How’s it going?” A chipper Mike asked entering the dining room while starting to put an apron on. “Do good on the exam?”
I groaned and lifted my face off the table from where I had been laying for probably fifteen or twenty minutes. “Kinda probably sorta. I don’t think I failed but like I don’t think I did well? I couldn’t remember shit from the start of the semester, there was a question related to that memory management project and it should have been so easy but-“ I made an exasperated wave of a hand like a breeze blowing something away from my head. “Nothin’.”
“Eh, you think you passed though. Good enough then.” He shrugged and started to return to the kitchen before calling over his shoulder. “Hey, any objections to Rebecca and David being by for dinner?”
“Of course not!” I scoffed hopping off the chair to follow him. “What were you going to do? Something fancy?”
He was already starting to pull vegetables out of the fridge by the time I caught up to him. “Cool, well I wasn’t really going to do anything that complex. There’s a Tamale pie thing I got the ingredients for and it looked good.”
“Neat, do we still have any of my leftovers? Or should I get on making something?” I asked as I tied the strap of my own apron behind my back.
“Liam was by while you were out actually, he dropped off a bunch of containers of stuff that I haven’t really surveyed but I expect you can find something fun in that.” I was a little surprised to hear that, but hey the guy made good food, so I definitely didn’t mind having a bunch of stuff to try. “He wanted you to pass on what works though, sounds like it’s a lot of minor variations.”
“Sure thing- Oh, can I?” I asked eagerly as Mike started pulling a knife out of the block, it was probably indulging maid brain a bit too much but there was something really satisfying about prepping ingredients.
“Are you going to scare me again?” He asked wearily while glancing between the blade and me.
“Aw, are you afraid of me with a knife?” I leaned forward towards him with a wide grin.
“Frankly, yes. Yes, I am.” He placed the knife atop the cutting board next to an onion then backed away like it was going to explode. “I swear you’ve only gotten faster since you were gone, and it was already like watching a woodchipper.”
“Well, I did have a bit of time to help mum with dinner and I didn’t really have the rush to get back to work or something. Soooo, yeah, I did a bit more cooking.”
“Did she let you do the spicing and stuff? I still don’t really get how you seem to manage that despite not knowing what it tastes or smells like.” His comment was interspaced by the clinking of the jars in the cupboard being distributed as he rooted amongst them and excessively oversized bags of spices of various discount brands.
I set the onion back on the cutting board, having shucked the outer layer off. “I dunno, mostly just using recipes and gut feel I guess.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen you just free ha-Jesus Fuck.” He interrupted himself as my knife started moving. I turned to look towards him innocently with a smile as I continued chopping the onion, strategically moving it between slices to maximize the apparent impression I could hit my fingers with the knife. “OK yeah, now you’re just fucking with me!” He said while pointing one of the jars in his hand at me with a glower fixed upon his face.
my guffaws confirmed his theory.
“Say, have you checked on your bills and stuff?” Mike idly asked a couple of rounds into guilty gear while the pie was in the oven.
“Fuck! Are you kidding me I thought I had you tha- wait bills?” it had taken a moment or two to process what he said with my attention fully on the combo I had been trying to pull off.
“I doubt you had your credit card paid off or whatever before you went, didja get that already?” he asked speculatively while his character gloated on the outro.
I blinked at him a couple of times before something jumped into gear in my brain and his point sunk in. “fuuuuuccckkk. I’ll be back!” I tossed the controller beside him and then dashed upstairs.
A few hurried minutes later and I had paid off the card, thankful for the CRD income to make that slightly less terrifying concept and that I hadn’t paid for anything particularly expensive before being whisked away. I flopped back in my chair with a sigh and then looked back at the screen while wondering that left my balance, I knew I had been saving up for the next semester with the regular paychecks from the CRD, but I didn’t really have a picture of what that meant in my head after having been gone for so long. Clicking back to the main screen I scanned around for where they showed the number after a recent UI refresh of the website then paused and did a double-take before checking the balance history, there’s no way that number could have possibly been right.
I stared dumbfounded for a moment or two then flipped over to discord and fired off a DM.
IndustrialCat: Molly what the fuck
Ex4ctPlac3: ?
IndustrialCat: Did you do something to that paycheck because it’s way way way too fucking big
IndustrialCat: Like
IndustrialCat: I don’t think I’ve made that much in total at any of my previous jobs
Ex4ctPlac3: oh lol
Ex4ctPlac3: nope that’s all the system
Ex4ctPlac3: Summer put you in as having worked the entire time you were gone
IndustrialCat: What the fuck
IndustrialCat: That’s too much money
Ex4ctPlac3: bah
Ex4ctPlac3: that’s like, less than we pay for toilet paper in a year don’t worry about it lmao
Ex4ctPlac3: enjoy!
“That bad?” Mike asked sympathetically as I got back to the kitchen, my face must have been still stuck in whatever expression I had made upon that surprise. I shook my head still a bit too shocked to formulate an answer. “Then what’s wrong?”
I nervously started giggling as I tried to think of an answer. “I got back pay for being in mech-tech.”
“Oh, that’s great!” He tilted his head with a confused expression. “Then what’s the problem?”
The giggles turned hysterical before I could respond. “It’s enough that I’m not sure I need to apply for the OSAP loan this year!”
----------------------------------------
“We actually have a project on the go to build a device that might let us sustain a portal without tying up a ‘gate for it.” Kat was explaining to a group of us over lunch, I had come in to meet Molly for more hand-to-hand training and we had encountered mum and kat on our way to the caf afterwards. “I’ve mentioned it to you Sam already.” She paused to take a bite of the wrap she was working through then continued with her mouth half full. “The big issue is replicating the slicer actually, without it our dimensions barrier reforms pretty quickly and cuts off the connection. We’ve got a method for feeding fuel into sustaining a link, but the slicer is a black box we can’t risk breaking right now.” She sighed and sat back; the wrap forgotten on her plate. “Ultimately that’s really going to cap us out on anything cross dimensional, we can get as good a relationship with other worlds as we want but that means nothing if we only have the handful of portals available.”
