. “I think that’s all we have unless someone wants to add something.”
“Ivy does! I will talk for her since Sam can’t hear.” Molly piped up, the paused for a second listening to Ivy. “She wanted to give Sam an update on the tentacled people since she’s not here for all the meetings. They are settling in at their temporary housing, and while they aren’t entirely happy since they are still stuck here for now, they do appreciate our attempts to get them comfortable.”
“Ah, good catch Ivy. Is there anything else?” Summers asked letting it hang for a moment, then checked the time on the clock over the door. “Well, some of us need to get home to our families so I will call it here. Thank you for coming.” He said to a scraping of chairs and small conversations forming.
I ended up chatting with Ivy and Molly for a few minutes trying to sus out what they wanted to do with me. turns out they wanted to bring me clothes shopping which I can’t say I was too surprised about, and I agreed to meet them after I went for a run on Thursday.
----------------------------------------
“Don’t feel obligated to do more training with me just because I talked about it in the meeting,” Molly said while we walked towards the artifact engineering spaces.
I shrugged. “I should have some time this week and I’m not too worried about the upcoming midterms, so I am down to do some more.” I got a sheepish grin. “It’s kinda fun actually.”
She laughed.
“You might regret saying that yet, doing too much can make you pretty sore- wait do you get sore?” She asked looking back at me.
“Uh, kinda the opposite? I am aware of when I have done a lot of motion, but it feels nice to have complete fluid turnover, although seepage doesn’t feel great so I guess that’s similar.”
“Ugh, that’s cheating.” She said with a groan.
“Well, take it with the caveat that I will literally lock up if I spend too long static and I am a computer science student, so it’s six of one half a dozen of the other.” I counted smiling.
“Heh, fine I will accept that.”
“Oh yeah,” I said remembering an important point. “I am still planning on doing stuff with my girlfriend, so it’s not like I am gonna give up all my free time to being thrown across a room.”
This had her rolling with laughter. “I have a life too, so don’t worry too much.” She said after recovering. “Would you be down for a bit before the Tuesday night meet?”
“Sounds good!”
A few more moments had us passing into the Artifact Engineering lobby and a glance into the sea of tables revealed Alica giving us a wave from one. Making our way past the other individuals working and chatting found us at a table covered in stuff that honestly made me feel kinda squeamish. It was incomplete version of my right arm and hand laid out on the table sans skin or any of the armour panels and missing a lot of the smaller specialized pipes and control lines. Only a few of the fingers looked reasonably complete.
I pulled my eyes away from it to meet Alica’s grinning face.
“Nice progress.” I said my voice a touch unsteady.
“Is something wrong with it?” She asked the smile turning wooden.
“Uh, no it’s just uh weird to look at. My brain doesn’t like that it’s recognizing bits of me on the table.” I glanced back at the table and trying not to let the feeling get in the way.
“Wait is it like seeing surgery photos or something?” Alica asked excitement returning to her voice.
I nodded, then I felt Lilly’s interest in examining their work, so I offered my arm as a path down. As she wandered around checking it, I looked back up at Alica and Molly. “It’s probably a good sign that you’re getting close honestly.”
“That’s really cool!” Alica said excitedly. “Wait, have you seen anything like that for humans and not had that reaction?”
“Uh, no I hav-“
Wait that’s not right when I injured those kidnappers I was upset about injuring them but I don’t remember having an issue seeing the injuries themselves.
“Fuck.”
Molly winced guessing at what I was thinking of.
“Uh well, I think I probably have a negative association but I’m probably not squeamish about it.” I explained to Alica.
“Ok changing the subject now!” Molly cut in to head off further questions from Alica. “What’s Uh, Lilly right, up to?”
“I believe she’s checking out if the arm is compatible, but I won’t know till she gets back.”
“Oh? You don’t have a direct connection?” Alica asked her curiosity overriding any annoyance about the change in the topic that had previously been on her face.
“Nope, gotta wait till she plugs in again,” I confirmed. “She understands us and everything, but she doesn’t have a voice, I do usually get what she means when she implies stuff though.”
Conveniently offering an example, Lilly chose that moment to pause and gestured a little hand at the inside of a joint.
“I would guess the oil groove isn’t deep enough.” I translated for the others and got a tiny three-fingered thumbs up from Lilly confirming my belief. “Like that.”
“That’s adorable.” Molly said while Alica started scribbling down a note.
“Would you mind asking her if there’s anything else we missed?” Alica asked sheepishly a moment later.
“As I said, she can understand you so feel free to ask her directly, I am happy to relay what she means though.”
She nodded apologetically then leaned over towards Lilly. “Hey Lilly, would you mind pointing out any of our other errors?”
Lilly paused for just a moment before giving a thumbs up.
“Thank you!” Alica said a broad grin forming.
Lilly made a little follow-me motion and then ran off into the arm.
“While you three do that, I’m going to fill in some requisition forms come and find me when you’re done here!” Molly said wandering off.
“Wait, I don’t know how to get to the office yet!” I called back.
“Follow green then switch to red, switch again at purple, and then look for my name.” She shouted while passing through the door into the hall. Mystified I made a note on my phone, then went back to the other two who had waited for me.
“Don’t worry about it, you’ll get used to it.” Alica chuckled.
----------------------------------------
I was genuinely surprised when I arrived at the door to our office without getting lost, I guess I can now get between two parts of the facility and probably out the front door.
Go me.