I nodded, it sounds like negotiations had been going really well, to the degree that it was starting to warp people’s perception of what might happen. When even ‘minor’ events like the mercs I had trapped in the tentacled people’s dimension being returned made their way into the news, albeit without any mention of my involvement, then the more impactful things would utterly derail any attempts to restrain people’s imagination. When genuinely world-shaping deals like the cross-cooperation pacts with General Synthetic and other Mech-Tech companies solidify I can only anticipate things going absolutely wild. As it is, it seems like everyone thought we were going to have mass transit between three or four dimensions imminently. The web was becoming a flurry of discussions of trade deals, technological and cultural exchanges, and the potential for cross-dimensional tourism like the date I went on with Anna.
The concentration of portals in Canada compared to elsewhere was probably going to yield political tension too. There was only one other fully functional portal in Munich for the moment, and while they had started their own negotiations with Mech-tech and a couple of other dimensions it had taken them a bit to implement Peter and the team’s modifications so they were late to the party. The French were in a dialog with us to try to figure out how to repair theirs. They had damaged it when in the raid that hadn’t gone to plan, I didn’t really know how long that would take to get up and going as it sounded like it wasn’t straightforward.
Everyone else was getting themselves wound up about a lack of portals, the Americans in particular were bitching up a storm at not having any of their own. From the scuttlebutt I had gotten out of Wilson, they had tried to get one of ours, but Summers had headed them off somehow. I could only imagine that they might be far more invested in trying to track down the FFIA to get their hands on a portal, a pity that’s at odds with their poor infosec right now.
While Kat had moved to some other technical detail while I had been contemplating politics, a thought occurred to me. “What about clashes? Do you know what happens with open portals and could there be a risk with keeping them open?” I interjected into a pause between questions mum had been asking.
“Honestly, we have no idea right now, our current plan is to make sure they are all closed and just not find out. If possible anyway.” Kat admitted with a frown. “It’s easy enough to keep ours closed but I am worried about the others as they start coming online.”
“I believe there’s supposed to be a clash Monday, correct?” Mum asked, there was a round of confirmations from the rest of us at the table. It was hard to avoid learning the predictions for clashes at this point, between being bombarded with emails containing updated estimates from the CRD internal network and government notifications being plastered across the web. “Is there a plan for what happens to those like me from the other side?”
“Sort of,” Kat answered with a half-shrug. “A key detail to keep in mind is that we haven’t ever seen a repeat changee, having a distinct bubble seems to offer protection in some way. But we are going to open a portal back on Sunday for anyone who doesn’t have a good reason to stay.” She poked at her phone a couple of times, then returned her attention to mum. “I’m going to be talking about in that meeting we’re in this afternoon.
“You good to be on call all day Monday Sam?” Molly interjected addressing me. “I know you said you would be but-“
“Yeah yeah, I’m free,” I confirmed waving off her concerns. “Last exam is tomorrow so it’s not like I have to be studying or anything, plus Anna has an assignment due that night so I don’t have anything scheduled.”
“Shouldn’t you be studying now then?” Mum asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Probably but there’s only so much prep for math I can do before my brain starts grinding,” I admitted with a crooked grin. “Plus, I still needed to get my exercise in so I may as well have practiced with Molly.”
My excuse was met with skepticism by the others, and I ended up getting shoed off back home early by the combined badgering of mum and Kat.
----------------------------------------
“Oh, hello Professor Bagshaw,” I greeted a bit startled to encounter him, the university hadn’t told me anything about how the exam would be run besides the generalities and the room. “I wasn’t expecting you to be invigilating.”
“Good afternoon, Sam.” He answered putting down the e-paper reader he had been looking through. “I am partially just doing it to satisfy my curiosity, the university gave remarkably specific instructions with regard to your exam.”
“They did?” I asked worried while I settled into the first desk I arrived at.
“Nothing quite so alarming, mostly information along the lines of how you wouldn’t have had more than a week or two to have prepared.” He admitted. “They didn’t give a reason for your absence either.”
“Oh, yeah I was kinda unavailable for a while,” I responded unsure how much I should volunteer while getting my stationery out.
“Would you mind if I asked why?” He asked curiously. “You don’t have to of course, but usually Allison mentions if it was for a family or medical reason, and she didn’t know.”
I paused for a long moment, the pencils in my hand forgotten. “Uh, I was in another dimension.” I had decided to be honest, it’s not like it was really a secret and it felt weird not to say anything.
“I thought they only start those portals a couple of weeks ago?”
“I didn’t go via one of them, it was a bit less planned than that,” I answered hesitantly while setting my bag down near his desk. “Er, downright undesired actually.” He raised an eyebrow. “Stuff happened but everyone is ok now.” I clarified with a shrug, electing not to concern him with having been in an attempt on my friends and my own life. We were arriving at the start time, so he elected to let me start instead of questioning me further.
I think I did OK, there wasn’t anything I didn’t have an answer for anyway, even if I was a bit tight on time in the end. He accepted the exam back after making a quick note of the time and put it away in his bag along with his reader.
“Should I expect to see you next year?” He asked as I put my pencils away, and I looked up with a half smile.
“I think so yeah, I’m pretty close to a math minor already.” Anna’s guilt-tripping apparently having been successful.
“That’s good to hear,” He started then tapped the side of his bald head “I was hoping the sounds wouldn’t have put you off pursuing math if you still had an interest.”
“Oh, uh yeah I am mostly used to that, but I hope the other students don’t mind.” He waved me off.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about them. Have a good summer Sam, and I look forward to seeing you again next year.”
----------------------------------------
We had an expected time window for the clash now, Molly had just texted me that it would land somewhere between 11 am and 3 pm tomorrow. I hadn’t really been thinking too much about it up to this point, but now that it went from something off in the future to the reality of it being tomorrow. I was beyond nervous about what that meant, not for myself, I was inoculated as were. Instead, I kept on flipping through possibilities for everyone else, everything from no one being the slightest bit affected all the way to the complete apocalypse event that people panicked about since the first clash.
“Chill Sam,” Mike commented from beside me on the couch. “We will be fine.”
“Huh?” I glanced away from getting my ass kicked again.
“Your brain has been going wild since Molly texted you.”
“Oh, sorry.” I responded guiltily as the sound registered with me, leaving me unsure how I hadn’t realized that the whirs and clicks were loud enough to drown the game out.
“Nothin to apologize for, I don’t have the greatest association to clashes either.” He admitted, his attention genuinely slipping off the game as opposed to one of his usual feigned taunts. He started bouncing the controller in a rhythmic tapping against one knee. “Fuck it was scary when you just collapsed like that back then.” I shifted uncomfortably and was about to respond before he continued over me with a raised finger. “But! And here is the key thing, you are fine now so I know whatever happens we can get through this.” He started to frown, but it flickered enough that I was already suspicious even as he continued. “I will admit I might be upset if it disrupts my camping trip with Rebecca and David, we have this nice site far enough from anyone that we can-“
“I really, really don’t need to know.” I interrupted getting guffaws out of him and prompting River to look up from their book. I recognized it as one that had come over with me from Mech-tech, they had gotten quite enamored with sampling a whole other dimension’s fiction, and I was more than happy to lend them out.
“What are you most worried about Sam?” River asked. “That one of us will change or what that change might mean?”
“I…” I started then trailed off. “I’m not sure really what it is exactly. It’s just I don’t want anyone to suffer.” I fidgeted with the controller in my lap, the gentle metallic sounds that my hands made all but inaudible with the game music in the background and my own rushing thoughts. “I know the mental health numbers for changees, and in extreme changees in particular, it’s really not great,” I admitted. “All the ones I’ve met have done well, but at the same time it’s a biased sample towards people that have either handled it ok or got the help they needed thanks to Summers, Molly, or just proactively looking for therapy.”
“The overall suicide numbers are really bad, like ten to twenty-five percent of the population attempted in the last year, depending on the nation,” I rattled off the numbers I had been glancing through in one of my moments of fretting in the last few hours, getting a hiss from Mike as River’s face contorted. “Getting changed like that can be...”
I struggled to think of a good way to articulate it.
“Well, beyond traumatizing really-” I was getting into a rush when speaking. “Like you are just suddenly never going to live as a human again, maybe you end up as a being close enough that it’s just weird and off-putting. But for some people, it means being in a form that’s completely incompatible with how our infrastructure is laid out, and you can never really hope to get more than a minimum of proper accommodations just because you might be one of the barest handful of individuals across the entire planet!”
“I mean look at me, I’m not even organic!” I pointed out with an open palm on my chest, then I hesitated for a moment before sighing and letting my hand fall. “I’ll be honest, I’ve not really done much of the CRD’s original purpose and I’ve only spent a bit of time chatting with the people Molly has helped, but now it’s really sunk in. Like these people often just weren’t in my situation of being lucky enough to have supportive family, friends and I guess a remarkable lack of shits given about my form.”
“I assure you that isn’t the norm by any means…” I stared at my hand as my voice trailed off, the memory of having woken up different from the night before. Once there was complete confusion and uncertainty about what I had even been looking at, now the idea of not being like this was already getting to be an alien concept. What if I had always looked down wanting to see my human hand from before?
“You know that if one of us changes we will support them,” River pointed out breaking me out of the stupor I had fallen into. “We aren’t the average environment, and you know better than any of us how to get used to such a thing.” A warm confident smile spread across their face. “I think we might be the best equipped to handle this out of anyone in the world.” They then chuckled leaving me in confusion for a moment before explaining. “If nothing else you do have the advantage of nepotism, enabling immediate access to everything the CRD has to offer as well.”
I blinked at them. “Uh, I hadn’t thought of that.” I admitted.
“Of course not, you are concerned for us and not thinking straight.” They said shaking their head in wry amusement. “But It is appreciated to know how much you care.”
I nodded a little choked up, and Mike patted me on the back. “Don’t worry, we have the buddy system set up too.” He pointed out. “Everyone is going to have at least one other person with them.” He started listing them out to reassure me, even if I knew them by heart at this point. “River and Leah are going to be here, I’m with Rebecca and David at David’s place, and Jake is with his GF in Barrie.” He was counting up on his fingers as he went through people. “Reiko is gonna be with Anna, and while I don’t have all our various family members sorted out exactly in my head, but I know we checked before.” I nodded in vague acknowledgment as he continued. “Oh and of course, we are gonna be active on the server, so we can do a check-in there.” He gave me a confident smile. “We got this!”
----------------------------------------
“Hey, you’re not in a skirt this time!” Molly commented as I entered the office the next morning.
I glanced down at the nylon hiking pants and then back at her. “It’s not like I’ve intended to do every fight of my life in a skirt, that’s just what I was wearing.” I countered folding my arms over my belly and the practical tank top I had on, while I hadn’t exactly intended to be comedic, she still bent over with laughter.
“Aw, but now you don’t look as fancy.” She pouted in mock disappointment once she recovered, she then gestured at her slacks and dress shirt. “You’re making me look overdressed.”
“I’m pretty sure the beanie undoes that a bit.” I pointed out with a smile, then glanced down at the magazine she was loading. “Are we really going this loaded?”
“Yep, two things here.” She confirmed the grin fading into grim composure while laying the C8 magazine in her hand down on the desktop. “First, official policy as you know is now that we always have a gun when on off-facility duty, no more unarmed ambushes. The other is that it’s not actually a bad idea to keep the heavy stuff in case of crazed animals and the like, I used to temporarily requisition a C8 before every clash to have it on hand.” She explained before shuddering. “I only had the need to shoot a rabbit that had turned into a two-meter bloodthirsty killing machine once before deciding I wanted more firepower just in case.”
“That’s a thing?” I asked incredulously while hanging my bag up.
“Yeah, and it fucking sucks to do, but animals can’t really be reasoned with and some of the changes can mean that even given a chance to relax they never recover. At least it’s pretty rare that it happens though.“ She shrugged. “Nine times out of ten it is just people having the squirrels in their yard turn blue or needing to hold down a fox that has too many legs until animal rescue can come and rehabilitate them.“
“That fucking rabbit sometimes turns up in my dreams though, that thing had killed someone before I got there.” Her face scrunched up. “Tore out their throat, poor woman never had a chance.” There were a few awkward moments of silence and then she cleared her throat. “Check out your cannon, I got it and your magazine rigs all set up while you were uh, on the other side.”
Sure enough, the C15 had a fore grip now and there were some pouches for holding magazines that could attach to the bottom strap of my holster rigging and then strap around my belly like a more limited plate carrier. I stared at the gun for a while as I considered the fact that I hadn’t touched it in months, then gingerly pulled it off the rack. As I considered its weight in my hands, my ballistics unit unfolded itself with a clatter of loading registers before declaring that it was ready. I guess my memory for guns and ammo is stored differently from any other because it’s like no time has passed at all. All the little details from practice and practical use are already there and, I am pretty sure I could probably still target a specific fly at a kilometer if I wanted.