Opening the door, I found Molly typing while leaning over the back of her chair. In a rare moment, her beanie was on the desk letting her hair float around her head like it was in water.
Neat, she did mention that sometimes her hair is weightless.
“Hey.” I said with a hand up as she looked up.
“Yo! I have almost all the boring stuff done, I did save a few things to get your opinion on though.”
I put my backpack on my part of the desk then rolled my chair beside her and sat down.
“Boring one first, brown leather or black pleather holder for your badge?” She asked.
“I get a badge?” I asked confused. “Uh pleather I guess”
“Hell yeah you do, it’s just a plastic one with text and your picture but it still feels cool to whip it out at someone.” She said with a grin, which fell away a bit. “Ok, now for the one you might not be as fond of. You get a holster for the pistol and some mags, but I didn’t know if you would be fine with one on your hips.”
“Uh, probably not if it’s supposed to rest on them, it would probably drop into the gaps in my hips unless I strap it on tight at my midriff.” I pointed out, still a bit uncomfortable with the idea of having a gun.
“Right, I thought that might be the case, well that leaves a shoulder holster then.” She paused looking at the options for a second, then got a grin. “Wait this one has straps over and under your boobs, that’s hilarious. You’re getting that one, I have decided if nothing else it’ll make a great picture for your GF.” She finished, pronouncing each letter.
“Uh, ok sure.” I said a little confused.
“Aw, not gonna fight it?”
I looked down, then back at her.
“I’m pretty sure given my lack of assets it will be less exciting than you think.” I answered wryly.
“Don’t sell yourself short.” She said with a snort but went back to her laptop. “You fine with all the other random shit like first aid gear going in a messenger bag?”
“Yep.”
“Rad, well that’s everything physical right now. Over time we will probably have you pick up certs of various kinds but I kind of prioritize our training first.”
“I have a first aid certification if that helps.” I mentioned.
“Perfect! Do you have it on you? I can enter it in the system if you do.”
“Yeah, one sec.” I grabbed it out of my wallet and groaned glancing at it.
“What’s up?”
“It’s still in my old name, is that valid?” I asked concerned
“Eh, no clue let me enter it and I can get you a new one through us anyway.” She said with a shrug and offered a hand.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what made you pick it up, it’s pretty recent so not a high-school thing.” She asked while typing the details in.
“Jake runs the games nights the student union hosts, and I normally volunteer to help. Since both of us have first aid that’s the two minimum needed for the event.”
“Huh, really. I think I’ve been to a few of those, can’t say I recognize who you were before.”
“I was basically a default character in a cheap MMO, five ten and brown hair so I’m not surprised honestly,” I said with a shrug. “Plus, I was usually running around doing stuff instead of playing games.”
“Ok, maybe I would have recognized you by the last bit. Sorry about that.” She said sheepishly.
“Nah it’s cool. I did kinda go from not memorable to very.” I said with a lopsided grin, which prompted a laugh.
“I will mention that I might get you into a higher level first aid course at some point in the summer if you are free.” She mentioned while clicking through options. “We have a partner with a course that includes almost EMT level stuff as well as stuff for helping changees better.”
“Sounds good to me.” Then I felt a little guilty she was doing everything. “Actually, is there anything I can do to help?”
“Nope, I’m pretty much done with your paperwork stuff anyway.” She said while offering my first aid card back. “I would probably check your email though, Mary said she might send you some details, of what I don’t know.”
After stuffing the card back into my wallet and storing it in my bag, I got my laptop out and brought up the email. Molly went to fill her cup with coffee from the machine behind me, it’s a bit weird that I hadn’t even noticed the smell.
There were a few requisition form automation notifications because of the stuff Molly put in, and an email from Colonel Brant.
Next Session
Hi Sam hope its going well,
Like we talked about I am skipping the accuracy stuff since you don't need it, instead I am going to familiarize you with a few non-standard guns next weekend. This will give me a chance to prep for the next topics since I don't have something ready off hand.
I will pick you up from your place as we won’t start at the facility if you are fine with that.
-Mary
Note: You mentioned your brain needing ammunition information, see attached
Attached: [9mm + AP + HP.pdf, 556.pdf, 127x99.pdf]
She seems a bit more casual in emails, neat.
I recognized the first two cartridges but isn’t the last .50 BMG?
“Well, apparently Colonel Brant is putting me on the big guns because she sent me info on the cartridges I am firing on the weekend.” I commented while Molly settled back into her seat, having added some milk to her coffee.
“Oh?” She prompted while taking a sip from her mug.
“Yeah, looks like fifty cal is on the menu.”
She made a choking sound for a second, then recovered while leaning forward towards me incredulous.
“What, I’ve never shot something that big and she wants you to on your second time shooting?”
I shrugged.
“Well, let me know how that goes.” She said settling back into her chair.
I spent a while reading the sheets of data on the cartridges, it took longer than I would have expected because my math unit unfolded into ballistics mode and got uppity if I went too fast. It would start making the math error noise until I had thoroughly read each detail, then it would spend a few seconds clattering away changing some register values and then storing them away.
“You know I really should have said something when I heard a few of those noises on the range, I kinda just thought you were overthinking something” Molly commented at one point.
“Eh don’t worry about it, I was so wound up in following the instructions I had been given I didn’t even think of it either.” I admitted glancing up from the datasheet and getting a complaint from my brain in response.
“Heh, well I would guess Mary isn’t too hung up on it given, you know the big guns.” She said while making an arm curling motion that sent the hair floating around that side of her head flying away.