I carefully returned the gun to its transport case before pulling out a stack of magazines and boxes of rounds so I could join Molly in loading. Once they were ready and the rig for them was packed into the case, I pulled on the rest of the holster before grabbing my pistol and accepting a couple of magazines for it from Molly.
We joined the meeting that had already been in progress for reviewing what the other CRD employees were expected to be doing over the window of the clash. There weren’t any revelations there, just stuff like a few of the engineers pitching in to pick up calls from first responders if needed. Mary was going to be overseeing the crew with the Artifact Retrieval Vehicle made up of representatives from each of the divisions within engineering just in case some particularly sketchy artifact appears before learning whose expertise might be applicable. Mary was really having to wear two hats today given she was also going to have to be available to go with the soldiers in the LAV in case they are needed. We still are waiting on getting additional agents and there weren’t soldiers to consider for clashes previously, so we didn’t have a completely formed doctrine for integrating them.
I shifted uncomfortably a few times from the occasional stares mum and Kat would fling me as I stood loaded for bear and carrying a rifle case taller than I was, I hadn’t bothered to pull out a chair as I would have had to put stuff down somewhere.
“You’re armed,” Mum commented after the meeting. “I honestly can’t say I really ever expected any of the units I worked on personally to ever genuinely make use of their firearms capabilities. Obviously, I know some of the products that come out of our program do, I’ve seen the after-action logs but still...”
“It’s not the first time,” I admitted, then gave her a bit of a flat smile. “You may not have expected it, but I can assure you my ballistics unit is more than competent.”
She did a curt nod of understanding. “I would expect that, it’s one pretty much unchanged from a military synthetic after all.” Her jaw worked for a moment or two as she bit back a question before taking a deep breath and addressing me with an exhausted expression. “Have you had to shoot someone?”
“Nope, just a truck and some guns,” I answered, I could see the tension sag out of her at my answer. I gave her a half smile before continuing, “I do kinda break the normal rules with guns in that I am accurate enough to avoid killing people. I hope it never comes to actually have to shoot a person themselves,” I glanced towards where Molly was talking with Kat. “Molly’s been here almost two years and never needed to, and I hope it stays that way. But with the FFIA I can’t say that’s a realistic plan. Either way, they are just precautions in the case of animals today.” Mum nodded before getting distracted by her phone trilling with a notification. I took a quick peek at the archaic clock over the projector screen which showed it being somewhere around a quarter past ten, the window was coming up fast.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Hey Molly, shouldn’t we get to the car soon?” I called to her, interrupting whatever she had been saying.
“Yep!” She agreed while confirming it with her phone, before doing a two-fingered wave to my sister. “Later Katherine.” After giving a hug to mum and Kat I followed Molly out the meeting room door, carefully choosing to let her lead the way. This was one of the larger meeting rooms in the facility that I didn’t go to very often, and frankly, I had enough trouble finding my way to it as it is.
“Your sister’s gonna bring us up lunch,” Molly mentioned on the way. “Better than the last time when I went to the nearest McDs and this time I get company while waiting! You have no idea how much better it’s been for stupid shit like that now that the government thinks we have a purpose besides processing artifacts.”
I gave her a slightly cockeyed smile. “Do you miss the quiet though? I can’t imagine you really want to deal with the FFIA, maybe just fading away would have been better in some ways.”
She considered for a long moment, then shrugged. “We don’t actually know that clashes are ever truly going away, and I really wasn’t looking forward to the idea of the field agent budget being cut entirely. While I’m intending to finish my degree since it wasn’t ever looking like this gig was going to last or be anything but part-time, I always wanted to stretch out how long we could help people.”
“Maybe the scope of what we are helping people with is changing, but that’s still our intent and now it looks like we will actually have the spare resources to devote to continuing post-clash support.” She was positively beaming, then I noticed the glistening in her eyes. “I like helping people Sam, and it looks like we will still get to, eh?”
I gently patted her arm as we approached the door to the garage.
----------------------------------------
The wait was surprisingly relaxing. Once we had loaded what we were carrying into the trunk, Molly drove the car out of the garage before parking in the tiny three-spot lot of the little adjacent park next to the office building.
“Sure, beats sitting in a boring ass garage for hours, right?” She said with a grin. “At least here you can people-watch and it’s not stuffy.”
There was almost more traffic than I would expect for mid-day on a Monday, whenever I looked there was pretty much always a dog walker, someone out for exercise, or a parent with little kids at the small playground. We got a few curious looks as well, and we even talked to one of the changees we had visited literally months ago for a little while. The woman mostly looked baseline human, other than the extra joint in each of her limbs and I honestly only vaguely remembered her, but she was nice enough and it spun away fifteen minutes or so of waiting.
I felt a bit odd when we were eating lunch at a park bench, still armed and nominally on duty. It wasn’t like we were shirking as Molly had her phone out the whole time with a live call to Wilson in case we didn’t notice the clash and it’s not like we were that far from the car if we needed to go in a rush. There was something distinctly odd about waiting for something that could be potentially life-altering for those around us and yet interrupting one’s meal to interact with a friendly golden retriever that insisted on meeting us.
I haven’t really dealt with animals that much since the change, but their reactions seem to mostly be to ignore me or just be kinda confused. Dogs will often still accept pets as I guess I appear human enough to them, and I will admit that being able to eat without them trying to snatch food or something is quite convenient for me. Moving my hand through fur feels really weird though because the hair goes into my joints and if I close my hand too much it can get caught. Which feels really really gross, like getting cloth caught in them but worse.
Kat hung out with us for a bit then said she needed to get back to work while the two of us returned to the car to wait a while longer. I had just checked in on the discord to see how people were doing when my brain and guts started feeling itchy.
“What’s up Sam?” Molly asked as I squirmed a little in my seat.
“I dunno-“ I started then without any further warning my vision turned to noise, like a old T- V in a mo- vie and I reali- zed I coul- dn’t feel any- thing or hear- any- thing -thr.
I co- uld te- ll my- com- pon- ents re- sp- on- d, b- ut wa- it my -th- ou- gh- ts fe- eel wr- o- n- g.
L- i- k- th- er- e b- ing w- sh- d o- t
.
.
.
----------------------------------------
Error, unknown interference with mana lattices, halting normal process.
Launching error recovery process to determine recovery route.
Invalid lattice state detected, initiating flush and refresh.
10% complete.
40% complete.
80% complete.
100% complete.
Reapplying power to mana lattices.
Initialization successful, running self-diagnostics to verify state.
50% complete.
90% complete.
100% complete.
No state errors detected.
Reloading normal process.
I suddenly realized that I was looking at what must be the carpet between my boots, without really knowing why. I tried to piece together what had been happening as I felt a gentle shift in my position like the car’s suspension was decompressing or something.
As I took my weight off the dash, I started to piece some parts of my memories back together, I remember waiting for the clash with Molly, and how the park had been mostly empty as people had either returned to work or home. I couldn’t really figure out why I would be staring at my feet though, I guess there had been something off feeling, but I couldn’t quite make sense of my immediate memories and how that lead to my current position. Suddenly it occurred to me that the car had gotten quite loud, it took an effort of will to understand it rather than just being blasted by sound.
“-hasn’t for at least a few moments,” Molly was shouting, “Come on! Get her mom up here… no I don’t know!”
“Molly, what happened?” I asked groggily, the sound of my voice was garbled and barely comprehensible. I blinked confused for a moment or two until I realized that all the valves in my voice chamber were in random positions.
“Sam! Are you ok?” I felt her try to turn my head, I let her rotate it so she could look me in the eyes. “You were screaming! Then I couldn’t get anything out of you.”
It was unbelievably hard to concentrate on her question, it would slip from my attention every time some random sensation or thought drifted through my mind. I had almost formed something coherent before being distracted as I felt a few strands of fur in my finger joints, I gave up on answering her and after picking the strands out repeated my question. “What happened?” At least my voice was a bit more normal this time as I remembered where the valves should be.
“Sam, I don’t know.” She said looking terrified. “Can you-“
“Were we in the shade?” I interrupted the stray thought barging its way in. “I thought we were parked in the sun.”
“Come on Sam focus-”
I turned away from her to lean over the dash so I could look out the windshield and up at whatever was casting shadows on us. “Woah, that’s big.”
That was a fucking huge tree, it looked like its trunk was kilometers wide and I swear there were clouds going through the canopy far above us. The convoluted branches stretched out from the upper reaches of the tree for who knows how far to carry the uncountable stupendously huge leaves that filled out the canopy, even from this far away the individual leaves could just about be distinguished. I couldn’t tell you what species it resembled beyond vaguely reminding me of ones I had seen in the ship-building channels I had wasted away hours on. The sheer size of the tree meant I couldn’t really tell how far away it was, other than how its canopy was clearly overhanging the city. I could only assume it was somewhere well outside city limits in the direction of Lake Huron, otherwise, its roots would have probably broken the city apart.
“Hey, Molly the clash happened I think,” I whispered while entranced by the view, the canopy didn’t completely block out the light more creating a dappled glow through the house-sized leaves far above us. “Oh wow is that pretty!”
“Sam!” Molly roared and I jerked back to paying attention to her, startled that I had somehow lost track of what she had been saying. “You just had some kind of seizure; I need you to focus until we know what happened and you’re fucking scaring me right now!”
“Right, sorry.” I acknowledged.
“Stay where you are, I am going to open the other door for your mom to take a look,“ She ordered, I started to nod but she held up a hand. “Don’t move just please wait.” She pleaded almost begging.
“OK...”
She got out of the car, and I held the somewhat awkward position I was in. Since I had been facing Molly while she pulled away, I was now looking out the door so I could watch the rippling dapples of light on the street as some breeze far above us rustled the leaves of the massive tree. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment as I realized my attention was starting to wander again, at least I was able to tell now.
The door behind me opened. “Sam, I’m going to open your head up ok?” Mum said gently behind me. “I just need to get to your main bus.”
“Sure mum.” I heard her clatter with a toolbox behind me for a moment or two before I felt her turn a few of the small latches that ran up the back of my skull, a moment later I heard and felt the clicks of a cable being latched into place. I waited as she tapped away at her keyboard while she navigated through menus, then a steady rhythm of a key being pressed as she read logs. It was a little funny feeling to know that’s what was being accessed, but I could tell as the thing gently looked through the back of my mind.
“There it is, at five past two,” Mum said suddenly, the fact my logs had a timestamp but I needed to check my phone is still something that irks me. “Something was filling her mage circuits with garbage… looks like that dragged everything else down… ok looks like the mechanical components detected an issue…”
“Hmm a full purge, it thought it was that bad… ok worked fine… normal load and passed internal checks. Now, post-launch logs…” She drummed her fingers for a second after scrolling a bit further. “Looks like it took a while to resync sub-processes, Molly you said she was confused and distracted?”
“Extremely.” Molly responded tersely.
Mum mumbled all but inaudibly to herself for a minute or two longer, then hummed to herself briefly before addressing Molly and me. “OK I think you’re fine dear, but I am going to kick off a complete diagnostic just in case. Shouldn’t take more than a minute or two but you’ll be out for it Sam.”
“Sure.” I confirmed while Molly grunted something.
Beginning externally driven diagnostics
.
.
.
Complete, no issues encountered.
Resuming Normal process.
I found myself still looking at the dappled lights in the street, the only evidence of any time having passed being a disconcerting jump in the motion of the shadows from one perceptual moment to the next.
“You’re ok Sam, there’s no degradation in your mage circuits,” Mum started while detaching the cable and closing my head up again. “But it looks like those clashes are probably going to be not too great an experience going forward.”
“Oh,” I turned in the car seat towards the two of them before mum pulled me into a hug. “I can live with that, I guess. Sorry for scaring you, Molly.” I added over mum’s shoulder, she nodded and sniffed.
“As long as you’re fine.” She said and reached a hand around mum to tussle my hair.
Mum pulled back, looking me over carefully. “Tell me if anything feels different, you have my number, and I am going to put some of this stuff in the trike just in case.”
I nodded as she indicated the ‘portable’ computer from Mech-tech lying on the wheeled table sitting nearby, the lower part of the table full of toolboxes.
“I don’t really feel any different from normal,” I admitted then glanced up at Molly. “Anything come up yet? Well besides the tree.”
“Geez Sam, you can worry about yourself for a bit longer,” Molly said a bit exasperated. “You can’t help other people if you’re drowning yourself.” She sighed before addressing my point. “But no, nothing yet. Usually, it takes a little while for people to realize what’s happened.” She glanced up over her shoulder towards the tree that dominated the sky. “Might be a little faster than usual though.” She finished sardonically.
“I’ll let you two get back to your vigil,” Mum said before giving me a kiss on my forehead. “Remember to let me know.”
“Ok, thank you, mum.” I agreed.
“Anytime Sam.” She said with a smile then started pushing the cart back towards the office building after checking the road was clear.
Molly gave me a long stare, then sighed before walking around the car and flopping into her seat beside me.
“Sam sometimes you worry the fuck out of me.” She looked up out the open door. “You’re right though it is very nice looking, downright beautiful.” She turned to me with a grin. “I think that might fuck the local airport though.”
I laughed, then started tapping the pouch on my holster rigging my phone was in. “Do you mind if I check…”
“Nah go right ahead, I was gonna check the news and wait for any calls anyway.”
There was some chat of people checking in already, no one had noticed anything yet. I had missed a few pings at me.
IndustrialCat (Sam): Hey
IndustrialCat (Sam): Sorry I kinda got knocked out or something by the clash
BellingMouse (River): What?
BellingMouse (River): Are you ok?
IndustrialCat (Sam): Yeah, mum checked
IndustrialCat (Sam): Couldn’t think for a bit though, told I screamed too
TheOneMoose (Jake): Fuck
BellingMouse (River): Are you resting at least? Are you really sure you are ok?
AmethystBread (ivy): @Ex4ctPlac3 is that what the commotion was about????
AmethystBread (ivy): 0_0
IndustrialCat (Sam): I’m fine!
IndustrialCat (Sam): Molly is checking for reports of stuff
IndustrialCat (Sam): Mum is going to be on call if anything changes I think
IndustrialCat (Sam): I could just sit around and do nothing
IndustrialCat (Sam): But that feels weird
BellingMouse (River): …
BellingMouse (River): If you say so
Well, I’m probably in for a lecture whenever I get home regardless, time to change the subject.
IndustrialCat (Sam): Anything happen to anyone else?
TheOneMoose (Jake): Nothing here
IndustrialCat (Sam): And can you see the tree from there?
TheOneMoose (Jake): Tree?
TooManyTeeth (Peter): ?
AmethystBread (Ivy): Go outside and look north
AmethystBread (Ivy): West for you Jake
AmethystBread (ivy): its big :o
IndustrialCat (Sam): Who hasn’t checked in?
BellingMouse (River): Just Mike, Reiko and Anna
BellingMouse (River): @supJim @xX0n3Sh0tSn1p3rXx @AceW0mbat how are you?
supJim (Mike): Uh, we were busy
supJim (Mike): Very sure nothing about any of us changed
TheOneMoose (Jake): Yeah we can see the tree from here!
TheOneMoose (Jake): what’s it like under it?
TheOneMoose (Jake): Dark?
(River): Not really
(River): might not be good for the garden though
I will admit I was a bit too wound up about Anna to worry about River’s vegetables.
IndustrialCat (Sam): @AceW0mbat @xX0n3Sh0tSn1p3rXx everything OK?
AceW0mbat (Anna): Sorry! We’re ok!
AceW0mbat (Anna): My hair changed color tho
She threw in a quick blurry selfie of pulling hair in front of her face. The green was quite clearly different, she had gone relatively light before but now it was like spring grass green.
IndustrialCat (Sam): Woah
IndustrialCat (Sam): Is that from the dye interacting or something?
AceW0mbat (Anna): dunno
AceW0mbat (Anna): Reiko thinks it might not be dyed from looking at the roots.
Wait, it’s not dyed, that jangled something.
“Molly, what happens with hair dye in minor changees? Doesn’t it usually persist unlike piercings or whatever?”
“Should do yeah, it’s on you like clothing really.” She was frowning. “Did someone’s hair color change or something?”
“That’s what I thought.” I said nodding “Yeah, Anna’s changed, and she says it doesn’t appear dyed anymore.”
Molly’s eyebrows knitted together. “Does she feel any different, like any more or less organs? It could be a major change and she just hasn’t noticed anything else yet.”
The chat had scrolled a bit while they were chatting about the tree and Anna’s hair at the same time.
IndustrialCat (Sam): @AceW0mbat do you feel any different?
AceW0mbat (Anna): Nope
AceW0mbat (Anna): why?
IndustrialCat (Sam): Could be a major change situation
AceW0mbat (Anna): O
AceW0mbat (Anna): didn’t notice anything different
“She says she doesn’t.”
“Hmm, I would suggest she go and get checked with Summers, he will be at the hospital right now I expect.” Molly’s frown remained in place. “Just because she feels the same doesn’t mean there isn’t a risk of a new allergy or something, even minor changes can have consequences like that.”
I nodded, already typing.
IndustrialCat (Sam): Molly suggests (and I agree) going to Summers to check just in case @AceW0mbat
AceW0mbat (Anna): Check for superpowers???
IndustrialCat (Sam): lmao
IndustrialCat (Sam): Allergies
AceW0mbat (Anna): boring
AceW0mbat (Anna): Sure let me just finish up
IndustrialCat (Sam): I will check, don’t think I haven’t noticed you get distracted
supJim (Mike): lmao
supJim (Mike): But you’re fully dressed Sam
BellingMouse (River): Mike.
supJim (Mike): Admittedly that hasn’t stopped you before
supJim (Mike): why sometimes I think its been more effective
BellingMouse (River): I can ban you from the server
supJim (Mike): I’ll be good
Chuckling I set a reminder on my phone to ping Anna in a hour.
“What color is her hair now?” Molly asked and I noticed she was flipping through emails.
I scrolled up to the picture she had sent and held it out to Molly. “Green, I expect that alone counts as a major change, right?”
“Woah that’s cool as hell,” Molly said while leaning in to look closer. “But surprisingly, no, that could come with what is classified as a minor change. There have been three or four clashes which only resulted in stuff like weird hair colors. They were all mushed between more dramatic ones, so they aren’t really something people took note of.”
She suddenly snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Actually, there was someone like that in our class last semester, remember that guy with the really saturated red hair a row or two down?” I bobbed my head side to side in an almost nod, the description roughly in my head. “That was his natural color, I had him in a class before it changed.”
“Huh, I guess you can kinda just assume people dyed it too.”
“Yep!” She confirmed and then paid attention to the email again.
I hope Anna is ok woth her new hair, it might make it trickier to dye if nothing else and I knew she liked changing up her colour scheme every once in a whole. She didn’t seem too upset, at least not yet, so hopefully it’s fine.
Molly’s phone started ringing and she immediately answered on speaker phone.
“Hey Wilson, what’s up?” She asked.
“Animal problem, someone called in that there’s something like a-“ There was a pause, presumably as he read a transcript. “’Giant slightly wooden squirrel boar’ whatever that means. But it sounds like it’s dangerous as some people have been injured. I’ll text you the address in a moment, you good to go?”
Molly glanced at me with an unasked question which I nodded to, at this she started to fasten her belt as she addressed Wilson. “Yep, we’re good to go.”
----------------------------------------
“God damn, that’s a big beastie!” Molly exclaimed as we turned a corner in one of the newer cul-de-sacs at the edge of the city proper. Even from this distance, we could both see the damage and the culprit, which at least confirmed we were at the right spot I suppose.
We slowly drifted by an ambulance that was being loaded with a person on a stretcher, the EMTs were moving in a fairly relaxed manner so I doubt they were that badly hurt. I was a bit less comfortable with the small crowd that was lurking on the lawns around us while looking up the street. This really wasn’t that far away, and a couple of cops weren’t exactly encouraging moving to a safe distance. They seemed too distracted by the creature and its meandering rampage.
The animal that had everyone’s attention was currently forcing its way into a house, and while one might imagine a bear or similarly large critter would break down a door or squeeze through a window that appeared to be a little subtle for our grizzly bear-sized friend. It was currently pushing its rodent-like head bristled with tusks through the pseudo brick wall of the semi with a sequence of snorts that could be heard even over the thrum of our idling car from a block away. The rest of the creature similarly matched the description Wilson had given us, the fearsome head was mounted upon a barrel-like body with thick limbs and a short bushy tail. Beyond its sheer bulk, it hardly seemed bothered by the debris falling upon it or how its flails would have been threatening to impale it upon the structure of the house, any such threats were soundly turned away by its rough grey skin that was thinly covered with coarse dark hairs.
Judging by the trail of destruction this wasn’t the first house it had been through as well, a couple more up the street having entry and exit wounds like the creature was making on its current obstacle.
“Bring the fifty, I don’t think it’s gonna give a shit about anything else,” Molly commented wryly as she thumbed the engine off. “We can probably try restraining it first because it doesn’t really seem to be that aggressive, but I want a backup plan.”
I circled back to the trunk as Molly started towards the cops with her badge up, my brain was tracking their holstered pistols but listing them as neutral otherwise. I could hear snatches of the conversation that followed as I popped the back hatch, it didn’t sound like Molly got anything out of them as they had only been there a few minutes when we arrived.
I keyed my code into the armored box that had been installed lengthwise into the cab that could just about fit my rifle. After clipping the mag carriers onto my holster, I slung the rifle over my shoulder then went to catch up to Molly. There was a definite hitch in the conversation, and I am not sure if it was just for the gun or if my inhuman appearance was a factor as well.
“Ready to give it a go?” She asked, apparently dismissing the cops as soon as she decided they wouldn’t provide anything useful.
“Sure, but even if you push it down, what are we going to use to tie it up or whatever?” I asked ignoring them staring at me.
"One of the sacks in the trunk has climbing rope and we have a bunch of towing straps, enough stuff should hold it until we get someone in to do the rest.” She answered with a shrug. “Gotta see if we can even put it down first though.”
“Later guys.” She directed to the cops before she went back to the trunk and returned with a durable polyester case on a strap, I followed her as she walked casually in the direction of the creature. “I need to be moderately close for it, and we need it out of the house so we can be sure it’s not going to collapse on us.” She commented casually as we came to a stop a few houses up the street.
“I could try to get its attention.” I offered, and she looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Shout at it or something, I expect at full speed I am faster than it.”
She nodded after a second. “Just don’t do anything risky and shoot it if you need to.”
“Sure.” I agreed unslung the rifle before loading it with a magazine from my carrier. Once I had it readied and loosely shouldered, I began to cautiously advance until I could once again see the creature through the hole it had made. After its initial entry into the house, it seemed to just be rummaging around looking lost more than anything, it even glanced at me a couple of times without any particular reaction instead simply returning to… foraging or exploring presumably.
I could have just shouted at it, but after a moment’s consideration, I decided maybe something like that loud whistle I used to be able to do would work better. It wouldn’t be with my lips and my fingers given how little those are involved with my vocalizations but if I close most of the valves in my voice chamber and just open one it might work right. I went to take a deep breath, before remembering that didn’t affect it.
I let loose a good head of steam.
FWEEEEEEEEEEEE-
I cut myself off as I felt my steam pressure drop while feeding a sound far beyond what I had intended, I could feel the heat wafting out of my throat from the volume of steam released. The cloud drifting out of my mouth was even somewhat obscuring my vision as if I had walked into a thick fog bank. While I hadn’t quite intended it, the poor critter had literally jumped straight up in surprise smashing more of the house before diving through the opposite wall to get away from the sound.
It got maybe a meter or two out the other side before it started to struggle to take steps, eventually succumbing to Molly’s gravity manipulation and collapsing to the ground in a panting and snorting heap.
Neat.
When I glanced over to Molly she was already walking in the direction of the critter while shaking her head as if to clear it.
“Holy fuck Sam, don’t do that indoors unless you want to deafen someone!” She exclaimed while rubbing an ear when I met her partway, I gave her a sheepish smile in return.
“I didn’t think it would be that loud.” I admitted getting a chuckle and tousled hair in return, as she continued towards the heaving animal.
“Uh, so how should we get access to its limbs? I’m guessing we need to bind them somehow?” I asked the rifle still leveled towards it as we stopped short. “It’s kind of sitting on them.”
Molly placed the satchel she was carrying down and then gave the animal a once-over before shrugging. “If I let the weight up do you think we could roll it over? I can reapply it almost instantly if we need to.”
“Probably yeah.” I agreed safe-ing the rifle before slinging it onto my shoulder.
It took a few tries to get it, but other than a few half-hearted attempts to escape it didn’t really try to fight back or anything. Fifteen or twenty minutes later we had it all trussed up and waiting for pick up. I kinda felt bad for the critter, we’d tried our best to keep it restrained without actively hurting it, but it can’t have been a great experience anyway.
In our struggles to move it, I noticed quite a few things that I had missed from a distance. Probably the most striking feature to me was the eyes, they had just been dark orbs from far away but up close they looked like they were made of amber or dark glass with a glittering reflection in their depths that flicked this way and that. The dense skin looked even more like bark from up close, plus the dark bristles were rather green-tinted.
“Hey, Molly?” I prompted after hanging around for a bit while she was laid out exhausted in a nearby lawn chair.
“Urgh, yeah?” She reluctantly lifted her head to look toward me.
I gestured my head to the creature. “What’s going to happen to it once whomever you called for gets here?”
“There’s this big facility associated with the Toronto Zoo up near Mississauga, they’ve taken animals onto care for us before. Anything which can’t be released into the wild gets a home there. Although sometimes if there are multiples of a given species, they get shipped off abroad for companionship or vis versa.” She dropped her head back down against the chair before continuing. “Oh, uh don’t worry we won’t be waiting for them to drive that far, they have some friends at Turner that will take care of them until the main transport arrives.”
“Huh, neat.”
Any further questions slipped from my mind as Molly’s phone rang prompting a groan from her, yanking it out of her pocket she tossed it at me, and I snatched it out of the air.
“Hey Wilson.” I answered.
“Hi Sam. We have another animal report-“ Molly groaned again in the background, this time loud enough that Wilson paused. “Uh, something is chewing on telephone poles…”
As it turns out, that fifteen minutes of hanging around would be our last bit of free time of the day until nightfall. As requests for handling wildlife piled up we found ourselves bouncing from one weird literal woodland creature to another, often passing wildlife control service vehicles as we did. At least the squirrel-boar was the largest thing we ended up encountering, with the rest being potentially fearsome but mostly small enough that they weren’t too draining for Molly to restrain. A decent number of them ended up being small enough or slow enough that I was able to sprint after and grab them, like the bark-covered house cat-like creature the size of a Labrador. The poor critter kept on trying to flee up fences without the aid of claws or jump away with rather pathetic flopping leaps.
The closest thing to a break we got was when we would make lightning visits to gas stations between stops to pick up snacks or top up the fuel canister I had been draining at a prodigious rate. Even the time spent driving from one location to another were busy as I hurriedly filled in rough reports on a tablet or coordinated with Wilson to sort between stuff we would handle or leave to animal control.
“You ever seen as many animals as this?” I asked while tapping in another description of a weird skunk thing that seemed to drool a mildly acidic substance as it walked.
Molly finished chugging down her bottle of water before crunching it and tossing it over her shoulder onto the backseat where it joined a general mess. “No never! Fucking like a jungle out there.” She paused to burp. “Weird how little else we’ve heard about, not even an artifact report. Yoo Wilson! Still no other changees?”
“Not yet…” His distracted voice came over the car speakers crackling a little with a poor-quality microphone. “Looks like we are in a hotspot though, as the rest of the nation hasn’t had nearly the same number of reports. Although Vancouver has had a decent number of animals too, either something is getting lost or those aren’t wooden like ours.”
The exact distribution of changes caused by a clash varied pretty heavily from my recollection, sometimes it would be a uniform spread across the planet then in some extreme cases only a few selective square meters would be affected.
“Just our luck.” Molly groaned. “Anything from Katherine or the others?”
“If there is I’ve missed- One sec.” There was a beep that I had associated with whatever system put us on hold.
“Whatcha bet it is this time?” Molly ground out. “The third ankle-seeking groundhog or something new?”
I chuckled but before I could respond Wilson picked up. “Got another one for you, something described as ‘the size of a large dog with scythe-like limbs’ is scaring people out near the Costco, I’ll text you the address.”
“Thanks, Connor, we’ll be there soon.”
“I’m going to drop, I’ll put someone on call, but I need to prep some numbers for Summers.”
“Sure thing, later.”
----------------------------------------
Things had mostly petered out by seven, but Molly suggested that we would probably see another batch of calls once people get back to work the next day. It was a good thing too, given how fast the light was going with the ludicrously large tree shading out the sky. I can’t say really wanted to tussle with animals in the dark, even if most of them couldn’t really harm me. That’s not to say I wasn’t without an interesting collection of thin barely visible lines peeking through the tears that had developed in my clothes over the day. Given my intent was to cause minimal harm to our generally irate subjects, I considered a few painless injuries and some clothes acceptable consequences for the day.
The fact the day had primarily been physical labor in short bursts meant I still felt pretty good as we headed toward our office to put stuff away. I never really got close to overheating, and with a constant supply of food and water I never really felt anything akin to being worn out. I still seemed to be doing OK on the mental side too, but I was pretty sure that I would start seeing the memory leaks poke into my senses sooner or later though.
Molly had gotten really worn out so I had taken the guns, ammo, ready bags, and random other stuff we were bringing back from the car to put the least burden on her. While the weight wasn’t an issue, arranging the stuff so I could still see around it was slowing me down a bit. Despite my own impaired movements, I was a little surprised to find her missing when I checked over my shoulder a few minutes into our winding journey through the corridors of the base.
“You are doing OK there?” I asked when she eventually came around the corner. While not exactly in threat of falling asleep on her feet, she was clearly sore and tired from her gait and beleaguered expression.
“It’s fucking cheating you aren’t exhausted, how the fuck do you run around all afternoon and still don’t act the least bit tired.” She groused, I grinned at her sensing an opportunity.
“Well, it wasn’t that hot today and I don’t have muscles to get tired!” I declared cheerfully, fully aware that I was trolling the shit out of her. “Why I might even go for a run later, you know just to get a little extra exercise? Wouldn’t want to be lazy ya know.”
“Ugh fuck you and your cheer.” She grumbled the ghost of a smile taking the edge off her words. “You get to unpack though since I did all the driving.”
“Fine by me.” I agreed chuckling as I fell in beside her as she passed.